Cinema Dispatch: Ocean’s 8

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

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Ocean’s 8 and all the images you see in this review are owned by Warner Bros Pictures

Directed by Gary Ross

I’ve never had much interest in the Ocean’s movies and even though I’m PRETTY sure I saw the first one, the only things I remember is George Clooney on a payphone in the beginning and everyone looking at a fountain at the end.  Needless to say that had they gotten the gang back together for Ocean’s 14, I’d have easily checked out and just went to whatever else was playing that week.  Recasting the entire thing with AMAZING actors in a sort of soft reboot though?  NOW you’ve got my attention!  Don’t always discount reboots, kids!  You’ll find one someday that’s right up your alley!  Does this latest entry in the franchise prove to be a necessary and extraordinary fresh start, or is the title the only thing worth remembering about this movie?  Let’s find out!!

The movie begins with Debbie Ocean (Sandra Bullock), who is the sister of the PRESUMABLY deceased Danny Ocean, getting out of jail on parole and IMMEDIATELY starting up her life of crime once again; scamming stores, sneaking into other people’s hotel rooms, and of course getting ready for her BIG score.  Yes, the one she’s been planning ever since she went inside and is chomping at the bit to get started on.  After all, who wants to ENJOY their freedom when they can just risk it all on a foolhardy heist!?  Speaking of hardy fools, she also reaches out to her old crime buddy Lou (Cate Blanchett) who’s been holding her own but clearly anticipating Debbie’s next big score, and the duo start to lay down the groundwork as well as scope out some new talent who can pull this whole thing off.  So what is the heist you may ask?  There’s this SUPER expensive necklace valued at about one hundred and fifty MILLION dollars that’s sitting in a vault somewhere which is such a shame because it could be going to better use, like enriching a bunch of thieves who are smart enough to figure out how to steal it!  For this to work they’ll first need a patsy to get their hands on the necklace so that they can steal it from HER, and who better to use than one of the most famous actors on Earth, Daphne Kluger (Anne Hathaway)?  To convince Miss Kluger to use the necklace for her ensemble that evening AND THEN to steal it right off of her neck, Debbie and Lou will need a crack team made up of expert jewelery forger Amita (Mindy Kaling), street hustler Constance (Awkwafina), desperate fashion designer Rose Weil (Helena Bonham Carter), MOVIE HACKERTM Nine Ball (Rihanna) and retired fencer Tammy (Sarah Paulson).  Wait, that’s only seven.  Hmm… maybe there’s more to this plan than even WE know!  Can Debbie and her crew pull off this heist without a hitch?  What could Debbie be hiding from the rest of the team, and could the secrecy cost them everything?  Is this yet another awesome and well-made movie for the internet man-babies to cry about because there are too many ladies in it!?  Well I sure hope so!!

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“Hashtag Feminism, BRO!!”

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Super Recaps: Tom Goes to the Mayor (Wrestling)

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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 Tim & Eric’s Friday Night Lights where the duo enters the high stakes world of school sports!  Sure it’s just a bunch of untalented middle schooler wrestlers they’re trying to manage, but you’ve got to start somewhere!  The episode begins with life imitating art as the local boy’s wrestling Coach is a raving jackass who ALSO happens to be played by the human car alarm known as Gary Busey.  The reason said Coach is shouting at the kids of Jefferton Middle School which includes Tom’s son Brendon (or is it Branden?) is to try and get them ready for the upcoming wrestling tournament against their HATED rivals… actually who are they wrestling against?  Oh it doesn’t matter.  GO JEFFERTON PINNERS!!  Speaking of Tom, what’s he up to right now?  Well it seems that he STILL hasn’t found a job since he quit his CEO position back in White Collarless, so in order to pass the time he’s become the Equipment Boy for the wrestling team which means he’s hosing down jock straps while wearing a thong.  Now NORMALLY this would come off as a little bit strange, but I guess anything goes when Gary Busey is in charge.

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“I didn’t realize Satan lives in pee stains, but then again I didn’t even know about the Illuminati until Coach threw that book at my head!”

