Tag: Jane Levy

Cinema Dispatch: The Toxic Avenger

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

The Toxic Avenger and all the images you see in this review are owned by Cineverse and Troma Entertainment

Directed by Macon Blair

I’m not always sure what to make of Troma. Some of their movies have been genuinely artistic efforts with an iconoclastic edge, but then others are cheap garbage with retrograde ideas of humor and wit. It was, and presumably still is, a great breeding ground for up-and-coming talent, and they’ve stuck around long enough for a mythology to be built around them that can justify a big budgeted goofy remake of their most iconic film. Will this attempt at modernizing low-rent Gen-X trash appeal to the TikTok generation, or is it another failed attempt to get the youngsters to appreciate our nostalgic garbage? Let’s find out!!

Life in Tromaville is not for the faint of heart; especially given how crappy the health insurance is. No one knows this more than Winston Gooze (Peter Dinklage) who works a janitor for the terrifying chemical conglomerate that runs the town with an iron fist. There are those in town that oppose the company, namely the whistleblower JJ Doherty (Taylour Paige) who is trying to get the word out about their evil deeds, but Winston isn’t one of those people as he has a stepson (Jacob Tremblay) to take care of and can’t stick his neck out lest he lose what little he still has. Still, circumstances push him to take desperate actions to try and salvage his meager little life, and he’s shot dead before being dumped in a pit of goo for his troubles. Said goo, however, turns out to be the kind that grants superpowers and mutates him into a hideous monster with super strength, super healing, and a radioactive mop to fight bad guys with. The town begins to celebrate this new hero of justice, but he still has a son to look after, and his exploits catch the attention of his former employer, who sees dollar signs in his unique genetic makeup that has given him such a mighty mutation. Can Winston be both a fighter for justice and a responsible father, or are the pressures of living two lives more than even a super-heroic mutated monstrosity can handle? Can JJ bring down this evil corporation with the secrets she’s working to reveal, or are they too big to fail, especially if they get their hands on Winston’s DNA? Seriously, how did they manage to get Peter Dinklage in this? I doubt Troma has Nick Cage money, let alone Dinklage bucks!

“Wait, TOXIC Avenger? This isn’t the next Marvel movie? NOOOOOO!!”
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Cinema Dispatch: Monster Trucks

~ Matt Vetrano ~ 1 Comment

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Monster Trucks and all the images you see in this review are owned by Paramount Pictures

Directed by Chris Wedge

Like alien crop circles and the Loch Ness Monster, this movie about trucks and the monsters that inhabit them remained a legend as the story behind it was ludicrous (some executive’s kid came up with the idea) and the release date kept being pushed back.  The day has finally come however for theaters to finally keep this around for maybe a week or two before it disappears forever and everyone forgets that they spent over a hundred million dollars on it.  Well, maybe that’s a bit harsh.  A troubled development doesn’t NECESSARILY mean the final product is going to be a mess, and maybe it will work better for the target audience than people give it credit for!  Will this be a film that lives up to the legend around it, or is this the last chapter in a long tale of infamy?  Let’s find out!!

The movie begins with some oil baron with a REALLY bad accent, Reece Tenneson (Rob Lowe) digging for that sweet bubbling crude right in the heart of Dakota, but they manage to hit something else instead.  Three monsters come out of the hole they drilled, and while they aren’t quite the heraldersof Cthulhu that you would expect from monsters that rise up from the Earth’s core, they still are gumming up the works for Reece’s operation.  Therefore, he orders all his hired goons which includes the head goon Burke (Holt McCallany) and The ScientistTM Dr. Dowd (Thomas Lennon) to round these creatures up and… do something with them.  One manages to escape however and finds its way to a junk yard MANY miles away where supposed high school student Tripp (Lucas Till) works at all the time; even on school nights.  He finds the creature and eventually finds that he JUST SO HAPPENS to like hanging out inside of his truck, so he modifies the it for his new monster buddy who he calls Creech to surreptitiously drive it with his Monster Magic.  Of course, things can’t quite go the way he wants them to as Burke is out there looking for the monster, his step dad Sheriff Rick (Barry Pepper) is already pissed at him for… reasons, and will probably do… something, and Reece is HELL BENT on killing all these monsters so he can get to the oil beneath… even though discovering monsters would probably net him just as much cash.  Can Tripp and Creech, along with the extraneous love interest Meredith (Jane Levy), save these monsters from the evil Rob Lowe?  What kind of hi-jinks and mischief, as well as felonies, can this lovable crew get involved with in the process?  Did Paramount REALLY have to sink a hundred million into this!?

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See, they had to spend EXTRA money to make a good truck look crappy!

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Cinema Dispatch: Don’t Breathe

~ Matt Vetrano ~ 2 Comments

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Don’t Breathe and all the images you see in this review are owned by Screen Gems

Directed by Fede Alvarez

Oh look!  It’s that guy who did the Evil Dead reboot!  I actually thought that movie was really good, but then maybe I’m the only one who thought so considering we’re getting this instead and as far as I know a sequel has been indefinitely put on the back burner.  That, and Ash vs The Evil Dead kind of drew all interest away from doing something new to instead milk the original franchise, but whatever.  The reason that new Evil Dead works isn’t because it was a remake of a movie everyone loved, but because the guy they got behind the camera was a real talent and knew how to bring something new to a franchise that is about untouchable as the Back to Future; a series even Hollywood hasn’t had the guts to try and reboot yet.  So now that the director’s remarkable skills are being used for an ORIGINAL horror film, does he still seem to be the next big genre filmmaker, or will this Raimi protégé prove himself to be a one trick pony?  Let’s find out!!

The movie follows three dumb ass…. well I guess I can’t call them KIDS considering they have to be at least in their mid-twenties, but these three ragamuffins are a trio of burglars who go around Detroit and pull small time jobs to keep roofs over their heads and a slowly expanding rainy day fund.  We’ve got Serious Bro named Alex (Dylan Minnette), Wild Card Bro named Money (Daniel Zovatto), and Girl Bro named Rocky (Jane Levy); all of whom have their own clichéd and contrived reasons for doing what they do.  They hear about some blind dude who got a lot of cash after his daughter was killed by some rich kid in a hit and run, and so they figure this is gonna be the last score to get them out of Detroit and go straight to LA… where whatever money they score will probably disappear in a three months.  Do you know how much stuff costs in that town!?  Anyway, this turns out to be the last freaking house you’d ever want to B&E considering the guy may be blind but is built like a brick shit house which makes sense because he’s played by Stephen Lang.  Will the thieves get out the house alive, and will we want them to by the end?  Is there more to the blind man than just being a bad ass military dude you don’t want to fuck with?  Just what kind of sadistic game of Marco Polo is this!?

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“Marco!”     …     “Come on!  You have to say it for this to be fair!”     “…Polo?”     *BANG*

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