F1 And What's Making Us Happy
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This message comes from NPR sponsor, the official Gilded Age podcast from HBO. Unpack each episode and hear from the people who bring 19th century New York to life. Listen to the official Gilded Age podcast wherever you get podcasts. If you like cars that go fast, you'll be glad to know they go very, very fast in the new film, F1.

It stars Brad Pitt as a veteran driver and Damson Idris as the young hotshot who doesn't want the mentoring of a new old guy telling him what to do. But there are nine races left in the season, and if they don't win one, the whole team could, as they say, crash and burn. I'm Linda Holmes, and today we're talking about F1, the movie on Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR. ♪

Joining me today is Ronald Young Jr. He's the host of the film and television review podcast, Leaving the Theater. Hello, Ronald. Welcome back. Hi, Linda. Glad to be here. Also with us is Maria Sherman. She's a culture writer and music reporter at the Associated Press, and she's reported on Formula One for the AP and The Cut. Hey, Maria. So glad you're here. Thanks for having me. Vroom, vroom. Vroom, vroom. And rounding out

the panel is writer Chris Klimek. Hey, Chris, always good to have you. Hey, Linda, we need to build this podcast for combat. Yes, good. Excellent. I knew you would have something. So F1 reunites director Joseph Kaczynski and screenwriter Aaron Kruger. The two worked together on Top Gun Maverick. Brad Pitt plays Sonny Hayes, who had a promising career as a Formula One driver years ago and then had a terrible accident. So

Since then, he's been driving whatever he can get his hands on with a lower profile than he once had. But he gets a visit from his old friend Ruben, a former driver played by Javier Bardem. Ruben is now a rich Formula One team owner, but his team isn't doing well. If they don't manage to win a race in the final nine races of the season, his investors could force the sale of the team.

So Sonny comes back to Formula One, where Ruben's other driver is Joshua Pierce, played by Damson Idris. Joshua is your basic hotshot kid who's very talented, but a little too cocky.

When was the last time you won a race? Sunday, Daytona. Oh, I'm sorry. I meant Formula One. Oh, I'm sorry. Then same as you. Sonny also wants the car itself redesigned, which gets him working with Kate, played by Carrie Condon, the team's technical director. But Sonny's

Pitt and Idris both did a lot of their own driving, and Formula One driver Lewis Hamilton is on board as a producer. The film was made in close cooperation with Formula One and shot on real race weekends, so there certainly is a lot of footage of cars going really, really fast. F1 the movie is in theaters now. Ronald, tell me how you felt about F1 the movie. I liked it.

I went in, I sat down, I wanted to see a blockbuster hit about race cars that wasn't necessarily stunts and defying gravity and doing things that may absolutely no sense. I'm looking at you, Vin Diesel, in the Fast and Furious franchise. I feel like I sat down, I saw a movie about race cars, and it gave me exactly what I sat down for. And I'm a sucker for the old man gets his mojo back by going through young hotshot and bonding experience thing.

I was sucking for those movies, which is very much what Top Gun Maverick was as well. I mean, I don't mean to sound like a boomer when I say this, but they just don't make them like that anymore. I don't know. I liked it. All right. That is absolutely fair. Maria, as we said, you have reported on Formula One. You probably come in with the most Formula One knowledge of anybody on this panel. Tell me how you felt about the movie. Right.

My feelings directly mirror the experience of being a Formula One fan, which is that I'm incredibly conflicted. As an F1 fan, I had some trouble with the film. I mean, recognizing, of course, that it's not a documentary or a docuseries. But just like from an enthusiast's perspective, you know, I also love punk rock and the CBGB's movie was painful to watch. There's some element of that, of course.

But as a film itself, I think I do agree with Ronald. I mean, it was certainly a big blockbuster. I think it's distinctly a blockbuster for American audiences. I've seen a lot of favorable reviews from U.S. audiences. And then, of course, I checked the U.K. and they're like, this is a Brad Pitt vanity project and it's cheesy and cliche. And I agree with all of that. So that's where the conflict, I think, comes in. A cool movie that includes Formula One is sort of how I feel about it.

