Demaras Racing’s ongoing Fast Film Festival returned on Sunday November 9 to the Film.ca Cinemas in Oakville, Ontario. This time on the big screen was the 2003 sequel “2 Fast 2 Furious” starring Paul Walker, and replacing Vin Diesel was R&B singer Tyrese Gibson, who had worked with “2F2F” director John Singleton previously on the feature film “Baby Boy“.
The event was much more successful than the first instance, as word had spread on social media about gearheads going to movies. The screening of “The Fast and the Furious” two weeks earlier, was held in the private cinema upstairs, and all 16 seats were sold out. But this time, the event was moved to a 100 seat theatre as nearly 40 guests bought tickets to see “2F2F” on the big screen.
With the retro building, ample parking lot and accommodating owner, this cinema is one of the best places in the city to watch a movie and hang out; it’s certainly our favourite spot!
An early-November snowstorm dumped 5 om of snow on the city, but brave drivers arrived in their Miatas and Mitsubishis for the photoshoot with Jade from JT Collectives. She brought talent and creativity to the car meet. Jade had an image in her mind; a promotional picture from car magazine when “2F2F” was theatrically released.
After an hour of freezing outside, the movie-goers headed inside. Security was tight, as many people visiting the theatre accidentally walked into the ‘private event’ on screen six. Daniel made sure that only invited guests were admitted into this rare movie experience.
Inside the larger theatre, the images were crisp and vivid, and the sound was thunderous. Nothing wrong with the private screening room; it’s certainly larger than anyone’s home theatre. But this new theatre was big! Getting to see Brian O’Conner and Suki jump their cars over a drawbridge in the opening race scene was a larger than life moment.
Looking back at this film and the first one, they really were the best of the F&F series. Light-hearted, funny, and focused solely on street racing. Dialogue only lasts a couple of minutes before the heroes have to jump back into their Mitsubishi Lancer EVO or Eclipse Spyder to drive somewhere at breakneck speed.
As a special treat after the credits rolled, a number of F&F items were raffled off., courtesy of Demaras Racing’s sponsors CSCS Racing and Can-Jam Motorsports. they provided Liqui-Moly swag bags for the first 25 people through the door; who couldn’t use a tube of lip-lubricant from a German oil company!
After the event, several gearheads hung out in the lobby, and a random idea came up; send a picture of our “2F2F” movie night to Tyrese, showing him how popular the film remains after 20+ years. One of the youngsters looked him up on IG and found out that Tyrese had just gotten off a plane in Jamaica, heling transport supplies for hurricane relief.
His actions were in co-ordination with ROWW (Reach Out WorldWide) the charity founded by Paul Walker (RIP) back in 2010. We passed the hat around, gathered up a couple hundred in donations, and sent in our contribution. It was decided that the third Fast Film event showing “Fast & Furious: Tokyo Drift” will be a fundraiser for ROWW.
Looked like fun. Snow? We got rain this morning.
Yes… it was the first snowstorm of the season. About 3″ to 4″. I was actually quite impressed with how many gearheads came out in their summer cars. Heck, there was a Miata and a 2006 Mitsubishi Eclipse convertible (like the car from the movie).
How cool ist that? Literally cool.