Tag: Matt Smith

Cinema Dispatch: Caught Stealing & Eddington

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

My End of 2025 Catchups will still be ongoing well into the New Year, which is perfectly fine for me, as January looks to be the usual crop of mid-range horror movies and previous year stragglers. Today is what I like to call the Austin Butler Downer Double Feature, as both films are movies that had me feeling rather sad despite Austin Butler being on hand to try and liven things up.  I suppose it’s a shortcoming of mine as a critic that depressing movies have to work much harder to convince me of their quality than goofy ones, and being presented with two films by notoriously grim directors was definitely a challenge.  Can either of these depressing films by depressing filmmakers manage to get a thumbs up from yours truly? Let’s find out!!

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Caught Stealing

Caught Stealing is owned by Sony Pictures Releasing

Directed by Darren Aronofsky

Hank Thompson (Austin Butler) isn’t someone you’d look at twice if you passed him on the street. He’s a bartender in New York City, he has a crappy apartment in the Lower East Side, and his good looks and charming personality do just enough to cover for his obvious alcoholism. When his neighbor (Matt Smith) asks him to watch his cat one weekend, it seems like just another meaningless event in his meaningless life, but then gangsters start chasing after him, the cops get involved, and the few friends he has left in this world start getting mixed up in whatever mystery he finds himself at the center of. With few people to turn to and fewer clues as to what’s even going on, can Hank outrun this waking nightmare as faster than he did from his own dark past, or has the universe decided that now’s the time to pay the piper for all the ways he managed to screw up his life?

I probably should have known better than to expect a fun movie out of the most depressing filmmakers of our generation, but the trailers suckered me in with a silly premise and goofy characters in what looked like a lost Guy Ritchie joint, so I took the gamble on him lightening up for once. Sure enough, the finished product is undeniably an Aronofsky movie which means a lot of sad things happen, and frankly it was a real struggle to get through. What’s at least interesting about this movie, though also why it doesn’t work as well as some of his better films, is that he does seem to be trying to break outside his comfort zone with larger than life characters and the farcical plotting, but he’s simply ill-equipped for this kind of material and fails to merge it with his usual sensibilities. Someone like the aforementioned Guy Ritchie, or even Vince Gilligan, could have juggled the disparate parts of this story and wrangled them into something coherent, but they both have backgrounds in comedy which Aronofsky clearly does not. We flip wildly between tragedy and humor in a way that fails to take full advantage of either, with the darker elements feeling gratuitous and the lighter moments robbing our characters of any consistency or depth. Austin Butler, for all the charm and charisma he brings to this, can’t find a consistent emotional wavelength to explore because the script has him running from one plot point to another at breakneck speed. He’s given one scene to express his sadness over a bad thing happening before he’s back to spinning lies, crafting schemes, or cracking jokes, and while he’s good at all of those things, having him rush through it in such quick succession leaves him feeling rudderless and without much of an arc to go through. The script is based on a book which is always a double-edged sword for filmmakers, and I’m guessing the pacing between scenes worked much better on the page than trying to cram it all on screen, but even taking that into consideration, I still think the blame falls squarely on Aronofsky’s shoulders. I give the man credit for at least attempting to tell a few jokes and I think the narrative did cater to his sensibilities as a filmmaker, but he’s gonna need a little more practice before he can successfully make us laugh at a clown and then jab him in the throat to watch as the blood slowly pools around the floor.

3 out of 5
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Cinema Dispatch: 2022 May Catch Up

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

So how’s everyone else enjoying their Spring? Lots of sunshine and pretty flowers? Well for me it’s been nonstop rain, a tornado warning, and a broken toilet that cost a bunch of money to fix, so things have been just a tiny bit hectic over here. That’s certainly a reason why my movie reviews have been a little late recently, but thanks to streaming services and studios becoming less confident about their theatrical releases, it’s now easier than ever to catch up on stuff in a timely fashion! To wit, I have three movie reviews for your enjoyment and to hopefully distract from the fact that I haven’t seen the new Top Gun movie yet!

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Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers

Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers is owned by Walt Disney Pictures

Directed by Akiva Schaffer

The former stars of the nineties animated show Chip ‘n’ Dale Rescue Rangers have gone through a lot since its cancellation all those years ago with Chip (John Mulaney) selling out and going corporate while Dale (Andy Samberg) trying to make it work all these years later; banking on the nostalgia adults have for his glory days and selling signed photos at conventions to keep himself afloat. To make matters worse, they ended the show on pretty bad terms so they’ve hardly spoken to each other since then, but fate brings them back together as one of the cast members of that show Monterey Jack (Eric Bana) is in deep with the cartoon mafia and gets kidnapped right after calling both of them for help. With their friend’s life in the balance, Chip & Dale must put aside their differences and work together to scourge the LA Underworld (or at least the nostalgic cartoon version of it) to save their friend and perhaps even come back together after being apart for so long.

