Cinema Crespodiso

A weekly talk show hosted by film critic Christopher Crespo

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Review: ‘The Purge: Election Year’

the-purge-election-year-movie-poster“The Purge: Election Year” is the capper to the trilogy no one saw coming, the third film in a series written and directed by James DeMonaco, and if you’ve been following along since the first movie, then you will be a little surprised to see the scope of this world opened up even more, and now a rather complete picture has been painted in a very visceral manner, with the thematic elements of class warfare and wealth inequality become the driving force behind an insane premise for a movie, let alone three of them.

The basic premise was barely laid out in the first movie, in which Ethan Hawke played a guy who installed security systems in the homes of people who could afford to barricade themselves up during Purge Night, the one night of the year in which all crime is legal for 12 hours, in an effort to let people “get it out of their systems” so that they would be cool to each other for the other 8,748 hours of the years. His character quickly discovered even his family wasn’t safe, as a bunch of psychopaths broke into their home and terrorized them all. The second movie drops this character and picks up with a new guy, who was going to use Purge Night to kill the guy who DUI-manslaughtered his son, but instead wound up saving people out on the streets and not going through with the murder. In this second movie, it is explained that people suspect the Purge was a tool by the government to eliminate the impoverished portions of their constituency. Continue Reading …

Netflix pick for 7/4/16 – ‘Coming to America’

coming_to_america_movieposterAs heard in episode 182 of Cinema Crespodiso.

“Coming to America” is one of those movies we gotta show the kids so they can see that not only was Eddie Murphy once the funniest person on the planet but he also made damn good movies. The man has earned the right to do with his time what he feels and make whatever movies he wants to make, but let’s all be honest with ourselves, something happened when the calendar rolled over to the 2000s and the “good” Eddie Murphy movies became the exceptions and not the rule. He provided a funny voice for an animated donkey a few times, had a small but acclaimed role in “Dreamgirls” and was the best part in the otherwise terrible “Tower Heist.” That’s it. And he’s been in seventeen movies since the year 2000. Not a good average.

So put on “Coming to America” and tell those twenty-somethings and younger to pay attention to the incredible array of characters he portrayed years before the fat suited Klump family, and more importantly, how good this guy is at being funny and also carrying an entire movie on his shoulders effortlessly, selling the actual emotional story of it all, striving in every way imaginable way to make this movie as good as it could be. Continue Reading …

#182 – The Neon Crespo

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Episode182_TheNeonCrespo

In episode 182, Chris Crespo and Drewster Cogburn review Swiss Army Man and The Purge: Election Year, and Chris also reviews The BFG.

The Netflix Instant Pick of the Week is Coming to America.

Dr. Drew gives his two cents on celebrating the birthday of the United States.

Billy D reviews…nothing! Where’s Billy?!?

The Crespodisco features a song from soundtracks for The BFG and Swiss Army Man.
Continue Reading …

Review: ‘The BFG’

The BFG movie poster“The BFG” is an adaptation of a 1982 Roald Dahl book of the same name directed by Steven Spielberg and written by Melissa Mathison, and the last time these two made a movie together was back in 1982 with “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial” so the pedigree of this particular movie is most certainly of a high quality, and as such some bigger expectations are involved because how can they not be? This story of a 10-year old orphan girl and her new friend, a 24-foot giant who collects dreams at the top of a mountain and blows them into children’s bedrooms at night, is very imaginative and goes to some surprising places if you are not familiar with the story going into it, and there was definitely potential there for a new children’s classic.

But “The BFG” does not live up to those kind of ridiculous expectations. While not an “insta-classic,” which is an admittedly absurd thing to expect ahead of time no matter the people involved, it is a perfectly fine film, overall very nice and bittersweet. There is also some darkness and danger, a staple of those great 1980’s Amblin movies we all know and love, but the prevailing feeling for the movie as a whole definitely leans towards saccharine, as both the tone of the movie and the story seem designed to elicit awe and delight, two things that Mr. Spielberg loves to represent on film.Continue Reading …

Review: ‘Swiss Army Man’

SwissArmyMan_MoviePosterIn “Swiss Army Man,” a young man, stranded on a deserted island, finds possible salvation in the form of a corpse, washed up on the shore in front of him, a lifeless body which may be imbued with specific abilities that seem hard to believe and yet can enable this young man to find a way to survive.

The absurdity of this movie is made apparent within the opening minutes, but so is the ambitious and particular vision on display, coupled with just the right amount of odd beauty, all coming together to make one of those movies – either you are along for the ride or you are not. And people who choose this ride may find themselves oddly affected by this strangely touching story of a lonely man and his multi-purpose dead body.

Hank (Paul Dano) drags around the corpse (Daniel Radcliffe), somehow finding out his name is Manny, and together they get off that deserted island and make their way through the woods, trying to find civilization before Hank dies. Along the way, Hank starts talking to Manny, and at some point Manny starts talking back to him.Continue Reading …

Spoiler Bonus Episode – ‘Independence Day: Resurgence’

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In this SPOILER-FILLED bonus episode, Chris Crespo and Drewster Cogburn talk about Roland Emmerich’s Independence Day: Resurgence, and they get into all the details and spoilers so beware of all the SPOILERS that will be contained in this SPOILER episode.

