Cinema Dispatch: Shut In

~ Matt Vetrano ~ 1 Comment

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Shut In and all the images you see in this review are owned by EuropaCorp

Directed by Farren Blackburn

So when did this movie get announced, because I didn’t know anything about it until I looked up the new releases for this week.  It’s not like Naomi Watts is an unknown actor, and horror movies are big business right now, so the fact that I didn’t even see a trailer for this at any of the horror films I saw this year is not a great sign of what’s to come.  Still, it’s not like movies that get a whole bunch of press are guaranteed to do any better, and a lot of great horror films don’t even get a theatrical release, so maybe they just didn’t know how to sell something like this.  Does this film deliver yet another fantastic horror experience in a year that has already had so many, or will this just get lost in the shuffle?  Let’s find out!!

The movie follows the Portman Family who at one point consisted of three able bodied and happy members, but after a car accident has been reduced to the mother Mary (Naomi Watts) and her son Steven (Charlie Heaton), the latter of whom has suffered severe brain damage and is pretty much unable to move or communicate.  After six months of this routine where she cares for her son and then goes to work as a childhood psychologist, things start to change when one of her patients Tom (Jacob Tremblay) is being moved to Boston so that he can get more specialized care.  The night after Mary finds this out however, Tom shows up at her doorstep… well technical he smashes the window to her car and crawls inside, and while Mary is trying to figure out what to do next, the boy disappears into the night.  So not only is she dealing with her son who is in need of constant care, she now has a possible dead boy on her conscious (they’re up in Maine so it’s snowing all the freaking time) and starts to hear things go bump in the night along with a series of night terrors that are making it hard for her to distinguish between fantasy and reality.  Are the things that Mary is hearing at night real and a possible threat to her and Steven?  Will Tom be found at some point, or is he really just a kid-cicle waiting to be uncovered once Spring rolls around?  Wait, didn’t I see this movie like a year ago!?

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“I wonder what The Babadook would be like if it didn’t have The Babadook in it.  Steven, get the camera.  Oh right… I’ll just get it.”

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Cinema Dispatch: Trolls

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

Directed by Mike Mitchell and Walt Dohrn

Ugh… I seriously do not care about trolls; either in general or the ones created by Thomas Dom which this new movie is supposed to be based on.  We already have two Smurf movies and another one on the way!  WE DON’T NEED A KNOCKOFF!!  Okay, I need to calm down.  Just because it’s a DreamWorks animated film based on a property I do not care about, doesn’t mean it’s going to be BAD.  Shrek was based on a book, and I liked that movie!  Okay… that was like fifteen years ago, but maybe they can pull off that same magic here as well!  Does this manage to be a fun adventure in a colorful world, or is this one hell of a bad trip?  Let’ find out!!

The movie begins with a whole backstory for the Trolls and the Bergens.  You see, boys and girls, Trolls are full of sunshine and happiness and like to sing, dance, and hug all the time.  Bergens on the other hand are grumpy and miserable like all of us in the REAL world, and apparently the only time they feel any semblance of happiness is whenever they’re eating Trolls.  I guess all that ecstasy the Trolls have to be taking in order to keep up their parties makes their flesh chock full of endorphins or something.  For the longest time, the Trolls lived in a tree right in the middle of the Bergin kingdom (seems like a bad idea if you ask me), but they escape with due to the valiant effort of their king (Jeffrey Tambor) and the ones the Bergens end up scapegoating for this is their Royal Chef (Christine Baranski) who is banished form the kingdom.  Twenty years later, the princess Poppy (Anna Kendrick) is set to become the queen of their new home, and she puts on the biggest party EVAR despite the protestations of the grumpy survivalist Troll, Branch (Justin Timberlake).  Sure enough, the revelry is enough to get the attention of the Chef, who’s been looking for the Trolls for the last twenty years, and she’s finally able to snatch a few of them to bring back to the Bergens and get back into the graces of their current leader, Prince Gristle Jr (Christopher Mintz-Plasse).  Poppy sends all the remaining Trolls to Branch’s doomsday bunker to stay safe, and Branch begrudgingly goes along with her to rescue her kidnapped subjects so that he can clear them out of his home as soon as possible.  You know!  Like that OTHER DreamWorks character who’s a lonely curmudgeon in a fantasy world!  Will Poppy and Branch find their friends before they’re boiled alive, chopped to pieces, or stuffed in a pie?  Just what does the Chef have planned once she gets back in the Bergens’ good graces?  Seriously, do these Trolls do ANYTHING other than party!?

