Cinema Dispatch: Megalopolis

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

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

Directed by Francis Ford Coppola

Is it just me, or have the bad movies gotten more interesting in 2024? Sure, they’re still bad movies, but I’ve had a lot to talk about when it comes to stuff like Borderlands and The Crow, and while I was looking forward to enjoying this as a good movie when it was first announced, the last few months of bad press and worse behavior from its grumpy creator has lowered my expectations considerably. Is this a cinematic triumph from one of its greatest auteurs, or is this simply a case of an old man yelling at clouds for two hours? Let’s find out!!

In the city of New Rome, there is a struggle for the fate of society as Cesar Catilina (Adam Driver) envisions a Utopia within his lifetime brought about through the building of a great city he will dub Megalopolis. Despite his brilliant foresight into the future of humanity, he is opposed by the mayor of New Rome, Franklyn Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito), as well as certain members of his own family who are jealous of the genius and acclaim that seems to come so naturally to Cesar. One such enemy, at least at first, is the daughter of the mayor Julia (Nathalie Emmanuel) who wants to humiliate him for how he has humiliated her father, and yet even she cannot help but see the perfect world that Cesar hopes to bring about as she spends more time with him. Alas, outside forces are not the sole source of Cesar’s struggle as his genius compels him to act out in self-destructive ways as the truly exceptional among us often do, and it threatens to diminish the wisdom trapped within his skull. With so many forces trying to stop the perfect future, can Cesar convince the common folk to back his cause and pressure the government to put all their eggs in his basket? What is the true source of his self-destructive tendencies, and will Julia have what it takes to keep his mind clear and his butt out of jail? Is it just me, or is the writer, the director, and possibly even the producer of this movie, trying to say something with this unsung and tortured genius trying to make the world a better a place according to his image of it?

“And why are the cell phones so darn confusing these days!? Can’t I just order a pizza without downloading an app and signing up for their rewards program!?”
Continue reading “Cinema Dispatch: Megalopolis” →

Cinema Dispatch: The Substance

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

The Substance and all the images you see in this review are owned by Mubi

Directed by Coralie Fargeat

The movie-going public tends to focus on the big releases while letting all the smaller and niche films fly in under the radar, but every once in a while something manages to smash general audiences in the face, and it’s suddenly the only thing we’re talking about. The trailer for this certainly offers an intriguing premise with its criticism of societal beauty standards and hints at some seriously icky body horror, so it’s no surprise that this one broke the surface and generated a lot of buzz. Does the film live up to the hype surrounding it, or will its talking points stay relevant longer than the audience’s interest in the movie itself? Let’s find out!!

Elisabeth Sparkle (Demi Moore) was once a star of the silver screen but has spent the last few years of her career being a fitness guru with her own long-running daily workout show. Unfortunately for her, and pretty much every woman in Hollywood, the whole town is run by sleazy jerks and there are few sleazier than her producer Harvey (Dennis Quaid) who unceremoniously retires her from her own show for being too old. Let ready to lie down so easily, she jumps on the latest beauty craze which is a mysterious substance called… well, The Substance, that makes wild promises about what can be done to give her back her youthful glow. In a process that would make David Cronenberg proud, Elisabeth becomes two people with the power of The Substance; former starlet Elisabeth and younger up-and-coming star Sue (Margaret Qualley). Both must coexist in an overly complicated and regimented manner, as there’s always a catch with these things, and like most beauty routines or strict diets, it more or less sets her up to fail, and the two halves start to strain under one another’s existence. Just how far will Elisabeth and Sue go to stay relevant in such a beauty obsessed industry, and will the risk be worth the reward? What is the nature of this mysterious goo they are using, and what will happen if they start to chafe against the rules? Will they both realize the monsters that this is turning them into and rebel against the patriarchal system, or is she going to crash and burn, and we’re just along for the ride?

