Amazon/Netflix 11th hour discoveries/catchup weekend

On Friday I watched two movies on Amazon. On Saturday I watched two movies on Netflix. And on Sunday I watched one on each.

Four of these six movies had been on my radar for less than two weeks.

Yep, just because it's almost time to stop watching movies for 2023, it doesn't mean there aren't still movies forcing their way onto your watchlist.

I was actually going to have even one more, but the second movie I cued up on Friday night, and watched about one minute of before discovering this information, actually meets my criteria for a 2022 movie, as it had a limited U.S. release in November of '22 (despite the 2023 release date that show on Prime). So I abandoned Next Exit, before it had the chance to make my list of movies to watch before January 23rd even longer.

What I did end up watching was:

Swallowed and Robots on Friday night.

Society of the Snow and Fast X on Saturday afternoon/evening.

And Good Grief/The Burial on Sunday afternoon/evening.

And did I mention these were all on the projector in my garage?

Only Fast X and The Burial had been on my watchlist prior to a few weeks ago, when Society of the Snow reared its head based on the (it turns out very justified) ravings of a friend. 

Fast X was one I was going to leave on the cutting room floor this year, but like John Wick: Chapter 4 before it, it turned up for free on a streaming service so I decided to just go for it. I've seen every other Fast & Furious movie. Why stop now? (And I liked this one better than the ninth installment, I'm glad to report.)

If it looks like I'm cramming, that both is and isn't true.

Yes I was happy not to be on the pace to break my record of 175 from last year, and I am still well on that pace. But a certain FOMO also sets in at this time of year, at the same time, paradoxically, that I am also just feeling so done with it all. Movies don't really get a fair shake in this big lead-up to finalizing my rankings, yet I don't see another way to go about it. At whatever point you cut off your list, you'll probably be cramming it all in before that anyway, and any individual film might feel rode hard, put away wet, and forgotten almost immediately.

Then there's the fact that you lose your ability to parse differences between movies. Seeing as many really good movies, right up until the end, as I'm seeing this year, I can't decide if a movie should make my top ten or not even make my top 25. The struggle is real.

So while I did cram a little bit this weekend, I also didn't, because I anticipate having a few fruitless days at the end of this week, and I'm really just trying to make up for them in advance.

We're going to a friend's beach house this weekend -- remember, summer here in Australia -- and it's possible I won't watch a movie Friday, Saturday or Sunday night. (It's not certain whether we're going down on Friday night or Saturday morning.) Although it would be possible to jam in a movie, it's also a little tacky when it's a social weekend away, and the adults will likely remain in each other's company until bedtime.

So I'm at 152 for the year now, and still hope to only be in the mid to high 160s by January 23rd -- just getting there through a slightly different route. 

And who knows, maybe I will just take an actual night off sometime as well. You know, rest my eyeballs, without social impropriety even being a consideration. 

Got the wrong lunkhead for the next Fast & Furious

The Fast & Furious series has been lousy with lunkheads.

I don't use that term in a negative way. I love a good lunkhead. Some of our most charismatic movie stars are lunkheads.

I can see that the actual definition of a lunkead is "a slow-witted person." I suppose that's part of the picture I'm painting when I use the term, but I'm using it more in terms of the person's physique. I think of a lunkhead as a big, muscly guy who, yes, might be best suited as a mechanic or a bouncer at the hottest nightclub, but also makes a good addition to the long-running Fast & Furious series. And can be super charming and funny, which usually requires an intellectual capacity in excess of "slow-witted."

The series began with a lunkhead. Vin Diesel was the series' original lunkhead, and has been in every movie since the fourth, having taken the second and third off for reasons of his own inflated self-worth.

Lunkheads added to the series over the years included Tyrese Gibson, Dwayne Johnson, John Cena and even Jason Statham, though I think that last stretches the term a little bit. The point is, this series has collected these physical types over the years, the balder the better. If they started out famous for another reason -- such as pro wrestling -- even better still. 

In my review of F9 in 2021, welcoming Cena into the fold, I predicted the next lunkhead to join the series: Dave Bautista. It seemed a natural fit.

Well I don't know if Bautista sees himself as better than this series -- I kind of think he is -- or whether he hasn't ever been offered a role. But he's not in Fast X, due for release next month.

However, there is a new lunkhead in the new movie.

Welcome to the series, Jason Momoa.

Now, Momoa is not quite as bald as I'd hoped. In fact, his flowing hair is perhaps his most distinguishing feature, if you aren't including his biceps.

But he total fits in with what the series has been going for so far. He's big. He's charismatic. He should be either a mechanic or a bouncer, though in this series he's likely a racer who might also be a spy or a hitman. (I haven't checked to see whether he's a good guy or not.)

So what other lunkheads might we expect in the future?

There's only one more Fast & Furious movie after this one -- so they say -- and since they're winding down, they might not really be able to introduce any more new characters at this point. Bautista is still out there, but here are some others we might consider:

Hafpor Julius Bjornsson - The Game of Thrones actor who played The Mountain is just about the biggest lunkhead out there, in terms of actual size. However, he might have to play a smaller role because his Thrones role did not require very much dialogue, and his abilities in that area are likely limited.

Terry Crews - I had to check just now to make sure Crews wasn't in one of the earliest installments, before we really knew who he was. Crews is more of a comedic actor nowadays, and rightly so -- he's great at it. But beginning his career as a football player gives him additional candidacy here. (I'd say he's too old but he's actually younger than Diesel.)

David Harbour - This one's a stretch too, since he doesn't exactly fit the mold -- though I sort of think that anyone whom you'd cast to play Hellboy has a bit of a lunkhead look. If Harbour showed up in a Fast & Furious movie, he'd likely be more of a charismatic villain than a mechanic type. But hey, when you are listing people you have to include at least three.

And that's all I could think of today.

So I guess the available lunkheads who are currently doing anything in the movies are pretty much tapped out. Good thing Fast 11, or Fast X Part II, or whatever they are calling it, is the last one.