2 Fast 2 Furious. John Singleton. 2003. ⚀

I couldn’t get the 4K version of this to rip, so I’m watching it in (*gasp*) 2K.

Oh noes.

[two minutes pass]

This was made by John Singleton? The Boyz n the Hood guy? Hm.

Well, OK, the colours really pop. Not everything colour-graded to teal, but instead a riot of colours, and I really like that.

[fifteen minutes pass]

So the bleached blond(e) guy is here, but otherwise there’s no connection to the first movie? I mean… there’s cars and stuff. I guess that’s a connection.

I did like that street race, but it was, like… much more of a fantasy than in the first movie. The cars rear-ending each other and stuff? Nah. What I liked about the first movie was that it was pretty nerdy. This is more like er what’s the word oh yeah stupid.

[ten minutes pass]

I was so surprised by the first movie: It had a complex plot (sort of) and a bunch of interesting characters, and this… they took the blond(e) guy from the first movie and then… nothing else? It seemed like they were doing a whole little micro universe in that movie that could have been expanded, but instead this is just a lame … sting thing?

OK, I’m disappointed, but now I’m resetting: This isn’t The Fast and the Furious, but perhaps it can be stupid fun anyway?

[more minutes pass]

I can’t get over how boring this movie manages to make street car racing seem. And the rest… it’s beyond tedium: It’s all the worst of the worst “man talk”. You couldn’t parody this because it’s just all there already.

This is just a horrible, horrible movie. I’m so disappointed. I wanted a fun, easy-to-watch movie, and instead it’s just sheer torture.

Did Singleton even watch the first movie before making this one? It’s like somebody told him “It’s a about street racing… and there’s a cop…” and the took it from there, just imagining how bad that has to be from that recap.

How did the franchise bounce back from this?

I assumed that this was a lower-budget sequel to cash in, but the budget was almost twice as big. It’s… OK, I guess the sheer number of cars was expensive, so they put the budget on the screen, but they didn’t use any money on, like… anything else?

I do like the colours. The colours pop. Other than that, there’s nothing here.

Scary Movie 3. David Zucker. 2003. ⚁

Oh wow. This Scary Movie isn’t by the Wayans guy, but David Zucker? The guy who did all those 80s comedies that the first Scary Movies er referenced? That’s … so… meta?

Oh, wow^2. That’s a … scary career. He didn’t do anything of note between the Zucker/Abrahams/Zucker movies and this?

[fifteen minutes pass]

This is so old-fashioned. Sure, the two Wayans movies were gross (so much puke), but they were snappy and funny. The joke density here is low, and so many of the jokes are things that should have been edited out. Typical example:

“I got a dream.” “What.” “To have a dream.”

That’s not even the beginning of a joke… it’s just… what gets left over when riffing.

Anna Faris is fun, but the rest are just there. This movie feels old and tired and kinda racist. And the paedophile Catholic priest jokes seem really horrific instead of funny.

[fifteen minutes pass]

So I guess they’re doing the Ring movies? Half the scenes are away from that premise, so it’s hard to tell. It’s not that there’s a lot of different skits, either, but they spend ten minutes on a lame rap battle thing?

[fifteen minutes pass]

Suddenly it’s kinda funny? How did that happen!?! Did I get more drunkener? I DID!

Anyway, it’s funny now.

[the end]

Well… OK. There’s the germ of a funny movie in here. There’s about twenty? minutes of this that’s worth watching. I mean, that’s funny. It’s such a train wreck that I don’t quite know how it ended up like this… it’s so unfunny at the start, and then gets amusing and then finally funny.

Hm… OK, now I’m watching the making-of documentary, and they explain that nothing from the original script ended up on the screen, and they rewrote things constantly, and what they wrote they filmed a couple days later. I guess that explains the disassociated nature of it all, and how so many of the jokes are underdeveloped. There’s so many scenes that have, like, a funny idea going? And then it’s… not as funny as it should have been?

And it looks like they filmed a lot that was cut out. Presumably those were even less funny than what survived — for instance, it looks like they did a whole Matrix thing? And almost not of that made it onto the screen.

And now I’m watching some of the cut scenes — alternate endings and everything. This one leans heavily into a Signs Shyamalan thing ending:

They spent a lot on this stuff that was never shown — and it’s really, really unfunny, so dropping it made sense.

I guess it’s just a sloppily made movie. And that kinda makes it even sadder.

I guess, for once, I agree with everybody.

I guess.

The Lady Eve. Preston Sturges. 1941. ⚅

Oh right! This is a Preston Sturges movie! I made an effort to buy his movies a while ago, and then forgot all about it.

I watched Sullivan’s Travels the other year and was absolutely bowled over by it, so I wanted to watch all his other films, too.

[half an hour passes]

This is such a delight. Barbara Stanwyck is amazing and Henry Fonda somehow seems… sexy? in his nerdishness, which is very unusual. William Demarest as Fonda’s minder is a perfect hard-nosed guy.

I’m not sure the plot makes that much sense — why is the grifter daddy so shortsighted and working against the daughter? It seems like he’d be able to fleece Fonda a whole lot more by not making waves.

But it makes for really fun scenes, which is the point, I guess.

[the end]

It’s not a perfect movie (it’s a bit flabby in the middle), but it’s fantastic. I laughed out loud several times at the antics in the last fifth of the movie, but it was thoroughly amusing throughout.

I find it fascinating how much the movie was on the side of Stanwyck (as the grifter) and not on the side of Honda (as the patsy): He’s a nerd, and not a very likeable one. She’s smart and funny, and the movie leans so hard into this that it’s not always clear why Stanwyck really wants to get into his pants this much. I mean, besides the money, which really doesn’t seem like a motivating factor after a while.

It’s such an original set-up: Any other director would have made the Honda character more active, but Sturges leaves all the action up to Stanwyck.