Month: June 2018

Cinema Dispatch: Hereditary

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

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Hereditary and all the images you see in this review are owned by A24

Directed by Ari Aster

You know… I’m starting to feel like the old man yelling at clouds.  For whatever reason, THIS kind of horror film (mostly put out by A24) is the new hotness in horror and I just can’t understand it.  I’ve sat through far too many weighty and slow paced exercises in excessive cruelty that still manage to get critical acclaim, and I just can’t understand it.  Now they had to make one of these with one of my favorite actresses which means I HAVE to go see it even if it’s probably gonna be more of the same.  GREAT!  I LOVE sitting through things that ruin my day, don’t you!?  Anyway, will this be the one that manages to be thoughtful, interesting, and GOOD instead of just provocative for the sake of pretension, or will this be yet another film I’ll want to bury in the backyard with cement so that even if it comes back as a zombie it’s not going anywhere?  Let’s find out!!

Annie Graham (Toni Collette) is a mother of two who just lost her own mother and is having trouble coping with the loss; mostly by repressing her feelings, but also because her mother was a… shall we say COMPLICATED person, and whatever secrets Annie is dealing with are not something she’s ready to share with everyone else.  Unfortunately her daughter Charlie (Milly Shapiro) had a particular attachment to her and is lashing out in her own way which is only bringing more and stress onto the family.  Her husband’s pretty cool with it though (Gabriel Byrne) as he’s a PEACE KEEPER who really just floats in and out of situations trying to cause as little fuss as possible, and their son Peter (Alex Wolff) is well on his way to being an emotionally repressed mess of his own, though that might just be the teenage angst talking.  Anyway… let’s just say that things get PRETTY bad from there as the death of Annie’s mother turns out to be the LEAST of their problems as… things get pretty bad from there.  Annie’s slowly unraveling from the stress and the guilt of… whatever happens, and it’s tearing the entire family apart; especially Peter who… let’s just say isn’t quite equipped to deal with all this.  With so much chaos at home and very little support outside of it other than Annie’s friend Joan (Ann Dowd), will this family manage to get past this… very bad thing that happened, and come together as a functional family?  How much hardships, horror, and emotional scarring will they have to go through for even a hope of surviving… whatever this is?  Why… you know what, just why.  WHY!?

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Do YOU know what the heck is going on here!?

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Cinema Dispatch: Ocean’s 8

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

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Ocean’s 8 and all the images you see in this review are owned by Warner Bros Pictures

Directed by Gary Ross

I’ve never had much interest in the Ocean’s movies and even though I’m PRETTY sure I saw the first one, the only things I remember is George Clooney on a payphone in the beginning and everyone looking at a fountain at the end.  Needless to say that had they gotten the gang back together for Ocean’s 14, I’d have easily checked out and just went to whatever else was playing that week.  Recasting the entire thing with AMAZING actors in a sort of soft reboot though?  NOW you’ve got my attention!  Don’t always discount reboots, kids!  You’ll find one someday that’s right up your alley!  Does this latest entry in the franchise prove to be a necessary and extraordinary fresh start, or is the title the only thing worth remembering about this movie?  Let’s find out!!

The movie begins with Debbie Ocean (Sandra Bullock), who is the sister of the PRESUMABLY deceased Danny Ocean, getting out of jail on parole and IMMEDIATELY starting up her life of crime once again; scamming stores, sneaking into other people’s hotel rooms, and of course getting ready for her BIG score.  Yes, the one she’s been planning ever since she went inside and is chomping at the bit to get started on.  After all, who wants to ENJOY their freedom when they can just risk it all on a foolhardy heist!?  Speaking of hardy fools, she also reaches out to her old crime buddy Lou (Cate Blanchett) who’s been holding her own but clearly anticipating Debbie’s next big score, and the duo start to lay down the groundwork as well as scope out some new talent who can pull this whole thing off.  So what is the heist you may ask?  There’s this SUPER expensive necklace valued at about one hundred and fifty MILLION dollars that’s sitting in a vault somewhere which is such a shame because it could be going to better use, like enriching a bunch of thieves who are smart enough to figure out how to steal it!  For this to work they’ll first need a patsy to get their hands on the necklace so that they can steal it from HER, and who better to use than one of the most famous actors on Earth, Daphne Kluger (Anne Hathaway)?  To convince Miss Kluger to use the necklace for her ensemble that evening AND THEN to steal it right off of her neck, Debbie and Lou will need a crack team made up of expert jewelery forger Amita (Mindy Kaling), street hustler Constance (Awkwafina), desperate fashion designer Rose Weil (Helena Bonham Carter), MOVIE HACKERTM Nine Ball (Rihanna) and retired fencer Tammy (Sarah Paulson).  Wait, that’s only seven.  Hmm… maybe there’s more to this plan than even WE know!  Can Debbie and her crew pull off this heist without a hitch?  What could Debbie be hiding from the rest of the team, and could the secrecy cost them everything?  Is this yet another awesome and well-made movie for the internet man-babies to cry about because there are too many ladies in it!?  Well I sure hope so!!

