Category: Cinema Dispatch

Cinema Dispatch: Everything Everywhere All at Once

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

Everything Everywhere All at Once and all the images you see in this review are owned by A24

Directed by Dan Kwan & Daniel Scheinert

I heard a lot of good things about this movie going into it, but what really grabbed my attention was finding out that this was directed by The Daniels. Their previous film, Swiss Army Man, was a pretty fantastic little indie film (that I did a pretty poor job reviewing despite giving it a good score) and I’d always wondered what they had been up to since then. You probably don’t need me to tell you if this movie is good given how far-reaching the praise has been for it (and the fact that I’m reviewing it almost a month after its release), but maybe my little voice out there in the universe will ultimately make a difference for someone! Is this as great as everyone says it is, or will I be the bearer of bad news that’s about to rain on everyone’s parade? Let’s find out!!

Evelyn Wang (Michelle Yeoh) is not very happy with her life. She runs a laundromat with her husband Waymond (Ke Huy Quan), her father (James Hong) has health issues and needs to be taken care of, and her daughter Joy (Stephanie Hsu) is bugging her about something when all she wants to do is keep everything from falling into chaos. Throwing a wrench into her plan is the IRS who is auditing her business, and the agent assigned to her case (Jamie Lee Curtis) is not exactly the most amenable to her stressful situation. Sometimes you just have to wonder where things went wrong and if there’s a better version of you out there. Fortunately for Evelyn though, she gets an answer to that question when her husband starts acting very weird and tells her to wear these wireless earpieces that end up sending her to alternate dimensions. It turns out that Evelyn may just be the key to solving some sort of inter-dimensional timey-wimey nonsense and that her husband is being controlled by a parallel version of him from the Alpha-verse that is able to hop dimensions and is searching for a way to stop a terrible threat that is about to shatter all of existence. Sort of a lot to drop on someone already struggling to make it through the day, but when the alternative is talking to someone at the IRS, it’s pretty easy to figure out which is the better option! Evelyn has to find the strength within her and put everything she holds dear on the line in order to save the future (or something like that), but can she juggle the problems of multiple versions of her life when she’s struggling just to deal with the one she’s got? What is this all-powerful threat that Evelyn needs to face, and is Alpha Waymond keeping some very important secrets from her? Can you apply deductions from businesses in an alternate reality, or do you need separate filings for each parallel universe?

“This may be a bit hard to believe.” “Let me guess. You’re from the planet Mars and the stream deck you tried to write off was for parts to rebuild your spaceship?” “I mean, you’re not TOO far off.”
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Cinema Dispatch: Death on the Nile

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

Death on the Nile and all the images you see in this review are owned by 20th Century Studios

Directed by Kenneth Branagh

Hey, remember when Murder on the Orient Express came out and then the world ended before the sequel come hit theaters? It feels like this thing was pushed back at least half a dozen times before it finally hit theaters, and sure enough, I ended up missing it when it did; catching it on one of the various streaming services it was added to in the last few weeks. I made time for Uncharted and Batman, but I couldn’t make time for this!? Blasphemy, I say! Was I wrong to miss out on this classy and colorful adaptation of the Agatha Christie novel when I had the chance to see it on the big screen, or did I manage to save myself from crushing disappointment and overpriced popcorn? Let’s find out!!

Hercule Poirot (Kenneth Branagh) is the world’s greatest living detective and owner of one of the best mustaches the world has ever seen! Still, even with so much success behind him, he is not without his troubles, his worries, and his fatigue which prompts him to take a trip to Egypt. Little does he know however that, just like Jessica Fletcher, murder and mischief follow him wherever he goes and he winds up meeting his old friend Bouc (Tom Bateman) who drags him to a wedding party full of colorful characters and juicy intrigue. The wedding is for Linnet Ridgeway and Simon Doyle (Gal Gadot and Armie Hammer); the former a socialite heiress to a vast fortune and the latter a hunky dude she stole from her best friend Jackie (Emma Mackey). The rest of the wedding party is certainly putting on a show of happiness for the new couple, but each one has an ax to grind as is standard for this kind of story with Jackie herself making an appearance once in a while to really ratchet up the heat. Someone is going to die during this destination wedding, and with Poirot around, there is a good chance that justice will be served! Who at this wedding party will play the part of the victim in this tragedy, and what will be the motive behind that killing!? Will Poirot be able to suss out the murderer before they get desperate and cover their tracks with even more bloodshed!? Seriously, dude. How do you keep that mustache so perfect; ESPECIALLY in this humidity!?

