Month: December 2015

Cinema Dispatch: Krampus

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

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Krampus and all the images you see in this review are owned by Universal Pictures

Directed by Michael Dougherty

There really hasn’t been a good Christmas horror movie since Gremlins, has there?  I’ve heard good things about Rare Exports, but that didn’t even get a decent sized theater release here in the US.  That’s all about to change… maybe, with this horror film about the holiday season’s canonical version of The Grinch!  It certainly has an uphill battle considering how hard it is to walk that line between scary and being hilarious (intentionally anyway) but there’s some strong talent behind this film so there’s a good chance they can actually pull it off!  Will this movie manage to be a fun horror comedy that becomes a holiday staple, or is this a giant piece of cinematic coal that we’re being punished with for giving War Room so much money?  Let’s find out!!

The movie is about a family who gets together on Christmas despite the fact that no one likes anyone.  You’ve got Tom and Sarah (Adam Scott and Toni Collette) who are the parents of Beth and Max (Stefania LaVie Owen and Emjay Anthony) and they’re playing host to Toni’s sister Linda (Allison Tolman), her husband Howard (David Koechner), and their three kids Stevie, Jordan, and Howie Jr (Lolo Owen, Queenie Samuel, and Maverick Flack).  Oh, and there’s a baby in there somewhere along with bitter sardonic Aunt Dorothy (Conchata Ferrell).  Wait, am I forgetting anyone?  THAT’S RIGHT!!  Tom’s mother Omi (Krista Sadler) who will play Miss Exposition here as she knows ALL about Krampus yet doesn’t tell the family until well after the shit has hit the fan.  Anyway, as you’d expect around the holidays, tensions flare up and there’s a huge fight that causes young Max to finally give up on the Christmas spirit.  This decision makes completely responsible for what happens next and the deaths of whichever loved ones get caught in the crossfire.  A huge storm rolls in that cuts off this neighborhood from the rest of the world and takes out the power and cell phone towers.  There’s something else out there though and the family soon finds themselves besieged by Gremlins knock offs, snow monsters, and a really fucked up Jack in the Box before Krampus finally shows up to deal with this family himself.  Can they survived Yuletide massacre long enough to open their presents?  Will Max be forever haunted by the fact that his sadness (which is something that’s REALLY outside of his control) is the root cause of all this horrifying shit being rained upon them?  Is it at least as good as Santa’s Slay!?

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Even if it is, that’s some serious damning with faint praise.

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Cinema Dispatch: Creed

~ Matt Vetrano ~ 3 Comments

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Creed and all the images you see in this review are owned by MGM Pictures

Directed by Ryan Coogler

I have this DVD boxset with the first three Rocky films in it that I think my dad got one Christmas.  He didn’t watch them all that often so I ended up holding onto the boxset and I would watch those three ALL the damn time.  A lot of people like the fourth film, but for me, Rocky has always been the first three movies which creates a perfect arc as Rocky starts out as a bum, eventually beats the champ, and they become friends afterwards.  Hell, it even ends right where Rocky begins (inside a crappy little gym) only now with Apollo Creed there as a reminder of how much has changed in such a short amount of time.  I didn’t catch Rocky Balboa until its home release, but it felt a perfect swansong for the series and Stallone proved once again that he really is a talented guy and deserved winning that Oscar.  Now we’re back with yet another film in that universe, but the dynamics have changed.  Not only is not really a Rocky film anymore, it’s not even a Stallone film considering that the writing and directing was handled by Ryan Coogler who himself is to proving to be an immense talent very early in his career.  Will this be an inspired continuation of series that still manages to be its own film, or will this be a disappointing cash grab on the level of Rocky 5 considering they pretty much have the same premise?  Let’s find out!!

The movie is about Adonis “Donnie” Johnson who is the son of Apollo Creed; the child of one of his mistress and born several months after Apollo’s death which should STILL put him at about 29, but whatever.  Continuity in the Rocky series is pretty wonky as it is.  Anyway, the kid is eventually found in a youth detention center by Apollo Creed’s widow (Mary Anne Creed played by Phylicia Rashad who FINALLY managed to be a movie that’s NOT directed by Tyler Perry) and she adopts the boy.  We cut to when he’s an adult and despite having money and having a good life, he still can’t seem to resist the urge to fight, so between shifts at his day job he fights in low level boxing matches under the name Donnie Johnson.  It’s not enough for him though, so he decides to quit his job, move to Philly, and get his father’s best friend to train him to be a professional boxer.  Will Rocky be willing to step back into that life after leaving it behind him?  Will Donnie finally find what is he’s looking for if he can convince Rocky to train him and put him in fights?  How many times will YOU cry watching this?

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“You get this to work kid, and you’re gonna be set for at least four more movies.”

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Cinema Dispatch: Victor Frankenstein

~ Matt Vetrano ~ 2 Comments

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Victor Frankenstein and all the images you see in this review are owned by 20th Century Fox

Directed by Paul McGuigan

Does anyone even remember when the last good Frankenstein movie was?  Can Reanimator REALLY be the last one of these movies to get the formula right!?  Well at least this movie isn’t trying so hard to make a faithful adaptation of the Mary Shelly story like Kenneth Branagh did, but is instead going after Young Frankenstein’s crown by practically making a spoof out of the whole thing.  Geez, if making a good Frankenstein movie was a herculean task, then making a good Young Frankenstein movie must be a Sisyphean one.  Still, the trailers really sold this as a fun throwback to old school horror schlock and it has two really talented actors who aren’t afraid to ham it up when appropriate.  Will this be a fun re-imaging of one of cinema’s oldest stories, or is this yet another terrible interpretation of this story right up there with the abysmal I, Frankenstein?  Let’s find out!!

The movie follows Victor Frankenstein (James McAvoy) and Igor (Daniel Radcliffe), both working together to solve the mysteries of life and to hopefully reanimate a corpse for reasons of SCIENCE.  After breaking Igor out of the circus and fixing his back, they become close friends and Igor’s intelligence about humanity anatomy and medicine (self-taught which makes it more impressive) becomes instrumental to Victor finally having a breakthrough with his research.  Unfortunately, as Victor starts to escalate his experiments, an inspector at Scotland Yard (Andrew Scott) becomes more and more obsessed with stopping the mad man’s machinations before his schemes can come to fruition.  Can Igor and Victor complete they’re greatest work before being shut down by The Man, or has Victor taken things too far?  Will Igor continue to justify the mad doctor’s methods, or will he betray his best friend in hopes that he can be talked down from the brink of insanity?  These two are REALLY close, aren’t they?

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Oh I WISH they’d pull the trigger on that!

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Super Recaps: My Little Pony season 5 (The Cutie Re-Mark) Season Five Finale!!

~ Matt Vetrano ~ 3 Comments

We’re finally here!  It’s the end of the fifth season of My Little Pony and it has certainly been a rocky one.  With some really strong episodes right out of the gate, it looked like this season was going to be the best of the series, but over time it started to wander back into its usually high, but not extraordinary, standards.  Still, the season finales have always been a high mark for the series with A Canterlot Wedding being one of my favorite episodes of the series.  Will they manage to pull out all the stops so that we can close this season on a high note, or will it just be another example of this season taking things too safe?  Let’s find out!!

The episode begins with Twilight trying to memorize a speech she’s going to give at Celestia’s School of Magic and progress seems to be slow… despite the speech being barely a paragraph long.  Well Twilight being the perfectionist that she is continues to rehearse the speech over and over again to a captive audience of one.

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“I wonder what Rarity’s doing right now?”

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