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“Hashtag Feminism, BRO!!”

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Super Recaps: Tom Goes to the Mayor (Wrestling)

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

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Tom Goes to the Mayor and all the images you see in this recap are owned Warner Bros and Adult Swim

Created by Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim

We’re back with another episode of Tim & Eric’s Friday Night Lights where the duo enters the high stakes world of school sports!  Sure it’s just a bunch of untalented middle schooler wrestlers they’re trying to manage, but you’ve got to start somewhere!  The episode begins with life imitating art as the local boy’s wrestling Coach is a raving jackass who ALSO happens to be played by the human car alarm known as Gary Busey.  The reason said Coach is shouting at the kids of Jefferton Middle School which includes Tom’s son Brendon (or is it Branden?) is to try and get them ready for the upcoming wrestling tournament against their HATED rivals… actually who are they wrestling against?  Oh it doesn’t matter.  GO JEFFERTON PINNERS!!  Speaking of Tom, what’s he up to right now?  Well it seems that he STILL hasn’t found a job since he quit his CEO position back in White Collarless, so in order to pass the time he’s become the Equipment Boy for the wrestling team which means he’s hosing down jock straps while wearing a thong.  Now NORMALLY this would come off as a little bit strange, but I guess anything goes when Gary Busey is in charge.

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“I didn’t realize Satan lives in pee stains, but then again I didn’t even know about the Illuminati until Coach threw that book at my head!”

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Cinema Dispatch: Upgrade

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

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Upgrade and all the images you see in this review are owned by OTL Releasing and BH Tilt

Directed by Leigh Whannell

Well if it isn’t my good friend Blumhouse Tilt!  How’ve you been, buddy!?  Sure, you’ve released two of the WORST movies I’ve seen in the past few years, but let’s let bygones be bygones; especially now that you’re teaming up with Neon who’ve made one of the BEST movies I’ve seen in the past few years!  Your newest movie is certainly getting a lot of buzz recently with great word of mouth and a kick ass trailer, so maybe there’s some hope for you yet, as long as you don’t work with Eli Roth ever again!  Can Blumhouse’s latest film turn out to be an under the radar smash hit from a studio that’s VERY hit and miss?  Let’s find out!!

The movie follows the sad tale of Grey Trace (Logan Marshall-Green) who’s living his average Cyberpunk protagonist life in a slightly cyberpunk future with his soon to be a cliché wife Asha (Melanie Vellejo) and everything is going about as well as you could expect for the first ten minutes of one of these movies!  Grey fixes up old cars for rich people, Asha works at a cyber prosthetic company, and they couldn’t be happier if they tried!  That is until their automatic car goes haywire, drops them off on the wrong side of the tracks, and they’re immediately assaulted by a few punks who kill her off (wow, what a surprise…) and leave poor Grey for dead!  He somehow manages to survive however, though not without losing the use of his arms and legs, and he’s ready to give up on life when one of his wealthy customers Eron (Harrison Gilbertson) offers him a chance to test a medical miracle called STEM which is basically a small computer they insert into the spine that still hasn’t gone through OFFICIAL testing, but will surely give him back the use of his limbs along with a few other bells and whistles.  After some initial hesitance (Grey isn’t one for all this new-fangled technology stuff), he agrees to do it and sure enough starts walking again almost immediately.  Slight side effect though, there’s an AI inside the chip starts talking to him and STEM (Simon Maiden) seems more than eager to help Grey find the men who killed his wife and bring them to some sort of justice.  Well Grey is certainly up for that, especially since the cop on the case (Betty Gabriel) hasn’t turned up many leads, but they have to be careful because not only does Grey need to keep the rest of the world from knowing he can walk again (he even signs a NDA about the procedure), he also has to keep his activities hidden from Eron who’s more than likely following his every move and wouldn’t be too pleased if his next step in medical science was used to rip people’s hearts out.  Will Grey and STEM find the people who killed his wife and get him that sweet sweet vengeance he so desperately craves?  What other side effects besides hearing voices and kicking extra amounts of ass will Grey have to deal with now that he’s got STEM sharing brain space with him?  I mean, it’s not THAT bad, right?  Who WOULDN’T want your operation system constantly reminding you to install critical updates right into your auditory cortex!?

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“I think we should do like a flying back flip and kick him in the head!”     “I’m sorry Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that.”     “FOR THE LAST TIME!  MY NAME IS GREY!!”

