Tag: Emily Blunt

Cinema Dispatch: Marty Supreme & The Smashing Machine

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

Whenever I feel the urge to put a couple of reviews together, I at least try to find some sort of thematic connection between them, and I may have found the most specifically connected double bill that could possibly exist. Both films are directed by a Safdie brother, both are character pieces about sports figures, and both have stars of billion dollar franchises but ended up with mediocre box office returns. Oh, and both were released by the same studio, if there weren’t enough similarities already. It’s like they had a bet to see which one could make the better movie with more or less the same premise and resources, which I suppose means that it falls upon me to call this match and raise the arm of the winner! Will it be the intense kid from Dune, or Dwayne “The Tooth Fairy” Johnson who takes home the gold!? Let’s find out!!

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Marty Supreme

Marty Supreme is owned by A24

Directed by Josh Safdie

Marty Mauser (Timothée Chalamet) may not look like much, but underneath the scrawny frame and terrible mustache is a world-class table tennis player with trophies and prestige under his belt, but still barely scraping by and has to pull scams so he can fund his trips to international tournaments. After a devastating defeat to an up-and-coming Japanese star (Koto Kawaguchi), Marty is more determined than ever to be at the next tournament and claim the top spot from his new rival. Of course, it doesn’t help his case that he scammed the International Table Tennis Association for a luxury hotel room, so on-top of his usual hustles to make it to the next tournament, he has a neigh unpayable bill to the organization that needs to be paid in full before he can compete. Tack onto all of this his strained relationship with his family and a girlfriend (Odessa A’zion) who’s about to give birth, and Marty is stuck with more problems than he can shake a ping-pong paddle at. His only hope might be from a local ink pen magnate (Kevin O’Leary) and his wife (Gwyneth Paltrow), but since Marty is sleeping with her on the side, it might prove an even more fought situation than even he’s capable of navigating. Can Marty fulfill his dream without destroying his life in the process, and will he even give up that for an opportunity to be the best in the world?

The Safdies have been two of my favorite filmmakers for some time, and their last collaboration, Uncut Gems, was an absolute treasure. This film, on the hand, is not nearly as shiny as Josh Safdie was not able to recreate that success despite how obvious it is that he’s trying to. Their distinct style has been carried over here, as once again we are following a driven individual as he fumbles his way through an endless and chaotic series of vignettes in pursuit of whatever they think will fix everything that’s gone wrong in their life. While I found this quality both horrifying and captivating in Uncut Gems and Good Time, it wore me down seeing it repeated here, and to my mind, he needn’t of bothered as he was already making an interesting movie well before he started to indulge in his usual tropes. The table tennis matches are stunning to watch, with trick shots and big swings to convey just how high a level these players are, and the pacing of the matches leave you at the edge of your seat anticipating the next volley with breathless anticipation. A movie that stayed focused on the tournaments would have been amazing in its own right, but I suppose Josh Safdie likes his characters to frantically run through the streets of New York City, and so a majority of the movie is about watching him make bad decisions instead of watching him play table tennis. I appreciate that the personal struggles are necessary for the payoff of the ending to be worth it, but where the previous Safdie films felt intense and ran at a breakneck pace, this one ends up being repetitive and overlong; failing to capture the bleak grittiness of Good Time or the comedic tragedy of Uncut Gems. A shorter runtime would have helped to at least keep the pacing from dragging, but it also fails to make Marty and his struggles meaningfully sympathetic. It’s hard to avoid the fact that the first problem he runs would have been the easiest to overcome, especially given just how far he’s willing to go later in the film, and as good as Chalamet is in the role, I just couldn’t connect with him when he wasn’t holding a paddle. The takeaway here is not that this is a bad movie as even a poorly done Safdie film is still better than most filmmakers on a good day, but the heart is missing where it’s needed most, and a strong ending that returns to the table tennis action does only so much to bring me back onboard. As much as I liked watching them hit balls back and forth, I’m not sure if it was worth the two hours of misery and anxiety to get there.

