I watched FAST FIVE and Laurence Olivier's HAMLET in the same day.

[The Hodag]

I think my head's gonna pop. I enjoyed them both.

[Cactusakic]

But how did Olivier's Hamlet do at the Austrailian Box Office?

[The Hodag]

It made TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE eat shit!

[Cactusakic]

[Jonny Z]

Fast Five was fucking amazing. it blew my mind!!! vroom vroom!

[The Hodag]

Yeah, it was surprisingly damn fun. I've never seen any of the previous outings, not even the original Fast and the Furious, but I had a really good time. I asked a friend what the premise of the original was so's I could plug into the continuity, and he said it was basically Point Break with cars. Upon further explanation I could see he was correct.

Was one of those packed house, midnight shows and that added to the fun, too.

Observances:

*The Rock's head is giant
*The Rock can clearly sweat on demand
*where I mostly hate Michael Bay's dumb movies because everyone in them is annoying or an asshole, I liked Fast Five's brand of dumb because it was all kind of good-natured
*hot chicks are hot

[Jason California]

I still can't wait to see this movie!

[cmoney]

I'm really starting to lean towards seeing it. I have Monday off, might not be a bad way to spend an afternoon.

[The Hodag]

I have Monday off, might not be a bad way to spend an afternoon.

That's a good way to look at it. I think if people go in with really high expectations based on the response it's getting they might be disappointed. Think of it as a decent way to pass a few hours and with luck you'll be pleasantly surprised.

And the same goes for Olivier's HAMLET!

Interesting bit about it: it features the popular, Freudian interpretation of Hamlet where he's got the hots for his mom and, in several scenes, they actually lock lips for a while. Pretty creepy stuff for 1948, but I went on to read that the Freudian approach actually goes back to John Barrymore's Hamlet from the 1920s. Right now I'm listening to a Shakespeare podcast that's none too happy about how pervasive that take has become, since there's nothing in the text to really support it. It's a memorable notion, but almost certainly not what Shakespeare intended.