10 posts tagged “six thumbs”
Clearly any discriminating fan of cinema knows of the heartrending perfection that is The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift. Quite possibly the best film ever made, some have called The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift the new Citizen Kane. However, I feel certain that it is more accurate to say that Citizen Kane is the old The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift.
In a startling break from previous films in the The Fast and The Furious franchise, The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift revolves around the world of illegal street racing -- in Japan!
Our hero engages in a totally awesome illegal street race against the snotty rich kids -- clearly a metaphor for the American dream of working hard and overcoming adversity in order to show climb the economic ladder -- and gets in trouble. Thankfully, our hero has a father in Japan. Luckily, his father is in Tokyo because otherwise the title of the film would make little sense.
Now I have been to Tokyo and let me tell you that this film is quite possibly the most accurate depiction of life in Tokyo since the original Godzilla film. Despite the fact that my Japanese language skills were nearly nonexistent I was not only challenged to an illegal street race within minutes of deboarding the airplane but was also able to procure a car and a woman to serve as an accessory for said car in my first twenty-four hours. Now one would think that the language barrier would be quite a difficulty, especially for our hero who is sent to a public school in Tokyo where all of the teaching is in Japanese but clearly, as The Fast and The Furious: Tokyo Drift shows us that is no more an obstacle to procuring a car for an illegal street race and a woman to serve as an accessory for said car than is jet lag from flying around the world.
No. Being in Tokyo is adrenaline-pumping explosive action!" Especially if you have a plucky African-American friend with a seemingly insulting name of "Twinkie" and stereotypical personality traits of being girl crazy and being the guy who can get anything and sell it. The reason for all of this? With the exception of the teachers in the school everyone speaks English all the time. Even amongst their fellow Japanese. However, one should be careful because, as this film shows, it is a well known fact that the reason why the explosive action is so adrenaline-pumping is that fully 99% of all Japanese are heavily involved in the Yakuza. However, being a white American I, like the hero of The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, was able to defeat them by honing my illegal street racing skills through the use of numerous adrenalin-pumping and yet humorous training montages which depict me improving a little bit at a time.
six thumbs up
with adrenaline
pumping explosive action
you must see this film
There are also people on there saying that the fact that one of the plot points of Walk Hard is that Dewey kills his brother in a machete fight is in bad taste because Johnny Cash's brother died in some saw accident. WTF? You can't make a joke based one the death of someone who died 60 years ago??? I mean that would be like making a comedy series about being in a WWII German prisoner of war camp less than a decade after WWII ended or something. Johnny Cash had a lot of great songs but he wasn't a saint.
Anyway... this film is full of the high-larity. Some of my favorite parts were whenever they would jump ahead a few years someone would say something like, "I can't help but feel that this is the end of one chapter and the beginning of another" or "I get the feeling that this will be the start of a dark period in my life." I also liked how whenever someone was playing the part of a famous person they would keep saying the name of the person as in which Frankie Muniz kept saying, "I, Buddy Holly, think..."
Did I mention Jenna Fischer was in it? I read that she is now attached to David Spade. I'm really torn about that. Spade plays a jerk so well it is hard not to think that he is one. However, the Showbiz Show is really better than it has any right to be. Plus there's the fact that I'm not David Spade and so Jenna Fischer isn't dating me. I mean we all thought she would, right? Right? I'm not a stalker or anything. Seriously. (I might just have too much time on my hands during the semester break...)
six thumbs up
If you disagree
you are obviously wrong
unless I am wrong..
This is a really interesting film and it is a shame that it isn't available on DVD. However, because of some of the dated nature of the race relations in it I can understand why they might hesitate to reissue it.
Harry Belafonte stars as a miner (who isn't a minor) who gets trapped down in a cave in. He can hear people digging him out but after a few days they quit. Desperate after having been trapped for so long he manages to dig himself out. When he gets to the surface he finds that everyone has disappeared.
Eventually he finds a newspaper that says that deadly radioactive dust is circling the globe. Apparently everyone on the planet has died and he is the last man on Earth. Refusing to believe that he is alone, Belafonte makes his way to a deserted New York city.
