I Give Up

When I started this little project, circumstances were ideal for success. I sat at home all day and had plenty of spare time. And then, a week ago, I started a second job. And school started. And then I didn't have spare time.

So I give up. It wasn't that it was difficult to watch the movies themselves. No, it was being obligated to put out quality blog posts about them every day; I couldn't deal with the pressure to do this well, and so it wasn't fun at all.

I haven't decided if I'm going to keep watching the movies anyway. I haven't in two days, and I miss it, shockingly. So I'm leaning toward starting this project over, but retooling it somehow to make the whole thing work for me. I'll let you know.

I'm a little behind...

Guys, sometimes real life comes callin', and you gotta answer that shit or it just won't leave you alone. That happened this week, so I'm a little behind on updates. I have been watching the things and giving myself topics, but I haven't found the time to write them up yet. Keep your eyes open.

Day 14: This Bro...

I decided to turn this "goofy extra" thing into a thing, because when I was watching 2 FAST 2 FURIOUS I noticed this one hilarious-looking and wildly out-of-place dude that I just had to point out to everyone. This bro has less than one second of screen time, and it comes when the cops arrive after the race at the beginning of the movie. Enjoy; the bro in question is the blondie on the left side of the frame:

Oh boy. I think that speaks for itself.

Oh, and now that I've figured out how to make animated GIFs, you'll be getting a lot more of them. Yay!

Day 13: Almost Had Me?

When I lived in LA, I'd see famous people around sometimes. One time, I went to the movies on a Sunday morning, and I discovered that Keanu Reeves was sitting in the row in front of me. It was soooooo awesome, even though I hadn't started writing this blog and he didn't know yet who I was. We even made eye contact as we left the theater, and I immediately called all my friends to tell them about my amazing day.

So there's this one bro in the background of one shot in THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS, and he's basically me before this blog brought me a bunch of bags of poon.

We encounter this bro in the crowd when Vin Diesel is telling Paul Walker what a fucking tool he is after they race for the first time. Master Diesel looks over at him and is like, "Almost had me question mark"

Not realizing that Master Diesel was just putting on a show because he was way excited that somebody was actually looking at him, the bro tried to actually answer the question. He starts waving his arms wildly and says something like, "I don't know, man. I don't know hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha." And then Vinny walks right on by.

But the man keeps on smiling hilariously, and he giggles to himself, and later that night he blogs about how he and super hunk Vin Diesel made eye contact. I feel you, bruh. I feel you. You're just one awesome blog about a gay-oriented action movie franchise away from being awesome. But until that day arrives, treasure these moments.

Day 12: You're a Lucky Man

Vin Diesel never really looks happy in these movies. He's plays more of a brooding, troubled baaaaaaaaaaaaaad son of a bitch whose mood goes mostly back and forth between perfectly level to angry as fuck. And in FAST AND FURIOUS, because he's dealing with Michelle Rodriguez's death, his default face is something like this:

That ain't a very happy bro right there. It hurts me to see him with so much more internal misery than usual, so when he has a very brief moment of levity in a club belonging to his new mortal enemy, I teared up a bit.

So Vin and Paul Walker are drinkin' and chillin' with evil villain bro Campos, and Vin and Paul are talkin' shit to each other, and Campos is like, "You bitches know each other?" And Vin's like, "Uh, yeah, bruh, he fucked my sister."

Campos responds with, "You're a lucky bro, Paul Walker," which confuses Mr. Paul, and he asks why he's lucky, so Campos explains his line of thought: "You're still breathing."

Vin! I can see genuine joy on your face, just like in the old days! Loooooooooove yoooooouuuuuuu.

I skipped yesterday because I was drankin'

One of my old bros came to town yesterday, so I ended up spending most of the day drinking beer and whiskey and some blue curacao somebody gave me. This led to me being drunk and not watching THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS. My B. Day 12 is forthcoming, however.

Day 11: how come i never c u drift ???

The subject of this post is one sentence Lucas Black types at Neela in some sort of instant messenger program. It is important to note that, in this movie, Lucas Black does not own a computer of his own, and since he's from Alabama, has probably just recently learned how to use one:

I guess we can all be thankful that Justin Lin and co. didn't go all the way and have him write "cum" instead of "come," at least. But Jesus fucking Christ. I hate everyone involved with putting that shot on my screen.

