Roy, I LOVE your pre-Oscar reviews, so don't take it personally when I say this is the only one you've written where I stopped reading at the point you started to describe the plot. I didn't even know this movie was nominated until I saw your review.
I lightly enjoyed Ford v. Ferrari for the Damon/Bale dynamic and the Grunts vs. The Suits framing. But I fear a second race car film within only a few years is asking too much of me, lol.
We ladies are entitled to have diverse tastes, but Corey doesn't look like he could even give a woman a fun weekend in Boca, never mind letting him destroy your career.
My favorite bit was when Corey fired the pilot flying their government jet because Kristi's blanket went missing (Excuse me, is minding the blankets the pilot's job now? If I'm in a plane, I want the pilot focused on one thing and one thing only, and that's the not-crashing thing.)
Anyway, the hilarious part is they couldn't find anyone to fly them back so they had to rehire the same pilot.
"Damson Idris, cruising" evokes Janet Maslin's description of JK Simmonds in the first (and only) Spiderman movie. "Perry White (JK Simmonds, in clover)..."
Well, congratulations to the Maestro for mission: accomplished and all that.
I have a soft spot in the head for Formula One but, you know, they're not exactly races what with dependent on sooo many off the track factors.
Anyway, so I watched the trailer: So many cliches packed into 90 seconds or whatever, F1 cars racing like they never do in real life, a 60 year old rookie (well, I assume the character's younger but still, the actor isn't).
Still may give it a watch anyway; as I said, soft spot. And it's not like my taste is better than that; last movie I watched was "Keeper of the Flame" universally and correctly believed to be the worst Hepburn/Tracy film.
Keeper of the Flame has got a job to do, and that job is wartime propaganda, so sure, Pat and Mike it's not. But hey, it's anti-fascist, you gotta give it points for that, especially these days.
At its core, there’s a cool story: The apprentice lib becoming a fascist.
Which begs the question: How and why—which is disposed of insufficiently in a few lines of exposition. It was fun up to that point though.
Louis Mayer was said to hate it. Because I’m a dope who believes gossip and stuff when it comes to old time Hollywood, I like to believe that Thalberg (dead by this time but still) was the brains and Mayer no great genius when it came to films. Whether I’m correct or not on that, Mayer was correct on the movie: Although nicely directed, it’s pretty a much a failure even if entertaining enough for someone like me with weird standards…
Real life is never like that. Fascism never comes as a surprise, the people who turn out to be fascists are exactly who you'd expect, the assholes screaming "I'm a fascist!" with everything they say and do. Doesn't make for much of a plot.
As I think I said, that whole thing about Kate’s husband was mishandled, making the whole story almost pointless. I mean, mysteries need a complete solution (except for avant-garde existential mysteries) and this had only a suggestion of an idea of a solution and absolutely no details. And IIRC (questionable as always), the powers behind Kate’s husband are basically unimpeded by anything resulting from the husband’s death. We go through about 90 minutes of mystery for a shrug.
Myself, I laughed at the idea that the death of a "public intellectual" would cause nationwide mourning. Was it ever like that? Because it sure ain't like that today.
I remember when Howard Zinn died, NPR's response was to invite David Horowitz to shit all over Zinn's memory. And I guess we all know what the first line in Chomsky's obituary will be.
Read something Monday in such a tsunami of stuff, it's getting all mushed up.
But one thing was along the lines that society depends on experts and the current crop of experts are failures. It's that old two contradictory things can be in fact correct.
So similarly, intellectuals once mattered, now the number who matter are essentially none and those few are, given the death of mass media, unlikely to get sufficient exposure to move the needle as it were.
As for the movie, I don't think Kate's husband was so much an intellectual as something Lindbergh-esque. More a politically engaged celebrity shifting to fascism. (aka where the movie dropped the ball.)
Thalberg was around in 1934, when Upton Sinclair ran for governor. In researching the role of anti-Sinclair propaganda in establishing modern political campaigns, Greg Mitchell dug up hokey-as-can-be "newsreels" Thalberg produced. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=207UTckzJmk
I don't see the one with hoboes hopping off the train to invade California (footage from a feature film). Best of all is the bearded foreign accent guy: "Sinclair's program vorked in Russia, vhy shouldn't it vork here?"