With the Will Smith version of I Am Legend coming out it is hard not to see the parallels between the two films. Each of them feature some nicely stark images of deserted city streets and star black men as the lone survivors. I'm a big fan of the original book and so I'm cautiously optimistic about the I Am Legend film. In the book, at least, and in The World, the Flesh, and the Devil, the main character eventually discovers a woman. It is here that the similarities between the two projects probably end. In I Am Legend, the book and I would be willing to bet that if the woman exists in the film, race is not an issue. In The World, the Flesh, and the Devil, race is a major issue.
Played by the really captivating Inger Stevens, who sadly took her own live in 1970, the white woman is drawn to Belafonte's character but this is where it gets odd. Belefonte's character is reluctant to get involved with her because she is white. Is it supposed to be some sort of internalized racism? Or is supposed to be that Belefonte hates white people for their racism? Is Belefonte so convinced that the world hasn't ended that he is sure a bunch of white people will show up and reinstate anti-miscegenation laws?
I think the real answer was that when this film was released in 1959 there was a real chance that people would not accept an interracial romance. This view is supported by an article on Turner Classic Movies' website which contains a statement from Belafonte stating that they wanted to take a clearer stand on race but weren't able to do so. This is also supported by the fact that 1959 also saw Belefonte starring in the excellent Odds Against Tomorrow in which his character takes part in a bank heist that goes wrong explicitly because one of the white men won't trust him and ends in with a not very subtle message against racism which indicates that Belefonte was not afraid to tackle race. I guess two men disagreeing because of their race was more acceptable to audiences than two people falling in love despite their race. As an aside it seems interesting that today we have movies with interracial romances and no one cares but if you have a movie about racism it wins awards and critical praise...
Anyway, the film's inability to take a stance on race is its most problematic aspect and it only gets weirder when a white man shows up. Belefonte basically tells the guy that he can have the white woman. Belefonte's character looks for a reason to hate the guy by goading him and trying to see if he is racist but he isn't. This makes it especially odd because it means that the only person in the film that has a problem with race is Belefonte's character.
Just when you think it can't get any odder, after a gun battle, the film ends with the implication that they are going to go off and have a three way! So the implication of three way sex was more acceptable to audiences in 59 than the thought that a white woman would chose a black man over a white one? Weird.
six thumbs up
last man in the world
still can't get any action
except a three way?
Watch this movie. That's about it.
Basically, this is the rap version of Spinal Tap. It is a mockumentary that follows around the rap group N.W.H. The title refers to the fact that while N.W.A. has attitude, N.W.H. has hats. Early on one of the members explains their name by saying that during slavery black people didn't have hats and so they were tired from working out in the hot sun all day Now they have hats...
The film follows the Spinal Tap formula by having the premise that the group is being followed around by a camera crew. They offer a nod to Spinal Tap by also having a member who keeps dying. However, instead of having to replace the drummer, N.W.H. has to keep replacing their manager who keeps dying or disappearing under mysterious circumstances. Because of that they make sure that their manager is white.
Of course, one of the critical areas of any musical film is the songs. Surprisingly, Fear of a Black Hat actually has some pretty good songs. For those of us that were coming of age during the late 80s and 90s, the film is full of rap styles and parodies that will bring back good memories. The songs start off as a combination of N.W.A., Public Enemy, and 2 Live Crew with songs about killing police and white people and love of booty juice. Then the members go their separate ways and go some pretty spot on pastiches of C & C Music Factory (complete with a controversy over which woman is singing backup which not only mirrors the real controversy but also manages to evoke Milli Vanilli) and P.M. Dawn as well as some glancing blows at Vanilla Ice and MC Hammer.
Go see it.
six thumbs up
N.W.H.
sure does like the booty juice.
doesn't everyone?
I was just the right age to be into Transformers as a kid. Well actually, I take that back. I wasn't really into the Transformers as I was into toy robots that would transform. See, as much as I liked transforming robots I didn't really like the cartoon all that much. Too much drama and not enough fighting.
I was hesitant about seeing this movie for similar reasons. All the trailers showed Shia LaBeouf and Megan Fox and soldiers and not the titular characters. I was afraid that it would be all whiny kid and people talking and not enough fighting robots. Luckily, I was mostly wrong. While there is a lot of humans and stuff, I didn't really mind it since they were doing a fairly decent job of building up the suspense.
