Cinema Dispatch: A Star Is Born

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

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A Star is Born and all the images you see in this review are owned by Warner Bros Pictures

Directed by Bradley Cooper

Let’s see… a remake of a classic film, the directorial debut of a respected actor, and it’s about the entertainment industry.  Are we sure they can’t squeeze in World War II to make this finely engineered Oscar Bait in all of existence?  Now Oscar Season has always been a bit of nebulous term as there are a lot of films throughout the year that manage to maintain prestige buzz all the way to voting time (*cough* Get Out *cough*), but there’s no denying that this time of year is chock full of films hoping to be contenders; especially this one!

The movie follows Jackson Maine (Bradley Cooper) who is an aging country rock star (think Bruce Springsteen or Florida Georgia Line) that likes to drink hard, take pills, and try to pretend he isn’t developing a severe case of Tinnitus.  After one of his shows and three fourths of a bottle of whisky, he randomly stumbles into a bar and sees Ally (Lady Gaga) performing one of her sets.  Now it could just be the booze talking or she could be THE GREATEST SINGER OF ALL TIME, but either way he has to meet her and try to get her to date him.  Oh, and ALSO he’ll help her get a career, but he’ll cross that bridge when they get to it; which is after the dating bridge.  ANYWAY, they spend some time together, party hard at a few bars, and eventually he takes her on tour with him (which is managed by Jackson’s brother played by Sam Elliott) to sing her songs among other things.  Eventually she catches the eye of a manager (Rafi Gavron) and suddenly her success isn’t dependent on Jackson which I guess just gives him more time to drink heavily even if it’s obviously a problem for everyone around him, including her.  Will Ally live out her dreams and become the next great pop sensation?  How long can Jackson function like this without destroying everything and everyone around him?  How the heck are they successful in TODAY’S music climate!?  There’s not a single sick drop in any of their songs!

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Give him six months of Spotify returns and he’ll be singing in the same bars that she was!

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Super Recaps: Tom Goes to the Mayor (Joy’s Ex)

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

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

Created by Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim

We’re back with another episode of The Jefferton Folk Blues, and if that pun there was a bit too obscure, this is the final episode of the series!  I know!  I too wish this series had gone on forever and ever, but all good things must come to an end at some point, so let’s see how Tim & Eric’s flagship series made its final bow!  The episode begins with Tom in a quite cheerful mood as he visits the Mayor on Saint Patriot’s Day; presumably a Jefferton specific take on The Fourth of July that I’m guessing The mayor concocted for whatever reason.  Probably so he had an excuse to buy an ADORABLE talking bear that sadly seems to drain its batteries very quickly.  If it wasn’t clear enough by Tom’s cheerful mood that this episode did NOT directly follow Puddins, it turns out that Tom has brought over a cake for The Mayor that his three VERY MUCH ALIVE step sons had made for him.  For what reason, I’m not sure, but I’m guessing it has to do with Tom trying to brown nose The Mayor again and has roped his sons into this latest foolhardy attempt to get The Senpai to notice him.  Actually it looks like this attempt might just pay off as The Mayor seems to feel genuinely sorry for the guy after hearing his pathetic spiel about how bad things are at home (Joy’s ex-husband and father of Tom’s stepsons is staying at their house while she and the kids are going out of town) and invites him to a soiree at his private residence.  No not the fancy house we saw in Puddins!  He’s got a condo at Jefferton Castle which I assume is the most exclusive bit of real estate in the entire city and lucky Tom here just got a one way ticket to enjoy the festivities!

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“All I ask is that you bring six bottles of Tequila, a goat you have a slight amount of animosity towards, and a covered dish.”     “Okay… what about potato salad?”     “Come on, Tom.  I don’t have to hold your hand now, do I?”