Chris, how about you? How'd you like it? It may be benefiting in my eyes from the tyranny of low expectations because I have no knowledge of or attachment to F1, but I really enjoyed it. Same, Chris. Yeah, you know, I'm inviting PCHH Nation to picture the air quotes that I'm making as I call it just a slick piece of puffed air that I enjoyed making.

very much. You know, as someone who's not really a sports person, but I do love a sports movie, and my favorite sports movie is Bull Durham. And this is kind of the same, right? Where it's the old dog who's brought in to mature the young dog. Oh, she doesn't like that. No, I'm not. Look, I'm not saying it's as well-written or as well-acted as Bull Durham. You picked the wrong comparison for Linda Holmes. It is a far lesser film, but I'm saying it is the same kind of film where we're going to take this

old timer come in mature this, this hot young prospect, which is exactly the same dynamic that we have here in F1. And I did do think that the chemistry between Pitt and Damson Idris was

was good. You know, there was no beat in that relationship or in any other aspect of this movie that I didn't see coming as though it was, you know, simply a circular or at least repeating track that you just go around a bunch of times. But I had a good time. I never looked at my watch. I was never unsettled. I was never shifting in my seat. So I think maybe poorly written, but well made. And I liked it. Yeah. You know, Chris and I sat here a while ago and had a conversation about Ferrari and

And I said to Chris, I had a challenge going into this movie because I don't care about cars. And a person in a machine racing is something that has never been particularly compelling to me. And I understand it's compelling to very, very, very many people. That is not to say that I am right and they are wrong. But at the same time, very open to watching cars go fast, which it does, and well-executed racing footage, which it is.

But on the whole, I did not enjoy it. And the reason I didn't enjoy it is the thing that Chris sort of mentioned very quickly at the end there, which is it's just too badly written for me. I felt the same way about Top Gun Maverick, to tell you the truth. I understood the technical accomplishment of the flying, but I so badly wished that anybody had put any effort at all into the writing of the story. I feel like this story could very easily have developed into

Some of these characters somewhat more, you know, they try to create this kind of romantic plot line with Carrie Condon, who, of course, is 20 years younger than Brad Pitt. But whatever, that always happens. I looked it up. So I was thinking about that. To me, that relationship is so lifeless. And it begins with him essentially explaining her job to her or kind of correcting how she does her job, which I dislike. Yes. When you come into a race and you say, OK, we've got nine races left. The first thing your brain thinks is, OK.

They're going to win the last one. And the second thing your brain works, thinks is now I got to sit through eight before that. And, you know, you kind of one happens and you're like, OK, seven left. OK, six left. It is hard to escape the structure that they've put around this, which is really that it is

bunch of races in a row, which to me are shot mostly very similarly. There is one that takes place in the rain that's a little bit different. There are plot elements that come up in them that are a bit different. I didn't feel like they were varied very much. And the last thing I would mention is I did really struggle with the part of me that felt like this was a promotional film for F1, the sort of hand-in-glove relationship between the filmmakers and the product. And

And then, you know, because it's the nature of Formula One and it's only realistic to do this, you are also just looking at a tremendous amount of advertising throughout the movie. You know, you see so much of this Expensify logo and these Geico and you just feel, I felt it feels choking to me. And I know that's realistic. I know that's what it looks like, but I did find it distracting. And so to me, I guess I found this movie fascinating.

competent, but depressing in the sense that I walked out of it and I said, it's going to make a billion dollars. I just don't think it's a good movie. I think the commercialization and commodification is kind of a source of a lot of conflict for me as a Formula One fan. But I think for anyone else, it is extremely expensive to attend these races. I'm sure after the success of this film, it's only going to become even more prohibitively expensive.

You know, Formula One has been around for 75 years. It has been incredibly popular all over the world, particularly in Europe. The reason we have this movie now is because there is the belief that American audiences would spend money on it after the success of Netflix's docuseries Drive to Survive. Right. You know, it is glossy promotion material. I was just going to say, we're...

The United States is kind of playing catch up with this sport, right? Yes. There's been a race in Austin for many years. But after Drive to Survive, they introduced two more races, Miami and then most recently Las Vegas. And there's a lot of Las Vegas in the third act of this film, which is interesting to me as a racing fan because it's sort of notoriously the worst race on the grid.

