Red Cars.

Madison.

I can't recall what, exactly, I was looking for when I stumbled across a brief article about David Cronenberg in the Toronto Star. But there it is.

I usually ignore films that are merely "announced", since they're unlikely to ever make it to the screen¹, so I wasn't aware of Painkillers². Should it ever be made, I'd be very interested to check it out. Not crossing my fingers, though. As engaging as his science fiction (and whatever genre Naked Lunch falls into) films are, it no longer appears to be a necessary element for him to be able to make a film, and I'm thrilled that his less fantastical work is gaining more mainstream approval. That way, I stand a reasonable chance of catching it in the theaters. As near as I can tell, it doesn't appear to have softened his edge.

If nothing else, without the buffer of unreal sci-fi elements, the films become even more disturbing.

I'm also fascinated by Cronenberg's book, Red Cars. Though I've never been remotely interested in auto racing, since it seems synonymous with NASCAR. And I can't imagine why anyone would want to sit and watch cars drive around a track all day long. Drag racing? Yes, I can see the excitement. Auto racing on actual roads, with trees and mountains and scenery? Yes, I can see where that'd be neat, like watching a marathon or a bike race. But hours and hours around a track?

Not that I'm a huge fan of brightly-colored corporate sponsorship, either.

And, like ice fishing: if you're just doing it because it's a way to hang out and drink alarming quantities of beer, wouldn't you be more comfortable at home? Or barbecuing in a park? At least, if you're ice fishing, you could conceivably come home with something for dinner.

Red Cars, though, is from back in the day when people had heard of the Mille Miglia³. And it (being a script, in addition to a coffee table book) is also really about the personal conflicts between the racers, the car owners, their lovers, etc. Like Cronenberg's fiction, but deeply rooted in fact. Due to the Ferrari family's opposition, it's unlikely to be made into a film, but at least the book exists.

Too bad there're only a thousand of 'em, and they're (I'm guessing) unbelievably expensive. You need to contact the publisher directly, and I can only assume that means it's well out of my price range. Oh, well.

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Entirely unrelated, but... funniest spam email name yet: Coincides Q. Dizziness.

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¹Exception: Harold Ramis has announced he'll direct a film starring Owen Wilson. There're no guarantees it'll be great, but I have to believe it'll be worth the price of a movie ticket. No idea about any details, but I'm intrigued.

²Cronenberg wrote the script himself. As near as I can determine, it's about a detective pursuing people who get painful surgery for their own perverse pleasure.

³Means "thousand miles". The original race was declared over in 1957, but has been resurrected for antique racing cars buffs. It's a thousand-mile auto race through Italy, a lot like the Tour de France with cars. Cars have to be authentic from 1927-1957, with all original parts. The race itself is broken into several stages, over three days, but the actual record, in the 1955 race, was about ten hours. Stirling Moss, a British racer, drove across Italy for ten hours at an average speed of a hundred miles per hour. Now that's auto racing.