A weekly talk show hosted by film critic Christopher Crespo
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In this BONUS episode, Chris Crespo and Drewster Cogburn recap the 25th annual Florida Film Festival.
This includes reviews of:
Lo and Behold, Reveries of a Connected World
High-Rise
Morris From America
Hunt for the Wilderpeople
Being Charlie
Man Vs Snake: The Lost and Twisted Tale of Nibbler
As heard in episode 171 of Cinema Crespodiso.
“Dope” is a very cool movie from 2015 about a trio of friends living in Los Angeles, and this trio find themselves as outcasts in their own neighborhoods and school because they refuse to conform to any sort of stereotype. They love music, they are geeks about the 1990s and modern technology, the main character’s biggest goal is to get in to Harvard, which makes him appear to be a weirdo to his peers, and it all comes across as a solid and modern updating of the classic John Hughes movies of the 1980s.
Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | TuneIn | RSS
In episode 171, Chris Crespo and Drewster Cogburn review Disney’s The Jungle Book in 3D.
The Netflix Instant Pick of the Week is Dope.
Dr. Drew gives his two cents on starting new things.
Billy D reviews Green Room.
The Crespodisco features a song from the soundtrack for High-Rise.
Chris and Drew talk about trailers for Doctor Strange, The Neon Demon and Shin Godzilla.
“High-Rise” is an intense and dark satire about societal living, set inside a towering building that contains not only condos but stores, schools and other amenities designed to make the whole thing self sustaining, a tower which has an unforeseen effect on its many inhabitants. Remarking on the class issues that permeate almost every society but of which the British are seemingly much more acutely aware and critical, and also serving as a commentary on the societal forces that keep us from devolving into tribe-based groups of marauders and murderers, this movie uses sex, violence and comedy to show us a world which we are seemingly constantly on the brink of becoming.
Dr. Laing (Tom Hiddleston) moves in to a newly built high-rise, a luxury building that is hi-tech and on the cutting edge, and he only has to leave the building to go to work. He meets some of his neighbors and the building’s architect Royal (Jeremy Irons) and he learns quickly that the people on the very top floors live a little more comfortably than the folks who make less money and live on the lower floors. As The Architect, Royal promised everyone a building that would give them a better way to live, a newly realized community of people that will engender real change in the way people behave. But when Royal thought this was going to be a positive change, it turned out to be quite negative. Things like power outages throughout the building and a poorly stocked supermarket start to get to the inhabitants, and they become more rowdy, angrier at the situation and each other, and smoothly enough the people in the building stop going out and stay inside and stay in their groups and start fighting each other. Before it is all said and done, the whole building has descended into squalor and chaos, with the poorer folks trying to get to the top of the building, and the few people already at the top indulging in pure debauchery on every conceivable level.
In “Lo and Behold, Reveries of a Connected World,” we have a documentary about the internet, how it was conceived, what it does now, and where it might go in the future. Not exactly an original or exciting concept, considering how much information there is about this thing that so many of us use on a constant, day to day basis, like this moment right now. But when this documentary is made by an acclaimed master filmmaker who doesn’t use the internet and can go an entire year without even turning on his cellphone, who has a tendency to look at the much more existential side of any situation and often comes up with gloomy conclusions, you end up with what is currently the best possible documentary about the internet, modern society and where this all could possibly be taking us.
Now that is not to say that “Lo and Behold” has the full history of the internet, and is an exhaustive compendium of all the key facts of the invention of this world changing creation, and it doesn’t look at every single facet of day to day life and how the internet is used in that way. Basically, not once does anyone mention Netflix, Amazon, eBay or Al Gore. Werner Herzog seems much less interested in WHO made these machines and much more interested in WHY, and more importantly, how does this change everything it comes in contact with, and is it all for better or worse or a mix of the two?
