Cinema Crespodiso

A weekly talk show hosted by film critic Christopher Crespo

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Netflix pick for 10/6/2014 – ‘Honey, I Shrunk The Kids’

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Back before “just do it with computers” became the de facto answer for solving movie special effects woes, practical effects had to be employed to be make the fantastical seem plausible in at least some manner, and a great example of this is the late 80’s adventure family comedy classic that is “Honey, I Shrunk The Kids.”

The highest compliment I can sincerely give this movie is how immersive and real it felt to me when I watched it as a kid, how it seemed like something that could possibly happen, it all worked for me, and that’s because of the amazing sets and special effects work put in to making it seem as if a group of kids are shrunk down accidentally by a totally DIY laser cannon built in the attic of a house and then get stranded in the back yard, which to them becomes a jungle full of dangerous and exciting possibilities. And back to being a kid, when they came across that giant cookie in the middle of the back yard and they jump on to it and start chowing down on handfuls of the creme filling, I could not have been more jealous. And if you watch this now, it still looks like a giant cookie because they actually built that monstrosity and many other giant things like it and as opposed to digital effects that invariably age poorly as our technology advances, this top notch practical effects work will stand the test of time, as it already has for twenty-five years.Continue Reading …

#91 – Scarred By Movies

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In Episode 91, Chris Crespo and Drewster Cogburn review Gone Girl (click here for the spoiler-filled BONUS review of Gone Girl) and Chris reviews Left Behind.

There is a new Netflix Instant Pick of the Week (it’s an 80’s adventure comedy family classic!), they recap the box office week and preview the new movies out in theaters and on DVD.

Discussed in this episode:

Iron Man 4 directed by Mel Gibson, Netflix vs Theaters, Michael Bay says crazy shit, The evolution of Cameron Diaz, actor/director combos, expectations for Night Crawler, and more!

Continue Reading …

Spoiler Bonus Episode – Gone Girl

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In this BONUS episode, Chris Crespo and Drewster Cogburn get into a spoiler-filled review of Gone Girl and they break it all down.

Enjoy!

And remember…spoilers abound!Continue Reading …

Review: ‘Left Behind’ (2014)

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“Left Behind” is the second feature length adaptation of the first book of a hugely successful series of Christian books from the 1990s, a series of thrillers set against the backdrop of the Rapture, a worldwide event in which all of the world’s Christians, along with all the babies and children in the world, get instantaneously sucked up into Heaven, leaving behind their clothes and their possessions and oh yeah all the stinking non-believers who now have Armageddon and what not to look forward to, you know, all the worst parts of the Bible. And who better to usher us into this horrible wasteland than the one and only Nicolas Cage?Continue Reading …

Review: ‘Gone Girl’

Gone-Girl-2014-film-posterWhat does “Gone Girl” have in common with other movies like “Conan the Barbarian,” “Robocop,” “Starship Troopers” and “Jackie Brown?” They are all pulpy B-movies made with A-movie level commitment and talent. What could have easily been a fumbled, ridiculous attempt at a Lifetime Movie of the Week instead is a very adult, smart, twisty-turny, potboiling, corkscrew turning thriller of a movie that just manages to get crazier and crazier until the very final frames.

Based on a very popular book and adapted into a screenplay by the very author of said book, “Gone Girl” is an extremely darkly humorous look at American married life in this day and age, at least an extreme possibility of the results of such unions between people throughout the world. Nick Dunne (Ben Affleck) comes home one day to discover what appears to be a crime scene and his wife Amy (Rosamund Pike) missing. He calls the police and the investigation starts with a couple of detectives taking a tour of his house and ends up being a nationwide media sensation involving streets filled with news vans, lawns covered with reporters, lots of shouting and yelling and television talking heads, all rising into a collection din that just puts more and more pressure on Nick, whom becomes the prime suspect more and more as the story progresses.Continue Reading …

Netflix pick for 9/29/14 – ‘Silent Running’

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“Silent Running” is a cool science fiction film from 1972, starring a young and wild-eyed Bruce Dern and directed by movie special effects maverick Douglas Trumbull, known most for his award winning work on “2001: A Space Odyssey,” and he took that clout to make his own movie, this little sci-fi tale about a floating bio-dome in outer space and the botanist who defied orders so he could save the trees. Yes, this movie has a hippie message. Deal with it.

