The Fast and the Furious is an inordinately silly drag-racing flick that can best be differentiated from last summer's vehicular disaster Gone in Sixty Seconds by its use of younger actors. Vin Diesel, who must be so pleased to be in a film that showcases fuel, stars as the leader of a Los Angeles street-racing team that might be a front for a truck-hijacking racket. Paul Walker co-stars as the cop who goes undercover as a racer to find out for sure. The women in the cast, including Jordana Brewster and Michelle Rodriguez, are used mostly as slut accessories to the chrome and beefcake. Rob Cohen, who last directed The Skulls — ouch! — can consider this one another career-killing skid mark.

“V.T.T.L.O.T.F.D.G.F.”

Quite a few musicians have utilized initials for song titles -- Michael Jackson's "P.Y.T.," Abba's "S.O.S.," Donald Fagen's "I.G.Y.," etc. But the more curiously initialed tune has to be "V.T.T.L.O.T.F.D.G.F.," short for "Voyage to the Land of the Freeze-Dried Godzilla Farts." Fishbone's original guitarist, Kendall Jones, explained to Rolling Stone, "When Norwood [Fisher] wrote it, he introduced it to the band saying, 'Man, I've been hearing about all these Nazi right-wing groups on the news saying the Holocaust was staged. So what if America said it never dropped two atom bombs on Japan, that it was actually Godzilla popping a couple off?' Only Norwood would come up with something that out." The same year "V.T.T.L.O.T.F.D.G.F." was released, the film Godzilla 1985 appeared in North America.