Cinema Dispatch: Fantastic Four

~ Matt Vetrano ~ 9 Comments

‘The Fantastic Four’ by 20th Century Fox.

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

Directed by Josh Trank

Look, you all knew this movie would be bad, right?  The negative press coming out of the screenings for this was fucking insane and there’s no way it’s gonna be a hit.  It MIGHT make some cash its first weekend, there isn’t a ghost of a chance that it survives into next week.  That’s not what you want to know though.  The box office totals are secondary to the quality of the actual film, and you’re ALL here to take a safe glimpse into the utter madness that many of us had to suffer through.  Well never let it be said that I’m not about giving the reader what they want, so step right up as I take you through this modern day monstrosity!

The movie is about super genius Reed Richards (Miles Teller) who is discovered during a science fair by Dr. Franklin Storm (Reg E Cathey) who is the father of Johnny Storm (Michael B Jordan) and Sue Storm (Kate Mara).  Franklin offers Reed a full scholarship in exchange for working at his lab on a teleporter that can send organic matter between dimensions, which Reed eagerly accepts.  With the help of another protégée of Franklin’s, Victor Von Doom (Toby Kebbell), they build said teleporter, but it backfires and gives Reed, Johnny, Sue, Victor, and Ben Grimm (Jamie Bell) who is Reed’s best friend, superpowers.  Will they use these powers for good, or will their actions lead to the destruction of Earth?

Will they EVER find a way to make a movie out of these characters!?  It can’t be THAT hard, right!?
Will they EVER find a way to make a movie out of these characters!?  It can’t be THAT hard, right!?

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Cinema Dispatch: Trailer Talk (Deadpool)

~ Matt Vetrano ~ 1 Comment

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Oh look!  It’s Ryan Reynold’s Hail Mary to bring his career back from the brink of obscurity!  The guy has had it rough the past couple of years, what with his big years (2010-2012) being mostly filled with disappointments and him just kind of slumming it since then in crap like RIPD and Self/Less.  Will this turn out to be the film he needs to revitalize his career, or do we have another Green Lantern level disaster on our hands!?  I have no idea, but let’s take a look at the trailer!!

The trailer starts by giving us some backstory on Wade Wilson who is a guy dying of SEVERAL cancers and is given an offer that will save his life.  Wait.  A Ryan Reynolds movie where the main character goes through some strange experiment to save his life but there are dire consequences for doing so!?  Am I watching Self/Less again!?

“Where the fuck is Ben Kingsley!?  Shouldn’t we be sharing AT LEAST one scene together!?”
“Where the fuck is Ben Kingsley!?  Shouldn’t we be sharing AT LEAST one scene together!?”

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Super Recaps: Sailor Moon Episode 2 (Punishment Awaits: The House of Fortune Is the Monster Mansion)

~ Matt Vetrano ~ 2 Comments

Sailor Moon and all the images you see in this recap are owned by Toei Animation and licensed by Viz Media

Episode directed by Takao Yoshizawa

We’re back with another episode of Sailor Moon Classic!  With the first episode out of the way, we are now plunging headfirst into the filler episodes which Sailor Moon Crystal did not choose to use, so we won’t have anything really to compare it against and we’ll have to see how it holds up on its own.  Will this episode give us what was so desperately missing in Sailor Moon Crystal, or will it just go to show that Crystal was right all along to streamline series the way it did, even if it did so poorly?  Let’s find out!!

The episode begins with… a recap of the episode we’re about to see?  What!?  Yeah, it’s that thing they usually put at the end of the PREVIOUS episode to get you excited for the next one, but they put it at the beginning of the episode its advertising!  Not only that, but it has some serious spoilers in it!!  Oh, and after THAT is a recap of the previous episode where Usagi, after just explaining what she’s GOING to do as Sailor Moon, tells the audience that she is in fact… SAILOR MOON!!  I’m assuming this is going to be the case every episode, but I’m only going to complain about it here.  Is this how the original dub or the original Japanese version was done!?  It’s just so out of place to put these two things back to back like this at the very beginning of the episode and just starts things off poorly.  Anyway, the episode begins with a group of women lining up around the block to see a fortune teller.  Apparently this guy is famous and has been on TV, but he still operates from a card table in an alley.  Does he have a permit for that!?

“I hear this John Edward guy is the real deal!”
“I hear this John Edward guy is the real deal!”