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Cinema Dispatch: Upgrade

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Upgrade and all the images you see in this review are owned by OTL Releasing and BH Tilt

Directed by Leigh Whannell

Well if it isn’t my good friend Blumhouse Tilt!  How’ve you been, buddy!?  Sure, you’ve released two of the WORST movies I’ve seen in the past few years, but let’s let bygones be bygones; especially now that you’re teaming up with Neon who’ve made one of the BEST movies I’ve seen in the past few years!  Your newest movie is certainly getting a lot of buzz recently with great word of mouth and a kick ass trailer, so maybe there’s some hope for you yet, as long as you don’t work with Eli Roth ever again!  Can Blumhouse’s latest film turn out to be an under the radar smash hit from a studio that’s VERY hit and miss?  Let’s find out!!

The movie follows the sad tale of Grey Trace (Logan Marshall-Green) who’s living his average Cyberpunk protagonist life in a slightly cyberpunk future with his soon to be a cliché wife Asha (Melanie Vellejo) and everything is going about as well as you could expect for the first ten minutes of one of these movies!  Grey fixes up old cars for rich people, Asha works at a cyber prosthetic company, and they couldn’t be happier if they tried!  That is until their automatic car goes haywire, drops them off on the wrong side of the tracks, and they’re immediately assaulted by a few punks who kill her off (wow, what a surprise…) and leave poor Grey for dead!  He somehow manages to survive however, though not without losing the use of his arms and legs, and he’s ready to give up on life when one of his wealthy customers Eron (Harrison Gilbertson) offers him a chance to test a medical miracle called STEM which is basically a small computer they insert into the spine that still hasn’t gone through OFFICIAL testing, but will surely give him back the use of his limbs along with a few other bells and whistles.  After some initial hesitance (Grey isn’t one for all this new-fangled technology stuff), he agrees to do it and sure enough starts walking again almost immediately.  Slight side effect though, there’s an AI inside the chip starts talking to him and STEM (Simon Maiden) seems more than eager to help Grey find the men who killed his wife and bring them to some sort of justice.  Well Grey is certainly up for that, especially since the cop on the case (Betty Gabriel) hasn’t turned up many leads, but they have to be careful because not only does Grey need to keep the rest of the world from knowing he can walk again (he even signs a NDA about the procedure), he also has to keep his activities hidden from Eron who’s more than likely following his every move and wouldn’t be too pleased if his next step in medical science was used to rip people’s hearts out.  Will Grey and STEM find the people who killed his wife and get him that sweet sweet vengeance he so desperately craves?  What other side effects besides hearing voices and kicking extra amounts of ass will Grey have to deal with now that he’s got STEM sharing brain space with him?  I mean, it’s not THAT bad, right?  Who WOULDN’T want your operation system constantly reminding you to install critical updates right into your auditory cortex!?

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“I think we should do like a flying back flip and kick him in the head!”     “I’m sorry Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that.”     “FOR THE LAST TIME!  MY NAME IS GREY!!”

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Cinema Dispatch: Action Point

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Action Point and all the images you see in this review are owned by Paramount Pictures

Directed by Tim Kirkby

Johnny Knoxville doesn’t have what you’d call a STERLING FILMOGRAPHY with his most successful films being pseudo-documentary on shoe string budgets, but then again said movies are some serious box office smashes with the four Jackass movies (one through three and the offshoot Bad Grandpa) making  totaling over three hundred and fifty MILLION dollars!  Hell, despite the guy getting pretty much ZERO credit as a legitimate actor, he’s managed to find his way in some seriously high grossing blockbusters including Men in Black 2, the first reboot Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie, and even that crappy Dukes of Hazzard movie which raked in eighty freaking million; not to mention Skiptrace which he did with Jackie Chan that made a boat load in China!  I’ve always had a soft spot for the guy as a legitimate actor which may be due to my fascination with A Dirty Shame as well as the fact that I seem to be the ONLY person on the planet who sincerely likes Daltry Calhoun.  It also helps that I’ve never seen The Ringer which would probably put an indelible stain on my inexplicable appreciation for the guy because even in 2005 that seemed like a really bad call.  So much in fact that aside FROM the Jackass films, this is first film with a wide US release that he’s headlined since then (not gonna count the voice he did in the first TMNT movie) and it seems like even the studio is aware of how untested this guy is when he’s the face of something that requires a script and direction rather than a bunch of nut shots and Tasers because of how little marketing this thing got in the lead up to its release.  Does this manage to be a diamond in the rough that will finally launch Johnny Knoxville’s film career, or is this another failed start that will eventually lead to him making another Bad Grandpa movie that will in all honestly probably net him another hundred million dollars?  Let’s find out!!

