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Bonus Episode – 2015 Year In Review

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In this BONUS episode, Chris Crespo and Drewster Cogburn recap the year in movies for 2015. They discuss the movies they liked the least, the movies that disappointed them the most, and of course their favorite movies of the year. NYC senior correspondent Billy D also chimes in with his recap of the year.

So which movies are the best of 2015? Which are the worst? Do you agree? Do Chris and Drew care whether or not you agree?

All this and just a little more in this special bonus episode.

Enjoy the show!

Review: ‘Carol’

The 1950s was not that long ago, especially when you consider how old some countries and cultures are, and definitely when you consider how old the entire world is, in comparison to that the 1950s was practically yesterday. And yet the time period was so different in so many ways, with gender and sexual norms in society established in a way to maintain the hetero-male dominance of the day. “Carol” is a love story set in that time period, a tale of what happens when two people fall in love in a time and place in which their love is perceived as abhorrent and deviant behavior requiring psychotherapy and segregation from society.

Which is a shame because if it wasn’t for the dumb hang ups of the people at large and the ridiculous social mores foisted upon everyone, this would have been a nice relationship for everyone involved, but because the main characters had to deal with a bunch of bullshit outside of who they were, this relationship ends up involving a lot of anguish. Leave it to the ugly judgmental side of our culture to turn something so pure and wonderful into so difficult and painful.

Netflix pick for 1/11/16 – ‘The Nightmare’

“The Nightmare” is a very solid and interesting documentary about the very real phenomenon known as sleep paralysis. You know how sleepwalking is when you fall asleep but your body still gets up and does stuff? Imagine the inverse of that – you are awake and aware but your body falls asleep, leaving you unable to move. Not only is this scary when it happens and very alarming, it is actually what is going on inside the brain that makes this condition so potentially frightening.

While you are sleeping, your brain is working, doing stuff that it wouldn’t normally do when you are awake. But if your body falls asleep and you remain alert, or if the opposite happens and you wake up before your body does, you are going to be privy to some brain happenings that you are not accustomed to seeing. This leads to people seeing all sorts of weird visions and colors, while many often experience seeing or even just feeling a malevolent being in the room, whether it be a demon sent from Hell or a faceless intruder or even aliens from outer space.

#157 – Kung Flu Season

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In episode 157, Chris Crespo and Drewster Cogburn are joined by returning guest Amy Drew Thompson (www.amydrewthompson.com)!

Chris, Drew and Amy review The Revenant, Chris reviews Carol and Amy gives her review of Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

Billy reviews Pay The Ghost, starring a sleepwalking Nic Cage.

Dr. Drew’s 2 Cents are all about a person’s “Me Now” vanity license plate.

The Netflix Instant Pick of the Week is the sleep paralysis documentary The Nightmare.

The Crespodisco features a few tracks from the amazing Kurt Stenzel composed score for the documentary Jodorowsky’s Dune.

Review: ‘The Revenant’

“The Revenant” is a number of different things rolled up into one. It is a grand artistic statement. It is a meditation on life and death, as well as mankind’s place in relation to nature. It is the story of a nation’s messy and violent birth. It is about revenge. It is about a father’s love for his son. And maybe above all else, it is a reminder to always play dead. At least when there’s a bear involved.

An expedition of settlers in 1820s western America gets attacked by a large group of Native Americans, and the small group of survivors has to try to trudge their way though thick forests and across mountains to make it back to their outpost alive. Hugh Glass (Leonardo DiCaprio) is their scout and tracker and it is up to him to lead them through the land to safety. But when he’s mauled by a grizzly bear protecting her cubs and finds himself on the verge of death, he becomes a burden that the men try to carry through the wilderness, which they soon discover is impossible to do. A pair of men, Fitzgerald (Tom Hardy) and Jim Bridger (Will Poulter), agree to stay behind and watch over Glass, but Fitzgerald tricks Bridger into leaving Glass behind, which they do. Also Fitzgerald kills Glass’s half-Pawnee son, which gives the dying Glass something to live for – righteous vengeance.

