A weekly talk show hosted by film critic Christopher Crespo
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In this month’s Crespodisco BONUS episode, Chris Crespo and Drewster Cogburn talk about some of their favorite genre mash ups, whether they be bands covering songs from other genres, or artists from different genres working together; this episode is all about the joy of getting peanut butter in your chocolate and chocolate in your peanut butter!
“Scrooged” really sells itself, does it not? Bill Murray in the lead of an update of A Christmas Carol, but with more alcohol, homelessness, parental neglect and slapstick comedy. And 100% more Bill Murray. Which is always a good thing.
The Great Murray plays Frank Cross, who is this story’s version of Ebeneezer Scrooge, and he is a morally reprehensible television executive who is producing a live broadcast of A Christmas Carol, and he is either going crazy from the stress of the job or he really starts seeing different ghosts and spirits very much in the tradition of A Christmas Carol.
Look, goddammit, we all know the story of A Christmas Carol. The basic beats, anyway. We even saw the Muppets version with Michael Caine as Scrooge and we saw Captain Professor Jean Luc Xavier Picard play Scrooge on television, we know what the story is. Just THIS one has Bill Murray. That’s all you need.Continue Reading …
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In episode 66, Chris Crespo and Drewster Cogburn review The Raid 2, as well as Yellow and The Double from the 2014 Florida Film Festival.
There is a new Netflix Pick of the Week.
James Cameron spilled a lot of info at a Reddit AMA.
Chris explains to Drew what as Reddit AMA is.
“The Raid 2” is a brutal movie. Masquerading as an action film, it is actually a mob infiltration drama mixed with a horror movie, in which the horror comes from the fact that an intense fight scene can break out at any moment, during which our monster hero proceeds to cut, rip, break, brutalize and dismember his opponents in increasingly honorific ways, blood splattering everywhere. You will know him by his trail of dead. And he’s pretty much the only good cop in all of Indonesia.Continue Reading …
“The Double” is a bleak, angst-ridden surreal psychological thriller dark comedy about a man, in the midst of an existential crisis, who meets his physical double and at first they appear to be allies but things quickly go from bad to what the fuck. From writer/director Richard Ayoade and loosely based on the 19th century Russian lit classic of the same name, “The Double” is one of the most original and interesting movies I’ve seen in quite awhile, bursting with ideas and a deliberate energy that just makes this whole thing hum along very loudly and distinctly.Continue Reading …
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Chris Crespo and Drewster Cogburn are joined once again by Aaron Weiss from CinemaFunk.com to recap the 2014 Florida Film Festival!
Boy let me tell you. Film festivals are tricky to program. Well over 100 movies in a ten day span, including both short films and features? That’s a lot of movies. And there really is no way possible for each movie to be a winner. Some of them aren’t going to be so hot, for various reasons. But they’ll have redeeming qualities about them, variables that make them worthwhile in one way, shape or form. Unfortunately I don’t think “Crimes Against Humanity” meets even that criteria.Continue Reading …
“Levitated Mass” is a documentary about the conceptualization, actualization and meaning of the Michael Heizer art piece known as Levitated Mass, which is really just a 340-ton boulder suspended over a carved out walkway in front of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. This is a pretty great movie that raises all sorts of questions such as “what does this mean?” and “what is art?” and “how the hell do you move a 340-ton boulder anyway?” Continue Reading …
Here is a big budget Marvel movie. Summer must be in the air. At least when it comes to the summer movie season, which has been getting started earlier and earlier each year. And with “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” coming out the first weekend of April, it may be hard to call this a summer movie, but it is pretty much spring training for the big boys, helping to get those butter machines warmed up, and to get those jaded, minimum wage earning teenagers in shape.
And while a little more talky than most movies of this ilk, make no mistake, “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” follows the superhero movie template, complete with gigantic CG action scene at the end and countless (and uncounted) bloodless deaths throughout. But still, there are a few things separating this movie from the rest, and maybe there is something after all with this film, something more than just selling me the next one.Continue Reading …
“The Good, The Bad and The Ugly” is pretty much my favorite movie of all time. So there you go.
What? That’s not enough to make you want to drop everything right now and watch this masterpiece? Sheesh. Okay then, how about this lil bit from this piece I wrote on this movie back in my Examiner days:
“The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is a perfect storm of movie making awesomeness. First, the movie has a feel completely different from the westerns that came before it because it is not just a western, it is a spaghetti western, made by an Italian director with an Italian-Spanish production crew. Leone’s films actually have more in common with the French New Wave movement than they do with the Hollywood-produced westerns. Secondly (and this ties into the first point), the film soundtrack by Ennio Morricone has become ridiculously iconic. Everyone (and I mean everyone) knows the “wah-wah-waaaaah” refrain, even if they have no idea which movie it comes from. And Morricone’s scores (starting with A Fistful of Dollars and continuing with For a Few Dollars More) were incredibly unique. His mix of traditional orchestral instruments with electric guitars, fiddles, whistles and singing had not been done before, and as a result, it adds another level of ingenuity to Leone’s movies. Third, Leone’s direction itself is quite stellar, and he had his own style that translated beautifully to this genre. A key to making a western is the landscape shot, a nice wide shot showing off the natural terrain of the land. Leone gets plenty of epic landscapes, but wisely juxtaposes these wide shots of nature with extreme close ups of people’s faces (and not just any bunch of faces but some of the ugliest, wrinkliest, weirdest looking faces possible). Leone was also a master of creating tension; just check out the scene where Blondie is alone in his room, cleaning his gun, while Tuco and some friend try to ambush him. Or any of the public hanging scenes that literally comes down to the last second.”