Review: Furious Seven

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Would be an awesome photo if everyone was bald.

There will be spoilers…

They say that dreams are fleeting. As dreams race through your sleeping brain they can be quite vivid, intense and generally non-sensical. Once you wake they usually fade from memory quicker than a fart in a windstorm. This is how I feel about the Fast and the Furious series. Seven intense farts in seven non-sensical windstorms. I think I’ve seen most of them but to be honest I can’t really remember any of them. They all seem to have the same things: Vin Diesel (not his real name), Paul Walker (R.I.P.), some crazy fast cars driving around doing impossible things and beautiful women not wearing or doing much.

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I take that back, this is a very important job!

I sat down to watch Furious 7 (I can’t believe that they’ve made seven of these things already) without remembering anything about number 6 (or 5 or 4 or any of them really. Maybe I haven’t actually seen any of them?) or who any of the characters were. Didn’t matter. What I saw or what I think I saw as my memory is a bit hazy, were cars flying through, not one, not two, but 3 buildings high up in the desert in the middle east. I saw The Rock drive an ambulance (which comes with a giant machine gun for some reason), off a bridge (not too sure how he got enough momentum as it was in the middle of the bridge) and onto a deadly drone, controlled by a nasty terrorist, that was flying around Los Angeles shooting at various fast cars driving furiously. Strange that there weren’t any cops or army guys out while this racket was happening. One question that popped into my fuzzy brain was how would a known terrorist get into the U.S. so easily with a giant attack helicopter that has a drone (which actually seemed much bigger than the helicopter itself) inside of it?

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Seems legit.

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In the future this will be a standard issue accessory in all medical emergency vehicles.

I saw cars parachuting out of planes, cars driving down mountains, cars smashing into other cars at high rates of speed. Buckle up buttercup! I saw Jason Statham shooting up an entire hospital and, again, no cops around. I saw Vin Diesel trying his best not to sound like Groot but failing miserably. There’s a great scene near the end of the film where everyone thinks he’s dead and his girlfriend, Letty, screams at the folks trying to save him to stop giving him mouth to mouth so she can cradle his giant bald head in her arms and revive him with tales of how they met. The power of love.

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It was weird when the film suddenly turned political highlighting America’s race problems. Can Groot solve America’s Race Wars?

The entire plot revolves around either Statham trying to kill the Furious gang or the Furious gang trying to kill Statham. Kurt Russell (yay!) pops up to help the them find Statham (and try and convince Groot to give up Corona for some Belgium beer) if they help him rescue an impossibly beautiful computer nerd (for some reason after they rescue her she goes swimming in her sexy bathing suit. Did she bring the swimwear with her when she was originally kidnapped?). Anyways,  Vin Groot agrees to this plan but he really didn’t need to as Statham keeps showing up everywhere the Furious gang is to try to kill them. All they had to do was wait for him. Whatever.

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Nerd! Good thing I packed my trunks before being kidnapped!

Furious 7 is not what you call a good movie. It was fairly entertaining, if overly long, and eye-rolling at many parts. It’s even quite touching (if not a tad manipulative) at the end with a nice tribute to Paul Walker who died, ironically, in a car crash (not related to the movie) part way through the production.

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R.I.P.

If you’re looking for fast cars, ridiculous action, car mayhem and lots of fighting, this is your ticket. There’s a point in the movie where Vin says something along the lines of “My crew are drivers, they’re not fighters” which is pretty funny since almost everyone of his crew gets in a fight (and wins!). You have Vin Groosel fighting Statham, the Rock fighting Statham, Tony Jaa fighting Paul Walker, Michelle Rodriquez fighting, not only Lady Roadhouse (Ronda Rousey), but a bunch of cool-looking female body guards and yourself fighting disbelief. Lots and lots of fighting. Oh, and you also have a hilarious scene with the Rock flexing his muscles to explode the cast off of his, apparently, healed arm so he can fight. Pretty good times. Or was it all a dream? 6/10

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My dreams always have the Rock in them flexing out of a cast for some reason.

Tell it like it is, QT!

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A man after my own heart…

http://www.nme.com/filmandtv/news/quentin-tarantino-reveals-he-refuses-to-use-netflix-and-owns-close-to/389051?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=quentintarantino

 

Black Dog Newsletter September 29th to October 5th “Halloween Month is Here Edition!”