“Bedrest, tweezers, and industrial-strength adhesive!”
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Cinema Dispatch: Deep Water

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

Deep Water and all the images you see in this review are owned by Hulu

Directed by Adrian Lyne

Movies may be returning to theaters, but the Pandemic has irrevocably muddied the waters between theatrical movies and straight to streaming. Pixar’s splitting the difference with one of their movies going to streaming while other is a theatrical exclusive, and all the major streaming services are sacrificing box office bucks in the hopes of roping in a few more views; Netflix being the most blatant as far as I’m concerned what with Knives Out 2 going straight to their service. It’s certainly been good for me as I’m already paying for these things so I might as well check out what’s on them, and one movie caught my eye this week. It’s a movie I never heard of until a few days before it was to come out, and yet it’s starring the former Batman and Agent Paloma from the last James Bond movie! How did something with such high-profile actors fly under my radar like this? Was Hulu hoping we won’t notice it as they sandwich it between Seth Macfarlane cartoons and whatever the heck Letter Kenny is, or is this just further evidence that I am out of touch and just barely managed to catch a great movie before it sailed right over my head? Let’s find out!!

Vic Van Allen and Melinda Van Allen (Ben Affleck Ana de Armas) are an upper-class married couple who have an… interesting relationship. It’s unclear how much of this is formalized or agreed upon, but it’s clear that Melinda is having sex with other men and that Vic is aware of it. For the most part, he just stands there and plasters a smile on his face while she does her thing, but it’s clear that this is eating him up inside and he starts getting more and more aggressive in his “handling” of this situation. Melinda seemingly has no compunction about this and presumably doesn’t care much for Vic’s feelings, but then Vic is no peach either and his need for control only gets more desperate and more uncomfortable. Just how far will Vic go to hold tight on what he believes is rightfully his, and how will Melinda react to these cages he wishes to put up? Is there something underneath all this contempt that they have for each other, and is it somehow darker than the animosity with which they deal with their problems already? See, back in my day they would just go on Springer and get it all out in the open, but nope! Just gonna bottle it up until someone writes a really inappropriate rant on Facebook!

“She’s so *#!@% that ^&^@#$!”     “Well, HE can’t even %$%#*!”     “JERRY! JERRY! JERRY!”
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Cinema Dispatch: Turning Red

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

Turning Red and all the images you see in this review are owned by Pixar

Directed by Domee Shi

Pixar really hasn’t made anything that I thought was spectacular since Coco, which is a shame because it’s no secret that they’ve been the go-to studio for high-quality family entertainment. To see the studio focus more and more on sequels while their original work feels less inspired each year is just another reason why the world really did just come to an end in the last few years. That’s not even getting into the cowardice of Disney itself in the last few weeks, so there was certainly a lot of pessimism from me going into this one. With so much up against it, does this latest outing from Pixar manage to turn things around and make me appreciate them once more, or will I have to look to the Spider-Verse sequel if I want to see a great animated family film this year? Let’s find out!

Our story begins with Meilin “Mei” Lee (Rosalie Chiang) who has recently turned thirteen and is living her best life in the heart of Toronto in 2002. She gets good grades at school, she has three great friends named Miriam, Priya, and Abby (Ava Morse, Maitreyi Ramakrishnan, and Hyein Park), and she has a fantastic relationship with her mother (Sandra Oh)! They work together at their temple, they watch Chinese dramas on TV, and it seems like nothing can possibly tear them apart! That is until puberty hits and with it comes an ancient family gift/curse which turns the women of their family in red pandas whenever they feel excessive emotions. Naturally being a giant furry creature is not conducive to Mei’s life goals and so she needs to keep it under wraps while her family puts together a ritual to rid her of the panda once and for all! Sounds simple enough, but the teenage years being what they are mean that life gets in the way pretty quickly; especially when Mei and her friends’ favorite boy band 4 Town are coming to town before the ritual can take place. This newfound power as well as the other changes happening to her have given Mei a new sense of independence which may help her and her friends get to the concert but is putting a serious strain on her relationship to her mother. Can Mei thread the needle between a goody-two-shoes overachiever and a rambunctious bad-girl without losing sight of what’s really important? How has her own mother’s experience with this gift/curse affected her, and is it only growing the divide between her and her daughter? If Mei’s mother is worried now, wait until she finds out what the internet is!

