Week Of June 12, 2006 - Mon / Wed / Fri

June 16, 2006

It's Friday and you have more choices than any time this summer.

I have not had the good fortune of seeing either Speed: A Tale of Two Years or The Garfield House Cat... or whatever they are called. I would guess that if forced to see The Lake House, I might find it amusing. I am often a sucker for the romances. And I didn't despise the first Garfield movie, so who knows?

I wrote about Nacho Libre (too much of a good, but too simple thing) on MCN yesterday. That leaves 3 Fast 3 Furious, aka The Fast & The Furious: Tokyo Drift.

Tokyo Drift is the kind of mid-summer guilty pleasure movie that people delight in finding. It's wild, it's stupid, it's action-filled... basic stupid fun. A perfect $15 million piece of fluff (except for that it cost an astounding $75 million).

Lucas Black gets his chance in the driver's seat of a studio movie for the first time. (I would qualify Friday Night Lights as an ensemble.) And he is a pleasure to have, getting away from the earnest stiffness of Paul Walker. Or is it? Watching Walker try to act can be painful, but after two movies, there is something settled in about him in this series. I like Lucas Black, but he is not of the series. This is also the first movie that doesn't involve an undercover cop.

But all of that is okay.

The attachment to the first films is fast cars, cocky muscular guys and short skirts. Lucas Black is The Kid who magically can find a fast car to destroy at any time. Any motivation, other than being in a movie, is left to our movie-history-wired imagination. When he runs out of chances at home, he is shipped to his dad in Tokyo. After being warned by dad that no crap will be taken, he goes to school and runs into a fast talking black army brat kid (Bow Wow) and the one hot non-Asian girl in his school (Nathalie Kelley). On his first night in town wanders into the hot car scene and actually races one of the most expensive cars in town, becoming fast friends with the one Japanese looking guy in the film who is American (Sung Kang). The only major Japanese character in the film is a wannabe yakusa (Brian Tee)... the bad guy. And then some more stuff happens.

And still, even with this remarkably anti-Asian bent, even with Justin Lin as a director, it's okay.

Fast cars... Nathalie Kelley's ass showing out of the bottom of her skirt when she's introduced (though come to think of it, we never see it again, so maybe it was a stand-in stunt butt)... fist fights... more fast cars... the comedic black hustler always works... and hell, even a cameo by Sonny Chiba. (There is another celebrity cameo, but it's 2 late and 2 minor to be more than a small kick.)

For me, it is the least substantial of the three dumb movies. The first had Vin Diesel chewing every inch of screen in sight and a seriousness that was so intense that it made dumb even more fun. The second film was a car chase feast with a charismatic performance from Tyrese, a lot of screen time to ogle Eva Mendes for the first time, really, and support from character players like Devon Aoki, Ludacris, and living legends of whatever-happened-to, James Remar and Cole Hauser. Here, there isn't much star power - even new star power - and as hard as Bow Wow works, he is stuck in a stereotype.

But still, enjoyable, dumb, summer fun. Brain drain. No animals harmed in the course of watching this movie.

And with that, I will wish you good weekend. I'm at Cinevegas this weekend and though I have missed many of the buzz films, the festival is being kind enough to re-screen a few of them, as well as offering a slew of interesting closing weekend opportunities. So more on this come Monday.

E Me: What choices will you make this weekend?

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Week Of April 3, 2006 - Life In the Bubble - Mon / Wed / Fri
Week Of April 10, 2006 - List Week - Mon / Wed / Fri
Week Of April 17, 2006 - Review Week - Mon / Wed / Fri
Week Of April 24, 2006 - Overlooked Week - Mon / Wed / Fri
Week Of May 1, 2006 - Mystery Week - Tue / Wed / Fri
Week Of May 8, 2006 - How We Watch Week - Mon / Wed / Fri
Week Of May 15, 2006 - Premature Week - Oscar Mon / Wed / Fri
Week Of May 22, 2006 - B-13 Mon / Inconvenient Wed / Fri
Week Of May 29, 2006 - Wed / Fri
Week Of June 5, 2006 - 666 Tue / Iraq Doc Wed / Seattle Fri