Movie Review – Penton: The John Penton Story

If the opportunity to see this film is as rare in your community as mine, you might have already missed your chance to see it on the big screen. As you can see from the picture, a lot of this film was financed from a Kickstarter.com campaign. A lot of my resistance to art-by-begging has been overcome because of this work. This one movie is so totally deserving of being seen by anyone who has ever put a pair of tires on dirt that I have completely revised my opinion of all things resembling artistic panhandling (which is what Kickerstarter is).
John Penton almost single-handedly drug the USA into off-road competition. The crap we were riding from US, Brits, and other Eurotrash manufacturers was pure pain and misery to ride. You just had to love being off-road to put up with the hardware. Penton’s “ready to race” motorcycles changed everything.
The Bob Hannah interview segments are worth the price of the whole movie. Bob was my second real motorcycle hero, Malcolm Smith was and always will be the first, and he might be the least well-interviewed man in sports history. Because he’s so contained, most dweeb interviewers piss him off and get nothing of value, interest, or entertainment from The Hurricane. The list of people interviewed for this movie is astounding. Literally, it is a who’s who of off-road motorcycling in the world. I am ashamed to admit that I too often thought, “I didn’t know he was still alive” as the cameo segments were introduced. (That included John Penton.) The greats from both sides of the Atlantic ganged up to praise and honor the man who put them all on wheels that went fast, far, and high.
The only negative criticisms I have of Penton The John Penton Story would be because of a bit of the audio editing and an overly-long, seriously silly KTM commercial tacked on to the end of the movie. Intermittently, at the theater I saw the movie, there was a 40-50Hz hum that appeared to randomly contaminate the overall sound. I suspect it was in the film’s audio track, but it could have been some sort of interference caused by the theater’s subwoofer system. Since it was clearly not 60Hz, my suspicion would lie with the film soundtrack.
I would be surprised if KTM didn’t kick in some financing for the movie; hence, the commercial bullshit. KTM isn’t known for being a classy organization (read Ed Youngblood’s -John Penton biography for the whole disgusting story) and this blatant redirection of the subject of the movie to an obvious promotion bit for the current KTM management regime was nothing short of self-promotion and really irritating if you know how badly KTM’s mismanagement treated the Pentons. The whole story of how KTM management turned its back on more than a decade of dedication and hand-holding from the Pentons out of corporate and management greed and arrogance is disgusting. The fact that KTM nearly went bankrupt on its own, afterwards, is pure justice. The Pentons, on the other hand, did just fine with their Hi-Point line (later sold to MSR) and Penton Racing Products businesses is just sweet revenge. The thing that is clear from both Youngblood’s book and the movie is that the KTM engineers and management have/had the same mental diseases that Volkswagen suffers from today; ignorance and arrogance. Their inability to listen to customer complaints and admit to design and manufacturing problems led to their downfall and were what caused the stress and unreasonable pressure Penton lived with while trying to drag KTM into the 20th Century.
Since doing real things with real people has gone out of fashion, movies about people who did those things with amazing people are rare and precious. And by “precious” I mean hard to find, hard to see, and hard to organize. The map at right demonstrates how seldom this movie is currently being scheduled to be shown. The odds are gigantic that it won’t be anywhere near your town. There is a fix, however. As Dirt Rider magazine said, “The movie is being distributed by GATHR Films which is different then most movies. Starting June 20, 2014, anyone can request the film to be screened at a theater in the GATHR network. Once the request is submitted with time, date and place a certain number of tickets must be purchased for the film to actually run. This is a great opportunity for motorcycle stores, dealerships, and companies to host screenings and tell all their clients and/or customers to get involved. For more info on screenings visit pentonmovie.com.” You too could host a Penton off-road extravaganza. It’s not even particularly expensive.

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Movie Review: Attack the Block

written by Joe Cornish and directed by Joe Cornish, 2011

All Rights Reserved © 2012 Thomas W. Day

Attack the Block is a weird sort of science fiction, horror flick, action movie where the main characters are mostly kids. In fact, the kids are poor British slumdwellers who are gangsters, muggers, and dope dealers of various shapes, sizes, ethnic origins, and ages. The premise is a bunch of pissed off black ape-dogs fall from space and tear around one block in London looking for love in all the wrong places.

The kids are fearless (mostly), incredibly creative, and clever. The film's main focus is a young gang leader named Moses who finds the first invader when it crashes through a car roof as the gangsters are robbing a woman pedestrian. Pissed off that the alien bit him, Moses hunts the weird looking thing down and kills it with a knife.

Finally, here comes the motorcycle angle. When the black dog-apes from space begin falling from the sky in droves and start attacking the block, the kids protect their neighborhood on skateboards, bicycles, scooters, and one very small dirt bike. The stunt riding is pretty good, very realistic. Scooter fans will be dismayed at the believable way that the scooter fails to negotiate stairs, corners, and most anything that a scooter does poorly in real life. The motorcycle, of course, is entirely competent at in all situations. Eat your hearts out scooter boys.

The credentials behind Attack the Block are from the mighty minds of Edgar Wright and Nick Frost of Shaun of the Dead fame and infamy, one of the only interesting zombie movies in the history of zombie movies or zombies. Frost plays a dope selling stoner who hides out through the whole event getting more stoned as the aliens get more frantic and providing the "scientific" explanation for the attack along with his customer and fellow stoner, Brewis (Luke Treadaway), who fills in the holes the plot intentionally leaves for the viewer to figure out. Like Shaun of the Dead, Attack is more lightweight fiction than science fact. It is seriously fun, though.