Deshawn “DC” Crious (Phillip “Johnny Knoxville” Clapp) is the owner and operator of the absurdly unsafe and therefore absurdly fun amusement park known as Action Point, or at least Mr. DC WAS back in the seventies when things like “safety” and “regulations” were for pansies while breaking your arm was fixed with a fist full of mud and a forty of garbage beer!  It’s not the seventies anymore though as we see DC somehow managed to survive not only that decade but Regan, Y2K, and Bush Jr (SPOILER ALERT!) as he’s telling his granddaughter all about the great times he had running that place and the one summer her mother (Susan Yeagley as an adult and Eleanor Worthington-Cox as a teen) came to stay with him.  Yes, they’ll never forget that summer where they had stiff competition move nearby that was syphoning off most of their attendance while also being supported by local douchebag Mr. Knoblach (Dan Bakkedahl), but that only motivated them to get even MORE wild with the rides and skirt even MORE laws in the process!  Truly an idyllic time of their lives spent with good friends like Uncle Benny (Christ Pontius) and the rag tag group of teenage rascals who helped DC run the place (Bridgette Lundy-Paine, Johnny Pemberton, Conner McViker, Eric Manaka, and a few others who don’t have extensive IMDb credits).  Can DC do enough scheming to save the park from the greedy corporate fat cats?  Will this long protracted battle against common sense and sensible safety protocols get in the way of DC being a good father to Boogie?  Did you know that Johnny Knoxville’s eye almost popped out of his head during the filming of this!?  Seriously, what more does he have to do to prove himself to you people!?

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“ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED!?”     “Eh.  I’ve seen better.”

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Super Comics: Sonic the Hedgehog (IDW) – #5

~ Matt Vetrano ~ 2 Comments

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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 Sonic X-Machina, though it’s still unclear how much of a reboot this is rather than a direct continuation of whatever the heck you’d even CALL the Sonic canon at this point.  We’re also on a monthly schedule now instead of getting weekly issues which HOPEFULLY means we’ve burned through all the necessary introduction and are kick this story into high gear; just like our good ol’ pal Sonic!  Will this be all that and a bag of chips, or is this latest entry as underwhelming as my “cool guy” vernacular!?  Let’s find out!!

The issue begins with Sonic and his best friend Espio the Chameleon on some sort of robo-killing adventure!  Yeah!  Espio the Chameleon!  Everyone’s favorite character from the Chaotix Detective Agency that hasn’t been playable in a game since… I don’t know, Sonic Heroes?  Sigh… you know, if this is supposed to entice ANYONE other than die hard Sonic fans approaching thirty, MAYBE you shouldn’t throw in references to games that haven’t been available for a decade BEFORE they were even born because as much as Sega has been tossing their games on every system imaginable, you STILL can’t find digital version of Knuckles’ Chaotix!   Tails Adventure which is a Game Gear game no one has heard of is on the 3DS!  You can get Sonic Drift 2, a sequel to a handheld cart racer that was only released in Japan, yet Sega still won’t sell you the one game staring The Chaotix… and somehow they find their way into this series.  Sure.  I mean, if you only have so much to work with and are PROBABLY under strict orders not to add TOO much interesting lore to the series (like some other person who sued them a decade ago did), then I suppose relying on the D List Sonic characters is a safe bet.

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MAKE WAY FOR THE CHAOTIX, SON!!  That’s… that’s still a thing people say, right?

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Super Recaps: Tom Goes to the Mayor (White Collarless)

~ 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 with another episode of Tim & Eric’s Dirty Jobs as the duo tackles the mindless toil of regular employment; something Tom seems quite unfamiliar with given how rarely we see him ACTUALLY working rather than indulging The Mayor and his latest scheme!  The episode begins with good ol’ Tom Peters making his usual trip to The Mayor for a quick “how do you do”, though this time he comes baring gifts in the form of a fruit basket and his updated résumé!  He even changed the font this time around to be THAT much more professional looking… which admittedly is STILL an uphill battle when you consider he printed it out on a sky blue pieces of paper, but he’s got that go getter attitude that all the Fortune 500 companies are looking for!  However, Tom’s renewed interest in employment doesn’t seem to be driven by a desire to support his family or have something to do during the day time.  Rather, one of his step-sons has a career day coming up and he wants to have something to present to the class other than being a mooch at home and a stooge for The Mayor.  Speaking of whom, the resume (if nothing else) appears to amuse him greatly since he is completely incapable of hiding his mirth at what has been presented to him, and this turns out to be quite the boon for good ol’ Tom as he now thinks that said deadbeat would be a perfect fit for a CEO position at Jefferton’s Department of Special Projects!  What is The Department of Special Projects, you may ask?  HA HA!!  As if I need to tell YOU!  EVERYONE is talking about The Department of Special Projects and their goals to exceed market share saturation into the twenty first century!  Maybe this video presentation will jog your memory!