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Cinema Dispatch: Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation

~ Matt Vetrano ~ 1 Comment

MIRN0

Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation and all the images you see in this review are owned by Paramount Pictures

Directed by Christopher McQuarrie

Trying to make a good Mission Impossible movie WITHOUT Brad Bird?  Sounds like a job for the IMF to me!  After the success of the fourth installment in the Mission Impossible series (Ghost Protocol), Tom Cruise and company are going to try their luck at making this into a noteworthy franchise once again.  This time around though, they don’t have Brad Bird on hand but they DO have the director of Jack Reacher which was a fun little Tom Cruise power fantasy so this new guy might just be a good fit for one of this series which is known for being a collection of Tom Cruise vanity projects.  While I have not seen the first three movies, I thought that Ghost Protocol was incredibly enjoyable and Tom Cruise has been on an upswing lately with movies like Jack Reacher and Edge of Tomorrow, so there’s a good chance that they’ll be able to recapture what made the last movie work despite the absence of its director.  Will they succeed once again in their mission to make something worthwhile out of this aging franchise, or will this blow up in their face (in five seconds)?  Let’s find out!!

The movie is about super spy Ethan Hunt played by Tom Cruise who HAS to be a real life Highlander considering how good he still looks in his fifties.

Seriously, is this guy the REAL last son of Krypton!?
Seriously, is this guy the REAL last son of Krypton!?

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Super Recaps: Sailor Moon Episode 1 (The Crybaby: Usagi’s Beautiful Transformation)

~ Matt Vetrano ~ 3 Comments

Sailor Moon and all the images you see in this recap are owned by Toei Animation and licensed by Viz Media

Episode directed by Junichi Satou

When I first started watching Sailor Moon Crystal, I vowed to not watch any of the original series or read the original manga while I was writing recaps for it.  I felt that I was in a unique situation where I had always wanted to give Sailor Moon a shot, but never got around to actually watching it which means I would be in a perfect position to WANT to like Sailor Moon Crystal without having the original to compare it against.  I think it ended up serving me well, not that reviews of comparison are bad, but I figured plenty of people were going to do that already and I wanted to see if it was any good from a newbie’s perspective. After a year of watching Sailor Moon Crystal though, the season has finally come to a close and I’m now gonna start watching the original series and giving you my thoughts on it!   To start with, let’s discuss which version of the show I’m watching.  I’ll be watching the modern dub of the series.  Not the original dub which many Sailor Moon fans started off with, and not the original Japanese sub with all the original content unperturbed.  From what I understand, the Viz Media dub is supposed to be an uncut and unedited version of the original Japanese version so I guess it’s the best of both worlds!  Still, I am gonna miss the fact that I won’t get to see the nineties special effects, the Sailor Moon Morals at the end of each episode, and that Luna won’t sound like an old lady.  Unfortunately, if this version DOES miss certain aspects of the original Japanese version, I won’t be able to spot it but that’s what the comments section is for!  So now that we got that out of the way, will Sailor Moon live up to the hype, or is it just another nostalgic property that’s not as good as people remember it!?  Let’s find out!!

The episode begins with our main character Usagi waking up late for school and having to rush through her morning routine.  Wait, isn’t this how EVERY magical girl show begins!?

“Are you going to be late AGAIN!?”     “I’ll try NOT to be!!”     “Well say hi to A-ko, Yohko, Ranma, and Madoka if you pass by them.”
“Are you going to be late AGAIN!?”     “I’ll try NOT to be!!”     “Well say hi to A-ko, Yohko, Ranma, and Madoka if you pass by them.”

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Cinema Dispatch: Pixels

~ Matt Vetrano ~ 5 Comments

PIXELS0

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

Directed by Chris Columbus

You know, it’s actually not that bad.  No, I’m kidding.  This movie is absolutely dreadful.  I can’t imagine how you could have made this worse.  It didn’t give me a terminal illness so at least there’s that much, but this low effort cash grab by Adam Sandler and Chris Columbus is probably the worst thing I’ll see all year.  Yes, this is worse than Terminator Genisys.   How bad is it?  Well you probably already know if you’ve heard anything about this film, but let’s find out JUST how low Happy Madison can sink with this heinous train wreck of a movie!!

Pixels is about Sam Brenner (played by America’s favorite hack, Adam Sandler) who was a video game wiz during his childhood but never lived up to his potential as a… good video game player I guess, and is now a forty something loser who installs electronic equipment for rich people who can’t be bothered to plug in an HDMI cable.  Not that his JOB makes him a loser; It’s his entire personality and outlook at life that makes him one of those.  Sam is a smartass, doesn’t take responsibility for his own life choices, and blames everyone around him for his failures.  His best friend is the god damn President of the United States (Kevin James) yet he still treats him like the fat kid he used to know when they were younger.  Not in a “you’re still my best friend” sort of way, but in a “remember when I was cooler than you?” sort of way.  Anyway, this pathetic loser is going through his sad life until one day aliens start to invade the Earth and for reasons too convoluted to even bother describing here, they’re doing so in the form of arcade games from 1982 and earlier.  Because no one else in the world is as good as three guys who played games in the eighties (therefore conferring the idea that being a Gamer is an exclusive club of badasses who need a minimum level of skill and conformity before being granted the prestigious label), the President enlist Sam, another creepo friend of theirs called Ludlow Lamonsoff (Josh Gadd) and eventually Sam’s rival from his childhood Eddie Plant (Peter Dinklage) to fight the alien menace.