"Grand Prix" is on Tubi. I watched the first 20 minutes or so a few weeks ago- the Monaco race. I don't think there's 20 minutes of movie making anywhere, better. I saw it when it came out. I was 10. The whole family went one Sunday after visiting my grandparents. We saw it on a big screen- not Cinerama, probably 70 mm Panavision though. I remember the sound was terrific, You could feel the cars!
I remember seeing LeMans when it first came out. I went to a matinee by myself. I really like that movie, better than Grand Prix, I think. It was completely stripped down automotive action. There was a lot of melodrama between the characters in Grand Prix. LeMans was all race cars.
Ford/Ferrari was enjoyable! I liked the human interaction a lot more than the race cars. The race sequences were brilliant because we had the technology to really do that these days. There's really not a lot of variety in what goes on in a car race. Race car movies tell the same story that started getting told when Mickey Rooney was racing midget cars around a dirt track. Like horse race movies are all the same race.
Grand Prix is awesome and I liked Ford v Ferrari well enough -- like I said in that review, it made me a car-crazy kid again. This one was just way too silly.
"There was a lot of melodrama between the characters in Grand Prix."
Damn straight there is, and that's what I watch it for. Intelligent - and even witty! - dialogue between romantically-involved men and women ("I need all my subtlety for the trout") Yves and Eva Marie are better than Tracy and Hepburn, James Garner and Jessica Walter get in some good lines too, and then there's the argumentative romance between The Two Most Beautiful People in the World, Francoise Hardy and Mario Sabatini ("I think you should go to the Greek isles with your American BOY-FRIEND, I think you should go to hell!")
There's a game called Grand Prix Legends I keep thinking about returning to that's a racing sim of 1967 cars, and I remember very characteristic sounds from each of the car engines.
I watched “Sinners” on HBO/Max/whatever a couple of weeks ago so I’ve actually seen one of the Best Picture nominees this year. Not bad for a vampire movie. Currently trying to make it through the knock-off “Resurrection Road” on Starz but I keep falling asleep. Too much reliance on camera shots through empty woods while creepy music plays.
This review is a rate achievement. I feel ashamed of ever having enjoyed or almost enjoyed certain movies or elements of movies in retrospect, based on the accurate and entirely just appraisal of their lowbrow sensibilities. I love this review dearly, the way I love my cold showers in the morning.
Case in point, after catching a few minutes of Ford v. Ferrari on cable, I succumbed to an impulse to order it on Blu-Ray at some ludicrous price. I have seen it already but obviously the turn of world events and my profligate personal history have finally destroyed my judgment and my taste to the extent in weak or intoxicated moments I slip into a sucker state susceptible to snake oil sales and puerile fantasies. I have proven to myself that the Dunning-Kruger Effect and psychological biases do apply to me, and I am happy about it.
I have absolutely no desire to see F1. I never watched Days of Thunder or Talladega Nights. I can snort at the idea of a haughty, obviously emotionally insecure racing bum with an adolescent chip on his shoulder serving as a role model of maturity for anyone. What does it all mean? I'm late for work.
Suddenly many of the younger people I know are into F1 racing, which amazes me because almost all motor sports are boring as shit for spectators. I asked one today what gives, and apparently there was a reality show some years back? "All the drivers came off like Real Housewives," she said, so I guess the mystery is solved.
Good call, Roy! I think my buddy in Vinnytsia, Ukraine—an avid F1 fan ("one love!") who rankles at team Mercedes' win yesterday in the first race of the current season with the potential to dominate the next couple of months—would agree with you. He said that the film's depiction of the racing is far from the true experience in the movie, and made it unrealistic for him.
Sonny Hayes sounds a lot another Brad Pitt character covered here, Cliff Booth from Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. "He was the top of his field -- until one tragedy cost him his reputation. Now he's reduced to living in his van/trailer, but fate has given him one last chance to redeem himself!"