In this story, it is the future, and in this future, life on Earth has gone mostly extinct. Some plant life was saved and put into orbit via bio-domes hooked up to spacecrafts (American Airlines space freighters, actually), with the goal being to keep the plants and trees alive and then go back to Earth one day to re-plant them. But before that could happen, the people on the freighters get orders to jettison the bio-domes and blow em up because the ships themselves were needed for something else entirely. And all of the domes are blown up except for Bruce Dern’s because he’s all like “we gotta save these trees.” So most of the movie is about his corporate subordination and then his use of the on-board drones as helpers and companions.

This is a weird, crazy sci fi movie featuring some of the Saturn’s Rings special effects that Trumbull couldn’t figure out in time for “2001” but he managed to sneak them in here so huzzah for that and also featuring great early 70s special effect work via models and macrophotography that is fun to watch and way more interesting to look at then some computer rendered digital fakery.Continue Reading …

Review: ‘The Equalizer’

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“The Equalizer” may be the best bad movie I have seen this year and I mean that in a very particular way, in that the story is filled with these ridiculous cliches and tropes and conventions and plays heavily into them and is also filled with these absurd moments and insane side stories but meanwhile the whole thing is being done by people who know how to make films so it is technically proficient and there are a number of cool moments and beautiful shots and in the end they even tie it all together with a nice little bow, set to rock guitars and drums, so it all comes together for a good time at the theater. A dumb good time, but a goo time nonetheless.

“The Equalizer” is about The Equalizer, a gray haired man working at a Home Depot-like home improvement store. His name is Robert McCall (Denzel Washington), and despite being very friendly and full of smiles and very willing to help his coworkers with their personal goals, he also lives a very austere and simple lifestyle, one fit for a monk, and oh yeah he’s harboring a very violent past, one commissioned by the government to boot. And when the people around him get in trouble with criminals and corrupt cops and whatnot, he secretly gets involved and corrects the situation, leveling the playing field, equalizing the score, if you wil- ooooohhh I get it, I see why he’s named that, oh man these people are clever.Continue Reading …

#90 – Parachute Pants and Pacifiers

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In episode 90, Chris Crespo and Drewster Cogburn review The Equalizer.

There is a new Netflix Pick of the Week, they recap the box office weekend results and the new movies coming out on DVD and in theaters.

Discussed in this episode:

IMAX installing film projectors for Interstellar, Y The Last Man the movie, X:Men Apocalypse news, Key and Peele are dominating Hollywood, and much more!

Continue Reading …

Crespodiso Film School – Christopher Nolan

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In this BONUS episode, Chris Crespo and Drewster Cogburn go over the entire filmography of Christopher Nolan, and Drewster Cogburn has a theory based on the trailer for Interstellar!

Enjoy and learn something!Continue Reading …

Netflix pick for 9/22/14 – ‘Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure’

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In this late 1980’s comedy sci-fi classic, “Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure” is the story of two “slackers” (that’s 80’s movie code for stoners) who have to fulfill their destiny of becoming the most influential artists in history, so influential they bring peace throughout the world and even the cosmos maybe, but in order to do so they need to history class by giving a presentation in front of the entire school for some unexplained reason so to pass this test they are given a time traveling phone booth with which they kidnap people like Socrate, Genghis Khan, Abraham Lincoln, Billy the Kid and Joan of Arc and bring them all back to contemporary California to participate in their presentation. Along the way there are some princesses and George Carlin and Napoleon Bonaparte at a water park.

Suffice to say, this movie is INSANE. And yet somehow this movie was a hit both critically and commercially and we all fell in love with Bill S. Preston (Alex Winter) and Ted ‘Theodore’ Logan (Keanu Reeves) and their crazy antics across time. The movie is full of weird jokes, as well as history based jokes and a couple of time travel based gags, and the story really is kind of sweet when it’s all said and done, since it is about how art can bring people together in peace and Bill and Ted’s love story with the princesses and each other just makes it all so much sweeter, you know what I mean? Plus this makes for the real debut of Keanu Reeves, who had been working for a little while at that point but hadn’t done anything as big as this. He was still a few years away from Special Agent Johnny Utah, a good decade away from Neo, a baby faced, enthusiastic dude just giving it his all, and he’s kind of great.Continue Reading …

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