“Our gender-swapped Mario cosplay is off the hook!!”    “WAAA!”
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Cinema Dispatch: Top 10 Best Movies of 2021

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

2021 may not have been as sparse as 2020 as far as releases, but it was still a rough year to get out to the theater and so I didn’t as many movies as I had hoped; hence why I did a few pieces trying to catch up on a few things that I missed. If I didn’t get a chance to review it, I didn’t put it on this list so keep that in mind as we go through the best films that I saw last year! Let’s get started!!

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Honorable Mentions: Spiral & Snake Eyes

Spiral Review; Snake Eyes Review

I like to give the unofficial eleventh spot to something that may not have been a great film but clicked with me in some strange way and held my interest throughout the year. For 2021, it was two movies that managed to do something new with existing franchises that I had written off a long time ago; GI Joe being a series I’ve never been a fan of and Saw having run itself into the ground a decade ago. Both films are significantly flawed in some fundamental areas with Snake Eyes having some terribly shot action and Spiral losing a lot of tension whenever Chris Rock starts in on his shtick, but I’m genuinely impressed at how both brought their respective franchises back from the dead by getting to the heart of what makes them work in the first place. Saw as a police procedural feels more in tune with the strengths of the series than any of the Bigger is Better sequels, and Snake Eyes focusing on a handful of key players instead of throwing the entire GI Joe/Cobra war at us from the outset allows us to actually develop these characters and make us care about their struggles and motivations. In a year that gave us hollow and cynical nostalgia bait like Space Jam: A New Legacy and Ghostbusters; Afterlife, it was refreshing to see movies take a sincere and stripped-down approach to build us towards something new instead of rehashing the same old nonsense as blatantly and obnoxiously as possible.

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Cinema Dispatch: Top 7 films of 2021 That Need Improvement

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

Another year has come and gone, and as always we must take one look back before we move on to whatever comes next. Well, at least that’s usually how it goes, but 2022 started off pretty hectic for me so it took me a while to find time and collect my thoughts on the year prior. As usual, we start with the films that I thought needed improvement before getting to the good list, and hopefully, this can stay constructive instead of vitriolic. That proved to be rather challenging with some of these movies, as there were some rough ones this year, but enough beating around the bush! Let’s get started!!

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Marvel’s Underwhelming Theatrical Releases – Black Widow & Eternals

Black Widow Review; Eternals Review

Avengers Endgame was the culmination of a decade’s worth of storylines, and whether or not it was truly the peak of the MCU, it definitely feels like all the movies since then have been listless and without direction. Black Widow, in particular, felt like a holdover from the era of Iron Man 2 and while Eternals definitely has some decent imagination and skill behind it, the story never quite connected with me and it felt just as aimless as everything else we’ve gotten from the MCU this year. Now obviously the formula has proven far too successful to make any significant changes (certainly not with Spider-Man making as much money as it did), but considering how great the TV shows have been on Disney Plus compared to the films, it might be worth considering that the MCU is no longer suited for big scale and even bigger budget action films; at least not until they establish who the new crop of heroes will be and what the new threat is. There are some films on the horizon that are at least intriguing like that new Doctor Strange movie and the reboot of Blade, but the Post-Endgame growing pains have been rather frustrating to sit through.

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Cinema Dispatch: Moonfall

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

Moonfall and all the images you see in this review are owned by Lionsgate

Directed by Roland Emmerich

Roland Emmerich and I don’t always see eye to eye, but sometimes he can put together a decent enough spectacle to remind us of why he became such a big name in blockbuster cinema. Heck, I’m probably one of the few critics that thought Independence Day: Resurgence was pretty decent, so it shouldn’t take too much for me to give his latest movie a thumbs up; especially with such a brilliantly simple premise! The moon crashing into the Earth? It practically writes itself! Does Emmerich pull it off once again with this rather tenuous adaptation of Majora’s Mask, or will we be hoping for the moon to actually crash into us by the time this movie is over? Let’s find out!!

