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DVDs--Automotive
Documentaries |
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50 Years of Ferrari 4 hours of
superior digital picture-quality footage revealing the amazing history of Enzo’s
remarkable prancing horses from Maranello and Modena. Complemented by an
interactive fact file, more than 100 significant Ferrari models are featured. Go
straight to moving video footage of each car or access their technical details
and racing history. The vibrancy and glamour that is Ferrari gallops from the
screen as you view the GP winners, the champion sports racers, and the great GT
cars, sportscars and supercars. Color, 4 hours.
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Funny Car Summer (1973) 70s-style documentary on legendary funny car driver Jim Dunn and his rear-engine
1970 Plymouth Barracuda. One of the first funny car drivers to use a rear-engine
setup, Jim dominated his class in racing. A 70s drive-in classic.
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Mini: The Complete Story An
action-packed story of the small car with the BIG personality. Hop in to explore
the unique appeal and genuine fun that the Mini inspires! A motoring icon and a
winner on the racetracks of the world, the Mini is seen here in funky and
fabulous footage of the official celebrations of its 40th birthday at the Motor
Heritage Center and at Silverstone. Plus in-car Mini racing experiences, action
and static close-ups of the new Mini Cooper and Mini One along with graphic
overlays showing the specs of each car, and a stunning selection of images from
the original Mini launch to the concept cars and the new Mini. 2 hours.
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Super Speedway - The Mach II Special Edition (1998) One of the best directors of IMAX films, Stephen Low (Titanica)
has always been a race fan. After obtaining permission from CART, a governing
body of Indy car racing and Newman/Haas racing (a Championship team co-owned by
Paul Newman), Low found his stars for Super Speedway: the racing
Andrettis, father Mario and son Michael. Mounting cameras fore and aft on the
Andrettis' cars, IMAX offers a better vantage point than an ESPN camera, at a
superior grade of clarity. Add to that the excellent sound and you can "feel"
the bumps on the asphalt as the cars zoom in and out of corners. The large
format can turn a pit stop into a dramatic 12 seconds as we see the driver's
eyes dart away from his cockpit for a few brief seconds. We watch Michael
Andretti on oval tracks and exciting road courses going over hills and sharp
turns. There's even a spin--probably staged--from an angle we've never seen
before.
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The World's Greatest F1 Cars
(2001) An impressive visual encyclopedia, The World's Greatest
F1 Cars covers the first 50 years of Formula One racing. The DVD begins with
the stories of the Bugatti T51 and the Delage GP, which were basically
stripped-down sports cars. Grand Prix aficionados will be thrilled with the
detailed footage and narration on 103 cars ranging from early models like the
Alfa Romeo 158, in which Giuseppe "Nino" Farina roared to the first F1 world
title, to the Lotus 72 Ford (1970), which was the first car to try to achieve
better aerodynamic downforce through body design, to the modern Ferrari
1996-2000. The DVD can be watched as a whole or can be broken down car by car.
Also included is a "Classic F1 Experience" in which you race along via a camera
mounted above the driver's helmet. The World's Greatest F1 Cars is an
amazingly thorough ride through F1 history.
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DVDs--Car & Car Chase
Films |
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American Graffiti - Collector's Edition
(1973)
Roger Ebert:
"It's not only a great movie but a brilliant work of historical fiction; no
sociological treatise could duplicate the movie's success in remembering exactly
how it was to be alive at that cultural instant." The time to which Ebert and
the film refers is the summer of 1962, and American Graffiti captures the
look, feel, and sound of that era by chronicling one memorable night in the
lives of several young Californians on the cusp of adulthood. (In essence, Lucas
was making an autobiographical tribute to his own days as a hot-rod cruiser,
and the film's phenomenal success paved the way for Star Wars.) The
action is propelled by the music of Wolfman Jack's rock & roll radio show--a
soundtrack of pop hits that would become as popular as the film itself.
Features racing and an assortment of American classic cars, including a white 55
T-bird driven by Suzanne Sommers.
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Born to be Wild - Four High Octane Movies
4 movies for under 10 bucks! This 2 DVD set includes:
The Wild Ride - This
cult classic stars Jack Nicholson as a rebellious punk of the beat generation,
who spends his days as an amateur dirt track driver in between partying and
troublemaking.
Hot Rod Girl - A small town community is turned upside down by illegal drag
racing and out-of-control youngsters in this 1956 classic. T-Bird Gang - A high school
student, working with local law enforcement, goes undercover to infiltrate the
teen-based T-Bird Gang, but things get hairy! Fast cars and troublemaking teens
star in this 1959 classic! The Choppers - Arch Hill Jr. writes and stars
in this 1961 classic about a young hot-rodder who becomes involved with a gang
of car thieves and a crooked salvage yard owner.
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Bullitt (1968) The outstanding car chase
with a 68 Mustang Fastback and 68 Dodge Charger earned an Oscar for best editing, but the
rest of the movie is pretty good, too. Bullitt is a perfect star vehicle
for cool guy Steve McQueen, who stars as a tenacious detective (is there any
other kind?) determined to track down the killers of the star witness in an
important trial. Jacqueline Bisset and Robert Duvall appear in early roles,
and Robert Vaughn plays the criminal kingpin who pulls the deadly strings of the
tightly wound plot. Universally regarded as one of the greatest car chase scenes
in cinematic history.
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The Fast and the Furious (2001) A modern
racing classic. A Los Angeles cop (Paul Walker) infiltrates a gang of street racers suspected of fencing
stolen goods from hijacked trucks. The gang leader is Dom (Vin Diesel), ex-con
and reigning king of the street racers, who lives for those 10 seconds of
freedom when his car hurtles toward another quarter-mile victory. Racing
is depicted as street theater for a lawless youth subculture. The final scenes
feature a supercharged 69 Dodge Charger.
