Day: August 4, 2019

Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw is a Punctuated Film Title

The review:

Fast & Furious Presents: Hobbs & Shaw* is ably directed by David Leitch and a worthy addition into the Fast & Furious enterprise.** Dwayne Johnson and Jason Statham are a great anti-buddy pair while Idris Elba makes a scene chomping (in a good way) villain. The movie does thing thing where the characters travel all over the globe*** in order to boost its international box office draw, and they end up in “Samoa”**** where a bunch of Samoan men somewhat alleviate the lack of Vin Diesel.*****

The verdict: Good

Cost: $8.35
Where watched: Regal City Center Stadium 12, when I should have been doing other things

Consider also watching:

Further sentences:

*The double ampersand in the title might be some sort of shark jumping indication for this franchise
**Good lord, is there anything in this world so ridiculously entertaining as a Fast & Furious movie (that is not 2 Fast 2 Furious or The Fast and the Furious Tokyo Drift)?
***They seem to appear in these new locations as if by magic or Star Trek transponder; even air travel is too slow for the Fast & Furious bunch.
****Hawaii gets the role of Samoa in this film.
*****Though I like many things about this installment of the franchise, Mr. Diesel is, and has always been, my reason for watching.

Favorite IMDB trivia item:

Helen Mirren reprises her role from The Fate of the Furious (2017) as Shaw’s mother. She originally landed the role after she had indicated her desire to be part of the franchise one day, and the producers were happy to accommodate her.

The Farewell is Well Worth Your Time

The review:

Lulu Wang’s The Farewell is a quiet bit of funny and sad as we watch Billi (Awkwafina) come to terms with her Chinese grandmother’s terminal cancer diagnosis.* Shuzhen Zhao (Nai Nai—the grandmother) is a delight, full of vim and opinions and ways to get rid of the negative energy. It’s a movie full of moments that weave together into a loving portrait of a family spread far apart by geography but with a very close bond.

The verdict: Recommended

Cost: $6.00
Where watched: The Hollywood Theatre, with S. North (who paid, because I forgot my wallet)

Consider also watching:

Further sentences:

*Complicating the diagnosis: in China it’s common to withhold the diagnosis from the patient so everyone must act as if the family is only gathering for a family wedding.

Favorite IMDB trivia item:

In addition to writing and directing, Lulu Wang also plays piano on the film’s soundtrack.

A walk in Kenton, Arbor Lodge and Overlook

This unit of the apartment complex down the street from me always has such nice flowers.

I love that you can see the bones of a standard tiny bungalow hiding behind what I would guess was a renovation to give the house a Spanish-style facade.

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Take note!

The Overlook neighborhood doesn’t love that Adidas North American Headquarters shares the neighborhood. But I also bet they didn’t love it when that building was a hospital.

Also, I would recast that sign to read: This is not an adidas approved Lyft or Uber transfer point.

  • I left the “a” in Adidas as a lower case “a” because of branding. However I used uppercase in my writing because that’s what is standard practice in reporting.
  • “Nor” goes better with “neither” which doesn’t work in this sentence.
  • “Pickup” as both a noun and an adjective is one word. It’s two words as a verb.
  • “Drop-off” does use a hyphen
  • However, the use of a compound word and a hyphened word when they have a similar structure is confusing, so I changed “pickup or drop-off area” to the brief phrase “transfer point”
  • I would also consider replacing “Lyft or Uber” with the word “ridesharing” to use a more generic term.
  • I chose “ridesharing” over “ride sharing” because Google’s Ngram Viewer indicates that the compound word is used more often.