“Despite all my rage, I am still Demi Moore in a cage!”
Continue reading “Cinema Dispatch: The Substance” →

Cinema Dispatch: Bad Boys: Ride or Die & Twisters

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

I’m pretty sure I say this every other month, but life can come at you pretty fast, and I’ve let a few things slip through the cracks in trying to keep up with it all. The casualties this time around were two very successful summer blockbusters which I probably would have gotten a few extra views if I was timely with these reviews, but there’s no time like the present to try and catch up! Were these classic films carelessly shunted to the end of my to-do list, or does it make some amount of sense that I couldn’t be bothered to finish these reviews when they were relevant? Let’s find out!!

.

Bad Boys: Ride or Die

Bad Boys: Ride or Die is owned by Sony Pictures Releasing

Directed by Adil & Bilall

The first two Bad Boys movies are obnoxious and crass in a way that left me very ambivalent about going into the third one, but the new blood behind the camera ended up being the shot in the arm the franchise needed to stay relevant. This one, however, is content to rest on its laurels and use the excuse of a sequel to work out some fancy camera techniques. It’s not a bad movie by any stretch, and it still runs circles around the first two, but it lacks a meaningful reason to exist. The third one actually had something to say about its aging heroes, which gave it a sense of purpose beyond the action spectacle and funny banter. They try to keep that thread going here, but there’s nothing of substance to it, as Laurence’s brush with death early in the movie is a complete goof and doesn’t hit the same way that it did with Smith in the first one. They’re also not as interesting to watch as Smith and Laurence seem to be going through the motions at times, but I would chalk that up to the lackluster script. It’s supposed to be a redemptive story, but the plot is far too convoluted for it to have the raw emotional catharsis that you’d want, and without a clear direction to point our two leads, they feel a little lost in the weeds. Still, the action is fantastic with Adil & Bilall proving once again why Warner Bros were fools to dump their Batgirl movie, and while the action is certainly sillier than in the last one, there’s more than enough of it at a fast enough clip that you hardly even notice as you’re sitting through it. I got the sense that the third movie was written to be an end to the series, even if the door was open to possible sequels. I don’t get that sense watching this one, as the sequel door is left wide open with neon signs around it and a twenty dollar bill dangling on a fishing line. If they want to keep this franchise going for as long as Smith and Laurence are interested in doing so, then the best of luck to them, but running the sequel mill has its drawbacks, and despite the movie’s subtitle, there’s no significant shakeup to the status quo to mark this one out as a significant entry. It’s been several weeks since I saw it and very little has stuck with me the same way that Bad Boys for Life has, so by that measure it’s a disappointing sequel. Not a significant disappointment, especially since it’s still the second best in the series by my estimation, but you’re only gonna get so far when not trying to do too much.

3 out of 5

.

Continue reading “Cinema Dispatch: Bad Boys: Ride or Die & Twisters” →

Cinema Dispatch: Beetlejuice Beetlejuice

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice and all the images you see in this review are owned by Warner Bros Pictures

Directed by Tim Burton

The thing about the current wave of nostalgia-bait movies is that it’s not a new problem for Hollywood. The early 2000s were stuffed to the brim with old TV shows being turned into lousy movies, and even before that were several movies trying to cash in on the Boomers’ wistful memories of their childhood. The main difference today is that the Internet has made the conversation about it inescapable, as we all have an opinion on the relative quality of the latest return of a beloved character. Making a sequel to Beetlejuice feels like a lightning rod for this kind of discourse, and yet I think everyone went into this with a lot more optimism than expected. Perhaps we all have such great memories of the original that we’d like to see the premise given it another go, or maybe we all just want Tim Burton to make a good movie again, and we’re all hoping that giving him some sizable training wheels is what will do the trick. Is this a genuinely fresh take on the material that is comparable to the beloved original, or are we in for a mediocre retread from a director well past his prime? Let’s find out!!

