Two years ago I cautiously wrote the following after having smiled for two hours
through Fast Five, the fifth installment in the Fast and Furious series, a series that
has grossed nearly two billion dollars:
So, when I first heard rumblings about Fast Five, I was immediately like, 'OK, how many
times can you top the top?' After all, Jack Sparrow is all but ruined at this point. But
then... I saw Fast Five. I only needed about 4 minutes of DPL action to know that the top
has been topped and immediately started to worry about the making of Super-Fast Six.
They topped the topped and I loved every minute of it. I'm nervous about Vin driving
cars that fly but I think I am ready for it.
Welp. Vin flew. Vin flies. Twice.
I have so much fun watching these movies and I for real don't mean that to be a
jab at the franchise. I mean, we may well have reached a level of absurdity that
makes space for absurdity, on its own, to be cool. But so does Rambo and Rocky
and well, any Stallone picture. And just as may be be the case with Rambo, I would
imagine there are viewers that leave the theater saying things like, "Vin Diesel and
The Rock are so cool!" They may even say it with a sense of wanting to be like
them. But even these viewers have been relieved of having to believe that street
racing is as cool in real life as it is in Fast and Furious. This whole thing, this whole
cars and bad guys thing, is on to something and I'm trying to figure it out. My gut
is saying that it's just nickel cowboy novellas with multi-million dollar budgets.
There may be more though.
Here's what I know they pull-off:
1) Their values are so classic. Dom and Leddy and Mia and even Brian have a
family first approach. In their value system you risk yourself for your brother
because they would do the same for you. And even more than that, you do it
because it's right.
2) They pull from the Wizard of Oz and never relegate the fact that there really is
"no place like home." (This is even more true in the 6th installment).
3) For the good guys (sometimes mistaken by fellow good guys), the law is a
social construction that is at the behest of an inner sense of right and wrong.
Relatedly, it's never too late to do the right thing. It may be a twisted version of
the Golden Rule insofar as their vigilanteism necessitates, often times brutal,
justice-keeping, but the threads of "doing unto others" weave through F&F.
4) The Red, White, and Blue has a place--fast cars and capitalism. And the reason
that all this works so well is because their values don't dismiss an old favorite,
"Money can't buy happiness but money is still pretty awesome."
5) One thing I like most, is their hospitality. You'd be hard pressed to find a more
welcoming group of criminals. I'd join them if they invited. It's worth noting that
we're not sure where these chiseled out value systems come from. Maybe it's the
implied immigrant narrative (the 7th or 8th has to go this route--can you even
picture early Dom?!). Regardless, there's no mistaking ($2,000,000,000 gross) that
the world cheers a Fast and Furious version of moral/ethics philosophizing--for
better or worse.
6) As absurd as the idea is of driving out of the front of a military plane as it
crashes is, there is no denying that sticking to a script that has worked for a few
thousand years is just wise: a) fun introduction to characters, b) party and race
scene, c) things get messed up, d) fixing what's messed up starts out good enough,
e) fixing what's messed up goes wrong, f) there's no way this is going to be
resolved, g) things get blown up and resolved.
7) The movies welcomes viewers like me. I don't like street racing. I'm not a car
guy. I don't need tits and ass to like a movie. And yet they've still made space for
me in the theater.
8) Go big or go home.
9) Resurrections never get old.
Don't worry! There is a seventh one in the works. Here are some things to do
next:
1) Someone needs to be related to someone else. Brian (Paul Walker) needs to
be related to a bad guy. His biological father could surface and be the one that
killed Dom's father. Brian would be forced to decide where his loyalty lies--with
Dom or with blood. Better yet, what if it was his mother? She could be running a
drug cartel that carries shipments from Russia to Alaska across the Bering Strait.
She could run her shipments via submersible cars that drive on the ocean floor!
Or:
We go back to the beginning, pre-Nos, when American muscle still ruled. We
could see a toddler Vin Diesel, clad in toddler sleeveless tees--street racing lawn
mowers through East L.A. Or better yet, racing go-carts through the Mexican-
Caribbean resorts his mother labors in as a maid for the middle-class elite of
suburban America. Either way, we would all benefit from some back story at this
point.
2) The Cars need to fly - not a lot - but they need to have a feature that allows
them to take off, levitate for a second, and then be done with it.
3) We need a new actor, preferably an up and coming rapper, I think J. Cole
could pull it off. The character would need some African roots and connections
with a father that is running Nigerian oil fields with an iron fist for B.P. which would
take us back to London.
4) Someone is actually going to have to die, permanently.
