Tag: Giancarlo Esposito

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: Megalopolis

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

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

Directed by Francis Ford Coppola

Is it just me, or have the bad movies gotten more interesting in 2024? Sure, they’re still bad movies, but I’ve had a lot to talk about when it comes to stuff like Borderlands and The Crow, and while I was looking forward to enjoying this as a good movie when it was first announced, the last few months of bad press and worse behavior from its grumpy creator has lowered my expectations considerably. Is this a cinematic triumph from one of its greatest auteurs, or is this simply a case of an old man yelling at clouds for two hours? Let’s find out!!

In the city of New Rome, there is a struggle for the fate of society as Cesar Catilina (Adam Driver) envisions a Utopia within his lifetime brought about through the building of a great city he will dub Megalopolis. Despite his brilliant foresight into the future of humanity, he is opposed by the mayor of New Rome, Franklyn Cicero (Giancarlo Esposito), as well as certain members of his own family who are jealous of the genius and acclaim that seems to come so naturally to Cesar. One such enemy, at least at first, is the daughter of the mayor Julia (Nathalie Emmanuel) who wants to humiliate him for how he has humiliated her father, and yet even she cannot help but see the perfect world that Cesar hopes to bring about as she spends more time with him. Alas, outside forces are not the sole source of Cesar’s struggle as his genius compels him to act out in self-destructive ways as the truly exceptional among us often do, and it threatens to diminish the wisdom trapped within his skull. With so many forces trying to stop the perfect future, can Cesar convince the common folk to back his cause and pressure the government to put all their eggs in his basket? What is the true source of his self-destructive tendencies, and will Julia have what it takes to keep his mind clear and his butt out of jail? Is it just me, or is the writer, the director, and possibly even the producer of this movie, trying to say something with this unsung and tortured genius trying to make the world a better a place according to his image of it?

“And why are the cell phones so darn confusing these days!? Can’t I just order a pizza without downloading an app and signing up for their rewards program!?”
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Cinema Dispatch: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem and all the images you see in this review are owned by Paramount Pictures

Directed by Jeff Rowe

To be frank, I just never got the whole Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles thing. I like the original live-action movie well enough, but it’s not a franchise that I ever got invested in as it just felt like one of those Gen-X holdovers that overstayed its welcome. Well, now the joke’s on me as my childhood is now getting eye rolls from the Zoomers who also can’t escape the prevalence of their previous generation’s obsessions. It’s the circle of life I suppose, and TMNT is taking yet another stab at staying relevant to the youngsters. Will this be another hit for the franchise to go alongside Rise of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, or will we be begging for the Bay-Turtles to come back by the time this is over? Let’s find out!!

In the beginning, there was ooze; and said ooze landed on a quartet of cute turtles as well as a very paternal rat. The ooze mutated them to be humanoid, but their ninja skills came from their adoptive rat-dad Splinter (Jackie Chan) looking for a way to protect his kids from the outside world. The turtles are now teenagers named Leonardo, Michelangelo, Raphael, and Donatello (Nicolas Cantu, Shamon Brown Jr, Brady Noon, and Micah Abbey) and while they can kick all sorts of butt with their ninja skills, they’re mostly used to get groceries and hide in the shadows; away from the scary humans who would surely reject them if they were to come out of the sewers. Sounds rather bleak if you ask me, but fortunately, they run into a high school reporter named April O’Neil (Ayo Edebiri) and she doesn’t immediately turn them in to the authorities to be dissected but instead comes up with a plan to make them heroes so that they can be accepted and go to high school, and she can get the scoop of a lifetime! Their mission is to take down the mysterious Super Fly (Ice Cube) whose been wreaking havoc all over the city with daring heists of top secret scientific hardware, and while the Turtles want nothing more than to live normal lives, getting closer to Super Fly also gets them closer to some very uncomfortable truths about themselves. What is this Super Fly after, and are his goals as evil as his means of achieving them? Is this a win-win scenario for all involved, or will the world never accept them even if they do save the day? Would we honestly be that shocked to learn of sentient turtles in the sewers who fight crime and eat pizza? I mean Congress had a hearing on UFOs and that barely lasted a day in the news cycle!

