Fast & Furious 6: My Review

Did I just watch four trailers for the same save-the-world movie?

Baby!

What happened to the other baby from the previous movie? They could be friends. Like Paul Walker and Tyrese! They're cute, but simple. Like babies.

Letty!

What?

The Rock is totally reading his lines off of cue cards.

I'd like a coupon for a casino buffet.

How dare they not include my favorite Puerto Rican goofballs in the latest heist?

Evil twins! That's exactly what I was thinking, Tyrese.

If you're a boxer tussling in a staircase with a mixed martial arts expert, I'm betting on the MMA fighter.

Thank for the BMW ad, Luda. Product placement is out of control, even for a Fast & Furious movie.

He's a racist! Rude. I'd take his boxers, too.

Baby is wearing a hat!

"That's the picture from my grave ... er, I mean ... I don't remember anything ... ?"

Why'd he go to that pawn shop? He didn't learn anything from that guy or his worthless goons.

Creepy creepster. Get up off of Letty, guy I've never seen in any movies before. (He's been in movies, I just haven't seen any of them.)

Why'd he go to that prison? He didn't learn anything from that guy or his worthless goons.

Don't make this all about you, Paul Walker.

Stasiak needs to make better decisions in his life.

Justin Lin has an obsession with objectifying tiny butts on tiny women. Could you at least give one of those dancers some lines?

"Samoan Thor", that's funny. :)

It's a tank. That's what I'm saying, Ludacris!

Mayhem and foolishness!

Do the laws of physics never apply to these people?

Oh, I saw that one coming.

What?!

I thought you were driving the other way!

That plane has been trying to take off down the same runway for 20 minutes...

Jump out of those cars, fools!

How does Luke Evans think he could fight Vin Diesel?

She could have survived... :( Brian and Mia just drove right past her!

Seriously, how has the plane not reached the end of the runway yet?

Fire. Fire. The plane's on fi--Is no one else seeing this?

It's their home! I hope they bought the building next door, too. House Hunters: Fast & Furious edition. Ding dong!

Even the baby is drinking a bottle of Corona.

The best family is the one you choose. Especially if they look like underwear models.

"Tokyo? Are you sure about that, man?"

"It's just something I have to do."

"Whatever you need, we got your back. Unless that from guy from The Transporter shows up retroactively in a scene from that movie from seven years ago."

I like that song. Nice choice.

Whew, what a ride. Now let's listen to the Fast Five episode of How Did This Get Made? for the fourth time, in anticipation for the Fast & Furious 6 episode dropping this Tuesday.

Update: It's up!


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From the back of the bus, to kicked off the bus

Universal's UK 'Couples Retreat' Poster Brings Cries of Racism by Removing Black Actors, by Matt Ufford, Yahoo! Movies.

A racially-tinged advertising decision has gone awry for the movie "Couples Retreat."

Marketers of the Vince Vaughn comedy, which stars four couples in a tropical paradise, removed black actors Faizon Love and Kali Hawk from the promotional poster used in the United Kingdom after the U.S. version used all four couples. In response to outrage over the move, a Universal spokesman said the altered poster aimed "to simplify the poster to actors who are most [recognizable] in international markets."

While Love and Hawk aren't generally as well known as the film's other six stars, it's still a questionable motive. As noted in a 2007 New York Times article, American films with black stars typically struggle in the overseas market. According to the article, Will Smith, the undisputed king of the American box office, ranks no better than twelfth when it comes to ticket sales internationally. Simply put, said industry watcher James Ulmer, "The international marketplace is still fairly racist."

However, there's good news for those who believe the removal of Love and Hawk from the UK poster was racist: Universal issued a statement regretting any offense it caused, and the studio has scrapped all plans to use the modified poster in other overseas markets.

The irony of this story is that "the international marketplace is still fairly racist" because of the movies and television show exported from the United States to other countries. Racism is not someone babies are born with. It is hard to explain racism towards black people, but reverence for white people, in countries where there are few to no black people or white people, without looking at the media that is exported to those countries.

I also don't know how one could explain the exclusion of the one black couple in the movie from almost all of the television commercials inside the United States, where millions of black people live.

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But I don't want to marry Colin Firth.

