Motoring News » Motoring Films

Moto GP thrills on the big screen with ‘Fastest’

Alan — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 10:28:37 +0000

A feature film that documents the Moto GP is terrifying reality hits London on September for an advanced and exclusive screening. This is the sequel to ‘Faster’, the petrol head movie that was an international sensation and was shot in various locations across the globe during 2010 and 2011. ‘Fastest’ instills in the viewer the terrifying yet thrilling reality of the world of Moto GP world championships, and turns it into a full length feature.

Narrated by self-confessed bike maniac Ewen McGregor, and with Mark Neale in the director’s chair, ‘Fastest’ brilliantly captures in film a pivotal moment in the history of the sport. The legend that is Valentino Rossi is chasing his 10^th world title, and is facing his toughest challenge ever.

There are a wave of new and ferocious young drivers, a horrific crash in the Italian grand prix where he shatters his leg, and the agonizing comeback he makes in Germany only 41 days later. As if that wasn’t enough, there is also that question that every rider, even the greatest ever, must answer; now who is the fastest?

Over 1000 lucky fans of Moto GP will enjoy the advance screening of ‘Fastest’, which is to be hosted by Toby Moody, the commentator for Eurosport, alongside such riders as Bradley Smith and Cal Crutchlow.

The screening takes place at the Empire Leicester Square on Tuesday 20th September and will be followed by screenings at more than 130 cinemas across the UK & Ireland on Sunday 25th September and Tuesday 27th September including Vue,Cineworld, Apollo, and Showcase.

THE DIRECTOR, MARK NEALE:
Mark Neale has worked with artists including U2, Peter Gabriel, John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin, Paul Weller, William Gibson, La Fura Dels Baus and Valentino Rossi. He has won multiple awards for his films (‘FASTER’ and ‘The Doctor, The Tornado & The Kentucky Kid’) and music videos (U2′s ‘Lemon’ and ‘Stay’).

THE PRODUCER, PAUL TAUBLIEB:
Paul Taublieb is an award-winning producer specializing in motorsports and action sports. He was a consultant on the creation of the X-Games and still produces all motorcycle content for that property, producer of NASCAR and TORC racing, created and executed numerous world-record stunts, original content creation for Monster Energy and is currently producing a feature film with Spyglass Entertainment.

Mr Bean is fastest Top Gear racer Rowan Atkinson, the car loving comedian, has become the fastest...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Mr Bean is fastest Top Gear racer

Alan — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 21:29:06 +0000

Rowan Atkinson, the car loving comedian, has become the fastest ever celebrity on Top Gears, the popular motoring show. His debut was long awaited but was made on the latest episode of the show that was recorded overnight. He succeeded in lapping the track over 0.5 seconds faster than the record holder has previously managed.

His time was 1:43.2 and beat another comedian John Bishop’s 1:44.8 and was much faster than Tom Cruise who was the previous record holder who was clocked at 1:44.2. It was incredible he did that time since when Tom Cruise set the record no one thought it would be broken. He is an amateur racer in some of the historic events staged throughout the UK and his style was quick and smooth yet unspectacular.

The mark of an excellent driver is having consistent speeds and he did that, and looks like he may be in the wrong career. It is well known the actor has a passion for cars but this marked first time to appear on the show. The low profile star did not really want to appear since many thought he would be really quick since he competes in the sport.

His current race car is a Ford Falcon but previously he has raced a Turbo Renault 5 GT and a V8 Zagato by Aston Martin. His credits include writing for a number of car magazines and he is very selective with the type of car he chooses based on his characters.

He had Rolls Royce build a car with a V16 engine that was for the latest movie he played in Johnny English. His own collection of cars includes the one time fastest in the world the McLaren F1 which was loaned to Top Gear for another episode.

Men’s dream job is Top Gear presenter A recent survey says the dream job for men is...
Top Gear law suit over Tesla review Road tests that criticize a car’s performance have caused many...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Men’s dream job is Top Gear presenter

Alan — Sat, 16 Jul 2011 02:16:26 +0000

A recent survey says the dream job for men is to be the host of Top Gear, the BBC motoring show. Jeremy Clarkson, James May and Richard Hammond, the trio of presenters from the programme have a job that 30% of men covet according to MyVoucherCodes.co.uk the discount website.

