Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.
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Will read ramayana and likely watch the latest fast and furious movie titled fast x. It is low brow and I did not like the last two at all so hope this one is not another vin diesel fest.
Short rant - Vin Diesel looks old, the dude is not what you would want in an action hero, not because of the bad acting but he also does not look the part at all. The movies themselves have gone from being about stealing dvds and him being a normal man to some sort of brainless avengers ripoff where literally everything revolves around vin. Keanu is another old guy who is not a good actor but at least the John Wick movies are nice, they have good set pieces and are not dumbed down to appeal to 3rd graders.
I also tried out chilli oil ramen, it is an alright thing, just needs a decent packet of ramen without much sugar or coloring or you may risk burning it or making it taste rancid. My sabbatical begins next week so I will spend my last weekend free just reading the glorious ramayana and contemplating on life. Life is good, also cookies and cream is a great ice cream flavor I just found out about.
I always defend the Fast and Furious movies. To me they're big dumb movies but not bad ones. Well, okay: not not-entertaining ones.
Yes, all of the set pieces are dumb. But they're well-crafted. It seems like a low-bar but in the age of CGI dreck I can actually follow along with the ludicrous things they're doing
You're right about Diesel though; success has ossified him. It's not just his now-bloated, older look, which I can get past, but the character he plays has nothing to him besides being a taciturn hero yet he's supposed to anchor the films.
Not sure why he's degenerated below even speaking in complete sentences (Keanu has a similar thing with John Wick, but he was always laconic). He's actually not a bad actor and he must have a ton of creative control at this point (given how he ran off The Rock who used his star power to run wild in DC)
Up until the Covid Years, I'd gone my whole life without seeing a Fast and Furious movie. Then I caught Covid, and while I was lying on the couch helpless and incapacitated, my wife subjected me to the entire series in sequence, all... however many movies there were, ending with the Rock spinoff.
Much of the experience is mercifully vague, a mishmash of family and fiery explosions and contemplations on how many variations on the title are linguistically possible, but I do recall ranting that these people really, really need to understand that some problems are car problems, and some problems are gun problems, and they really, really should stop trying to solve the latter with the former...
For me F&F always was "how could you use the cars in the most ridiculous way", and if you look for anything to make sense there, you took a wrong turn way, way earlier.
To be honest a lot of the earlier fast and the furious movies had a decent cultural significance to it (at least during the time) it helps to remind ourselves that the timelines collided with MTVs pimp my ride and other shows where they did atrocious modifications to the cars.
The bitter taste is left from the question that when the hell did robbing bank vaults and jumping cars across buildings become any part of a cultural significance? I’m not saying that movies have to be relevant to the culture, and in the movie world the natural transition and exponential growth of the action could only be set up by such exaggerated plots. But the appeal of Fast and the Furious was that it could be semi realistic to have car meet up’s or chases (ignoring the potential of causing a mini genocide trying that in Tokyo)
I’d say an interesting thought experiment would’ve been to try to think of a plot alternative which still had cultural significance. One on the top of my head would be the crew stealing car shipments trying to find some special car plotted with some family/crime drama.
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