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Hey, at least it looks more stable than a Cryptocurrency company.

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Super Recaps: The Twilight Zone (Dead Man’s Eyes)

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The Twilight Zone and all the images you see in this recap are owned by Warner Bros Television and based on the series created by Rod Serling

Episode directed by Jerry Levine

We’re back with another episode of The Twilight Zone from the early two-thousands; a show that was sadly too late to do a Y2K episode but at least took a few good shots at the Bush Administration in the second season, so stay tuned for that!  Before we get to THAT though, we’ve got a classic Whodunit story that has all the supernatural twist and turns you’d expect from a show that’s at least TRYING to imitate the majesty of Rod Serling’s creation!  Let’s get started!!

The episode begins with recent widow Laurel Janus (Portia de Rossi) watching as some dude named Stanley (Dion Luther) who killed her husband is being properly convicted for the crime and being sentenced to jail.  The good news is that the dude is definitely going to serve time, but the bad news (at least for Laurel) is that he won’t NECESSARILY get life and will CERTAINLY not get a needle in the arm; an unacceptable arrangement as her thirst for vengeance cannot be quenched with such a lightweight punishment!  She makes a ruckus about this, but the judge starts banging her gavel which means that no further discussion will be had and she storms out of the courtroom in a huff; clearly not finding the closure she was hoping for once the man who killed her husband was held responsible for such.  At the very least she gets the clothes her husband wore the night he died (I don’t know if the court DOES provide those, but if they did wouldn’t they provide them WAY before the trial?) and while sadly looking over her husband’s possessions, she ends up putting on his glasses when something WEIRD starts to happen!  Something that would only happen in a particular ZONE that we are all quite familiar with!  It turns out that when she puts on the glasses (and then after about ten seconds of load time), she starts to see the world through the eyes of her husband Nick (William DeVry)!  How intriguing!!

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“AVENGE ME!!”     “But the guy’s already in jail!”     “oh.  Don’t forget to return my videos to Blockbuster!!”

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Cinema Dispatch: Solo: A Star Wars Story

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Solo: A Star Wars Story and all the images you see in this review are owned by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

Directed by Ron Howard

Well I guess we were destined to get one of these sooner than later, and all I can say is… I’m glad we at least aren’t starting with Boba Fett.  I mean it looks like we’re getting one of those no matter what, but out of all the characters to get a prequel… Han isn’t dead last?  Eh… look.  Han Solo is FINE, but what exactly do we need to know about him that isn’t made readily apparent the first time we see him Mos Eisley Cantina?  Then again, him being a smuggler almost makes him a perfect candidate for a decent action film as smugglers tend to get in more gun fights than say… a farm boy on Tatooine, but is that enough to sustain a Star Wars movie?  Probably, at least for me, but let’s find out!!