Day 10: I Hit a Wall Doin' Like a Buck Twenty

I've never been in any sort of really exciting car wreck, though I have had some close calls, such as when I swerved out of the way of a fucking elk in Wyoming while I was going 80 mph and almost got completely smashed by a Wal-Mart big rig. Or when I had a bunch of shit on my windshield on the other side of Wyoming and then the sun hit it straight on, blinding me, and I almost drove off a cliff. That would have been something. And I would have been dead as hell in both examples had I not exhibited brilliant driving skills.

The 2 FAST 2 FURIOUS version of Ludacris, on the other hand, got himself into one of those bad situations (all this is before the events of the movie), did not exhibit driving skills awesome enough to get out of it and then drove straight into a wall at 120 mph. We discover this when Tyrese asks him if he races, and Luda is just like, "nah man."

Meanwhile, Ludacris has no limp or horrible scars or significantly lowered brain function (apparently?), and he may or may not do PSAs about reckless driving (probably not). I guess it's possible he just drove through the wall and it was actually totally fucking awesome, but the way Luda's tone of voice changes to being more morose than we've ever heard him (ever so slightly morose) makes me think that "hit a wall" means "hit a wall."

I think he's lying. I only know of one example of somebody driving into a solid, uncrunchable object at 100 mph, and that collision resulted in what I only know how to describe as a really bad case of exploded face. Here's what the car looked like post-op in this example.

It would be very fucked up of me to post a pic of what the girl driving that former car looks like after the wreck destroyed her head, so you'll have to go to this link to see it. (Seriously, don't click that because it's fucking horrible.)

Since this is the only actual-for-realzies story I know of that's about like what happened to my bro Luda, I assume it's impossible to do what he did while keeping your face. Of course, it's important to also note that apparently his penis no longer works (Luda: "When are you gonna pop my clutch?" Devon Aoki: "As soon as you get the right set of tools. And a penis that works."), so perhaps he just exaggerated how fast he was going to make up for his manly embarrassment over having to use a penis pump.

Day 9: The Internet

Have you ever seen THE NET? It's a mid-90s "cyberthriller" starring Sandra Bullock about how anybody can use the internet to do anything they want. It's a fucking awesome movie. (Remember, my taste is suspect; I voluntarily watch a FAST AND THE FURIOUS movie every day.)

There are a lot of "oh wow the internet" movies that came out in the 90s, and even flicks that weren't about the internet would inevitably have characters that made references to this new internet shit, just because it was the big new pop culture thing.

Like in all facets of entertainment, trends die hard. And so in the summer of 2001, THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS arrived, and in the film, Vin Diesel proudly proclaims to Paul Walker that he found his criminal record on the internet, because "you can find anything on the internet -- anything about anybody."

He says this in a movie geared toward teenage bros who'd been jacking off to pictures of lesbians on the internet for at least a couple years. In fact, from the perspective of the old motherfuckers running the movie studios, most of the target audience (young people) are the bad guys, or will be the bad guys, because they understand that ridiculous computer mumbo jumbo that the old bros don't.

I have completely forgotten where I was going with this -- because I tried to write this while watching 2 FAST 2 FURIOUS and something in my brain broke -- so I'm just gonna show you folks some pictures of Vin Diesel's face photoshopped onto some women's bodies. I found these on the internet (aha!), and so technically I'm still on topic.

Day 8: Ladies Making Out With Each Other, and Other Things

Justin Lin pulls a pretty awesome trick at the beginning of FAST AND FURIOUS. He shows the title and then quick cuts back and forth between it and this shot:

And so now, every time I think of this movie, that image pops into my head. Well played, Justin Lin.

So, I did feel pretty guilty about my meat-like treatment of ladies this weekend, but I have to finish what I started, so as the title says, here's some pictures of ladies making out with each other, and other things, from FAST AND FURIOUS.

Who the fuck is that disgusting-looking bro there on the right in that last shot? Sheesh. I never noticed that guy before.

And I'll end with this shot of Jordana Brewster, who looks even better in 2009 than she did in 2010.

That concludes my misogynistic coverage of this franchise. I'm happy to get that out of the way early.

Day 7: This Post Is 100% Misogyny

Even if you ignored Tyrese's statement near the beginning of the movie about needing Paul Walker's ass as a slip of the tongue, this scene, in which Tyrese takes off his shirt for no reason in order to show us all his toned and incredibly attractive torso, really drives home how gay this movie is.