“I’m just saying, everyone thinking we’re from Krypton is gonna help us with our PR problem, and it’s not like they can prove otherwise! Heck, we don’t know where that Ooze came from! Maybe it’s from space!” “I think you’re stretching there, Mikey.”
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Super Recaps: The Mandalorian – Chapter 8

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

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The Mandalorian is owned by Disney

Directed by Taika Waititi

Would it be inappropriate to do the Darth Vader “NOOOO” right now?  Because I feel like doing the Darth Vader “NOOOO” right now.  I don’t want this season to be over!  Heck, I need this show more than I did BEFORE seeing The Rise of Skywalker!  What am I supposed to do between now and whenever the heck season 2 comes out!?  Read fan fiction!?  Play that Star Wars Destiny thing!?  On top of that, what is Disney Plus supposed to offer me between now and then?  They don’t even have the Goofy sports cartoons, let alone the REALLY good stuff like No Smoking!!  Does this season end on a high note which would make it the best Star Wars thing since The Last Jedi, or will this be a bigger disappointment to everyone than The Return of Skywalker?  Let’s find out!!  Oh, and today I think we’ll go with… Walter and Jesse.  I know we used a DIFFERENT Walter last time, but I had no idea that Gus was going to show up in that episode, so I’m using that name again for this one!!

The episode begins right after the end of the last one; with two storm troopers on speeder bikes heading back to the city to deliver Jesse to Moff Gideon (Giancarlo Esposito) and they are waiting just on the outskirts for a signal that it’s okay to bring the little bugger to him.  What happens next is one of the best scenes in the entire series as the two Stormtroopers played by Adam Pally and Jason Sudeikis just start chatting and doing random incidental things for like five minutes!  They argue, they shoot their blasters at a tin can (missing obviously), and they even punch Jesse in the head a few times just so you don’t forget that they’re jerks.  I’ve always had a fascination with henchmen and I love it whenever something like this takes a moment to give them the spotlight, and this scene doesn’t disappoint as it is simultaneously REALLY funny but also distressing as they really do clock that kid a couple of times which makes you hope that he uses his force powers to snap their necks and leave their corpses in hilarious poses.   Disney?  If you want to throw a few costumes at me, I will make you a storm trooper series!  Just say the word!!  Sadly this isn’t the entirety of the episode, but the scene does have a great payoff as the IG-unit (now the IG-Nanny I guess) shows up, rips one guy’s arm out of its socket and bashes the other’s head repeatedly into his own speeder.  Luckily the other speeder remained unharmed and IG-Nanny goes off with Jesse to presumably somewhere safe.  My question is where was the IG-Nanny when Nick Nolte was running to the ship?  He was within spitting distance of it, and yet IG-Nanny couldn’t have provided some cover fire!?

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Super Recaps: The Mandalorian – Chapter 7

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

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The Mandalorian is owned by Disney

Directed by Deborah Chow

We’re back with the further adventures of Mando and Baby, though frankly I would have preferred if they had just waited a week to release this episode instead of releasing it so soon after the last one.  This is the busiest time of the year and you throw THIS at me at the same time I’m doing a million other things; INCLUDING watching your new Star Wars movie!?  So if you’re wondering why this is so late, that would be the reason; because Disney are huge jerks for giving us too much to enjoy all at once!  In any case, even with a few minor bumps in the road here and there I’ve enjoyed every episode of this series and will certainly be sad to see the season come to an end in just a few more days.  Does this episode continue give us high quality Star Wars adventure on the small screen, or are they hoping to give us an episode so bad that we won’t be knocking on their door every day to give us season two right the heck now?  Let’s find out!!

The episode begins with… Let’s go with Walter and Buddy (Tis the season!) flying around in their space ship when Walter gets a message from Carl Weathers who we haven’t seen since episode three.  It’s a very interesting one that sets up yet another trope of the classic western and pulp movies; i.e. the convoluted double cross where Carl Weathers offers Walter a chance to clear his name with the guild if he goes on one more assignment for them.  It turns out that The Guild trusting Werner Herzog and his fascists militia turned out to be a bad idea (WHO WOULD HAVE GUESSED!?) as Herzog has since grown his forces and has basically taken over the planet of Navarro which is where all this started and where Carl Weathers resides. If Walter will come back with the baby and go through a mock exchange with Buddy to Herzog, that will get him close enough to put a bullet in the man’s head; ending his rule, ending the chase, and clearing Walter’s name once and for all.  It’s a very enticing offer to be sure, but the amount of trust that Walter is being asked to impart to Carl Weathers is high and at any step in this process it could turn out to be one big trap.  That’s why he needs a few cards close to his chest if he’s going to go through with this, and what better backup than Cara Dune (Gina Carano) who already help Walter protect the kid back in episode four, so perhaps she can be trusted to not stab him in the back; especially when she finds out that the dude they’re bumping off is an ex-Imperial scumbag.  Apparently that’s a bit of a sore spot for her, but as with everything in this episode there’s always the threat of mistrust and double cross so I’d keep my eye on her just in case!

