Fast & Furious 9 (4 Stars)

This is the ninth film in the Fast & Furious series. In America it's called "F9", but "Fast & Furious 9" is the title in the UK. That's what I would have called it anyway, so that it's in the right place in my alphabetical list of posts.

I missed the film when it was shown in the cinema. I'm not sure why. I've owned it on Blu-ray since last year, but I've deliberately delayed watching it until the tenth film is in the cinema. The Blu-ray contains two versions, the theatrical cut and a Director's Cut. I watched the theatrical version today, and I'll watch the other version some time in the future.

The Fast & Furious franchise has to keep stepping up the action from one film to the next. It can't go backwards. In an early scene the cars were being attacked by an army with tanks. I sat looking at it shaking my head. "That's impossible", I told myself. I try to suspend belief, but "F&F 9" goes too far. That must have been obvious to the director/screenwriter, because Roman Pierce addresses his comrades afterwards:

"We've now been on insane missions around the world, doing what most would say is damn impossible, and I ain't got one single scar to show for it? I mean, look at my jacket. There are bullet holes from 14 dudes trying to take my head clean off its shoulders. We've taken out cars, trains, tanks. I'm not gonna even mention the submarine. And yet we're still here. We are not normal".

My thoughts entirely. It's like Roman is becoming meta? He's not a character in the film any more, he's speaking as a viewer. None of the team ever dies. Wait! Wasn't Han killed at the end of "Fast & Furious 6"? Yes, but in this film we find out that his death was faked. Gisele was also killed in "Fast & Furious 6", in a way that couldn't possibly have been faked. Or maybe she'll return in "Fast & Furious 12", telling her teammates that it was a body double. Anything is possible.

But the most outrageous stunt is saved until later in the film. A car is propelled into space, driven by Roman, accompanied by Tej. It has to be Roman. We've already established that he can't die. He rams an enemy satellite to destroy it, but he still survives.

What can "F&F 10" do to top this? Ask me again next week.

Michelle Rodriguez remains on the ground, but she's the film's heavenly body. She seems to be getting more attractive in every film. She's not normal.

Success Rate:  + 1.6

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Fast & Furious 8 (4½ Stars)

This is the eighth film in the Fast & Furious series. The title is silly, whether it's spelt Fate or F8. I hope you approve of my sensible renaming.

The team has two new members in this film. The first is Ramsey, the hacker we met in the seventh film. She was rescued from a Nigerian terrorist, but I didn't expect to see her return in the next film as a team member. Maybe she had nowhere else to go.

There were enough jokes in the last film about her not looking like a hacker, so I won't repeat them here. I'll just say that I agree. She doesn't look like a hacker.

Roman and Tej are vying for her attention. Tej (on the right) says he's the most suitable partner because he's also a computer expert. Roman (on the left) says he's the most suitable partner because of his sex appeal. If he says so.....

The second new member is Deckard Shaw, and his presence in the team is even less expected. In "Fast & Furious 7" he was the team's enemy. I knew he wasn't really a bad guy. He was only taking revenge for his brother. But now his brother has recovered from his injuries, so there's no need for him to work against the team. Apart from that, the mysterious Mr. Nobody got him out of prison on condition that he did a job for him. That job involves taking down an international terrorist called Cipher.

A shocking development in this film is that Dominic Toretto (Dom) turns his back on his team to work for Cipher. It's obvious that she has something she's using against him, but I'm not going to tell you what it is. If you haven't seen the film yet, now's your time.

In the 11-minute pre-credits scene the film returns to its roots. Dom takes part in an illegal street race in the streets of Havana, Cuba.

There's a scene in which we see Luke Hobbs working as a football coach. He's good. He's really good. I wish VfB Stuttgart had a coach like him.

He turns innocent young girls into lean, mean fighting machines.

I'd be scared to play with a girl like this.

This girl scares me even more.

And a girl like this would make me run and hide behind the goalposts.

You can see where they've got it from.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: Dwayne Johnson aka The Rock is the ex-wrestler who's the most talented actor. I feel tempted to say that he's the only ex-wrestler who's a good actor. Most wrestlers are embarrassing when they try to act, but don't tell them I said so. They're tougher than me.

