I have an odd relationship with NASCAR. My family watches it, I really have no interest, they dragged me along to the Atlanta Motor Speedway one time and I did homework. Yet since it happens around me, I get it through osmosis, like when I discovered most people do not try to clean their tires in slow traffic on the interstate or when I watched Cars and knew Lightning McQueen was going to blow up his tires when he only stopped for gas at the pit stop. I don't want to know these things, yet I do. This may seem like an out of the blue selection, but this is the finest film about NASCAR ever, even better than cars. It stars Will Ferrell as the out of control Ricky Bobby as he deals with setbacks following the arrival of French race car driver Jean Girard played by Sacha Baron Cohen. It also features Jane Lynch as his mom in a really great performance. Gary Cole, Michael Clarke Duncan, John C. Reilly, Molly Shannon, Leslie Bibb, Jack McBrayer and Amy Adams round out the cast.
It has the basic sports movie tropes with Ricky Bobby starting out on top of NASCAR. I've got to say Will Ferrell really nails NASCAR driver for some reason, something about his voice or the conviction in it as he says ridiculous things or maybe it's the now famous grace scene.
Or it ciuld be that the man seems to own sports movie. I also like Semi-Pro, right up until the part where the San Antonio Spurs lose. I keep trying to get them to have a Mega Bowl at the AT&T Center, but nobody's going for it. Anyway, Ricky Bobby loses his confidence and everything else and is pretty much about to hit bottom here in my favorite clip.
Ricky Bobby has to make a ridiculous journey back to the top, complete with learning to drive a live cougar, finding a new girl in Amy Adams and racing Jean Girard to the finish line on foot, which is a great scene that Carl Edwards later emulated in the clip below. There's really too much good in this movie to tell you everything. My favorite part of that whole sequence though is the Applebee's commercial in the middle of the wreck between Ricky Bobby and Jean Girard.
Anyway, let me know what you think. Questions, comments, Mega Bowl plans?
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