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Guess what? We’re having twins! A bunch of ’em!

What the hell is going on this year? Look, this has happened in the past, don’t get me wrong. We all remember when “Volcano” and “Dante’s Peak” competed in 1997 for those volcano enthusiast dollars, right? Or when “Armageddon” showed “Deep Impact” what’s up at the box office in 1998? How about that battle of the talking pig movies in 1995 between “Babe” and “Gordy?”

It happens, we get it, every now and then these competing project get made at the same time. Sometimes its even a situation like last year’s double bill of “Lincoln” and “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter.” Sad. But this year, what the hell is going on? 2013 is the year of the creative logjam apparently, too many minds working in the same subconscious soup, extracting the same information at the same time and making the same things, but different.Continue Reading …

Talking Trailers: ‘Gravity’

It has been far too long since the great director Alfonso Cuarón has graced our screens with one of his films – since “Children of Men” way back in 2006 to be exact – and with this short teaser trailer for his new sci fi flick “Gravity,” we finally get just a little taste of what we have been missing this whole time.

Just watch that trailer below and tell me you aren’t intrigued. Can’t be done, because it looks to awesome to not get your attention. And if you are familiar with “Children of Men,” you know that Cuarón favors these impossibly long one-take shots, which he will apparently be pushing even harder in “Gravity,” with rumors of at least one twenty-minute uninterrupted sequence with no cutaways of edits, and since it looks like most of this thing will be taking place in zero Gs in outer space, one can already imagine the drifting, floating, “weightless” camera work that will be employed throughout.Continue Reading …

Talking Trailers: ‘Inside Llewyn Davis’

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The Coen Brothers are back at it, this time coming at us with a period piece maybe musical comedy/drama/dramady(?) about a folk singer trying to make it big in 1960s New York City, and since this is from the makers of such films as “Raising Arizona,” “Fargo,” “The Big Lebowski,” “O Brother, Where Art Thou,” “No Country For Old Men,” and “True Grit” among other gems and classics, how can this not shoot up to the top of my must see list of the year? And the same goes for you. You know wanna see this already just based on the pedigree. Well guess what? Now there’s a trailer, t0o.

Oscar Isaac somehow landed the lead role and I am sure it made his day when he got that phone call, and you know what? Based on this trailer, he looks pretty awesome, I like the laconic, laid back look and feel, and actually this trailer is put together pretty well and comes to an interesting climax that really makes me anticipate what happens with this character and how he’s going to actually play out. It’s cool to see the Coens mixing it up with some new people, including the now always reliable Justin Timberlake, of whom they utilized both his acting chops and his musical abilities for the soundtrack. Also working on the movie’s music is T Bone Burnett, and that worked out great for “O Brother, Where Art Thou” so there’s no reason to doubt it will work here.Continue Reading …

Crespodiso Around Town Part II

Check out this photo gallery depicting the presence of Cinema Crespodiso around the world. Good times.

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Book-to-film adaptations: 8 – ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’

“2001: A Space Odyssey” has a very unusual characteristic among book to film adaptations, in that it was developed simultaneously as a novel and a film by author Arthur C. Clarke and filmmaker Stanley Kubrick. In the early 1960’s, Kubrick was looking for a sci-fi project to develop into what would be the first serious-minded sci-fi film ever (as all science fiction films up to that point exclusively featured monsters, alien invasions and sex), and through a mutual acquaintance, was hooked up with renowned science contributor and author Clarke. They spent several years together brainstorming ideas and spit balling before they came up with what would become 2001. As a result of their very close collaboration during the production of both pieces of art, 2001 the movie and 2001 the novel work as complementary pieces, informing each other and helping to create a more whole picture. That isn’t to say there are no deviations between the two works, but even with these deviations, the essential truths and themes are kept intact.Continue Reading …

Talking Trailers: ‘Elysium’ looks incredible

Held under wraps for all of pre-production through post-production, Neill Blomkamp’s highly anticipated follow-up to his debut surprise hit “District 9” is coming up on us in a matter of months, meaning that Blomkamp’s had to have his fingers pried open a bit to let some tasty nuggets of information out there for marketing purposes, to wet the beak of the public, and they are off to a hell of a start with this new poster and trailer combo.

“Elysium” is the name of the great big space station on which the wealthy live, free of poverty and disease and crime and fear. Meanwhile, the rest of us poor bastards are stuck on a trashed Earth, overpopulated and decimated, a toxic waste land, where poverty, disease and fear are the name of the game. And according to this trailer, Matt Damon plays a guys who wants to get from Earth to Elysium, and apparently he needs to have a robo-exoskeleton grafted to his body, and this will somehow give him the power to break into “the most heavily guarded place in the universe,” which will somehow “save everyone” in some sort of vague way. The class warfare element is obviously going to be very intense, so what else will be inside this narrative to drive this thing home emotionally. Damon’s character says he needs to get to Elysium. But why? Is it personal? Is he trying to save someone? Get to someone?Continue Reading …

Book-to-film adaptations: 7 – ‘There Will Be Blood’

There Will be Blood (written and directed by Paul Thomas Anderson, chosen as an Examiner Essential) is an epic film about Daniel Plainview, silver miner turned oil man. The story revolves around Plainview and his relationship with the world around him, made complicated by the fact that he needs other men to accomplish his goals, despite his growing distaste for his fellow man. He feels he can only rely on family, and even then, things get screwy.

Oil! (written by Upton Sinclair, himself chosen as a Pulitzer Prize winner) is an epic novel about J. Arnold Ross, mule driver turned oil man. The story, however, revolves around J. Arnold Ross Jr., affectionately called Bunny throughout the book, and his relationship with the world around him, made complicated by the fact that he strongly identifies with the growing labor movement of the early 1900’s, which butts heads directly with his life and upbringing as an American oil prince.Continue Reading …

BONUS EPISODE – Florida Film Festival 2013 recap

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In this bonus episode of Cinema Crespodiso, Chris Crespo and Drewster Cogburn sit down with fellow film critic Aaron Weiss of CinemaFunk.com to discuss the many films of the 2013 Florida Film Festival!

Florida Film Festival 2013 movie review: ‘Iceberg Slim: Portrait of a Pimp’

Robert Beck a.k.a. Iceberg Slim, was a pimp turned bestselling author who used his ignoble lifestyle and career choices to help propel himself out of that same lifestyle, and at the same time provided a new, fresh, and most importantly, real voice to the landscape of Black authors of the era. According to the documentary “Iceberg Slim: Portrait of a Pimp,” this lifelong criminal and defiler of women and robber of people in general became one of the most influential and important Black authors ever. And after watching the documentary and listening to the people who share these views, it is kind of hard to argue against this point.Continue Reading …

Book-to-film adaptations: 6 – ‘The Prestige’

The James Tait Black Memorial Prize winning and World Fantasy Award winning novel “The Prestige” is a fascinating story of a pair of turn-of-the-century magicians who develop an intense personal and professional rivalry, sabotaging each other’s performances and lives until tragedy costs them both in ways neither could imagine. Written as a pair of journals (one by each magician) and framed by a modern-day story involving the magicians descendants, The Prestige has its own set of literary illusions and tricks that seek to hide it’s admittedly dull secrets in plain sight.

Brilliantly written and employed, these tricks of the written word would simply not work cinematically. Only so much drama can be derived from scenes of fellas sitting around reading each other’s diaries. Such is the perils of literary adaptation, as things that work on the page and in the theater of the mind would not work on the most silver of screens.Continue Reading …