Films/DVD Asylum

Posted by Mark Man (A) on September 13, 2015 at 07:27:29

In Reply to: RE: movie: Rush (2013) posted by user510 on September 12, 2015 at 14:20:12

I was 13 years old in 1976 and ABC Wide World of Sports was covering the F1 season on TV...I remember the season finale in a rain soaked race in Japan very vividly...

My younger brother had just about all the Hot Wheels or Matchbox, (I can't remember), of the F1 cars...the blue Elf Lotus, the black Johnny Player Special, the Marlboro MacClaren and of course the red Ferrari...

I remember what a big deal the announcers made when Nike Lauda pulled out of the race..."there could be a new Champion this year depending on where Hunt and his MacClaren finish" I also remember the delay before they announced F1 season Champion...

I dragged my sister to this movie, who had NO idea about F1 racing. I wanted to see it on the big screen, just for the sound of those high RPM engines. Needless to say she was skeptical, but by the end of movie she was squeezing my arm when the rain soaked race was starting in Japan...

Walking out of the movie she could not believe how dangerous it was to be an F1 driver and that they were sitting on the GAS TANK and F1 averaged two driver deaths per year during that era and earlier...She also did not know what a world wide phenomenon F1 racing was, that each race was in a different country and these drivers were treated like rock stars...

She loved the scene when the two Italian fans picked up Niki and his future wife, who was so surprised that they knew who Niki Lauda was and how excited they were to have him driving their car...When two fans asked him to drive fast and Niki said it was not worth the risk...until she said do it for me...and again how surprised she was at his driving skill...just a great scene...

This movie had been on my radar for quite awhile, so when it hit the theaters I was not going to miss it, since I remembered that season and somewhat the history of the rivalry of these two drivers...

The movie was perfectly cast with Chris Hemsworth as James Hunt and Daniel Bruel as Niki "the rat" Lauda...could not find two of the most different extremes in personalities and appearance.

My hope for this movie was that is was going to put you "inside" the car...I felt Ron Howard achieves that...I do agree with BW that there would have been more of the racing in this movie...Ron Howard I believe, at times he gets overlooked as his skill as a director and great story teller...his movies always seem that you feel his passion for the story he is telling...

I have seen this movie several times on HBO just to crank those engine sounds through my Maggies...still gives me a little thrill...

The above picture is of an F3 that my very good friend Karl bought off Craig's List for $1K...Karl is a total gear head and has built a hot rod from scratch that was rated 32 out of the top 100 at World of Wheels...

He has about 10 different projects typically going on all the time...I was able to sit in this car. I am only 5'-7" tall and I had to squeeze to get into this. My shoulders were in-between the di-angels of the roll bars...there is nothing but tubes, engine and a fiberglass body to this car...Just sitting in it felt like it was a total death trap...

I really enjoyed this movie and I believe I posted on it when it came out...

Thanks
Mark