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Netflix pick for 2/8/16 – ‘Turbo Kid’

As heard in episode 161 of Cinema Crespodiso.

Mad Max on BMX bicycles. That is the essence of “Turbo Kid,” a 2015 post-apocalyptic sci-fi movie about a young man trying to survive in a horrible and dusty ruined future, where friendly faces are rare indeed and he’s more likely to run in to blood thirsty and amoral scavenging psychopaths. With a very electronic 80s style soundtrack, impressive low budget special effects (and some wonky CG effects as well), this is a cool, fun movie that is well worth checking out.

#161 – Nick The Chameleon

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In episode 161, Chris Crespo and Drewster Cogburn are joined by returning guest and friend of the show Nick Sharabba!

Chris and Drew review Hail, Caesar!

The Netflix Instant Pick of the Week is Turbo Kid.

The Crespodisco features the main themes from early Coen brothers’ movies Blood Simple and Miller’s Crossing.

Dr. Drew gives his two cents on people supporting R-rated comic book movies like Deadpool.

Billy D reviews The Boy and the newest episodes of The X-Files.Continue Reading …

Review: ‘Hail, Caesar!’

“Hail, Caesar!” has been marketed as a high paced screwball comedy, a sort of spoof of the 1950s Hollywood studio system and the distinct genres of movies in which that system trafficked, replete with odes to Gene Kelly dance numbers, Esther Williams aquamusicals, hokey Westerns and of course prestige pictures. But being a Coen brothers movie, audiences will be getting more than just jokes, as this is not the high paced comedy advertised, but instead an alternately silly and somber reflection on faith, purpose and personal fulfillment, emphasized by scenes in which characters discuss communism or have dialectic debates on the truth of divinity in disparate theologies. The Red Scare and Catholic Guilt, both examined in a movie about the one sane person keeping the nuthouse in check.

That one sane person is Eddie Mannix (Josh Brolin), who runs the day to day operations of Capitol Pictures, which fans of the Coens’ film “Barton Fink” will recognize as the same studio for which Barton wrote in the 1940s (they even name drop Wallace Beery again), and this whole story pretty much plays out over the course of 27-28 hours, though its one of those days that just happens to be pretty pivotal for our main character. While he goes around the studio lot addressing problems and making sure everything is fine, he’s also thinking about a job offer he has to go work for Lockheed Martin, a job that would give him easier hours, better pay, and a guaranteed gig for a very long time. But…would he find it fulfilling?

Review: ‘Jane Got a Gun’

Whereas the Western was once a prominent go-to genre for movie studios from the 1920s through the 1970s, it has fallen out of favor through saturation and overuse, so that now we are lucky to get two, maybe three Western films in theaters over the course of a year. And unfortunately “Jane Got a Gun,” released in theaters now with zero fanfare or marketing from The Weinstein Company, will not be the movie to reverse this trend of get people excited about this genre again. An interesting idea of a story presented in a muddled non-linear fashion within the confines of an ultimately weightless movie, this is the kind of movie that makes for an okay watch on a rainy Tuesday night – simply a way to pass the time with some fine actors doing decent work in a film that just never comes together into something memorable.

Jane Hammond (Natalie Portman) lives with her daughter on a secluded piece of land somewhere in New Mexico, and one day her husband Bill (Noah Emmerich) comes home with bullet wounds all over his back. Jane tries her best to fix him up but he’s bed ridden, paralyzed from the waist down, and for some reason his vision is all blurry (may have been from the booze he was constantly drinking to numb the pain). He also has bad news, telling her that the Bishop Gang was coming for them. This causes Jane to panic a bit, so she hands off her young daughter to a friend for safe keeping, and then goes to her former lover Dan (Joel Edgerton) asking for his help as a gunslinger. He refuses at first, being drunk and bitter, but then acquiesces and agrees to help, while still being drunk and bitter.

Netflix pick for 2/1/16 – ‘Nightcrawler’

As heard on episode 160 of Cinema Crespodiso.

“Nightcrawler” is five-minutes-into-the-future satire, a look at our news media culture and what that machine entails, an indictment of the “blood and guts” mentality of selling newscasts to an ever fearful public, wrapped up in the guise of a darkly comedic noir thriller. Simultaneously gorgeous and ugly, funny and cruel, hopeful and horrified, this is like a modern day “Network,” but if Howard Beale was less an angry prophet of a god and more of a purveyor of socially acceptable smut.