The movie begins with Han (Alden Ehrenreich), who will soon be taking the surname Solo, on the planet Corellia hustling for his meals and dodging fellow street rats to keep himself alive.  The only thing that keeps him going are his dreams of owning his own ship as well as his one true love Qi’ra (Emilia Clarke) who is similarly stuck running con games in the back alleys of this crap hole planet, but fortune soon finds its way to them as Han finds something JUST valuable enough to get them both a one way ticket off this planet and to a new life!  The good news is he manages to escape, but the bad news is that Qi’ra gets caught JUST at the last second which means that Han has to get a jump start on that whole “getting a ship and making boat loads of cash” thing so that he can come back for Qi’ra and they can live happily ever after!  Hm… but what’s the best way to GET a spaceship in an Empire controlled section of the galaxy?  Oh hey!  Aren’t they CONSTANTLY recruiting new red shirts to take bullets and fail to hit their targets!  Sounds like a good way to at least take the first step to earning a livable wage and get the training he needs to survive on his own!  From there things get complicated as Han is not what you’d call a MODEL solider, and ends up with a band of smugglers (Woody Harrelson, Thandie Newton, and Jon Favreau) as well as a new Wookie friend of his named Chewbacca (Joonas Suotama).  Funny story how they met, but I won’t spoil it here!  So now that he has a crew to run with (after deserting the Empire) and a way to FINALLY make all that sweet cash he needs, he can set his sights on going back to save Qi’ra from whatever fate has befallen her in the years that he’s been gone, right?  Well not exactly as things are ALWAYS more complicated than they seem, which includes a SUPER gangster named Dryden (Paul Bettany) who has a bone to pick with this little band of misfits, the ultimate fate of Qi’ra which is VERY different from what Han had imagined, and even a slick hot shot named Lando (Donald Glover) who’s always one step ahead and laughing about it the whole time!  Can Han survive in this world of backstabbers, sharpshooters, and expert gamblers long enough to get his own ship and start a life with the woman he loves?  Just what did the smugglers do to Dryden, and what chances do they have of ACTUALLY making it right again?  How the heck do you even play holo-chess anyway!?

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THE SECRETS OF STAR WARS YOU’VE ALWAYS WANTED TO KNOW!!

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Super Recaps: Tom Goes to the Mayor (Jeffy the Sea Serpent)

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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 with another episode of Tim & Eric’s The X-Files!  While this may not be a case urgent enough for Mulder & Scully to pay a visit, Jefferton is certainly about to get a strange lesson in the world of Cryptozology and Freaky Happenstance when Tom and The Mayor get started on their latest scheme!  The episode begins with lovable Tom visiting The Mayor with yet another scheme; this time involving Jefferton’s tourism problem!  You see, Tom was watching That’s Amazing last night (the in-show TV show hosted by Bradley who is played by Bob Odenkirk) and there was a section on their involving The Loch Ness monster.  If the two of them could brainstorm a similar monster to roam the streets of Jefferton, then maybe they’ll get a piece of that sweet Cryptid money too!  Luckily for Tom, The Mayor comes up with a BRILLIANT scheme involving a man-made monster that Tom can pilot inside of the Jefferton Man Made Lake!  He calls him Jeffy!

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“To appeal to the kids, we should probably give him sunglasses and a lot of ‘tude.”     “I whole heartedly agree, Tom.  Let’s start brainstorming some ideas that’ll really show those kids how cool we are!”     “I’ll fire up excel while you get the poster board!”

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Cinema Dispatch: Trailer Talk (The Happytime Murders)

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The Happytime Murders is owned by STXfilms and all the images you see in this trailer talk are the property of their respective owners

Directed by Brian Henson

If you follow movie news rather closely (or did a google search after the trailer drop), you’d be aware that this is a project that has been in development hell for quite a few years; languishing at Lionsgate for many years before finally getting switched over to STX in 2015 which is who is finally getting this thing into theaters.  Apparently the story of a hardboiled detective who is ALSO a puppet wasn’t the easiest concept to produce even it sounds like THE GREATEST IDEA EVER, but now that this is ACTUALLY turning into a real film instead of a piece of strange Hollywood trivia, what do I think of what we’ve gotten in the first trailer?  I think it looks pretty good!  I’m a huge Melissa McCarthy fan, and while the joke is PRETTY obvious, there’s certainly potential for it to be really subversive of the cop genre and at the very least very interesting to watch.  I love the puppet designs here and in all honesty the incongruous nature of these goofy looking characters with a raunchy cop comedy isn’t nearly as enticing as seeing awesome puppets on the big screen again.  Sure, we had those two Muppet movies a few years back (this was in development well before those films by the way), but if it were up to me we’d be getting at least three puppet movies a year and in ALL sorts of genres for all sorts of audiences!  So the novelty will certainly be THERE and I’ll surely get a few chuckles out of it, but it needs to have more than just puppets acting crudely in order to be a GOOD film.  If that’s all they have up their sleeves, well Meet the Feebles, Crank Yankers, and TV Funhouse beat them to it.

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“I can’t HEAR you!  Over the SOUND!  OF ME STOMPING YOUR BALLS!!”

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