No Man's Land was a fairly forgettable movie. Its premise was the descent of an undercover cop into a gang of luxury car thieves (insert jab about originality here). There were, however, several parts of it that have been indelibly etched into memory, the most striking of which is a powersliding Porsche 911 Targa. There's also a famous line where the undercover cop suggests the lead thief steal a Ferrari, only to be rebuffed with:
"Italian trash... I only steal Porsches." (Apologies to Italian car guys.)
I can't remember the rest of the movie but I'm sure it's got gunplay, some nudity and a climactic bloody finish.
Of its 90 minutes, I got 15 seconds of real enjoyment.
Same thing can be said about Ronin. I remember the powerslide in the Audi S8 but little else. I think Robert DeNiro was in it though.
No one can forget the chase scenes from Bullitt, The French Connection or the MINI in the last of the Austin Powers trilogy. Of course there's the Road Warrior and the James Bond concessions, but I've yet to see a real movie about cars.
Car guys have existed on film crumbs since Le Mans and King of the Mountain, the last real car movies of our time. And while I appreciate some aspects of The Fast and the Furious, it feels like it was produced by a sexually repressed 15-year-old who playedGrand Theft Auto and Counter Strike till his fingers bled.
I'm sick of scraps. It's time for a real movie about cars, a movie that gets it right both technically and cinematically. I don't think you'd need to "take a license" and exaggerate the subject matter because it's pretty damn cool to begin with. After 17 years in the car business, I've seen pain, death, sex, achievement, failure, invention, suffering, love and betrayal... all the elements needed to make a film successful. And if I see a "Fast and Furious III" I'm gonna scream.
I began obsessing on this subject after reorganizing my DVD collection, all 2,200 of them. Some people listen to music, I listen to movies. Sadly, I realized there's not enough car stuff in there.
So that's my challenge to Hollywood. Make a real car movie, a seminal piece I can file next to Blade Runner, Stripes and Army of Darkness. If you need help, my door is always open.
This issue we hooked up with Alois Ruf and drove his iteration of the new 911. Ruf is one of the guys who "get it." There's no bullshit about the cars he builds. RUF Porsches are fast, well mannered and hugely capable, the type of thing we'd like to see offered through Porsche proper.
Our man Bill Klein headed north to geek out with the crew at Forza/Microsoft. If you've never played Forza, give it a try. It's a video game for grown ups-you won't find a laser guided missiles or sawed-off shotguns while driving on the world's most famous tracks. There' a genuine passion in the way this game has been engineered, featuring both exotic and exclusive European cars. And the fact they included a tuned Volkswagen Corrado didn't hurt one bit.
Our long-term Jetta makes its debut and we've all spent time getting our thoughts together on VW's latest notch. It's the first car we ordered in black and probably won't be the last. It looks fabulous and drives just as well. We've got a year to play with it.
As I close this, I just realized Disney is about to release an animated feature called Cars. Hopefully it will sit next to my copy of The Incredibles and Ghost in the Shell series.
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