When does a car movie become junk and how much junk do you put up with?

My wife is cultured, sophisticated, and not prone to watching rubbish movies.  I'm currently showing her Talladegah Nights.  I blame this thread.

I like them all. If there is a vehicle somewhere in it being driven aggressively I'm usually satisfied. 

I'll even put up with Nicolas Cage to watch cars on screen. And that's a very big ask. 

I've seen all of the F&F movies. Tokyo drift was the worst by far. I loved two Lane blacktop. I've never seen initial D. And Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry is my favorite car movie of all time. 

In reply to JoeyM :

interestingly enough, Stallone was trying to make the Senna bio. He had funding and everything lined up, he went to a few GP's and thought he had it in the bag, but could not get the foundations approval, the Family snubbed him. So he threw together Driven...

The only car movies worth anything in the past 20 years has been Rush and Senna...imho

Has anybody mentioned Hooper?? Rocket powered Trans Am, Burt n' Sally, Jan Michael Vincent...the motivation for Fall Guy...

Gumball Rally has got to be on the sharp end of car movies - so much goodness, Raul Julia was awesome: "The first rule of Italian Driving - {rips rear view mirror off Ferrari 365 Spyder and discards} whats behind you, doesn't matter!"

Fun Fact: the guy that made the film cars for LeMans was the same guy that made the film cars for Ronin.

In reply to Nick Comstock :

Dirty Mary Crazy Larry is up there - in fact i'll never forget the end of that movie as we all watched it every Wednesday in the 80's because the yellow Charger running into the train and blowing up was in the intro for Fall Guy. "No more portin' and polishin', its trick heads all the way!" great movie!!

 2 lane Blacktop - HAS to be on the top 5 car movies ever, i still paraphrase that movie, "hate to make the chevy work on a piece of E36 M3 like that, $200 and you got yourself an Auto-mobile race!" whenever i change the jets on my Camaro i just think of the Dennis Wilson - it was the only dialogue he had in the entire movie, he changed the jets and changed the normal slicks for the racing slicks - that cracked me up...

fun fact: 55 chevy in American Grafitti was the 55 Chevy from 2 lane Blacktop, it was sitting on the movie lot and they cleaned it up and gave it to Harrison Ford to drive...

Matt said:

In reply to JoeyM :

The only car movies worth anything in the past 20 years has been Rush and Senna...imho 

Fun Fact: the guy that made the film cars for LeMans was the same guy that made the film cars for Ronin.

And of course, Frankenheimer directed both Grand Prix and Ronin. 

If we’re counting films like Senna, then I’m going to nominate Truth In 24. 

Eat My Dust and Grand Theft Auto were pretty good early Ron Howard films.  Grand Theft Auto is free on Youtube. Eat My Dust might be too.

Just remembered about Lee Majors in The Last Chase.

Duke said:

Greg Smith said:

_ said:

RealMiniNoMore said:

My first car movie. Loved it as a kid, painful to watch as an adult. 

This movie sucked ass as a kid. It was so bad that in 6th grade they played it THREE freaking times in one year for us. On the second and third viewing, I actually made a scene to get in trouble and be sent to the library, where I read a book by R.L. Stine. 

...which is sad, because the BOOK is actually quite fun for kids and adults. 

...and written by Ian Fleming.  Yes, that Ian Fleming. 

And based on a real man, Count Zborowski, a friend of Ian Fleming's, and the cars he built and raced.

The original Chitty Bang Bang. Named after the sounds it made.

In reply to racerfink :

The Last Chase was epic...Burgess Meredith shooting at the 917 from his F86. its a keeper for sure.

Matt said:

In reply to racerfink :

The Last Chase was epic...Burgess Meredith shooting at the 917 from his F86. its a keeper for sure.

I thought I was the only one who had seen that. I saw it when I was a kid and didn't find it especially good then, but it's cheesy enough I could see it being on some lists of guilty pleasure movies.

MadScientistMatt said:

Matt said:

In reply to racerfink :

The Last Chase was epic...Burgess Meredith shooting at the 917 from his F86. its a keeper for sure.

I thought I was the only one who had seen that. I saw it when I was a kid and didn't find it especially good then, but it's cheesy enough I could see it being on some lists of guilty pleasure movies.