It’s been over thirty years since Lydia Deetz (Winona Ryder) moved into that house on the hill where she met the Maitlands and had that terrifying run in with the bio-exorcist Beetlejuice/Betelgeuse (Michael Keaton) who nearly took her as his bride when she was just a teenager. Things have certainly been up and down for her since then, as you’d expect from seeing someone again after so long, and she’s landed a decent gig as an infinitely more charismatic Zak Bagans; hosting a goofy little supernatural TV series for stay at home parents and Boomers who could afford to retire. Her producer Rory (Justin Theroux) has big plans for her career, but fate throws a wrench in all of that when her father dies in a most deliciously ghastly manner; leaving her stepmother Delia (Catherine O’Hara) a widow and her estranged daughter Astrid (Jenna Ortega) without a grandfather on top of losing her father in a bizarre piranha accident. Everyone is brought back to the old Maitland house for the funeral, but being back here isn’t sitting well with Lydia, as she’s been having visions of Beetlejuice/Betelgeuse that seem to only grow stronger the more distressed she becomes. Is the maniacal ghoul up to his old tricks now that Lydia is back in the house and overwhelmed by the grim realities of life? Why did Astrid and Lydia grow so far apart, and can a wacky adventure through the Afterlife them mend the divide? Seriously, can we get a straight answer on how we’re supposed to spell this guy’s name? The guy’s trying to run a business, and you need to have consistency when designing the business cards!

“It’s very simple. Clients call me Betelgeuse, friends call me Beetlejuice, and REALLY good friends call me daddy.”
Continue reading “Cinema Dispatch: Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” →

Super Comics: Eye Lie Popeye – #1

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

Eye Lie Popeye and all the images you see in this review are owned by Massive Publishing and King Features

Written and drawn by Marcus Williams

Popeye shares that fate of many of his early animation peers in that they have a brand and legacy that enough people seem to care about, and yet no one seems to know what to do with him. Popeye is one of my favorite cartoon characters and the Robert Altman movie is an absolute classic, but it’s never been much more than a nostalgia property in my lifetime. The movie was over forty years ago, and the best we’ve gotten since then is the NES game, which was still well before my time. As far as I’m concerned, the only relevant thing in the Popeye canon since the turn of the millennium was that excellent episode of Death Battle where he kicked Saitama’s butt, and it seems to have tapped into something about the character given that this comic is very much inspired by the same ridiculously over the top Shonen anime that One Punch Man is a part of. Still, that worked as a one-off video for a couple of guys on YouTube. Is there enough juice in that lemon, or spinach in that can, to carry a series like this? Let’s find out!!

Our story begins with a plucky reporter named Judy P’Tooty who is determined to find out just how the legendary sailor Popeye lost his eye. I guess this proves what a fair-weather fan of Popeye I am, as I always thought he was just squinting, but apparently he’s missing an eye and everyone and their mother is ready to tell Judy how it happened. As a framing device for a first issue, this works well enough as we hear fantastical stories from Olive Oyl, Bluto, and Wimpy that perhaps are light on truth but reveal pertinent details about the cast. No one is going outside their established characters as Olive carries a torch for Popeye, Bluto is a mean-spirited blowhard, and Wimpy is fastidious about his hamburgers, but given how unlikely it is for young readers to know the finer details of these characters, it’s important to get everyone up to speed.

“This better not be that fan-fiction you write, Olive.”     “QUIET, Popeye! If it worked for Cassandra Clare, it can work for me!”
Continue reading “Super Comics: Eye Lie Popeye – #1” →

Cinema Dispatch: The Crow

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

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

Directed by Rupert Sanders

It’s been almost twenty years since the last Crow movie, and about thirty years since the only one anybody cared about. The production history on this is as tortured and unkillable as Eric Draven himself, and yet the box office proved to be the one thing that could put it down for good, as this reboot tanked as hard as Borderlands did just a few weeks ago. Still, something like the Crow would also be niche outside its one moment of pop culture relevance, so very few people going to see it doesn’t necessarily mean it won’t hit for the right kind of audience. Was the decade of false-starts and production woes worth suffering through to finally get us here, or should this have stayed dead, buried, and plowed over with concrete? Let’s find out!!

Eric Draven (Bill Skarsgård) isn’t great at a lot of things, but he is a solid boyfriend to Shelly (FKA Twigs) who’s escaped from a bad situation and is looking for a fresh start. Sadly for the both of them, her past catches up to her and the two are murdered by the hired goons of Vincent Roeg (Danny Huston). With such a horrible fate befalling them, a mysterious strange in the place in between life and death (Sami Bouajila) offers Eric the chance to come back to life and get his revenge against the monsters that did this to him as well as save Shelly’s soul because Vincent has some sort of demon thing going on that sends people straight to Hell. With nothing else to live for, or die for I guess, Eric takes the offer and becomes an angel of vengeance and begins his quest for the soul of his dearly departed girlfriend. Does this new lease on undead life restore balance to a world that has been corrupted by dark forces? Why did Vincent go after Shelly in the first place, and will Eric like the answers he finds along the way? Will he fight with all the strength and speed of the mighty crow!?