“Man Vs Snake: The Long and Twisted Tale of Nibbler” is a documentary along the lines of “King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters,” in that it focuses on an arcade game record set in the early 1980s during the boom of the video arcade and how some of the people who set and chased those records as youngsters tried to reclaim their past glory. It is even centered around the same legendary Twin Galaxies arcade and includes owner and video game record keeper Walter Day and the “villain” of “King of Kong” and current hot sauce purveyor Billy Mitchell, who is presented here not as the foil but instead an inspirational voice, almost like a Yoda figure. But “Man Vs Snake” is really focused on one guy and one game, and that is Tim McVey and a relatively unknown game known simply as Nibbler.Continue Reading …
“Being Charlie” is a teen addiction drama directed by industry vet Rob Reiner and co-written by his son Nick Reiner. In a story that deals with the struggles of addiction and the idea that one has to want help before he or she can get it, this movie actually transcends the cliches and tropes of this particular type of movie by being both completely unpretentious and very clear about the story and characters and how they progress from beginning to end. A story like this could easily fall into “after school special” territory, but here it is a fully realized and emotionally true tale of tough love, hard choices and dangerous living.Continue Reading …
“Morris From America” is both a coming of age story as well as a fish out of water tale, which actually compliment each other quite. It is one thing to have to go through the usual rigors of adolescence, what with the hormones and the puberty and the societal pressures from your apathetic and amoral peers, but it is something entirely else to do so in an environment in which you are automatically and definitively seen as The Other, the ultimate outsider, the stranger in the pack that the rest refuse to accept. Treacherous waters, indeed.
Morris (Markees Christmas) lives with his single widower father (Craig Robinson) in a town in Germany, where he struggles on a daily basis to fit in with the culture and people. His only friend is his German tutor Inka (Carla Juri), who encourages him to join a local youth center to help him make friends his own age. But the only person who shows any interest in 13-year old Morris is a 15-year old girl named Katrin (Lina Keller), and while he likes the promising bit of attention he gets from this older, prettier, more worldly girl, he soon finds himself twisted up by her, as Katrin proves to be way more complicated than his barely adolescent mind can handle. Throw in some casual racism from some people he interacts with and some simple culture clashes and you have a coming of age story filled with drama.
“Hunt for the Wilderpeople” is the latest from Kiwi artist Taika Waititi, and it is a simultaneously irreverent and sincere movie about a lost foster child and an adrift widower coming together and helping each other out in ways that they didn’t even realize they needed helping. Hysterical and heartfelt, this is a great movie that shows how Waititi continues to grow as a filmmaker and shows so much promise for his future as a storyteller.
Ricky Baker (Julian Dennison) is a young teen making the rounds in New Zealand’s foster care system, and the movie opens with him getting his last shot at a home when he is introduced to the very nice Bella (Rima Te Wiata), who wants very much to take this kid in and make a nice home for him. Much less happy to see him is Bella’s rough and rugged husband Hec (Sam Neill), but he puts up with Ricky because he makes Bella happy.
Of course when things appear to be clicking and this seems to be a great situation for everyone involved, Bella dies because this is a movie and we need drama. The state wants to take Ricky back, which causes him to pack up and try running away in an attempt to just hide out in The Bush, and when Nec goes looking for him, he ends up injured and unable to walk for weeks at a time, forcing them to camp out in the thick forest until he can heal. This causes a problem when child services shows up to Nec’s farm and sees they are gone. Suspecting that he kidnapped the boy, a national manhunt begins and both Nec and Ricky find themselves on the run, neither of them wanting to have a run in with the government for their own reasons.
“Newman” is a documentary about inventor Joseph Westley Newman and the greatest challenge of his life, the invention and worldwide implementation of the Newman Energy Machine, a direct current device which would use a small amount of electrical energy from a source like a battery and would then convert that into more energy, not less. This machine proved to be controversial due to these pesky things known as the laws of thermodynamics, as well as the extreme resistance from certain people to Mr. Newman’s claims that his machine worked.