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“PLAY SOME GOD DAMN MUSIC, CUZ I’M ON SOME SERIOUS SHIT RIGHT NOW!!”

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Cinema Dispatch: Doctor Strange

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Doctor Strange and all the images you see in this review are owned by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

Directed by Scott Derrickson

So on the one hand, I don’t’ really have any love for Doctor Strange as a character, and I’m still a bit salty that they didn’t cast Hugh Laurie in the role which I have been fan casting since the film first got announced all the way back in what, the beginning of phase two?   On the other hand I’ve been a fan of C Robert Cargill as a film critic all the way back in the good ol’ days of Spill, so there is a part of me that wants this to succeed just because I like that ONE GUY.  Then again it’s a Marvel movie, so it’s going to succeed anyway.  LOOK!  It’s complicated, alright!?  I don’t put myself is some sort of cryogenic fridge between movies so my “precious objectivity” is working at peak efficiency!  Actually, I should probably look into that and see if I can skip most of the next four years…  ANYWAY!  Does Doctor Strange deliver on all the weird fun that the trailers are promising, or is this another cookie cutter entry in the ever expanding Marvel canon?  Let’s find out!!

The movie follows Stephen Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) who is a world renounce Neurosurgeon with an ego the size of Hulk’s biceps and ends up smashing the hell out of his car while texting.  Fortunately, the only part of his body that was harmed was his hands, but unfortunately he can’t be neurosurgeon if he can’t even pick up a pencil.  Now instead of starting a diagnostics department and act super snarky to his subordinates, he instead blows his fortune trying to get his hands fixed to no avail while also pushing away his only real friend Christine (Rachel McAdams) due to his increasingly bitter outlook on life.  His last resort is this temple in Kathmandu Nepal which healed someone else with even worse debilitating injuries and finds someone to take pity on him in the form of Mordo (Chiwetel Ejiofor) who takes him to see THE ANCIENT ONE (Tilda Swinton).  She blows the puny human’s mind away with what can only be described as a drug trip, but I think the implication is that she just gave him a small taste of what the universe has to offer, and she begrudgingly takes him on as a disciple despite his arrogance and penchant for being whiney.  Of course, there might be ANOTHER reason why she wants at least one more meat shield training at their monastery.  You see, the LAST prized pupil of The Ancient One was some jerk named Kaecilius (Mads Mikkelsen) who’s now trying to do some bad stuff and will probably be coming for her bald ass soon enough, so the more bodies on hand to absorb energy blasts, the better.  Will Stephen Strange find what he is looking for in the teachings of the ancient one?  What is Kaecilius after and why is he so pissed about everything?  Seriously, what the hell were they smoking when they were making this?

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“Far out, bro!”     “We REALLY need to keep moving.  THEY’RE SHOOTING MAGIC BEAMS AT US!”

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The NekoCon Diaries 2016: Fan Panel Recap

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So when you’re like me and don’t know what to do with yourself other than look at overpriced figures at the Vendor’s Hall, it’s good to have a schedule to provide some structure to your con going experience; hence why I attended so many panels this year.  Well, that and I knew I was going to recap them for the website; and that’s a win-win in my book!  Today, we’ll be focusing on the fan panels which are hosted by individuals attending the convention rather than the invited guests or representatives of some company looking to market directly to their fans.  Do these manage to have an authenticity and love of their respective fandoms that you wouldn’t find in more professional presentations?  Let’s find out!!