That's wonderful, I'll just add that literally any cat could have done that walk, because all cats walk like they're just waiting for the world to discover their magnificence so they can be handed a starring role in a major motion picture.
Then there's the story of "Orangey." It seems the trainer always acknowledged that multiple cats played the movie roles, and was quoted in 1951 saying cats are "harder to handle than coyotes." The PR for Rhubarb had the principal actor being discovered in 1948, when the producers looked for "a Jimmy Cagney kind of cat." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orangey
Fun for about five minutes, the movies where the most care went into the credits. Though if anyone's ever kept track of such, they might make a good compilation.
OTOH, I'm fond of the '30s bit, where the movie's preceded by cast names and roles. The kind where each actor is represented by a couple seconds clipped from the movie ("Joan Blondell - as - 'Carol'").
I see that one's more of a hybrid. Cast member vignettes superimposed on a gold coin, then Ginger immediately gets down to the big number. Though just the first few lines (in only one language). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAUVyRmaQXQ
I saw that, too, and could only think of how much Roy improves upon the Sunday shows, for one thing. Even if I'd give this and some other movie noms a miss, Roy's reviews are well worth reading for suggested improvements. ("Every time the POV camera went schizo I found myself rooting for him to drive into a wall and, as his car burst into a ball of flame, the title THE END! to come rushing at us like in an old Roger Corman movie, which I’m sure is not what the filmmakers intended.")
Jeez, I guess the guy who quit didn't quite understand the ridiculous difficulty of writing five stories a week. I mean, even if you don't like the comedy bits or cultural stuff you still get at least three takes on current events, which is still pretty impressive. I confess I didn't like the comedy bits at first, but they grew on me and now, as I mentioned, I think you should put them together in some kind of book format a la Dave Berry or some of the other old time comedic columnists. It would be an important historical document, as well as being entertaining and probably making you rich and getting you screen writing jobs.
I have less than zero interest in watching this. But I did see a video from a YouTube channel that covers movie CGI VFX and how they are done, and it was truly fascinating. They used footage from actual races, shot all season long (apparently F1 has a "season"). They had to alter all the footage because movies are 24 frames per second, and then alter all the cars and change the logos, and of course add in crashes and maneuvers the cars/drivers made in service of the plot. I'm not going to go on about it, but it truly was fascinating how they put it all together. A huge amount of what you are seeing is "real" but pasted together seamlessly to create characters in different cars telling a story at a different race track. They shot some footage of the cars just for the film of course, but the way they used real F1 race footage combined with computer tricks was amazing. Kudos to the artists behind the scenes who can make stuff like that happen, but F1 racing is likely one of the things on the planet I have the least amount of interest in. Next to Brad Pitt.
I can paste in the link to the video if Roy is cool with it (and if anyone gives a damn).
OK, the talent in this channel can be way hyperactive and sometimes annoying. But they are all real, professional CG/VFX artists and they know their stuff. I found them off-putting at first, but I have warmed up to them in a parasocial sense after a few videos. This particular episode discusses 2026 Oscar nominated VFX films. The part about the F1 movie starts at nine minutes in:
They often have very prestigious guests (people from Industrial Light & Magic, WETA (they did the Lord of the Rings flicks among hundreds of others), and some real pioneers (read: old dudes) from the field of special effects. The young guys have a genuine affection for practical effects and are not just computer-puke Marvel flick champions. They often discuss older movies. They even did a segment on some film from the 1930s recently.
Makes me once again dream of the day when the musicologists finally release Bach's long lost "Ill-Tempered Clavier", wherein he just lets it all hang out.
Gonna drop here my newest movie-related acquisition: Walter Murch's new book titled "Suddenly Something Clicked", which came out last year. Definitely worth a read. Was on order for a couple months before I picked it up. Murch is a storyteller who has a hand in so much movie stuff over the decades. I dove into his work for our film club selection The Conversation and now I'm on a quest for everything he's published.
Roy, I LOVE your pre-Oscar reviews, so don't take it personally when I say this is the only one you've written where I stopped reading at the point you started to describe the plot. I didn't even know this movie was nominated until I saw your review.