Hilarious! Also, can't birth control simply focus on controlling potential births instead of giving women fewer periods? "What if getting fewer periods and taking hormones will turn me into a mutant?"

Preach the word, Sister Girlfriend.

I'm not a niche. I'm more than 50% of the world population.

The boys of summer, by Dorothy Snarker at AfterEllen.

. . . One needs only to look at this summer’s slate to see the sad truth. Besides all the testosterone-driven superhero flicks, it’s all dudes – old and young. Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull: old dude with a whip. Speed Racer: young dude with a car. The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian: Prince dude. You Don't Mess with the Zohan: secret agent turned hairstylist dude. Get Smart: not-so-smart dude. The Love Guru: enlightened dude. Hancock: burned-out super dude. Hellboy II: The Golden Army: big red dude. Pineapple Express: stoner dudes. Bangkok Dangerous: why-is-he-still-getting-leading-action-roles dude . . .

. . . But this leads us to the classic chicken or egg question: Are there few successful female-driven films because they don’t do well, or do female-driven films not do well because there are so few of them? I have to believe the latter. Baby Mama, a comedy with not one but two female leads (way to eat up the year’s quota, ladies,) opened No. 1 and beat out a comedy with two male leads (Harold and Kumar Escape from Guantanamo Bay). Perhaps you’ve also heard of Alien, The Devil Wears Prada and some hardly-seen flick called Titanic.

Hundreds of male-driven films flop each year, but there are so many of them, we hardly notice except for the biggest-budget disasters. But if one or two female films fail (like Nicole Kidman’s The Invasion and Jodie Foster’s The Brave One last year) and it’s time to pull the plug? In the last three years Nicolas Cage (the aforementioned “why-is-he-still-getting-leading-action-roles dude”) has had bomb (Next) after bomb (The Wicker Man) after bomb (The Weather Man) after bomb (Lord of War); yet there is his big creepy face on movie posters for Bangkok Dangerous scaring small children.

The problem isn’t that women’s movies don’t do well; the problem is that women’s movies are treated as a niche. The choices in female-driven films simply aren’t as broad as the choices in male-centered films. For the most part, we are either in romantic comedies (because, you know, all women want to get married) or thrillers (because, you know, women in peril sells). It’s pretty simple: more choices mean more opportunities to connect, means more chance of success.

Women-centered films can become the Field of Dreams of cinema. If you make good ones, we will come.

Favorite comments:

I reckon its time our het sisters refused to get dragged by their men to such tetosterone fuelled movies.

- notshane

I don't have a man, notshane, but if you know some nice, straight guys, I'll drag them to see Baby Mama.

And re: Nicolas Cage,

He's not an outstanding actor**, he's not attractive, he's not charismatic. WHY does his career EXIST??

This is one of the greatest mysteries of our era.

- zenarcade

zenarcade, I thought I was the only one pondering this enigma.

For you readers who think my lyrics are too abrasive for public consumption, I direct you to the following article in the indie publication called The New York Times. Read it while you can!:

Is There a Real Woman in This Multiplex?, by Manohla Dargis. Emphases on the snark, mine.

. . . Nobody likes to admit the worst, even when it’s right up there on the screen, particularly women in the industry who clutch at every pitiful short straw, insisting that there are, for instance, more female executives in Hollywood than ever before. As if it’s done the rest of us any good. All you have to do is look at the movies themselves — at the decorative blondes and brunettes smiling and simpering at the edge of the frame — to see just how irrelevant we have become. That’s as true for the dumbest and smartest of comedies as for the most critically revered dramas, from “No Country for Old Men” (but especially for women) to “There Will Be Blood” (but no women). Welcome to the new, post-female American cinema . . .

. . . In “Forgetting Sarah Marshall” the lucky guy is Peter (the screenwriter Jason Segel), whose stunning conquest, Rachel (Mila Kunis), is so out of his league as to be in another universe. No matter. Peter snags this prize specifically because — from his full-frontal nudity to his penchant for hugs and voluble crying jags, for which he’s literally mistaken for a woman — he’s basically another chick, or what Arnold Schwarzenegger once called a girlie man. (The softly plumped Mr. Segel even looks as if he could fit into an A cup.) In one scene Peter goes swimming with Rachel only to end up clinging to the side of a cliff. Rachel, who has already taken the plunge, laughingly yells up at him, “I can see your vagina!”

