Chris - Cinema Crespodiso - Page 96 of 151

Review: ‘Ex Machina’

As humans we have been obsessed with the idea of artificial intelligence for a very long time, and we are closer now to true artificial intelligence than we have ever been, to the point where some of our top minds have felt the need to warn everyone about the dangerous pitfalls of a future in which we are ruled by our robot overlords. This has been shown in our art, as we have seen movies about robots with A.I. that are both benevolent and malevolent, but with “Ex Machina,” it is not the intent of the A.I. that is at question but that of the creator.

Caleb (Dohmnall Gleeson, son of Brendan) wins a contest in which he is allowed to work side by side for one week with his company’s boss, who is this fella named Nathan (Oscar Isaac, Inside Llewyn Davis). Nathan is a weird one; having invented a Google-like search engine at the age of 13 that has gone on to be the number one used search engine in the world, Nathan became a billionaire and has chosen to live in isolation, hundreds of miles from anyone else, in a state of art home that also acts as his private research facility. When Caleb shows up, Nathan tells him that he is there to give a Turing test to one of Nathan’s creations, which is to say, a robot with artificial intelligence.Continue Reading …

Review: ‘A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night’

“A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night” is the kind of movie that comes around every now and then and reminds us that original movies can still be made within the confines of well-worn genres. Vampire movies have been made for about 100 years now, so what can be done with the genre now that has not been done already? Well, how about an Iranian vampire movie shot in black and white, with a feminist slant and a dope “sad synth pop” soundtrack, and influenced in equal parts by 1960’s Italian-made westerns and 1980’s American indies? Because that is what we have here, and it is pretty damn cool.

This story takes place in Bad City, a desolate, dusty and depressed Iranian town which seems to be populated by maybe a dozen or so people, almost all of whom are either dirt bags or criminals in one way, shape or form. There is the local pimp (who doubles as a drug dealer), the town’s seemingly only prostitute, a vapid rich girl only interested in partying, a junkie widower, and the junkie’s son, who seems to be a normal, straight laced dude for the most part until he comes across a stash of drugs that he decides to sell for himself to make some money on the side. This last fella is Arash (Arash Mirandi) and despite selling some pills, he comes across as the most honest person in town.Continue Reading …

Bonus Episode – Summer Movie Guide 2015

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In this BONUS episode, Chris Crespo and Drewster Cogburn preview the entire 2015 Summer movie season, weekend by weekend, movie by movie.

And then they reveal their top five most anticipated films of the summer.

Netflix pick for 4/20/15 – ‘Pain & Gain’

Michael Bay has long be known as the explosion guy, the film maker who cares more about making things go boom in as big a way possible, all the while bad jokes are made at the expense of the weak or the effeminate or the bureaucratic, and also while gorgeous women in barely any clothing populate the scenery like so much set dressing. But Michael Bay should be known for something else, and that is for being a guy who makes some of the most hate-filled cinema this side of a Nazi-produced propaganda film.

And “Pain & Gain” is a pretty glorious example of this style of cinema.Continue Reading …

#119 – Synchronocity Abounds

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In episode 118, Chris Crespo and Drewster Cogburn review Kumiko, The Treasure Hunter and Chris reviews other Florida Film Festival movies.

Also discussed:

The trailers for Star Wars and Batman v Superman.

Seth Rogen’s Preacher TV series.

Angel in X-Men: Apocalypse.

Guillermo Del Toro making The Haunted Mansion.

Wonder Woman gets a new director.

Furious 7 makes $1 billion.

And much more!Continue Reading …

FFF 2015 Movie Review: ‘Billy Mize & the Bakersfield Sound’

Billy Mize is a singer-songwriter who enjoys legendary status among those in the know in the country music world, having written a number of hits for other artists and promoting people on his own television shows who would themselves go on to be gigantic stars. “Billy Mize & the Bakersfield Sound” explores the question of why the very talented Mize never became the household name that he probably should have become.