John Singleton knew coming it that it would be like this, and so he also knew he had to do a better job of showing off some hot ladies than Rob Cohen did in the first movie. And he really, really tried, though we still ended up with this:

This silly-looking lady with the ridiculous hair shows up several times in the movie as part of Devon Aoki's entourage. But that's ok, because as I said in the last sentence, Devon Aoki is in this movie, and she is always wearing something insane. Like this:

That's hot as fuck. Also, there's this awesome thing Eva Mendes wears at the beginning of the movie.

Generally, Singleton did a pretty good job of gathering together a collection of ladies that are nice to look at. Here's the first pair of womens you get a good look at:

And here is Tyrese's "hoasis":

This is easily the most guilty I have ever felt about something I wrote. I blame the Braves for how this turned out, considering I wrote most of it during the six-run inning they gave up to the goddamn Astros tonight. Also, I sincerely apologize to any women who might have read this.

Day 6: Why Do We Watch These Movies?

Well, why do we? I can't speak for anyone but myself, so that's all I'm gonna do here. I watch THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS saga for two things: the ridiculous eye candy and the gay subtext/text. Justin Lin understands this completely, and so we he took control of the franchise on TOKY DRIFT he went all out on the eye candy, throwing it at you at every opportunity.

(Yes, I skipped 2 FAST 2 FURIOUS. Some bros came over to drink last night, and they had already watched that one with me earlier in the week. So we watched TOKYO DRIFT instead. I'll come back to 2 FAST tomorrow.)

Here is the first shot in TOKYO DRIFT of a woman with a speaking part:

Sure, it's exploitative and crass, but it's ridiculous enough to be amusing, like when Martin Lawrence gets up close and person with a naked dead girl in Bad Boys II. Once the movie moves to Japan, this continues.

One of the bros who watched the movie with me pointed out that many of the cars in the film aren't at all good for either racing or drifting; I don't know if that's true, but assuming it is, the above shot explains why the filmmakers did what they did. This movie is not about logic; rather, it's about putting the coolest looking stuff on screen at all times. This means you put a girl's ass on screen in front of what looks to me like a tricked-out engine. Eye candy.

As a bonus, here's this:

That's basically what the rest of the ladies hanging out in the background of shots look like. Yay for bros!

Day 5: Auburn Girls

When you think of women in Los Angeles, you don't normally pull up, in your head, pictures of girls you'd expect to find going to school at Auburn University. And, yet, that's exactly what you get in THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS, rather than the ladies you hear Katy Perry and Snoop sing about so often these days. Here's a bunch of pictures that illustrate my point:

See what I mean? It's not that most of these girls are unattractive; they just aren't the movie-quality ladies you'd expect to find wandering around in the background of your summer action movie starring Vin Diesel. Come on, Rob Cohen, I know you can go better. I mean, Asia Argento was in XXX!

Of course, it could be said that Dr. Cohen was just trying to make his leading ladies look good in comparison. And they do, even though they aren't spectacular either. Here are shots of Michell Rodriguez and Jordana Brewster from the film.

Michelle Rodriquez looks as good as she ever does, and Jordana Brewster just looks funky with her hair like that and with those untrimmed eyebrows. She certainly cleans up better in the fourth film.

Look, I know I just look like an internet nerd talking shit about women I could never get in real life. And that may be true. But as you'll see over the next few days, the visual quality of the ladies increases pretty significantly in the second film, and then it shoots through the fucking roof for the third and fourth films.

I had more to say, but beer just arrived. I'm out.

The Ladies of THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS

One of the things I always notice when I watch THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS movies is the massive discrepancy in the quality of ladies on display between the first two films and the Justin Lin entries in the series. And so Days 5 through 8 will be dedicated to taking a closer look at what each film is offering, and I'll recap it all at the end. Enjoy.

Day 4: A Vision of My Future

Thought it's certainly a lot of fun to make "get off my lawn" jokes about old dudes, have you ever wondered, perhaps, why these old dudes do little else but yell at kids who have dadgummed boom boxes? To understand, you'll need to see the world through their eyes for a change.

I was able to do this yesterday. It's hard to say exactly what happened to my brain that caused my perspective to shift so radically. My guess is that it's because I spent two hours looking at pictures of girls dressed up as Tifa Lockheart from Final Fantasy VII before I watched the movie. I got really upset in those two hours, because nobody but well known Japanese models seemed to be able to pull it off, and yet I kept looking at all these pictures of hunchbacked white girls in poorly made costumes. Also, kids were playing on my porch all day.