Better a virtual vagina, I suppose, than none at all. Last year only 3 of the 20 highest-grossing releases in America were female-driven, and involve a princess (“Enchanted”) or pregnancy (“Knocked Up” and “Juno”). Actresses had starring roles in about a quarter of the next 80 highest-grossing titles, mostly in dopey romantic comedies and dopier thrillers. A number of these were among the worst-reviewed movies of the year, including “Premonition” (Sandra Bullock) and “The Reaping” (Hilary Swank), the last of which was released by — ta-da! — Warner Brothers. The days of “Million Dollar Baby,” for which Ms. Swank won an Oscar, and “Speed,” which rocketed Ms. Bullock to stardom in the summer of 1994, feel long gone . . .

Hee! And, boo.

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Wondering if sexism still exists in the entertainment industry?

Well, someone had to greenlight these movies:

No Country for Fat Chicks, by Amy Monaghan at Radar Online, via Feministing.

Calling pretty much any Hollywood movie "a little sexist" (as Katherine Heigl did when Vanity Fair asked her about her star-making turn in last summer's Knocked Up) is like saying you're a little bit pregnant. The difference is one of degree, not kind.

Now that the Oscars are over and our first viable female presidential is floundering toward failure, it seems like a good time to take stock of sexism in our culture. That's why Radar, using Knocked Up as a mildly chauvinistic baseline, and employing the highly scientific method of surveying our girlfriends, set out to uncover the most misogynistic movies of the 21st century. (Excluded were intentionally offensive movies and any grindhouse film where coeds ended up in a woodchipper, etc.)

It's a crowded field, and getting more so daily (we're looking at you, Teeth), but here's our year-by-year timeline of the most woman-bashing films of the Oughts. So far.

My favorite one is listed first. Enjoy!

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Booo.

My friend Stephanie alerted me to this story today: Warner's Robinov Bitchslaps Film Women; Gloria Allred Calls For Warner's Boycott, by Nikki Finke at Deadline Hollywood Daily. Emphases mine.

This comes to me from three different producers, so I know it's real: Warner Bros president of production Jeff Robinov has made a new decree that "We are no longer doing movies with women in the lead". This Neanderthal thinking comes after both Jodie Foster's The Brave One (even though she's had big recent hits with Flightplan and Panic Room) and Nicole Kidman's The Invasion (as if three different directors didn't have something to do with the awfulness of the gross receipts) under-performed at the box office recently...

Of course, Warner Bros has always been male-centric in its movies. But now the official policy as expressly articulated by Robinov is that a male has to be the lead of every pic made. I'm told he doesn't even want to see a script with a woman in the primary position (which now is apparently missionary at WB)...

Noted women's rights attorney Gloria Allred just gave me this statement in response to what I've posted above: "If that's what he said, when movies with men as the lead fail, no one says we'll stop making movies with men in the lead. This is an insult to all moviegoers and particularly women. It is truly unfortunate that women get blamed for decisions which are made by men. Instead of taking responsibility for their own lack of judgment about which scripts to make, directors to hire and budgets to OK, some men in the movie industry find it easier to place blame for their lack of success on women leads and to exclude talented female actors from the top employment opportunities in Hollywood in favor of macho males. If that studio confirms that their policy is to now exclude women as leads, then my policy would be to boycott films made by Warner Bros."

Even if Mr. Robinov didn't say those exact words, the sentiment of the article still rings true. How many movies this summer had a girl or a woman as the lead character? Not as the way-out-of-the-guy's-league girlfriend, but as a protagonist with her own hopes and dreams outside of existing mainly for her man's pleasure? Now, how many movies this summer featured boys and men? Also, note how many boys and men filled up the supporting roles as well, and think about what kind of supporting roles the few women were left with.

To bring the horrid state of the movie business into focus, name one black female character in any of this summer's feature films. Bonus points if she had any sense in her head. I'll spot you one Alicia Keys in The Nanny Diaries.

I haven't gone to the movies since...

