June 21, 2006
the fast and the furious: tokyo dérive
On the IDD scale (Incitement to Drive Dangerously On the Way Home), the only scale which matters in such cases and to which all other measures are impediments and cold consolations, The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift is around a 7: higher than Days of Thunder, which scarcely inspired one to walk back to the parking lot, but lower than Top Gun, which sent us whining through the Solano tunnel on a dangerous scooter tilted almost knee-to-asphalt — perhaps hovering around The Last American Hero, in terms of sending one careering anxiously through merge lanes onto the 80. Or perhaps we were moved by the pathos of a film that kills off its one competent actor halfway through...or amazed by the post-climactic big reveal, when the uncredited American star finally and arbitrarily makes his cameo, appearing miraculously out of the disco ball of Shibuya...the lights that speak only of the absolute emptiness of the absolute other, beaming hypnotically down on the two gaijin as they stare only at each other, cockpit to cockpit, surrounded by glittering Asian guys and gals, while the audience wonders how it could be so blindsided, how we could not have seen it coming, of course Bill Murray would show up here after lying in wait since the last shot of Lost In Translation, ready to take one last nitro-fueled shot at the emerging markets with his American muscle...
Posted by jane at June 21, 2006 03:26 PM | TrackBack