Movie Review: Peaceful Warrior

written by Kevin Bernhardt (screenplay), Dan Millman (novel) and directed by Victor Salva, 2006

All Rights Reserved © 2011 Thomas W. Day

This is an odd sort of movie, bits of mystical Karate Kid blended with a love story and a little smidgen of Rocky. Acrobatic college athlete, Dan Millman (played by Scott Mechlowicz), wrestles with his emotions and ego while his garage mechanic mentor, Socrates (played by Nick Nolte) "teaches" Dan to read minds, perform miraculous acts of strength, agility, and balance, and to "take out the garbage" in his cluttered mind. After some early triumphs in Dan's spiritual education, the arrogant college boy gets impatient with his progress and decides to go back to his frat-brat party life.

About a third of the way into the film, Millman races his Triumph through town in a rebellious tantrum and Peaceful Warrior provides viewers with one of the most realistic, nastiest motorcycle crashes in film history. The result of that crash is Dan breaks his leg into tiny pieces and ends up with a limp, a crutch (literally), and crushed dreams of being an Olympic gymnast. HJC gets a little product placement with several close-up shots of that brand's full face helmet, including a bit of head bounce when the rider hits the ground.

More tantrums follow (now they are justified) and he battles with his injury, his mentor, his friends, and himself looking for some kind of inner peace, strength, humility, and self-knowledge. Through a series of Zen-ish exercises that are often silly enough that you begin to expect David Carradine to add his Kung Fu wisdom to the collection of platitudes, Warrior takes Millman and us through his path to enlightenment and a return to college gymnastics.

Most of the way through the story, Millman asks Socrates, "What do you do, if you can't do what you were born to."

Socrates answers, "Everything has a purpose, Dan. Even this. And it's up to you to find it." 

And I began to suspect the best moments of Peaceful Warrior came and went with the motorcycle crash. The dialog does stiffen up a bit and some bits of actual wisdom appear in the dialog. Among my favorites are:

"There's never nothing going on. There are no ordinary moments."

and

"There is no starting or stopping, only doing."

The supporting cast is fine. The stunt gymnast is amazing. The music is schmaltzy and over-dramatic. I'd give it a three out of five stars. The slow-motion motorcycle crash accounts for at least one of those stars. It's a feel-good movie and the best part of that is that Millman is the real thing. Wikipedia calls Dan Millman the "former world-champion athlete, university coach, martial arts instructor, and college professor." He is also author of fifteen books and an inspirational speaker. He actually did overcome the effects of a disabling injury and has had an exceptional life.

MOVIE REVIEW: The Long Way Round

 

Elixir Films, Image Wizard Television Ltd. 2004

All Rights Reserved © 2006 Thomas W. Day

Hollywood sucks. George Lucas has, apparently, suffered a stroke based on the last dregs of Star Bores. Tom Cruise and Mel Gibson have overdosed on their meds and egos and only South Park manages to accurately describe their insanity. Reality television has turned most of the tube's output into painful parody and I can't figure out why anyone cares who the next Superstar will be when that marginally talented geek is singing geezer rock in front of a lethargic studio band for a geriatric audience.

But home entertainment is better than ever if you know where to look.

After a few years of resisting opportunity, I finally hooked up to Netflix to watch all the BBC, Bravo, PBS, History Channel, Comedy Central, National Geographic, A&E, IFC, VH1, and HBO documentaries that I've missed by being too cheap to pay for television and too stubborn to pay for cable commercials. I haven't made it half way through my list of "must see" stuff and I've been watching at least two videos a week since the summer of 2006. One my early picks is one of the best documentaries, ever: Ewan McGregor and Charlie Boorman's Long Way Round. Even better, it's a motorcycle documentary.

The theme of the several episode program is two movie actors -- McGregor is more movie actor than Boorman (a bit-part actor who's sole published credit, as far as I can determine, is The Bunker, a god-awful horror film, and a blip-part in McGregor's The Serpent's Kiss) -- decide to take a trip around the world on motorcycles. McGregor is a road biker, Boorman is a little more of an off-road guy, but neither seem to have much experience away from civilization. So, this is a major adventure and a huge commitment.

The first of the seven-episode, two-disk Bravo series (in the US, 10 episodes, three disks in the rest-of-the-world including Canada in NTSC format from Amazon.ca) is about the concept and planning of the trip. McGregor and Boorman have a minor disagreement as to what kind of bike will be needed for the trip; Boorman votes KTM DP bikes, McGregor votes BMW GS big-bikes. KTM settles the argument by bailing from the project because they feel their bikes aren't up to the job. They were probably right, although, from a marketing standpoint, trying and failing is preferable to gutlessly running away. BMW, on the other hand, dove headfirst into the project, providing training on smaller GS bikes and logistical assistance for the trip. When the big BMWs do break under the extreme loads and abuse this trip presents, any biker worth his helmet allows more credit than blame for the failures. My own admiration for BMW's GS bikes has been high since Gaston Rahier's Dakar days and has gone through the roof after watching this show.

At the core, the show is about the two main characters. Most film fans know a lot about McGregor's screen presence, from Trainspotting to Big Fish to Blackhawk Down to Moulin Rouge and, finally, dipping to career lows in the last three Star Bores (or first three, if you care about Lucas' demented "episode" counting system). McGregor, for me, is an actor who vanishes into his parts, so I rarely know I have been watching him until the credits roll and I discover who he played. That's not who we see in Long Way Around. We see a good guy taking on a nearly impossible task, 20,000+ miles in four months by (mostly) motorcycle, with the skills of a motorcycle enthusiast. We don't know squat about Boorman, except that he's McGregor's best friend. Boorman is clearly more than just a groupie and as the trip progresses he's often the heart and guts of the trip. They are both tough guys, though, and the trip tests everything aspect of their personalities: patience, stamina, resourcefulness, language skills, courage, and their friendship. An important, and at least equally tough, character in the film is their cameraman, Claudio von Planta, who is with them every meter of the trip and whose job was probably the hardest of all, since he lugged equipment, survival gear, tools, and camera gear on the same kind of motorcycle the main characters rode, except for a section of Russia he traversed by Russian rat bike, after he managed to tear up his BMW on a RBFR (Really Big F... Rock).

    McGregor, "Claudio, there is no problem between Charley and me, Charley tell him."

    Boorman, "There's a terrible problem with us - we hate each other."

Speaking of speech, the video is not rated, but if it were it would probably be somewhere between PG to R for language (typical Brit working class speech) and nudity (these guys are not shy about skinny dipping for the camera or showing off the mosquito bites on their asses). Some will be sad to learn that the editors blurred out the wankers' wankers, at least on the US DVD release. Try to find the PAL edition, if you are really curious.

The route runs McGregor, Boorman, von Planta, and the rest of their support crew through France, Belgium, Germany, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Ukraine, Russia, Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Siberia, Alaska, Canada, and northern United States. They travel manicured western European freeways, mildly decayed (like Minnesota) eastern European highways, dirt roads, roads that would be an insult to goat trails, and crash on or get stuck in all kinds of terrain. For a small portion of Russia, the roads are so impassible, they take to the rails with their motorcycles in a freight car or hitch a ride with an all-terrain monster trucker. Any time it's possible, they are traveling by two wheels, even when any rational person would have opted to cop out.

The team flies the bikes across the Bering Strait to Anchorage, Alaska. The bikes take a rest break in an Anchorage BMW shop for some serious maintenance and, after a rest in civilization, the guys are back on the highway in time for McGregor to get rear-ended by a teenage Canadian driver (to loosely abuse that skill set). After surviving many of the worst roads on earth, from eastern Europe to the eastern tip of Siberia, the world's worst road hazard, a bubble-head driver nearly ends the trip in disaster. Thanks to the stability of the big BMW, the protection provided by their heavy duty panniers, and McGregor's riding skill, the only damage suffered is to the kid's car and the luggage. Only in North America are there large quantities of drivers bereft of the intelligence, skill, or common sense necessary for driving. Where are the LA cops and their batons when you really need them?

There is a book version of the trip, Long Way Round: Chasing Shadows Across the World, although I'm hard pressed to imagine what could be written that wasn't demonstrated in the video. I think this is a must-see show for motorcyclists. For the third time this year (and the eleventh in my lifetime) I've been tempted into owning a video so I can watch it more than once. I bought the Canadian version and I'm on at least my fourth pass through the set.

Dust to Glory – Movie review

All Rights Reserved © 2006 Thomas W. Day

I am not a film festival guy, but last April I stood in line at the Riverview Theater to buy a ticket to Dana Brown's Dust to Glory.  It was worth it.  It was worth it, twice. This year, I've written a few movie reviews for this magazine, but I rarely think twice about most of the movies I've seen.  I think about Dust to Glory often.  I own about a dozen movies, only three of which I've watched more than twice.  The rest were gifts that have sat ignored on a basement book shelf. As of this writing, I've seen Dust to Glory five times [That was true in 2006. By now, I’ve probably watched DtG at least 20 times. I fuckin’ love this movie.].  I'm not even close to tired of this movie [Still true.].

I don't know who are the most incredible characters in this documentary, the riders and drivers who competed in the World's Toughest Race, the Baja 1,000, or the people who filmed it. Brown had a huge cast of folks involved in this film, over fifty cameras and a ninety person crew.  The race was filmed from cab-cams, helmet-cams, helicopters, hand-held high-def gear, and tripod-mounted traditional cameras.  Most of the unbelievable bike-cam footage was filmed by bike-riding cameramen and their riding skill is so close to that of the competitors that you can't tell one from the other. One cameraman, Lou Franco, strapped on a video camera and hung with Mouse McCoy for an incredible distance.  Later, Franco rode 12 hours after he breaks his hand slamming it into a road overhang.  Franco doesn't slow down, but he holds the hand in front of the camera a few times and curses his luck. 

Mario Andretti, the honorary race marshal, took a turn in a pickup and tore up the road fiercely enough that he killed the vehicle.  Another of racing's monsters, Parnelli Jones, is in the film long enough to introduce Robbie Gordon.  Robbie, NASCAR's money man, got his start in Baja and he's still into the desert in the PROTRUCK class; a vehicle well described by Alan Pflueger as "a controlled explosion . . . like holding a piece of dynamite and trying to keep the explosion in your hand." Gordon blew a tire and stayed near first place for thirty miles on three good wheels. Ricky Johnson, the SuperCross champion, was there riding a PROTRUCK and supporting Mouse McCoy. The trucks are, in fact, unbelievable.  When they hit the dirt, it's "a 20,000 horsepower free-for-all." The 4-wheel passing etiquette at Baja is something we all ought to emulate.  When the guy in front won't let you by, slam into his bumper so he'll know you're back there.  If that doesn't do the job, hit him harder.

An old hero of mine, 62 year old J.N. Roberts from the original off-road documentary On Any Sunday, is riding with his son, Jimmy.  J.N was the winner of the first Baja 1000, in 1967.  J.N. would be signing up for Social Security the January after the race.  The short segment of J.N. ripping by riders, making up time after a crash, was beyond inspiring. J.N.'s old "On Any Sunday" riding buddy, Malcom Smith is in Glory, too.  These guys are the first two champions of Baja. 

There are a couple of touchy-feely human interest segments that I could do without, which is what a remote control and fast-forward is all about.  I enjoyed this film for the racing and any interruption of that extraordinary activity is wasted time. I've been a Malcolm Smith fan for most of my life, but I thought the MS & Son in Baja bit went too long and provided too little information for the time spent.

In his brief moment on screen, enduro great and 12 time Baja champ, Larry Roesler, describes what it's like to ride at this level.  He still rides Baja, but he doesn't ride to win it.   Johnny Campbell, Honda's top rider and the Baja two-wheel hero, is ruthlessly in the hunt and always rides to win.  Andy Grider, on Honda's B Team, snagged the top spot from Campbell and hung on to it till he handed over the bike to his co-rider, 350 miles from the end of the race.  Grider, on the 11x bike, stole the lead from 1x and hung on to it through the silt beds and over hundreds of miles of ridiculous terrain.  The footage of this one-on-one race is my highlight of the movie.  All that work vanished when the B Team Honda wouldn't start on the handoff. This two-team competition is at the top of the best motorcycle racing footage I've ever seen.

Mike "Mouse" McCoy is the heart of the story, riding all 1000 miles by himself.  What McCoy planned to do was, according to a lot of experienced people, impossible. Almost halfway through the race, McCoy was holding on to third and having fun. Just before the sun went down and near the half-way mark, McCoy wrestled with a flat tire for 40 miles. At the pitstop, he seemed nearly delirious. Two hundred miles later, he complains that he can't feel his hands.  At 720 miles, he still has third place in sight and soon rips into second, in the dark.  His race ends soon after, in a crash, but his ride doesn't.  He eventually is the sixth bike to finish and his ride to the end is an inspiring moment for any distance race fan.

All of the racers in this film are totally out of the ordinary.  For starters, there is next-to-no prize money involved ($4,000 for the Class One Unlimited Buggies) and only limited sponsorship cash for the winners.  The Sportsman Class entry fee is $1500 and practically every kind of racer imaginable rides this event; everything from ratty old 1960s VW Beetles to totally freaked out high-buck SUVs in the four-wheel classes and bikers from the hobby class to the top off-road pros in the country.  There are teams with trainers, communications experts, mechanics and garage-in-a-semi rigs and folks who roped their bike into the back of an old pickup and had a friend drive the pickup to each checkpoint with a cooler full of Gatorade and granola bars.  The big money riders have choppers for chase vehicles. Still, this is as close to an Everyman's Race as you're likely to experience. The film is peppered with low-budget racers and their perspective on the race.

For off-roaders, the Baja 1,000 is a rite of passage. Some folks argue, "If you haven't done it, you haven't done anything." I haven't done it and, judging from this movie, I never will.  Probably the closest I'll get will be when I'm on the edge of my seat during the Dust to Glory helmet-cam sequences.  Every time the perspective shifted from overhead to helmet cam, I get tense and have compulsive desire to hang on to something solid through these intense segments.  From that perspective it's hard to believe that crashing at these speeds would not be fatal. The show adds to that with night racing footage, which I found to be seriously nuts.  Dust to Glory is as close as I'm likely to get to desert racing at this level, but it's close enough that I've learned more than a little about what it takes to be there. 

Faster (than you can imagine)

A film by Mark Neale, narrated by Ewan McGregor

I don't own a lot of movies and I only own two motorcycle films (outside of a small collection of World Observed Trials event videos). The trials videos were all gifts. One of the two motorcycle films, On Any Sunday, was also a gift. So, the only motorcycle movie I've purchased for myself is Faster: Two Wheels, 200 MPH, Every Man for Himself. As a general rule, I can't think of a reason to watch a movie more than once. So why own the damn things? Faster is an exception to that rule. I've watched Faster three times at the theater and at least a half-dozen times at home. Personally, I think I should be able to wrap up this review at this paragraph. Enough said. Go buy Faster. However, that's probably not enough for you, assuming you haven't already seen this movie at least twice. So here are some more reasons to rent or buy this movie.

If you're a gearhead, you're going to love Faster. Listening to motorcycle commentators like Julian Ryder, factory technical experts, past-World Champs, team managers, mechanics, and McCoy himself explain how Gary McCoy's radical riding technique worked is worth the price of a ticket. Davide Trolli, from Alpinestars, provides a detailed explanation of why kangaroo skin makes the best leathers and I'm sure all you fringy leather boys will run right out and buy a roo-suit afterwards. Ex-world champ Barry Sheene describes the invention, his own, of the back protector. Track design and safety mechanisms are explained until you half-believe that it's possible to survive this freakin’ insane sport.

If you're a CSI fan, listening to Dr. Claudio Costa and Claudia Cherici, the MotoGP riders' medics of choice, explain racing injuries and psychology/pathology. You'll see x-rays of mangled limbs that defy reconstruction, but they'll be reconstructed and the riders will ride to break new records, bones, and displace organs. The doctor’s description of racer/hero mentality is a psychological study in itself and his relationship with the riders is inexplicable outside of the context of this movie. 

If you're an extreme sport fan, nothing on earth is more extreme than 250hp, 200mph MotoGP racing. Nobody crashes more spectacularly than road racers and these are the most spectacular road racers ever. Neale’s camera team had an incredible feel for catching the bikes in motion and the on-board cameras are like being there.  Especially the camera mounted on Valentino Rossi’s bike, sucking up the competition from 14^th place to a win. 

If you’re into film making, Faster is a trip, too.  The editing style is almost as hectic as the racing.  Scenes snap from press conferences to the race track to crowd scenes to close shots of riders, mechanics, and anyone interesting enough to find a place in a frame or two.  The metal sound track is perfectly matched to the 500cc two-strokes and liter fours, some of the best rock guitar sounds ever stuffed into a movie.  Sometimes, the music is a power drill pushing holes through the crowd and bike noise, cranking up the pressure when you think what’s on screen couldn’t be pushed any harder.  Neale uses elapsed-time shots with a purpose. He moves us through time and speed and faces so that it almost feels like subliminal advertising.  Snap cuts from the race track to crowd shots to quick interviews and back to the track keeps the film constantly in motion.

Maybe the best parts are the insight provided by the people around the racers, Rossi’s dad, everyone’s doctor, the roadie mechanics, the ex-champs, the riders’ families, and the riders themselves. These guys are incredibly complicated people and, as such, incredibly interesting. This, in the end, is a film about people with levels of human interest that gets past the usual sport documentary. Moments like the sequence between Kenny Roberts and Barry Sheene, discussing when road racers began sliding as a steering tactic, are one of dozens of insights into ego, skill, history, and the stuff that makes these guys go . . . faster.  Way faster. Wayne Rainey’s description of the accident that left him in a wheelchair is the other side of this story.

But the racing is what really makes this movie.  Without the race scenes, Faster would be like Jet Lee without fighting.  The racing is beyond anything ever put on film before.  Hollywood special effects are tame compared to the real thing and Faster is all about the real thing.  These guys are faster than you can imagine, even after you see them on screen.  The Right Stuff, Top Guns, and magical superheroes all wrapped up in kangaroo skin and carbon fiber armor.  This is a great film.

PS: Watch the credits and listen to the world champs talk about motorcycle safety.  Maybe you'll learn something from people who know more about motorcycling than you'll ever know. The DVD extras include some great rider-perspective shots that demonstrate braking and throttle control of the masters.

All Rights Reserved © 2005 Thomas W. Day

The World's Fastest Indian

I'd read a review, in a local news rag that I'll leave unnamed (bullshit, it was City Pages), that really panned this film and had almost convinced me to take a pass on it.  The reviewer said that Sir Anthony Hopkins made an "unconvincing" Indian.  I hadn't read anything else about the story, so I assumed that Hopkins made as unconvincing an Indian as he had a serial murderer in "Hannibal." A few days later, at a theater preview, I discovered what the movie was really about.  Imagine my surprise when I discovered that the "Indian" in The World's Fastest Indian was a motorcycle.  As terrific an actor as Hopkins can be, I'm pretty sure he couldn't believably impersonate a motorcycle, so I have to assume the reviewer was motorcycle-impaired.

Like most things that aren't right in front of me, I promptly forgot about watching for the film to appear locally.  One evening a friend called to rave about The World's Fastest Indian, a few days after the film opened here. My wife and I saw it a few days later and we both loved the film.  My friend, apparently, thinks that I doubt his judgment, because when I told him that we appreciated his recommendation he was really surprised.  I did, though.  I think this was as good a film as I've seen in many years. Even if a Harley biker, half-deaf drummer, turned me on to the movie. 

I have a habit of chasing down historical sources, when a book or a movie introduces me to a new subject.  Indian caused that kind of activity in the following weeks.  Movies tend to believe that viewers are incapable of accepting the incredible stories of real life and this film is another example of that bet-hedging.  The real story of Burt Munro is probably too amazing to be believed.  That doesn't stop me from wishing the movie had been a little closer to reality, though. 

Burt Munro was born in 1899, just in time to see the beginning of the internal combustion age.  Burt was a mechanical wizard, self-taught and intuitively brilliant.  He started a love affair with an Indian Scout that began in the early 1920s and kept that flame burning until he died in 1978.  The movie pictures him as being a poor hobbyist with a Bonneville dream, which is only a little true.  Munro was setting New Zealand speed records as early as 1957 (131.38 mph at Oreti Beach¹).  The movie has Munro busting 200mph on his first try at Bonneville.  His 1962 850cc world record of 178.971 mph was pretty incredible but not quite as incredible or simple as the movie would have you believe. 

What the movie does incredibly well is portray this man's spirit, ingenuity, and resourcefulness.  Munro did build his own cylinders out of scrap iron and he fabricated his own cooling fins for the cylinders.  He designed, from intuition and experiments, his bike's aerodynamic bodywork.  He rode that cobbled-together piece of backyard engineering past 200 mph multiple times, including at least one 200+ mph Bonneville crash that was incredibly portrayed in the movie. 

This is not just an Anthony Hopkins movie, either.  Every character in the film, from the New Zealand bikers Munro blasts past on the beach to his New Zealand friends and supporters to the so-far-from-today's U.S. port authority officials to the wild 1960's L.A. and desert folks who help and hinder his quest, adds something approaching the best in humanity to the story.  The community of go-faster folks at Bonneville will make you wish you could go back 40 years in time, just to be there when it all happens. 

The worst documentary "sins" of the The World's Fastest Indian are sins of passion.  The film maker and Hopkins busted their asses to make a movie that would put you inside of Munro's head.  Vicariously, we experience a little of the adventure he took on when he boxed up his beloved Indian and shipped it to America to take on the world's fastest terrain.  It's practically unimaginable, completely inspiring, and terrific fun.  You will love this film, I guarantee it.

¹ Check out http://www.indianmotorbikes.com/features/munro/munro.htm for a terrific history of this incredible homespun motorcycle engineer and rider.

All Rights Reserved © 2006 Thomas W. Day

 

From: Charles Hannah
Sent: Wednesday, September 27, 2006 7:33 PM

Dear Thomas

Many thanks for sending us your review. While Roger took some poetic licence in telling the story of Burt Munro, for more than 30 years (he first wrote the script in the early 70's having made a documentary with Burt) he resisted pressure from numerous film companies to make Burt younger and dramatically change the facts. Let me comment on some of the things you say in your review:

I have a habit of chasing down historical sources when a book or a movie introduces me to a new subject. Indian caused that kind of activity in the following weeks. Movies tend to believe that viewers are incapable of accepting the incredible stories of real life and this film is another example of that bet-hedging. The real story of Burt Munro is probably too amazing to be believed. That doesn’t stop me from wishing the movie had been a little closer to reality, though. THAT'S A LITTLE TOUGH.

Burt Munro was born in 1899, just in time to see the beginning of the internal combustion age. Burt was a mechanical wizard, self-taught and intuitively brilliant. TRUE - DOESN'T THE FILM SHOW THIS? He started a love affair with an Indian Scout that began in the early 1920s and kept that flame burning until he died in 1978. ALSO TRUE. The movie pictures him as being a poor hobbyist with a Bonneville dream, which is only a little true. WHY DON'T YOU GET HOLD OF ROGER'S 30-YEAR OLD DOCUMENTARY ABOUT BURT - I BELIEVE MAGNOLIA WILL BE INCLUDING IT IN THEIR DVD - AND YOU WILL SEE THAT WHEN HE WENT TO BONNEVILLE HE WAS LIVING IN A CINDER BLOCK HOUSE EXACTLY LIKE THE ONE IN THE FILM. IN FACT, ROGER INSISTED THAT IT WAS IDENTICAL - MUCH TO THE CONCERN OF OUR WONDERFUL CAMERAMAN WHO WOULD HAVE LOVED AN ADDITIONAL LIGHT SOURCE. BY THIS TIME, BURT'S PASSION FOR HIS BIKE HAD MEANT THAT HIS WIFE HAD THROWN HIM OUT AND HE REALLY WAS LIVING ON VERY LITTLE.  Munro was setting New Zealand speed records as early as 1957 (131.38 mph at Oreti Beach*). TRUE BUT DOES THE FILM SUGGEST OTHERWISE? The movie has Munro busting 200mph on his first try at Bonneville. OK, THIS WAS FOR DRAMATIC PURPOSES - THE FILM IS ALREADY 2 HOURS LONG AND ANY LONGER WOULD HAVE PUT AUDIENCES OFF. His 1962 850cc world record of 178.971 mph was pretty incredible but not quite as incredible or simple as the movie would have you believe.

But overall, your review was positive and we're happy about that.

With thanks

Charles

Charles Hannah, Executive Producer

Closer to the Edge - Isle Of Man - TT Race, FULL MOVIE!

This might be the coolest thing YouTube has ever published. The full freakin' movie:



[That didn't last long. YouTube pulled the video about a week after I'd posted it. Now, there is no way for US viewers to see it because it still hasn't made it here in any format. Along with the hundreds of cool bikes that don't come to the US, this is one more piece of evidence that we are 3rd world.]

When no place in Minneapolis/St. Paul ran this movie, I seriously considered moving somewhere civilized. I still am. I do not understand a single word Guy Martin says, but I love what he does with a motorcycle.

I can't say that the TT is high on my list of "things I gotta do," though. The archaic rules and arrogant timekeeper bureaucracy is too much for me. It feels too much like golf or even the crazed way observed trials is judged. (How can you roll backwards and not have lost "forward motion?") A 30S penalty for supposedly being 0.1mph too fast out of the pits is insane and cost Martin the Superbike title in the first race. I can't watch that kind of shit without wanting to hang an official. (Of course, hanging officials is pretty high on my list of favorite things to do on good days.)

These guys are either the craziest people on earth or the bravest. Could be both. The tank-slapping when those bikes come down off of the rises in the roads is insane. Totally insane.

NOTE: This does not qualify as a "movie review" because I loved every minute of Closer to the Edge and I have no useful criticism to offer.

Another Minnesota Motorcycle Company

Who knew these guys were still around? (Rokon, not this pack of 'roided up geezer Hollywood freaks.) The last time I saw a Rokon I was getting booted from a Kansas enduro for riding too fast. I was just keeping up with the Rokon factory team, but didn't realize they'd left 20 minutes earlier than me. I guess any advertising is good, but I'd want to comment on that sticky throttle if I were in Rokon's marketing department; that better be optional ("Helicopter killing, stuck throttle - optional equipment").

Another Motorcycle Movie Review

For no good reason other than to distract my wife from the misery of a late summer cold or flu, we went to a movie yesterday, The Bourne Legacy. Spoiler alert: This is a non-stop chase movie with occasional fight scenes and no other mess distractions; like a plot that made sense.

