A weekly talk show hosted by film critic Christopher Crespo
“End of Watch” is the opposite of most movies featuring the Los Angeles Police Department at work, as it portrays LAPD police officers not as crooks or corrupt or racist or terrible, but instead as normal people just trying to do their job, a job which happens to be very dangerous and rather underappreciated.Continue Reading …
“Some days you just can’t get rid of a bomb!” At one point in the 1966 “Batman: the Movie,” this is a line exclaimed by Batman (Adam West) as he tries to dispose of a cartoon-looking bomb in a public place, and if you can’t get with this kind of campy, over the top, tongue-in-cheek style of comedy in the midst of your 1960’s comic book movie, then stay far away from this week’s Netflix Pick of the Week. But if you can get down with stuff like Bat-shark repellent and dehydrated and then rehydrated henchmen, then you will enjoy the hell out of this ridiculous movie.
The first Batman movie was made based on the popularity of the television series, and followed many of the hallmarks of this tv show, which includes the big “KA-POW” and “WHAPP” title cards during the fight scenes and the bold colors and just general ridiculousness. And fans of the Caped Crusader should really dig the awesome convertible Batmobile, as well as the awesome Batcopter, Batboat and the Batcycle…I mean, who wouldn’t want to ride in that sweet side car?Continue Reading …
From 2007, “Shotgun Stories” exists as proof of several things, namely that American cinematic film making is alive and well, and that original and interesting stories can still be told without a budget over $200 million and the special effects and baggage that come with such productions, and of course what we all already know by now, that Michael Shannon is one of the most compelling actors working today.
“Shotgun Stories” is a low budget little gem about a some half-brothers and their blood feud due to their disparate feelings over their newly deceased mutual father. Things get said, insults get hurled, violence becomes an option, and the rest is a mess of a bad ole time for everyone involved. Violence can beget a pretty vicious cycle, after all, but can one see the cycle coming and do anything to stop it? Should it be stopped? Or should we all yield shotguns in case someone starts disagreeing with us?Continue Reading …
I am too lazy to check, but I am pretty sure that “Blood and Bone” is the first direct-to-video movie to be a Netflix Instant Pick of the Week, but it was bound to happen, especially with the increase in quality in these DTV films recently. So here we are, a kick ass action movie featuring a bad ass lead performance, criminally underseen due to its lack of exposure, but ready for you to put on right now, sit back, relax and enjoy the pugilistic mayhem.
“Blood and Bone” should have been made in the 1980s, though if it was made back then it would have starred Jean Claude Van Damme, as the very basic story fits right into the mold of those awesome action movies. A lone, mysterious bad ass dude (played by Michael Jai White, Black Dynamite) forces his way into an underground fighting circuit, and he battles his way through fighter after fighter, and really what else do you need to know? The fight scenes are awesome, well shot, and I love how Michael Jai White’s character does each fight with his big ole boots, which I don’t think I’ve ever seen a leading character do before in a fighting movie like this. Looks like those huge boots would make things even more painful.Continue Reading …
Okay, some of you are going to be all like, “Chinatown? What the fuck, man? Think I’m an idiot? I’ve seen this movie already! This pick ain’t that special!” To which I say, relax broheem, we’re all good. This pick ain’t for you and it ain’t for me. No sir, this pick…this pick is for the kids.
See kids (cause I know you’re out there reading this shit and listening to Cinema Crespodiso), back before you were born in the 1990s, movies were still being made, you dig? And in 1974, the incredibly awesome “Chinatown” was unleashed upon the world. Made during a time when film noir movies stopped being all the rage (a time which persists to this very day), “Chinatown” is the most bad ass film noir movie you will ever see, kiddies.
What is film noir, you’re asking? Just know that it has to do usually with a private detective, a damsel in distress, and a conspiracy that is usually way too big for the the private eye, but he takes it on anyway. Add a lot of shadows and a gloomy atmosphere and mood, a dire outlook on life itself, and BOOM! you got yourself some noir.Continue Reading …
So who ordered the Australian-set western starring the mustachioed men? Cause this week the Crespodiso Randomizer 9000 spit out “Quigley Down Under” which means it is time to fire up the barbie, crack open a Fosters (which no one in Australia drinks) and get to watching this western about a crack shot riflemen from America heading to Australia for a job and finding out that he may have to settle some other things while he is there instead (of course with the aid of his custom-made gigantic rifle).
