Feeling the “RUSH” of Car Movies…

I’m sure you’ve all heard or read something about the new Ron Howard movie ‘RUSH’ by now. Of course, it’s not Hot Rod-related in nature, but even if you love car racing in the slightest, I think you’ll really enjoy this movie (you know, Ron Howard did star in a hot rod-centric film you may have seen, but I can’t remember the name at the moment… ‘Graffiti’ something). When you look back at the history of hot rods, customs or even just car-focused stories in cinema, there have only been a paltry handful of good ones. On the other hand, there have been plenty of car films featuring bad actors with horrible dialogue, poor cinematography and paper-thin plot lines. We watch them for the handful of cool racing scenes and then suffer through the rest of the picture. What are the two key things all these mediocre motor movies are lacking? CHARACTER & STORY. This is where ‘RUSH’ comes in, because it’s an example of how to make a good car movie: Make a film that almost *everyone* will want to watch, rather than a geeky 1980s F1 love-fest that only a handful of race fans would endure. Howard connected to the characters- Lauda and Hunt- and focused on the story of their on-track rivalry, why they were individually motivated to race, and how they loved cars (and women!) differently. You take compelling characters set in an interesting story, and then wrap it up inside of an exciting auto racing-based world… That’s how you make a good car movie, my friends. You know why I hope this film does really well? Because it gives the the big film studios something to remember the next time some writer pitches the Carroll Shelby, Wally Parks, or Mickey Thompson story. Great characters, exciting stories, wrapped in an (authentic & accurate) world of hot rods. Who doesn’t want to see that?