Tag: Danny Ramirez

Cinema Dispatch: Captain America: Brave New World

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

Captain America: Brave New World and all the images you see in this review are owned by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

Directed by Julius Onah

Do you know what’s way more tiresome than another MCU movie? Hearing about how tired people are about there being another MCU movie. Marvel Fatigue jumped the shark a long time ago, and frankly, I see enough movies that there’s always a sizable buffer between each superhero outing so it never feels like the MCU is overstaying its welcome. Still, there have been some missteps in recent years after the one-two-three punch of COVID, the death of Chadwick Bosman, and Jonathan Majors being outed as a predator; all of which threw the entire Post-Endgame roadmap into chaos and left us for six years without a Captain America movie to kick-off Anthony Mackie’s run as the character. Is this a case of better late than never with Mackie proving himself to be just as big a star as Chris Evans, or have all the delays and shakeups at Marvel taken the shine off his coronation? Let’s find out!!

Things have changed quite a bit since The Avengers brought everyone back from The Snap; not the least of which being the election of Thaddeus Ross (Harrison Ford) as President of the United States. With a new Commander in Chief looking to write his name in the history books, he works towards a peace treaty that will allow all nations to mine the precious resources from that Celestial that almost destroyed the world back in The Eternals while also trying to convince Captain America Sam Wilson (Anthony Mackie) to start a new Avengers Initiative to fend off whatever threats are out there waiting to strike. Sadly, these plans are forced to take a back seat when Isaiah Bradley (Carl Lumbly) and several others attending a peace talk at the White House try to assassinate the president. Of course, nothing is as it seems, and Sam is not about to let the government throw his friend back in jail. With the help of the new Falcon Joaquin Torres (Danny Ramirez), the two set about to find out what caused those people to become would be assassins and if there is more to the plan than just the death of a President. Can Sam and Joaquin uncover the truth and save Ross’s plans for peace, or will all this chaos only beget more violence on the global stage? Is Ross being upfront with everything that he knows about this latest threat, or are there secrets so terrible that he would put the world at risk to protect them? I mean, I usually trust Harrison Ford no matter what, but still…

“I’m telling you, they BELONG in a museum.”     “Can we at least keep the Infinity Stones separate from each other? Maybe rotate them out of the display case?”
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Cinema Dispatch: Top Gun: Maverick

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

Top Gun: Maverick and all the images you see in this review are owned by Paramount Pictures

Directed by Joseph Kosinski

It’s true that I’m getting to this one pretty late, but it’s also true that the darn thing is still the biggest movie at the moment so I guess I can still call this review somewhat relevant. I guess it’s no surprise that one of the most enduring classics of the eighties finally getting the sequel everyone always wanted would hit like a meteor full of money, but it’s still pretty surprising just how much this has eclipsed everything else around it. Even MCU movies which are supposedly so ubiquitous that we should all be sick of them don’t manage to have the kind of staying power that this movie has! So what is the secret formula that turned this into a license to print money? Is it actually as good as its box office would suggest, or has nostalgia once again suckered us all into giving money to a movie that was better off being remembered than revived? Let’s find out!!

Captain Pete Mitchell, better known as Maverick (Tom Cruise), has been bumming around the Navy since the glory days of Eddie Money and Leisure suits, and it’s landed him a gig as a test pilot for experimental aircraft. Of course, Maverick being Maverick, he manages to screw that up by ticking off Admiral Ed Harris and is only saved from a dishonorable discharge by his old friend Admiral Tom Kazansky who was once known as Iceman (Val Kilmer). Instead, he gets sent to teach the next generation of hot shot pilots which just so happens to include Lt. Bradley Bradshaw (Miles Teller), the son of Goose who died while flying with Maverick back in the first movie. His assignment, should he choose to accept it, is to get these Millennials in tip-top fighting shape for a ridiculously complicated and ludicrously dangerous bombing run to destroy a uranium enrichment facility, and there’s no one better than Maverick for making the impossible merely improbable! Can Maverick finally put his ego in check and be the teacher that these pilots need? What happened between him and Bradley that left him feeling so bitter, and is this Maverick’s last chance to make things right? Was waiting nearly forty years to make a sequel just a flex on Tom Cruise’s part to show how little he’s aged since then?

“Just hang tight and we’ll be done before you know it.”     “How long until we’re over Macho Grande?”     “Son, I don’t think we’ll ever get over Macho Grande…”     “Was than an Airplane 2 reference? Seriously, how old is this guy!?”
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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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