I’m either gonna be too harsh on this movie because I’m a giant sourpuss or I’m gonna be too nice to this for fear of looking like a giant sourpuss. It occupies a very strange place for me as I do genuinely enjoy a lot about this movie, but I still can’t quite get behind it for reasons that… well probably make me look like a giant sourpuss. Before we get into that, let me just say that I got a decent amount of laughs in this and I was genuinely tickled by a lot of the imagination on display. There are some deep-cut references that certainly appealed to me, and concepts like the putty captain and the puppet chef were well-realized and fun to watch on screen. Heck, I’d go so far as to say that the inclusion of Ugly Sonic has me convinced that he should get his own spin-off series because they were just that funny! It’s almost like the nineties kids finally got the Roger Rabbit sequel we always wanted to see as the movie’s use of nostalgia, however cynical it may be, is at least cleverly realized with some very funny premises throughout. I love the idea of turning the objects of nostalgia that are the lifeblood of the convention scene and making them the literal guests trying to make a few bucks at rickety card tables with tri-fold boards of merch. It’s clear that the creative behind this are of my particular generation, both with the nostalgia for all this nineties crap and the subsequent decades of nostalgia baiting entertainment, so it gets more than a few points for some level of authenticity even if the movie leans far too heavily on it which I guess brings us to what’s wrong with the movie. The thing is that you can only rely on sight gags and nostalgia for so long before the movie has to start standing on its story and this is where the movie just doesn’t work for me. I didn’t find Chip or Dale particularly endearing as characters, nor did I find the plot all that interesting with the mystery being pretty threadbare. Now I could avoid being a giant sourpuss here and chalk this up to being a kid’s movie where a swift pace and lighthearted tone can carry an otherwise simplistic storyline, but I feel the age and density of so many of the references means that it’s aiming a bit higher than it wants to admit. Do kids even know who the Rescue Rangers are? Heck, are kids gonna get any of the Disney Afternoon jokes in here; let alone the references to more adult-oriented stuff like South Park or the general concept of bootleg movies? It’s a movie that clearly wants to have its cake and eat it; setting its targets squarely on a Millennial audience while hiding behind the Gen Z for its immature and simplistic storytelling. Perhaps it splits the difference evenly enough that both groups will get at least something out of this and I can’t deny the moments I enjoyed throughout, so it gets a little bit of a pass from me but this trick isn’t gonna work indefinitely. Millennials will get sick of 90s-stalgia just as everyone got sick of 80s-stalgia about a decade ago, and what is that gonna leave us with? 2000s-stalgia? I mean it’d be nice if I got my Megas XLR reboot, but still…

3 out of 5
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Cinema Dispatch: 2021 Catch Up (Part 2)

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

January is still proving to be a rough month across the board, so we’re gonna continue our look back 2021 with a few more movies that I missed!  Will some of them be contenders for the end of the year lists I’ll be putting together very soon?  Let’s find out!!

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Being the Ricardos

Being the Ricardos is owned by Amazon Studios

Directed by Aaron Sorkin

Lucille Ball (Nicole Kidman) and Desi Arnaz (Javier Bardem) are about to have a rough week making their show I Love Lucy when a local news station accuses Lucille of having ties to the Communist Party.  Couple that with tabloids about Desi’s behavior, fights with the network over content, and a director that really gets under Lucille’s skin, and there may not be a show to put on by the time it goes to air!  Can Lucy and Desi smooth through all of these problems without alienating the people who help them make the show, and is there more at stake than their careers if things go badly?