3 out of 5
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Cinema Dispatch: Monkey Man, The Fall Guy, and I Saw the TV Glow

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

Between the time I saw the first of these movies and finished the last of them, the movie industry was dead, saved, and probably died again with each week being a coin toss as to where the story will go next. Perhaps it’s best that I didn’t have time to get to them right away, and in doing so avoided the box office drama that surrounded each new release. I certainly don’t have anything interesting to add to that conversation as I’m just here to watch the movies, but I’m sure that’s why you’re here as well, so let’s not waste any more time and dive right in!

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Monkey Man

Monkey Man is by Universal Pictures

Directed by Dev Patel

In the roughest part of a city of Yatana, you will find several less than savory characters; some in the rich cocaine dens run by the upper crust of society and others in the dingy arenas where fighters pulverize each other for cash. One such fighter is a man known as Kid (Dev Patel) who fights as the Monkey Man so that he can buy the tools he needs to exact vengeance on the rich and powerful who destroyed his childhood village and murdered his mother. Nothing is as simple as it seems, however, as the corruption that led to this slaughter goes to the highest peaks of India’s government, and none of them are going to stand for this forest brat tearing through their carefully laid plans to run the country. Will our hero bring down the system as an act of divine justice, or will his single-minded quest for blood only lead him to his own grave?

Dev Patel has definitely earned his Thespian stripes in recent years with a series of indie dramas and the bizarre art piece that was The Green Knight, and while it does feel like something of a swerve for his directorial debut to be a John Wick knock-off, he does fill it with enough stylistic flair to find a niche separate from its influences. It’s a movie that’s less about its plot and more about the details, with the setting playing as much a role in this movie as any of its characters. Some of it will perhaps be lost on Western audiences who aren’t familiar with India’s political landscape or economic situation, and I’m counting myself among those who are ignorant of these topics, but Patel fills the scenes with enough life and interesting side characters that it’s easy enough to slip into the world with Kid serving as our guide throughout it. Still, if there’s any area where the movie feels underwhelming, it’s with a few of the characters who are well drawn to fit the archetype or class of person that they need to represent, but don’t have much going on beyond that. The big bad at the end of the movie is almost a throwaway character; not for being unimportant to the overall plot as he’s the one pulling the strings and is most emblematic of the criticism Patel is leveraging against India’s government, but because the movie is simply not as concerned with his actions as they are with the secondary villain who gets far more screen time and is directly involved with the tragedy that sent Kid on his path of vengeance. The film makes a game attempt at melding social commentary with a classic revenge story, but there’s an obvious tension between the two that the film never fully resolves. Thankfully, the action is able to pick up the slack in the film’s narrative, and Patel has thrown himself into the role with a fiery passion. Physical roles like this can be quite taxing on an actor, especially one who’s not used to these kinds of roles, so the fact that he manages to look convincing throughout is impressive to say the least. I suppose my final thoughts on this is that it’s about as good as any number of action films that have tried to recapture the magic of John Wick; including the John Wick sequels. In some respects, this is a bit disappointing as Patel is clearly shooting for this to be an elevation of the genre given its themes and social commentary, but then again, how many first time directors can pull off action this good, both in front of and behind the camera?

3.5 out of 5
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Cinema Dispatch: Barbenheimer

~ Matt Vetrano ~ 1 Comment

When it comes to two movies releasing on the same day the narrative is usually that of a fight to see which one will top the box office, and yet this whole Barbenheimer deal has been one of mutual appreciation which seems to have worked out well for both movies as they had strong opening weekends on the back of solid word of mouth and the novelty of this double-feature. Was this quirk of good timing the perfect way to energize two great movies, or will the memes be more fondly remembered than the movies they were celebrating? Let’s find out!!

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Barbie

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

Directed by Greta Gerwig

In the land of Barbies, where all Barbies are named Barbie and all Kens are named Ken, we follow Stereotypical Barbie (Margot Robbie) who is leading her stereotypical Barbie life of fun, empowerment, and dance parties! That is until she starts having some strange thoughts that put her out of step with the rest of Barbie land and she has no choice but to go on a journey to the Real World to find the little girl playing with her that’s giving her all these bad vibes. Not wanting to be left out as he usually is, Ken (Ryan Gosling) manages to tag along on this journey and has his own quest of self-discovery that could perhaps impede Barbie from finishing her own!