That movie haunted my dreams for years, at one time i actively searched for an F86 with the intention of using it to commute cross country, once I got my pilots license.. 

I saw that in an army theatre!

Bad movie, great song:

Robert Mitchum,  The Ballad of Thunder road.

Watched the first 2 F&F didn't do anything for me. You could also add Mad Max, Winning, Bullitt, Ronin, Gone in 60 seconds, both versions, The Italian Job, Cars 1 and 3, American Graffitti, Death race (the later version) The great Race with Tony Curtis. If you really want to go out on a limb, Ralph Breaks the internet. There is one scene that is a sendoff of some of the more gritty racing games that is suprisingly good.

Saw a movie last night with some good vroom vroom chases that were pretty bad. Hitmans Bodyguard; I enjoy the chase scenes enough that I don’t try to read into them but this one was pretty rough. 

The thing that stuck out in my mind about the movie Driven was the premise that they bring in this rookie driver on an indy car team (maybe it was formula one, i cant remember), he wins his first race, wins his second race, in his third race he comes in a close second, and the team owner is like "He's washed up, get him outta here." Are you berkeleying kidding me? That is the dumbest E36 M3 ive ever heard. Im supposed to believe the team owner expects to go undefeated, and will gladly throw away a season point lead, and fire a future superstar over a second place finish? There wasnt a single person that read the script and thought that was completely ass backward of how the real world worked? 

Another point, not related to that movie, but any movie, is if you want me to throw the remote at the tv heres how you do it. The actor needs to steal a car, so they simply reach under the dash, usually without even looking, pull out two wires (without any tools), strip them (WITHOUT ANY berkeleyING TOOLS), touch them together and boom they have a fully functional car. Suck my butt. That is so far from reality and ive seen it a thousand times.

Apis Mellifera said:

Fear is the Key is pretty good.  It's not a car movie, but it features a ~20 minute car chase with a '72 Ford Gran Torino.  Having just bought a Torino, I can't believe it's possible to do such things in and to one.

Torino abuse, Part 1

That's Kowalski in a Torino?  This upsets me greatly.

In reply to gearheadmb :

You need to separate those into different posts so I can +1 them all.

dxman92 said:

 Also, what about the BMW driver short films?

The ones I've seen so far are pretty good. At least one was directed by Neill Blomkamp.

These movies all lose me the first time they defy the laws of physics.

JoeyM said:

My wife is cultured, sophisticated, and not prone to watching rubbish movies.  I'm currently showing her Talladegah Nights.  I blame this thread.

I'm resurrecting this thread to report that we've been watching car films, and she just posted this to FB

there is a short youtube film called,  "the fast and the curious".  Hilariously edited scenes from the first movie.  Sorry, I don't know how to set up a link.

Well, if the trailer is anything to go by, I won’t be paying to see this one.

https://youtu.be/FkUEjI2dB7g

Knurled. said:

Streetwiseguy said:

I think,if there were an award for sound engineering in a car movie, it would be very tough to beat Gumball Rally.

 

Assuming that "Bullitt" is not a car movie, I agree.  The scene in Gumball where they leave the river basin?  Best audio of all time.  ALL TIME.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/Fnl4Y-nYdJE?rel=0

 

I was going to have the player start the video from the relevant point, but come on.  Worth the extra three minutes.

 

The second time I watched the movie (I was still, like, ten years old) I realized the ending was stupid.  They started rally-style, not a collective standing start.  The end of the movie made it seem like whoever came across the finish line first won.  In reality, the Ferrari team started at 6:00:20 AM and the Cobra team started at 6:00:30, so the Cobra guys just had to get to the finish line less than ten seconds after the Ferrari team did.  Emergency Plan Alpha was not strictly necessary.

Sound-wise, you forgot to add the Arizona State Trooper who pulls a traffic stop on our plucky heroes and begins speaking to them with a Henry Fonda imitation for no apparent plausible reason whatsoever.  Which, to my ears, redeems the movie.

I have not seen any good films on this subject. Perhaps few have seen them, but from the fact that I was able to see it was not good.

Jerry From LA said:

These movies all lose me the first time they defy the laws of physics.

So in the first scene involving a car?