I'm glad that Paul Walker's character, Brian O'Connor, hasn't been written out of the series after his death. It would have been tasteless to hear the team talking about him being killed by an enemy in between the films. He simply isn't there any more, so we can imagine that he's settled down as a happy family man, living a quiet life in a house by the beach. He's had enough of being fast and furious.

Success Rate:  + 2.9

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Fast & Furious 7 (4 Stars)

This film's correct name is "Furious 7", but I've renamed it "Fast & Furious 7". It's annoying when films in a series are given random names. Besides, by giving consistent names the films are easier to find in my alphabetic list of posts. I hope my regular readers use the list a lot. I know I do. Whenever I watch a film that I've watched before, I read my old reviews first, and I use my list to find them.

"Fast & Furious 7" begins shortly after the end of the previous film. It's more accurate to say that it overlaps. The opening scene takes place before the mid-credits scene of "Fast & Furious 6". Deckard Shaw is the brother of Owen Shaw, who was left badly injured and comatose after the last film. Deckard visits Owen in the police hospital, slaughtering everyone who gets in his way. I counted 19 bodies lying scattered in the lobby and hallways as he walked out. He only spared the medical personnel, not the guards. Judging by the mass destruction left in his wake, they need to build a new hospital.

From what I understand, Deckard isn't necessarily a bad guy. He was an elite soldier in the British SBS and SAS. Wow! It's rare that someone serves in both units. He was trained to be a ghost, entering foreign territory undetected to assassinate Britain's enemies. He's a man who can never be found unless he wants to be found. But family comes first. Anyone who harms his brother has to be dealt with.

Deckard visits the DSS offices to find out who was responsible for his brother's injuries. No, he doesn't make an appointment. He breaks into the building at night and logs into the computer of Luke Hobbs to get the information. He doesn't reckon with Hobbs doing overtime. A fight with Hobbs puts him into hospital for most of the film, but he climbs out of bed to go into action in the last half hour.

The first person he kills is Han, as we saw in the mid-credits scene of "Fast & Furious 6". Then he attempts to kill Brian O'Connor by mailing him a bomb. A big bomb. After this his primary target is Dominic Toretto (Dom).

Help comes from unexpected quarters. The leader of a black ops military team who calls himself Mr. Nobody offers Dom his assistance in finding Deckard if Dom does a job for him first. A hacker called Ramsey has written a program called God's Eye that can process data from every device on Earth with a camera or microphone, everything from mobile phones to traffic cameras. Combined with facial recognition software, anybody can be found. A Nigerian terrorist has kidnapped her in Azerbaijan. If Dom frees her and retrieves the hard drive containing God's Eye, Mr. Nobody will assist Dom in finding Deckard Shaw; using God's Eye, of course.

Dom and his team go to work, but it's even more difficult than expected. Deckard is never far away. Dom rescues Ramsey (after an exciting car chase), but Deckard tries to push Dom's car off the road.  Ramsey tells Dom that the hard drive is in Abu Dhabi, but when Dom and his team go to collect it, Deckard is waiting for them.

There's a bittersweet element to the film. The actor Paul Walker, who plays Brian O'Connor, died in a car crash before the film had been completed. The crash was nothing to do with the film itself. The filming continued with slight rewriting. The final scene is a thinly disguised tribute to Paul Walker. Dom says farewell to Brian, and there are flashbacks to the previous films, but it's obvious that he's really saying farewell to Paul. The film is dedicated to him.

Paul Walker
12 September 1973 – 30 November 2013

Success Rate:  + 6.0

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Escape From New York (2 Stars)

This is the film I originally planned as the third film in my John Carpenter mini-marathon. It's a film I'd never seen before. I'd heard good things about it, and it's considered a cult film, so I sat down to watch it with high expectations. After less than ten minutes I was already disappointed.

The plot: in the near future (1997) Manhattan has been turned into a high security prison. The tunnels have been closed, and only one bridge is still in use. The American president's plane, Air Force One, has been hijacked by a terrorist group. The president is ejected in an escape pod, which lands in Manhattan. He's captured by criminals who hold him to ransom.