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You’re definitely fired!

We are fast approaching my favourite celebration of the year – Halloween! It’s a time for scary movies, trick-or-treating and dressing up in stupid costumes such as a sexy carrot, or a sexy Forrest Gump or even a sexy Donald Trump (I think that I just threw up in my mouth a bit). Here at Black Dog we love horror films and to honour Halloween month we’ll be recommending a quality horror movie each and every day of October. You can check out our suggestions here starting October 1st!

A couple of other notes – the huge DVD and Blu Ray sale continues unabated at both stores! Drop in and take something home to love and cherish. And keep October 17th circled on your calendar or write it on your hand or forehead as it’s the 5th annual International Video Store Day! We’ll have some tasty treats up our sleeves.

New Releases

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Avengers: Age of Ultron – The Avengers are back to stop a sassy robot who wants to destroy the earth for some reason. More of the same for those of you (and I think that there may be a lot of you) who like this sort of thing.

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Black Sails Season 1 – TV show about pirates set back in the day. You know, the day that had pirates.

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Electric Boogaloo: The Wild Untold Story of Canon Films – Doc about Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus, two movie-loving cousins who unleashed such B movie classics as Enter the Ninja, Cobra, Invasion USA and tons of others onto an unsuspecting public. Good stuff!

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Entourage: The Movie – Here’s that Entourage movie that no-one asked for.

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I Zombie: Season 1 – Pretty fun, locally shot TV show about a woman who gets turned into a zombie, eats brains and works in a morgue (handy). She also solves crimes. Good cast and some snappy writing helps to elevate the silly premise. Worth getting into your eyes.

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I’ll See You in My Dreams – A nice, yet somewhat bittersweet, drama (maybe with a wee bit of comedy?) about aging and finding love in one’s twilight years. Stars Blythe Danner and a grizzled Sam Elliot.

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Poltergeist – Why? Why bother remaking such a fun classic? Just because you can doesn’t mean you should. Quit trying to destroy my childhood, Hollywood! That said, I’ll probably watch this nonsense as I’ll pretty much watch anything in the horror vein.

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Return to Sender – Exploitation-type revenge thriller that finds Gone Girl Rosemund Pike as a nurse who goes on a blind date with a dude who may not have the best of intentions.

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Spy – Pretty funny (if not overly-long) comedy that finds CIA analyst Melissa McCarthy going undercover to find Jude Law in Europe. Made me laugh a number of times – some of the best bits being her undercover IDs (10 cats?!). One thing I learned from watching this is that Jason Statham should stick to action films as comedy is not in his blood.

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When Animals Dream – They move their cute little feet! Or in this case we have a Danish horror flick about a teen girl who, while taking care of her ill parents in a small town, also turns into a wolf-like monster and slays various townsfolk every now and then.

Coming Next Week!

Alleluia
Batkid Begins: The Wish Heard Around the World
Cop Car
Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief
Hidden
Insidious: Chapter 3
The Leftovers Season 1
Magic Mike XXL
Me and Earl and the Dying Girl
Penny Dreadful Season 2
When Marnie Was There

Recently Viewed and Recommended

Spy
I Zombie
Girl Walks Home Alone at Night
Spring
Results
The Knick Season 1
Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst
Calvary

For more recommendations click here. For access to our blog click here. Or you can just go outside and enjoy the lovely weather.

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Copyright © 2015 Black Dog Video, All rights reserved.

Our mailing address is:
Black Dog Video
Cambie Street and/or Commercial Drive
Vancouver, BC

What Makes a Good Trailer…

There’s nothing worse than a bad movie trailer that gives away half or more of the movie. Well there are a few things worse than that – ISIS, Stephen Harper, cleaning the cat box when the cat misses it. Anyways, here’s a nice article from The Onion about what makes a good one. Man, watching some of these really makes me want to go and watch the films again – Hello, Simple Man, Cloverfield, Kill Bill and Social Network!

http://www.avclub.com/article/what-makes-great-trailer-225569

 

Horror from Peru!

This looks pretty cool!

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Manly men trailer.

Whoa, look at all the manly men (and Steve Carrell) in this trailer. Looks like it might be a pretty good film (even with some questionable hair) although I suspect it will end with someone going to jail for their crimes which, we all know, never happened in real life. It still astounds me that this happened.

