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#152 – Where’s My Soda?

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In episode 152, Chris Crespo and Drewster Cogburn review Legend, Chris reviews Krampus and Drew reviews Creed.

Billy D reviews People, Places, Things.

The Netflix Instant Pick of the Week is Fist of Legend.

The Crespodisco features two songs from the original motion picture soundtrack to Creed, composed by Ludwig Goransson.

Dr. Drew gives his two cents on movie references in Fallout 4.

The Vox Populi features listener reviews of Krampus and Rocky, and thoughts on the new Superman v Batman: Dawn of Justice trailer.

Will Universal build Nintendoland here in Orlando?

“Krampus” fills that niche of holiday movies with a twist and does so pretty well, as mixing the tropes of your typical Christmas holiday movie with that of another, seemingly disparate genre (such as horror) can result in the kind of movie that satisfies two kinds of cinematic itches in one fell swoop. Like the raunchy comedy glazed with holiday sweetness that is “The Night Before,” here we have a movie about the real meaning of Christmas, but one that explores the consequences of forgetting that meaning, a mixture of the sincere with the horrific, a Christmas present wrapped in shiny paper and concealing something terrible inside. You know how it is around the holidays.

“Krampus” starts out like a Christmas dark comedy, kind of in the vein of movies like “Bad Santa” or “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang,” as the opening credits play out over scenes of people fighting each other during one of those Black Friday shopping rushes in which people get trampled and killed every year, showing how people have forgotten that holiday spirit and instead have turned this time of year into an ugly demonstration of excess, greed and an ungodly love for deep discounts on electronics. Then we meet our main characters, a well to do suburban family who have mostly become too busy to appreciate the holiday or more importantly each other, and like “Christmas Vacation,” they are visited by their extended gun-loving, redneck family with whom they do not get along, and all of their interactions together are awkward and do not end well.

Review: ‘Brooklyn’

Did you know that the name Saoirse is pronounced “Seeir-sha?” Well, now you do.

With that out of the way, “Brooklyn” stars Saoirse Ronan as an early 1950s young Irish immigrant, heading to America in search of a life better than the one she could have at home. This is a love story, but it is more than that as well, as our main character is in a state of transition and we see her start to realize some of her potential and find her place in the world.

Eilis (Ronan) starts out living with her mother and sister in Ireland, where she can’t get a job because the economy is rubbish and for whatever reason she can’t find a decent enough fella. Her sister pulls some strings, though, and Eilis finds herself on a freighter heading for America, where a job at a department story and a room in a boarding house await her. Initially she is miserable, as she has difficulty getting along with the other girls in the house and can’t stop thinking about home and how much she misses her family. But then she meets a nice dude (Emory Cohen), and she starts to get along with the people around her, and before you know it, she’s finally making a nice life of her own.Continue Reading …

Review: ‘Creed’

“Creed” is an amazing movie, if only because it is the seventh installment in a series of films that people thought should have ended over twenty years ago, and really this should have been a crappy movie, with a story thrown together by some hacks, put together all in the name of making a few extra bucks and exploiting the good will amassed by decades of previously successful movies. No one could be blamed for being cynical about this endeavor – even Sylvester Stallone was reportedly reluctant to agree to this movie because of how hard it was to make “Rocky Balboa,” a movie which itself works as a nice send off and closure to a film character and series that has been with us in pop culture since the mid 1970s. But Stallone eventually saw the potential, and he agreed, and now here we are with a sort of sequel spin off movie, featuring the son of a character that was never the main character of these stories and who died four movies in, and lo and behold, against all odds, this is not the cynical cash grab people initially feared but instead is a heartfelt, genuine, character-first drama, the kind of movie that made the original “Rocky” so popular to begin with, the kind of story that puts its characters ahead of the plotting and which gives us actual people to root for and identify with, and in the end, just flat out works.Continue Reading …

Crespo Guest Appearances – ‘Talking Nonsense – 11/29/15’

Being a regular radio talk show guest and podcaster, I get occasional opportunities to spread my brand of madness to the world on other programs. In addition to Cinema Crespodiso, I also call in every Thursday to The Curtis Earth Show on 91.5 fm WPRK (WPRK.org) to talk about movies for 10-20 minutes, but that can only be heard live as it happens. But sometimes that’s not enough, and I pop up somewhere else, spewing my opinions out like a dragon spitting fire, albeit with far less damage to my surroundings. Here is where these guest appearances are documented.