Starting things off with sunshine and sparkles, we dive into the bright pastels and infectious optimism of Hollywood’s latest attempt to cynically turn brands into cinematic universes! Well, that’s a little unfair as the movie takes a fair number of risks in creating such a uniquely faithful adaptation; not to any specific work in the Barbie canon, but to the idea of Barbie as a brand itself. What could have easily been an insufferable exercise in cheerleading a doll line manages to have more than enough wit and creativity to rise above its baggage. Of course, it can’t truly be a subversive work given that it’s made with the explicit endorsement of Mattel, but Gerwig and Robbie were still given a surprising amount of room to tell an unconventional and mature story within this pink and plastic world. What I most appreciated was the utter absurdity of it all as it revels in its own dream logic to tell its story; never getting so abstract as to be indecipherable, but never letting unnecessary plot details grind the pacing to a halt or hold it back from telling a funny joke. It’s the kind of storytelling that works for a high-concept fantasy like this where at any moment we could pull back to find the whole plot being elaborately staged by a group of young girls at a sleepover, and if you aren’t going to make a Barbie movie a fanciful journey then why bother making it in the first place? There does seem to be a missed opportunity, however, as they don’t go the extra mile to make this a musical which, to me, would have catapulted it to the camp classic it’s clearly aiming to be. The movie has songs, singing, and even some dancing for good measure, but there’s only one musical number for a movie that is otherwise so bombastic, and on top of that it’s done by the Kens instead of the Barbies which leads us to the other issue I have with the film. Perhaps this is where the gender divide is the most obvious, but when all was said and done I found myself thinking more about the Kens than the Barbies; especially when it comes to Ryan Gosling and Margot Robbie. Robbie is great in the role and she carries this movie from start to finish, but Gosling is a riot throughout and I found his arc to be the more interesting of the two. Barbie doesn’t really have much that she needs when the movie begins and the conflict she has to resolve is thrust upon her by circumstances outside of her control. It’s through the disruption of her routine that she does eventually realize what has been missing, but there’s not much to distinguish her as a Barbie of note compared to every other Barbie in Barbie Land. Ken on the other hand begins the movie with angst and flaws that inform his actions throughout the movie, and where the script ends up taking him is fascinating and utterly hilarious even if it’s the primary obstacle that our true protagonist has to overcome. Again, this may be my own biases talking here, but Robbie just didn’t come across as the most interesting character in her own movie and my favorite moments are things that happened around her instead of anything with her specifically. For me, the movie feels a little pulled back at points which are all the more noticeable given how extra the rest of the movie is, so while it doesn’t quite hit cult classic status as many were hoping for it to, it does end up being a great time at the movie and one that I can happily recommend to everyone with an appetite for something sweet.

4 out of 5
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Cinema Dispatch: Mary Poppins Returns

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

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Mary Poppins Returns and all the images you see in this review are owned by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

Directed by Rob Marshall

Well this one has certainly been a long time coming, hasn’t it?  I mean with the pace at which Disney is cannibalizing its older properties to make billions at the box office, it was only a matter of time before one of their most iconic features gets a shiny coat of HD paint!  Just over the horizon, we still have The Lion King, Dumbo, Mulan, Aladdin, and the list will certainly keep growing from there.  Still, this isn’t quite a Beauty and the Beast shameless shot for shot retelling of an animated feature since this is an ACTUAL sequel that continues from the original film!  It’s been so long since I’ve seen the first Mary Poppins that I’m not sure what to expect here, but the cast is strong and Rob Marshall is made for this kind of material.  Will it be a fun and engaging experience for audiences of all ages who need a little bit of nonsense and silliness in their lives, or has modern Disney failed to understand what made that classic film so memorable for so many people?  Let’s find out!!

