A weekly talk show hosted by film critic Christopher Crespo
“Levitated Mass” is a documentary about the conceptualization, actualization and meaning of the Michael Heizer art piece known as Levitated Mass, which is really just a 340-ton boulder suspended over a carved out walkway in front of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. This is a pretty great movie that raises all sorts of questions such as “what does this mean?” and “what is art?” and “how the hell do you move a 340-ton boulder anyway?” Continue Reading …
Here is a big budget Marvel movie. Summer must be in the air. At least when it comes to the summer movie season, which has been getting started earlier and earlier each year. And with “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” coming out the first weekend of April, it may be hard to call this a summer movie, but it is pretty much spring training for the big boys, helping to get those butter machines warmed up, and to get those jaded, minimum wage earning teenagers in shape.
And while a little more talky than most movies of this ilk, make no mistake, “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” follows the superhero movie template, complete with gigantic CG action scene at the end and countless (and uncounted) bloodless deaths throughout. But still, there are a few things separating this movie from the rest, and maybe there is something after all with this film, something more than just selling me the next one.Continue Reading …
“The Good, The Bad and The Ugly” is pretty much my favorite movie of all time. So there you go.
What? That’s not enough to make you want to drop everything right now and watch this masterpiece? Sheesh. Okay then, how about this lil bit from this piece I wrote on this movie back in my Examiner days:
“The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is a perfect storm of movie making awesomeness. First, the movie has a feel completely different from the westerns that came before it because it is not just a western, it is a spaghetti western, made by an Italian director with an Italian-Spanish production crew. Leone’s films actually have more in common with the French New Wave movement than they do with the Hollywood-produced westerns. Secondly (and this ties into the first point), the film soundtrack by Ennio Morricone has become ridiculously iconic. Everyone (and I mean everyone) knows the “wah-wah-waaaaah” refrain, even if they have no idea which movie it comes from. And Morricone’s scores (starting with A Fistful of Dollars and continuing with For a Few Dollars More) were incredibly unique. His mix of traditional orchestral instruments with electric guitars, fiddles, whistles and singing had not been done before, and as a result, it adds another level of ingenuity to Leone’s movies. Third, Leone’s direction itself is quite stellar, and he had his own style that translated beautifully to this genre. A key to making a western is the landscape shot, a nice wide shot showing off the natural terrain of the land. Leone gets plenty of epic landscapes, but wisely juxtaposes these wide shots of nature with extreme close ups of people’s faces (and not just any bunch of faces but some of the ugliest, wrinkliest, weirdest looking faces possible). Leone was also a master of creating tension; just check out the scene where Blondie is alone in his room, cleaning his gun, while Tuco and some friend try to ambush him. Or any of the public hanging scenes that literally comes down to the last second.”
“Dom Hemingway” is mostly a showcase of Jude Law, who gets to put on some weight and play an over the top character with a penchant for cussing and long monologues, and while he knocks his portion of the movie pretty much out of the park, the rest of the movie around him is merely good, with some flash and style to go along with a little bit of substance, but ultimately not really saying anything new or unique with the story and characters.Continue Reading …
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In episode 65, Chris and Drew review Captain America: Winter Soldier, there is a new Netflix Pick of the Week, a new Crespodiso Book Club of A Month installment, and so much more!Continue Reading …
I don’t know if this is the type of person that we all know or have met before, but I have a feeling it is. I think we can all relate to the universal truth of coming across a person who cares about one thing above all others, and that is the attainment of worldwide fame and adulation, with all the perks and fortune that comes with such popularity. In other words, we all know someone who just wants to be a rock star. The music is secondary. It’s all about the fame.
That’s “The Front Man,” a documentary, getting it’s East Coast premiere, about the lead singer of a New Jersey band called Loaded Poets, a band that has stuck together for decades, playing local establishments and recording material and plugging away at it since 1980, which is a damned long time for a band to be spinning their wheels in the mud (professionally speaking, anyway). And according the to the press notes for this documentary, “The Front Man” covers 27 years in the life of lead singer Jim Wood, and while part of the fun of this movie for me was the realization that it was covering a very large expanse of time in this person’s like, I have to say that it did not seem like we were documenting 27 years worth of this guy’s life. Maybe 27 years when you throw in some old home videos, but this definitely seemed like it documents at least 12 to 15 years of Jim Wood’s existence as a musician and as a average joe who wishes so badly to no longer be average.Continue Reading …
The great thing about documentary short films? You can make one about just about any subject and for even just a few minutes, the most mundane person or subject can be the most interesting thing in the world. For example, for thirteen minutes, I was enthralled by the journey of one man as he goes after one of the hardest things to accomplish in any organized sport – bowling three perfect games in a row.Continue Reading …
Man, I swear to the heavens and every single deity listening right now, if there ends up being more of an uproar and activist approach to save the damn orcas because of “Blackfish” then there ends up being in the aftermath of “Mission Congo,” then there truly is no justice in this world and we might as well all just give up. SeaWorld may be abusing whales and everyone freaks the fuck out but The 700 Club mastermind and former Presidential candidate Pat Robertson uses money donated for humanitarian purposes to fund his own personal diamond mine and everyone is just as likely to shrug their shoulders and say “oh well what can we do about it?“Continue Reading …
“Not Anymore: A Story of Revolution” is a documentary short film that should be seen by everyone, and by everyone I mean people in the Western world and those who really don’t give a place like Syria a second thought because this is the type of experience that really drives home the full impact of what has happened over there and what their current state of living is now. Why is this not on the news regularly? Why are our televisions saturated with faux-reality shows and meaningless drivel? Why are we being encouraged to look away from the horrors happening in the our own world?Continue Reading …
It is that most special time of year, that annual 10-day feast of film and food that is the Florida Film Festival. Always with great programming as well as cool events and parties, the FFF is something I have been looking forward to each year for a while now, and this year’s schedule looks as promising as always.
And who knows, there is a good chance a bunch of these movies will end up on Netflix for instant viewing, as I have seen a NUMBER of films at the FFF, only to see that pop up on Netflix within about a year or so. And they are just about always great movies, whether they be little indie coming of age comedies, documentaries or foreign films, they just have that knack for picking some winners.Continue Reading …