A weekly talk show hosted by film critic Christopher Crespo
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In episode 189, Chris Crespo reviews Don’t Breathe and Kubo and the Two Strings.
The Netflix Instant Pick of the Week is Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry.
Billy D reviews TUSK and WE ARE STILL HERE.
The Crespodisco features a cover of While My Guitar Gently Weeps from the soundtrack for Kubo and the Two Strings.
“Don’t Breathe” is a horror movie that is mostly about suspense and tension, as a group of teenage delinquents in economically depressed Detroit decide to break into a blind man’s house in order to steal some money they believe he has, but the old blind man is an Army veteran and can take care of himself, which he does when he discovers the intruders, killing one almost instantly, and spending the rest of the movie hunting down the other two within the confines of his house. The robbers soon discover that this old loner has some secrets which he is determined to keep within the house, and he can’t let any of them get out, which means they have to get out of his house before he can kill them. The stakes don’t get much higher than that.
The only real problem I had with this movie is how the lead characters all suck, as in, they are shitty people. Much like the recent “Hell or High Water” or other fairly recent movies like “99 Homes” and “The Big Short” and “Take Shelter,” this is a movie that takes place in post-recession America, with the ultimate evil forces at play being the destroyed economy and the lack of opportunity for people left in the wake of this destruction. It is a tough road when you have a lead character that sets out to hurt others in some way just so they can get ahead, even if their reasoning is ultimately righteous. In “Don’t Breathe,” one of the three robbers in the movie is given the obligatory family-member-needs-them burden, which is shown and explained in one scene, so while this is the character’s motivation, it still feels like something thrown in just to try to justify this character’s shitty decisions.Continue Reading …
“Hell or High Water” is a modern western, a story about cops and robbers, set in dusty West Texas, featuring bank robberies and shoot outs and Mexican stand offs, and the “updated setting coupled with classic motifs” gambit often pays off in artistic endeavors, this being one of those times. But additionally, this movie fits another genre, one that sprang from the murky mess of the 2007-2008 housing market crash which catapulted the world into a global recession and saw the concept of The American Dream finally popped and deflated, and that’s the genre in which honest and good people find their lives on the edge of complete ruin thanks to believing in a system that failed them, with the ultimate “bad guys” being banks or bankers or anyone callous enough to be rich and openly uncaring during a time of great strife for many other people, you know, folks inflicted with “Scrooge McDuckitis.”
In “Hell or High Water,” Toby Howard (Chris Pine) is the kind of anti-hero seen in these types of movies, the ones that explore how the American Dream turned into a Waking Nightmare. When we meet Toby, he has already crossed that line, having decided to stage a series of small bank robberies in order to raise enough money to save their family farm from mortgage foreclosure. As if that’s not enough motivation, Tony also has children with his now-divorced wife and he’s determined not to let them continue down the path of poverty that afflicted his family for generations. Toby wants to secure his home and a future for his family. He’s a good dude. That’s what we are supposed to notice when we see him walk into a bank with a mask and a gun and demand money from the frightened tellers.Continue Reading …
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In this spillover movie news BONUS episode, Chris Crespo and Drewster Cogburn talk about:
– the ideas cut out of the original Fantastic Four script from 2015.
– Mark Mothersbaugh is scoring Thor: Ragnarok.
– Why Avengers Part 4 is no longer Avengers Infinity War Part 2.
– Michael Peña confirmed for Ant-Man and the Wasp.
– Mission: Impossible 6 delayed over fee dispute.
– FOX is making a COPS movie because fuck you that’s why.
– Martin Scorsese’s next movie might be his longest yet.
– Arrival movie poster causes outrage in Hong Kong.Continue Reading …
As heard in episode 189 of Cinema Crespodiso.
“Lethal Weapon” is a 1987 buddy cop action comedy from Richard Donner, who directed the original “Superman: The Movie“, off a screenplay from new hot shot on the block screenwriting whiz kid named Shane Black, and packed with established actors either continuing their rises or using this movie to get back on track, and to top it all off, it is set during Christmas, which makes this a fun yuletide double feature along with “Die Hard.”
Featuring Mel Gibson way back before he had that shall we politely call it public relations disaster that has pretty much stained him forever it would seem (though with several new projects either in the works or already out, he appears to be on the verge of something of a comeback), “Lethal Weapon” soars on the strength of the rapport between Gibson’s overly competent yet depressed and suicidal Martin Riggs and Danny Glover’s on the verge of retirement Roger “I’m too old for this shit” Murtaugh, as they start the film in typical “buddy cop movie” fashion as anything other than buddies, and they slowly yet surely gain respect for each other as the work to solve the case of the deal girl and how she is connected to a government backed drug dealing operation gone native.Continue Reading …
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In episode 189, Chris Crespo and Drewster Cogburn review Hell or Highwater and Chris also reviews War Dogs.
The Netflix Instant Pick of the Week is Lethal Weapon.
Dr. Drew gives his FOUR cents on the listeners’ rare opportunity to talk shit about Drew without him ever hearing it or knowing about it.
Billy D reviews Weiner, the documentary about the politician who has a last name like his physical appendage that he tweeted pictures of and got in trouble because he’s a dummy.
The Crespodisco features two forgotten James Bond theme classics.Continue Reading …
An indictment of the for-profit war machine and sloppy government pandering…from the director of “Road Trip” and “Old School” and “The Hangover” trilogy? It happened, and it is called “War Dogs,” a cinematic adaptation of this 2011 Rolling Stones article detailing how two twenty-something dudes from Miami managed to get rich off of fulfilling government contracts for military weapons and supplies. One guy was sociable and worked very hard, and the other was a sociopath with the big vision and gumption to make things happen, and they enabled each other to dream bigger than ever, which as we all know in a story like this, could only lead to ruin. But what a ride on the way there.
David (Miles Teller) is fresh out of dropping out of college and he’s trying to make ends meet while living in very expensive South Beach Miami by massaging rich men for $75 an hour and trying to sell bed linen to retirement communities. When his stupidly hot girlfriend (Ana de Armas) lets him know that she is pregnant, he finds added pressure on him to find a way to make money and be a provider to the woman he loves and the baby he is stuck with because come on it’s not like they planned that shit yo. And those very one-dimensional descriptions of her character are apt because she only exists in this movie to provide motivation for David and to try to get some sympathy from the audience. She’s not a character. She’s a plot device with ridiculous eyes.Continue Reading …
Well so far 2016 hasn’t much to write home about, if one was in the habit of writing what would presumably be emails or maybe hand written letters, does anyone do that anymore, and while the year is not over, it does not look like 2016 will really be one to remember.
While excellent movies do come out every year, there are some years here and there that feel kind of weak when you look back on them and see that there wasn’t many inspiring films released in that particular span of 12 months (read: 2016). But then there are some years when it feels like the cinematic stars have all aligned in the heavens in such a way that there is an embarrassment of riches in the theaters, more films of superior quality than you can shake a stick at.Continue Reading …
“Beasts of the Southern Wild” is a fantastic movie, the feature-length debut of young filmmaker Benh Zeitlin, made in part with his New Orleans-based film group Court 13 Pictures, and it’s the type of unique and strong movie debut that makes people sit up and take notice, that this might be one of our next young exciting new voices in American cinema. And this wonderful thing, birthed outside of the studio system, outside of the box, independent in every way possible, exists as proof that imagination and new art and ambition is not dead, that we can still get something new and weird and great, something as strange and confident as “Beasts of the Southern Wild.”
The story centers on six-year old Hushpuppy (Quvenzhané Wallis) and her dad Wink (Dwight Henry), who live in a makeshift home in the ramshackle little town of Bathtub, located on an island south of the Louisiana coast. When a huge storm heads their way, they stay behind with a few other holdouts who choose not to evacuate their homes, and after an incredibly rough storm, the entire town of Bathtub is submerged underwater. The towns few survivors band together and try to continue living in their flooded home, refusing to seek aid or shelter elsewhere. These are people thoroughly accustomed to living on their own and getting by in their own ways, so to them a government run disaster shelter is its own kind of horrible hell.Continue Reading …
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In this spillover movie news bonus episode, Chris Crespo and Drewster Cogburn talk about:
– Sausage Party animators claim poor work conditions.
– John Williams officially signed on to score episode 8 of Star Wars.
– Another Chronicles of Narnia movie is coming.
– McG provides update on Masters of the Universe
– Guillermo Del Toro is making a low budget horror film.
– The Nightly Show has been cancelled.
– Mr. Robot renewed for Season 3.