Tag Archives: Fast and Furious

FilmWonk Podcast – Episode #184 – “Fast and Furious 9” (dir. Justin Lin), “Look Back in Anger” (1959) (dir. Tony Richardson)

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This week, Glenn and Daniel return to the car play franchise where the F stands for Fast, Furious, Family, and Fhysics. And then we venture back to 1959 to review Look Back in Anger, a play adaptation starring Richard Burton as a working class bloke in post-war Britain who hates his life and his wife (played by Mary Ure) nearly as much as he hates himself. We explore whether the film/play which spawned both kitchen-sink realism and the “angry young man” trope can still resonate even 60 years on (01:05:55).

Still from "Look Back in Anger"

May contain NSFW language.

FilmWonk rating (F9): 6 out of 10
FilmWonk rating (Look Back in Anger): 8 out of 10

Show notes:

  • [01:52] Review: F9
  • [29:42] Review: Look Back in Anger
  • [46:28] Spoilers: Look Back in Anger
  • On the subject of Dom’s signature Dodge Chargers, check out this excellent piece of journalistic film writing from Priscilla Page, who has behind-the-scenes details on every one of Dom’s cars from 20 years of the Fast franchise.

Listen above, or download: F9, Look Back in Anger (right-click, save as, or click/tap to play)

FilmWonk Podcast – Episode #70 – “Furious 7” (dir. James Wan)

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Poster for "Furious 7"
This week on the podcast, Glenn and Daniel bid a fast and furious farewell to both Paul Walker and Justin Lin, bid a mostly positive hello to James Wan, and ponder the future of Hollywood’s biggest, dumbest action franchise that we just can’t get enough of (36:25).

May contain NSFW language.

FilmWonk rating: 7.5 out of 10

Show notes:

  • Music for tonight’s episode is the film’s opening theme song, “Ride Out” by Kid Ink, Tyga, Wale, YG, and Rich Homie Quan.
  • CORRECTION (kinda): We referred, slightly critically, to the “artifice” of the cars-dropping-from-planes sequence. To be clear, whenever we actually see the actors in the cars, it’s clearly fake, composited from green-screen footage shot elsewhere. So this critique still seems fair, even if that’s also been true of many of the simpler street racing stunts throughout the franchise. But, as one of our astute listeners pointed out, the stunt team actually did jump cars with skydiving cameramen out of airplanes to get the footage. Check out the (pretty awesome) behind-the-scenes featurette here.
  • CORRECTION: Not for the first or last time, I mixed up the names of Luke Evans and Lucas Black. I regret nothing.
  • We referred to a video from The Onion that featured “the 5-year-old screenwriter of ‘Fast Five'” – it’s well worth a look. And Chris Morgan has actually written the last five Fast and Furious scripts – everything from “Tokyo Drift” on.
  • Um, it seems we didn’t mention Kurt Russell at all on this podcast. Just an observation.

Listen above, or download: Furious 7 (right-click, save as, or click/tap to play on a non-flash browser)