Real Life Speed Racer!

Yeah, yeah. It's been too long since my last post. Believe it or not, I actually have two movie review posts in the queue, but I just haven't put them up yet. I'm really having a hard time getting myself into the habit of blogging. I may have to force myself to make a daily post until I can get more accustomed to it.

I've been dragging my feet on the movie reviews for a couple of reasons. I want to say too much, and yet I feel like writing too little. I'm having trouble finding the right balance. I really love the style and format and the whole shebang as developed by the guy at Movie Quickie. I really just want to copy/steal everything he's doing and make it my own. That's my goal, anyway.

Also, you may have noticed that I've switched to a three column format. I liked it better in theory than I do in practice. It feels a little cluttered. I don't know. The old one seemed to have too much white space. Hopefully, I'll get used to this one.

Anyway, the point of my post. I watched On The Beach last night. It's pretty good, but really not as good as the book. It was nice to see a movie really take time with it's story (although, there was an early radio transmission that gave away the nuclear war idea about 3 minutes into it, whereas in the book that fact was revealed much, much later). It was also nice to see long takes of actors delivering dialog.

But that's not the real point. The real point is the car race. The premise of the novel and movie, if you don't know, is that Australia is the last habitable place on Earth after a huge nuclear war. The end is coming to Australia as well, but they have to wait for several months as the radioactive cloud slowly moves down to envelop the rest of the planet.

Well, being bored and destined to die, several car fanatics decide to stage a car race, just for themselves. These aren't professional race car drivers, just people who want to race. They zoom around at break-neck speeds with zero concern for the safety of themselves or other drivers.

I think the scene is meant to be a little horrific, in that people are dying and they don't really care. But what struck me the most was how much it looked like any number of races from my boyhood-favorite TV show, Speed Racer! The cars look the same, the crashes look the same. Even the lead driver (Fred Astaire) is driving a car that bears a resemblance to the famed Mach 5, with the headrest, white car, and number 5.

Fortunately for you, I've found a clip of it on YouTube, so you can enjoy it without having to sit through the whole movie. Check it out: