Word: furiousness
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Prime example: 2 Fast 2 Furious, sequel to the 2001 hit. It puts the viewer behind the wheel of souped-up cars like a Nissan Skyline and a Yenko Camaro, both juiced with NOS--a nitrous oxide injection system--that instantly multiplies their speed as if they're toddlers on sugar. These cars seem to double as aircraft. When goosed by an ace driver, the Skyline vaults across a yawning drawbridge, and the Yenko flies across the water to crash-land on the upper deck of the bad guy's yacht. 2F2F has a bit of plot about...
...this rush of car-thrill movies? First, because they can make money. The 2001 Fast and the Furious, in which Walker teamed with Vin Diesel, earned $144 million at the domestic box office on a $38 million budget. Second, because they're enjoyable to assemble. Says John Singleton, director of 2F2F: "Early in my career, I said I would never do a car-chase movie because I wanted to be taken seriously as a filmmaker. Now that I'm in my early 30s, I figured I've done that. I just wanted to have fun." Car movies also touch...
...MOVIES ARE THE NEW EPICS. The side-by-side race in The Fast and the Furious is a modern Ben-Hur chariot race. Instead of re-creating ancient Rome and bossing around thousands of extras in togas, directors get to re-create a strip of the San Diego Freeway and wreck lots of cars. That's the majesty of being in charge of an action film. In Hollywood you're not a true creator unless you can destroy stuff...
...video games. And vice versa. Virtual rides like the Grand Theft Auto games (including Vice City) and the Gran Turismo series have sat on best-of lists. They're also helpful aids to directorial research. John Singleton says he played hours of Turismo while preparing 2 Fast 2 Furious. He put the Nissan Skyline (which isn't sold in the U.S. and had to be imported from Japan) and the Mitsubishi Evo VII in the movie because they're in Turismo. "We wanted to get the cars that kids play with in the video games," he says...
...Dalai Lama. Despite several political misjudgments when he rejected Beijing's overtures, says French, the Dalai Lama has come to represent peaceful resistance and nonviolence in a world at war with terrorism, which is political dissidence in its worst form. But his popularity has only led to furious commercial exploitation?his images sell computers, movies and books?turning the Dalai Lama, at best, into the world's spiritual teddy bear. French writes a hilarious account of the Dalai Lama on the Larry King Live TV show in 2000. After describing him as a leading Muslim in an earlier program...