Maybe I should preface this with the disclaimer that I’ve not seen any of the previous installments of The Fast and the Furious. I’m not a fan of Vin Diesel. I’m not particularly interested in fast cars and, most of the time, I’m more irritated than outright furious.

I also didn’t know anything about the characters’ backstories going into the film nor was I, in full disclosure, looking forward to this screening. That said, I had a lot of fun with this flick—and evidently so did everyone else at the screening, from the critics, who laughed snarkily at the plot contrivances and flagrantly obvious exposition, to the rest of the audience, who clapped at every conceivable moment and in general ate it up like hotcake-crepes wrapped in unicorn butts.

If you have seen the other movies, you may be happy to know that the original trio of Vin Diesel (Dominic Toretto), Paul Walker (Brian O’Connor), and Jordana Brewster (Mia Toretto, Dominic’s sister and Brian’s lover) are back, as are Sung Kang (Han Lue), Tyrese Gibson (Roman Pearce), Matt Schulze (Vince), Ludacris (Tej Parker), a whole bunch of others I’m not sure were in the other several thousand Fast-and-Furiouses, and, what the hell, they got The Rock, too.

The movie begins with the jail-springing of Toretto, a stunt so implausible that not even the film itself takes it seriously, and soon the gang’s in Rio (and, after seeing the animated film Rio recently, I’m guessing that somewhere there’s an elephantine warehouse filled with stock shots of the cityscape as leered from behind Christ’s shoulder), plotting a car-jack heist for their shady friend Vince, who’s after three seized cars being transported across the country by train.

Continue Reading →

Now that he’s not in office anymore, it seems like former California Governor can’t keep still. First he announces that he’s doing a comic book/cartoon franchise based on the fictional affairs during his term as the Governator, and now he’s ready to jump on the big screen as The Terminator.

THR has the full scoop.

The star’s agency, CAA, has put together a package that it’s currently shopping to the studios that includes rights to produce a new Terminator sequel, which would be directed by Justin Lin, hot off Fast Five, which opens domestically Friday, and produced by Robert Cort. No screenwriter has come on board yet.

When the movie’s rights holder the Halcyon Group went through bankruptcy in 2010, Lionsgate and Sony joined together in an unsuccessful bid to claim the franchise for themselves. More recently, Universal has been talking to CAA about tackling the project.

The idea of both Lin and Schwarzenegger is obviously still in the preliminary stages, but with Lin’s Fast Five opening big this weekend, you can imagine that Universal, Sony, and Lionsgate all jumping on the project like a Snickers at a fat camp.

No word just yet on how this effects McG’s “reboot” of the franchise with Salvation but even McG will have to step aside when the Governator wants back at playing the metal-head.

We here at The Flickcast are all but shocked when we hear about this thing or that getting rebooted or remade. Sadly, we were a little bit surprised when news came that 1986′s Highlander is getting a fancy Hollywood facelift, and even has a director and producer attached.

Distributor Summit Entertainment is going forward with the reboot of the film, hiring the team of Justin Lin to direct and Neal H. Moritz to produce. The team was also behind Fast and Furious, which was one of the bigger film of the year, and the highest grossing title of the year for Universal Pictures.

Summit has had great success so far with the adaptation of Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight series (with New Moon hitting theaters this November). According to Variety this may be the birth of another franchise for the company:

Summit plans to expand on the original “Highlander” premise of immortals hunting each other through the ages. The new pic will center on the immortal Scottish swordsman Connor MacLeod, who must confront a murderous barbarian who lusts for a fabled prize.

Continue Reading →