Twenty-five percent found the chance to host as exciting while 40% thought that presenting on Top Gear was easy work. The second most popular on the list of jobs was testing video games from a poll of over 1,350 men 18 years old and older.

Twenty-five percent of those that responded said they would enjoy testing video games, while nearly one in four said they would like to be a professional sportsman. Being an actor followed at 21% and a F1 driver was next at 19%. The top ten of the table rounded out with firefighter at 17%, stockbroker with 16%, pilot at 14%, spy received 12% and inventor 11%.

Men are a danger on the roads On the roads men are much more dangerous than women...
Top Gear law suit over Tesla review Road tests that criticize a car’s performance have caused many...
You Can Afford Your Dream with Cheap Sports Car Insurance The high costs of insurance can put many people off...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Ayrton Senna feature-length documentary

Alan — Sat, 21 May 2011 13:15:22 +0000

Ayrton Senna feature-length documentary

A $100m biopic of the legendary Brazilian Formula One driver Ayrton Senna was supposed to have been made with Antonio Banderas playing Senna. Due to his untimely death the project was shelved and will never now see the light of day. What we can see, however, is Senna, a newly released a feature-length documentary about the man who many consider to be the greatest and most charismatic racing driver who ever lived.

The real story has now been told and it is definitive, thrilling and packed with emotion. Senna’s life was lived in the fast lane, literally. Unseen footage of the young Senna go-karting in Brazil opens the movie, and it ends with the tragic events that unfolded in 1994 at Imola.

There is a saying that is has to be real as you couldn’t make it up, and this definitely applies to Senna’s life and the way that his racing career unfolded. Everything is laid bare here from when people first noticed the glimmer of his genius, his ascent to greatness, the period where he dominated all other, bitter rivalries, dismay and disillusionment and the final, tragic end to a life.

Other factors contribute to this being not just a great motor racing film or a great sports film, but a great piece of cinema full-stop. It helps that Senna himself has the looks and screen presence of a movie idol. His gaze is intense, his focus all-consuming, and the camera simply loves him. Then there is the footage the film uses to construct this most compelling of dramas. Senna’s rise mirrored a period when emerging technology meant that many of his fans, especially in Japan where he really was revered like a deity, had their own cameras. Formula One is obviously also a sport that is well-covered, and the upshot is that the film-makers had almost 5000 hours of footage to sift through. As you’d expect, the in-car stuff is sensational, and the sight of Senna qualifying at Monaco in 1988 – when he was close to two seconds faster than his team-mate Alain Prost and admitted that he’d achieved some kind of transcendental state – is as spookily powerful as ever.

But some of the other material is equally special. Brazilian broadcaster Globo tracked Senna closely even before he made it into F1 in 1984, and his appearance on a 1980s Christmas programme is hilarious. Better still are the scenes culled from FOM’s (Formula One Management) bulging archives, particularly the driver’s briefing in which Senna remonstrates at former FIA President, the pompous Jean-Marie Balestre. There are precious insights not to just into Senna’s world, but the secretive world of F1 itself.

The truth is that even a rough edit of all this would probably have satisfied most racing fans. But what elevates Senna to a different level is that it’s an expertly constructed film. Credit for this must go to the director, the Bafta award-winner Asif Kapadia, producer James Gay-Rees, and writer/producer Manish Pandey. The latter’s screenplay gives the film a genuinely cinematic thrust, and has you marvelling at Senna’s sheer ability, the spiritual dimension he brought to his racing, and his infectious and often infuriating personality. Kapadia, meanwhile, brings his skills as a drama director to bear on what is often very grainy looking archive, and invests the film with a relentless, intoxicating rhythm. There are no talking heads inSenna, just some well-judged voice-over from journalists who were there, as well as key figures like Ron Dennis and Frank Williams. The film is essentially a patch-work quilt of found footage, but an extraordinarily elegant one.

