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[verygooster]

I rank the ‘Fast & Furious’ franchise because I just watched the eighth (EIGHTH!) one.

I recently watched Fate of the Furious, which I liked but also actually took a few issues with -- and look, don’t feed me the nonsense about checking my brain at the door. Yes, this is a fun, action-packed franchise but that we expect at least some competence in our action-driven narratives is the difference between Marvel/John Wick/Fast & Furious-tier action movies, and Transformers/Anything Asylum has ever done.

For a side character, I never liked how this franchise treated Elena (played by Elsa Pataky), the Brazilian cop character who debuted in Fast Five and sort of hung around in Fast & Furious 6 and Furious 7. To say she plays a pivotal role in Fate of the Furious feels like a stretch, because said pivotal role is, for all intents and purposes, the “woman in the fridge” role to give Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) some personal stakes since Brian (the late Paul Walker) and Mia (Jordana Brewster) are retired, and his plot thread with Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) wrapped up in Furious 7. She was basically a “seat-filler” for Dom until he and Letty could overcome their obstacles and then is Hobbs’ (Dwayne Johnson) sidekick for a brief two minutes before she takes the stage here and everything plays out like it does.

I’m also curious how the franchise handles the whole “Hey the family is cool with the Shaw boys” thing moving forward--and you know Universal has had meetings about a Shaw brothers spin-off film.

Anyway the rest of the movie was as ridiculous as one would expect and it was mostly fun. And with that, I’m going to rank the series from worst to best because why not:

2 Fast 2 Furious (2003)

2 Fast 2 Furious is absolutely the lowest point of the franchise, but still watchable as a “hangover movie” (thanks, We Hate Movies!). It’s not as interesting as what the rest of the franchise puts forward, but I think its biggest crime in hindsight is that it follows up on the wrong character. Although the dynamic between Paul Walker and Vin Diesel became a big part of the series’ appeal, when The Fast and the Furious came out, it was very much a Vin Diesel vehicle/break-out moment for him, and the way that film ends very much opens up an opportunity to follow up on Dominic Toretto in a second film. Without doing any searching and going off my memory, and through no fault of the film, I believe Diesel felt he could use that first movie to launch his career outside of it, which he sort of did, and thus did not come back for part two. As for the movie itself, it introduces Tej (Chris “Ludacris” Bridges) and Roman (Tyrese Gibson), but the villain is somehow a LAME Miami drug kingpin (Cole Hauser) and so much of the movie retreads part one too much to stand out.

Fast & Furious (2009)

When the Giant Beast crew recorded commentaries for every film up to Furious 7, that meant I would have to revisit the fourth one that laid the foundations of what the series would reinvent itself into. I remember really disliking Fast & Furious when I first saw it, and revisiting it, I feel like it has the same problems I had with 2 Fast 2 Furious: outside of the racing, this is a generic “agent is after drug kingpin” movie, but it does reunite Brian, Dom, Mia, and Letty (who is central to the plot) and that’s about where it succeeds, along with introducing us to Gisele (Gal Gadot), which is a plus. We actually also meet Rico and Tego, played by Puerto Rican superstars Don Omar and Tego Calderon, who are like the comic sidekicks of the franchise, but help Dom and the crew out in Fast Five and Fate of the Furious. It is more watchable than 2 Fast 2 Furious.

The Fate of the Furious (2017)

Brian and Mia are happily settled and not fasting or furious-ing, and it seemed like Dom and Letty were happy just livin’ it up in Cuba until Cipher came knocking at their door. I honestly think Charlize Theron is GREAT as the film’s villain although the writer is all over the place with her and tries too much to make her Bane. The movie outdoes Furious 7′s insane setpieces with the New York and Russia sequences (I think I had to change brains during the whole third act) almost to a fault -- the movies try to outdo themselves each time, which in terms of blockbuster filmmaking is understandable, but there’s a point where you have to know when to rein it in a bit too. In fact, my favorite sequence is the prison break scene, which involves zero cars. While I appreciate the movie treating me with respect and gets the why of “Dom goes rogue” very quickly out of the way, I just can’t get behind how the movie treats Elena, Roman and Tej fighting for Ramsey like cartoon characters, and how it arguably muddles the impact of Han’s death with how they handle the Shaw brothers (though they are in some fun scenes). Great Helen Mirren cameo!