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Cinema Dispatch: Action Point

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

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Action Point and all the images you see in this review are owned by Paramount Pictures

Directed by Tim Kirkby

Johnny Knoxville doesn’t have what you’d call a STERLING FILMOGRAPHY with his most successful films being pseudo-documentary on shoe string budgets, but then again said movies are some serious box office smashes with the four Jackass movies (one through three and the offshoot Bad Grandpa) making  totaling over three hundred and fifty MILLION dollars!  Hell, despite the guy getting pretty much ZERO credit as a legitimate actor, he’s managed to find his way in some seriously high grossing blockbusters including Men in Black 2, the first reboot Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie, and even that crappy Dukes of Hazzard movie which raked in eighty freaking million; not to mention Skiptrace which he did with Jackie Chan that made a boat load in China!  I’ve always had a soft spot for the guy as a legitimate actor which may be due to my fascination with A Dirty Shame as well as the fact that I seem to be the ONLY person on the planet who sincerely likes Daltry Calhoun.  It also helps that I’ve never seen The Ringer which would probably put an indelible stain on my inexplicable appreciation for the guy because even in 2005 that seemed like a really bad call.  So much in fact that aside FROM the Jackass films, this is first film with a wide US release that he’s headlined since then (not gonna count the voice he did in the first TMNT movie) and it seems like even the studio is aware of how untested this guy is when he’s the face of something that requires a script and direction rather than a bunch of nut shots and Tasers because of how little marketing this thing got in the lead up to its release.  Does this manage to be a diamond in the rough that will finally launch Johnny Knoxville’s film career, or is this another failed start that will eventually lead to him making another Bad Grandpa movie that will in all honestly probably net him another hundred million dollars?  Let’s find out!!

Deshawn “DC” Crious (Phillip “Johnny Knoxville” Clapp) is the owner and operator of the absurdly unsafe and therefore absurdly fun amusement park known as Action Point, or at least Mr. DC WAS back in the seventies when things like “safety” and “regulations” were for pansies while breaking your arm was fixed with a fist full of mud and a forty of garbage beer!  It’s not the seventies anymore though as we see DC somehow managed to survive not only that decade but Regan, Y2K, and Bush Jr (SPOILER ALERT!) as he’s telling his granddaughter all about the great times he had running that place and the one summer her mother (Susan Yeagley as an adult and Eleanor Worthington-Cox as a teen) came to stay with him.  Yes, they’ll never forget that summer where they had stiff competition move nearby that was syphoning off most of their attendance while also being supported by local douchebag Mr. Knoblach (Dan Bakkedahl), but that only motivated them to get even MORE wild with the rides and skirt even MORE laws in the process!  Truly an idyllic time of their lives spent with good friends like Uncle Benny (Christ Pontius) and the rag tag group of teenage rascals who helped DC run the place (Bridgette Lundy-Paine, Johnny Pemberton, Conner McViker, Eric Manaka, and a few others who don’t have extensive IMDb credits).  Can DC do enough scheming to save the park from the greedy corporate fat cats?  Will this long protracted battle against common sense and sensible safety protocols get in the way of DC being a good father to Boogie?  Did you know that Johnny Knoxville’s eye almost popped out of his head during the filming of this!?  Seriously, what more does he have to do to prove himself to you people!?

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“ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED!?”     “Eh.  I’ve seen better.”

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Super Comics: Sonic the Hedgehog (IDW) – #5

~ Matt Vetrano ~ 2 Comments

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Sonic the Hedgehog (the comic book series) and all the images you see in this recap are owned by IDW and SEGA of America

We’re back with another issue of Sonic X-Machina, though it’s still unclear how much of a reboot this is rather than a direct continuation of whatever the heck you’d even CALL the Sonic canon at this point.  We’re also on a monthly schedule now instead of getting weekly issues which HOPEFULLY means we’ve burned through all the necessary introduction and are kick this story into high gear; just like our good ol’ pal Sonic!  Will this be all that and a bag of chips, or is this latest entry as underwhelming as my “cool guy” vernacular!?  Let’s find out!!

The issue begins with Sonic and his best friend Espio the Chameleon on some sort of robo-killing adventure!  Yeah!  Espio the Chameleon!  Everyone’s favorite character from the Chaotix Detective Agency that hasn’t been playable in a game since… I don’t know, Sonic Heroes?  Sigh… you know, if this is supposed to entice ANYONE other than die hard Sonic fans approaching thirty, MAYBE you shouldn’t throw in references to games that haven’t been available for a decade BEFORE they were even born because as much as Sega has been tossing their games on every system imaginable, you STILL can’t find digital version of Knuckles’ Chaotix!   Tails Adventure which is a Game Gear game no one has heard of is on the 3DS!  You can get Sonic Drift 2, a sequel to a handheld cart racer that was only released in Japan, yet Sega still won’t sell you the one game staring The Chaotix… and somehow they find their way into this series.  Sure.  I mean, if you only have so much to work with and are PROBABLY under strict orders not to add TOO much interesting lore to the series (like some other person who sued them a decade ago did), then I suppose relying on the D List Sonic characters is a safe bet.

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MAKE WAY FOR THE CHAOTIX, SON!!  That’s… that’s still a thing people say, right?

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