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Review: ‘The Family’

“Hey! Ooooo! We’re Italian-Americans over heryunh, and yer a buncha snobby Frenchies ovah there, and we are violent people who love our peanut butter and pasta dishes, cause we’re fat Americans and we’re of Italian descent, ooohhhh, fuhgeddaboutit!”

That’s “The Family” right there. Just a bunch of stereotypes shmushed together. But is it any good?

Nope.

But to be fair, it’s not really bad either. It’s so right down the middle of the road, it leans closer to forgettable than anything else.

Basically imagine if at the end of “Goodfellas” Henry Hill and his family get witness protection program relocated to Normandy, France, where cultures clash and hilarity ensues. That’s pretty much the movie, but instead of Hill we got some made up guy played by Robert De Niro, and he’s married to Michelle Pfeiffer and her fake Brooklyn accent, and they have a couple of high school aged kids who look nothing like either of them and one of whom is played by an actress in her 20’s. Tommy Lee Jones shows up to mumble his way through some scenes as De Niro’s government caretaker, the violence is kicked up to warrant an R-rating, and we’re off to the races.Continue Reading …

Netflix pick for 9/16/13 – ‘Dredd’

Almost like a throwback to the stripped down, awesome action movies of the 1980’s, “Dredd” is the little movie that could, as someone (namely actor Karl Urban and writer Alex Garland) decided that they were going to make a bad ass movie about the iconic British-created comic strip character that totally erases the memory of the 1995 filmatic abortion of a movie that is “Judge Dredd,” and lo and behold, these wonderful folks succeeded, giving us the awesome and over the top Judge Dredd movie for which fans of the character have been waiting for years, and which non-fans never knew that wanted or needed, at least until they laid eyes on this gem of a film.

Here is a small excerpt from my original review when the movie came out last year:

“And of course there’s one super bad ass judge amongst them all, the one whose reputation exceeds him, and that is Judge Dredd (Karl Urban, Star Trek). He’s totally by the book, though that doesn’t mean he won’t give you a second chance or a good deal – it’s just that the perp has to be able to recognize when Dredd is actually offering said deal. Sometimes what amounts to compromise for Dredd is simply allowing the criminal offender to pick their poison. And if Dredd gives you an option, you better make a choice quick, cause he’ll shut down negotiations almost faster than you realize you were negotiating, and if he makes the decision for you, it won’t be the one you would have preferred. And Dredd does is all with a permanent scowl and deadpan humor, like a slightly more human version of Robocop…slightly.”

#36 – No Junk, No Soul

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In episode 36, Chris Crespo and Drewster Cogburn are joined by Mickey from the Corrupting the Kids podcast (@CorruptingKids) and it is a packed show full of movie reviews, news, opinions, music, a new edition of Drewster Cogburn vs the World and a single obituary, as well as a new Netflix Instant Pick of the Week and a new Lightning Round for Mickey!

Things discussed in this episode include:

Dredd is the Netflix Instant Pick of the Week.

We’re The Millers is still making money, but Drew and Chris couldn’t care less.

Lee Daniels has his first $100 million movie with The Butler.

Is Vin Diesel more than the meathead he appears to be?Continue Reading …

Netflix pick for 9/9/13 – ‘Tabloid’

What’s better than a super juicy, scandalous, over the top, so crazy it has to be true tabloid story? Getting all the facts and claims from the people directly involved in said juicy scandal. And that’s ‘Tabloid,” a retelling of a very notorious sex crime case which fascinated the world in the 1970’s involving a former beauty queen, a Mormon missionary, and a sex-filled weekend that the beauty queen claimed was consensual and which the missionary claimed was rape.

This crazy story and it’s various players are all brought under the microscope by the great Errol Morris, he of the great documentaries “The Thin Blue Line,” “Standard Operating Procedure” and “The Fog of War,” and as per usual, this is a great Errol Morris documentary because not only did he find a fascinating story with incredible real-life characters, but he also uses his great storytelling style and techniques to wrap up this crazy story in an aesthetically pleasing package, and BOOM, we have “Tabloid.”

And possibly the most interesting aspect of this movie is how this particular story made huge news in the UK tabloids in the 1970’s and was an even bigger story there than it was here in America where the crime happened, and this intense focus from the rags and papers of the 1970’s closely echoes the horrible tabloid-filled celebrity culture in which we currently live, a culture in which a person who commits a crime and gets tried in public ends up attaining a level of noteriety and celebrity that shouldn’t even exist for these people, yet it does. And that’s a shame.Continue Reading …

#35 – Kiddie Corruption

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In episode 35, Chris Crespo and Drewster Cogburn are joined by Jacki from the Corrupting the Kids podcast (@CorruptingKids) and she finally provides a much needed female presence to the Crespodome. They review the video on demand movies Drinking Buddies and Prince Avalanche, and Chris and Drew have differing opinions on Riddick.

