The movie
Show notes
The Casino can be an intoxicating place in more way than one, especially if you like gambling which I don't. The unquestionable pathway to happiness that gambling guarantees, the glamour, the risk, the reward, the shared social experience: it all sounds awful, just as fake as the Eiffel Tower that famously adorns the Vegas strip. This weeks top 5 promises all of the subtlety and style of that famous American city, a mecca for the perpetually misguided and the intellectually stunted, so of course we're big fans. Sitting shotgun in a car driven by Dominic "Dom" Toretto (Vin Diesel) must be a terrifying experience as even a routine trip to Tesco would become a bowel-emptying, physics-defying descent down the side of a sidescraper. Were I ever to find myself in that scenario I'd exert a measure of control over the situation by monopolising the stereo so I could at least listen to Kruder & Dorfmeister while firemen cut my lifeless body from the flaming wreckage. Yes we're taking a plunge into the Fast & Furious franchise and we're starting with 2015's Furious 7 (or Fast & Furious 7 to give it its onscreen title). The film is overshadowed to a degree by the death of co-lead Paul Walker who was tragically killed in a car accident, with his scenes completed using unseen footage and his brothers as stand-ins. For a franchise sincerely built upon an unshakeable belief that strangers can become family, and a clearly close-knit cast operating like a family, this lends the movie an unmistakeable ironic sadness. The Flintstones, remember them? They were an animated sitcom family who routinely abused animals in order to perform menial tasks and lived sexually liberated lives with their neighbours, The Rubbles and to a lesser extent, their pet dinosaur Dino. Arguably the most famous and beloved of the animation powerhouse Hanna-Barbera's output, everyone remembers the theme tune at the very least and if pressed I'm sure it would be universally acknowledged as a classic. But was it
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