A weekly talk show hosted by film critic Christopher Crespo
“The Place Beyond The Pines” is the best kind of movie, the kind with a very strong, character-based story that goes to some unexpected places, populated with some great actors, backed by an excellent score, the whole time feeling like a real and lived-in time and place, and all told with the type of sure-handed direction that can’t be ignored or taken for granted. Continue Reading …
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 …
“Archie’s Final Project” is an excellent crazy little movie about a very creative but also very depressed high school kid who decides to make his own suicide the subject of a film class project. Sounds like fun, no? Well keep on reading!
From my original review of “Archie’s Final Project“ (which at the time was titled “My Suicide“) from the 2010 Florida Film Fest:
“My Suicide, directed by David Lee Miller, is the type of film that can usually only be seen at regional film festivals. Full of odd and interesting choices, this movie about a high school kid’s planned suicide threatens to be merely a very bloated student short, but in the end flat out works as a very kinetic and intense film…The subject matter is not what will keep the movie from theatrical distribution or free from home video obscurity. Heathers all ready explored the allure of teenage suicide, and even recently movies like Suicide Club and World’s Greatest Dad honed in on similar themes. Instead, the thing that will keep My Suicide out of shopping mall multiplexes is the presentation. The movie starts with Archie recreating a scene from The Deer Hunter with the use of a green screen and animation. Within the first ten minutes of the movie, a very hyper tone is established as the audience will be bombarded with a slick multimedia presentation that perfectly replicates Archie’s angst-ridden and overloaded mental state. All sorts of editing and filming techniques are employed throughout the movie, and though it threatens to fall apart, this crazy tone and style is actually sustained really well for about 75 to 80 minutes, before the inevitably heavy final act story elements come in.”
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In episode 14 of Cinema Crespodiso, Chris Crespo and Drewster Cogburn are joined by fellow film critic Aaron Weiss of CinemaFunk.com (@cinemafunk on Twitter) and they talk about new movies 42 and Scary Movie 5, Chris reviews Trance and The Place Beyond the Pines, they discuss the Netflix pick of the week Archie’s Final Project, and they get down and dirty in the Crespodome, which includes an installment of Drewster Cogburn versus the World and a whole new Lightning Round with Aaron, so strap in and get ready for the ride!
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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!
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 …
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 …
“SOMM” is a documentary about four young gentlemen all in the midst of attempting to pass the Master Sommelier’s Exam, a test established in the 1960s and which only about 200 people have ever passed, a test so hard that people have lost years of their lives to the devotion of all things wine just so they can have a dream of passing it. And if they can pass it, oh boy, do those doors of opportunity swing wide open for a certified Master Sommelier.
“SOMM” is an interesting combination of a mostly no-frills, just meat and potatoes documentary, and a much flashier, artier doc. It’s all footage of these four people, all in different places in their lives, all with very different personalities, all trying to help each other do the same thing, which involves lots of studying and wine tasting and the occasional shit talking, mixed with interviews of copious amounts of people involved in the wine industry, and this is all wrapped in a warm blanket of art, as we are treated to dreamy, slow-motion photography and a wonderful, jazzy cum classical score. I guess it makes plenty of sense to couple wine with jazz. They seem to go hand in hand.Continue Reading …
“Kumare” is an excellent documentary about a man who sets out to start his own sham religion centered around yoga and meditation in an effort to show how people can be duped by such charlatans, only to find out that maybe these little sham religious leaders and religion in general aren’t all bad.
From my original review from my Florida Film Festival 2012 coverage:
“Fortunately, Vikram’s motives are far less sinister than most other frauds – as Kumaré, his experiment turns into a real lesson to give people, a lesson about how their search for a spiritual leader and guru should lead back to within themselves. And Kumaré is up front with this, telling people over and over that he is a fake and he is wearing a disguise and that he is just trying to help these people find the guru within themselves, but of course people only hear what they want to hear – so when they hear Kumaré saying he is a faker and wearing a disguise, they think he is speaking metaphorically and that he is being all deep and spiritual about his role, when in reality it was Vikram the whole time telling them the truth.”
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In episode 13 of Cinema Crespodiso, Chris Crespo and Drewster Cogburn are joined by Angel Rivera from the hit new podcast “SBK LIVE with Kevin, Matt and Angel,” and the three of them talk all things movies, ranging from the passing of the late, great Roger Ebert, to documentaries, to new movies in theaters like Evil Dead and on DVD like Hyde Park on Hudson, and they also get into their favorite horror movies and characters, their guilty pleasures in cinema, and they discuss the new trailer for the movie Only God Forgives. The fellas also play a new game called “Guess The Grosses” and Angel participates in the slowest Lightning Round on record, so check out all the free entertainment and enjoy the mad ramblings of the Crespodiso!