Jake Gyllenhaal as Lou Bloom will go down as one of the creepiest, most disturbing and of course fascinating characters from this era of movies, an ugly antihero for an ugly world, he of singular purpose and such incredible drive and determination, put to such horrifying use. It pays to be soulless and self serving, this sayeth “Nightcrawler.”

#160 – Candy For Satan

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In episode 160, Chris Crespo and Drewster Cogburn go it alone again as there is no guest, which is no problem.

Chris reviews Jane Got A Gun.

The Netflix Instant Pick of the Week is Nightcrawler.

The Crespodisco features two songs from the Streets of Fire soundtrack.

Dr. Drew gives his two cents on people sending an email to CinemaCrespodiso@gmail.com for free stickers.Continue Reading …

Netflix pick for 1/25/16 – ‘The Guest’

As heard in episode 159 of Cinema Crespodiso.

“The Guest” has been around for a minute now, here is my initial review from October 2014, so we can be a little less spoilerphobic this time. But suffice to say, if you still haven’t seen this movie, just stop what you are doing and see it already.

Because this is a fun slasher movie meets an action film, a clever and surprisingly well done genre mash up, a story that posits “what if the unstoppable bad guy was actually a government trained killer gone rogue? What if Michael Myers was really Jason Bourne?”

The slasher stuff comes from the obvious love of John Carpenter movies evident throughout “The Guest,” from the top on down, from the font used for the credits and to the electronic score to the copious amounts of jack o lanterns littered throughout, this in many ways is an homage movie to the horror classics of the late 70s and 80s. There is also a pretty chill soundtrack in terms of music picked out to play in the movie, lots of cool European industrial and rock, all of it used really well, it’ just dope.

#159 – Limp Derivative Wriggle

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In episode 159, Chris Crespo and Drewster Cogburn review Anomalisa.

Billy D reviews POD.

The Netflix Instant Pick of the Week is The Guest.

The Crespodisco features two Carter Burwell songs, one from Anomalisa and one from The Man Who Wasn’t There.

Dr. Drew gives his two cents on the animated short film World of Tomorrow.Continue Reading …

Review: ‘Anomalisa’

In some ways, “Anomalisa” is a startling movie, with surprises and ideas that pop up along the way that can easily catch a person off guard, especially if they don’t know what they are getting themselves into at the outset. If all you know is that this movie is an animated film from the guy who wrote “Being John Malkovich” and “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” and also wrote and directed “Synecdoche, New York,” that’s enough, just see this thing as soon as you can, and then read about it afterwards. Let this story just unfold in front of you, because it does so in a very compelling way, and reading about it ahead of time would kind of spoil things.

“Anomalisa” takes place mostly during the course of a one-night stay at a hotel in Cincinnati, as Michael Stone (David Thewlis) is in town to speak at a conference centered on customer service. But from the opening scene on the incoming plane throughout the rest of the movie, people try to be nice and make small talk with Michael along the way but he’s very stand offish and just not having it, which makes every one of his social interactions awkward. He even fakes enthusiasm when talking to his annoying son on the telephone, obviously exasperated with the little demon child he has wrought upon the Earth.

Review: ’13 Hours’

The words subtlety and nuance do not come to mind when thinking of the movies of Michael Bay; on the contrary, he has a style so bombastically singular that it has become known as Bayhem, and the application of this style of filmmaking to certain topics seems, on the surface, ridiculous. A “Michael Bay war movie” is one of these instances, and it does not help that he already bungled a World War II movie, so when it was announced that he was making the 2012 Benghazi attack film “13 Hours,” it seemed like a bad call from the start.

And lo and behold it was a bad call, because “13 Hours” is the kind of movie that your racist uncle, who never served a day of military service in his life, will insist everyone else see because it tells “the truth” about what happened, a one-sided telling of a very intense night, a confirmation of a political bias that Michael Bay never intended, and that dumb uncle of yours will ignore the seven congressional investigations and thirty-two hearings and instead will hold this up as what really happened in that land which he couldn’t find on a map (here it is, next to Egypt).

And if you think that’s an exaggeration, check out these responses from some audience members at the premiere held at a football stadium with 30,000 attendees. Because America.Continue Reading …

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