In a lot of ways, what we're talking about is reminds me of Barbie quite a bit. And for some reason, that was the connection I made, maybe more so than a sports movie narrative in terms of it's a huge summer blockbuster, but also this incredible promotional opportunity. Obviously, that was a much sharper screenplay. I don't know if I need to convince anybody of that here. But if you want to imagine a 63 year old Ken doll.

Brad Pitt is who you come up with, right? Yeah, it's true. The connections find themselves. But I think that's an aspect that I kind of struggled with a little bit. But I also love Formula One. So it's something I'm sort of used to being like, OK, I'm going to look at a Rolex ad for the next two hours. I'm used to that by now. Right, right. My other thing about the partnership with F1 and the way that they made this is

is that I do think it affects how good they can make the script because they're using all the real Formula One drivers. You see some of them in the film. Lewis Hamilton's a producer.

And so they can't really have a nemesis among the drivers that they're trying to beat. They have to be racing for like the survival of the team, but there aren't like people in other cars where it can be like, you got to beat that guy. And to me in a sports movie, I have to have somebody they're trying to beat.

If Cobra Kai and the Karate Kid was like just another perfectly good dojo, the whole movie kind of falls apart to me. And so I was frustrated by the fact that I felt like the need to kind of maintain that all the Formula One drivers are nice meant that you kind of couldn't pull all the levers of a traditional sports movie that make them work for me personally.

That's a great point. I was now that you pointed out, I'm thinking of the fact that the Creed movies, for example, they do have real boxers playing the opponents of Michael B. Jordan much of the time. You know, we see Andre Ward and Tony Ballou and some other ones. And I'm more likely to recognize a boxer than a race car driver. But yeah, like I didn't have any sense of who they were. They were racing against in this film. I think.

One thing about Formula One that people really, you know, that drives them to the sport is that you're racing other teams, but you're also racing your teammates. You know, for as heavy handed and like all the exposition through dialogue and all these sort of cliches and less than innovative aspects of this movie, I think it kind of establishes just the foundation of how Formula One functions pretty quick. I can't believe I'm defending this film that I was mixed about. It's got to go back and forth. No, no, no, no, no, no.

No, this is, I want to hear all this. You know, there are 10 teams. There were two drivers on each team, but that there's a conflict between the teams who's the number one driver and who's the number two. And that's what I think, you know, Pitt and Idris's characters, Sonny and Pierce, were

attempting to establish. And in some ways, I was watching this and I was like, wow, this seems like a $200 million film that also feels like it was shot guerrilla style with them kind of shoehorning in Brad Pitt next to these drivers while they're on the podium or what have you. What are you thinking, Ronald? Well, I feel like for the most...

average person going in and watching this, I don't think they're going to think about most of these things. Like, I feel like I know nothing about F1. I didn't know who the drivers were. Based on how they were shooting cameos, I was like, well, obviously that's somebody, but I don't know who that is. And it didn't really matter. But in terms of like the enemy, I was thinking who was the antagonist. And I felt like for me,

We're always racing against time. And literally in the film and also time was running out for Sonny. But then also there was something unique about like the way Damson was playing this character, Josh Pierce, because Josh Pierce wanted to make a name for himself at some point. Like he wanted to be a good driver.

And for me, I connected with that because there's often so many obstacles between young folks and getting to where they want to go with like old folks are telling you, you can't do this or you're not, you don't have enough experience, all that. And I felt like that's,

those parts of it really made me connect with both of them in front. So I didn't necessarily need an antagonist in the traditional sense of someone they had to join together to be. But the point was that they had to work together to accomplish whatever goal that there was. And I feel like that messaging is something that kind of draws me into a movie to begin with saying like old folks and young folks, we have to do it together or the team will fall apart. It was good enough.

For me. It's not Citizen Kane, obviously. But I mean, like, if I'm in the air conditioning and it's not necessarily a superhero or an explosion, and there were explosions, then I feel like it was good enough in that regard. But I feel like

Every thought that y'all have is completely valid because the more you think about it, the more it begins to unravel. But I don't know if that's necessary to just enjoy the film. I don't want to make it seem like I don't understand the appeal of that or the appeal of the racing footage because I absolutely do. I struggle at times with what kind of movie is sort of allowed to have a completely trite script and still be considered a good movie. Because

Because that does tend to happen with action movies. It doesn't tend to happen with, for example, a romance. And I struggle with those dynamics a little bit. I do want to say I agree with Ronald that I really liked this Damson Idris performance. I thought he was quite good in it. I like his performance a lot better than Brad Pitt, who I think is absolutely sleepwalking through this with one crinkled... It's just, look at my crinkle smile. Yeah.