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Cinema Dispatch: Money Monster

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

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Money Monster and all the images you see in this review are owned by TriStar Pictures

Directed by Jodie Foster

Once again, George Clooney is trying to save America’s soul through his world class acting skills!  Not too long ago he directed and co-starred in The Ides of March which was a vicious take down of the electoral process and the idea of there ever being a perfect candidate and then just last year he was in Tomorrowland which, from what I understand, is damn close to a Randian take on a Save the Future kids movie where the best and brightest separated themselves from the rest of the world to form a Utopian society that is no doubt run on renewable energy and good vibes.  Now we’ve got Money Monster; a movie he didn’t direct but seems to be right in his wheelhouse as it takes the finical system and investment culture head on.  Does this movie manage to make an intelligent statement on capitalism and Wall Street, or is this simply an angry and half-thought out screed that just shows how little the filmmakers and writers know about what they’re railing against?  Let’s find out!!

The movie begins with douche bag television personality Lee Gates (George Clooney) going about his normal everyday routine of giving financial advice on his show Money Monster with his trusty director Patty Fenn (Julia Roberts) in the booth making sure it all comes together instead of just being a big cacophony of egotistical noise radiating from the self-centered host.  Today is not going to be a normal day for anyone however as a complete stranger Kyle Budwell (Jack O’Connell) manages to sneak his way into the studio with not only a gun but a bomb vest.  He takes everyone hostage, puts the vest on Lee, and begins his own personal broadcast to spout off about the ills of Wall Street and their hype men like Lee.  Specifically, the guy lost A LOT of money when a company called IBIS suspiciously lost eight hundred million dollars in a single day due to a supposed computer glitch and he wants answers for it; especially after Lee said on national television that the company was a sure thing for any investor.  Can Lee talk his way out of a bullet in the head?  What really DID happen to the money that IBIS claims to have lost?  How amazing are the ratings gonna be for THIS show?  Maybe he can get another desperate asshole to break in during sweeps…

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“On today’s episode, we see who wants to get shot in the face!  Any takers?”     …     “Come on people!  If you can’t decide amongst yourselves, then  I’m gonna choose for you!”

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Cinema Dispatch: The Jungle Book

~ Matt Vetrano ~ 2 Comments

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The Jungle Book and all the images you see in this review are owned by Walt Disney Studios

Directed by Jon Favreau

In the early and mid-2000s, we got a deluge of straight to video sequels to classic animated features in the Disney catalog.  Almost NONE of them were any good, and they thankfully died off by 2007.  Now we’re in a new age of cannibalizing those cartoons by making them into live action, albeit with better results.  These include Alice in Wonderland, Maleficent, Cinderella, and now this with PLENTY more on the horizon.  Can Disney continue to successfully rehash their older properties, or are we getting to the point of diminishing returns?  Let’s find out!!

The movie follows the adventures of Mowgli (Neel Sethi); a young child who was abandoned in the jungle and raised by wolves.  Most of the animals don’t have any real beef with him, so they coexist without much strife to speak of until the fierce (and apparently ONLY) tiger Shere Khan (Idris Elba) shows up and declares that the boy must be turned over to him for death, else he will wage war on the other animals; particularly the wolf pack Mowgli’s a part of that also seems to be the highest ranking species here… or something.  Rather than have his pack go to war over him, he leaves them behind and goes with his panther friend Bagheera (Ben Kingsley) who’s gonna lead him back to the human village which is the one place he’ll be safe from Shere Khan’s anti-human wrath.  Unfortunately, the two get separated along the way and Mowgli instead finds himself moving in with a bear named Baloo (Bill Murray) who will teach him about chillaxing and eating honey.  Will Mowgli truly be safe in his new home?  What will Shere Khan do once he learns that Mowgli is not dead?  Does this have at least the Bare Necessities to make it a good film!?

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“What have I told you TIME and TIME again?”     “Don’t forget to take that left turn at Albuquerque?”     “And did you?”     “No.  I’ll do better next time.”

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