James Dean: Race with Destiny (1997)

Purely Joyful Movie!

Just perfect...

I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Hi, Everyone, Pier Angeli's memory is not tarnished by this soap opera cheeseball of a movie. Everyone else seems to be fair game. Mike Connors is good as Jack Warner but it is not a great enough part for him to be offered a spin off series.Casper fails to connect as James Dean. His closest portrayal of the 1950s screen legend is when Casper recreates the public service TV spot James Dean did for safe driving. That is done in black and white with someone who does not look, sound or act at all like Gig Young who was the actor in the announcement with James Dean.Poor, poor casting throughout. The guy who plays Vic Damone is probably more suited for some part in a Hulk Hogan gladiator arena scene than trying to pass himself off as Vic. Vic Damone was a classy singer who happened to fall in love with the same girl James Dean was dating. He was not an ox.Bob Mitchum does a good job trying to play the part of George Stevens. He was about 80 playing a man about 50. They don't have makeup even in Hollywood that can fix that. Good try. Failed. Next.Casey Kasem? Yeah. Get me Casey and Connie Stevens. Let's really try to get some names. Is Weird Al available? Connie and Casey try to do their roles, but they have no meat to chew on. The guy who plays Sal Mineo should team up with the Vic Damone guy and apply for that Hulk Hogan epic. Sal he ain't.The music is so bad it is embarrassing. They try to play songs with words that someone wrote for the scene or the movie. The lyrical content of the songs is clichéd to the utmost. If they wanted words, why not hire Chuck Berry or The Eagles or someone who can write meaningful product. The director should have watched some movies where the music was a part of the film. Movies like A Summer Place, Picnic, Jailhouse Rock, High Noon or the TV series Dragnet.The writing is trite. The scenes are unbelievable.OK... one reasonably good scene is where the accident takes place. I have seen photos of the accident. The car that is used as the Turnipseed car seems accurate. I give the accident scene an 8. It could have been a nine if they had not shown Casper in the car. Even as a corpse he fails to capture James Dean's character.Tom Willett

Unless this script was written based on Pier Angeli's romantic memories; and lack of grasp on who James Dean was. Now this could have been the case that the Angeli family sold her personal letters or something. As best I've read Dean's most serious love was Dizzy Sheridan; he just smarted from being dumped by the Italian beauty queen. The film made it seem like he was suicidal on their breakup; and that was part of why he had the accident that killed him. These are very very, silly inferences!It is criminal to have produced and released this. The film made it seem like Dean was just an precocious teenager with no depth or IQ.

James Dean: Race With Destiny (a.k.a James Dean: Live Fast, Die Young) is a terrible movie that disgraces a screen legend. The production values are painfully low, and coupled with the shoddy acting, the resulting feel is that you're watching a soap opera. And a bad one, at that. Why anyone though Casper Van Dien could play James Dean evades me. He was fine in "Sleepy Hollow," and other films, but this is clearly not a role for him. To make matters worse, his performance is terrible. The film portrays Dean as a rude buffoon. Although I have seen "Rebel Without A Cause," I don't know much about Dean himself, but I've often heard he was actually quite shy. If this is in fact the case, the film severely misrepresents him.The script is also poor, complete with ridiculous stereotypes such as Pier Angeli's mother saying "bonjourno," and "gratzi" every 25 seconds, as though the viewer needs to be reassured that she's Italian. There are also visual blunders. In the opening sequence, Dean is in the middle of a race, and happens to be sporting a modern racing helmet, instead of a 1950s one. Things like that might have been excusable if the overall production was better, but it isn't.Instead of suffering through this terrible affair, check out "James Dean," starring James Franco. That film is great in its own right, but it's downright genius compared to this waste of time.

Just shoot me now and get it over with. From the second this movie started, I hated it. Awwwww. An attempt at a dramatic sihlouette backlit by the sun. AWWWWW. And as the James Dean they chose an Anit-Dean. Van Dien seemed to mimick facial expressions Dean used in his films. STOP ALREADY! Stop imitating his facial expressions, you dope, and get into his philosphy. Become the character, screw the director, screw yourself. All that matters is that character. The worst part about it, they took real events from Dean's life(which you think would make it more authentic) and managed to make them seem like they were written for a tv movie. How pathetic is that. The movie is choppy and stale. There's no emotion, no heart, no soul. And what was up with Van Dien saying 20 ways till sunday, near the end. Fine, so Dean was heard saying 20 ways till sunday now and again. Doesn't mean you're doing character improvisation by repeating it. I would give it less than a one, but it had real events in his life, and that porsche spyder was near identical.