I lightly enjoyed Ford v. Ferrari for the Damon/Bale dynamic and the Grunts vs. The Suits framing. But I fear a second race car film within only a few years is asking too much of me, lol.
You shoulda read to the coda wherein Roy shreds Hans Zimmer.
Also, and too: "Damson Idris, cruising" is the simile we all should adopt today. I mean, "Kristi Noem can only aspire to Damson Idris, cruising."
After her unceremonious dismissal, I think we should all refer to her as Kristi-but-for-Wales?-Noem.
Kristi Vice-President-In-Charge-Of-Looking-Out-The-Window Noem
Enough costumes that she could be The Village People all by herself.
But for Corey?
We ladies are entitled to have diverse tastes, but Corey doesn't look like he could even give a woman a fun weekend in Boca, never mind letting him destroy your career.
My favorite bit was when Corey fired the pilot flying their government jet because Kristi's blanket went missing (Excuse me, is minding the blankets the pilot's job now? If I'm in a plane, I want the pilot focused on one thing and one thing only, and that's the not-crashing thing.)
Anyway, the hilarious part is they couldn't find anyone to fly them back so they had to rehire the same pilot.
Krispi Kreme is TOAST
"Damson Idris, cruising" evokes Janet Maslin's description of JK Simmonds in the first (and only) Spiderman movie. "Perry White (JK Simmonds, in clover)..."
Well, congratulations to the Maestro for mission: accomplished and all that.
I have a soft spot in the head for Formula One but, you know, they're not exactly races what with dependent on sooo many off the track factors.
Anyway, so I watched the trailer: So many cliches packed into 90 seconds or whatever, F1 cars racing like they never do in real life, a 60 year old rookie (well, I assume the character's younger but still, the actor isn't).
Still may give it a watch anyway; as I said, soft spot. And it's not like my taste is better than that; last movie I watched was "Keeper of the Flame" universally and correctly believed to be the worst Hepburn/Tracy film.
Keeper of the Flame has got a job to do, and that job is wartime propaganda, so sure, Pat and Mike it's not. But hey, it's anti-fascist, you gotta give it points for that, especially these days.
At its core, there’s a cool story: The apprentice lib becoming a fascist.
Which begs the question: How and why—which is disposed of insufficiently in a few lines of exposition. It was fun up to that point though.
Louis Mayer was said to hate it. Because I’m a dope who believes gossip and stuff when it comes to old time Hollywood, I like to believe that Thalberg (dead by this time but still) was the brains and Mayer no great genius when it came to films. Whether I’m correct or not on that, Mayer was correct on the movie: Although nicely directed, it’s pretty a much a failure even if entertaining enough for someone like me with weird standards…
Real life is never like that. Fascism never comes as a surprise, the people who turn out to be fascists are exactly who you'd expect, the assholes screaming "I'm a fascist!" with everything they say and do. Doesn't make for much of a plot.
You haven't seen Rhinoceros?
Whoa, that's WAAAAY above my middlebrow tastes.
I was gonna say "it's not like my taste is better than that", but maybe I should save it...
It stars Gene Wilder. How high fallutin can it be?
As I think I said, that whole thing about Kate’s husband was mishandled, making the whole story almost pointless. I mean, mysteries need a complete solution (except for avant-garde existential mysteries) and this had only a suggestion of an idea of a solution and absolutely no details. And IIRC (questionable as always), the powers behind Kate’s husband are basically unimpeded by anything resulting from the husband’s death. We go through about 90 minutes of mystery for a shrug.
A shrug from Kate is surely worth SUMTHIN!
But "it's not like my taste is better than that" is another phrase I'll try to work into my patter today. Thanks!
Myself, I laughed at the idea that the death of a "public intellectual" would cause nationwide mourning. Was it ever like that? Because it sure ain't like that today.
I remember when Howard Zinn died, NPR's response was to invite David Horowitz to shit all over Zinn's memory. And I guess we all know what the first line in Chomsky's obituary will be.
Maybe he'll hook up with the newly-available Kristi, just so they can economize on the hyphenation-of-the-name.