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The French Connection (1971) William Friedkin's classic
policier was propelled to box-office glory, and a fistful of Oscars, in 1972
by its pedal-to-the-metal filmmaking and fashionably cynical attitude toward law
enforcement. Gene Hackman's Popeye Doyle, a brutally pushy New York City
narcotics detective, is a dauntless crime fighter and Vietnam-era "pig," a
reckless vulgarian whose antics get innocent people killed. Loosely based upon
an actual investigation that led to what was then the biggest heroin seizure in
U.S. history, the picture traces the efforts of Doyle and his partner (Roy
Scheider) to close the pipeline pumping Middle Eastern smack into the States
through the French port of Marseilles. (The actual French Connection cops, Eddie
Egan and Sonny Grosso, make cameo appearances.) Incredible car chase scene
beneath an elevated subway.
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Eat My Dust! (1976) A 70s B-movie
classic with little pretense of plot structure or character development. Great
fun!
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Gone in 60 Seconds (Original)
(1974) Actor/Director H.B. Halicki's masterpiece,
this is probably the purest car chase film ever made, and a personal favorite.
The final chase scene is a
42 minute finale that roars through five Los Angeles-basin towns and destroys 93
cars in the process. It's a masterpiece of stunt driving, down-and-dirty
photography, and sharp, furious cutting; the unsung hero of the picture is
editor Warner Leighton, who paces the film perfectly and never lets it stall.
A cult classic.
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Grand Theft Auto (1977) Poor boy
Sam Freeman (Ron Howard) and rich girl Paula Powers (Nancy Morgan) are in love,
but Daddy disapproves. They steal the Powers family Rolls Royce for a Vegas
elopement, Paula's ex-fiancé puts a bounty on her head, and from then on you can
just forget about the plot and watch a zillion cars crash into each other, not
to mention a couple of helicopters and an ice-cream truck. In many ways this is
a quintessential PG-rated '70s movie, with plenty of wholesome fun involving the
destruction of public and private property.
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The Junkman (1982) H.B. Halicki's
follow-up to the classic Gone in 60 Seconds. No less than 150 cars were
wrecked in the making of this film!
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Le Mans (1971) A classic auto-racing
movie starring Steve McQueen, Le Mans puts the audience in the driver's
seat for what is often called the most grueling race in the world. The French
auto race Le Mans is a 24-hour affair through the French countryside, a
demanding ordeal for any driver. McQueen
plays the American driver, locked in an intense grudge match with his German
counterpart even as he wrestles with the guilt over causing an accident that
cost the life of a close friend. McQueen is his usual stoic magnetic self, and
the racing sequences are among the best ever committed to film. A solid
character-driven story combines with raw visceral power to make Le Mans a
rich tapestry of action and thrills.
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No Man's Land One of the best car
chase movies of the 80s, and perhaps the premiere Porsche chase film ever.
Charlie Sheen plays a veteran car thief, with D.B. Sweeney as the cop trying to
infiltrate the racket. A classic that deserves to be better-known.
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Rebel Without a Cause (1955) An American
classic that needs no introduction. James Dean's depiction of angst-ridden
teenage alienation created a cult following that has scarcely been equaled.
His mildly customized 1949 Mercury (nosed, decked, and lowered with dual
exhaust) helped give the 49-51 Mercs legendary status among customizers.
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Ronin (1998) Robert De Niro stars as an American
intelligence operative adrift in irrelevance since the end of the Cold War--much
like a masterless samurai, a.k.a. "ronin." With his services for sale, he joins
a renegade, international team of fellow covert warriors (featuring actors Jean
Reno and Sean Bean) with nothing but time
on their hands. Their mission, as defined by the woman who hires them (Natascha
McElhone), is to get hold of a particular suitcase that is equally coveted by
the Russian mafia and Irish terrorists. The centerpiece of the movie is an
incredible car chase that is the real thing, a pulse-quickening,
kinetic dance of superb montage and timing.
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Thunder Road The preeminent
moonshine movie, the 1958 film Thunder Road stars Robert Mitchum as a
backwoods bootlegger in Tennessee, getting squeezed by both the federal
government and organized crime. Mitchum had a big hand in creating this cult
favorite (which reportedly played in drive-ins around America for years),
writing the script, producing the movie, and even composing and singing the
movie's theme song, which became a radio hit. Directed by longtime
cinematographer Arthur Ripley, the film is strong on characters and action, the
latter fulfilled by a memorable chase scene at the end. Mitchum was at an
artistic peak at this point in his career, and this is really an indispensable
movie for his fans.
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Two-Lane Blacktop (1971) James Taylor is The
Driver, a car-obsessed racer with stringy hair and a concentration that
precludes conversation. He travels the backroads of rural America with his
buddy, The Mechanic (Dennis Wilson of the Beach Boys), an equally obsessed lost
soul at home only in the car or under the hood. They have no names, only
designations, and no life outside of their gypsy existence, riding the unending
highway in their souped-up '55 Chevy from race to race. After picking up a
hitchhiking Girl (Laurie Bird), whose presence breaks the tunnel-vision focus of
the two men, they challenge a middle-aged hotshot, the garrulous G.T.O. (Warren
Oates) to a cross-country race. Monte Hellman's Two-Lane Blacktop is the
most alienated evocation of modern America ever made, an almost abstract study
in dislocation and obsession set against a vague landscape of roadside diners
and rest stops. "How fast does it go?" asks The
Driver, admiring G.T.O.'s car. "Fast enough," he answers. The Driver snaps, "You
can never go fast enough."
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