Podcasting has gotten to the point where there are now all sorts of podcasts all over the country, and thanks to this wonderful and intimate medium, folks from all over are connecting with each other, making this world even smaller, bringing our experiences together, and just making (most of) us better people. And thanks to podcasting, I have been able to connect with a show based out of Wisconsin in a way that feels like we’re old friends and have done this tons of times before, and that is what makes this kind of thing special.Continue Reading …

Netflix pick for 11/30/15 – ‘The Wolfpack’

As heard in episode 151 of Cinema Crespodiso.

“The Wolfpack” is an amazing documentary about the all too true tale of the Angulo Family of New York City, and how the patriarch of the home kept everyone else locked away inside their tiny apartment for most of their lives. And this documentary goes into a little of what happens when this happens to people, and specifically takes a look at the six brothers in this family and how this experience shaped their lives. And despite the dad trying to shield his kids from the big, bad outside world, he still showed them thousands of movies, making these stories the only way these kids learn about the world, and you bet this movie gets into what THAT does to a person as well.Continue Reading …

#151 – Elbow Drops In Heaven

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In episode 151, Chris Crespo and Drewster Cogburn are joined by first time guest and friend of the show Joey DiSturco (www.twitter.com/Joey_UCF).

Chris reviews “Spotlight,” “Secret in Their Eyes,” “Brooklyn” and “Creed,” and Drew reviews “The Wolfpack,” “Attack on Titan” and “Yakuza Apocalypse.”

Billy D also reviews “Attack on Titan” and “Yakuza Apocalypse.”

The Netflix Instant Pick of the Week is “The Wolfpack.”

The Crespodisco features the main themes for “Vertigo” and “North By Northwest,” both composed by Bernard Herrmann.

Review: ‘The Night Before’

“The Night Before” is a Christmas carol type of movie for youngsters in their 20s and 30s who appreciate a good dick joke, but also appreciate the movie’s genuine appreciation for the holiday spirit. Like a mash up of “A Christmas Carol” and Martin Scorsese’s “After Hours,” this is a story that takes place all in one night but deals with our main characters’ pasts and futures, all the while Christmas Eve shenanigans go on all around them.

Sure this is a ridiculous comedy with plenty of drug references and R-rated jokes and, depending on your point of view, a bit of blasphemy, but at the center of it all is an honest little story of three men in their early 30s who find themselves at a transitional point in all of their lives, a point that could be causing them to drift further away from each other. Whether it be careers or growing families or just growing old, things can’t stay the same way forever and growth is needed, which is hard to do when one person struggles with the growth part.Continue Reading …

Review: ‘Secret in Their Eyes’

“Secret in Their Eyes” is the kind of movie that never fully clicks, despite having all the elements needed to be a good, if not great movie. A twisty-turny plot with a great cast all doing solid work, it all works as well as an extended episode of “Law & Order” but also ultimately feels just as disposable, and considering the subject matter, this trait isn’t a good thing.

Constantly jumping back and forth between 2002 and 2015, “Secret in Their Eyes” is the story of the rape and murder of a young woman and how this deviant act of criminality deeply affected a number of people directly related to this case. Counter Terrorism expert and FBI Agent Ray (Chiwetel Ejiofor) ignores the orders of his boss by spending his time investigating this murder instead of doing the counter terrorism work he was there for, and he does so because the victim is the daughter of his FBI Agent partner Jess (Julia Roberts). With a little help and encouragement from the foxy district attorney for whom he has the hots (Nicole Kidman), he does his best to solve the murder in 2002, and again in 2015 when he finds new evidence.Continue Reading …

Review: ‘Spotlight’

In the grand tradition of movies about journalism as well as whistleblowers, “Spotlight” is a remarkable movie not because of the salaciousness of the story details but because of how well those details and this story are handled. An even keeled and classy drama that feels right at home with similar dramas from the 1970s, we have here a movie that can be seen simply as a procedural but really does point to some more profound aspects of our day to day lives and how they are interwoven with larger institutions throughout our culture.

For years and years the idea of the child molesting Catholic priest has been around, to the point where people were fine with joking about it among themselves. And despite being “a thing,” it has persisted. This could only continue within a system that allows it to happen, discreetly of course. And as history has shown, the best way to deal with monsters is to drag them into the light. And that is exactly what happened in from 2001 through 2003, as the investigative reporting team of the Boston Globe made this their mission in regards to the Catholic Archdiocese and their consistent cover up of the sexual abuse of children in their own city.Continue Reading …

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