Even though everyone knows that Nashville is country music mecca, for a short while there Bakersfield, California was actually cranking out the best country music in the country. Buck Owens and Merle Haggard became hugely successful and popular by getting into this genre of country that was a little rougher and a little funkier than the slick country music from Tennessee and just cranking it out, along with a whole slew of other acts that came up in that scene and took it around the country one club at a time. And all of these musicians, along with legends like Willie Nelson, profess that their favorite artist is Billy Mize.Continue Reading …

FFF 2015 Movie Review: ‘Imperial Dreams’

The thing that makes a piece of art resonate is truth. Whether it is wholly true or just based on a nugget of truth, art becomes important when it reflects something that is real, even if in a small way. This is why “Imperial Dreams” feels like an emotionally strong and vital movie because it is obvious that the folks who made this know exactly what they are talking about – this may be “just a movie” with a made up story and characters, but in the end it is all too real.

“Imperial Dreams” is the story of Bambi (John Boyega, Attack the Block and Star…something…Star Wars? Does that sound right?), a young man just getting out of prison, heading back home to the projects in Watts, Los Angeles. We quickly discover why he ended up in prison in the first place, as we see the home life he returns to – his mother is an addict and a drunk, and he finds her passed out on the floor, and his very young son Day is all by himself with no one looking after him. Day’s mom is in jail awaiting trial for some theft charges, and Bambi’s uncle, Uncle Shrimp (the always great Glenn Plummer) may be nice enough to allow Bambi’s mother and his son to stay with him, but as soon as he sees Bambi, he starts asking him to do jobs for him. And we aren’t talking about jobs at a company that pay an hourly wage, we are talking about highly illegal shit that could get Bambi thrown back in prison for a very, very long time.Continue Reading …

FFF 2015 Movie Review: ‘Wildlike’

“Wildlike” is an interesting coming-of-age movie about a teenage girl, one that goes to some unexpected and tough places, and I am not just talking about the Alaskan frontier. Most movies of this ilk that try to tell the story of a young girl usually involve cliques at school, or boy problems, or dealing with a schoolyard bully, something along those lines, usually very unoriginal and not very thoughtful. But “Wildlike” takes a different approach and tells a unique story and it has a nice emotional impact because of it.

“Wildlike” starts with Mackenzie (Ella Purnell) being shipped off to Alaska to stay with her uncle for the summer while her mother checks into a rehab center. With an addict mother and a recently dead father, Mackenzie is feeling isolated and alone, and going to Alaska does not alleviate those feelings at all.

FFF 2015 Movie Review: ‘Body’

Not all movies at film festivals need to strive for profundity or need to embrace some sort of cause. Sometimes movies are just movies and they are just supposed to be fun diversions for a short while, and “Body” is a film that fits that description. A sort of Hitchcockian thriller, “Body” is a wild little movie about an accidental death, the subsequent cover up, and what seemingly normal, every day people would be willing to do to save their own hides.

Holly, Cali and Mel (Helen Rogers, Alexandra Turshen and Lauren Molina, respectively) are three college age friends hanging out on the night before Christmas Eve (“eve eve?”), and Cali suggests a night time activity for the three of them in order to stave off boredom. So they hop into her car and drive way out of the way to an unoccupied mansion that Cali knows about, and they let themselves in and have a nice time, drinking booze, driving golf carts and just enjoying the big ole house. But then someone shows up, which results in a dead body, and the rest of the movie consists of the three ladies desperately trying to figure out how to get out of this mess.Continue Reading …

FFF 2015 Movie Review: ‘Homeless’

Sometimes movies are made for pure escapist entertainment, involving crazy sci-fi ideas or caped and masked superheroes or bank heists or ridiculous and unbelievable love stories, and these movies are designed to pull you out of your world and to enjoy basking in a different one, an artificial one, for a couple of hours, allowing the audience to forget about their bills and their medical problems and their family issues. But then sometimes movies are made not to help you escape from the real world but instead to help bring the real world into stark focus, to show you something that you would otherwise not know about, to challenge your worldviews and to make you do the unthinkable, which is to actually empathize with someone whom you might not have anything in common.Continue Reading …

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