Things discussed in this episode include:

Is there a pattern to the rotation of movies on the Netflix Instant library?

This week’s Netflix Instant Pick of the Week is Tabloid.

What the hell is Instructions Not Included and where did it come from?

Why did Lee Daniels have to add his name to The Butler?

Drew feels like no one else has seen Star Trek Into Darkness, which comes out on DVD this week.Continue Reading …

Op-ed: Why we should reserve judgement on Robocop 2014

None of your favorite movies or genuine film classics are sacred, not enough for people to not try remaking them in some way, shape or form. We’re just going to move on to what really matters in this particular instance, savvy?

So the teaser trailer for the remake-reboot-whatever of the 1987 movie “Robocop” hit the interwebz recently with a resounding plop, as nerd-os and geeks ahoy decided to watch the trailer one time and promptly shit all over it (*ahem*).

Holy cow the Robocop remake looks FUCKING TERRIBLE http://t.co/JE8WLOOhmF like SyFy channel bad. #Robocopnado

— Chris Crespo (@IAmChrisCrespo) September 6, 2013

Bonus Episode – Fall Movie Guide

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In this bonus episode, Chris and Drew run down the remaining movies of 2013 pretty much one by one, while Chris focuses on the movies that will be more likely to garner attention during the upcoming awards season. And of course Chris springs another round of Drewster Cogburn vs the World on Drew, because there is no escaping the Crespodome.

Review: ‘The Spectacular Now’

Every few years, a movie comes along that reminds us how we are hearing and seeing the a certain set of stories over and over, yet these particular stories seems to work and continue to reverberate with us each time we see them, and this is because these are usually stories of universal truths, very basic emotions and feelings that just about all of us have gone through and to which we can relate, so that no matter how many times you change the characters and places and even story details, the truth of the emotions still come through. “The Spectacular Now” really doesn’t offer anything new per se, but it’s still a damn good movie and quite possibly one of those films people will be referencing in the future.

In “The Spectacular Now,” Sutter (Miles Teller) is a 17-year old high school senior who is just skating by and seems to be enjoying life to the 100% fullest. The movie starts with him talking about having a hot and fun girlfriend named Cassidy (Brie Larson), but she dumps him over a weird misunderstanding (born out of his reputation for partying hard), which sends him into a drunken downward spiral. Or was he already on that spiral? And then Sutter meets nice girl Aimee (Shailene Woodley), and they develop a friendship that starts to turn into something more, and almost doesn’t, but then it does, and then things are cool, but then there’s not cool, and then they are kinda cool again, and so on and so forth. You know how these high school dramady relationships work. It’s really all about who learns what along the way.Continue Reading …

#34 – Nakatomi Plaza

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In episode 34, Chris and Drew are joined by Matt (@mattiscabin) from “The SBK LIVE Show with Kevin, Matt and Angel,” and he fights through a hangover to talk movies with the guys. Chris and Drew have reviews of The Grandmaster and The Spectacular Now, neither of which Matt had ever heard of, and Matt gives his review of You’re Next, which he only saw because his air conditioning at home was broken. Drew and Matt have a rematch of Drewster Cogburn vs the World, and we get another Lightning Round with Matty Ice!

Things also discussed in this episode include:

The Netflix Instant Pick of the Week is Rollerball, and Chris tries out a new listener suggested segment, the Netflix Instant Chick Pick of the Week.

New movies on DVD include Now You See Me, Skarknado, The Lords of Salem, The Iceman and SOMM. The only new movies in theaters this week are Riddick and Salinger.Continue Reading …

Review: ‘You’re Next’

“You’re Next” is a halfway decent horror movie, which means people think it’s generally a great movie, that’s how low the bar is set for horror films, a genre riddled with no-budgeted, poorly acted, storyless, pointless hackjobs that try to pass themselves off as actual movies. “You’re Next,” however, isn’t that bad, as it sort of has a story and maybe it has a point? It didn’t make me want my time back, that’s for sure. So that’s something.

“You’re Next” is a home invasion movie and after watching a decent number of these types of films now, I think I can say I am not much of a fan of this subgenre of horror. Much like movies “Straw Dogs,” “The Purge,” “Funny Games,” “High Tension” and “The Strangers,” some people are inside a house, and murderous assholes want to hurt them, sometimes for completely unknown reasons, and sometimes for no reason (which is ANNOYING and the pinnacle of pointless storytelling). At least in “You’re Next” there turns out to be a reason for the home invasion, and a terrifyingly mundane one at that.*Continue Reading …