[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7mFRvq72ch8[/youtube]

 

Fresh Gojira!

Let’s forget for a moment about Gareth Edward’s Godzilla flick from last year. I actually thought it was an OK film but there really wasn’t enough of the big guy in it. Anyways, it looks like we’ll get a new Godzilla flick from Japan. Now that’s something I can get behind!

http://augustragone.blogspot.ca/2015/09/next-godzilla-now-entitled-shin.html

 

More VIFF picks!

More picks from this years’ Vancouver International Film Festival. I won’t be able to see all of these but I hope to get as many as we can for the stores once they become available. Happy watching!

The Ninth Floor – Local film hero Mina Shum’s excellent doc (got a standing ovation at TIFF!) looks at a little known chapter in Canadian history – a detailed account of race relations, student occupation and faculty discrimination in Montreal. I hear it has a cool soundtrack as well.

The Forbidden Room – Two words: Guy Maddin

The Assassin – I was hooked on the description “ exquisitely beautiful swordplay fantasy”

The Visit – Weird sounding doc about what we have in store if we’re contacted by aliens.

Aaaaaaaah! – From the guy who wrote Sightseers. Sounds crazy.

I’ve picked out around 10 -15 flicks. Hope to make it to half. Maybe see you around the theatres. Enjoy the fest!

Black Dog Newsletter week of September 22nd to 28th “It’s Coming Edition!”

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We’re just a few weeks away from the 5th Annual International Video Store Day! This celebration may not be as popular as say, Record Store Day, Christmas or National Cheeseburger Day but it’s still a fun way to to celebrate the awesomeness that is your local video store. We’ve been at it for almost 20 years and we are still here because of the support from all of you fine folks! Please drop in on Saturday October 17th and enjoy what we have to offer. There will be a draw to win fabulous prizes, Jason Zumpano will be spinning some neat sounds at the Commercial location, there might be some mime juggling and maybe a water fight (we’re open to any and all suggestions!) There will also be some great deals to be had. Good times await thee. Stay tuned.

And don’t forget to check out the new Black Dog Blog. Here you can find nice movie reviews, trailers for interesting upcoming films, movie news and such and plenty more.

Oh, and one more thing – we’ve added hundreds of DVDs, Blu Rays and 3-D Blu Rays to the sale bin at the Cambie store. Lots of great stuff is ready for a good home.

New Releases

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Jenny’s Wedding – Katherine Heigl is getting married again. Does she do anything else in movies? The twist this time around is that she’s a lesbian and is marrying, what her parents thought was, her roommate. How are uptight mom and dad going to swallow this news? Hilarity and misunderstanding and then understanding, I assume, ensues.

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Narcopolis – Nifty-looking sci-fi effort finds that all drugs are legal in the future. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? Tough cop Frank Grieves is about to find out.

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Pitch Perfect 2 – The Pitch Perfect women are back to sing and dance their way into your heart and tickle your funny bone, among other parts of your body.

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Results – Guy Pearce and Cobie Smulders (love that name!) are personal trainers whose lives are upended (not too sure what that means exactly) when they take on weirdo Kevin Corrigan as a new client. This one gets a thumbs up from Black Dog.

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Spring – Young dude flees the US for some r&r in Italy only to hook up with a woman who might be harbouring some dark primordial secret. Is she an Italian Cthulhu? I guess the moral of this movie (and others such as Hostel) is never leave home. Never.

Coming Next Week

Electric Boogaloo – The Wild Untold Story of Canon Films
Entourage The Movie
I’ll See You in My Dreams
I Zombie Season 1
Lost Soul: The Doomed Journey of Richard Stanley’s Island of Dr Moreau
Poltergeist
Return to Sender
Spy
When Animals Dream

Recently Viewed and Recommended

Spring
Results
The Knick Season 1
Night Warning
Roadhouse
Calvary
What We Do in the Shadows
Interstellar
Iris
The Jinx

For more recommendations please click on this dealy.

Till next week folks, enjoy the fall, rake some leaves, go for a walk, pet a dog and remember, keep watching.

Copyright © 2015 Black Dog Video, All rights reserved.

Our mailing address is:
Black Dog Video
Cambie Street and/or Commercial Drive
Vancouver, BC