EMBARRASSING ADMISSION: The Twist Ending Of THE VILLAGE Got Me

WARNING: Spoilers for a generally disliked 9 year old film follow.

This is the tale of my love and passion for film biting me in the ass for once.  For being the guy who "knows more about movies than anyone" else going in.  I know what movies are getting made and what's going on before you even know it exists because of a trailer.  I was paying attention to The Village before you even had a sniff of it. That kind of smugness.

FURIOUS RANKING

 

So, I came into this series a nay-sayer.  As a longtime film aficionado, I scoffed and felt myself above a series like The Fast & The Furious.  It was junk, garbage, for morons, bros, idiots.  It was stupid and Americans were dumb for dumping their money into it.  All these presumptions I could make from only having seen one film in the entire franchise.

Forgive me, I was wrong.

REVIEW: FURIOUS 6

Furious 6

2013

Director: Justin Lin

Starring: Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Dwayne THE ROCK Johnson, Michelle Rodriguez, Tyrese Gibson, Sung Kang, Jordana Brewster, Gal Gadot, Chris “Ludacris” Bridges, Gina Carano (please take this movie and retire from acting with it), Luke Evans

Rated PG-13

You’ve got some serious balls, man.

                        ~Letty Ortiz

The Fast & The Furious franchise stays the course in its newest installment.  All the good will from Fast Five is carried over.  This film escalates the action by going bigger and taking stakes up a notch as it rightfully should.  I don’t think it sails by Fast Five, but it manages to come up to par with it.  And…it’s a one damn fine thrill ride of a movie.

FAST & FURIOUS RETROSPECTIVE - PART VII: FAST FIVE

Fast Five

2011

Director:  Justin Lin

Starring:  Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Jordana Brewster, Dwayne Johnson, Sung Kang, Tyrese Gibson, Chris Bridges, Matt Schulze, Gal Gadot, Elsa Pataky, Joaquim de Almeida

Rated PG-13

Running ain’t freedom.  You should know that

                        ~Dominic Toretto

It took 5 tries, but the Fast & Furious franchise put out a great movie!  And a super awesome one at that!  Ditching the forced racing aspects in favor of a pure action movie with the guise of a heist plot, the series is able to fully breathe and become a summer popcorn thrill ride that allows you to enjoy and not care too much about detailed semantics of its plot.  The film boasts an ultimate team up of who’s who from the entire series, giving those who’ve been paying attention some rewarding character moments while at the same time not reminding the viewer of the shortcomings of those previous films.  The cast gels and carries this thing along quite nicely.

FAST & FURIOUS RETROSPECTIVE - PART VI: FAST & FURIOUS

Fast & Furious

2009

Director:  Justin Lin

Starring:  Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Jordana Brewster, Michelle Rodriguez, John Ortiz, Jack Conley, Sung Kang

Rated PG-13

Still a buster

            ~Dominic Toretto

At its open, Fast & Furious takes a noticeable step up from his predecessors.  There’s a lot of good intention here and what appears to be hard work.  The film starts guns ablazing, but never manages to retain the promise of these opening moments.  The rest of the adventure is somewhat watchable but really just skims the mediocrity set in the in the first film only done by a better, more imaginative craftsman.

For Your Listening Pleasure - TOKYO DRIFT Commentary on OUT NOW WITH AARON & ABE

Once again I return to OUT NOW for more commentary action.  This time coinciding with my TOKYO DRIFT retrospective.  I'm glad the guys brought me on board for this one, as I enjoyed it more the 2nd time around.  A film that people might instantly turn their nose up at, but its not bad at all.  This is also one of the funnest commentaries I've been a part of.  A lot of good laughs (hopefully for you too).  Enjoy!

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN

FAST & FURIOUS RETROSPECTIVE - PART V: TOKYO DRIFT

The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift

2006

Director:  Justin Lin

Starring: Lucas Black, Bow Wow, Nathalie Kelley, Sung Kang, Sonny Chiba, Vin Diesel

Rated PG-13

I’ve got nothin’ but time

                        ~Dominic Toretto

Oops, so yeah…spoiler alert…but the movie is 7 years old and 3 sequels ago.

Three years following 2 Fast 2 Furious, we get what appears to be an attempt at a reboot or a one-off.  The film appears to be completely free of the universe and events of the first film until the final seconds tick down and we are given a shocking connection.  This film was apparently originally written for Paul Walker to return, but when he was busy, they reworked it to have the character of Shawn Boswell.  And boy, do we actually kinda wish Paul Walker was back (look what this series is doing to me! Haha).

TRAILER: Pacific Rim #2

Oh...wow. The scale of this movie is insane. So far, its not just my Guillermo del Toro fanboy loving this, this looks like the very definition of why we go to the movies. Big monsters! Big robots! That's all we need. I don't see any reason anyone WOULDN'T want to see this on the biggest screen imaginable. For those of you pirating bootlegs...are you really going to "get" the impact of PACIFIC RIM watching a camcorder'd copy of a guy sitting in a theater on your laptop screen? This movie is saying "THEATER OR NOTHING ELSE". This movie one of the biggies on mine and probably every other movie buff's hit list for summer 2013. I haven't done a whole lot of digging other than released footage and photos as I'd like to be as clean going in as I can. I'm really excited, this feels like it could be one of those epic cinema going experiences.

 PACIFIC RIM cancels the apocalypse July 12!

