"Thong Cape Scooter Man," is a 56-year-old man who, when the weather gets nice, rides around Madison, Wisconsin on a scooter while wearing only a thong, a helmet and a black cape. It's a perfectly reasonable reaction to the long-awaited arrival of springtime in the Midwest.

It's entirely possible that you haven't been paying attention to the internecine continuity of Universal's Fast and the Furious franchise — the most recent chapter of which, Fast Five, just grossed $83.6 million in its opening weekend. Given that it's a series about a pair of guys who steal cars and pose dramatically…