Chris - Cinema Crespodiso - Page 134 of 151

Review: ‘Don Jon’

This Joseph Gordon-Levitt guy, who does he think he is, what with the writing and the directing and the starring and what not. Know what I mean? This was the long hair doofy kid on “3rd Rock From the Sun” slash that orphan kid that saw Doc Brown as an angel in “Angels in the Outfield,” and now here he is writing and directing and starring in “Don Jon,” his own movie in which he gets to write his character having sex with many women, Scarlett Johansson being chief among them, and this guy even admits he wrote this with Johansson in mind! He set out to make a movie in which he beds ScarJo, and he succeeded! Like I said! Who does he think he is?!

Well he’s a damn genius that’s what he is, at least in that department. But surely the reason she even did the movie was because ot its strong, character-centric story which tries to break the typical rom-com mold, being much more upfront and real about sex and people’s sexual wants versus their sexual needs, with the added spin of internet pornography (and porn in general) being an obstacle for a character to get over and not just the source for some cheap “American Pie” style humor.

Instead it is a pretty focused story about a guy named Jon who makes it ABUNDANTLY clear that the only things he cares about are his body, his pad, his ride, his family, his church, his boys, his girls and his porn.Continue Reading …

Netflix pick for 10/21/13 – ‘Ong-Bak: The Thai Warrior’

When “Ong Bak” got a U.S. theatrical release in 2003, it was one of those limited release deals, playing in only one theater in town, and only playing there for a couple of weeks. It wasn’t even one of the better theaters, either. It was a dingy piece of crap that ain’t even open anymore. But still. I have fond memories of that shithouse. Because that is where i saw “Ong Bak” on the big screen and it thoroughly kicked my ass and I have never forgotten that.

From my original write up on Examiner.com:

“Martial arts movies are made all the time all over the world, but it is only on occasion when a movie is made that signals the break out of the world’s next big martial arts action star. And in 2003, one of these movies was released. And it was good.

Ong Bak: Muay Thai Warrior features stuntman turned lead actor Tony Jaaa and it is pretty easy to see how this movie positioned him to be the Next Big Thing. Of course thanks to hindsight we all know he went a little nuts and buckled under the pressure of making Ong Bak 2, but back in ’03, people were throwing around the ole “the next Bruce Lee” adage in reference to his incredible work. And it all really started with this movie.”

#41 – A.K.A. Dr. Magnets

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In episode 41, Chris Crespo and Drewster Cogburn both review Escape Plan, and Chris reviews Carrie. There is a new Netflix Instant Pick of the Week, a sparring round of Drewster Cogburn vs the World, and so much more!

Things discussed in this episode include:

The Netflix Instant Pick of the Week is Ong Bak: Thai Warrior.

Chris and Drew recap the box office top five for the weekend.

New movies on DVD include The Conjuring, The Internship, The Way Way Back and Only God Forgives.

New movies in theater this week include The Counselor and Jackass Presents Bad Grandpa.

This week’s Crespodisco break features “No Other Love” as heard in The Master and “528491” from the Inception soundtrack.Continue Reading …

Review: ‘Escape Plan’

Oh if this movie had only been made back in 1994, back during a time when the teaming of the two biggest action stars of the 80s and 90s actually would have had more punch, back when CG couldn’t be relied upon for effects and modern shaky cam and hyper editing didn’t ruin action scenes by rendering them incomprehensible and boring, back when action movies actually MEANT something. But alas, that time is long gone, we are in a more cynical age, and alas, the best we can get now is “Escape Plan,” a halfway decent movie featuring a couple of guys you may have heard of.

In this movie that should have been made in the 90s and has a story that stinks of 90s leftovers and has the overall feel of a 2000’s direct to video venture, Sly Stallone plays Ray Breslin, a guy who breaks out of prisons for a living. But then he finds himself inside a prison that is the ultimate in unbreakable (long story), so of course he has to figure out how to break his way out. And with the help of fellow inmate Emil (Arnold Schwarzenegger), he goes about trying to put together the ins and outs of a very weird prison that looks like something mixed between the boxes of monsters in “The Cabin in the Woods” and the all-white prison of “THX 1138” so he can devise a…wait for it…escape plan!Continue Reading …

Review: ‘Carrie’

Did you see the 1976 “Carrie?” Then you’ve pretty much seen the 2013 “Carrie,” as neither movie diverges much from the original Stephen King novel anyway, so the remake only offers updated effects and a contemporary setting. But they might as well have set the story in the 70’s, it’s all the same thing anyway. So if you liked the first one, this shouldn’t disappoint.

In “Carrie 2K13,” after a birth scene in which the mother(Julianne Moore) behaves as if she doesn’t know what childbirth even is, we jump straight to awkward Carrie White (Chloë Grace Moretz) in high school, getting her first period in the girl’s locker room after gym class and mistaking it for something much worse, and then getting teased and bullied by the other girls in the class, who all throw sanitary napkins at her and call her names and, here’s the 2013 twist-a-roo, take cell phone video of her freaking out (see what they did there? Updating that shit yo!). This starts a chain reaction of events that ends with a prank gone wrong at the school prom that causes Carrie to freak out and use her telekinetic powers to kill everyone.