I think it is important, however, at this point in time to start thinking about a new
description for what this is. Just because something uses film (digital or old
school) does not mean it is a film. Maybe we should call some movies, like the
Fast and the Furious, joints. Wait, that's been done. Either way, I just don't think
it's cool to call Ingmar Bergman's work and Paul Walker's work by the same
name. I would imagine some folks at MoMa or The Tate Modern would have
something to say about this. I watched The Comedy pretty soon after having seen
Fast and Furious to kind of experience this question about what is a film and
what should not be a film
As much fun as I had watching people and cars and guns and houses and money
glisten in F&F, I had a comparably rough time watching people and ideas and
apartments and money dull itself into depression in The Comedy. What's glaring
to me is that these movies exist alongside each other. Maybe The Comedy is a
two hour protest of Fast and Furious? Maybe it is a comedian's attempt to lop off
a chunk of Hollywood and let it drift out into the absurd realms it should land in
more often (out where Paul Walker's mother is running cocaine shipments under
the Bering Strait)? Maybe the whole thing is a narcissistic plea for MORE
attention? Maybe there is some deep meaning and questions needing answers
fusing through the languid, perpetual flipping off that makes up each scene? Maybe
depravity is harked on, again and again, to remind us that it's better to laugh than
it is to hate and destroy? Maybe The Comedy is about extravagance and it's
deleterious effects on a post 9/11, somewhat lost and depraved generation? I
could see how one could say it's just a movie and we shouldn't think about it too
much. I could also see how one could say that it's all these things.
However, I can't really think about it beyond the guys that made it. I think it's
about them. Whatever they were trying to pull-off wasn't pulled off. They were
missing any sort of point worth talking about. The only thing worth talking about
is that these guys were applauding their own ability to make a movie and to make
it about despicable things. I'm still not really sure. Either way, I really wanted to
give this movie a chance.
The Comedy features Tim Heidecker as a wandering, aging, wealthy hipster.
Heidecker drifts through Brooklyn and Manhattan and just as I attempted to do
as few constructive things as possible in high school, so too does Heidecker's
character attempt to raise a 'fuck you' eyebrow to all that his privilege allows him
to. His day-to-day life is a mockery of all that was once viewed as appropriate by
our grand parents. That's about it, really. It's minimalist in that way but there could
be more.
Maybe these guys are geniuses and in coming generations we'll look back on The
Comedy and say thanks. It is different and it is brave in some ways. But it's mostly
annoying. And I don't mean the lead character is annoying. He was annoying but
that's not what I'm talking about. It's annoying that they felt they needed to make
an annoying movie. If their goal was to make an annoying movie so that they
could prod and poke at 'Society' or something like that, then they should have
just not made the movie. The whole thing just seems kind of cliche in that way. It's
like, dudes, we knew all of these things already. Amour, another movie (or film)
about aging and extravagance is a legitimate attempt at talking about some darker
themes that run through 'Society' as viewed by those that are aimlessly aging. And
maybe I'm drawing a line here. I don't hate on movies that often and I'm still not
sure I fully want to hate on this movie. I just feel that this whole endeavor was
kind of childish.
All that aside, Heidecker is a really good actor. He was convincing and made me
feel for him. He can carry a scene and is able to keep one wanting to watch. I was
really intrigued by the character. Maybe that's enough? Maybe being intrigued by a
character and watching that character experience some life situations is enough
for a movie? I'm not sure, I need to hear what some other folks have to say about
it. I think this movie is good for discussion like Melancholia is good for discussion.
It's certainly a fringe movie and fringe stuff is good for helping us decide where
our boundaries are, are not, or shouldn't be at all. I already feel shitty about
hating on this movie. I hate hating on movies.
My final point, then, is that I don't want my negativity to be that big of a deal. I
don't want to 'burn books' but I do want to call out narcissism and arrogance. My
main negativity has to do with not wanting to watch this movie again. But if
someone puts in the work to make a movie, and they definitely put in the work,
then I am willing to acknowledge what someone has made. Even if what they've
made is somewhat destructive.
A good friend once taught me something that I try and live by, "Just because you
can make a chair doesn't mean you should make the chair." This hushed truism
works better if you say something like, "Just because you can make Wal-Mart
doesn't mean you should make Wal-Mart" but the chair analogy is a little more
dramatic.
I think the problem with conservatism is that conservatism doesn't like
to allow for the reality that some folks, often times many folks, are going to do
things that we don't want them to do. Conservatism ironically exists to stomp
out anything that isn't pretty, manicured and Country Club (it's ironic because
wealth in capitalism hinges on the poorer buying products distributed by the
wealthy). Whereas, liberalism, I think, is best for all of us because it doesn't hide
from the shitty parts of life. A liberal reading of universal health care
acknowledges that some people are going to take advantage of the system. A
liberal approach to health care accepts that part of it and rightfully realizes that
universal health care is still better than the greed and usury of insurance
companies, attorneys and cronyism. It's better even if some take advantage of the
system and benefit because of someone else's hard work. And that's the positive I
can pull from this movie. It liberally does not hide from the shit and that makes it
a liberal movie and I'm ok with liberal in this sense even if I'm left wondering if
this movie should have been made in the first place (not wondering about F&F).