“Quigley Down Under” was actually developed in the late 70s for Steve McQueen and Clint Eastwood, but this project fell apart as so many projects do, and while it was subsequently picked up by a very interested Tom Selleck (whom I fully believe is one of the world’s biggest movie stars in a universe parallel to ours), it still took a number of years to get off the ground, finally becoming a reality in 1990, obviously as a different film than the one that was originally conceived. Who knows what the McQueen-Eastwood version would have been like, but we do have a version with Tom Selleck and Alan Rickman, so we can’t really be upset at that, can we?Continue Reading …
“Man on Wire” is a fantastic documentary about a French mime and juggler and all around lover of life who decided in 1974 to tight-rope walk between two buildings. But not just any two buildings. The still-under-construction World Trade Center towers in New York City. Just look at that poster right there and imagine that’s you, on a high wire, over 1,300 feet in the air, with no net or tether. It’s just you and the wind and God. That’s what this movie is all about.
And it is great! The people involved in pulling off this feat (because it took more than one person) managed to record a good amount of their time and efforts and practices, so we actually get a lot of first hand look at this stuff, and then the whole setting up of the wire in the middle of the night plays out like a heist movie because they didn’t get anyone’s permission to do any of this, they just showed up with equipment and snuck their way up. Crazy.Continue Reading …
While this move of having a bonus Netflix Pick of the Week is highly irregular, I simply could not wait for the Netflix Instant Randomizer 9000 to spit out this title any time soon (for more information on the Randomizer 9000, please listen to any episode of Cinema Crespodiso). So here is a bonus pick, “Upstream Color,” a movie that will become a favorite of film lovers and aficionados everywhere, and will also leave many normal film watchers quite frustrated in its wake. So which one are you?
You will not a get synopsis here. Instead, I will tell you just to watch “Upstream Color,” and let the story unfold and wash over you, and don’t start freaking out when you realize you have no idea what the hell is happening within five minutes of the movie starting. Just watch it. Enjoy it. Absorb it. Some things will become clear. Some will not. But in the end, after one viewing, you will know you’ve seen something special.
And do not be afraid to re-watch this movie, dig even deeper into it, talk to other people who have seen it and try to parse out the details, do whatever you need to do to understand it more, because in the end, when this thing does snap into place for you and you start to see the bigger picture after assembling enough puzzle pieces together, you’ll find this to be one of the most rewarding cinematic experiences you can have this year.Continue Reading …
Not the “Life of Pi,” but just “Pi” itself, this is Darren Aronofsky’s first movie, and boy is it a doozy of a debut. Equal parts student art film, surrealist horror and character drama, “Pi” is a movie about a mathematician seeking a numerical answer to the equation that is existence, and this doth drive him just a little mad.
Despite being Aronofsky’s first film, “Pi” has several Aronofsky hallmarks, including gimmicky photography, a protagonist succumbing to his obsessions, a Clint Mansell composed soundtrack, and of course, Mark Margolis in a small yet important supporting role. This is thriller without any real chase scenes or guns or any typical stuff like that – instead it is a thriller about a man who continues further and further down the rabbit hole, coming across possible mathematical discoveries that would be likely to drive even the average person over the brink of sanity and into the chasm of insanity, let alone our already somewhat damaged and introverted “hero” of the movie.Continue Reading …
“Windfall” is a documentary about what happened to a small town after the locals, hurting for money, decided to sign the dotted line to the big red devil that is know as Big Wind. Man, that doesn’t have the same ring as Big Bank or Big Brother. But apparently no matter the cause, there are always ways to perverse the system, leaving victims in a wake of side effects, health defects and other undisclosed negative possible outcomes of doing business the hard way.Continue Reading …