What this all adds up to, then, is that when I started FAST AND FURIOUS rolling, I was like, "Hot young females flaunting their shit and making out with each other! Car moving way faster than could ever be considered safe! Bright colors! Nipples poking through a tank top! I can't process this!"

Normally, all these things would thrill me. I'd be all like, "Yeah, bruh, Vin Diesel just made that giant fiery gas tank his BITCH!" But instead, because I was looking at it through the eyes of an old bro, it just felt like somebody was trying to murder me. Here's the best way I know to describe it, being from a place where all the white people are racist:

Imagine you're a racist female teenager, and a 6'6" black guy is sprinting at you, and he's got a gun in his hand. You'd be pretty scared, and you'd probably scream about how black people are awful and subhuman. It doesn't matter that he's actually 5'10", not running and not holding a gun, because your brain is racist, and all you can think when you see the dude is OH MY GOD HE WANTS TO STEAL ALL MY SHIT.

And when I watched FAST AND FURIOUS while my brain was emulating a old brain, I was just like, "Nah, this ain't really happenin'. this is just some young people bullshit that I don't understand because rabble rabble." And then I just wanted to drink some old people liquor like scotch or something to make it all go away. It was a horrifying and yet very enlightening experience.

What did I learn from this, now that I have returned to the land of young people? I learned that if I survive to old age and then no longer enjoy fast and furious motion pictures, I should just kill myself. Because a world in which THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS isn't awesome is not a world I wanna live in. A profound lesson indeed, I'd say.

Day 3: Racial Harmony

Growing up in Alabama is weird. There's a lot of racism, and there's also a lot of black people. I was fortunate enough to be raised in an adamantly non-racist household, and so legitimate racism, once I encountered it, was as alien an idea as thinking that the act of eating will kill you.

At the same time, growing up in the South makes you very aware of racial issues, just because of all the history of prejudice in the region and because everybody outside the South thinks all the white folks down here are racist.

Watching THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS: TOKYO DRIFT through those eyes, then, is quite intriguing. Here we have a summer movie about a white redneck, a black dude, a girl from Australia, a Korean-American and a bunch of Japanese people.

Compare that to Inception, the current summer "it" movie. That movie has a bunch of white people and Dileep Rao, the American son of Indian immigrants. Yes, that's just one example, but it's also the norm.

The fact that the cast of TOKYO DRIFT is ethnically diverse is not why I find it enthralling -- the driving sequences are the best of the series -- but it's just a nice thing to note. This is what colorblind casting looks like, and it's a very pleasant sight.

OK, so I didn't have any jokes to make tonight, and I'm sooooooooooo soooooooooo sorry. My bad. I'll correct that tomorrow, I promise.

Day 2: Paul Walker vs. Eva Mendes vs. Tyrese

I was recently in a weird situation with a girl. We were each doing our own thing, basically not existing in each other's world --- as I was in California and she was in Alabama -- except for when we would talk to each other about goings on. As I said, it got kinda weird, because we got into each other's emotional shit, and, to me, once I moved back to Alabama, our relationship was ill-defined, and I didn't know where it was going. The relationship between Paul Walker and Eva Mendes in 2 FAST 2 FURIOUS is like that.

The plot of 2 FAST 2 FURIOUS provides no easy way for Paul Walker to have a love interest, but at some point -- I assume very late in pre-production -- a Universal exec saw what John Singleton and co. were planning for the movie and was like, "Hey, we need somebody for Paul Walker to make out with!" So then Eva Mendes was brought in to be the undercover Customs agent, but they still didn't really put in a romantic subplot.

Paul Walker and Eva Mendes are on screen with each on six occasions during the movie, and at no point do they talk about anything but this cop mission they're on. The fifth time they share the screen, Mendes is all sweaty and, presumably, smelly from running across Miami, and she warns him that his life is in danger, and then she kisses him.

The next time they see each other is at the end of the movie, after all the shit is over. They say hey and shake hands and kinda look at each other sweetly, and then Mendes leaves with the FBI hoss and the movie ends.

Er, hello? What the fuck is this? Here's my guess: Paul Walker and Tyrese dated back in Barstow when they were younger. Then Paul Walker meets this very attractive lady at the beginning of the movie, and he wants that shit. But, shortly thereafter, he reunites with Tyrese, and their flame is rekindled. Paul Walker is confused. He really wants this hot piece of strange he just met, but he also feels too loyal to Tyrese to make a move. Eva Mendes kisses him later because she doesn't know about all this gay subtext. In the end, Paul Walker chooses Tyrese.

Sounds about right.