Chris - Cinema Crespodiso - Page 142 of 151

Review: ‘After Earth’

“After Earth” is currently being shit on by critics and audiences alike, and I have to wonder why everyone is choosing to not give this little sci-fi movie a chance. Because really there is absolutely nothing that is woeful or so terrible about this movie that it deserves any vitriol. Really, the worst response I can foresee for this movie would be that it is forgettable and will be barely a memory in ten years, but this has nothing to do with the craftsmanship displayed and more to do with the very small story that seems to be the opposite of the large-scaled adventure that was promised by all the marketing and commercials.

“After Earth” takes places 1,000 years after humans have left Earth for a more hospital home, and constant war with an alien race has forced them to establish troops of Rangers, trained soldiers who are supposed to do battle with these aliens. But none of this really, truly matters, because it only exists to set up the real story, which is that of a stranded father and son trying to get back home. While on a mission to a different planet, a spaceship crash lands on Earth, which is now full of incredibly hostile indigenous lifeforms, and the only survivors of this crashed ship are Commander Cypher (Will Smith) and his non-ranger son Kitai (Jaden Smith). Oh and some mean ole alien thing called an Ursa that the humans were transporting for training purposes, and which is now loose on the hostile planet along with Cypher and Kitai. As Cypher’s legs are both badly broken due to the crash, he has no choice but to send his cadet son on a dangerous 100-km trek to find an emergency beacon so they can signal for help. And really that’s the whole movie right there, Kitai leaves his injured father behind to find the beacon or else they are both going to die. And that’s it.Continue Reading …

Netflix pick for 6/3/13 – ‘Over The Top’

Okay, listen…”Over the Top” is not what one would necessarily call a “good” movie, but it’s a guilty pleasure so for once please indulge me on this one, okay? Sylvester Stallone plays a truck driver with aspirations to be a world champion arm wrestler who owns his own trucking company. I mean, how can you go wrong?

Stallone plays Lincoln Hawk (come on! Look at that name!), the aforementioned trucker who also tries to reconnect with his young estranged son Michael (David Mendenhall, God Bless America), all the while getting resistance from his rich and dick-ish father-in-law (Robert Loggia, Magnum, P.I.), and he forces his son to take a road trip to see his dying mother, with hee-larious consequences! And really, this movie is all about the awesome arm-wrestling tournament at the end, which director Menahem Golan presents in all its 80s glory and gusto.

Oh, and about that name, this is the type of movie in which no one could get his name straight and he would be referred to as both “Hawk” and “Hawks,” and he responds to both, so it doesn’t matter I guess. This movie is a classic, I tell ya.Continue Reading …

#21 – Double Suspension of Disbelief

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | TuneIn | RSS

(Right Click Download Link To Save)

In episode 21, Chris and Drew review Now You See Me and After Earth, Drew reviews Magic Mike and they both talk about the density that is Upstream Color. They also do a new Netflix Instant Pick of the Week, Drewster Cogburn vs the World, Chris recaps the 2013 Cannes Film Festival, and they talk about the three sequels that Arnold Schwarzenegger wants to make. So check out the Crespomadness and enjoy!

Review: ‘Furious 6’

Following the over the top ridiculousness of “Fast Five,” the fifth installment in the increasingly popular “The Fast and the Furious” series, comes an action spectacle that veers on the edges of satire, loaded with plot holes and logic leaps and bits of human action that defy all known laws of physics, and proving that rampant disregard for human life is a hot commodity at the box office. “Furious 6” is here, and it is going to get in your face with all of its action and stupidity and you it dares you to not enjoy any of it.Continue Reading …

Netflix pick for 5/27/13 – ‘Side By Side’

“Side By Side” is an interesting documentary produced by Keanu Reeves that explores the evolution of digital photography and compares it to the ole reliable stalwart of excellence that is 35 mm film, and just like the title implies, they go through a side by side comparison of the two technologies, along the way interviewing a who’s who of Hollywood filmmakers to get their input from their hands on experiences with both techs.