The circumstances of Senna’s demise are as chilling as ever. The feeling that he somehow knew something terrible was going to befall him is inescapable. But in the midst of the tragedy, the film strives for an elegiac note and achieves it. Formula One still misses Ayrton Senna but this is an appropriate memorial.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

39 penalty points and Swindon driver still has licence

Alan — Fri, 13 May 2011 06:34:12 +0000

There were expressions of shock from safety campaigners when it emerged that a driver who had 39 penalty points accumulated was still allowed to motor on the roads. The still unidentified driver from Swindon probably has had to say goodbye to cheap insurance but is still not banned from driving despite the high number of penalty points.

The DVLA through a Freedom of Information request divulged the information to BBC West who subsequently revealed it. There are no additional details as to the driver or the specific offences committed that led to so many points.

Also in Bristol, Dorset, Wiltshire, Gloucestershire and Somerset there are 638 drivers that had 12 or more points on their license. The rules say that those that have accumulated 12 points can have their driving privileges temporarily suspended unless they prove an excusable hardship.

There were immediate calls about the Swindon case from road safety groups to ban the motorist. Saying it was important that the bans were issued as soon as the 12 points have accumulated.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Top Gear’s James May injured filming special

Alan — Fri, 31 Dec 2010 07:37:14 +0000

James May, the Top Gear presenter, welcomed this year’s Christmas with a bit of a headache. The presenter of the world famous show fell and his head on a rock while making the show Christmas Special. James May is only the latest record in the long history of accidents on the show.

This year’s Top Gear Christmas special is replete with crazy stunts. One of which was pulling a car out of the ditch, the stunt that saw May’s fall and head butting a rock.

The presenter said that he felt like a giant catapult when he was caught and lost his balance. The presenter was caught by the towrope as the driver moved off.

“The accident was alarming, especially with the amount of blood flooding out of May’s head,” said Jeremy Clarkson, the show boss and co-presenter.

James was rushed to the hospital, given a brain scan in the hospital, and had his head stitched. He said that he felt ok but he reckoned the paramedics were excited to use their new scanning device.

The show was broadcast on the 26^th of December on BBC2.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Renault Megane Joie de Vivre videos

admin — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 13:44:49 +0000

Can a car change a town? See what happened on a journey from Menton, the pearl of France to Gisburn, Lancashire.

The Mégane Experiment stars Claude who goes to Gisburn, Lancashire where there are no Méganes, and convinces villagers he is a ‘joie de vivre’ expert from Menton, Côte d’Azur, France, where there are many.

Over the course of the week, he calls a meeting to explain that villages and towns with more Méganes have higher fertility rates, berates the locals for their lack of ‘joie’, convinces the proprietor of the White Bull to convert his pub to the ‘Boeuf Blanc’ complete with an accordion player, teaches the meaning of ‘joie de vivre’ to the primary school, gets interviewed by a member of the local Press and, finally, puts on the ‘Festival de Joie’ on the local playing fields.

The film was directed by Oscar-nominated director Henry-Alex Rubin, who shot 48 hours of film over five days and described Claude as a “French Borat with a heart.” Over the course of the shoot, the actor offered raffle tickets in exchange for test drives in his Mégane, which he gives away at the ‘Festival de Joie’. Despite taking place in the rain, it still attracted an impressive 300 locals, from its total population of only 500.

A short documentary with behind the scenes footage of the campaign is hosted on the TheMeganeExperiment.com website, which also gives people the chance to win prizes, a ‘Joie de Vivre’ psychometric test and a chance to compare how joyful their community is with others.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

British Motor Shows of the 1960s

admin — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 11:09:41 +0000

The Earls Court Motor Shows were still the principal arena for the general public to see what was new on the market. Paris. New York, Tokyo, Geneva and Amsterdam were all shows where British cars shone in the battle for exports. Featured cars are Rolls-Royce, Bentley and Daimler, the Rover Gas Turbine, the Ford Zephyr and Zodiac, the Triumph Spitfire, the all new Morris 1100, the Hillman Imp, the MGB, Jensen, the new Vauxhalls and many more. British Motor Shows of the 1960’s continues a nostalgic look back at the years of high expectation after the long years of austerity after the Second World War.

