Chris - Cinema Crespodiso - Page 140 of 154

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 …

Bonus Episode – How to use Rotten Tomatoes

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In this bonus episode of Cinema Crespodiso, Chris breaks it down and lets everyone in on how to properly utilize the many numbers and facets of RottenTomatoes.com such as the fresh/rotten ratings and the actual average ratings, and how these can differ. Chris also gives out his own personal film critic reading list, and Chris and Drew share their opinions about opinions in general. And just when Drew thinks he can get away from it, a Rotten Tomatoes centric sparring round of Drewster Cogburn vs the World shows up and throws him into a whirlwind of pain.

Review: ‘The World’s End’

Here is “The World’s End” – from the writers, director and stars of “Shaun of the Dead” and “Hot Fuzz” comes a movie about a group of friends reuniting to recreate a pub crawl 20 years after their failed first attempt, and during this pub crawl they work out a number of issues among themselves while also coming to the realization that their old hometown seems to have been taken over all “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” style.

“The World’s End” may be about a group of friends, but really its about two of the guys, ringleader Gary King (Simon Pegg) and Andy Knightley (Nick Frost), and even then, it’s really just about Gary King, BUT REALLY in the end when it’s all said and done this movie is actually about all of us. So the movie starts with a retelling of a pub crawl attempt by five teenagers in a small UK village, with the goal being to down a pint at 12 different pubs over the course of a night. This first attempt is a failure.Continue Reading …

Netflix pick for 8/26/13 – ‘ParaNorman’

“ParaNorman” is a fun, horror-themed stop-motion animated film that is great for most of the family…at least those families that don’t mind family movies about the walking dead and witches’ curses, cause “ParaNorman” has both of these.

This movie is great fodder for right wing conservative weirdos to decree about how lefty Hollywood liberals are constantly pushing their agendas on the rest of the country blah blah blah. At the center of this whole movie is the simple concept of not judging a book by its cover, or even by its contents, at least not until you can come to a full and complete understanding of said contents, and they even throw in an openly gay character at one point just to drive the point home in a more real world way, since this movie is about a witch and zombies and a boy who can communicate with the dead and gets some intense visions of impending doom every now and then.

Also check out this awesome articleabout some of the technology behind the making of this movie, which includes some videos as well, definitely worth checking out if you are interested at all in film production in any way.Continue Reading …

#33 – War, Famine and Death

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In episode 33, Chris and Drew are joined by Angel Rivera (@itsoffcialangel) from “The SBK LIVE Show” (www.sbkliveradio.com), and they review the new movies You’re Next and The World’s End, there is a brand new Netflix Instant Pick of the Week, they preview the new movies coming out on DVD and in theaters, and then they head into the Crespodome, which featured a rematch of Drewster Cogburn vs the World and a new Lightning Round for Angel.

Things discussed in this episode include:

The Netflix Instant Pick of the Week is the stop-motion animation movie ParaNorman.

During Chris’ review of You’re Next, they discuss the movie theater going experience in general.

The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones and other franchise non-starters.

Angel wants to see We’re the Millers.Continue Reading …

Review: ‘Lee Daniels’ The Butler’

Using this Washington Post profile of real life White House butler Eugene Allen as a way to tell the story of the United States civil rights movement, “Lee Daniels’ The Butler” tells this bold story in bold strokes, but also manages to squeeze in a much more intimate look at the personal cost of said movement on the lives of the families it effected directly. This movie is both dramatic and melodramatic, in your face and reserved, both unbelievable and all too real, and at the very least the most interesting and worthwhile movie playing in theaters right now.

The Butler in this movie is a made up butler (though many of the coolest and notable things that happen to the fake butler in this movie happened to the Mr. Allen for realsies), and we start with him as a kid living and working with his family on a plantation in the 1920s, but if you didn’t know any better, you would have thought this was a plantation in the 1820s, and after this kid endures his mother being raped and his father being murdered, he gets taken into the house by the old racist lady who lives there and is taught how to serve, which he seems to excel at for some reason, like some really shitty superpower.Continue Reading …

Netflix pick for 8/19/13 – ‘The Ice Harvest’

“The Ice Harvest” is a little dark-comedy crime movie set during the Christmas holiday, and movies juxtaposing crimes and violence with the joy of Christmas are always fun to watch. Nothing says “reason for the season” like a seedy strip club in Kansas and a mob lawyer teaming up with a pornographer in an attempt to steal millions of dollars from a crime boss on Christmas Eve.