All the way back in the year 2011, a crew of astronauts was attacked by a mysterious space anomaly that led to one astronaut dying and the other two having to make a daring crash landing back on Earth. They manage to survive the incident, but one of them, Brian Harper (Patrick Wilson) ends up taking the fall for it as he insists that there was something out there that caused it and that it wasn’t just solar flares or orbital wobble. Fast forward ten years and the other astronaut, Jocinda Fowler (Halle Berry), managed to make her way to Deputy Director of NASA while Brian has snuggled into the role of a disgraced booze-hound who will surely be quick to sober as soon as everyone realizes he was right all along. Sure enough, the moon starts to fall out of orbit and it looks like this anomaly is responsible for it; not that NASA wants to admit it, but a conspiracy theorist KC Houseman (John Bradley) manages to get the word out and the world starts to panic over the fact that they’re about to find themselves between a literal rock and a hard place. With little time to put a plan together and even less time to pull it off, Jocinda calls in Brian who drags along KC to try and save the world from utter destruction. Oh, and other people are doing stuff here and there, mostly involving the families of our main characters, but they’re mostly on hand to look at all the stuff getting destroyed. Can our unlikely trio of scientists and pseudo-scientists fix the moon before it turns the Earth into a giant space donut? What is the nature of this anomaly that Brian saw, and are there forces working behind the scenes to stop our heroes from discovering the truth? I don’t know, if we can’t figure out how to stop Global Warming, what are the chances we can stop the moon from headbutting us?

“All that recycling and it turns out the moon was gonna kill us all along.” “I blame social media.”
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Cinema Dispatch: Jackass Forever

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

Jackass Forever and all the images you see in this review are owned by Paramount Pictures

Directed by Jeff Tremaine

This was yet another movie pushed WAY back due to the Pandemic, but honestly the kind of thing I want at this point.  Even if things are far from over, we’ve been on a hellacious journey the last two years and a nice little nostalgic throwback like this can certainly lift my spirits; assuming of course they manage to pull it off.  All the Jackass movies have worked so far, but can the formula work even when the gang is within spitting range of collecting social security checks?  Let’s find out!

The dudes who you know and love from the previous film are back once again to do ridiculous stunts and terrifying endurance tests for your amusement.  That’s about all there is to it, and that’s about all there’s ever been to this premise.  Film a bunch of stuff, put it in a decent order, and save something big for the very end.  Despite such a simple formula, is it something that they can pull off for the fourth time?  What new wacky ideas did they come up with in the ten years since the last film?  Will any of them live through this to see Jackass 5, or is this as far as we should push it?

“I’m Jonny Knoxville, and welcome to… Zzz”     “Johnny?  JOHNNY!”     “JACKASS!  What?  What happened?”
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Cinema Dispatch: Pig

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

Pig and all the images you see in this review are owned by Neon

Directed by Michael Sarnoski

There are so many movies from 2021 that I’m disappointed I didn’t get around to with this being one of the more glaring omissions. Nicolas Cage has been my favorite actor for quite a long time, but the last few years have really seen a resurgence for the guy as he’s dominated the mid-range and indie scene with a series of really interesting and creative movies. Not all of them have worked of course (Willy’s Wonderland felt like a novelty taken too far) but they always find a way to be interesting, and the idea of Nicolas Cage going after the people who stole his pig is the kind of premise you just can’t pass up on! Will Nicolas Cage strike gold once again with a quest to find his very cute pig, or is this yet another mess that even Cage’s unbeatable charisma and acting chops can’t salvage? Let’s find out!!

A man named Rob (Nicolas Cage) lives alone in a small cabin in a forest in Oregon. He has no electricity, no phone, and interacts with as few people as possible; just the way he wants it. His only is his pig who provides a modicum of companionship and also sniffs out truffles which Cage trades for basic supplies via a bratty rich kid named Amir (Alex Wolff) who doesn’t understand this mountain man’s ways but is more than happy to take those truffles off his hands. Everything seems to be going fine for Rob until his house is invaded and he’s bashed over the head while they steal his pig away. With the last thing he cares about in this world taken from him, Rob has to return to society (specifically Portland) with the help of Amir to track down the people who took it. Throughout this journey, Amir learns more about this strange man in the woods and the life he ran away from all those years ago, and perhaps there’s more to this pig theft than simply finding truffles. Will Rob and Amir track down the pig-nappers before the trail goes cold? What is waiting for Rob in Portland once he gets back there, and will he have to confront his past before he can hope to see his little buddy again?  If you had a pig that adorable, wouldn’t you go to the ends of the Earth to get it back?