The movie picks up about twenty years after the first one where the Banks Children are now the Banks Adults.  Michael Banks (Ben Whishaw) has had a particularly rough go of it as his wife had just died a year ago and he had to give up his dreams of being an artist to get a job at the bank, but he’s still go the house he grew up in and three perfect children (Pixie Davies, Nathanael Saleh, and Joel Dawson); not to mention his sister Jane (Emily Mortimer) who helps around the house between labor protests, and their housekeeper Ellen (Julie Walters) who’s still cleaning up after them all these years later.  They’ve weathered a storm so things can only be looking up, right?  Well as it turns out, Michael took out a big loan at the bank to cover expenses this last year and now they’re gonna repossess the house unless he can pay the loan back in full within five days.  Well shoot!  If only they had a magical nanny who could make all this better with songs and animation!  Well it turns out that the Banks family is in luck because whatever mystical force is watching over them has sent Mary Poppins (Emily Blunt) to once again fix their problems and watch the kids while Michael and Jane try to scramble to find their father’s old bank stock they could use to possibly pay off the loan.  With the help of a friendly lamplighter named Jack (Lin-Manuel Miranda) and various colorful characters including her cousin Topsy (Meryl Streep), Mary Poppins is on a divine mission to introduce a bit of whimsy and discipline into these children’s lives, and maybe help Michael and Jane rediscover their childhoods along the way!  Will Michael and Jane find what they need to save their childhood home?  What can the kids do to help the situation, and can Mary Poppins be the key to it all?  Why the heck didn’t I get a flying magical nanny when I was a kid?  I don’t even think they had to pay her!

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“The price for my services is either two hundred dollars a week or you can just hand over your soul to empower the dark forces tucked away within me.”     “Well I’m already paying my student loans each month…”

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Cinema Dispatch: A Quiet Place

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

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A Quiet Place and all the images you see in this review are owned by Paramount Pictures

Directed by John Krasinski

We had quite a few good horror films last year like IT, Happy Death Day, and ESPECIALLY Get Out, but pickings have been a bit slim in the first third of 2018 with the only wide releases going to the fourth Insidious movie and the rather underwhelming Annihilation if you’d even want to count that.  THANK GOODNESS that Platinum Dunes has stepped up to the plate because they’ve ALWAYS made good movies, am I right!?  Okay, so the studio has a pretty shaky track record with some pretty awful remakes being their staple up until 2010, but they have gotten a bit better at picking movies what with The Purge series being under their banner and I even liked that Friday the 13th film they did, though I’m certainly in the minority on that one.  This movie at least has been getting some positive buzz despite what I feel what I thought were rather underwhelming trailers, so maybe the steady improvement of Platinum Dunes productions will continue unabated!  I mean as long as we forget about those Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie… and the first Ouija movie.  ANYWAY, does this latest thriller with a unique premise manage to be all it’s cracked up to be, or will the silence in the theater be less due to enraptured awe and more due to straight up boredom?  Let’s find out!!

We begin this story in the near future where it seems that society has crumbled and the few remaining survivors are eking out a rather mundane existence as they try to avoid being hunted down by whatever it was that nearly wiped us all out.  What is hunting them exactly?  I don’t know, some sort of Silent Hill looking dudes with sharp claws that LOVE to slice and dice people whenever they can find them.  The key to their success however turns out to be some EXCELLENT hearing skills, so in order to survive in this world you need to stay QUIET!  At least the Abbott family has managed to make this new way of life work for them as Momma and Poppa (Emily Blunt and John Krasinski) have worked tirelessly to set up rules and precautions to protect their children and to keep their mouths shut!  Sure, they lost ONE kid, but they’ve still got two left who know not to make even the SMALLEST of sounds if they want to survive, and there’s even another kid on the way which SEEMS like a bad idea considering how hard it is to reasonably explain to a baby that they’re crying is not very helpful at the moment, but I guess we’ll cross that bridge when we get there!  Anyway, the eldest kid Regan (Millicent Simmonds) is having trouble dealing with the death of her little brother which she blames herself for and on top of that is deaf herself which makes it easier for her to communicate without sound but means that things might be a bit more dangerous if she can’t hear any approaching threats.  At least she’s better equipped to handle what’s going on than her brother Marcus (Noah Jupe) who’s REALLY traumatized by everything that’s happened since the monsters came to town and spends most of his time being terrified about everything around him; not the MOST impracticable of positions to take, but it does cause some friction between him and his dad when he has trouble letting go of his fears to focus on the basic survival tasks at hand.  So with one kid feeling guilty, another one scared of his own shadow, and a third one threatening to come out of their mother in the very near future, things may not be sustainable for that much longer no matter how much Super Dad tries to keep things firmly within his grasp.  Can this family survive this terrifying threat for as long as it takes for someone to figure out how to destroy these creatures once and for all?  Will they find a way to successfully have this baby and raise it without attracting the attention of the creatures that have the super strong hearing and extremely deadly claws?  Seriously, how have you guys survived THIS long if knocking something over is enough to get these creatures to come a knocking!?

