A weekly talk show hosted by film critic Christopher Crespo
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In this bonus episode, Chris and Drew run down the remaining movies of 2013 pretty much one by one, while Chris focuses on the movies that will be more likely to garner attention during the upcoming awards season. And of course Chris springs another round of Drewster Cogburn vs the World on Drew, because there is no escaping the Crespodome.
Every few years, a movie comes along that reminds us how we are hearing and seeing the a certain set of stories over and over, yet these particular stories seems to work and continue to reverberate with us each time we see them, and this is because these are usually stories of universal truths, very basic emotions and feelings that just about all of us have gone through and to which we can relate, so that no matter how many times you change the characters and places and even story details, the truth of the emotions still come through. “The Spectacular Now” really doesn’t offer anything new per se, but it’s still a damn good movie and quite possibly one of those films people will be referencing in the future.
In “The Spectacular Now,” Sutter (Miles Teller) is a 17-year old high school senior who is just skating by and seems to be enjoying life to the 100% fullest. The movie starts with him talking about having a hot and fun girlfriend named Cassidy (Brie Larson), but she dumps him over a weird misunderstanding (born out of his reputation for partying hard), which sends him into a drunken downward spiral. Or was he already on that spiral? And then Sutter meets nice girl Aimee (Shailene Woodley), and they develop a friendship that starts to turn into something more, and almost doesn’t, but then it does, and then things are cool, but then there’s not cool, and then they are kinda cool again, and so on and so forth. You know how these high school dramady relationships work. It’s really all about who learns what along the way.Continue Reading …
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In episode 34, Chris and Drew are joined by Matt (@mattiscabin) from “The SBK LIVE Show with Kevin, Matt and Angel,” and he fights through a hangover to talk movies with the guys. Chris and Drew have reviews of The Grandmaster and The Spectacular Now, neither of which Matt had ever heard of, and Matt gives his review of You’re Next, which he only saw because his air conditioning at home was broken. Drew and Matt have a rematch of Drewster Cogburn vs the World, and we get another Lightning Round with Matty Ice!
Things also discussed in this episode include:
The Netflix Instant Pick of the Week is Rollerball, and Chris tries out a new listener suggested segment, the Netflix Instant Chick Pick of the Week.
New movies on DVD include Now You See Me, Skarknado, The Lords of Salem, The Iceman and SOMM. The only new movies in theaters this week are Riddick and Salinger.Continue Reading …
“You’re Next” is a halfway decent horror movie, which means people think it’s generally a great movie, that’s how low the bar is set for horror films, a genre riddled with no-budgeted, poorly acted, storyless, pointless hackjobs that try to pass themselves off as actual movies. “You’re Next,” however, isn’t that bad, as it sort of has a story and maybe it has a point? It didn’t make me want my time back, that’s for sure. So that’s something.
“You’re Next” is a home invasion movie and after watching a decent number of these types of films now, I think I can say I am not much of a fan of this subgenre of horror. Much like movies “Straw Dogs,” “The Purge,” “Funny Games,” “High Tension” and “The Strangers,” some people are inside a house, and murderous assholes want to hurt them, sometimes for completely unknown reasons, and sometimes for no reason (which is ANNOYING and the pinnacle of pointless storytelling). At least in “You’re Next” there turns out to be a reason for the home invasion, and a terrifyingly mundane one at that.*Continue Reading …
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In this bonus episode of Cinema Crespodiso, Chris breaks it down and lets everyone in on how to properly utilize the many numbers and facets of RottenTomatoes.com such as the fresh/rotten ratings and the actual average ratings, and how these can differ. Chris also gives out his own personal film critic reading list, and Chris and Drew share their opinions about opinions in general. And just when Drew thinks he can get away from it, a Rotten Tomatoes centric sparring round of Drewster Cogburn vs the World shows up and throws him into a whirlwind of pain.
Here is “The World’s End” – from the writers, director and stars of “Shaun of the Dead” and “Hot Fuzz” comes a movie about a group of friends reuniting to recreate a pub crawl 20 years after their failed first attempt, and during this pub crawl they work out a number of issues among themselves while also coming to the realization that their old hometown seems to have been taken over all “Invasion of the Body Snatchers” style.