Fast & Furious 6 (2013)

Fast & Furious 6 is a perfectly fine, if not really good action movie and builds on the reinvention of Fast Five. The crew is somewhere past being a heist crew but under the level of superheroes they become by Furious 7. Luke Evans as Owen Shaw is fun because you always want to love to hate a sneering English/British/Welsh antagonist and this is about when the series’ villains become really, mysteriously well-financed supervillains. I liked how they were always one step ahead of Dom and the crew. There are some great emotional beats here, especially between Han (Sung Kang) and Gisele. Gina Carano is having fun in it, and this film, before Fate of the Furious, had the most ridiculous, but still enjoyable, climactic setpiece in this franchise.

The Fast & The Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006)

The third installment in the franchise is director Justin Lin’s first stab at it, and he would helm that ship for three more movies. Tokyo Drift also seems among the most divisive. It might feature the best soundtrack of the franchise, first of all. Secondly, this is still in the era when the street racing wasn’t an anomaly and still played a major role in the plot. I’m actually not sure what makes it so divisive outside of it just not really following up on either Brian or Dom, though I suppose if you squint hard you’ll be surprised this wasn’t direct-to-DVD. On its own, it’s a pretty fun look (and exaggeration?) at Japanese street racing culture with a fun yakuza plot and “gaijin-out-of-water” stuff thrown in. Even the philosophy of the racing is different, less about the finish line and more about the art of drifting. It’s hysterical how much this movie puts drifting on a pedestal as someone who’s watched so much Initial D. Sean (Lucas Black) is an okay character (and we actually see him again in Furious 7 in one awkward scene), but more importantly this is the film that introduced series favorite Han, who is incredibly chill about everything. The dynamic of the two characters isn’t as strong as Brian and Dom, but considering we follow Han to two more sequels in cinema’s most insane timeline ret-con, that’s perfectly fine. Oh, and Sonny Chiba is in it!

Furious 7 (2015)

Furious 7’s rank on the list feels like a bit of a cheat. That isn’t to say it’s an underwhelming movie. Outside of Tokyo Drift and The Fast and the Furious, Furious 7 may be the one I’ve seen the most. The elephant in the room that is Paul Walker’s untimely passing surrounds this movie, and it’s actually exceptional how director James Wan and co. handle it. The second the first few keys of “See You Again” start, I can’t help but feel a lump in my throat and get a bit misty-eyed. Furious 7’s issues really mostly lie in how bloated it is and how much it wants to top itself each and every turn. But the dynamic between the cast is my favorite in the bunch, and the action scenes themselves may be my favorite in the franchise, and then there’s just that ending. This is also the film we meet Ramsey, who joins the crew and comes back for Fate of the Furious.

The Fast and the Furious (2001)

Once upon a time, this series was based on a Vibe article about street racing in New York. Although the first installment boils down to a rehash of Point Break set in East Los Angeles, I’m so damned fascinated by the first movie as a time capsule. It came out the summer of 2001 (I remember the trailers blasting Limp Bizkit’s “My Way” with clips of the truck hijacking) and damn if it isn’t the most 2001 (pre-9/11), late ‘90s holdover movie I’ve ever seen. We have raves, frosted hair tips, Ja Rule, the works! In terms of actual strengths, I find this movie the most tightly packed of the bunch, fairly simple, and low stakes in a way I appreciate though it’s not like they planned on them taking on a Russian nuclear submarine then. It’s pretty perfectly paced. In spite of not being a direct antagonist to Brian (who is at this point infiltrating Dom’s crew), Johnny Tran remains one of my favorite characters in this franchise in the short time we get to know him. The first film also has my favorite collection of vehicles in the franchise and I’m a sucker for how the movie ends: Brian hands Dom the keys to his Toyota Supra to make his getaway, Brian walks slowly, and the synth to Ja Rule’s theme song for the film starts. It’s badass in the most 2001 way.

Fast Five (2011)

Fast Five is often a lot of people’s favorite entry of the franchise and for me it’s not hard to understand why. You couldn’t really gauge the fate of the franchise after Tokyo Drift. I mean, I didn’t even catch that movie in theaters and it wasn’t like I was itching for more Fast & Furious when the fourth movie released. Fast & Furious sort of reboots things reuniting the three core characters and laying the groundwork for the series’ future. Fast Five doesn’t just build off the fourth film, it skyrockets into something on its own and achieves that perfect blockbuster formula where we’re not taking it seriously but the movie completely respects you for that. I feel like a lot of the film’s success is owed to Han’s return, and bringing these characters together (and introduces  with an astoundingly impressive dynamic, and who doesn’t love a heist? A heist in Brazil, no less! (something something “The Brazillian Job”) We get to watch the plans in motion, the tests, and the execution for probably the most popular third act in the franchise since part one.

