Winner gets… me.

The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift

(2006)

(SPOILERS) Alternatively known as The Fast and the Furious Six, if you follow the chronology (on account of a key character here dying and then showing up in subsequent F&F masterpieces. Which means I ended up catching this in very nearly the correct order (I have yet to see the actual the officially monikered Fast & Furious 6. This is the only one in the series that doesn’t feature either Paul Walker or Vin Diesel (well, almost the latter; he is wooed for a cameo, prior to his triumphant return in Fast and Furious (or, Fast Three, if you will). There are those who argue this is the underappreciated peak of the disposable franchise, but that’s a bit of a leap; it’s as laden down as ever with clunky plotting, spinning wheels, macho stand-offs and raptastic montages featuring scantily clad girlies ((the latter abjectly failing to disguise the auto- and homoerotica dripping from every shiny hood and protracted bout of male bonding).

This time out, Lucas Black’s (who first found fame as a child actor, starring in the one-season wonder American Gothic) Sean is so much darned trouble to his poor mum, getting up to all sorts of mischief with his racing delinquency, that she packs him off to Tokyo to live with his Naval father (Brian Goodman). He quickly falls in with Han (Sung Kang), who has a business relationship with the nephew of a Yakuza kingpin D.K. (Brian Tee). He even finds a bit of time to romance D.K.’s girl (big mistake!) Neela (Natalie Kelly) when he’s not bromancing.

Arguably all this auto-fetishism is more age-appropriate to Black’s teenager than Vin’s 40 year old, but it makes the high school meets organised crime plotline seem more ludicrously adrenalised than any other installment in the series. This culminates in Black’s young punk standing up to uncle Shin’ichi Chiba, effortlessly persuading him to permit a race with his nephew to settle matters. I mean, as if any self-respecting gangland boss wouldn’t take him out the back and have a rusty screwdriver lodged in his ear. These are fantasy wish-fulfilment flicks, of course, and director Justin Lin knows that very well; he would go on to direct three ever-more hyperbolic sequels. But the other problem here might be that Black is too good an actor for all this nonsense. His homespun southern drawl suggests a sincerity that doesn’t really fit with all this motorised silliness.

There’s subtext spinning off every fender in this one, though. Sean is so all-American it’s not true, and he arrives in Japan ready to teach the nation a thing or two about honour; it’s just like WWII all over again! Or like Tom Cruise in Last Samurai; a land known for its codes discovers that the foreigner has even stronger core values! If anyone can show the Yakuza how things really are, it’s a teenager from the Land of the Free. With a little help from his dad (US military might goes with its citizens wherever they are in the world).

Miraculously, when Sean stands up to Uncle Yakuza, he can suddenly speak fluent Japanese! It’s amazing! The movie is careful not to give Sean a Japanese best friend, girlfriend, or mentor (they’re all expats); all the better to accentuate those national divisions! It even throws in a bit of Star Wars while it’s at it; Lucas (Luke Skywalker), sounding all the world like a farm boy, must battle the “evil empire”, and is aided in this by an Obi-Wan who teaches him how to use the force (“the drift”) before Kenobi exits stage left (yet manages to live on through a number of sequels). The only difference is old Ben didn’t pull 360s around ladies’ cars in order to convince his young padewan that he really is heterosexual, really.

Han was best pals with Vin’s Dom you see. When Sean and Dom meet, they discuss their mutual pal. It’s a conversation purportedly about models of automobile, but I think it’s quite clear what’s going on.

Sean: I didn’t know he was into American muscle.

Dom: He was when he was rolling with me.

Sean will be rolling with Dom in Fast & Furious 7. My testosterone nozzle is full to burstin’ in anticipation.

Comments

I just hope my death makes more cents than my life.

Joker (2019)
(SPOILERS) So the murder sprees didn’t happen, and a thousand puff pieces desperate to fan the flames of such events and then told-ya-so have fallen flat on their faces. The biggest takeaway from Joker is not that the movie is an event, when once that seemed plausible but not a given, but that any mainstream press perspective on the picture appears unable to divorce its quality from its alleged or actual politics. Joker may be zeitgeisty, but isn’t another Taxi Driver in terms of cultural import, in the sense that Taxi Driver didn’t have a Taxi Driver in mind when Paul Schrader wrote it. It is, if you like, faux-incendiary, and can only ever play out on that level. It might be more accurately described as a grubbier, grimier (but still polished and glossy) The Talented Ripley, the tale of developing psychopathy, only tailored for a cinemagoing audience with few options left outside of comic book fare.

You guys sure like watermelon.

The Irishman aka I Heard You Paint Houses (2019)
(SPOILERS) Perhaps, if Martin Scorsese hadn’t been so opposed to the idea of Marvel movies constituting cinema, The Irishman would have been a better film. It’s a decent film, assuredly. A respectable film, definitely. But it’s very far from being classic. And a significant part of that is down to the usually assured director fumbling the execution. Or rather, the realisation. I don’t know what kind of crazy pills the ranks of revered critics have been taking so as to recite as one the mantra that you quickly get used to the de-aging effects so intrinsic to its telling – as Empire magazine put it, “you soon… fuggadaboutit” – but you don’t. There was no point during The Irishman that I was other than entirely, regrettably conscious that a 75-year-old man was playing the title character. Except when he was playing a 75-year-old man.