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“…”

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Cinema Dispatch: My Little Pony: The Movie

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

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My Little Pony: The Movie and all the images you see in this review are owned by Lionsgate and Hasbro

Directed by Jayson Thiessen

It took them seven years to do this?  We’ve had at least four equestrian girl movies, not to mention a slew of Hasbro properties making it to the big screen, but one of the most successful reboots of all time was put on the back burner until now!?  Well better late than never I guess, though the trailers leading up to its release have certainly strained my credulity on that expression.  Still, trailers aren’t always accurate and I’m certainly a big enough fan of this series that it wouldn’t be THAT hard to keep me at least mildly entertained.  Can the team behind such a successful television series make a successful leap to the big screen, or was this as ill-fated a project as… well pretty much all the OTHER Hasbro films that we’ve gotten so far?  Let’s find out!!

The movie begins with yet another friendship festival that’s hosted by the Princess of Friendship (how much of Canterlot’s tax revenue is straight up pork for Twilight’s pet projects?) and they’ve even managed to get the one and only Sapphire Shores… I mean Countess Coloratura… I mean Songbird Serenade (Sia), to make an appearance!  Twilight Sparkle (Tara Strong) along with her assistant Spike (Cathy Weseluck) and her friends Rarity, Pinkie Pie, Fluttershy, Rainbow Dash, and Applejack (Tabitha St Germain, Andrea Libman, and Ashleigh Ball), seem to have everything under control and are ready to set everything in motion, but then a fleet of very intimidating airships descend upon the capital of Equestria and start demanding their complete and utter surrender!  It turns out that this is the opening salvo for a maniacal dictator known as The Storm King (Live Schreiber) and is being led by a mysterious pegasus with a broken horn named Tempest Shadow (Emily Blunt) who somehow manages to take out the three other princesses, Celestia, Luna, and Cadence (Nicole Oliver, Tabitha St Germain (again), and Britt McKillip) without the slightest bit of resistance!  Either this is one bad mother of a pony or the Princesses need better security!  In any case, the Twilight and her friends manage to escape but don’t have much to go on other than a mysterious message that Celestia shouted out before she was defeated and captured by Tempest Shadow; seek the queen of the hippos who lives beyond the badlands.  Not sure how hippos will help in this situation unless you dropped them on Tempest, but with nothing else to go on they begin their journey outside of The Shire… I mean Equestria, hoping to find a way to stop The Storm King and Tempest before it’s too late.  What will our little ponies find outside of the comforting boarders of Equestria, and will they know how to deal with such strange and frightening environments?  What is Tempest REALLY after in all this, and what does the Storm King have in store for all of them once he arrives in Canterlot?  Is the answer to all these questions Friendship?  I bet it’s gonna be Friendship.

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“See, THIS place could use a WHOLE lot of friendship!”

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Cinema Dispatch: Trailer Talk (My Little Pony: The Movie)

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

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My Little Pony: The Movie and all the images you see in this trailer talk are owned by Lionsgate and Hasbro

Directed by Jayson Thiessen

Despite being such a popular series with a fan base that is heavily invested in the creative side of the process as much as it is in the show itself, there really hasn’t been much said about the My Little Pony movie that’s been in production.  Heck, it honestly feels like Equestria Girls, which was a spin off that only got a limited theatrical release, had MUCH more fanfare and anticipation surrounding it than something Hasbro is actually risking quite a bit of money on.  Okay, there’s no way we’re talking Transformers money here, but there’s no way a feature length animated feature with celebrity voices THIS famous was less than what they invested in freaking Jem and the Holograms which had its first trailer out five months before its release compared to four months for this film.  Still, an uneven marketing campaign doesn’t always spell doom for a film (*cough* Wonder Woman *cough*), and even if it’s a sign that the studio doesn’t have faith in the final product… well go ask Newmarket Films how that worked out with Donnie Darko.  Either way, let’s find out!!