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Cinema Dispatch: Hell Fest

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

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Hell Fest and all the images you see in this review are owned by CBS Films and Lionsgate

Directed by Gregory Plotkin

Did anyone know about this movie more than a week ago?  I certainly never got a trailer for it despite being a horror movie being released right around October, but then again I guess Halloween is gonna keep soaking up all the attention this year which is even leaving stuff like the Suspiria remake out of the spotlight.  I remember back when Blockbuster was a thing (BACK WHEN DINOSAURS RULED THE EARTH!) I would rent a bunch of horror movies, and I have very vague memories of one taking place at a circus.  It MIGHT have been Funhouse I guess?  I honestly don’t remember, but a horror movie set at a spooky amusement park sounds like a match made in heaven and may even twinge a bit of nostalgia or the days when I would rent basically anything in the horror section with an R-rating.  Does this manage to be a fun throwback to the carnival horror movies of yore, or is this just another by the numbers horror film made on the cheap to try and recoup its budget in a single weekend?  Let’s find out!!

It’s that time of year again where the college kids take a break from their arduous studies to enjoy the spookiest month of the year!  Yes, its Halloween time and Natalie (Amy Forsyth) finally has a chance to take a break and reconnect with her friend Brooke (Reign Edwards) and maybe even hook up with the hot stud Quinn (Christian James) who’s been asking about her!  Along with Brooke’s roommate Taylor (Bex Taylor-Klaus), her boyfriend Gavin (Roby Attal), and Taylor’s boyfriend Asher (Matt Mercurio), they head off to the most awesome amusement park of all time, HELL FEST!  Imagine if the bad guys in all the pre-Nolan Batman movies went into Performing Arts instead of a life of crime and you basically have an idea of just how rad this amusement park is, but something is amiss!  You see, among the merriment and fog machines, there’s an ACTUAL serial killer lurking around in a silly mask who decides that Natalie and her friends are gonna be his next targets.  Will the group be able to escape from the park with their lives and not just because they’re risking their health with that extremely greasy carnival food?  How will they even be able to protect themselves when everything in the park looks spooky and murderous already?  How is it that the last noticeable thing about this movie is the guy who’s ACTUALLY cutting people up!?  Seriously, buddy!  It’s called showmanship, and you’re being outclassed by strobe lights and a scary sound effects CD!

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Can I get one of those awesome mechanical eye things at Spencer’s?

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Cinema Dispatch: Night School

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

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Night School and all the images you see in this review are owned by Universal Pictures

Directed by Malcolm D Lee

It’s always good seeing Kevin Hart!  Okay, maybe not… BUT it’s always good to see Tiffany Haddish, right!?  Ehh… fine, these are two VERY talented comedians but they aren’t always in the best movies as is the case with A LOT of successful comedians.  Putting them together SHOULD be a match made in heaven, but then again maybe the filmmakers thought the script was so bad that even Hart couldn’t save it by himself.  In any case, we can hope that there are at least a few good jokes in here even if the premise and the trailers don’t seem to be promising all that much.  Does this movie manage to rise above expectations to be one of the better comedies this year, or are we doomed to suffer yet another mediocre effort from filmmakers and comedians who should be working on WAY more ambitious projects than this?  Let’s find out!!

Teddy Walker (Kevin Hart) is your average Joe who is actually doing quite well for himself despite dropping out of high school and for reasons other than he’s a genius who went off to start his own company.  Instead, he’s managed to find a good job at a barbecue grill store and has set himself apart from his peers due to his world class skills in customer service!  I kind of find that hard to believe though considering he ends up accidentally blowing the place up not long after the movie starts.  You’d think someone as professional as he is wouldn’t have done something like that, but in any case Teddy is now without a job which is doubly a problem as he’s been living paycheck to paycheck for some time; refusing to tell his girlfriend Lisa who has a WAY more successful job (Megalyn Echikunwoke) that he’s not as well off as he lets on and that he could REALLY use a few bucks to ease the stress.  Luckily for Teddy though, his buddy Marvin (Ben Schwartz) JUST SO HAPPENS to have an even BETTER job for him all lined up… but he has to get his GED first!  To make matters worse, the principal of the high school (Taran Killam) is someone he had beef with in high school (for some reason…) and is not about to let old grievances die off, even if he can’t TECHNICALLY keep Teddy from going to night classes run by Professor Carrie (Tiffany Haddish) which I assume is the way she prefers to be addressed.  Can Teddy get his GED and that sweet new job without having his girlfriend finds out all of his deeply held and embarrassing secrets?  What wacky hijinks will he get into with a classroom full of eccentric odd balls that have their own reasons for getting their GED?  Can we send all six of the scriptwriters to night school?  I don’t know about you, but they could really use some brushing up if this is what they consider “professional” material.

