Thursday 6 April 2017

Thursday Movie Picks: Cars/Racing


Sorry this may come across as my angry post...its been a tough week.

Don't forget to check out where it all started over at Wandering Through the Shelves.  

Two things I know nothing about, cars and racing. There are is also one thing (apart from terrible/scary/gory pointless horror) that I really don't care about, cars. I really couldn't care less about cars. I know how to drive them and thats it. I can't keep a conversation going if someone brings up cars. Does it work? Can I drive it? That's all I need to know. Same with films about cars. If the car is part of the story, then I'll bite. But seeing as I have not seen any of the Fast anf Furious films and WILL NOT EVER being seeing any of them (waste of my precious time) I've gone with the following...

Death Proof
Ah yes, Tarantino doing what Tarantino does best, has a lot of talking scenes getting to know characters then kills them all (first half anyway) in a spectacular and bloody car crash scene. Kurt Russell channels his inner aging psycho in Stuntman Mike who prays on victims to run down. His first are a group of women, old uni pals who meet up before driving to a cabin. His second is a made up of women who are part of a movie crew and two of them happen to be stuntwomen.... A great movie and perfect partner in the Grindhouse duo with Planet Terror. But in this its all about the cars. Mike's scary looking black devil and the latter group's fancy looking white car.

Cars
I really hate this Pixar film. I hate it because it doesn't work. A world made of cars? As people? It doesn't work and I hate it. Its the same old story. Rags to ritches to redemption to riches again. Winning race car hides out in nowhere town, makes friends with the weirdos there, falls in love and is able to beat new arsehole car. The lamest movie they came up with, claiming it was aimed at boys. Well seeing as only 3 of all of Pixar's films have a female protagonist I really don't think they needed another 'one for the boys'.

Genevieve
This is one of my mum's favourite films and it really is sweet rare thing. Young(ish) couple Alan and Wendy drive their 1904 Darracq, named Genevieve, in the London to Brighton Veteran Car Race along with their awful brash freind, Ambrose who had dragged along his latest girlfriend, Rosalind. On the return journey, they two men make a bet, the first one over Westminster bridge takes the prize. Ambrose tries to sabotage, not wanting to make a fool of himself in front of Rosalind while Alan and Wendy run into a spot of bother along the way. Its adorable very British and sometimes you just need that.