Ta-da. And he sort of seems to expect to just do that. I don't think there is really any shading to this performance. I think the Idris performance is much more effective. I was really happy to see Sarah Niles as his mother. She played Dr. Sharon on Ted Lasso and is really one of my favorites. I was delighted to see her. It's not a big part, but she tends to bring a certain gravitas to everything she does. And I think it helped flesh out their relationship.

I like that performance much better. I did want to just recognize that I did really like the Idris performance. I think that there are a lot of movies that come out where Hollywood is basically like, here, enjoy your slop. Here it is. Just drink it up. That's how I felt about Deadpool versus Wolverine. And I know I'm in the minority. I think that's fair. Here's a bunch of cameos and all that. We're going to throw it at you. You like Fast 7? Here's Fast 10. Here's Fast 20. We don't care. Like, whatever. Throw that at you. And I feel like this is not necessarily that.

And for me, because I was expecting that, I think that's why I ended up liking this movie more. Because, Linda, I believe you're right that there is a space for some movies to be trite and just thrown in our faces in a way that we don't get like a bunch of romance films unless they're on like Lifetime or the Hallmark.

Hallmark Channel, you know what I mean? But they're not really putting effort into making like... And they don't get nominated for awards the way this is going to. Exactly, exactly. I feel like that's a valid point. And this is a good example of that. It's not that this is not a totally formulaic, cliched, predictable movie, but it's all of those things of an older type. Like it throws back to an era before superheroes. Yes. It's just that it's a prior era's popcorn, I think.

I feel like I excused a lot of what felt cliched because I thought the racing sequences were filmed so sort of wonderfully. I think they were able to capture the physicality of the sport in a way that it's hard to even describe as a fan to people. You sort of say, I love this sport, and they're like, you sit and watch people drive around a track for two hours. What's the thrill in that? But there is obviously a real...

in it. They show it on the track as opposed to, you know, extended sequences of...

Brad Pitt or Jameson Idris using a resistance band for neck strength training. That was cool, though. I liked seeing the neck stuff. I didn't know about that. I like that. All these drivers have big necks and now you know why it's for the G-forces. I was making a lot of excuses, I think, to continue to enjoy the film. But Linda, something you brought up earlier, which is about the technical engineer. Carrie Condon. Carrie Condon. Yeah. I really I was rooting for her. And then there is, of course, she's

She's intimate with Sonny Hayes, Brad Pitt's character, as we all saw the writing on the wall. And I found that to be a bit frustrating because, one, she's playing a fictional woman. There are no women in that position. There are very few women in Formula One in general. There are no drivers on the grid that are women, as you can see in this movie. There are a few women engineers. And it just really rubbed me the wrong way in the same way that I hate seeing a movie about a woman journalist who immediately sleeps with her subject.

Uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh. It was that kind of. And then the woman on the pit crew is the one who makes a mistake and has to get over making a mistake. Yeah, I didn't like that. I did not like that at all. Why was she even there? It was just like to show her being competent. That was really, I didn't understand her inclusion at all.

At any rate, I think that it is absolutely fair to say it is a good racing movie. And then whether it's a good movie depends a lot on what kind of analysis you bring to it. We want to know what you think about F1, the movie. Find us on Facebook at facebook.com slash PCHH and on Letterboxd at letterboxd.com slash NPR Pop Culture. We'll have a link in our episode description. Up next, what is making us happy this week?