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“Oh well.  I’m sure this will all make sense in the editing room!”

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Super Recaps: Tom Goes to the Mayor (Puddins)

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

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

Created by Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim

Welcome back to A Single Tom where things take a decidedly dark and melancholic turn right as we’re about to end the series.  In fact, many members of the show’s staff consider this to be the true finale for the series despite Tim & Eric choosing the next episode being the last one to air as they felt it would have been too depressing to end the season on such a dire note.  Just how bad does it get?  Let’s find out!!  It starts off as you’d expect it to with Good ol’ Tom Peters visiting The Mayor, but this time he has some sad news to deliver.  It turns out his eldest stepson, Brindon, has just died.  No seriously, the more or less FINAL episode of this series has one of Tom’s stepson’s dying a gruesome and violent death.  Now I’m not a fan of HOW he died as it’s a rather mean spirited fat joke as he ate enough food during his birthday party to eventually explode, but the point is still made.  Tom Peters, the man who can never face anything in his life, has to face one of the hardest things anyone would ever have to go through.

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“WHY DID YOU EAT THAT WAFER THIN MINT!?”

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Cinema Dispatch: Top Ten WTF Moments in The Predator

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

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The Predator and all the images you see in this editorial are owned by 20th Century Fox

Directed by Shane Black

It’s been a few weeks since The Predator graced the multiplexes in all its confused glory, so I think now’s a pretty good time to really get into what exactly is SO fascinatingly wrong about this movie that I couldn’t fit into a proper review.  The last time I did something like this was all the way back when The Mummy was supposed to be the next big thing which sadly didn’t end up being the case despite making four hundred million worldwide and so The Dark Universe is more or less dead on arrival.  A shame because, despite the film’s ASTOUNDING amount of flaws, it was compelling in a way that very few terrible movies can be and I’d have loved to see a DCCU style nightmare come out of it.  Predators though still has a chance to be the next (albeit smaller) version of this with its incredibly pronounced sequel bait at the end and comparatively lower stakes, so why not give it the proper WTF treatment?  Unlike my last list however, this isn’t ranked in an ascending order of absurdity; rather it’s structured in a way to try and get across the ESCALATING sense of absurdity that builds as the movie goes along, so while one thing may not be as out there or ridiculous as the thing before it, it all adds up into this ludicrous mishmash of ideas that either should have been left on the cutting room floor or given the time it needed to not feel so inexplicably jammed into an already overly tight runtime.  Let’s get started!!

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10) Lock him up and throw away the key! – Why the heck is Quinn being railroaded!?

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So the movie begins with The Predator (at least the first one of them) crash landing on Earth basically within spitting distance a squad of army dudes out on a mission.  Our lead dude is Quinn McKenna (Boyd Holbrook) who finds the escape pod The Predator used as well as part of his armor; including his mask and one of his arm bands that both have VERY advanced computer systems in them.  His men die at the hands of The Predator, he manages to escape, and then he mails the pieces of armor to his home in the US.  Now why would he do that?  Well apparently he correctly assumed that he would be arrested by THE HIGHER UPS and sent to a mental institution as a way to keep him quiet about the alien… because reasons.  Now to be clear, this is not just ANY army dude; the mission he was on was to assassinate a drug lord on an ally’s soil (Mexico) and the US Military isn’t about to send someone on that kind of job who doesn’t know how to keep his mouth shut and play ball.  How is this guy not an ASSET to The Stargazer Project considering his sterling military record, and for that matter why are they so intent on keeping HIM out of the loop when they IMMEDIATELY bring a civilian scientist on board (Dr. Casey Bracket played by Olivia Munn) to run tests on the darn thing!?  Speaking of which…

