Wednesday, October 30, 2019

THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS: TOKYO DRIFT (2006)

"Fifty percent of something is better than a hundred percent of nothing."

Twenty-four year old high school student Sean Boswell is a moron.  He's also a speed addict and a busta.  Trouble seems to follow him everywhere he goes.  Mainly because he's a dumb ass.  His latest racing-related wise decision (illegally street racing through a house!) ends up with his parents sending him to the Tokyo Drift Capitol of the World: Tokyo, Japan, as punishment.  It seems that his parents are morons as well.

Once in the Tokyo, it takes Sean less than 24 hours to not only get in a race, but to also destroy an expensive car belonging to a local yakuza and to flirt nonstop with another yakuza dude's girlfriend!  Jesus wept, this tired of living motherfucker is an idiot.  Fortunately though, for some bizarre reason, the one yakuza guy takes Sean under his wing and trains him Mister Miyagi-style how to be the "drift king".  None of this makes sense and it's all very silly...and highly entertaining in a bad way.  I liked it.  It was dumb as fuck.  If TFATFTD had been a Takashi Miike joint, Sean would have ended up skinned alive and/or with a ladle shoved up his butt (yes, that's a GOZU reference), but since this is a light-weight studio film, everything comes down to the big race at the end.  Cause, you know, that's how most organized crime groups settle their disputes...with drifting.  Goodfellas 2: Brooklyn Drift comes to mind.

Ridiculous story, zero logic, Atari Teenage Riot on the soundtrack, fast pace, dated fashions, subpar racing scenes that were not exciting, lackluster photography, stiff acting.  Overall, TFATFTD was uneventful and lame, but it was just so damn stupid that I liked it.  It was good to laugh at.

Fun fact: often when I'm playing racing games, I'll randomly yell out "Tokyo drift!!!" while drifting.  True story.

Part 1 - The Fast and the Furious (2001)
Part 2 - 2 Fast 2 Furious (2003)
Part 4 - Fast & Furious (2009)
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)

Wednesday, October 23, 2019

DEADTIME STORIES (1986)

Oof!  DEADTIME STORIES is a silly comedy/horror anthology about an annoying little twerp who won't go to sleep.  His drunk uncle is trying to watch TV in the living room, so he tells the kid three stories to try to get him to fall asleep.  The first story is easily the worst of the group.  It's a goddamn disaster.  Two witches are living in the woods.  They're trying to reincarnate their dead sister.  Instead, they had my finger inching towards the "Eject" button and thinking about aborting this entire review.  Being the handsome stud that I am, I bravely trudged through that stinker and made it to the second story that actually ended up being alright!  It was a modern retelling (with a werewolf twist) of the Little Red Riding Hood tale and it had it's moments.  The third story was about the "Bear" family.  After escaping from a mental hospital, they return home to find out that a psychopath by the name of Goldi Lox is living in their old dump of a house.  The whole story is dumb as Hell, but somewhat entertaining in a "so stupid it's funny" sort of way.

Wildly uneven stories that didn't fit together at all, a horribly boring connecting narrative (the kid and his drunk uncle) that could have just been dropped altogether and replaced with another actual story, extremely brief nudity, mediocre special effects, uneven acting skills, a Rob Lowe poster just like the one from THE LOST BOYS, interior of a drugstore from the 1980's complete with Smurfs and E.T. merch, zero gore, very little blood, 80's fashions, absolutely zero laughs, ol' boy from THE MUTILATOR, lots of groans (from me), unsatisfying ending.

Overall, I'm glad that I watched it, but it'll be a long time before I voluntarily watch this bastard again.  It was fun to laugh at though.  Skip it.