Cinema Dispatch: The Crow

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

Directed by Rupert Sanders

It’s been almost twenty years since the last Crow movie, and about thirty years since the only one anybody cared about. The production history on this is as tortured and unkillable as Eric Draven himself, and yet the box office proved to be the one thing that could put it down for good, as this reboot tanked as hard as Borderlands did just a few weeks ago. Still, something like the Crow would also be niche outside its one moment of pop culture relevance, so very few people going to see it doesn’t necessarily mean it won’t hit for the right kind of audience. Was the decade of false-starts and production woes worth suffering through to finally get us here, or should this have stayed dead, buried, and plowed over with concrete? Let’s find out!!

Eric Draven (Bill Skarsgård) isn’t great at a lot of things, but he is a solid boyfriend to Shelly (FKA Twigs) who’s escaped from a bad situation and is looking for a fresh start. Sadly for the both of them, her past catches up to her and the two are murdered by the hired goons of Vincent Roeg (Danny Huston). With such a horrible fate befalling them, a mysterious strange in the place in between life and death (Sami Bouajila) offers Eric the chance to come back to life and get his revenge against the monsters that did this to him as well as save Shelly’s soul because Vincent has some sort of demon thing going on that sends people straight to Hell. With nothing else to live for, or die for I guess, Eric takes the offer and becomes an angel of vengeance and begins his quest for the soul of his dearly departed girlfriend. Does this new lease on undead life restore balance to a world that has been corrupted by dark forces? Why did Vincent go after Shelly in the first place, and will Eric like the answers he finds along the way? Will he fight with all the strength and speed of the mighty crow!?

“CA-CAW!!”
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Cinema Dispatch: Tom & Jerry

Tom & Jerry and all the images you see in this review are owned by Warner Bros Pictures

Directed by Tim Story

The pandemic has been awful for everyone, but I have no doubt that a few movies were relieved to avoid having to release in theaters and have dismal box office returns; particularly the movies that were already being pushed further and further back looking for the least competitive window possible to MAYBE scrape by at number three on slow weekend.  My Spy certainly springs to mind, as does this movie which didn’t exactly light the world on fire with its trailer and frankly I was not looking forward to sitting through it when Warner Bros put it on their HBO Max slate.  Still, even if it looks a bit cheap and cheesy for the big screen, perhaps it plays a bit better on the smaller one and will find its niche in the streaming market.  Is this a fun little romp for the kids that captures the spirit of these classic characters, or is it yet another lousy cash-in that’ll come and go faster than the LAST time they tried to bring these characters to the big screen all the way back in 1992?  Let’s find out!!

Thomas D Cat and Jerome A Mouse are two critters roaming the streets of New York City; one looking for a place to stay that has lots of cheese and the other hoping to be the world’s most famous keyboard playing feline right after Keyboard Cat.  Their paths cross when Jerry interrupts his concert in the park and after a series of convoluted antics; one ends up in a fancy hotel chomping holes into walls and stealing food while the other is left homeless and with a broken keyboard.  Try to guess which one is which!  Said hotel by the way has a new employee named Kayla (Chloë Grace Moretz) who faked her way into the position and is trying to prove herself by fixing the hotel’s mouse problem in preparation for an upcoming celebrity wedding that will take place in the hotel’s banquet hall.  The current supervisor (Michael Peña) is skeptical of Kayla and is looking for any excuse to get rid of her, so she has to bring in a mouse catching ringer and decides to hire this cartoon cat that clearly has it out for the little mouse.  Will Tom be able to stop Jerry’s antics and earn a decent salary to fund his hopes and dreams?  Will the wedding go off without a hitch, or is there more going on with the celebrity couple that can only come to light via cartoon animal violence?  I know the movie is out and I’ve sat through it already… but are we sure this is even a real movie? 

Did they actually get her to be in this, or is that just a cardboard cutout!?
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