I won't bother talking about the plot since it doesn't matter. What does matter is the special effects. They were pretty darn good. The only real complaint that I have is that there was way too much motion blur going on which made it hard to tell what was going on and hid the details. However, that's a minor quibble. There's also the fact that while Megan Fox is cute and all she needs to lay off the fake tan or the tan in a bottle stuff. She is entirely too orange. It was just distracting.
The ending of course left room for a sequel. However, there were also some unanswered questions which I couldn't tell if they were intentionally left unanswered so that they could be answered in the sequel or that they just didn't bother. For example there were these mini-transformers that were created from an xbox 360 and a Mountain Dew machine and we never saw what happened to them. Was that on purpose or just sloppy writing? Who knows?
six thumbs up
Decepticons rule
Would you rather be a car
or a jet fighter?
Since my dad liked it, I liked it too and when I saw this in Wal-Mart's $5.50 bin I couldn't believe it. Not only was it only $5.50 but it was the 2 disk special edition! I sifted through the bin to see if there were other copies in there just in case someone had put it in there by mistake. It turns out it was only $5.50 so I snatched it up.
I hear that there's a remake of this in the works starring the lead actor from 300. In some ways I can see why they want to remake it. It is kind of slow and the plot wanders around as much as Snake does. However, there's just something about the bad assedness of Russell's Snake Plissken that would be hard to top.
For those under a rock, the setting of this film is the late 1990s when things have gone to Hell at least in the USA if not the whole world and in response to the increasing prison population the island of Manhattan is cut off and turned into one big prison (I guess Escape from Manhattan just doesn't sound as good as Escape From New York.). Unfortunately, some point afterwords, Air Force One is hijacked and the President is lost somewhere in Manhattan. The inmates of Manhattan find him and say that if the police come in they will kill him. Luckily Snake Plissken has been arrested and is just about to be sent to Manhattan. So they cut a deal. If Plissken can get the President out alive, then Plissken goes free. Ass kicking ensues.
six thumbs up
Is it true that Kurt
Russell is really Death Proof?
I thought he was dead
I hadn't thought about the film too much until I was listening to the Movies You Should See podcast when they discussed the movie. Then serendipitously, I was canning the tv listings and saw that it was on. So I watched it and also got to hear some of that hilarious dubbing they do when they dub over cuss words.
Being a single man in my 30s this film is pretty darn depressing. Basically it is about a guy who is pretty much a total dick so his girlfriend dumps him. He sort of kind of realizes it and then he gets her back. And the main guy is the owner of a music store where he and his music snob employees pontificate about great records and such. It is really quite good but as I said it is quite depressing. And Sara Gilbert has a small part in it (I don't think she's any relation to Paul GIlbert) who I totally had a huge crush on when she was on Roseanne.
The reason why it is depressing is that a big part of the movie is Cusack's character going through old relationships, a midlife crisis, and wondering if he is going to be alone for the rest of his life. I too wonder about being alone and such but the problem is that Cusack's character is a dick and I'm not and he gets the girl back at the end and I'm sitting here watching the movie by myself! Damn you Cusack! Damn you to Hell! And your sister who is always in your movies too!
Still, it is a pretty darn good movie.
six thumbs up
My top five movies?
This probably isn't one,
Maybe top 90.
I'm not sure how someone who had never read the comic would feel about this movie as it is really really steeped in the culture of Edo period of Japan and Japanese Buddhism. Both First Comics and Dark Horse Comics included glossaries and explanations in their individual issues and this dvd also includes 28 screens of background information to explain what is going on.
All this background info is needed because not only is this a sword fighting extravaganza with tons of squirting blood which would go on to be seen in Kill Bill but it is also a political drama about honor, betrayal, and revenge.
You see, the Lone Wolf, aka Ogami Ittō,was the Shogun's executioner. When people were honor-bound to kill themselves, Ogami was the one who would cut their heads off with his sword so that they wouldn't actually have to go through with the suicide but could still retain their honor. Ogami is a badass. According to one translation the name of his sword was, "pierces thick torsos."