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90s Animation Revisited: Rejoin Your Childhood Friends

Hosted by Peggy Miller

This was the first panel I went to at the convention, and right off the bat it put me in a sour mood.  This was nothing more than nostalgia baiting with nothing even resembling insight or depth into what made these cartoons so memorable (or in certain cases, infamous).  Rattle off the name of a series, show the opening, ask the audience what year it came out, and repeat nineteen more times.  Hell, they couldn’t even stick to the decade as several of these started in the late eighties but remained popular throughout the nineties.  Fair enough I guess, but what about showing Power Rangers which was NOT an animated show?  I’ll let you all know right now that my biggest problem with most of the fan panels this year is that they’re sometimes a mile wide but always an inch deep.  This one did manage to have a breadth of content by name checking twenty different shows in an hour, but so what?  No mention of Klasky Csupo shows, no mention of how Mighty Mouse: the New Adventures from 1987 was the jumping off point for many prominent animators in the following decade, no mention of Disney Television Animation who made half the shows name checked here, and most egregiously (at least in my opinion), they couldn’t even be bothered to tell us all that the creator of Doug was born less than a hundred miles away from where we were sitting.  That’s a VERY easy factoid to just throw out there to the audience and I’m sure several people would have gotten a real kick out of it.  The only thing you’d get out of this is what you already would be bringing into it, and I just don’t think that’s much of a panel.

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The NekoCon Diaries 2016: NekoCon Harder

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Another year has passed which means it’s time for Doctor Scientist and I (along with Doctor Scientist’s girlfriend this time) to head back to Hampton VA and attend NekoCon 2016!  And yes, if we do this again next year, than it will be called NekoCon with a Vengeance.  With my schedule the way it is (work, website, sleep, repeat until death) I’m not one to get out much for anything other than seeing movie and making poor choices about my diet, so I really have been looking forward to going back to this convention since I got back from it last year.  So how was it?  Well considering that this is only my second convention ever, let’s just say that it’s still a work in progress for me to get the most out of my experience.  I’m not a typically social person in the first place, so being surrounded by THAT many people is nerve racking to a certain degree which kinda limited how much fun I was having at the time; rather I was focusing a lot on having a full schedule so I would have lots to talk about here.  I do have a notebook full of notes and a mountain full of things I bought, so there’s no doubt I got something out of it, but the in-between moments where I had an hour or two before the next event, I was struggling to do anything other than walk around the Vendor’s Hall decidedly not buying anything and not really talking to people either.  Oh well.  Live and learn I guess.  I DID get more pictures this year than last, so that’s something at least!

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Cinema Dispatch: Inferno

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

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Inferno and all the images you see in this review are owned by Columbia Pictures

Directed by Ron Howard

Oh hey!  I guess this is the reason Tom Hanks has been around so much recently!  His recent Saturday Night Live appearance was absolutely fantastic and honestly just what we needed during this very stressful time of the year.  Now I thought The Da Vinci Code was a decent enough film, and while I haven’t seen the sequel Angels and Demons, it’s mostly due to laziness rather than a real lack of desire to see the further adventures of Robert Langdon; especially considering that Ron Howard is still helming these things.  Can they manage to make decent thriller out of yet another Dan Brown novel, or has this series already grown stale? Let’s find out!!