Snake Plissken, a highly decorated war hero, has been arrested after attempting to rob the Federal Reserve. He's due to be imprisoned for life in Manhattan, but the police commissioner makes him a deal: if he can rescue the president he'll be pardoned.

That's a twisted premise. Why would Manhattan of all places be used as a prison? It's the location of some of America's most valuable real estate, including the World Trade Center. One of the smaller Hawaian islands would be more suitable. Manhattan has been chosen so that the locations can be recognised, albeit in a chaotic, dystopian condition.

And that brings me to why I don't like the film. Dystopian. I don't like films where society has fallen apart. Mostly this applies to post-apocalyptic films, the aftermath of a large scale war, but in the case of "Escape From New York" it's the aftermath of Manhattan being handed over to criminals.

The film has a redeeming feature. Adrienne Barbeau appears as a criminal called Maggie. At the time the film was made she was married to John Carpenter.

This is John Carpenter's fifth film. There's a progression in the budget, from his meagre beginnings.

1974	Dark Star	$60,000
1976	Assault on Precinct 13	$100,000
1978	Halloween	$300,000
1980	The Fog	$1,100,000
1981	Escape From New York	$6,000,000

The simple graph is a screenshot from Excel. If I had more time I'd draw it by hand to make it look better, but I think it's sufficient to show how much money he had available. Does the extra money mean an increase in quality? Definitely not. If you read my reviews you'll see that I rated the first three films five stars, "The Fog" four stars, and "Escape From New York" two stars. The quality is inversely proportional to the budget. Someone should have taken John Carpenter's money away. That's the only way his films could have been improved.

Success Rate:  + 2.2

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Death Proof (5 Stars)

Dancer's Top Films #53

Quentin Tarantino calls "Death Proof" his worst film. I disagree. Out of the nine films he's made so far, seven of them have made it into my best films list. "Death Proof" has been included while two others have been omitted. I might have put it even higher in my list if it weren't for one small detail that bothers me. The film has a lot of fake scratches to make it look like an old film from the 1970's. I don't like this. I'm sure it was filmed perfectly and the scratches added later, so the Blu-ray could have offered both versions by including two video tracks. The Angle button on the remote control could switch between them.

That's a terrific T-shirt. I'd love to have it myself, although I admit it wouldn't look as good on me. However, I don't think that its use in the film is random. After making "Kill Bill" Quentin Tarantino said he was considering doing a remake of "Faster Pussycat Kill Kill". This never happened, but "Death Proof" borrows a lot of ideas from "Faster Pussycat Kill Kill", especially in the last 20 minutes. The T-shirt is a subtle hint that most viewers would never notice.

The film is split into two parts. It's like a play in two acts. The second part is incredible. The conversation between the four girls in the car is some of the best dialogue ever written for a film.

Quentin Tarantino has scenes like this in several of his films, in which characters look down into a car. Usually it's the car's trunk, but here the girls are looking under the hood.

In my previous reviews I've written a lot about the naked feet in the film, so much that I promised not to mention feet in my next review. I'll stick to my promise. In this review I shan't mention naked feet, however beautiful they may be and however much I want to suck the girls' toes.

See! I've kept my promise!

Success Rate:  - 1.0

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Once upon a time in Hollywood (4½ Stars)

I gave this film five stars when I saw it in the cinema last year, but I've decided to lower the rating after watching it again today. The film is disjointed. In 2017 it was announced that Quentin Tarantino was going to make a film about the Manson Family murders. As the release date came closer, it was reported that the film was about Hollywood at the end of the 1960's. It's actually about both. The first two hours are about the golden days of Hollywood, while the last half hour is about the Manson Family murders. Both parts of the film are perfect in themselves, but it looks like the second part has been tagged on as an afterthought. It's true, the Manson Family also appears in a scene in the first part, but the Family doesn't seem to have any great importance, along all the other things that are happening.

There's a lot that I could write about the relationship between the actor Rick Dalton (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his stuntman Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt). I'll leave my thoughts on them until I watch the film again. In this review I'll concentrate on women's feet.

