FRIDAY (1995)

[Note: This review is for the 91-minute Theatrical Version, not the 97-minute Director's Cut.]

Ah FRIDAY. I love this movie. I’ve seen it well over 300 times and have even made it to the end credits at least a hundred times. The reason I say that is because while the first hour (which is about two unemployed men in Los Angeles hanging out on a front porch) is one of the greatest single hours in movie history (seriously), the 3rd act just cannot sustain the awesome tidal wave of relentless entertainment due to the subject matter shifting abruptly from hilarious slice-of-life stuff like a character (who’s locked out his own home) urgently trying to find a place out on the street to take a shit...to attempted murder! It’s just too much. If the story had stayed about the colourful neighborhood characters for the entire movie, then FRIDAY would easily be a 10/10 film. As it is though, it’s just a lowly 8/10.

Awesome pace, dozens of quotable lines that I still use often in my daily life, awesome camerawork, perfect editing, great characters (while I do appreciate Kevin Spacey’s outstanding supporting actor performance in THE USUAL SUSPECTS, if I was an Academy voter, my vote would have went to Chris Tucker’s performance as “Smokey”. He literally carries the entire movie.), a big perm, I mean, big worm, tons of small touches that make me smile (the backwards foot, the man laying in Joi's bed, the continuing car backfire, etc.), mind control over Deebo, MAN’S BEST FRIEND on the TV, Claude having mercy, Michael Clarke Duncan playing dice, Cypress Hill posters, a half-dead motherfucker, $2.50 and a jawbreaker, a badass soundtrack, Kool-Aid, no sugar. Peanut butter, no jelly. Ham, no burger. Daaamn!

Anyway. Just go watch it.  And if you've already seen it...then watch it again.  The 91-minute version, it has a better pace than the longer version. Bye, Felisha.

[Update 06/11/2024: This might be far-fetched, but could the scene in FRIDAY with Mrs. Parker watering her all dirt front yard, be a play on Furious Styles bagging up leaves in his treeless yard in BOYZ N THE HOOD?]

Part 2 - Next Friday (2000)
Part 3 - Friday After Next (2002)

ARMAGEDDON (1998)

A massive asteroid, named Dottie, is headed directly for Earth and our only hope is that two super Space Shuttles can take a group of oil drilling badasses up into space, slingshot them around the moon and land on Dottie's ass so they can give her a nuclear enema that'll blow that bitch out of the sky. Yasujiro Ozu it's not.

Nope, it's Michael Bay. So check your brain at the door and get ready for some cheesy, goofy bullshit filled with helicopters flying in front of sunsets, explosions, slow motion overdose, frantic editing, rugged saintly-like tough guys, product placement, camera spin, Aerosmith power ballad overdose and some of the worse dialogue ever written. "Miss Stamper? Colonel Willie Sharp, United States Air Force, ma'am. Requesting permission to shake the hand of the daughter of the bravest man I've ever met." Ooowwwch! That line just gave me instant terminal butt cancer. Better go watch DEADLY PREY.

For a 90's disaster movie, ARMAGEDDON is about as big and dumb as it gets.  It's awesome! The disaster is "a global killer", the characters are bigger than life and the director has no shame. One of the biggest guilty pleasure movies of the 90's.

Little known (untrue) fact: In the unproduced ARMAGEDDON 2: ELECTRIC BOOGALOO, literally 1 second after everybody finished hugging each other that the end of the first film, everybody on Earth immediately went back to hating the living fuck out of each other for totally unimportant reasons like skin colour, money, genitals and imaginary creators.