It also hits the ground running in an incredible sequence involving a bus and a train. Just like the first film, it’s also near perfectly paced and isn’t bloated like its sequels. Joaquim de Almeida is the villain Reyes in this one, and while Reyes doesn’t feel like a major threat to our heroes, it’s fun watching the crew rip his empire down. In fact, the real antagonist to Dom and the crew is probably the second reason the movie succeeds and became what it is now: Luke Hobbs as played by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, coming in on a helicopter to rescue your franchise! If not for Furious 7, Fast Five would take the crown for best finale of the series in which you can’t help but smile along with Dom and the crew as they successfully steal Reyes’ safe and play both him AND Hobbs while “Danza Kuduro” plays.

DAMN. I’ve seen EIGHT of these now! Here’s to The Fine and the Furious, or The Fast Nine, or Furious 9, or whatever!

[verygooster]

Audience: (laughs)

I asked myself a random question the other night:

Do I still like sitcoms?

A forum I frequent asked people to list together their favorite television programs of the last year. If you watch television series on cable, or a streaming service, or on physical media, you’ve probably heard or read countless times about the era and culture of television in which we’ve immersed ourselves. Television can still very much be a cultural event, but we have also found shows that speak to us personally -- something we can take for our own.

If you happen to see the list I’ve linked above, you won’t find a single situational comedy on that list. One might infer I’m not a sitcom guy, that I’m above them, or they were all just not up there in quality. I see people write and tweet about shows like Brooklyn 99, Fresh Off the Boat (whose one or two episodes I accidentally caught, I enjoyed), The Last Man on Earth. I think a lot of my lack of sitcom consumption comes from what I do with my time when network sitcoms air: play games, watch sports, goof off online. A lot of sitcoms I take a vague interest in are locked behind Hulu Plus and don’t end up on Netflix until much later.

I thought about the last few sitcoms I engaged with: I fell off New Girl after midway into its third season and I couldn’t tell you why. I just simply stopped watching. I liked that show in its first two seasons. I spent two weeks with Tina Fey’s The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt. I did enjoy that show’s first season, since it shared a similar tone with 30 Rock, which will be one of my favorite sitcoms for all time. Kimmy Schmidt has a great cast (rooted for Tituss Burgess for the Supporting Actor Emmy) but it didn’t leave a long-lasting impression. That’s not a fair conclusion to draw though since it is only one season in and a second season could be better.

I found myself ‘binging’ on two sitcoms the last two years: Frasier and How I Met Your Mother. Frasier is a whole other discussion, but for whatever reason I sat through nine seasons of HIMYM, well knowing how it all ends (terribly). Up until later seasons I was into it enough because it offered the same safe kind of tone and themes that Friends kept warm for most of the nineties right down to the ridiculously homogenous version of New York City.

Then there was The Office.

The Office (the US adaptation) was ‘my’ show for the better part of a decade, where I immersed myself with the characters and invested so much emotion. It didn’t have as much to do with Steve Carell, who broke out with the show’s second season and the success of The 40-Year-Old Virgin, as how much I ate up the Jim and Pam arc up until they were engaged, married, and punched out two kids. I don’t know that I want to go into what went wrong with that show especially after Carell’s departure, but I can at least admit I hold a huge nostalgia for the show, representative of better years in my life. I wonder if the show has impacted my current (lack of) sitcom intake, especially when hey, there are still some good, innovative ones out there apparently!

[verygooster]

Macy Gray’s Spider-Man!

I was unfortunate to find myself in a Walmart yesterday, but I like searching through their bins of Bluray discs to see what hidden gems can be had for $5-7. I came away (without realizing it) with two Sam Raimi films: Army of Darkness, and Spider-Man! I had parts two and three already on-hand (Shut up! Part three came packaged with my now deceased PlayStation 3, okay!), and thus the “Raimi trilogy” is complete.