Keanu actually makes for a good host and guide through this world, as he has access to so many different people who can give him some great insight, and since this is a movie, the many examples they use of film work and digital video work gets very interesting as the movie progresses and digital video starts catching up.Continue Reading …

#20 – Florida’s Honey Podcast

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | TuneIn | RSS

(Right Click Download Link To Save)

In episode 20, Chris and Drew are joined by Tom the Beer Guy, and they get into the new Netflix Instant Pick of the Week, they recap the Memorial Day weekend box office, Chris and Drew review The Hangover Part III and Furious 6, they take a look at the new movies coming out this week on DVD and in theaters, and then they go into the Crespodome, where Tom reveals his past as a top shelf behind the scene craftsman on television, film and stage productions before his life as a craftsman of delicious beer, and he also takes on Drew in Drewster Cogburn vs the World, and goes through the lightning round, so enjoy this supersized episode of Cinema Crespodiso!

Review: ‘The Hangover Part III’

To be fair there has never been a comedy sequel that improved on the original, so why did any of us expect “The Hangover Part III” to really be all that good, even after ‘The Hangover Part II” kind of let us all down after “The Hangover” kicked everyone’s asses? They ditched the tired conceit of trying to recap their lost night and replaced it with a more straight forward story, and they all ditched the concept of this movie being a comedy and replaced that with a weird thriller involving kidnappings, druggings, murder and prison breaks. Also one of the main characters going off his meds and just being unhinged and wild eyed the entire more. And I’m not talking about Bradley Cooper.

“The Hangover Part III” starts with Alan (Zach Galifianakis, The Campaign) off his meds and causing so much damage that he literally gives his father a heart attack from all the stress, which then leads to his family sending him off to an an institution of some sort to “get better.” His old wolfpack buddies Stu (Ed Helms, Cedar Rapids) and Phil (Bradley Cooper, Silver Linings Playbook) agree to accompany Alan and his brother-in-law Doug (Justin Bartha, Gigli) on the long trip to this place. But on the way they are kidnapped by henchmen and tasked with finding Mr. Chow (Ken Jeong, Pain & Gain), who stole millions of dollars from some bad guy named Marshall (John Goodman, Flight), a bad guy who blames the entrance of the cancerous Mr. Chow into his life all to a chance encounter between Alan and Doug the drug dealer (Mike Epps, Resident Evil: Apocalypse, Resident Evil: Extinction) all the way back in the first movie. So the Wolfpack has to find Mr. Chow and bring him to Marshall, or else Marshall is going to kill Doug, kidnapping him, and again removing the character from the equation once again, because who wants to see Justin Bartha do anything except sit quietly at gunpoint?Continue Reading …

Review: ‘Star Trek Into Darkness’

Four years after J.J. Abrams gave us “Star Trek Babies,” he is back with the rip-roaring sequel, “Star Trek Academy: Their First Assignment,” in which the young crew has gotten oh so incrementally older and even less interesting and is forced to face their greatest adversary yet due to the rules of summer blockbuster filmmaking, which state that a second movie in a trilogy must go dark, i.e. “Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back,” “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom” and the inevitable blood letting that awaits us all in “The Smurfs 2.”Continue Reading …

Netflix pick for 5/20/13 – ‘Heathers’

“Heathers” is a like a 1980s John Hughes movie but with the sentimentality replaced with black-as-outer space humor, setting it’s sights on one of the hot button issues of the time, teen suicide, along with general teen malaise, anxiety, depression, loneliness, and all the other things that makes being an alienated and misunderstood teenager in high school so memorable. It’s “The Breakfast Club,” except instead of a character talking about thinking about suicide and the others tell him how wrong that is, we get crazy suicide attempts and killings and cover ups. Ahhhh yes. Good times.

This is one of those movies that bit it hard at the box office, only to find a cult following down the road, and it is available now here on the Netflix Instant for you to check out. And featuring Christian Slater, Winona Ryder and Shannon Doherty actually in their late teens like their characters, this is a heckuva a cynical trip back to late 80s high school culture (and culture in general).Continue Reading …

#19 – Time Flows Backwards

Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | TuneIn | RSS

(Right Click Download Link To Save)

In episode 19 of Cinema Crespodiso, Chris and Drew and joined by good friend of the show Matty J, and the trio review Star Trek Into Darkness, and they also get into the Netflix Instant Pick of the Week, Drew reviews Jack Reacher on DVD, and they talk about movies turned into failing television shows, boats and hoes and whether or not Drew is a wizard.

There is also a new edition of Drewster Cogburn vs The World, as well as a whole new Lightning Round for Matty J, so check out the movie related talk show podcasting goodness here in episode 19!