Margot Robbie is sitting in the cinema watching "The Wrecking Crew" with her feet up. I have no problems with that. When I went to see "Emerald Green" there was a teenage girl with her legs up sitting next to me, and I allowed myself a few looks. The problem is that Margot's feet are dirty. I've heard that some men like dirty feet, but not me! I find them revolting, not sexy at all.

This is Pussycat (Margaret Qualley) hitching a ride from Cliff Booth (Brad Pitt).

Pussycat has beautiful feet, and even more beautiful legs, but I have to offer her some advice: when she's hitching a ride, she shouldn't lay her head on the driver's lap. It's not safe.

Dakota Fanning plays Squeaky, the Manson Family member keeping ranch owner George Spahn as a sex slave. The other recent film about the Manson Family, "Charlie Says", goes into more detail on their relationship, but only Quentin Tarantino shows us Squeaky's feet.

"George is that way, Cliff". Why should Squeaky point with her finger when she can use her toes?

I don't know who these two girls are, but they have nice feet.

I have difficulty rating Quentin Tarantino's films in order, but this film is easy to rate. Out of his nine films, I put this in eighth place. (His weakest film is "Hateful Eight"). Apart from the film being disjointed, I have two other slight criticisms. The first is the portrayal of Bruce Lee. Why is he so arrogant? It's also shocking that a random stunt man is able to beat him in a fight.

My second criticism is the rewriting of history. When Quentin Tarantino rewrote history in "Inglourious Basterds" it didn't bother me. It had a purpose that suited the movie well. The rewriting of history in "Once upon a time in Hollywood" is puzzling. Is there a purpose behind saving Sharon Tate's life? She's saved by the random meeting of Cliff and Tex in the first part of the film. Does Tarantino want to say that random events, however minor, can change history? That's the message of "Run Lola Run". If he's ever commented on this in interviews, please let me know in the comments box below.

Success Rate:  + 2.2

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Death Proof (5 Stars)

By watching "Death Proof" today I'm one step closer to my promise to watch at least one film by all four of my favourite directors this month. You don't know who they are? Shame on you! Go back and check my review of "Shadow" to find the list.

I also promised that when I rewatch Quentin Tarantino's films (not necessarily in the order they were released) I'll pay added attention to his foot fetish. "Death Proof" shows more naked female feet than any of his other films. I've already pointed this out in my previous reviews, but this time I'll make an attempt to be complete, showing photos from all the major foot scenes.

These feet belong to Arlene, played by Vanessa Ferlito. I don't recognise her from any other films.

When she relaxes on the couch we see double. Or is it quadruple?

And there's a bare foot film poster on her wall!

In the car, the feet on the back seat belong to DJ Jungle Julia, played by Sydney Poitier. another actress I don't know.

There are posters of Jungle Julia scattered around Austin, Texas. Barefoot, of course.

This poster is even better.

Julia is relaxing on a table.

Now she's stretching her feet over a chair, and Eli Roth stops to stare.

Here are Arlene's wet feet in the rain.

Arlene gives Kurt Russell a lap dance. Ulp! At least her feet are dry by now.

He's enjoying the dance a lot.

I'd be enjoying it as well, even if I couldn't see her feet from that angle. Too much hair in my face.

Now Arlene sits in the back of the car while Julia puts her feet out of the front window.

On to the second half of the film. Abernathy stretches her feet out of the car window while they're parked at a strip mall in Lebanon, Tennessee.

Kurt Russell is fascinated.

He has to stare closely at the feet.

He has to touch the feet. That's creepy.

He even has to lick the toes. That's taking it too far. Can you be arrested for that? If not, you ought to be.

Here we see all of Abernathy, and wow! It's none other than Rosario Dawson, one of the sexiest women in America.

And what do the girls talk about in the back of the car? Boyfriends and foot massages. Naturally.

I think that's at least one photo from all of the foot scenes. If I've forgotten any, please let me know.

After bingeing on feet in this review I'll drop the topic the next time I watch the film. Yes, I'm sure to watch it again.

I emphasise strongly that it's Quentin Tarantino who has a foot fetish, not me. I have many, many fetishes, but feet aren't one of them. There are, however, two examples of my fetishes in the film.

I love short shorts...

... and I love looking up cheerleaders' skirts. Or any short skirts.

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