So you want me to be half-monk, half-hitman.

Casino Royale (2006)
(SPOILERS) Despite the doubts and trepidation from devotees (too blonde, uncouth etc.) that greeted Daniel Craig’s casting as Bond, and the highly cynical and low-inspiration route taken by Eon in looking to Jason Bourne's example to reboot a series that had reached a nadir with Die Another Day, Casino Royale ends up getting an enormous amount right. If anything, its failure is that it doesn’t push far enough, so successful is it in disarming itself of the overblown set pieces and perfunctory plotting that characterise the series (even at its best), elements that would resurge with unabated gusto in subsequent Craig excursions.

For the majority of its first two hours, Casino Royale is top-flight entertainment, with returning director Martin Campbell managing to exceed his excellent work reformatting Bond for the ‘90s. That the weakest sequence (still good, mind) prior to the finale is a traditional “big” (but not too big) action set piece involving an attempt to…

Poor Easy Breezy.

Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood (2019)
(SPOILERS) My initial reaction to Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood was mild disbelief that Tarantino managed to hoodwink studios into coming begging to make it, so wilfully perverse is it in disregarding any standard expectations of narrative or plotting. Then I remembered that studios, or studios that aren’t Disney, are desperate for product, and more especially, product that might guarantee them a hit. Quentin’s latest appears to be that, but whether it’s a sufficient one to justify the expense of his absurd vanity project remains to be seen.

You're skipping Christmas! Isn't that against the law?

Christmas with the Kranks (2004)
Ex-coke dealer Tim Allen’s underwhelming box office career is, like Vince Vaughn’s, regularly in need of a boost from an indiscriminate public willing to see any old turkey posing as a prize Christmas comedy. He made three Santa Clauses, and here is joined by Jamie Lee Curtis as a couple planning to forgo the usual neighbourhood festivities for a cruise.

She was addicted to Tums for a while.

Marriage Story (2019)
(SPOILERS) I don’t tend to fall heavily for Noah Baumbach fare. He’s undoubtedly a distinctive voice – even if his collaborations with Wes Anderson are the least of that director’s efforts – but his devotion to an exclusive, rarefied New York bubble becomes ever more off-putting with each new project. And ever more identifiable as being a lesser chronicler of the city’s privileged quirks than his now disinherited forbear Woody Allen, who at his peak mastered a balancing act between the insightful, hilarious and self-effacing. Marriage Story finds Baumbach going yet again where Woody went before, this time brushing up against the director’s Ingmar Bergman fixation.

We’ll bring it out on March 25 and we’ll call it… Christmas II!

Santa Claus: The Movie (1985)
(SPOILERS) Alexander Salkind (alongside son Ilya) inhabited not dissimilar territory to the more prolific Dino De Laurentis, in that his idea of manufacturing a huge blockbuster appeared to be throwing money at it while being stingy with, or failing to appreciate, talent where it counted. Failing to understand the essential ingredients for a quality movie, basically, something various Hollywood moguls of the ‘80s would inherit. Santa Claus: The Movie arrived in the wake of his previously colon-ed big hit, Superman: The Movie, the producer apparently operating under the delusion that flying effects and :The Movie in the title would induce audiences to part with their cash, as if they awarded Saint Nick a must-see superhero mantle. The only surprise was that his final cinematic effort, Christopher Columbus: The Discovery, wasn’t similarly sold, but maybe he’d learned his lesson by then. Or maybe not, given the behind-camera talent he failed to secure.

It's their place, Mac. They have a right to make of it what they can. Besides, you can't eat scenery!

Local Hero (1983)
(SPOILERS) With the space of thirty-five years, Bill Forsyth’s gentle eco-parable feels more seductive than ever. Whimsical is a word often applied to Local Hero, but one shouldn’t mistake that description for its being soft in the head, excessively sentimental or nostalgic. Tonally, in terms of painting a Scottish idyll where the locals are no slouches in the face of more cultured foreigners, the film hearkens to both Powell and Pressburger (I Know Where I’m Going!) and Ealing (Whisky Galore!), but it is very much its own beast.

On a long enough timeline, the survival of everyone drops to zero.

Fight Club (1999)
(SPOILERS) Still David Fincher’s peak picture, mostly by dint of Fight Club being the only one you can point to and convincingly argue that that the source material is up there with his visual and technical versatility. If Seven is a satisfying little serial-killer-with-a-twist story vastly improved by his involvement (just imagine it directed by Joel Schumacher… or watch 8mm), Fight Club invites him to utilise every trick in the book to tell the story of not-Tyler Durden, whom we encounter at a very peculiar time in his life.

He tasks me. He tasks me, and I shall have him.

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
(1982)
(SPOILERS) I don’t love Star Trek, but I do love Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. That probably isn’t just me, but a common refrain of many a non-devotee of the series. Although, it used to apply to The Voyage Home (the funny one, with the whales, the Star Trek even the target audience for Three Men and a Baby could enjoy). Unfortunately, its high regard has also become the desperate, self-destructive, song-and-verse, be-all-and-end-all of the overlords of the franchise itself, in whichever iteration, it seems. This is understandable to an extent, as Khan is that rare movie sequel made to transcendent effect on almost every level, and one that stands the test of time every bit as well (better, even) as when it was first unveiled.

Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

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