“CA-CAW!!”
Continue reading “Cinema Dispatch: The Crow” →

Cinema Dispatch: Alien: Romulus

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

Alien: Romulus and all the images you see in this review are owned by 20th Century Studios

Directed by Fede Álvarez

The Alien franchise is unique because it’s a series that descended into utter shlock, but never truly lost its prestige. Heck, the first sequel to it was blatantly an attempt to turn an atmospheric horror movie into a wild shoot-em-up, and yet it’s considered nearly as good, if not the equal of, the original film. No matter how many times it gets screwed up by the studio or has terrible crossovers with The Predator, a new Alien film always comes with a certain amount of clout because we all remember just how good that original film is. This latest attempt is the most direct attempt yet at recapturing that magic, but is it simply too big a task for any filmmaker to recapture the magic of that first film? Let’s find out!!

Taking place a number of years after the Nostromo event, we follow a group of rag tag street toughs with dreams of escaping their Weyland-Yutani owned mining planet for the blue skies and green pastures of another planet. To get there, they need to salvage cryostasis chambers from a wrecked space station just outside their home planet’s atmosphere, and with the help of Rain (Cailee Spaeny) and her adopted android brother Andy (David Jonsson), they might just have a shot of pulling it off. Unfortunately for them, the space station was conducting experiments on the Xenomorphs which naturally begin to escape as soon as these kids start mucking up the place and mess with the thermostat. In order to escape the vessel with the cryo-pods and their fleshy innards intact, Andy installs a data chip that fills him with knowledge of the alien threat as well as the darkest secrets that Weyland-Yutani are hiding. Will our crew of at risk youths make it out alive with the help of Andy 2.0? What else is Weyland-Yutani up to, and is there more to all this than Andy us letting in on? Do you think the Xenomorphs ever get tired of screeching all the time, or is that part of the fun for them?

“I’m ready for my close-up, Mr. Álvarez.”
Continue reading “Cinema Dispatch: Alien: Romulus” →

Cinema Dispatch: Borderlands

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

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

Directed by Eli Roth

Video game adaptations have certainly gotten better in the last few years, but there’s still a wide gulf between genuinely good movies and good-for-a-video-game-adaptation. I had mixed feelings about this when the trailer dropped as it looked like a Guardians of the Galaxy knock-off which worked out well for Dungeons & Dragons, but it’s also directed by the guy whose made some of my least favorite movies of all time. Does Eli Roth finally prove himself to be a competent mainstream director with a fun adaptation of a beloved game franchise, or will he be just another director who couldn’t crack the code on turning games into movies? Let’s find out!!

Welcome to Pandora! The planet that is to late-stage Capitalism what Rapture was to Objectivism! Corporations have stripped the planet bare, everyone is a jerk only out for themselves, and the masses are placated with a false promise of ascending up the social ladder by achieving the Pandorian Dream; in this case, finding a secret vault full of ancient alien treasure. Bounty hunter Lilith (Cate Blanchet) is far too savvy to buy into that nonsense, but she makes her way to the planet anyway in order to rescue Tina (Ariana Greenblatt), the daughter of an industrialist (Edgar Ramirez) who was taken to Pandora by Roland (Kevin Hart). When she arrives, she finds the foul-mouthed teen bumming around with Roland and Krieg; the latter being a jacked dude with a mask (Florian Munteanu) who’s surprisingly good with kids. Let’s just say that the rescue goes a bit sideways for Lilith, a situation not helped by a bunch of space cops trying to grab her bounty out from under her, and she ends up stuck with this group of misfits who are there to find the vault and prevent Tina’s dad from using it for evil! With the help of a local scientist (Jamie Lee Curtis) who knows more about the vault than anyone else on the planet as well as a robot named Claptrap (Jack Black) who follows Lilith around and seems to be programmed for maximum annoyance, will they be able to find the one thing on the planet that the wealthy can’t get their hands on and use it to make things better for the people of Pandora? Why did Roland need to take Tina in order to do this, and is does Lilith have a connection to all this that she has yet to understand? Perhaps they can also solve the mystery of how her hair is able to look like that without using super glue and spray paint.

