Prelude to Driven

Brought to you by "Top Pits" starring Tom Cruises and Valerie Kilmer.

In 2002, Stallone gave us an 8 time Razzie nominated movie that he took the time to write. Remember! This is the guy that wrote the screenplay to Rocky for which he won an Oscar....the same guy. Yeah....right. It's sort of a movie about race car driving, it's sort of about race car drivers and then its sort of about absolutely nothing.

Streaming Do's and Don'ts

• Exodus:Gods and Kings (first 12 minutes) - HBO
• Rapid Fire - HBO
• The Kid with the Golden Arm - Netflix
• Cyber C.H.I.C. - YouTube (but some butthole removed it....lame)

Good Neighbor, Bad Neighbor

• Pete's Dragon - Pete's Dragon
• Artax - The Neverending Story
• Charlotte - Charlotte's Web

About Driven - Movie Information

Sam's Boring Bullshit

I feel like I was just talking about Renny Harlin in a previous episode, however I’m not seeing it in any of my notes. If I did and you remember which episode just This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. with the subject heading: “Sam is an asshole”. Odd that this is our first dance with Harlin when other directorial efforts include; Nightmare on Elm Street 4, The Adventures of Ford Fairlane, Die Hard 2, Cliffhanger, Cuthroat Island, The Long Kiss Goodnight and Deep Blue Sea. That list was chronological and without gap up to this weeks title, Driven. Recently Harlin made The Legend of Hercules which has flirted with number 1 on the bottom 100. This guy is the other coffee shop across town from Paul Thomas Anderson. Renny Harlin is a fake name. His real name is Lauri Mauritz Harjola. He took over Geena Davis when she was all Bloomed out, or all Bloomed in, depending on perspective.

Producer Elie Samaha has won the Razzie in a production capacity for Battlefield Earth, he is also responsible for The Immortals with Eric Roberts, Tia Carrere and William Forsythe. He also helmed Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever and Half Past Dead. Films by Samaha bear the Franchise Pictures tag, it’s the logo with the skyscraper.

The film was also produced by it’s star Sylvester Stallone....who lives here. He’s on the couch right now. When he gets off that couch I have it on good authority that he is going to turn out another stinker. In an interview Stallone named this as one of the short list of films he regrets making. His first draft of this script was 220 pages long.

Is this Reynolds first appearance on Stinker Madness? If it is it isn’t his last. The former football star has done many a poor film through his roller coaster of a carreer.

Gina Gershon is in this film, I will be celebrating this with a secret boner. Oops the secret is out. Gershon is known for her looks but I think she has some chops. She actually started her career in the theater with David Mamet.

Estella Warren makes an appearance. She is the same age as us and she is looking as good as me these days. She started as a synchronized swimmer then moved to modeling and then gave screen performances that landed her on this program. The last six films she has been in do not have Wikipedia pages.

It probably didn’t help that this was made about CART during its demise.

Keep an eye out for the cavalcade of pro driver cameos including Juan Pablo Montoya and Tony Kanaan. Also keep an eye out for Renny Harlin's directorial trademark of putting Finnish flags in all of his movies.

14% Rotten Tomatoes, it returned 54 million against it’s 94 million dollar budget.