I think the first movie appeared on Netflix a year or two ago, and that might have been the last time I’d seen it. I felt like I hadn’t seen it in about a decade, and in this blockbuster age of “cinematic universes,” it felt kind of nice remembering when just this one movie was a major event -- 2002 was a pretty insane blockbuster year: Spider-Man, Star Wars: Attack of the Clones, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, goodness.

I was pleasantly surprised to find I still quite enjoy Raimi’s first Spider-Man. I was really impressed with the casting of the main characters, though I still can’t get onboard with Kirsten Dunst as Mary Jane Watson. Dunst isn’t terrible in the movie, but I never felt she captured that character (though maybe she was playing off Ultimate Spider-Man? I never read that). Willem Dafoe is too good as Norman Osborn/Green Goblin that even that goofy Power Ranger suit doesn’t bug me. The famous “mirror” scene pretty much showcases Dafoe nailing that character. He and James Franco ‘feel’ right as father and son.

I especially loved the late Cliff Robertson as Uncle Ben alongside Rosemary Harris as Aunt May. They aren’t onscreen for more than a few minutes but are just in sync and come off lovable. Maguire and Robertson nail the emotional beats during Ben’s death scene which makes the ‘origin’ setup on the movie so impactful. I won’t try and break down Tobey Maguire as Peter Parker and Spider-Man too much. The movie is at its best for me when it’s about Peter Parker, really. He captures that character’s essence well enough as a social outcast, to goofy places sometimes (why is the school bus driver so happy to let him keep running after the thing??) but nothing too jarring. When the movie is about Spider-Man, I don’t know, it’s just not as ‘there’ for me. 

I wasn’t big on some of its action sequences (well, I guess the World Unity Festival scene in which the movie stops dead in its tracks to let Macy Gray sing which... okay then!). The actual final fight with the Green Goblin is pretty gritty and I enjoyed it, but wish it was a bit longer, but we had to make room for a “It’s just after 9/11 and New Yorkers got to unite!” moment, which I get in context. New York felt like 10 years passed between 9/11 and 9/12 and that’s where we were then.

That’s as much as I have to say about that first Spider-Man, and now that I’ve seen it I absolutely have to watch Spider-Man 2.

[verygooster]

SPECTRE

That Sam Smith song is unbearable, my God.

I’m trying to reconcile if SPECTRE might end up being Daniel Craig’s worst Bond film. I certainly didn’t find it terrible, but I can’t help but think of the lost potential since Casino Royale kind of reinvigorated this franchise almost a decade ago now. My understanding is Craig has fulfilled his contract with SPECTRE and has an option for a fifth now. I wonder if he does it outside of an enormous payday.

I think about how much Casino Royale stands out by going back to the basics and attempting to explore Bond as a character rather than solely a power fantasy. It worked fantastically and is arguably the best film in the series. Quantum of Solace is serviceable as an action movie, no more, no less. It wanted to continue the trend of deviating from tropes while trying to make use of the looming evil organization that never really came to fruition. Skyfall felt like another reinvention of sorts, making use of certain Bond tropes for this decade. Its mistake to me was giving Bond some kind of lore, making it too personal. 

SPECTRE continues this to larger levels, and it just didn’t work that well for me. I always looked forward to Bond having another film without any past baggage behind it, so Blofeld being the “author of all your pain” feels disappointing and half-assed. I just don’t think we needed to close a gap that wasn’t there. I also wasn’t a fan of the “Field agents is old and busted and technology is the new hotness” narrative they continues from Skyfall though it served a purpose in SPECTRE, at least. Other than that, I mean, SPECTRE had some good action sequences, but somehow it feels the most by-the-numbers of the Craig era. Craig’s worst is still pretty far ahead of the worst Bond movies regardless. I can’t but wonder though if I’m looking for something different now from these movies. For a movie that clocks in at two and a half hours (and what the hell WHY) it just doesn’t seem like a lot happens. The Mexico sequence was probably my favorite in the entire film and that was the opening sequence.

The movie’s biggest offender to me though is how it managed to triple the amount of eye winks and callbacks than Skyfall. M and the secret bad guy recreating the Casino Royale opening was one thing, but the “You’ve got three minutes before thing explodes!” callback was just pushing it. That’s just two of about 900 references that only dumb nerds like me will recognize.

Also how did anybody think calling James Bond a “good man” is in any way a think anyone would take seriously?? I just watched this dude perform an assisted suicide, wreck several buildings, kill people, blow up a cat(!), and creep on Monica Bellucci for eight hours!

2 double-ohs out of 5