No problem, late in the chase scene, Jeremy Renner (a sort of Gerard Butler knock-off) jumps on a dirt bike and races through Manila with some astoundingly competent motorcycle cops and a psycho-GMO-hitman hot on his ass. As usual, this Hollywood chase scene has serious time and distance problems, but the riding is generally excellent and believable (as in real people did the riding, not CG techs). There is, of course, no reason other than suspended disbelief, to imagine that Renner's character could ride a bike, let alone kick Kenny Robert's ass on one. Helmetless and showing of his buffed bod, Renner still looked reasonable comfortable on a bike. He is, in fact, a long-time motorcycle rider and is competent in the few scenes where it is obvious he's the stunt rider. His passenger throughout the entire chase scene, Rachel Weisz, was mostly terrified. She at some point in the chase scene, she must have managed to dip her ass in some Superglue or some other amazing adhesive so that she could stay on the bike even when both legs were in the air and she was flopping around the pillion like a hyperactive six-year-old. There is some great, if marginally believable, motorcycle stunt riding in the movie; sort of an X-Games for the spy movie crowd.


If I was more interested, I would try to identify the motorcycles involved. I think the dirt bike is a Honda. The camera work was so blurry and quick-cut that I could barely keep my attention on the action, let alone the details. My wife fell asleep early in the motorcycle chase scene and woke up to see the main characters lounging on a fishing boat. She was no less confused than I was having followed the whole mess to the end. 

During our recent trip to Texas, I drilled my way through a Robert Ludlum novel I found in my father-in-law's apartment. It was no less nonsensical than the plot of The Bourne Legacy, so I have some sympathy with the folks who decided to turn this silly story into a movie.

So, the most of the motorcycle scenes are in the clip attached to this "review." Watch 'em and realize that's about all of the interesting stuff there is to see in the movie. Save your money. The camera work is so bad this is practically a "made for video" film. And don't ever read a Robert Ludlum book if you want to preserve any sense of self-esteem.

A Non-Brand Plug

On a bored, chilly, and uninspiring Thursday afternoon, my wife and I went to the cheap theater and saw Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance in 3-D. I admit it, I am a 3-D fan and will watch all sorts of crap in that format. Mostly, GRSoV was disappointing. Some of the effects were interesting, but most were tame as you'd expect for a Nick Cage movie. I was impressed, however, with the motorcycle picked for the film. As opposed to the girlyman custom Hardly from the first film, Ghost Rider has stepped up to horsepower with a charred and macho V-Max. The coolest aspect of all that is that you'd have to know this was a Yamaha to know it was a Yamaha. The V-Max is iconic, but only to motorcyclists. The usual wimp off of the street would probably assume it was a muscled-up Hardly.

That's it. The end of my movie review. The plot is predictable. Cage still can't act. Mark Johnson still can't write or direct. 3-D movies still wear you out and lose effectiveness about 20 minutes into the experience.Ghost Rider is as silly as ever. The V-Max is still the meanest looking motorcycle made.

Movie Review: One Week

One Week
written and directed by Michael McGowen, 2008

All Rights Reserved © 2011 Thomas W. Day

This is one of the rare movies that will actually make you feel better for having spent the time; none of that bitter aftertaste of a wasted evening from One Week. The Internet Movie Database called One Week an "adventure, drama." Netflix (which currently has One Week on Instant Watch) categorizes the movie as "Indie Dramas, Romantic Dramas." I would have called it a dark comedy. It is, honestly, a lot funnier than the subject implies and a whole lot funnier than about 90% of what gets called "comedy."

The movie asks the main character, Ben Tyler (Joshua Jackson), what he would do when his doctor tells him, "I'm afraid it's not great news." Tyler learns he has terminal cancer with a "survival rate of one in ten" and an undetermined "minimum" lifetime. [Something that is true for any of us all the time.] On his way home from the doctor's office, Tyler meets an old geezer polishing up his 1973 Norton to sell because "my eyes are going, I couldn't get my license renewed."(Move to Minnesota. Anyone can pass our state's eye exam.)

The bike wasn't entirely a spontaneous decision, as "Ben had been circling around the purchase for a while" because his fiancée had told him that "driving a motorcycle represented the height of stupidity." After one of the weirdest haggling scenes in movie history, Ben says, "I'll take it."

Ben's fiancée Samantha (brilliantly played by Liana Balaban) walks a fine balance between loving, overbearing, and wounded. Her hatred of motorcycles, desperate faith in the miracles of modern medicine, and her desire not to be the woman who abandoned her boyfriend when he got cancer all blend into a complicated character you'll either like or hate; or both. My opinion of her swung from one side to the opposite in practically every scene.

Ben decides to postpone his wedding, blow off his mind-deadening grade school teaching job, and obey the instructions on his coffee cup and "go west young man." At a loss for what to do with the end of his life, Ben sets out on a bucket-list trip from Toronto to British Columbia with a minor goal of seeing all the “big things” along the way; big chairs, biggest fake dinosaur, biggest paper clip, etc.

Ben tells Samantha he’ll only be gone two days, but his real plan is to travel without a plan or a schedule. All he knows about his future is that he’s “not ready to be a patient.” Ben doesn't tell his family or employer anything. Just before he takes off on his trip, he and Samantha participate in Ben's father's 70th birthday party where Ben's dad gives thanks for his uneventful life and his good fortune. Ben doesn't ruin the moment with his depressing news.

One of the many things I was reminded of by One Week is how much I love travelling in Canada. The camera work is terrific, the music selected for the movie is innovative and sets a high bar for indie productions, and the sound quality was as good as modern movies get. There is nothing in this production to get between you and the story. In my opinion, it is as flawless a movie as I have ever experienced.

Ben's relationship with the Norton, while exceptionally lucky (based on my experience with British vehicles), is dead on the money. He was almost as perfectly unprepared for this cross-country trip as he was for his medical prognosis. Riding into the Canadian sunset in jeans, a designer leather jacket, and an open face helmet, Ben is soaked, frozen, bathed in warmth and light, and bashed about by the trip and the people he meets. You will be, too.