Review: ‘Youth’

As if you couldn’t tell by the title and the cast, “Youth” is a movie about the passing of time and how we may differ in our approach to dealing with the inevitability of death that awaits us all and the possible futility of life and what we take from it while in the moment. A story about lost loves, dashed dreams and broken hearts, as well as appreciation of the past, hope for the future and a strange optimism for the present, this is the kind of movie that can affect you emotionally but only if you let it, if you allow it to wash over you, burrow into you and meld with your own psyche, so that you can see yourself reflected in at least one of its characters.

Fred Ballinger (Michael Caine) is a retired composer and conductor enjoying a quiet and lazy vacation at a hoity-toity resort in the Swiss Alps when an emissary from the Queen of England visits him to ask if he would come out of retirement for one performance for the Queen and her grandson. Fred refuses to do so for “personal” reasons, but the invitation throws him for a bit of a loop, as he wasn’t prepared to even think about doing something like that, and now it is making him feel some emotions that he’s been stowing away for years. His past as a hugely successful conductor is closely linked to his wife, and now in this moment in this resort he is thinking about her with obvious regret as to how he lived and what became of her (something we do not learn the full extent of until the end of the film). It doesn’t help that his personal assistant is also his daughter (Rachel Weisz), and when her husband leaves her for a pop star, she has her own breakdown and vents by yelling at her father and accusing him of being a shitty husband and not the best father. Not exactly what a person wants to hear in the twilight of his or her life.Continue Reading …

Spoiler Bonus Episode – The Hateful Eight

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In this SPOILER-FILLED bonus episode, Chris Crespo and Drewster Cogburn talk about everything that happened in The Hateful Eight. They talk about the plot, who lives, who dies, what surprised them, what did not surprise them, and so on. So if you have not seen this movie yet, BEWARE OF SPOILERS.

Also be sure to go back and check out our Crespodiso Film School bonus episode about the films of Quentin Tarantino.

Enjoy the show.

Netflix pick for 1/4/16 – ‘The Five Venoms’

“The Five Venoms,” also know as “Five Deadly Venoms” is a cult classic martial arts film from 1978, produced by the legendary Shaw Brothers Studio.

As a matter of fact, if you’ve seen any mainstream martial arts movies in the past decade or more, you would have noticed specific influences in this movies from this 1978 classic. The group of assassins in “Kill Bill“ and the Furious Five in “Kung Fu Panda“ are direct descendants of the five deadly venoms featured in “The Five Venoms.”

Who are the venoms? They are kung fu students trained in very specific and deadly kung fu styles, each one named for a different animal like toad or scorpion, and when this story starts, these five students are already out in the world, using their skills for either good or evil. The master who taught them all sends his final pupil, who has yet to complete his training, to uncover the identities of these men and recruit the good ones to help fight the bad. A basic set up loaded with mystery, and it works pretty great as the deadly venoms are revealed in turn over the course of the movie, with lots of treachery and backstabbing along the way. It is as if Alfred Hitchcock wanted to make a martial arts movie, which would have been dope. But since he never did, this is the closest we’ll ever come.Continue Reading …

#156 – That’s My Dog!

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In episode 156, Chris Crespo and Drewster Cogburn celebrate the show’s third anniversary with returning guest Tom The Beer Guy from Orange Blossom Brewing!

Chris and Drew review The Hateful Eight and The Big Short, and Chris also reviews Joy, Daddy’s Home and Youth.

Billy D reviews The Hateful Eight, The Revenant and Anomalisa in this week’s double stacked edition of Billy D’s Death at the Movies.

The Netflix Instant Pick of the Week is The Five Venoms (a.k.a. The Five Deadly Venoms).

Dr. Drew gives his two cents on the old adage, “New Year, New You.”

Review: ‘The Big Short’

At this point, “The Big Short” is the closest we are ever going to get to any sort of justice or catharsis when it comes to the worldwide economic collapse of 2007-2008, a global catastrophe caused by the unbridled greed and avarice of bankers who saw money falling from the sky and thought it would never end, and who never once stopped to think about what might happen to everyone else around them. It is now possible to draw the direct line between these peoples’ actions and the ruination of millions of lives, and yet nothing has been done to either punish those responsible or ensure that something so insane doesn’t happen again. Thanks to the inaction of our government and criminal justice system, these white collar criminals continue to operate while the average citizen gets handed the bill, and now the only resort we have left is to drag these people out into the street and shame them, which would be great if they felt any shame, or remorse, or any other human emotion, but they obviously don’t. That is why “The Big Short” even exists.

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