“Seriously, do you use a diffuser when blow-drying it, or is all in the hair gel?”     “Can we talk about something else, please?”
Continue reading “Cinema Dispatch: Borderlands” →

Cinema Dispatch: Trap

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

Trap and all the images you see in this review are owned by Warner Bros Pictures

Directed by M Night Shyamalan

We all know Shyamalan’s decidedly mixed filmography, but as bad as his movies were in the late 2000s and early 2010s, he’s been on a sensational upswing since The Visit and Split. Sure, not everyone like Old and Glass, but there’s no denying that his post-After Earth career has been far more interesting than most of what came before. Does his upward momentum continue with this simple bottle film set at a concert? Let’s find out!!

Cooper (Josh Hartnett) is such a great dad that you believe his World’s Greatest Dad mug is telling the truth, and what better way to prove your dad-bonafides than by taking your daughter (Ariel Donoghue) to a concert for her favorite pop star (Saleka Night Shyamalan)? Sadly, this turns out to be a very bad decision, and not just because of all the screaming tweens, but because this concert is one big trap to catch a serial killer whose been prowling the streets of Philadelphia for years and also happens to be our number one dad. It doesn’t take long for Cooper to put the pieces together, and he starts looking at every corner of the building to see if there’s a way to escape their clutches while also keeping his daughter from learning his dark secret; at least not until the encore and a visit to the merch stand. Will Cooper find a way to keep himself out of jail and his family whole despite the dragnet slowly closing in around him? How does someone like this keep such a terrible secret from everyone he loves, and what will he do when his dark half and his family life start intertwining? Do you think he ever gets the two of them confused?

“And when his arms came off, there was just blood shooting everywhere! Uh… in Minecraft, of course.”     “Cool story, dad. Can we just go to our seats?”
Continue reading “Cinema Dispatch: Trap” →

Cinema Dispatch: Deadpool & Wolverine

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

Deadpool & Wolverine and all the images you see in this review are owned by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

Directed by Shawn Levy

Everyone’s sick of the MCU until they aren’t, and if the box office is anything to go by, then it looks like Marvel Fatigue has officially ended as this is making quite a pretty penny for Disney. Then again, both these characters were major stars well before Disney got a hold of them, so the success of this movie came as no surprise to anyone; even those who’ve declared the MCU to be over a dozen times already. Still, were they right to be skeptical about Deadpool entering the MCU, or does his third outing deliver on what makes this character great along with bringing in truckloads of cash? Let’s find out!!

It’s been six years since the last Deadpool movie, and it seems that Wade Wilson (Ryan Reynolds) has spent that time doing everything except being Deadpool. He’s got a new job, he’s broken up with Vanessa (Morena Baccarin), and he’s even moved in with his landlord (Leslie Uggams) who’s still doing a lot of drugs while Wade has gone straight-edge. This odd change in the status quo hasn’t gone over his friends’ heads, but before they can really confront him about it at his birthday party, he gets kidnapped by none other than the Time Variance Authority (TVA) who believe him to be a valuable asset and want to move him to a different universe before his own gets destroyed. Not exactly a great birthday present if you ask me, and Wade seems to agree as he runs off and recruits a Wolverine from another universe (Hugh Jackman) to help him fix whatever has gone so disastrously wrong and save all his friends in the process. Can the sullen and taciturn guy with the claws help Deadpool save the world, especially when he’s so thoroughly irritated by Deadpool’s jokes and goofy attitude? What led to Deadpool putting up the tights for so long, and can he find a way to fix himself as well as the universe he calls home? Seriously, do these two actually hate each other, or is this just some elaborate form of foreplay?

“Is that a bullet in your kidney, or are you just happy to see me?”
Continue reading “Cinema Dispatch: Deadpool & Wolverine” →