Can we get The Last Starfighter instead?  Hell, the Wing Commanders would be preferable to this.  The MOVIE version of Wing Commander.
Can we get The Last Starfighter instead?  Hell, the Wing Commanders would be preferable to this.  The MOVIE version of Wing Commander.

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Cinema Dispatch: Trailer Talk (Spectre)

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SPECTRE0

Oh look!  Another James Bond film is coming out!  Who could have seen that coming!?  The new film, simply called Spectre, is the twenty-fourth film in the long running series and the fourth film to star Daniel Craig in the title role.  His track record has actually been pretty good so far with Casino Royale and Skyfall being great films in their own right (no one remembers Quantum of Solace so just shut up about it), but with them finally tackling the infamous organization in earnest (bringing in more of the old school features of the franchise), are they finally going to end up biting off more than they can chew?  Well we won’t know until November, but for now let’s look at the trailer!!

The trailer begins with James Bond getting lectured by the new M (if you want to know what happened to the old M, watch Skyfall) for going off on his own to Mexico for some reason.  Not sure what he was doing there, but it involved blowing up a building.

“DAMN IT JAMES!!  YOU BLEW UP TWENTY CARS AND THREE STADIUMS!!”     “Sorry Chief.”     “SORRY NOTHING!!  THE COMMISSIONER'S GONNA HAVE MY ASS!!”
“DAMN IT JAMES!!  YOU BLEW UP TWENTY CARS AND THREE STADIUMS!!”     “Sorry Chief.”     “SORRY NOTHING!!  THE COMMISSIONER’S GONNA HAVE MY ASS!!”

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Super Recaps: Dragon Ball Super (Battle of Gods)

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If you don’t know already, I am a HUGE fan of the Dragon Ball franchise, especially Dragon Ball Z!  That said, the last decade of constant video games, re releases and whatever the hell else Funimation and Toei were doing to squeeze out every last cent they can just ended up alienating me as a fan and I never thought the series was ever going to return to its former glory.  That was okay though!  The legacy this series left behind more than makes up for the constant selling out.  Still, Akira Toriyama has starting coming back to the franchise; starting with Battle of Gods and more recently the new series Dragon Ball Super!  After all this time, are we finally going to get the Dragon Ball Z sequel we’ve all been waiting for!?  Well I plan to find out!  First by reviewing the two movies released since his return and then by starting to recap Dragon Ball Super as it comes out!  PLEASE DON’T SUCK!!  I DON’T THINK MY NOSTALGIA CAN TAKE IT!!  Anyway, let’s get started with Battle of Gods!!

The movie begins with a REALLY cool retelling of the entire series with new animation to show key events throughout Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z.  THIS IS WHAT DRAGON BALL KAI SHOULD HAVE BEEN!!!  No seriously, if ONE franchise can afford to have movie sized animation budgets per episode, it would be a remake of Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z!  The flashbacks end just after the end of the Buu saga (but before Uub or Pan are around) and we see that Old Kai (AKA Hitler Kai) senses a disturbance in the force.  He starts to inform the other Kais… for some reason.  Honestly, do they have any real significance anymore?  That’s what I REALLY didn’t like about the Buu Saga.  The show was constantly throwing in new characters of UNBELIEVABLE POWER who would get their asses kicked two episodes later and become background characters for the rest of the arc.  For crying out loud, Grand Kai got like one appearance before being subsumed by Supreme Kai!  Anyway, King Kai is receiving his message about whatever the hell the other Kai’s are sensing but unfortunately Goku is training on the planet and tries to eavesdrop.

“Is there something I can beat up!?”     “NO GOKU!  NOT TODAY!!!”     “Aw…”
“Is there something I can beat up!?”     “NO GOKU!  NOT TODAY!!!”     “Aw…”

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Super Recaps: Sailor Moon Crystal (Episode 26) Season one Finale!!

~ Matt Vetrano ~ 10 Comments

Just over a year since its premiere, Sailor Moon Crystal’s first season is coming to a close.  There’s been much discussion around this show and its obvious flaws since its release, which is to be expected for a remake of a franchise that meant so much to a lot of people.   Now that we’re at the end of this series (at least until season two comes out), does it go out with a bang and a strong closing for the Black Moon Clan story arc, or are we going to get yet another disappointing ending such as the one we got to the Silver Millennium story arc, which many would see as fitting for a series that has been plagued with so many glaring issues?  Let’s find out!!

The episode begins with Sailor Moon and her entourage falling through an endless abyss of some sort towards the disembodied skull of Wiseman or Death Phantom or Nemesis, or whatever the hell it is.  The point is that Sailor Moon has nice big target to aim her magic wand at and she does just that.

“Feel the power of love and friendship!”     “I COULDN’T BE IN MORE PAIN!!!!”
“Feel the power of love and friendship!”     “I COULDN’T BE IN MORE PAIN!!!!”

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