Read something Monday in such a tsunami of stuff, it's getting all mushed up.
But one thing was along the lines that society depends on experts and the current crop of experts are failures. It's that old two contradictory things can be in fact correct.
So similarly, intellectuals once mattered, now the number who matter are essentially none and those few are, given the death of mass media, unlikely to get sufficient exposure to move the needle as it were.
As for the movie, I don't think Kate's husband was so much an intellectual as something Lindbergh-esque. More a politically engaged celebrity shifting to fascism. (aka where the movie dropped the ball.)
Thalberg was around in 1934, when Upton Sinclair ran for governor. In researching the role of anti-Sinclair propaganda in establishing modern political campaigns, Greg Mitchell dug up hokey-as-can-be "newsreels" Thalberg produced. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=207UTckzJmk
I don't see the one with hoboes hopping off the train to invade California (footage from a feature film). Best of all is the bearded foreign accent guy: "Sinclair's program vorked in Russia, vhy shouldn't it vork here?"
But here's an example that's a little more subtle (though not much): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=004E5yCknD0
"Why does the rich man want us to vote for his candidate?" is a question asked by all too few voters.
He MUST be good for the country! He's only bankrupted FIVE companies!
"Grand Prix" is on Tubi. I watched the first 20 minutes or so a few weeks ago- the Monaco race. I don't think there's 20 minutes of movie making anywhere, better. I saw it when it came out. I was 10. The whole family went one Sunday after visiting my grandparents. We saw it on a big screen- not Cinerama, probably 70 mm Panavision though. I remember the sound was terrific, You could feel the cars!
I remember seeing LeMans when it first came out. I went to a matinee by myself. I really like that movie, better than Grand Prix, I think. It was completely stripped down automotive action. There was a lot of melodrama between the characters in Grand Prix. LeMans was all race cars.
Ford/Ferrari was enjoyable! I liked the human interaction a lot more than the race cars. The race sequences were brilliant because we had the technology to really do that these days. There's really not a lot of variety in what goes on in a car race. Race car movies tell the same story that started getting told when Mickey Rooney was racing midget cars around a dirt track. Like horse race movies are all the same race.
Grand Prix is awesome and I liked Ford v Ferrari well enough -- like I said in that review, it made me a car-crazy kid again. This one was just way too silly.
"There was a lot of melodrama between the characters in Grand Prix."
Damn straight there is, and that's what I watch it for. Intelligent - and even witty! - dialogue between romantically-involved men and women ("I need all my subtlety for the trout") Yves and Eva Marie are better than Tracy and Hepburn, James Garner and Jessica Walter get in some good lines too, and then there's the argumentative romance between The Two Most Beautiful People in the World, Francoise Hardy and Mario Sabatini ("I think you should go to the Greek isles with your American BOY-FRIEND, I think you should go to hell!")
And those were full-sized cars for Mickey!
There's a game called Grand Prix Legends I keep thinking about returning to that's a racing sim of 1967 cars, and I remember very characteristic sounds from each of the car engines.
I watched “Sinners” on HBO/Max/whatever a couple of weeks ago so I’ve actually seen one of the Best Picture nominees this year. Not bad for a vampire movie. Currently trying to make it through the knock-off “Resurrection Road” on Starz but I keep falling asleep. Too much reliance on camera shots through empty woods while creepy music plays.
lure me wid the "euro-dreck" — go ahead.
tempt me to the crowds where i'll come home with a fever, and die for this film.
i hope 'your' happy now.
This review is a rate achievement. I feel ashamed of ever having enjoyed or almost enjoyed certain movies or elements of movies in retrospect, based on the accurate and entirely just appraisal of their lowbrow sensibilities. I love this review dearly, the way I love my cold showers in the morning.
Case in point, after catching a few minutes of Ford v. Ferrari on cable, I succumbed to an impulse to order it on Blu-Ray at some ludicrous price. I have seen it already but obviously the turn of world events and my profligate personal history have finally destroyed my judgment and my taste to the extent in weak or intoxicated moments I slip into a sucker state susceptible to snake oil sales and puerile fantasies. I have proven to myself that the Dunning-Kruger Effect and psychological biases do apply to me, and I am happy about it.