FAREWELL TO THE OFFICE: 10 CHARACTERS I LOVED ALL THE WAY TO THE END

Dunder Mifflin closes up shop tonight.  9 Seasons of a once bubble show I crossed my fingers would get renewed to a show that became a sure bet I was hoping would end.  I never gave up on NBC's THE OFFICE.  I guess the past 3-4 seasons I was just expecting it would end soon or they'd once in a while work back that magic for an episode or two that would restore my faith in watching it and keep me from deleting the series recording from my DVR.  Since I've been with it since somewhat season 1, but a regular weekly ritual since Season 2, I wanted to do something in honor of this show.  It was at one time the funniest, can't miss comedy on TV for a few seasons.  I even think its prime seasons surpassed the greatness of its British counterpart.

Since THE OFFICE is pretty much a character driven show, I decided to give my 10 favorite characters after all these years.  Some were great but as time wore on they got extremely tired and I couldn't stand them anymore (Jim, Pam, Andy) or we got too personal with (Angela).  But there were a time where those were my favorites.  But these 10 I still liked all the way to the end.  Who were your favorites from the show?

FAST & FURIOUS RETROSPECTIVE - PART IV: BETTER LUCK TOMORROW

 Before there was Tokyo Drift, there was-

Better Luck Tomorrow

2002

Director: Justin Lin

Producer: MC Hammer

Starring: Parry Shen, Sung Kang, Jason Tobin, Roger Fan, John Cho, Karin Anna Cheung

Rated R

Rumors about us came and went fast and furious

                        ~Ben Manibag

Huh?  How does this fit in with the Fast and the…what?  You told me Tokyo Drift was next! No, I’m not doing a Justin Lin retrospective.  This film very much indeed is a part of the Fast & Furiverse (if I coined that...make sure I get credit).  This is the origin story of Tokyo Drift and beyond’s Han Lue.  Granted, this is not his story per se, but he’s a main player in the group we’re following.

Dear HUNGER GAMES: CATCHING FIRE, Stop Right Now! You've Won!

This is my plea to the HUNGER GAMES franchise.  Stop it with the posters right now.  Use this as your final poster.  You've created something incredibly awesome.  No need to go further.  No, we don't need any more like this via individual characters in this style, this is just fine.  Put this everywhere.  Different sizes and shapes of it...okay.  I understand you need billboards and bus renditions.  That's ok.  This is easily the coolest poster this year and easily one of the best in the last few.  Relax HUNGER GAMES marketing team, you just scored a huge win!  People are going to go see your movie...that's already a given.  So, save your cash and start thinking about cool posters for MOCKING JAY Part 1. 

BTW, I need to mention before I sign off here...I LOVE THIS POSTER!  Bravo Lionsgate!

FAST & THE FURIOUS RETROSPECTIVE - PART III: 2 FAST 2 FURIOUS

 

2 Fast 2 Furious

2003

Director:  John Singleton

Starring:  Paul Walker, Tyrese Gibson, Eva Mendes, Cole Hauser, James Remar, Chris “Ludacris” Bridges, Devon Aoki

Rated PG-13

He did the stare and drive on you, didn't he? He got that from me.

                        ~Roman Pearce

Fast & Furious Drinking Game:  Take a sip of your beverage when any form of the word “Bro” is used.

So, after viewing 2 Fast 2 Furious, the fear and apprehension of this series is growing strong in me.  This might be one of the dumbest big budget summer movies I have ever seen.  This movie also reeks of being a sequel.  It’s also a film that feels more interested in selling a soundtrack than telling a story.  Seriously, there were like 8 heavily featured songs within the first 15-20 minutes.

HEAR ME TALK ABOUT IRON MAN 3 ON OUT NOW WITH AARON AND ABE

 

I didn't write a review on IRON MAN 3, but I did discuss it in a podcast.  Once again, guesting on podcasting's best movie discussion show, OUT NOW WITH AARON & ABE.  Also guesting is Germain Lussier from Slashfilm .  My portion of the show is spoiler free, but if you stay til the end there is a spoiler discussion.  Enjoy!

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THE SHOW

FAST & THE FURIOUS RETROSPECTIVE - PART II: THE FAST & THE FURIOUS

 

The Fast And The Furious

2001

Director: Rob Cohen

Starring:  Paul Walker, Vin Diesel, Jordana Brewster, Michelle Rodriguez, Rick Yune, Matt Schulze, Ted Levine

Rated PG-13

Ask any racer, any real racer. It doesn't matter if you win by an inch or a mile; winning's winning.

                        ~Dominic Toretto

Fast & Furious Drinking Game:  Take a sip of your beverage every time you see or hear the word “NOS”

MY FAVORITE PART 3's

IRON MAN 3 opens in theaters today.  This franchise also enters the dreaded "PART 3" territory where a lot of film series tend to falter.  This is usually a point in a series where the first signs of a noticeable decline or staleness can tend to appear.  But this isn't always the case.  There are some "PART 3" installments that have bucked the trend.  So far, early reviews show that IRON MAN 3 has indeed been on that side of things.  I decided to have some fun and give out my 10 favorite part 3 films (I prefer to use the term "favorite" over "best" when applicable.  This reflects my opinion, not a general one).  What are some of yours or ones that I didn't mention?

Without further adieu...here they are...unranked and in alphabetical order.  One disclaimer: I'm leaving off ARMY OF DARKNESS as I just wrote extensively about the EVIL DEAD series and wanted some others to get a fair shake.