Okay, so there’s no getting around it.  The movie looks PRETTY terrible based on this trailer.  The first thing you’ll notice is that the art style is quite different from the series which isn’t ALWAYS a bad thing (watching it for the first time, I was somewhat reminded of the changes made for the Spongebob Squarepants movie), but it doesn’t come off as an IMPROVEMENT and there are clearly areas where they were cutting corners; most notably with the copious use of CG for the buildings and backgrounds.

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WHERE THE HELL ARE ALL THE TEXTURES!?  Did they just forget to render them!?

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Cinema Dispatch: The Girl on the Train

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

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The Girl on the Train and all the images you see in this review are owned by Universal Pictures

Directed by Tate Taylor

The only thing I knew about this movie before walking in was that the trailer had probably the most baffling musical choice imaginable.  Seriously, who the hell puts Kanye West in the trailer for a movie that we’re supposed to take SERIOUSLY!?  If you can somehow tune out the poor choice of music (how is the WOMAN heartless when she’s the one who gets MURDERED!?) there is something intriguing about the premise and it’s the perfect time to release these kind of dark murder mysteries now that Oscar Season is upon is.  Is this an early contender for best of the year status, or is this a wannabe Gone Girl knockoff that’s simply jumping on the bandwagon?  Let’s find out!!

The movie begins with Rachel (Emily Blunt) as the titular girl on the train as she passes by the same sight she sees every time she rides it.  Every day, the train stops right in front of these two houses; one has her ex-husband Tom (Justin Theroux) and his new family, and the other has this couple who from all outward appearances looks perfectly happy.  This routine goes on for some time until one day she notices a new man in the house with the woman Megan (Haley Bennett) which shatters Rachel’s already fragile mental state (for various reasons, she’s crawled inside a bottle for the last few years) and she gets even MORE drunk than usual that night and gets off at the stop that’s close to their house.  Jump to the next morning and Rachel wakes up in her room; covered in mud, blood, and booze with no explanation of what happened the night before.  Eventually, it turns out that Megan has disappeared (which means she’s dead but they haven’t found the body yet) and no one knows what happened.  Rachel seems to have an idea, but the memories of that night are so fried that she can’t piece them together and feels compelled to save this woman who she’s been watching all this time… and if she can also throw some shade at her ex-husband’s new wife Anna (Rebecca Ferguson) in the process, well then that’s just brownie points.  Can Rachel find out what happened to Megan and find some sense of self-worth, even in her completely debilitated state?  Who was this woman that’s gone missing, and can her past lead us to the reason she was murdered?  Can we all just agree to give Emily Blunt the Oscar now!?  It’s basically Leaving Las Vegas 2!!

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“Maybe I shouldn’t breathe so much, Terri!  Ha HAAAA!!”     “The fuck does that even mean!?”

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Cinema Dispatch: The Huntsman: Winter’s War

~ Matt Vetrano ~ 1 Comment

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The Huntsman: Winter’s War and all the images you see in this review are owned by Universal Pictures

Directed by Cedric Nicolas-Troyan

I really haven’t been looking forward to this.  Cutting Snow White out of a sequel to Snow White?  Yeah… no.  This exists simply because Chris Hemsworth had a weekend free between Captain America and In the Heart of the Sea.  Still, the first movie was a pretty solid fantasy film that had drop dead gorgeous designs and if nothing else that seems to have carried over here.  Not only that, but they managed to somehow get Charlize Theron back, and while the explanation will probably be dumb as hell, she WAS one of the best aspects of the first film.  Can they manage to squeeze out ONE decent sequel before driving this franchise into the dirt, or is it too late to even hope for that much?  Let’s find out!!

