FAST & FURIOUS (2009)

"Still a busta."

Well, let's see...after the bizarre Tokyo field trip in the third installment, things get back to normal in Part 4.  Vin Diesel and Paul Walker are both back along with some others.  The story is continued from earlier, but honestly, I wasn't paying enough attention to the story to really care.  Something about Mr. Diesel's girlfriend being murdered and Paul Walker being an undercover cop infiltrating a drug smuggling operation that uses fast cars.  Who knows?!  It's all over the place.  I was entertained, but the drug running stuff was weak.  I miss the racing douche bro stuff from the earlier films.  That shit was so much fun to make fun of.  As it is though, I still enjoyed the film, but I cannot see myself revisiting this installment too often.

Fair amount of racing, lots of crazy stunts, dated technology, racing through a dark cave (how exciting!), promising ending, supporting cast full of familiar faces (ol' girl from Dexter, ol' boy from True Detective, etc.), an iguana eating an ice cream bar.  Worth checking out if you are watching the entire series, but don't expect your socks to be blown across the room!  They might end up being a little bit loose in the toes, but that's about it.

Part 1 - The Fast and the Furious (2001)
Part 2 - 2 Fast 2 Furious (2003)
Part 3 - The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift (2006)
Part 5 - Fast Five (2011)
Part 6 - Fast & Furious 6 (2013)
Part 7 - Furious 7 (2015)
Part 8 - The Fate of the Furious (2017)
Spin-off 1 - Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw (2019)
Part 9 - F9 (2021)
Part 10 - Fast X (2023)

PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE (1959)

"We are all interested in the future, for that is where you and I are going to spend the rest of our lives."

An elderly man, still mourning the recent passing of his late wife, is killed in a car accident.  Mourners leaving his funeral find the mutilated corpses of two graveyard workers.  The police are called and soon even more bodies start to pile up.  At the same time, two commercial airplane pilots report seeing an unidentified flying object, but the government covers it up.  These two events might not seem related, but they are!  You see, advanced extraterrestrials have been watching Earth for a very long time.  As we became more and more advanced.  Inventing the atom bomb, then the hydrogen bomb, but now...humans are on the verge of inventing the Solaranite bomb which will explode sunlight itself and, of course, the Universe!  The aliens have tried multiple times (I'm guessing 8?) to contact us, but The Man always covers it up, so they've moved on to Plan 9: zombies!

The most surprising thing that first time viewers will discover about PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE is it's not that bad of a film!  It's honestly just low budget and rough around the edges.  The story itself is entertaining and funny, the pace is good and the acting...well, the acting is pretty stiff, but it's still enjoyable.  The lieutenant's pistol handling skills alone are worth the price of admission!   Yeah, the sets look cheap, but the stuff like the microphone shadows and edges of props being visible is because the film was shot for the 1.85:1 aspect ratio, but all of the home video releases (as of 4/2020) have been in 1.33:1.  So, the viewer ends up seeing things that were not meant to be seen.

As it is though, I still love P9FOS.  It's such a weird movie and it's 100% Ed Wood.  Nobody else in the Universe could have made PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE.  That should at least stand for something.  Ed only made a handful of good films, but goddamn, are they unique and charming.  And I think that is the best way to describe PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE: charming.

Required viewing for fans of "bad movies".  

Not part of the review, but I would absolutely love to see a 100% serious retelling of Ed's original Plan 9 story idea.  I'm talking serious like ARRIVAL or something like that.  I honestly think, in the correct hands, this story could be straight up awesome!!!