2013 - RUSH, around and around they go

Rush supposedly tells the true story about the rivalry between to formula one race drivers James Hunt, played by Chris Hemsworth and Niki Lauda played by Daniel Brühl.  Hunt is the devil make care guy who drives like a madman and off the track leads a wild life of "wine, women and song."  Niki Lauda is the more cautious driver who weighs the odds worried about how safe the tracks might be for the drivers.  However as presented in this film both of these guys seem really unlikable. 

Hunt marries a model named Suzy Miller (Olivia Wilde), but she ends up leaving him for the actor Richard Burton.   Lauda also marries a woman named Marlene Lauda who at one time had been the girl friend of actor Curd Jurgens.  Now these two women would have probably made an interesting story on their own.  As usual the wives in these racing films are usually relegated to the role of worrying about their racer husbands, i.e they are dull and rather uninteresting.  Wilde's part is really small she's barely in the film.

The writer of Rush is Peter Morgan known primarily as the man behind the Netflix series The Crown.   Since I don't know much about the real story behind the rivalry between Hunt and Lauda I have to rely on Morgan's script and Morgan has been known to bend the story of the Windsors considerably in The Crown.  So the viewer might want to take this "true story" with a big grain of salt.

 

Rush is directed by the ever reliable and boring filmmaker Ron Howard.  The film is well made and the acting is decent.  The problem is that the film has a seen it all before feel to it.  John Frankenheimer's Grand Prix essentially has the same dramatic situations  and for my money the racing scenes in Grand Prix are more exciting. 

Running time 123 minutes.

1977 - GRAND THEFT AUTO, Ron Howard's feature film directorial debut

The Orson Welles of lame stogy Hollywood films made his directorial debut with this redneck car chase comedy that is fun to watch because they wreck a lot of cars.

The film was produced by Roger Corman, the great exploiter of young talent.  Howard and his father Rance Howard wrote the story which pretty much consists of cars chasing each other.  Ron Howard found a part for his brother Clint Howard and loaded up some of the smaller parts with some of his Happy Days co-workers.

This film is not really anything special.  Howard directs everything in a two shot which is kind of understandable since he is stuck in a car for almost the entire film.  But considering that Howard had been a working actor his entire life he sure doesn't seem to know how to direct the rest of the cast.  Everyone is completely over the top except for Howard and his costar Nancy Morgan who are very bland.

Probably the best thing in the film are the car chase scenes which I doubt Howard directed since that is usually 2nd unit stuff.  However Grand Theft Auto made a lot of money for Roger Corman and helped Howard get better films since in Hollywood making money rules all.


1977

84 minutes.