First of all, this movie is very much a sequel despite the advertising that states otherwise.  It STARTS as a prequel, but only to fill in the backstories for the characters who weren’t around for the first movie.  Queen Ravenna (Charlize Theron) was murdering her way through the fantasy kingdom’s royal families when her sister Freya (Emily Blunt) reveals that she is not only in love, but pregnant as well.  Despite the careful warnings of her sister, Freya goes all in on love and gets seriously burned.  Okay, well maybe SHE doesn’t get burned, but her baby does as she finds her one true love has torched the nursey with the baby inside.  Ouch.  This traumatic incident is enough to not only awaken Freya’s hidden ice powers, but to essentially make her emotionally dead and disdainful of love.  Since grief council apparently doesn’t exist in this world, she instead takes out her pain on the Northern part of the country (it’s ALWAYS in the North where things we don’t know about until later happened) where she creates her icy doom fortress and raids villages for children to raise as her Huntsmen.  Two such huntsmen are Eric (Chris Hemsworth) and Sara (Jessica Chastain) who fall in love which is strictly forbidden in the snow palace, so Sara’s killed and Eric is left for dead.  Got it?  Good.  We THEN cut to the present time (not too long after the first movie) where Snow White (who apparently is still in this except not really) has ordered the mirror mirror on the wall to be sent away where its wicked powers cannot hurt anyone.  Unfortunately, the convoy delivering it to some vaguely defined sacred place never reached their destination so she requests the huntsman to go out there, find the damn thing, and finish delivering it before it can fall into the wrong hands.  Say… those of the Ice Queen?  He heads out on the journey with Nion and Gryff (Nick Frost and Rob Brydon) who are two dwarves (one of whom is from the first movie) and try to figure out just what the hell happened to the mirror and the convey.   But wait!  Not all is as it seems as Eric is soon confronted with Sara who somehow is still alive and super pissed!  How did she manage to recover from being murdered?  Will this little posse of fantasy bad asses be able to find the mirror before it’s too late?  Just how blatantly are they ripping off Frozen in this!?

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Cinema Dispatch: Sicario

~ Matt Vetrano ~ 2 Comments

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

Directed by Denis Villeneuve

Isn’t it great to that we start getting GOOD movies again?  I mean sure, Black Mass had its problems but compared to some of the crap I had to sit through in the last two months, it was practically Kubrick.  Now we’re getting this movie AND The Martian in the same week without a single bible thumping propaganda piece in sight!  Does this tale about government agencies working against the Cartel manage to be one of the better films of the year, or is a disappointing procedural that will get lost in the shuffle by the time the Oscars roll around?  Let’s find out!!

The movie is about Kate Macer (Emily Blunt) who’s head of some sort of tactical response team in the FBI stumbles across a horrifying crime scene during one of her missions where the Cartel has apparently been burying people they kill in the walls of the building.  Okay… well it gets even worse when the team accidently sets off a trap bomb that may have killed any remaining hostages that the team thought were on the premises.  Despite the awful day she had, the silver lining comes in when she catches the attention of Matt Graver (Josh Brolin) who offers her a chance to work with him on more direct missions against the Cartel.  She agrees to go with him and meets with Alejandro (Benicio Del Toro) who’s a complete mystery and may not even be working for the United States in any sort of official capacity.  Still, he proves to be very effective in the line of duty as he and Matt (along with Kate who’s still adjusting to their methods) work on operations that will definitely cut the Cartel’s legs out from under them.  Still, she has her reservations to the actions they take and once her partner from the tactical response team Reggie Wayne (Daniel Kaluuya) gets in on it to, it’s clear that her conscious is getting the better of her and that Matt and Alejandro aren’t exactly who they seem to be.  Will Kate decide that their methods, while unorthodox, are necessary for the war they’re trying to fight, or will she not allow herself to go through the mental hoops necessary to somehow justify their actions and her own?

“Maybe we shouldn’t be rolling into foreign countries to take their citizens while carrying high powered weaponry.  Then again, SCREW THESE CARTEL ASSHOLES!!  BANG BANG BANG!!!”
“Maybe we shouldn’t be rolling into foreign countries to take their citizens while carrying high powered weaponry.  Then again, SCREW THESE CARTEL ASSHOLES!!  BANG BANG BANG!!!”

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