Russian Off-Road Challenge 2010

The well-informed and always entertaining folks from the TC_DualSport group turned me on to this incredibly entertaining off-road expedition. Some seriously macho Russians on some unbelievably tortured motorcycles with a great Russian Rock and Roll soundtrack.

These guys found every possible way to fall down and survive. All the scenery and riding footage of The Long Way Round, without all the whining and yak.

Movie Review: Murderball

All Rights Reserved © 2009 Thomas W. Day

A film by Dana Adam Shapiro, Jeffrey Mandel, and Henry-Alex Rubin

"Whether by car wreck, fist fight, gun shot, or rogue bacteria, these men were forced to live life sitting down. In their own version of the full-contact sport, they smash the hell out of each other in custom-made gladiator-like wheelchairs. And no, they don't wear helmets." After watching this movie, I shipped off a quick note to a friend recommending Murderball. His instant comeback was, "What the hell is Murderball?"

"Quadriplegic rugby."

Seconds later, his second question appeared at my Inbox, "Why the hell would I want to watch that?"

This review is all about my answer. I wish this could be a shorter answer, but the more I thought about my response the longer it became.

First, I couldn't help but feel that a mutual friend of ours had all but starred in Murderball. If Mark Zupan (the guy on the DVD's cover) isn't, our buddy, Tex's clone (or the reverse), I truly am getting better, not older. Mark Zupan is even a Texan. (Don't let that turn you off, Zupan is one of the weirdest inspirational characters ever committed to film or video tape. Our man, Tex, is a little unusual, too.) Zupan is balls-to-the-wall, mostly always pissed off, and afraid of nothing. His message seems to be "I've been through hell and hell is worse for the experience." Zupan and some of his Murderball buddies visited the Jackass boneheads and did some damage there, too. That Jackass episode is on the DVD and it's about as insane and funny as that moronic program has ever been. Both the movie and the Jackass scenes gave me flashbacks to Tex describing how he ground off his finger at the racetrack. Only one guy could make that story funny.

Familiarity aside, there is some motorcycle content, in case you think I forgot what venue I'm writing for. Late in the movie, we are introduced to Keith Cavill, a kid who became quadriplegic after a motocross accident. [You knew that was coming all along, didn't you?] What makes this a motorcyclists' movie is that no more is made of the motorcycle's involvement in the injury that any of the other causes that put these guys into their Mad Max wheelchairs: car crashes, childhood disease, random household accidents, or teenage mayhem. It's what they do after they become "disabled" that makes the film inspiring and compelling.

The story is about the guys playing for the Team USA Quad Rugby in the 2004 season. That's a little odd, since quad rugby was, originally, a Canadian sport. However, the movie's conflict is between ex-US-champion-turned-Team-Canada coach Joe Soares and Zupan (representing Team USA and that organization's political underbelly and passions). Zupan and Soares are such similar personalities that a lot of the comic relief comes from watching them pretend they have significant differences. Zupan thinks Soares is a "traitor" since he took his experience and knowledge to the competition instead of vanishing gracefully into sports history. Soares thinks Zupan is a loudmouth brat who ought to mind his own business.

Soares, first, is not ready to retire and, second, has good reason to believe that he has been treated disrespectfully by the US organization. Soares family moved to the US, from Portugal, when he was 11. Polio took away the use of his legs and a good bit of his upper body functions. After being cut from the US team and being "forcibly" retired as a player, he tried to find a way into the US program without success. His efforts created a lot of bad blood between him, the US players, and the US team management. So, he moved to Canada and took on that team's coaching job. The film describes how that worked out for the Canadians.

Zupan was an all-around Texas teenager, excelling in sports, debauchery, and drunkenness. After drinking himself into a coma and falling asleep in the bed of a friend's pickup, he awoke to find himself clinging to a branch in a Texas marsh after being thrown from the truck when it crashed into a fence. A half-day later, he was rescued. Suffering a broken neck, Zupan found himself in a hospital, quadriplegic and pissed off. Somehow, he focused that energy into Murderball and became the US team leader. Zupan is a seriously scary dude. He was recently in the Cities promoting his new book and he's even scarier in person.

The final game of the film, the 2004 Para-Olympics Quad Rugby quarter finals against Joe Soares' Canadian team, provides some of the best sporting event film editing I've ever seen. This is a complicate game, with strength, stamina, and punishment equal to anything you've ever seen; but it's all performed on wheelchairs. Turning that into a spectator perspective that is compelling, let alone exciting, is a technological achievement equal to anything you've seen on film. In the end, both teams were upset by New Zealand. In the first ever defeat of the US team in Quad Rugby, Canada got the silver medal, the US finished in bronze, and New Zealand, brought home the 2004 gold medal. If you're a nationalist homer, that's probably a letdown, but there are no bad guys in Murderball. Just guys who stopped worrying about what other folks think and tossed themselves into this insane sport as if it would be the last thing they would ever do that mattered.

Bob Lujiano, probably the most physically affected player in the film, sums up the whole message in a short, mid-film conversation with a group of grade school kids, "I'm alright. That's all that matters. I'm alive. I use everything that I have to get through life. That's what we all have to do, use everything we have." He puts every limitation, every self-imposed boundary that we allow ourselves to use as excuses for not doing what we love or what we need to do, into perspective. Use everything you have to get through your life. Ride safe, fast, and long and play a little Murderball when you get the chance.