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Ronald Young Jr., what's making you happy this week? Recently, I am obsessed with Love Island USA. Oh. Peacock, I cannot get enough of this show. It comes on every single day except Wednesdays. So for those who don't know what Love Island is,

is. You take a bunch of conventionally attractive 20-something-year-olds, you put them in a house in Fiji, and essentially they're made to canoodle with one another until they become couples, and then eventually America votes for one of them to be the best couple, and they win $100,000. Which, that doesn't matter. Who cares about the money? Any of that stuff. What matters is every single day, Ronald Young Jr. at 9pm watches an episode of Love Island that promptly gets on threads and talks about

all of my feelings with all of my friends who are watching all the same people in this house fail at love over and over and over again. I love this show. That's what these shows are for. Yes. If you don't watch it, I envy you for having so much of it to watch right now when I have to wait every day. But I honestly, it's a better show than most people think. Love Island USA on Peacock. I'm telling y'all treat yourself. Thanks.

Thank you very much, Ronald Young Jr. Love Island. Maria Sherman, what is making you happy this week? You know, I can't believe we didn't talk about the sound of F1 because it's both the movie and the sport is musical. You know, we talk about engines using RPMs like we do records. And I'm a music critic, so I'm going to talk about a song. I

I have been loving the North Carolina alt-country indie rock band Wednesday and their new song, Elderberry Wine. Actually, they have a song called Formula One. Now that I think about it, I probably should have selected that one, but I digress. There are these really gorgeous harmonies that we'll hear, but it's really just a gorgeous song. If you're a sucker for elapsed, you'll like some of us. You'll enjoy this one. ♪

It's great that there's a good band to love. I miss bands. Doesn't everybody miss bands? Absolutely. Like it. Thank you very much, Maria. That is the Wednesday song, Elderberry Wine. All right, Chris Klimek, what is making you happy this week, my friend? Well, we're talking about a very recent attempt to make a movie that appeals to everyone. And despite our varied feelings about it, we all seem agreed that it's likely to succeed, at least commercially. And we're talking about a very recent attempt to make a movie that appeals to everyone.

And I'm being made happy by a film from a generation ago that famously did not. Last Action Hero, the notorious bomb from the summer of 1993, released one week after Jurassic Park. This is an attempt to make a four quadrant blockbuster that just went awry in every possible way. The confusion about who the audience for this movie is, whether it's a kid's movie, whether it's another bloodbath action movie of the type it thinks it's satirizing.

With the distance of time and with the disappearance of these like kind of big budget misfires that are accidentally quite interesting. So I missed a lot of the cameos in F1, but I invite anyone who goes and seeks out Last Action Hero, you know, keep your eyes peeled for Tina Turner. Yeah.

And MC Hammer. Sharon Stone. And a lot of people. So seek out Last Action Hero and check it out because it's better than you think. Thank you very much, Chris Klimek, for that.

As I have acknowledged, cars are not my sport. My sport is baseball. And what is making me happy this week is something that happened on Friday night, June 20th. So the bases were loaded and Brayson Stott, the Phillies' second baseman, was at bat. He hit the ball. It went a long distance.

But the guy who had been on second, Nick Castellanos, waited to see if the ball was going to be caught. But JT Real Muto, the Phillies veteran catcher, does not think it's going to be caught. So he takes off from first immediately. Around second base, JT Real Muto catches up to Nick Castellanos, who is on second base. So they continue running from second to third, essentially together.

And they have to stay in the correct order because if Real Muto passes Castellanos, that's an out. You can't do that. One guy cannot pass another guy in the bases. The catcher tries to tag them out. They both reach down at essentially the same moment with their hands. Boom, boom. One scores, another one scores. This is one of the funniest and most unusual things you will ever see in a baseball game, despite the fact...

that it exists, roughly, in both the movie Major League and the movie Rookie of the Year.

So look up Castellanos, Real Muto scoring at the same time. It's balletic. I absolutely recommend you look it up. The crowd goes crazy. Couldn't have happened in a better park. It's going to make me happy for the next month. If you want links for what we recommended, plus some more recommendations, sign up for our newsletter at npr.org slash pop culture newsletter. That brings us to the end of our show. Maria Sherman, Ronald Young Jr., Chris Klimek. Thank you so much for being here to talk about the Vroom Vroom movie.

Thanks for having me. Thank you, Linda. Thank you. This episode is produced by Liz Metzger, Hafsah Fathima, and Mike Kasif, and edited by our showrunner, Jessica Reedy. And Hello, Come In provides our theme music. Thanks for listening to Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR. I'm Linda Holmes, and we'll see you all next week.

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