Rush

1) I very much appreciated the movie Rush which was about the Formula One racing drivers, James Hunt and Niki Lauda. Quite a thrill ride and I suppose that the actor who played Niki Lauda stole the show, James Hunt was never the sort of person one would expect to be played by someone who might play the Mighty Thor in another movie, but Chris Hernsworth did a reasonable job, who else out there should one choose? His was a big enough name to put on the poster and his performance served the film well. However James Hunt's character didn't seem to aim to portray him as the most intelligent person because that was the Niki Lauda role and James Hunt was the amiable person who would do the right thing to show what his friendship meant with a difficult person such as Niki Lauda. So this was a very appreciable male bonding movie without going in any extreme directions.

2) Usually it's a case of Ron Howard making a movie about something based on real life one might be cursing away about the fact that he is most likely to have taken liberties to the most horrid extremes,  although his film "Frost/Nixon" and what that highlighted about Nixon seemed quite incredible and maybe was a turn for the best for Ron in his film making in my perspective. For me, Rush was best movie of the year for me, probably the most refreshing film since "Tinker Tailor, Soldier Spy" since any film that reliably goes back four decades showing a world when things in England seem less digital and still looking forwards to the future rather rather than wishing we had not actually got there and that it hadn't turned out the way it had, seems to make an optimistic movie me. We probably were cursing away back in the 70s about what was happening in England, but now the imagined future has disappeared and the 70s in comparison seemed like a happier time.

3) Rush left some interestingly severe impressions. Scenes involving Niki Lauda's stay in hospital might lead one to want to close ones eyes at times even because it seemed unbearable though it would have been the scene where he was having his lungs vacuumed, and the scene where James Hunt has holes drilled through his visor to let out condensation was almost terrifying too. It might have been some sort of weird reflection on the fact that they were travelling around in these high speed coffins ready for death and some would have been taken to the extremes of being embalmed before they even encountered their final breath. Maybe right at this moment someone is out there trying to rewrite the story as a weird techno-horror movie. Another great scene was where James Hunt beats the shit out of a reporter who had been rude to Niki Lauda.

The real Niki Lauder ( but after injury) and James Hunt

4) During the time of watching the movie, I of course had to ask myself as the film came on who was still alive from that era. I had my internet on the mobile phone to answer those questions. Niki Lauda was very much alive and with a kidney transplant with a second but much young wife and with children by her in recent years. Unfortunately James Hunt had died from a heart attack a twenty years ago in 1993 aged only forty five and the other sports personality from that era Barry Sheene the top racing motorcyclist had died from cancer ten years ago in 2003. But these were the big television personalities that were on television for the English audience during the seventies, a time of three different TV channels, no internet and indeed quite a different population in England. Going back in time to the seventies with such a mobile phone in my hand with all the information at hand and greater ease with global communication would have been an extraordinary thing but we have almost got used to it.

5) Thankyou Ron Howard for making this movie! It certainly cheered me up.