Hard to believe, but I’ve been watching these FAST & FURIOUS movies for more than 20 years now. The first two on video, the rest highly anticipated theatrical events. At first they were these goofy lowbrow trendsploitation movies I got a kick out of, but I had to defend their right to exist from the Ain’t It Cool talkbackers. With FAST FIVE they became a hugely popular action saga that even mainstream critics respected for a couple years. The series definitely peaked during that period, and I don’t expect them to ever get that perfect balance back, but they still have their own delightful brand of preposterous action excess mixed with macho grease monkey soap opera that brings me great joy, and there’s no other movie series past or present that offers anything quite like it. So they’re back to being this dumb thing I enjoy while my Twitter feed is full of posts much like the talkbacks from back in the aughts. Why do they still make these, who are these for, Vin Diesel has an ego. Same old shit as time marches on a quarter mile at a time.
FAST X (which we all seem to have agreed to pronounce the same way we pronounce JASON X) doesn’t have as much to live up to as F9 did two years ago. It’s not my return to theaters after Covid-19 vaccination, and it’s not the series’ best director Justin Lin finally returning to the fold. In fact, it’s his departure – somehow Diesel (allegedly) managed to be such a pain in the ass that Lin quit as director. They’d managed four full movies together, but only a week filming this one. (read the rest of this shit…)
I only paid attention to THE SOLDIER (1982) because I noticed it had a score by Tangerine Dream. (Turns out to be a good one, too, though hard to find as an album.) I should’ve checked it out anyway just because it’s written and directed by James Glickenhaus between THE EXTERMINATOR and THE PROTECTOR. It’s a little more normal and less sleazy than those – it’s a covert ops movie in the mold of THE KILLER ELITE or SWORD OF GIDEON or one of those – but I think I liked it even better.
Ken Wahl (THE DIRTY DOZEN: THE NEXT MISSION, THE GLADIATOR) plays the titular The Soldier. That’s his code name! Seems like there could be some misunderstandings there. He leads an elite counterterrorism unit that operates completely off the books and answers only to the head of the CIA (Ron Harper, BODY COUNT, PEARL HARBOR). And they’re introduced in a pretty funny way. In the first shot, a limo carrying an ambassador is driving through Philadelphia and an old lady – well, a woman wearing an old lady costume – crosses in front of her with a babycart. The driver doesn’t even slow down, just nails the woman and keeps going. A woman with a shopping bag, a construction worker and a businessman all see it happen and come running over, to find the lady dead. Inside the babycart is a doll and an uzi. (read the rest of this shit…)
DESPERADO is my favorite Robert Rodriguez movie. People will always say the scrappy, home-made, subtitled EL MARIACHI is better, and a strong argument could be made for FROM DUSK TILL DAWN, with its Tarantino script and movie-star-making performance by George Clooney. But to me DESPERADO is his purest expression, the full enthusiasm of a young, hungry Hollywood rookie high on spaghetti westerns, John Woo and what his new friend QT was up to, fired into a full-blooded action movie uniquely based in Mexican culture.
The Tarantino influence shows in the talky opening with Steve Buscemi as the Mariachi’s hype man/street team, loudly telling tall tales about him in a bar, and in the scene where Tarantino himself plays a criminal telling a long-winded joke about peeing. But otherwise this has an identity very different from the wave of ’90s crime films, one that’s more visual and musical. He uses lots of slo-mo and dissolve edits working in tandem with a driving Latin rock score by Los Lobos. This is just one example of how the fresh Hollywood hotshot used his newfound resources while insisting on doing it his way. Another is the casting of the leads. (read the rest of this shit…)
First of all, let’s take a moment to pause and reflect on the miracle of the THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS series. It started in 2000, a studio b-movie, a dumb subculture exploiter with hot up-and-coming stars, quite good for a Rob Cohen movie and with a star-making performance by Mr. Vin Diesel, but undeniably corny. I don’t think anybody could predict that 11 years later it would be Universal’s most valued franchise/trademark/anti-intellectualproperty or that a part 5 would be bigger and better than the previous ones. Especially when you consider that Diesel ditched out on part 2 and Paul Walker bailed before part 3 and that even the naming of the movies poses a challenge. You don’t see I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER still coming out with new chapters but they keep doing FASTs and FURIOUSes even after running out of sensible combinations of those words. (read the rest of this shit…)
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Recent commentary and jibber-jabber
Skani on True Lies (30th anniversary revisit): “I think segregation over time has been decreasing modestly, but not a ton (google the article: Metropolitan Segregation: No Breakthrough…” Jul 25, 16:20
Glaive Robber on True Lies (30th anniversary revisit): “I think by talking about the movies of a different era, we’re talking about different people. There were more racially-diverse…” Jul 25, 13:53
emteem on The Client: “Reading this review made me say to a friend: Remember when we used to read John Grisham novels and then…” Jul 25, 13:46
VERN on Huda’s Salon: “Wow, Glaive, I had no idea. Thanks for sharing that link. Really interesting stuff. Also I agree with you, it’s…” Jul 25, 12:38
VERN on Huda’s Salon: “The last part of that angry comment seemed like too much so I checked the ip address, and they seem…” Jul 25, 12:28
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Bert on Huda’s Salon: “1. Vern, I want to echo what others have said, this is an excellent review and I appreciate your takes…” Jul 25, 11:24
Glaive Robber on Huda’s Salon: “Wow, are those NUCLEAR THREATS in a comment section for a film site?? COOL STORY, BRO. Since we’re in here…” Jul 25, 10:52
Skani on True Lies (30th anniversary revisit): “Quite possibly, and my comment may have been only adjacent or tangential and based on my own hobby horses. I’ve…” Jul 25, 10:49
Handsome Dan on Huda’s Salon: “Yeah, Vern, I got to admit,כך has a point. I’m a little tired of you going on and on about…” Jul 25, 09:52
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RBatty024 on Huda’s Salon: “I really can’t tell what is satire and what is real anymore.” Jul 25, 09:32
Kaplan on True Lies (30th anniversary revisit): “I think it’s more of a kneejerk response to say that anything that was created A While Ago must be…” Jul 25, 09:25