John Cusack plays the mob lawyer and Billy Bob Thornton plays his buddy with whom he is trying to steal some ill-gotten money from a bad dude (played by Randy Quaid), but after they get the money, they realize that their escape routes out of town are blocked due to bad weather, meaning they are forced to hide out in town while some mob enforcers look for them. Meanwhile, Cusack’s lawyer character bounces back and forth between trying to impress a good looking strip club owner (Connie Nielsen) and hanging out with his best friend (Oliver Platt), who happens to be married to Cusack’s ex-wife. So life is pretty shitty for this guy. No wonder he’s willing to risk his life to steal a couple million bucks.Continue Reading …

#32 – Getting Those Digital Pennies

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In episode 32, Chris and Drew review Kick Ass 2 and Lee Daniels’ The Butler, and they also talk about the Terminator series, the Christmas crime noir movie The Ice Harvest, and more!

Also discussed in this episode:

The box office recap includes talk about Paranoia, Jobs, We’re The Miller, Disney’s Saving Mr. Banks, Captain Phillips and the works of director Lee Daniels.

New movies on DVD include the animated movie Epic, Killing Season, Amour and Scary Movie 5. New movies in theaters include The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones, The World’s End, You’re Next and The Grandmaster.

The Crespodisco features music from the soundtracks for The Blues Brothers and Desperado.

Drew sees Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines for the first time.Continue Reading …

Review: ‘Kick-Ass 2’

If I was some sort of stupid film critic superhero, then ambivalence would be my kryptonite, making it as difficult as possible for me to even put together enough words to actually constitute a “review” of some sort. And “Kick-Ass 2” has filled me with this ambivalence, as it doesn’t really seem to commit to anything, bounces back and forth between satire and comic book hero worship, admittedly strives to be good but really is just okay at best, and really it all comes down to an overall story that doesn’t add up to much of anything in the end and a bunch of empty action scenes with nothing behind them.

There just ain’t nothing to sink my teeth into with this movie. A lot of critics are going into fits over the movie’s violence, which is indeed over the top and in some cases done in bad taste, but really there isn’t anything in here that’s worse than what’s on primetime television. Doesn’t anyone wince at digital blood? Does that crap fool anyone? I didn’t think so. At least in “Kick-Ass 2” when someone gets stabbed or shot, there IS the blood (no matter how fake it looks), as much of this movie is about the consequences and repurcussions of the violence, which is better than a lot of PG-13 action movies that regularly feature the obvious deaths of hundreds if not thousands if not MILLIONS of people, usually in the most sanitized and bloodless manner possible. Now THAT’S offensive.Continue Reading …

Review: ‘Mud’

Jeff Nichols started pretty small with the little blood feud Southern-fried drama “Shotgun Stories,” and then followed that up with “Take Shelter,” an oh so slightly bigger Southern-fried movie about a man suffering from visions of an impending apocalyptic storm. And now he’s back with something a little bigger in scope, a Southern-fried coming-of-age drama called “Mud,” which makes Jeff Nichols three-for-three in terms of well-made movies.

In “Mud,” 14-year old Ellis (Tye Sheridan) and his buddy Neckbone (Jacob Lofland) stumble across a dude named Mud (Matthew McConaughey), a fugitive chilling on an island in the Mississippi River in the Arkansas Delta area. Not too many movies made about this region of the world (and as a matter of fact, according to the interwebz, this $2 million movie is the biggest budgeted film ever shot in Arkansas). Mud convinces Ellis and Neckbone to help him fix up a motor boat so Mud can reunite with his girlfriend Juniper (Reese Witherspoon) and get the hell out of dodge.Continue Reading …