I have absolutely no desire to see F1. I never watched Days of Thunder or Talladega Nights. I can snort at the idea of a haughty, obviously emotionally insecure racing bum with an adolescent chip on his shoulder serving as a role model of maturity for anyone. What does it all mean? I'm late for work.
"I'm late for work."
Drive fast! It's how Sonny would have wanted it.
Live fast, die young, leave a respectable corpse.
Or a headless one like Jayne Mansfield.
Did she make the basket?
I've just realized upon rereading k-k's post that, leave us all agree, "Doris Days of Thunder" is the movie we've all been pinin' for.
Suddenly many of the younger people I know are into F1 racing, which amazes me because almost all motor sports are boring as shit for spectators. I asked one today what gives, and apparently there was a reality show some years back? "All the drivers came off like Real Housewives," she said, so I guess the mystery is solved.
F1 has been aggressively pushed at them, that's all.
Good call, Roy! I think my buddy in Vinnytsia, Ukraine—an avid F1 fan ("one love!") who rankles at team Mercedes' win yesterday in the first race of the current season with the potential to dominate the next couple of months—would agree with you. He said that the film's depiction of the racing is far from the true experience in the movie, and made it unrealistic for him.
"Rubén tells Sonny that Joshua is talented but lacks maturity, which is why he needs a race bum living out of his van to teach it to him."
Oh, great, so it's Bull Durham for auto racing. Except not smart or funny or with Susan Sarandon.
Sonny Hayes sounds a lot another Brad Pitt character covered here, Cliff Booth from Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. "He was the top of his field -- until one tragedy cost him his reputation. Now he's reduced to living in his van/trailer, but fate has given him one last chance to redeem himself!"
Yeah but Once Upon... was pretty good -- especially the Cliff Booth parts!
Agreed. I'm just pointing out that F1 might have ripped it off.
We have a fan!
I have a birthday coming up https://share.google/swRbkcq9Zyu36up25
Good article !
https://petrolicious.com/blogs/articles/revisiting-saul-basss-iconic-grand-prix-film-title-sequence?srsltid=AfmBOoq2K7GErLO_odJ6UknaAhjf3lJ0JOczlDRipNqfOIR_Lst3ufu_
Bass and Bernstein (Elmer)! One of -- if not The -- greatest of all credit sequences.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XI9Or8rE_Dc&t=3s
That's wonderful, I'll just add that literally any cat could have done that walk, because all cats walk like they're just waiting for the world to discover their magnificence so they can be handed a starring role in a major motion picture.
Correct, but just try getting them to do it on camera for you.
Oh man that's good. And I have to see that sometime -- screenplay by John Fante and Edmund Morris??!
Whatever happened between script and studio, don't expect too much. (Maybe, expect much camp).
Is "Cat Wrangler" a thing in Hollywood? Ha ha, cat wrangles YOU.
One of this year's nominees – Sentimental Value, has not only a cat wrangler but also a...
wait for it...
...
Butterfly wrangler!
Some of these entries touch on it, and I've sometimes come upon others at the site. https://cinemacats.com/special-features/
Then there's the story of "Orangey." It seems the trainer always acknowledged that multiple cats played the movie roles, and was quoted in 1951 saying cats are "harder to handle than coyotes." The PR for Rhubarb had the principal actor being discovered in 1948, when the producers looked for "a Jimmy Cagney kind of cat." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orangey
Just remembered an even worse movie where credits are the highlight. Because Brook Benton sings the theme. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmHMnprdbAc
Could this be a Fun Friday thing? "Movies where you'd be smart to turn it off after the first five minutes"? Maybe a little too niche.
Fun for about five minutes, the movies where the most care went into the credits. Though if anyone's ever kept track of such, they might make a good compilation.
OTOH, I'm fond of the '30s bit, where the movie's preceded by cast names and roles. The kind where each actor is represented by a couple seconds clipped from the movie ("Joan Blondell - as - 'Carol'").