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Cinema Dispatch: Assassination Nation

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

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Assassination Nation and all the images you see in this review are owned by NEON

Directed by Sam Levinson

Wow, people are really liking this, aren’t they?  Unlike Mandy or The Predators, I actually did catch a trailer for this at some point so I knew it was something like The Purge but also about divulging personal information, so basically that episode of The Simpsons where the kids reveal all their parents secrets, only with a MUCH darker ending.  Still, The Purge films are a pretty high bar to reach even if NEON has a pretty solid track record with their movies.  Can this latest effort from a much smaller studio hope to compete with the franchise that got to the party way earlier and with a much bigger studio behind it?  Let’s find out!!

Lilly, Sarah, Bex, and Em (Odessa Young, Suki Waterhouse, Hari Nef, and Abra) are four teenage girls in the town of Salem; living out there days being the baddest crew in school who appreciate the little things in life; such as gossip, boys, and tearing down the patriarchy!  One day a hacker starts leaking personal information of Salem’s citizens; starting with the corrupt mayor, but then moving on to the kind principal and then eventually everyone else.  The secrets being revealed are causing some… stress you could say with some people opting to wear masks, others starting violent militias, and everyone just going all in on showing the worst sides of themselves.  Homophobia, transphobia, racism, misogyny, all of the above and more, just starts running rampant once the façade has been stripped away by the leaked data.  One of the more prominent victims turns out to be Lilly who has her own secrets she was trying to hide and makes her a pariah to basically everyone except her friends who are standing with her, at least for now.  What more could be revealed that could make the situation even worse than it is?  Just how far will these people go to inflict pain on others for dubiously justifiable reasons as well as to cover up what secrets they may have themselves?  Is it just me, or do things seem REALLY tense lately!?

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“There is nothing wrong with your television set.  Do not attempt to adjust the picture.  Wait, what does that mean?  Is that an old people thing?”

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Super Comics: Sonic the Hedgehog (IDW) – #9

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

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

We’re back with another issue of The Mobius Dozen where our heroes now know what they heck they need to do but may not be fully aware of what they’re up against!  Does Neo Metal Sonic have something up his robo-sleeve that even our heroes won’t’ be able to overcome?  Let’s find out!!  The issue begins on a slightly different note than usual as we start with Neo Metal Sonic giving his expositional villain speech (to no one in particular) which catches us up to speed on what he’s been up to while Sonic and The Resistance (I’m CERTAIN they’re gonna call themselves Sonic’s Forces at some point) were off trying to uncover the most obvious evil plot imaginable.  In case you didn’t know already, Neo Metal Sonic flew his ship to Angel Island… and that’s it.  No one was guarding the Master Emerald that resides on there, and he just… took it and put it in a giant cage that he now sits on.  Kinda dropped the ball there, didn’t you Knuckles?  I’ll give the book credit for changing things up a bit here as this early scene gives Neo Metal Sonic a modicum of presence and a slight amount of menace, but then I also question how perfect of an artificial being he is considering he starts four sentences IN A ROW with “I have”.  Sure I’m barely a writer myself, but at least I know enough to check for that kind of repetition!

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“I have a copy of The Terminator on Blu Ray.  I have given the movie five stars on Amazon.  I have learned much from it, and will not be making the same mistakes.”

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Super Recaps: Tom Goes to the Mayor (Undercover)