...last December. I saw Unaccompanied Minors. Wow. That is sad. Even though the movie was terrible, I still had fun with my friend. And I didn't realize it was The Breakfast Club in an airport with junior high kids until said friend told me. Clueless. Now that was a movie.

What's sadder than my seeing Unaccompanied Minors is the lack of quality fare on the big screen nowadays. Besides the fifth Harry Potter movie, I haven't been anticipating the release of any other movie this year. I wanted to see Maxed Out after I read about it on Pajiba and heard about it on Air America. Of course it disappeared from the two theaters it was playing at in the LA area before I could go see it. I still haven't seen SiCKO, but I will eventually.

The problem for me is two-fold. One, I can tell from the trailers that most of the movies with the heaviest marketing campaigns are going to suck in some way. Not necessarily in every way, but on some level, they are going to bug me. I don't have $8.50+ to spend on things that I actually need, like vegetables. I sure don't have $8.50+ to spend on thing luxuries that are almost guaranteed to disappoint.

Two, there are almost no movies being made with women. Obviously there are almost no movies written by women or directed by women. That's not such a shocker, although it does make me sick. But there are practically no movies starring women. There was A Mighty Heart, which I wasn't going to see anyway, even if it didn't star Angelina Jolie in blackface. There is Evening, which makes me want to have my period, start menopause, and vomit from the schmaltzy boredom all at the same time. The rest of the movies that have come out this year, and will come out this summer, mainly have girls, emphasis on girls, as scantily-clad love interests with no character arcs or personalities of their own.

My annoyance has been building of the past few months. Arguably, it has been building since the mid-90s, when I learned that the top-billed actresses of the time--Demi Moore and Julia Roberts--only made $12 million dollars for their blockbuster movies, compared to the $20 million the Toms--Cruise and Hanks--were pulling for theirs. That's 60 percent. What a rip. There are a multitude of arguments to be made justifying both, either, or neither salary amounts, but that's not the point of my post today. My point is, for the past 24 hours, my annoyance has come to a head, as a result of reading the following articles:

Live Free or Die Hard / Rush Hour 3, by Jenn at reappropriate.

Feminist of the day: Emma Watson, by Jessica at Feministing.

Live Free or Die Hard + Transformers, by Walter Chaw at Film Freak Central.

They're women, directors and few, by Mary F. Pols, San Jose Mercury News

When I was growing up, I used to go to movies all the time. Now I go to practically none. That is due to many factors, including a decrease in both disposable income and disposable time. But there are also less movies coming out. And hardly any involving women, much less women my age, or my color, or with my personality. I know there are women, nay people, out there who are just like me, who want to see more women of many ages, colors, ethnicities and dispositions on their screens. I don't need to see yet another movie with schlubby guys getting (often younger) girls who are way out of their league. I don't care how "real" Dustin thinks these people are.

I will see Hairspray, though. Amanda Bynes is funny. I can almost forgive her for She's the Man. Though there is something disconcerting about seeing a movie that's based on a musical that's based on a movie that's younger than I am. What's next? Legally Blonde: The Remix with Hayden PaneraBread? The Lion Kings with Dylan and Cole Sprouse? La Lohan in The Little Mermaid who's totally sober now kinda?

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In sadly humorous news, this made me giggle:

Locks of controversy, by Wesley Morris, The Boston Globe, via Racialicious.

...you probably missed word that Zahara Marley Jolie-Pitt, the second of Brad and Angie's four children (she's from Ethiopia), may have received a drastic haircut and that this haircut was deeply upsetting for certain stargazers with Internet access.

"I think they shaved the poor kid's head cause they have no clue in how to style her hair. I think they should get a professional African braider to braid her hair," wrote Sexycocoa in a post to the black gossip site Media Take Out. On the same site, Akan5 wrote, "I DON'T TRUST THESE PEOPLE AT ALL. Why cut her hair. WHY! IN THIS COUNTRY people always let the girls' hair grow." That's a representative sample of what wound up on various message boards late last month, from Take Out to E! Online, and in people's inboxes, including mine...

...With more and more black chat lines demanding to know why one little black girl's hair isn't fuller, thicker, or at least more moisturized, a "Save Zahara" campaign may not be far behind.

Hee hee! Maybe we can stage a benefit concert at the Al Sharpton/Jesse Jackson estate.