“It’s just you and me, Pig. You, me, and this magnificent hair.” *Snort-Snort* “Of course it’s real! Why would you even ask that!?”
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Cinema Dispatch: 2021 Catch Up (Part 2)

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

January is still proving to be a rough month across the board, so we’re gonna continue our look back 2021 with a few more movies that I missed!  Will some of them be contenders for the end of the year lists I’ll be putting together very soon?  Let’s find out!!

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Being the Ricardos

Being the Ricardos is owned by Amazon Studios

Directed by Aaron Sorkin

Lucille Ball (Nicole Kidman) and Desi Arnaz (Javier Bardem) are about to have a rough week making their show I Love Lucy when a local news station accuses Lucille of having ties to the Communist Party.  Couple that with tabloids about Desi’s behavior, fights with the network over content, and a director that really gets under Lucille’s skin, and there may not be a show to put on by the time it goes to air!  Can Lucy and Desi smooth through all of these problems without alienating the people who help them make the show, and is there more at stake than their careers if things go badly?

Aaron Sorkin has always been fascinated with the inner workings of organizations that carry a lot of public weight; places where hiding the turmoil behind the scenes is just as important as anything else they are doing.  It seems almost natural that he’d turn that fascination even more inward with a movie about the field he’s most familiar with, television productions, and while there are some Sorkin-esque flaws in this movie, I think the material has steered him into making one of his best works.  Lucy and Desi, at least as they are portrayed in this movie, are fascinating characters with deeply compelling inner lives, and the movie makes no bones about singing their praises throughout.  Whenever they clash with the network over their creative vision for the show, it’s played with reverence as these victories did end up revolutionizing television and American culture, and Sorkin definitely uses this story to indulge in his favorite topics.  Strong men and women with sharp tongues and even sharper wits sticking it to the old guard to make way for the next generation is well-worn territory for him, but the fact that he’s drawing from real things that other people did tempers that enthusiasm and so it comes off as genuinely important rather than mere wish fulfillment.  Now that’s not to say he doesn’t exaggerate in places as the film does lack a certain sense of authenticity.  Clothing, technology, and even a lot of the attitudes do fit in with the time period, but it never quite feels like a period piece with Sorkin’s dialogue being what it is, and the overall look and feel of the show just feels too modern.  I don’t know if there are HD transfers of I Love Lucy, but I’m guessing they don’t look this crisp and they certainly weren’t shot in widescreen.  Still, even if it’s a bit showy in places where it probably wasn’t in the real-life story, Sorkin’s overly enthusiastic style fits with themes of the movie and his specific brand of dialogue creates a clear delineation between the deep and flawed people who make the show and the more modest caricatures they bring to life in front of cameras.  This is where the movie shines brightest, where these two people are darn near Herculean in their ability to solve problems, fight for what’s important, and smooth talk their way to getting what they want, but at the end of the day, when the cameras stop rolling and the lights turn out, they are still flawed people barreling towards an ending they are too scared to face.  Desi is madly in love with Lucille and Lucille is just as passionate about him, but Desi also can’t help but hurt her in ways that she cannot ignore.  This tension between the genuine love they feel and their uncontrollable selfishness (admittedly much more so with Desi than Lucille) is where the tragedy of this story ultimately lies and where the story is at its strongest.  This ends up being a double-edged sword however as the movie feels the need to be about more than just that and so it feels a bit scattershot and overstuffed with subplots and characters that don’t have the impact you would expect them to given the prominence of certain scenes.  The big red elephant in the room is the Communist allegations which are what kicks off the movie and you assume it’s what the whole thing is going to be about, but that ends up fading into the background as the network stuff and the relationship between Lucy and Desi end up pushing it to the background. It ends up being relevant only to the start and the end of the movie which is a bit of a shame as the fervor surrounding communism in the mid-twentieth century is certainly a frightening chapter in television history, but it at least ends on a very strong note and sets us up for a pretty big gut punch right at the end of the movie.  It’s certainly a flawed movie throughout, but it’s entertaining from the first frame to the final curtain call, and frankly, something that walks with confidence is more interesting to me than something safe; even if the former trips over itself a few times along the way.

4 out of 5
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