I see that one's more of a hybrid. Cast member vignettes superimposed on a gold coin, then Ginger immediately gets down to the big number. Though just the first few lines (in only one language). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAUVyRmaQXQ
That's a great one for sure. They tell Ginger she's gotta sing in Pig Latin, and she just does it. What a trouper.
Two things.
Thing One: Someone complained about the sketches?!? (Retrieves eyebrows from the ceiling)
Thing Two: that SOYLENT GREEN scene has really acquired a certain appeal, lo these many years...
I saw that, too, and could only think of how much Roy improves upon the Sunday shows, for one thing. Even if I'd give this and some other movie noms a miss, Roy's reviews are well worth reading for suggested improvements. ("Every time the POV camera went schizo I found myself rooting for him to drive into a wall and, as his car burst into a ball of flame, the title THE END! to come rushing at us like in an old Roger Corman movie, which I’m sure is not what the filmmakers intended.")
Jeez, I guess the guy who quit didn't quite understand the ridiculous difficulty of writing five stories a week. I mean, even if you don't like the comedy bits or cultural stuff you still get at least three takes on current events, which is still pretty impressive. I confess I didn't like the comedy bits at first, but they grew on me and now, as I mentioned, I think you should put them together in some kind of book format a la Dave Berry or some of the other old time comedic columnists. It would be an important historical document, as well as being entertaining and probably making you rich and getting you screen writing jobs.
What is this "book" thing of which the Old Man speaks, say the Eloi.
Roy's 10 Years in a Quandary, They Grew AND HOW!
I have less than zero interest in watching this. But I did see a video from a YouTube channel that covers movie CGI VFX and how they are done, and it was truly fascinating. They used footage from actual races, shot all season long (apparently F1 has a "season"). They had to alter all the footage because movies are 24 frames per second, and then alter all the cars and change the logos, and of course add in crashes and maneuvers the cars/drivers made in service of the plot. I'm not going to go on about it, but it truly was fascinating how they put it all together. A huge amount of what you are seeing is "real" but pasted together seamlessly to create characters in different cars telling a story at a different race track. They shot some footage of the cars just for the film of course, but the way they used real F1 race footage combined with computer tricks was amazing. Kudos to the artists behind the scenes who can make stuff like that happen, but F1 racing is likely one of the things on the planet I have the least amount of interest in. Next to Brad Pitt.
I can paste in the link to the video if Roy is cool with it (and if anyone gives a damn).
Always happy to get links to cool stuff!
OK, the talent in this channel can be way hyperactive and sometimes annoying. But they are all real, professional CG/VFX artists and they know their stuff. I found them off-putting at first, but I have warmed up to them in a parasocial sense after a few videos. This particular episode discusses 2026 Oscar nominated VFX films. The part about the F1 movie starts at nine minutes in:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tcwN9g_Ztk
They often have very prestigious guests (people from Industrial Light & Magic, WETA (they did the Lord of the Rings flicks among hundreds of others), and some real pioneers (read: old dudes) from the field of special effects. The young guys have a genuine affection for practical effects and are not just computer-puke Marvel flick champions. They often discuss older movies. They even did a segment on some film from the 1930s recently.
For some reason, "tempers flare" had me laffing for a solid minute. I don't know why. Isn't that what tempers are supposed to do?
Sometimes they cool!
"The Well-Tempered Flare" sounds like a 1970s specialty men's clothing shop.
Makes me once again dream of the day when the musicologists finally release Bach's long lost "Ill-Tempered Clavier", wherein he just lets it all hang out.
That was written by the youngest of JS Bach’s 20-odd children, and certainly the oddest, . . . You know where this goes.
Get me the Oddest!
PDQ!
As if the bagpipes, bicycle, and balloons weren't ill-tempered enough.
Gonna drop here my newest movie-related acquisition: Walter Murch's new book titled "Suddenly Something Clicked", which came out last year. Definitely worth a read. Was on order for a couple months before I picked it up. Murch is a storyteller who has a hand in so much movie stuff over the decades. I dove into his work for our film club selection The Conversation and now I'm on a quest for everything he's published.