by dreinecke » Sat Oct 05, 2013 10:35 pm
Embs - that was hysterical!
Let me start off by saying Grand Prix has been my favorite racing movie since I was a kid. I love the mid-late 1960's era of GP. Frankenheimer did an amazing job capturing the essence of the tracks, the cars, and the drivers. The "love" story is the weak part in the movie to me, but I love the whole thing.
Growing up in the 1970's and in Germany though...this is really my era. I managed to attend 2 German GP's in the 1970's and 3 in the 1980's. I was at Nurburgring when Lauda crashed. My best friend's dad was a huge Lauda fan, and so were we. We watched almost every race in 1976 at their house besides the GP we attended. Fantastic times and a time when I was able to talk my way into the pits. So, when Scalextric and Fly started producing some of these amazing cars, I started collecting as fast as I could!
Fast forward to tonight: the movie is brilliant. In the same way that he handled Apollo 13, Ron Howard really lets the actors and the machines do their work. The actors are fantastic - Lauda is scary good. Hunt is hysterically funny and as cool as I'll never be.
The cars though...oh my, the cars! They are fabulous. The sounds are music. The pit babes...well, let's just say don't bring any kid under 14 without knowing what you'll see first.
My daughter and wife actually enjoyed the entire movie...not just because of Chris Hemsworth - I was shocked!
I highly recommend it to ANY racing fan. 5 out of 5 gears for this movie!
The movie is FANTASTIC and finally makes up for Hollywood producing that completely STUPID movie with Stallone.