Bibliographic Information: Cohen, Rob. Fast and the Furious. Universal City, CA : Universal Studios Home Entertainment, c2009. 1 videodisc (107 min.) : sd., col. ; 4 3/4 in. DVD, region 1, anamorphic widescreen (2.40:1); Dolby Digital 5.1 surround. UPC 025195038416.
Genre: DVD, Street racing, Police, Crime, Action
MPAA rating: PG13
Curriculum ties: None
Director: Justin Lin
Cast: Vin Diesel, Paul Walker, Michelle Rodriguez, Jordana Brewster, John Ortiz, Laz Alonso.
Note: Based on the characters created by Gary Scott Thompson. Bonus features: Gag reel; feature commentary with director Justin Lin.
Reader’s Annotation: An undercover cop befriends the most well known street racer to gather evidence and catch a thief.
Plot Summary: Brian Spelner, Los Angeles police man is placed on an undercover assignment because of his bad driving habits and young, rugged look. The assignment is to gather information and bust a ring of thieves that have been steeling high end electronics. His new “job” is working at an auto parts store where he runs into a local street racer named Dom. Dom is not just ay street racer, he is the top dog on the streets, everyone is scared to go up against him except for Brian. Dom is suspicious that Brian is a great racer that he never heard of and even did a background check to make sure he was clean. Brian earns Dom’s trust when, after a police bust at the street races, Brian is the only one to come to his rescue. From there, their friendship blossoms and Brian is caught between a rock and a hard place.
Critical Evaluation: I really appreciated the sense of Family that Don has created among the cast of characters in the film. All of the street racers seem to come from broken homes and poor situations but they all have two things in common, the love of cars and street racing. Dom is so protective because his father was badly injured in a race car track accident that was caused by Dom so he feels the responsibility to take over that role and look over his sister. One tradition that Dom still keeps alive is Sunday lunch. Here, everyone is welcome without judgement. No matter who you are or where you come from, you are welcome to be a part of the family. Another one of Dom’s philosophies is that he lives life one quarter mile at a time. This outlook on life is why he has the need to drive fast for big stakes, and also why he never loses.
Booktalking Ideas: N/A
Why was this book included?: Cars, adrenaline, action packed. Liked by all teens.
Producer Information: Born in Washington DC in 1938, Robert Cohen took his undergraduate studies at Dartmouth College and UC Berkeley, and received his Doctor of Fine Arts at the Yale School of Drama in 1965, whereupon he joined the charter faculty of the newly-founded Irvine campus of the University of California. He has served there ever since, first as the founding departmental chair of Drama (for 25 years) and now as a Bren Fellow and Claire Trevor Professor of drama.
At Irvine, Cohen has directed more than seventy stage productions, including new plays, classics (often in his own translations), musicals, experimental works and operas. Off campus, he directs professionally, with works including a dozen productions at the Utah and Colorado Shakespeare Festivals plus many other works at Stages Theatre Center in Hollywood, the Summer Repertory Theatre in Santa Rosa, the Image Theatre in Boston, Theatre 40 in Beverly Hills, and the Focused Program in Medieval Drama at Irvine.
Cohen is also the author of many important theatre books, including leading texts in acting, a study of French playwright Jean Giraudoux, an introduction to theatre, a collection of theatre essays, and both original plays and translations. He has also published more than two dozen journal articles and two hundred-plus play reviews, the latter appearing mainly in the London-published Plays International, for which he is the regular southern California drama critic.
As a teacher, Cohen specializes in acting – particularly his own, closely-wrought integration of realism’s authentic underpinnings in human behavior with the classical, musical, and experimental dramatic styles commonly performed today. Cohen’s investigation of acting extends to scientific theory and world theatre practice. In the late 1980s, Cohen paired with Polish director Jerzy Grotowski in the creation of the Objective Drama Program on the UCI campus, a three-year, full-time round examination of the origins of ritual performance and their theoreticaland practical applications to modern acting and dramatic art. In addition to his regular teaching at UCI, Cohen speaks and conducts workshops around the country and abroad, including residencies in Canada, Korea, China, Hungary, Finland, Estonia, Sweden, Costa Rica, Hong Kong, Romania, Poland, Australia.
UCI awarded Cohen its highest honor, the UCI Medal, in 1993, and conferred on him a Claire Trevor Professorship in 2001. In 1999 he received the Career Achievement Award in Academic Theatre from the Association for Theatre in Higher Education, and in 2009 he received the honorary degree of Honoris Causa at Babes-Bolyai University in Romania, and the Polish Medal of Honor.
Cohen lives in Laguna Beach, California with his wife, Lorna Cohen. He has two children, Michael and Whitney.
(Author information obtained from author’s website. Retrieved from: http://www.robertcohendrama.com/bio/)
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