This week's League of Extraordinary Bloggers assignment is a gear-head special!
If you haven't been paying attention (or you're new to That Figures (or indeed, the Internet), if so, welcome) the League of Extraordinary Bloggers is a weekly feature organized by Brian at Cool and Collected, where members of the League contribute a themed feature each week, which they then share with other League members. It's a kind of swap meet of the geeky mind.
This week, Brian posed the following question:
Besides the Batmobile, what is the sweetest ride cruising the streets of pop culture?
Even without the Caped Crusader's whip (see, I'm down with ''The Kidz'') there are still some pretty awesome choices out there. The Spinner from Blade Runner... Doc Brown's DeLorien... James Bond's DB5...
But then I got to thinking about great movie car chases and although many would cite the sequence from Bullit as being the greatest ever (and it is pretty great) there's a movie that features an even greater car chase: The Italian Job.
Released in 1969, The Italian Job tells the tale of small-time crook Charlie Croker (played by 60s icon-turned-Alfred, Michael Caine) who ''inherits'' the plans for the ultimate heist. Putting together a band of misfit losers, Croker's plan reaches its climax in a fantastic, thrilling race through the streets of Turin in which a trio of feisty, none-more-mouse-that-roared Mini Coopers are pursued by the Italian police in a sequence that's by turns comedic and brilliantly realized by world-renowned stunt driver Remy Julienne and his team.
(Sadly I couldn't find the sequence in its entirety without including the end of the movie, so I'd advise you stop watching at around the 7:00 minute mark unless you want to see how the movie ends!)
It's a chase so awesome it was even recycled to form the core action sequence in the MacGyver episode ''Thief of Budapest'' - and if that's not enough to win you over, then I present to you a title sequence featuring the the honeyed vocals of Mr Matt Monro.
So what about the rest of the League?
So what about the rest of the League?
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