The movie begins with good ol’ Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) waking up in a hospital in Florence with a bleeding skull and no memory of how he ended up there or what the hell he’s doing in Italy in the first place.  He doesn’t have much time to figure out what happened though as within minutes of him waking up, he’s attacked by a rouge police officer and only manages to escape with the help of the on duty nurse Sienna Brooks (Felicity Jones).  It doesn’t take long after looking through his personal affects that he’s trying to solve some mystery left by Bertrand Zobrist (Ben Foster) who’s some asshole tech billionaire (oxymoron, I know) who’s SO concerned about overpopulation that he creates this super virus that will kill half the Earth’s population and will be release on the world in twenty four hours and FOR SOME REASON left a series of clues to find the damn thing so that Langdon can Sienna can stop him.  Of course, the reason why they have to follow the clues instead of getting Jack Bauer to beat the location out of him is because dumbass jumped off a tower and went splat after being chased by World Health Organization agent Christopher Bouchard (Omar Sy) who was trying to stop him.  Of course, the World Health Organization is ALSO after Langdon for some reason that probably has to do with that block of time that he cannot remember.  So not only does he have to run from renegade cops, but also from the WHO that I guess will only slow him down on his quest to find where the virus is and how it will be released upon mankind.  Can Robert solve this mystery despite recently suffering a head injury, and are the answers locked up in his slowly recovering mind?  Will the World Health Organization get its shit together long enough to be of some ACTUAL use in this situation rather than getting in Langdon’s way?  What is it with rich assholes thinking they can kill their way to a better world!?

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“Look!  Zobrist added words to this picture! It must mean something!”     …     “No wait.  It’s just some terrible poetry about the darkness of mankind and shit.”

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Cinema Dispatch: Jack Reacher: Never Go Back

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

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Jack Reacher: Never Go Back and all the images you see in this review are owned by Paramount Pictures

Directed by Edward Zwick

Everyone liked the first movie, right?  It had depth, a decent mystery to solve, some solid action scenes, and Tom Cruise was charming as all hell!  Sure, he was the embodiment of the masculine ideal which comes with a certain amount of baggage (just ask James Bond) , but that film brought a lot to the table where so many others would just coast on its star power and wouldn’t even worry about telling a decent story.  Now it’s time for them to pump out a sequel, and of course they couldn’t get the same writer/director to return this time (instead he’s just a producer) leaving it up to the director of The Last Samurai and Tom Cruise’s raw charisma to pick up the slack.  Can they catch lightening in a bottle twice for this franchise, or are we domed to exponentially worse films until Tom Cruise gets tired of this series?  Let’s find out!!

The movie begins with Jack Reacher (Tom Cruise) heading toward Washington DC to meet up with a friend of his who’s his only real connection to his past life in the military, but when he arrives he finds out that Major Susan Turner (Cobie Smulders) has been arrested for her e-mails or something (ha ha).  Of course, Jack Reacher finds out pretty much immediately that this is all a setup but gets arrested by the military for killing Turner’s lawyer which he obviously didn’t do.  I don’t know why the bad guys felt it necessary to do this, especially because he’s getting processed at the Military Prison at the same time the bad guys are sending hired goons to kill Major Turner in this co-ed prison.  Jack Reacher kicks everyone’s ass, the two of them escape, and now they have to find out who it is that set the both of them up.  Of course, it’s not quite that easy.  You see, it turns out that in ALL this time that Jack’s been contacting Major Turner over the phone, she failed to mention that he’s had a paternity suit pending for the last fifteen years which means he might have a kid out there who probably hates his guts right now.  The kid in question is Samantha Dayton (Danik Yarosh) and sure enough the bad guys know about her and start targeting her to get to Jack which means he has to drag her along until this mystery is solved.  Can Jack and Turner figure out who’s responsible for their incarceration and what they’re so desperate to cover up?  Is Jack really the father of this surly teenager who’s not in the mood to deal with any of this bullshit?  Seriously, there’s like twenty of these Jack Reacher books.  Was this the best story they could get out of them!?

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Oh HELL no!  You’re not getting out of this one so easily!