A rival clan wanted his position so they killed his wife and while he was cradling her dying body, they snuck into his personal temple for honoring all of the people he had executed and placed the name of the shogun (or it might just be the symbol of the shogunate, I'm not sure) into the shrine. Then the police arrive with an apparent suicide not from the men who killed his wife claiming that Ogami was unhonorable. The police go into the shrine and see the name of the shogun indicating that Ogami wished the shogun would die. (see what I mean about this being about betrayal and steeped in the culture and traditions of the time period?)
So Ogami gives his infant son a choice, join his mother in the afterlife or join his father in the search for revenge. The child of course chooses the path of revenge which is why the series is called Lone Wolf and Cub and not just Lone Wolf.
Ogami shames the rival clan into allowing him to leave by doing some more stuff that involves the code of honor from the time. He gets the rival clan to agree that as long as he stays away from Tokyo they won't try to kill him. So Ogami goes on the road as a killer for hire. And all of this is the setup for the actual storyline.
The actual story of the film involves Ogami being hired to kill some guys at a bath in an isolated rural town. There is lots of bad ass killery and honor and flashbacks to explain the backstory. And then more kicking ass. Basically, every story involves Ogami being smarter and more honorable than the people he goes against and the rival clan clandestinely sending people to try to kill him. Did I mention it kicks ass? Well it does and it is also very faithful to the original comic.
six thumbs up
Ogami kicks ass
even though he has a kid
he still has honor
It starts off with a bit of Bad Taste, with people wandering around running into zombies including some bits about a local beauty queen and her rival as well as a guy is the town loony who claims to have been abducted by aliens and attacked by a zombie fish.
Then it turns into Night of the Living Dead with them all hiding in a house and even going into the basement. I'll be honest, at this point I was ready to write the film off. It was pretty generic and I wasn't interested in it at all. Then they moved to a grocery store and have a pretty cool fight against a bunch of zombies.
At this point we learn that the town has been walled off. Trapped inside, they try to decide what to do. Then the aliens show up. At this point I got really interested in the film. We learn about the origin of the zombies and the reason the aliens are there. Without giving anything away, it puts a very interesting spin on the zombie genre. The film really got me with the beauty queen taking a Linda Hamilton Terminator 2 turn at the end of the film.
six thumbs up
zombies aliens
tastes that taste great together
sign me up for more
While the main characters may look like Valley Girls, they don't really talk like them. In fact I only detected a couple instances "totally," that most Valley of words. Moreover, the lead characters are pretty kick ass. They were allegedly trained by their absent military father and so they are much more capable than the male lead. Of course there are lots of leg warmers, including a woman who wears them over her work overalls. Catherine Mary Stewart's character is very much in the Linda Hamilton mode and is yet another touch woman who has gone overlooked for far too long by film snobs!
Her touch woman-ness is somewhat tempered by the end of the film where she falls into domestic tranquility by wearing an Easter dress, taking endless family pictures, and forcing her adopted family to obey traffic signals even though the streets are deserted.
So, as the title suggests, a comet comes, in this case Halley's Comet and everyone who doesn't happen to be in a metal room has been turned into dust or into zombies. Luckily Stewart's character is humping some guy in a metal lined film projectionist's booth (we're told that by an old fire law they had to be steel rooms). The guy gets ate, and she goes home to find out that her sister also survived by some really lame excuse.
That leaves us with male lead. Since neither Stewart or the other woman were in a Star Trek show, this means that the male lead MUST have been on Star Trek, right? Of course. Our male lead just happens to be Star Trek: Voyager's Robert Beltran. Now I can hear those among you saying, "But Voyager didn't come on television until 1995. So it is just a coincidence that this low budget sci-fi movie happens to have an actor who has also been on Star Trek." To which my only report need be, "Is it a coincidence? Is it???"
The plot of the film is actually pretty interesting as there is a nice twist regarding who we think are the good and who we think are the bad guys. With the exception of the end which seems intent on re-establishing the heteronormative nuclear family, the film is pretty entertaining.
Six thumbs up
After the world's end
If Paramount has its way
Star Trek will be there