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

TGTTM

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

Created by Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim

We’re back another episode of 21 Jefferton Street where it seems that Tim & Eric beat Phil Lord and Chris Miller to the punch by a good six years, albeit with a much smaller budget and a tenth of the run time.  The episode begins with yet another public service announcement for the citizens of Jefferton, though this time they couldn’t afford Janeane Garofalo and had to settle for Jan and Wayne Skyler; Jefferton’s own married news team.  The lack of A-List celebrities on hand however should NOT lessen their grave message as it seems that the greatest menace currently facing the town is the abundance of starch in people’s diet.  Now to their credit, starch IS something you should watch out for in your diet as it’s a common staple in some really bad foods and can even cause blood sugar issues if you’re already susceptible to those kind of issues (starch is a form of glucose), but like with basically ANYTHING you eat it’s all about moderation and finding out what works best for your system.  Now obviously this PSA isn’t about that as it’s paid for by the Jefferton Starch League, and the goal was clearly to scare people into looking at ridiculous (and pricey) alternatives to simply cutting back on the mashed potatoes.  Case in point, Jan and Wayne’s guest on the program is a wacky inventor named Sandy Winfield (Bob Odenkirk) who has devised a Starch Testing Machine that looks like a ColecoVision with a desktop calculator from the same era glued on top. Now sure, it CAN be a pain in the ass to measure starch content in all the food you eat (subtract the total grams of carbohydrates from the grams of sugar and fiber), but since Mr. Winfield’s method LITERALLY involves your ass as you have to have to test your own stool with it, I think doing a little bit of math is the much more convenient option.

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“Sandy Winfield is not a real doctor, but those elitist jerks will just tell you to change your diet!  Pay me money to tell you why you should be panicking about Starch!”

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Cinema Dispatch: The Predator

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

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

Directed by Shane Black

I’m getting rather good at avoiding trailers at this point because I never saw a single one for this movie.  All I knew was that it was another Predator movie with an annoyingly similar title to the rest of them (which is still better than the sequel to Halloween being called Halloween) and it was being directed by the guy who wrote Lethal Weapon, directed Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Iron Man 3, and The Nice Guys, and even got turned into a pile of bloody organs in the first Predator movie!  I don’t know about you, but that sounds like a winning formula to me!  At least until the recent news came out about his deeply irresponsible casting decision in the movie which frankly cast a big cloud over the whole thing for me right before it came out.  Does this manage to be an entertaining film despite the problems that Shane Black managed to bring upon himself in the lead up to the film’s release, or was that the first sign that something was amiss with the latest entry in this franchise?  Let’s find out!!

For some time now it seems that Predators have been stepping up their game and coming to Earth with a bit more frequency which is not just a good way to set ourselves up for some prequels, but to raise the stakes a bit as this latest invasion by a Predator seems to be a bit more than just some dude trying to add one more human spine to his collection.  He crash lands in a jungle down in Mexico where military badass Quinn McKenna (Boyd Holbrook) is on assignment to assassinate someone for something, but said crash landing makes things a bit more complicated.  A bunch of… dudes (are they military?  A private corporation?) who are part of PROJECT STARGAZER which is led by the mysterious Traeger (Sterling K Brown) capture the alien, capture most of its armor, and even captures McKenna, but not before McKenna… finds someone to mail part of The Predator’s armor back home.  Apparenlty he wants to keep it for “evidence” which I’m SURE will come in handy when he’s carted off to a mental institution so that PROJECT STARGAZER can keep a lid on the existence of aliens.  Not so much of a lid that they won’t enlist a civilian scientist Dr. Casey Bracket (Olivia Munn) to take a look at the captured creature, but enough so that the highly trained military officer who’s already involved with secret government plots like assassinations can be forcibly kept quiet before he starts blabbing to everyone.  Sounds like a foolproof plan to me!  Oh wait, the Predator escaped and is now looking for his armor, namely his helmet, that McKenna sent back home and is currently being played with by his son Rory (Jacob Temblay) who is on the autism spectrum and apparently has no problem understanding this alien technology.  So it’s a race against time as McKenna and a group of mentally ill soldiers he meets (Trevante Rhodes, Keegan-Michael Key, Thomas Jane, Alfie Allen, and Augusto Aguilera) team up with Dr. Bracket to… I guess stop the Predator, while Traeger and PROJECT STARGAZER regroup to put an end to this threat and the people who know about it once and for all! Can McKenna save his son from the murderous alien as well as the VERY dangerous technology he’s been messing around with?  What are PROJECT STARGAZERS’s true plans, and what are The Predator’s plans as well?  Does anyone else get the feeling that the editor had their spine forcibly removed by a giant monster alien when they were only halfway done putting this thing together?

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“I get my OWN spin-off or else this guy’s gut turns into a pin cushion!”

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