I constantly have to defend this film...
It is so easy for us now to look at it through 2011 glasses, but at the time, it was awesome.
I saw the/ or a premier in Boulder during the Coors Classic. The audience was 95% cyclists. When Rae Dawn Chong changed Kevin Costner's wheel in that race, everyone in the crowd jumped to their feet and cheered! She kicked ass!
Considering it was a pop film, and was made to try (!?) to appeal to a broad audience, I think it "wasn't too bad" at all. Sure it is easy to nit pick many details, but despite Hollywood's inclination to schlock up everything, to me it is cool that they made it at all and got so many things right at all. So cool that they used Bill Woodul to ride the rollers in that scene, so cool to spot Brian Searchinger as a Russian. Etc., etc.
So cool to have it and Breaking Away as part of our cycling heritage.
It's a glass half full to me!!!
Dale Brown cycles de ORO, Inc. 1410 Mill Street #100 Greensboro, North Carolina 27408 USA 336-274-5959 http://www.cyclesdeoro.com http://www.classicrendezvous.com
-----Original Message----- From: Jim Merz <jameshmerz@gmail.com> To: Phil Brown <philcycles@sbcglobal.net> Cc: Dale Brown <classicrendezvous@bikelist.org> Sent: Tue, Jan 11, 2011 12:21 pm Subject: Re: [CR] Paging Jim Metz about American Flyers
Oh, I forgot to mention that there is an interesting Facebook page that is for Bill. It's kind of hard to find, but try this:
Bill Woodul Fan Club
And if any of you have photos or stories about the great Woodul be sure to share them.
Jim Merz Big Sur CA
On Tue, Jan 11, 2011 at 9:18 AM, Jim Merz <jameshmerz@gmail.com> wrote:
> Well I don't have that much to say, other than it's a pretty bad film. Bill
> Woodul of Campagnolo Support fame was ready to move on and I got him a job
> with Specialized Bicycle. So he did basically the same thing for us,
> technical support for all the big road races in the USA. Somehow he found
> out that a Hollywood movie was going to be made, loosely based on the Coors
> Classic. So he was right in the middle of this and got the movie people to
> use Specialized bikes for the good guy team. Kevin Costner rode on this team
> in the movie. I did not go down for the filming, but Bill was on hand for
> the whole thing. He is in the film on rollers if I remember. The premiere
> was in San Francisco, Bill got me in to see this. So I got to meet the
> director, and actors. My ex-wife could not even talk when we met Kevin
> Costner, I thought that was pretty funny.
>
> By the way, my last name is with a "r", not "t".
>
> Jim Merz
> Big Sur CA
>
>
> On Tue, Jan 11, 2011 at 7:26 AM, Phil Brown <philcycles@sbcglobal.net>wrote:
>
>>
>> Watching a bit of it this morning and just wondering what you have to tell
>> us, if anything, about it.
>> Phil Brown
>> Cold-by our Left Coast standards-in Oakland, Calif.