SPOILERS.

You get that?

And if you have not seen the movie, just listen to us describe it, and save yourself $15.00 and 75 minutes.

Enjoy the show.
Continue Reading …

Netflix pick for 6/27/16 – ‘The Sandlot’

TheSandlot_PosterFrom 1993, “The Sandlot” is a cult favorite, which is kind of odd for a family movie, but this fits that bill. Doing modest box office business at the time of its release, it found new life on home video, where it was discovered by many as the charming, sincere and fun coming-of-age tale of Scotty “You’re Killing Me” Smalls and Benny “The Jet” Rodriguez, two kids you meet in the summer of 1962 and bond over baseball and typical teenage kid antics. Episodic in how the story unfolds, the first half of the film features little stories about Smalls learning the ropes of his new neighborhood, learning how to play baseball properly, and going on tiny little adventures with his new friends to the community pool and to the amusement park.

And then the second half of the movie happens, and it becomes this crazy story about trying to retrieve a valuable baseball that got knocked into a neighbor’s yard, a yard guarded by a legendary animal known as The Beast, which has apparently killed and eaten a number of kids over the years. So many attempts are made to get this ball back in various ways, involving daring feats and absurd contraptions, and the whole movie just has a sense of fun and enjoyment, as if writer/director David Evans was really having a good time revisiting his past and exploring things that he liked so much as a youngster. The love is palpable in this movie, so while it is never surprising or groundbreaking, it is still a great well to spend an hour and forty minutes.Continue Reading …

#181 – Hugs For Orlando

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Episode181_HugsForOrlando

In episode 181, Chris Crespo and Drewster Cogburn are joined by returning guest Jen Vargas (www.twitter.com/jenvargas).

Chris and Drew review Independence Day: Resurgence, The Neon Demon and The Shallows.

The Netflix Instant Pick of the Week is The Sandlot.

NYC senior correspondent Billy D (www.twitter.com/iloveblood) reviews the 1985 horror film The Stuff.

Dr. Drew gives his two cents on seeing original movies.

The Crespodisco features two songs from the original soundtrack for The Neon Demon by Cliff Martinez.
Continue Reading …

Review: ‘The Neon Demon’

The Neon Demon poster“The Neon Demon” is the latest fetishistic ode from Nicholas Winding Refn to the violent and off kilter exploitation films of the 1970’s. His movies like “Only God Forgives” and “Drive” and “Valhalla Rising” center on a violent, malevolent entity roaming through life and dispatching others in increasingly intense and terrible ways, and this violent entity has morphed into something altogether different, into a terrible malaise and overriding sense of danger, definitively draped over the entirety of “The Neon Demon,” as we enter a surreal world of modeling that takes more from Dario Argento’s “Suspiria” than it does any Victoria Secret catalog or runway fashion show. What if David Cronenberg and David Lynch teamed up to make “Zoolander?” That’s the direction we’re going with in “The Neon Demon,” equal parts gorgeous and grotesque, a nightmarish descent into the seedy underbelly of models and haute fashion.

And while being beautiful and striking to look at and definitely unique when compared to the rest of the movies out there for consumption right now, I do wish that “The Neon Demon” was better because while I liked it, I did not love it like I wanted to, and that’s because while it is beautiful it is also pretty vapid. Now, is that itself a remark on the fashion industry? Is this a snide critique of models and their chosen profession? More than likely it is a coincidence that a movie involving fashion is almost entirely artifice but it fits the subject matter nonetheless. And a movie does not have to be profound or “deep” to be good or entertaining, but if it is going to be shallow, than it better move briskly and efficiently, and unfortunately “The Neon Demon” does take a little while to get to the real craziness and once that’s done, the movie has about three different places it could have ended but decides to do one more scene. And then one more. And then one more. The overall film could have been tightened in editing, that’s for sure. Continue Reading …

Review: ‘The Shallows’

TheShallows_MoviePoster“The Shallows” is a surprisingly good killer shark thriller, a straightforward story of survival against all odds, a classic mankind versus nature tale, well shot and well acted by the one actor tasked with carrying a huge chunk of this movie on her own. It gets tense and exciting and even a little scary here and there and at just under 90 minutes long, this is the kind of movie that gets started quick, hits the gas pedal the whole way and slams headlong into a pretty spectacular ending.

Outside of “Jaws,” the killer shark movie bar has been set VERY low and “The Shallows” does a good job of elevating this bar much higher, eschewing the goofiness and campiness of the much more baffingly popular killer shark movies out there and going for more of a naturalistic approach, allowing the intensity of the situation and the bleakness of our main character’s odds to be the prevailing characteristics of this story.Continue Reading …

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