Tag: Andy Muschietti

Cinema Dispatch: The Flash

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

The Flash and all the images you see in this review are owned by Warner Bros. Pictures

Directed by Andy Muschietti

The Flash has been in development since at least Suicide Squad and its journey to the big screen has been fraught, to say the least. Controversy with its main star, the shifting sands of the DCEU project as a whole, Warner Bros getting sold to Discovery, and let’s not forget the Global Pandemic that threw everything into chaos and continue to affect us to this day. On top of all of that, in case there wasn’t enough going against this, it was a movie that frankly few people seemed to ask for as it was borne of the earliest version of the DCEU that people have roundly rejected and that even Warner Bros has started to correct course on. The DCEU may yet have a happy ending now that we’re finally starting over with a new creative vision under James Gunn, but is this last hurrah a bittersweet epithet to everything that it had previously stood for or is it the nail in the coffin that will finally put it all to rest? Let’s find out!!

It’s not easy being a superhero as I’m sure most of them will gladly tell you, but for Barry Allen (Ezra Miller) it comes with an extra dose of sadness as they are the perpetual New Guy of the Justice League. Unlike their teammates who are either God-like figures or super rich, they’re just a person trying to live their life and deal with their tragic backstory which involves their mother being murdered and their dad taking the blame for it. With their father’s last appeal coming fast, Barry is overcome with grief and finds out, much like Superman back in 1978, that angry running is the secret to time travel; giving him a chance to fix what went wrong all those years ago. Sadly for them, however, we’re following Butterfly Effect rules and every change makes things much worse which cascades into more and more problems that he is tasked with fixing which includes a much goofier Barry Allen who needs to learn to take care of himself and an older Batman (Michael Keaton) who gave up the cowl long ago. Oh, and General Zod (Michael Shannon) is about to take over the world since there’s seemingly no Superman in this timeline, and there are very few outcomes I can think of that are worse than having to live through Man of Steel again. Can Barry fix the timeline and perhaps leave the world in a better place than where it was when they started this adventure? Can Barry be a proper mentor to younger Barry and set them on the right course, or will this interference in the timeline create unforeseen ripples for them as well? Is there any way I can go back in time myself and have Warner Bros cancel this instead of the Batgirl movie?

“What’s up? I’m the new Supergirl and I’m gonna get a movie soon.”     “Yeah, just like how I’m alternate Barry, and I’ll be getting a spin-off!”     “Whoa, whoa, whoa! None of that’s gonna happen until I get my sequel first, right?”
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Cinema Dispatch: IT Chapter 2

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

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IT Chapter 2 and all the images you see in this review are owned by Warner Bros Pictures

Directed by Andy Muschietti

Alright, so we’re all in agreement that the first film was amazing, right?  I mean it had a few issues here and there, but dang it if Chapter One wasn’t a horror masterpiece with great performances, a terrifying villain, and the brilliant idea of taking the GOOD parts of a Stephen King book and leaving out all the stuff that doesn’t work.  Heck, I’m pretty sure the last time that happened was when Kubrick made The Shining which Stephen King really doesn’t like for some reason.  Now we’ve got the sequel which has the neigh impossible task of capturing lightening in a bottle twice; especially since most of what made the first one so memorable will necessarily have to be either absent or pushed to the side.  Can the filmmakers pull off the impossible by making the notoriously unworkable ending to the book into something not just comprehensible but just as good as the film that came before it?  Let’s find out!!

The movie picks up twenty seven years after the events of the first film where the mysterious murders in Derry have started up once again and Michael (Isaiah Mustafa) as the only member of the Losers Club left in town has to bring the gang back together to fight the evil Pennywise (Bill Skarsgård) once again.  Bill, Richie, Beverly, Ben, Eddie, and Stanley (James McAvoy, Bill Hader, Jessica Chastain, Jay Ryan, James Ransone, and Andy Bean) have all gone their separate ways and can’t even seem to remember their time in Derry or the monster they fought all those years ago, but after a phone call from Mike they all start to remember (some take the news harder than others) and travel back home to take care of what IT is once and for all.  In the process they will have to confront their pasts, face their fears, and do all sorts of weird stuff in the vein attempt of trying to destroy a monster that has lived for hundreds of years while they’re a bunch of middle aged writers, comedians, and risk analysists, who might be able to throw a punch but not much else.  Can the monster known alternatively as IT, Pennywise, and WHAT THE HECK IS THAT THING!? be defeated by these friends brought together once again by the pact they made long ago?  What is the clown planning for them as revenge for the defeat that he suffered back in the eighties?  Maybe he can defeat them by trying to explain the ending of the book and just wait until their brains explode.

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“I WANT A FIVE HUNDRED WORD ESSAY ABOUT THE ENDING ON MY DESK TOMORROW MORNING!!”

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Cinema Dispatch: IT

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

ITCD0

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

Directed by Andy Muschietti

MAN this one takes me back!  I still have my grandfather’s copy of the book that I read in middle school; torn to shreds naturally considering how much I carried it around.  I’ve read a few Stephen King books here and there and I tend to like his style overall, but his movies are some of the most hit and miss films you could imagine; ranging from critically acclaimed masterpieces like The Shining to garbage you’ve never even heard of like Riding the Bullet.  IT is one of the weird ones as its one of the most definitive King books out there (not just in popularity but in terms of content as well) but it’s honestly… a little bit… weak.  Not saying it’s BAD, but there’ just SO much going on in there that it feels like several novels fighting for control of the narrative.  Heck, if The Dark Tower didn’t LITERALLY do this, I’d say it’s almost akin to mashup of everything King had done up to that point only without a single shred of restraint to keep the whole thing manageable; hence why the damn thing is so thick you could beat a man to death with it.  Still, we already got one adaptation of this story that everyone seems to like which means that someone EVENTUALLY had to take another crack at it for BRAND NAME RECOGNITION, but they at least had the foresight to make it a hard R movie instead of a PG-13 which works for SOME movies, but not for a story like IT.  Will this be the new standard for Stephen King adaptations, or will this be like The Dark Tower where I’m the only one out there who actually enjoyed it?  Let’s find out!!

The story of IT is set in the town of Derry (zero points if you can guess what state it’s in) where there’s been an unusual uptick in missing kid reports which has most of the town on edge; especially the kids themselves who fear they’ll be next.  We know what’s up though!  The first thing we see in the movie is little Georgie (Jackson Robert Scott) falling victim to the supernatural menace that has been picking off kids left and right while taking the form of a really creepy looking clown known simply as Pennywise (Bill Skarsgård).  Everyone believes little Georgie to be dead, but his brother Bill (Jaeden Lieberher) is convinced that he’s still out there and plans to find him by any means possible; including going into the spooky sewers that may be full of waste but could ALSO be full of answers!  His friends Richie, Stan, and Eddie (Finn Wolfhard, Wyatt Oleff, and Jack Dylan Grazer) are helping him despite their better judgement and this circle of friends increases to include Mike, Ben and Beverly (Chosen Jacobs, Jeremy Ray, and Sophia Lillis); all of whom are outcasts in one way or another and seem to be the only ones even TRYING to figure out what’s going on in their small town.  Will they find the answers they seek the further they delve into the town’s cryptic history?  What will Pennywise the clown do once he realizes these kids are onto him, and is there more to him than meets the eye?  How the heck are they gonna do in two hours what a TV movie couldn’t do in less than three!?  AND THEY HAD TIM CURRY TO HELP WITH THAT ONE!!

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“We’ll be right back after these messages…”

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