Oh yeah, Carrie has telekinetic powers.Continue Reading …

The Crespodisco #1 – Bigger Balls, Brighter Lights

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In the first ever Crespodisco bonus episode, Chris and Drew take a break from talking about movies to instead talk about music, and in this episode they focus on the music they listened to growing up, all the way through their high schools. They each picked out five songs to share with everyone, so check out the tunes that helped shape Chris and Drew as you know them today.

Review: ‘Captain Phillips’

“Captain Phillips” is Paul Greengrass doing pretty much what he knows best, which is recreating real life events in a way that feels immediate and actual, very cinema vérité despite the fact that movie stars often pop up to remind the viewer that this is indeed just a movie. Greengrass broke out with “Bloody Sunday” and he tackled the U.S.-Iraq quagmire in “Green Zone,” and now he’s here with a story about four Somali pirates hijacking an American cargo ship and taking the captain as a hostage for insurance money.

“Captain Phillips” is very much based on the very true story of a pirate hijacking in 2009, and as it was written by Captain Richard Phillips, it tells his story and his side of the whole nasty bit of business, and now this Phillips guy must really be on top of the world now because he survived a pirate hijacking (SPOILER! Duh! He wrote the damn book!), wrote a bestselling book about it, and now he gets to see Tom Hanks play him in a movie based on the book he wrote about a portion of his own life. Oh what a world.

But what makes “Captain Phillips” really work, and this is something noted in the Captain’s own book and is also backed up with a little bit of research, is how sympathetic the Somalis are in this instance. At least in this movie, the Somali men in a small, war-torn, destroyed village are ushered to the beach with machine guns pointed at them by gang leaders and mob bosses, forcing them to “work” by being pirates, as this has become the sole source of income for the impoverished country. And there is even a bit of a throwaway line about overfishing in the area taking away the livelihood of the people actually living there, though that’s really it. There really isn’t preaching or sermonizing in this thing at all, it’s just a very interesting true story that brings up some very tricky socio-economic points and issues on a geopolitical scale about the haves and the have-nots. But really this is just a taut thriller in which at the end of the day it kind of feels like there are no winners.Continue Reading …

Netflix pick for 10/14/13 – ‘Bernie’

“Bernie” is a rare kind of movie, because it is a mockumentary about a real life story, so while it has recognizable actors like Jack Black, Matthew McConaughey and Shirley MacLaine, it is also shot and presented as if these are real people telling their sides of a real story. Helping to blur the lines between reality and cinema are real people involved in the real story, being interviewed for this movie as if they were in a normal documentary, and not a weird yet delightful little movie featuring reenactments of real life events by real life actors.

From my original review of “Bernie:”

“Hiding her body, he then went on a shopping spree with her money by spending it on the community, helping some townspeople start businesses and sending local kids to college. But of course it all crashes down on him eventually, and the local DA Danny Buck (Matthew McConaughey, Killer Joe) finds that he needs to request a change of venue in order to get a fair trial because Bernie was just so well liked by everyone. And it didn’t help that conversely Mrs. Nugent was remarkably disliked. It’s because of stuff like this that makes this story, and this movie, so fascinating. People accused Bernie of stealing from Mrs. Nugent, but even if he did, it was evident that he was giving all of that money away to other people, like a small town Robin Hood. Everyone likes Robin Hood.”

#40 – Escape From Crespodome

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In episode 40, Chris Crespo and Drewster Cogburn review Machete Kills and Captain Phillips, as well as the indie movie sensation Escape From Tomorrow.

Things discussed in this episode include:

The Netflix pick of the week is Bernie.

Chris defies the world to name a comedy sequel that is as good as the original.

Word of mouth spring boards Gravity into profitability.

Pacific Rim and The Heat come out on DVD this week, and new movies in theaters include Escape Plan, Carrie, The Fifth Estate, 12 Years a Slave and All is Lost.

The Crespodisco features two songs picked by Drewster Cogburn from the GTA V soundtrack: The Chain Gang of 1974’s “Sleepwalkin'” and “Smokin’ & Ridin'” by BJ The Chicago Kid.Continue Reading …

Review: ‘Gravity’

Holy mole, if you have not seen this one for yourself just yet, you need to do yourself a favor and check out the next available showing of “Gravity” as soon as possible. And if you like 3D, then go ahead and drop the extra few bucks on the 3D screening because this is one of the very few movies that uses this gimmick very well. But in the meantime, just go see “Gravity” and know that I love it.

I mean, woah, what a movie. Containing a very simple story structure that proves you don’t need overplotting to make a story interesting, “Gravity” is a tale of survival in outer space and that’s pretty much it. A non-professional doctor (Sandra Bullock) is trained to do a space walk in order to install a new program into the Hubble telescope, accompanied by a veteran astronaut (George Clooney), and these two become stranded when debris from an exploded satellite causes a chain reaction that sends pieces of space debris flying at them, destroying their Explorer shuttle and leaving them with no way home. So the whole movie is how these people try to survive in space and how the hell they try to get back to Earth.

Leading up to the release of this movie, it is really incredible how often I heard people muse about this movie’s story and plot, wondering how they could possibly “stretch” out this premise to a feature length movie. I just couldn’t understand these people and their concerns because that is enough of a hook to make me WANT to see this film. Exactly HOW were they doing to pull this off? What were they going to do to make this a compelling and interesting movie from start to finish, or will there be boring parts of just floating in space?Continue Reading …