“The World’s End” may be about a group of friends, but really its about two of the guys, ringleader Gary King (Simon Pegg) and Andy Knightley (Nick Frost), and even then, it’s really just about Gary King, BUT REALLY in the end when it’s all said and done this movie is actually about all of us. So the movie starts with a retelling of a pub crawl attempt by five teenagers in a small UK village, with the goal being to down a pint at 12 different pubs over the course of a night. This first attempt is a failure.Continue Reading …
“ParaNorman” is a fun, horror-themed stop-motion animated film that is great for most of the family…at least those families that don’t mind family movies about the walking dead and witches’ curses, cause “ParaNorman” has both of these.
This movie is great fodder for right wing conservative weirdos to decree about how lefty Hollywood liberals are constantly pushing their agendas on the rest of the country blah blah blah. At the center of this whole movie is the simple concept of not judging a book by its cover, or even by its contents, at least not until you can come to a full and complete understanding of said contents, and they even throw in an openly gay character at one point just to drive the point home in a more real world way, since this movie is about a witch and zombies and a boy who can communicate with the dead and gets some intense visions of impending doom every now and then.
Also check out this awesome articleabout some of the technology behind the making of this movie, which includes some videos as well, definitely worth checking out if you are interested at all in film production in any way.Continue Reading …
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In episode 33, Chris and Drew are joined by Angel Rivera (@itsoffcialangel) from “The SBK LIVE Show” (www.sbkliveradio.com), and they review the new movies You’re Next and The World’s End, there is a brand new Netflix Instant Pick of the Week, they preview the new movies coming out on DVD and in theaters, and then they head into the Crespodome, which featured a rematch of Drewster Cogburn vs the World and a new Lightning Round for Angel.
Things discussed in this episode include:
The Netflix Instant Pick of the Week is the stop-motion animation movie ParaNorman.
During Chris’ review of You’re Next, they discuss the movie theater going experience in general.
The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones and other franchise non-starters.
Angel wants to see We’re the Millers.Continue Reading …
Using this Washington Post profile of real life White House butler Eugene Allen as a way to tell the story of the United States civil rights movement, “Lee Daniels’ The Butler” tells this bold story in bold strokes, but also manages to squeeze in a much more intimate look at the personal cost of said movement on the lives of the families it effected directly. This movie is both dramatic and melodramatic, in your face and reserved, both unbelievable and all too real, and at the very least the most interesting and worthwhile movie playing in theaters right now.
The Butler in this movie is a made up butler (though many of the coolest and notable things that happen to the fake butler in this movie happened to the Mr. Allen for realsies), and we start with him as a kid living and working with his family on a plantation in the 1920s, but if you didn’t know any better, you would have thought this was a plantation in the 1820s, and after this kid endures his mother being raped and his father being murdered, he gets taken into the house by the old racist lady who lives there and is taught how to serve, which he seems to excel at for some reason, like some really shitty superpower.Continue Reading …
“The Ice Harvest” is a little dark-comedy crime movie set during the Christmas holiday, and movies juxtaposing crimes and violence with the joy of Christmas are always fun to watch. Nothing says “reason for the season” like a seedy strip club in Kansas and a mob lawyer teaming up with a pornographer in an attempt to steal millions of dollars from a crime boss on Christmas Eve.
John Cusack plays the mob lawyer and Billy Bob Thornton plays his buddy with whom he is trying to steal some ill-gotten money from a bad dude (played by Randy Quaid), but after they get the money, they realize that their escape routes out of town are blocked due to bad weather, meaning they are forced to hide out in town while some mob enforcers look for them. Meanwhile, Cusack’s lawyer character bounces back and forth between trying to impress a good looking strip club owner (Connie Nielsen) and hanging out with his best friend (Oliver Platt), who happens to be married to Cusack’s ex-wife. So life is pretty shitty for this guy. No wonder he’s willing to risk his life to steal a couple million bucks.Continue Reading …