Le Mans

About three years ago, I started watching Formula 1 Racing with my husband, just to see what all the excitement was about this form of racing. What I learned was it's an intense method of car racing. It isn't just speed. It's calculating how long your tires will last. How long will the fuel last. Remembering where your corners are at (each track in each location is vastly different). And, trying not to crash your very expensive car so you can earn points for yourself and your team.The one thing I've learned about car racing, no matter which method of racing you choose, there's a lot of hubris that goes along with it. The argument is that the more you lack in humility and the more hubris you have, the better the driver. Safe driver's don't do well, and, overly cautious ones die. As in life, only the strong survive.Le Mans racing is another form of racing with it's own unique set of calculations. Le Mans is a 24-hour race. Two drivers per car, each taking turns driving and resting at 1-hour intervals. Anything and everything can happen. Driver's share with their colleagues aspects of what the car is doing, corners/turns to be wary of, and warning them of what other drivers are doing. The movie, "Le Mans" takes all of these things into consideration with the filming.Let me be very clear: do NOT compare this movie to Ron Howard's "Rush." Two different types of racing. Two different directors. While both movies revolve around the 1970's era of car racing, these movies are approached very differently. There was no CGI in 1971 when the fictitious Le Mans movie was filmed (Yes, the Le Mans race has been around since 1923, but, the movie, "Le Mans" is a fictitious race. Portions of the film are said to be taken from the actual Le Mans race that year.). The budget for this film differs vastly from budgets uses today. Steve McQueen did most of his own driving in this movie! Some of the cinematography for the 1971 "Le Mans" film was way ahead of its time. Camera angles for some of the car racing sequences make you feel like you're right there in the race with the drivers.Both "Rush" and "Le Mans" are great movies that stand alone. But, "Le Mans" is a movie that will withstand the test of time. It was a great movie in 1971. It's a great movie now. Also, "Le Mans" is rated 'G,' a General Audience rating. Some of the driving/crash sequences might be a bit much for an audience under the age of 10. There's only one sentence where McQueen's character tell someone not to be a pain in the a--. Otherwise, no swearing.It's refreshing to watch a movie where the director doesn't have to rely on CGI, nudity/sex scenes, or harsh language to sell a movie. I highly recommend this movie to anyone who is both a car racing fan, as well as a Steve McQueen fan.Enjoy

I grew up near waiting 5 Glen which used to just the Grand Prix for years, and some buddies also studying engineering, from Clarkson, used to get together and meet at the race course. We weren't Harvard rich so we went camping but it let us see the GP in October or the Can Am (think of Bruce McLaren) and 6 hrs endurance race in July. While the Ford v Ferrari was a good movie that was about the players and not so much the race. I'm old enough to remember seeing this movie in high school when it came out again it is still the great actual race scene movie of all time although a preliminary review of the new movie trailer suggests it will be about racing itself. Pitt supposedly spent months training to race and they use actual F2 cars. At speed. McQueen (and Paul Newman) did some actual racing so in Le Mans they filmed real cars at real speed - but old man Ferrari was furious that his wouldn't win so in this film they had to use Lola cars made to look as much like Ferrari as possible. It's a great movie and I've seen it in DVD further but not Blu-ray. I just wanted the higher def that doesn't lose it in the action parts which are significant. I'll watch it before I go to the theater but I've seen it several times over the years including Netflix, but the raw Blu-ray will be nice to have. I rip things and use Plex on my NAS to make it easy to view as my DVD collection is substantial. I already know it's 5 stars.

IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN LeMans, READ ON ... THIS SHOULD CLOSE THE DEAL FOR YOUI just ordered my BlueRay copies of LeMans and Grand Prix. Can't wait to get LeMans BLUE RAY VERSION, hope the audio distortion in some areas is fixed.But ... this is about the car ... 42 years old. I submit this is the greatest racing car ever ... in it's final 917/30 iteration, it raced, won and qualified with the following performance stats. 0-62 mph (100km/h) in 1.9 sec., 0-100 mph (160km/h) in 3.9 sec., 0-200 mph (320km/h)in 10.9 sec. and on up to a top speed in excess of 260 mph (420/km/h). The engine was a flat 12 cyl air cooled 5.374 liter, twin turbo design. at full boost, ("a simply astonishing 39 psi") it produced 1580 bhp for qualifying and raced at 1100 bhp. It came to the US and dominated the CanAm unlimited series, causing McLaren to go home. In 1975 Mark Donohue took it around Talladega Super Speedway in Alabama with a closed course, land speed record of 221.160 mph, a record that went unbroken for 4 years. This car could probably qualify for and win Indy against the current cars, qualify for and win any Nascar race including the SuperSpeedway restricter races and the road courses, beat all of the above in the quarter mile, go 300 plus mph at Bonneville and keep on, keepin on above 200 mph for 24 hours with only different tires and gear set for the Salt Flats. There were only 25 (50 chassis) made, few are left, but it will still blow the pants off the newest Styron and yah might find one for 2.5 million euros, new cost was 140,000 DM. Two were licensed for the road, No. 030 was issued Alabama lic. 61-27737 Check out a great write up at [...]IF THIS DOESN'T ENCOURAGE YOU TO BUY THIS MOVIE, YOU WILL MISS THE BEAUTIFUL SOUNDING 917 AND THE RATTY SOUNDING 512 FERRRAI BLASTING THROUGH THE MULSANNE WOODS AT 235 PLUS MPH. ALL YOU WANT, NO STORY, NO BS, JUST UN-BELIEVEABLE RACE CARS FOR TWO HOURS ... NOW IN BLUE-RAY ... WOWPS ... just remember when I say qualify, I mean an 1875 lb. racecar with 1580 qualifying horsepower, 1000 plus horsepower more than Nascar and Indy cars.

A great movie that fail commercially, AND BANKRUPTEDThe production company, but it was a labor of love for Steve McQueen who bank rolled it.