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Cinema Dispatch: Keeping Up with the Joneses

~ Matt Vetrano ~ 3 Comments

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Keeping Up with the Joneses and all the images you see in this review are owned by 20th Century Fox

Directed by Greg Mottola

Are you SURE I didn’t see this last month?  I’m just getting the weirdest sense of déjà vu right now…  Well either way, we’re stuck with another Zach Galifianakis comedy to throw on the pile, and the Unique Selling Point here is that it’s a spy movie.  Sigh… Really?  We just got a dumb criminal movie; now we’ve got him dicking around in the most overplayed genre of the year!?  Well, who knows?  Central Intelligence managed to be good despite its rather weak spy angle, and while Masterminds had a pretty strong cast as well, THIS one has sexiest man alive who’s named after food, Jon Hamm, as it’s costar!  Maybe this could end up being really good!  Right?  Let’s find out!!

The movie follows the Typical American Suburban CoupleTM  made up of Jeff Gaffney (Zach Galifianakis) and Karen Gaffney (Isla Fisher) who are living out what some dumbass Hollywood executives must believe are the normal lives of middle class white people.  Jeff works at some defense company as the Human Resources manager which means he basically wastes people’s time and lets them use his computer for personal stuff.  Basically he’s a doormat that’s merely tolerated by his peers, but he’s perfectly happy to live this life of quiet desperation for some reason and will probably be behind his crappy little desk until the day he keels over and dies.  Those plans start to change though as the cul-de-sac gets new neighbors in the form of Tim Jones (Jon Hamm) and Natalie Jones (Gal Gadot) who are pretty bad at their jobs as they are OBVIOUSLY spies.  In fact, they are so unsubtle about this that Karen picks up on it immediately and it doesn’t take long for her suspicious to be confirmed.  By the time this happens though, both she and Jeff have already been dragged into some sort national security operation to prevent some sort of black market sale that was happening right under Jeff’s nose as SOMEONE who’s been using his computer was setting it all up from there!  Now the two couples have to work together to save the world or something, and I’m SURE Jeff and Karen are gonna pull their weight in this situation and not be total albatrosses hanging around the necks of these two professional spies who ACTUALLY know what the hell they’re doing.  Who is the person setting up the sale that will threaten national security, and why did they have to be a dick about it by using Jeff’s computer?  The Joneses may seem like the perfect power couple, but are there issues that they aren’t addressing?  Was anyone looking forward to this?  Like… at all?

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“I’m think you’re gonna need this, bro.”     “Why do you think that?”     “Pass it over here.  I was in The Town god damn it…”

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Super Recaps: My Little Pony season 6 (To Where and Back Again) Season Six Finale!!

~ Matt Vetrano ~ 3 Comments

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic and all the images you see in this recap are owned by Hasbro.

Episode directed by Denny Lu and Tim Stuby

We’re back for the last time this year as we’ve reached the end of My Little Pony’s sixth season!  It’s not always the best show out there as episodes like The Cart Before the Ponies or 28 Pranks Later have clearly proven, but it’s always deflating to get to the end of a season knowing that it’ll be quite some time before they pick things back up again; especially considering they just released the latest Equestria Girls movie instead of waiting a bit and using it to tide us over between now and season seven.  WHAT DO I HAVE LEFT!?  Oh wait, they’re still making the comics.  That should work!  Anyway, does this episode cap off the sixth season on a high note and leave us wanting more, or will we begging for it to be over as soon as possible?  Let’s find out!!

The episode begins at Twilight’s Doom Fortress where the three primary residents, Twilight, Starlight, and the slave boy, are moving books into the basement because there’s not enough room left upstairs.  Wait, does her castle actually double as a library or is this her personal hoard?  I mean, it’s not like the small town of Ponyville was swimming in libraries BEFORE Tirek torched Golden Oaks to the ground, so you’d think Twilight AT LEAST owes that much to the city.  Oh I’m sorry, were Twilight and Starlight talking about friendship or something?  I wasn’t payment that much attention and neither was Spike for that matter who wanders off from the conversation to look out the window.  A wise move considering there’s something heading right for them at terminal velocity.

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“DON’T YOU DARE SMASH INTO THOSE BOOKS!”     “Oh I’m smashing those books!”     “DAMN IT!”

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