14 DAY TRIAL // Drive, directed by Nicolas Winding Refn and starring Ryan Gosling and Carey Mulligan, might be the best movie that I have seen this year and one of the most well directed, acted and constructed that I have watched in my life (and I must confess I average about 5 movies during one weekend when I have nothing else to do).
Drive manages to be minimalist, beautifully shot and has very good performances from the cast and it might just be the perfect template for future video game projects that combine racing and out of the car action.
I could not watch Drive thinking a little about Need for Speed: The Run, the upcoming project from Black Box and Electronic Arts, a game that mixes the traditional car contests of the series with some out of the car section, driven mostly by QTEs (apparently about 10 percent of the game's content).
Drive is, in many ways, that video game but with an extra dollop of angst, minimalism and references to the '80's, all elements of the movie space that video games have not and might never try to replicate.
From blockbusters video games, like the Call of Duty series or Uncharted, managed to learn how to create so called cinematic moments, those filled with big action, big explosions and huge twists, but there's much more to movies that bombast and over the top action.
Movies can also learn a lot from video games, like how to create experiences that are more closely connected with the user and which maybe stay with him after leaving the theater.
But it seems to me that both arts are so preoccupied with looking inward rather than outward for real inspiration that Need for Speed will continue being bombastic and over the top while the next racing movie might become even more remote and minimalistic.