Now available on DVD, this British Motor Shows of the 1960s is jam packed with material containing the following features.

1. Introduction

2. 1960 Earls Court Motor Show

3. 1961 Earls Court Motor Show

4. 1961 Rover Gas Turbine

5. 1962 Earls Court Motor Show

6. 1962 The New Morris 11 and Spitfire

7. 1963 Earls Court Motor Show

8. 1963 The New Hillman Imp

9. 1964 Earls Court Motor Show

10. 1964 James Bond’s DB5

11. 1965 Earls Court and New York Motor Shows

12. 1966 Earls Court Motor Show

13. 1966 Motor Industry Research

14. 1967 Earls Court Motor Show

15. 1968 Earls Court Motor Show

16. 1969 Earls Court Motor Show

BONUS FEATURES

1. 1960,64 and 68 Commercial Motor Shows

2. Tokyo, Geneva and Amsterdam Shows

With a running time of 86 mins, the DVD is available to purchase here or by clicking on the banner below. There is also another title in their series, covering British Motor Shows of the 1950s – available here.

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Top Gear is the world’s most downloaded show

Alan — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 06:54:36 +0000

The auto show Top Gear makes its return this weekend, and can be said to have taken over the world since it now is seen in over 100 countries and has a global audience of about 350 million.

At the same time, Top Gear and its three hosts who push the envelope of what constitutes as an automobile are the most downloaded shows around the world.

Although it may be hard to explain the three middle aged auto journalists have become celebrities across the world as they take the show to cities, including Amsterdam, Cape Town, Sydney, and Hong Kong.

In fact, the three hosts, James May, Richard Hammond, and Jeremy Clarkson are so popular that even teenage girls and schoolboys rush to catch glimpses of the stars and public appearances, which make the three middle-aged hosts more respected than most pop stars that you think would appeal at that age.

At the same time that the show works based on corny outrageous skits that involve everything that can happen with vehicular stunts and a large budget, it also manages to have a small political slant due to the fact that it defies what the New Labour party creates as a nanny state.

In fact, a month hardly passes without Top Gear managing to raise controversy and the need for an Ofcom ruling on its potentially censored jokes. At the heart of most of the hearings are jokes pertaining to speeding, suicide, prostitution, and sexist claims by watchers.

Top Gear has been through many changes as it has aged with the viewing populations, but some of these changes may be what has made it such a pop sensation today.

Among the changes include the fact that it has a news section that takes care of business quickly, that it is filmed in an aircraft hanger with a live audience, and that the line-up is always male and almost always unfair and unreasonable, and never PC.

How to kill a Toyota Truck

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.

Love The Beast – DVD out 16 November 2009

admin — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 19:27:40 +0000

LOVE THE BEAST

Starring Eric Bana (‘Hulk’, ‘Star Trek’)

Featuring Jeremy Clarkson, Jay Leno and Dr Phil

DVD Release date: 16th November 2009

Running time: 88 minutes

LOVE THE BEAST WILL RECEIVE AN EXCLUSIVE THEATRICAL RUN FROM FRIDAY 13TH NOVEMBER

Love The Beast DVD

A treat for fans of motoring and cars everywhere, LOVE THE BEAST is the ultimate in pure petrol-head entertainment.

After years of hard work and precious restoration, Hollywood A-lister Eric Bana and his three closest childhood friends decide to enter his beloved first car, a Ford GT Falcon Coupe – THE BEAST, into one of the most gruelling and dangerous motor races on the face of the planet: The Targa Tasmania Rally. This would be a personal Everest for both man and machine.

With help, advice and banter along the way from Jeremy Clarkson, the stage is set for Bana and his ‘Beast’ to face their ultimate challenge…

“A RIGHT TASTY, PETROL-FUELLED CAR GUY’S FLICK” – Automobiles De Luxe

Special Features:

- THE FULL AND UNCUT JEREMY CLARKSON INTERVIEW

The hilarious and enlightening full length meeting between Bana and Clarkson

- THEATRICAL TRAILER

Available from Amazon UK -

Trailer Download: http://download.yousendit.com/YkxMK0dzNDJRYS92Wmc9PQ

No related posts.

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.