Aaron Sorkin has always been fascinated with the inner workings of organizations that carry a lot of public weight; places where hiding the turmoil behind the scenes is just as important as anything else they are doing.  It seems almost natural that he’d turn that fascination even more inward with a movie about the field he’s most familiar with, television productions, and while there are some Sorkin-esque flaws in this movie, I think the material has steered him into making one of his best works.  Lucy and Desi, at least as they are portrayed in this movie, are fascinating characters with deeply compelling inner lives, and the movie makes no bones about singing their praises throughout.  Whenever they clash with the network over their creative vision for the show, it’s played with reverence as these victories did end up revolutionizing television and American culture, and Sorkin definitely uses this story to indulge in his favorite topics.  Strong men and women with sharp tongues and even sharper wits sticking it to the old guard to make way for the next generation is well-worn territory for him, but the fact that he’s drawing from real things that other people did tempers that enthusiasm and so it comes off as genuinely important rather than mere wish fulfillment.  Now that’s not to say he doesn’t exaggerate in places as the film does lack a certain sense of authenticity.  Clothing, technology, and even a lot of the attitudes do fit in with the time period, but it never quite feels like a period piece with Sorkin’s dialogue being what it is, and the overall look and feel of the show just feels too modern.  I don’t know if there are HD transfers of I Love Lucy, but I’m guessing they don’t look this crisp and they certainly weren’t shot in widescreen.  Still, even if it’s a bit showy in places where it probably wasn’t in the real-life story, Sorkin’s overly enthusiastic style fits with themes of the movie and his specific brand of dialogue creates a clear delineation between the deep and flawed people who make the show and the more modest caricatures they bring to life in front of cameras.  This is where the movie shines brightest, where these two people are darn near Herculean in their ability to solve problems, fight for what’s important, and smooth talk their way to getting what they want, but at the end of the day, when the cameras stop rolling and the lights turn out, they are still flawed people barreling towards an ending they are too scared to face.  Desi is madly in love with Lucille and Lucille is just as passionate about him, but Desi also can’t help but hurt her in ways that she cannot ignore.  This tension between the genuine love they feel and their uncontrollable selfishness (admittedly much more so with Desi than Lucille) is where the tragedy of this story ultimately lies and where the story is at its strongest.  This ends up being a double-edged sword however as the movie feels the need to be about more than just that and so it feels a bit scattershot and overstuffed with subplots and characters that don’t have the impact you would expect them to given the prominence of certain scenes.  The big red elephant in the room is the Communist allegations which are what kicks off the movie and you assume it’s what the whole thing is going to be about, but that ends up fading into the background as the network stuff and the relationship between Lucy and Desi end up pushing it to the background. It ends up being relevant only to the start and the end of the movie which is a bit of a shame as the fervor surrounding communism in the mid-twentieth century is certainly a frightening chapter in television history, but it at least ends on a very strong note and sets us up for a pretty big gut punch right at the end of the movie.  It’s certainly a flawed movie throughout, but it’s entertaining from the first frame to the final curtain call, and frankly, something that walks with confidence is more interesting to me than something safe; even if the former trips over itself a few times along the way.

4 out of 5
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Cinema Dispatch: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies

~ Matt Vetrano ~ 2 Comments

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Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and all the images you see in this review are owned by Lionsgate and Screen Gems

Directed by Burr Steers

As much as camp and shtick have grown in popularity in the last decade (coinciding with the rise of the internet as a daily tool for the masses), it’s still not something that’s easily recreated and more often than not happened by accident.  That’s why films like this one annoy me right off the bat.  You can spend a million dollars trying to recreate a Big Mac perfectly, but that time would have been better spent making something good.  The flashy visuals, confident swagger, and knowing winks to the audience tend to makers of a terrible film covering up its faults than a genuine fun throwback to exploitation films of yore.  Still, that’s just the vibe I’m getting from the trailers and trailers have a tendency to be misleading; just look at the ones for Hail Caesar.  Can this movie succeed at being fun trash, or will it be the cinematic equivalent of dumpster diving?  Let’s find out!!

The movie essentially follows the story of Pride and Prejudice, in that it follows Elizabeth Bennet (Lily James) on her journey about navigating the British upper class, the relationship she eventually forges with Mr. Darcy (Sam Riley), and the choices her sisters make that affect her family.  It starts with her sister Jane (Bella Heathcote) and Mr. Bingley (Douglas Booth) falling in love during a party at the Bingley estate where Elizabeth first meets Mr. Darcy and immediately finds him to be an unpleasant and haughty ass.  Over a series of weeks and months, things only become more strained as they run into each other quite often due to Mr. Darcy’s friendship with Mr. Bingley as he and Jane continue their courtship.  Oh, and this all takes place after the zombie apocalypse where all of Britain (though I have no idea if this has spread to the rest of the world) is under threat from the undead masses.  Their numbers grow so large that they basically make that city from Attack on Titan, i.e. they big a giant wall to keep everything else out.  Despite the protection afforded to them by their isolation, the threat of the outside world constantly looms and the entire Bennet family has been trained in some form of martial arts, as has Mr. Darcy and I believe Mr. Bingley.  I think the idea is that EVERYONE in the upper class knows how to fight, but we never really see that many people clash with the zombies and instead just run away.  None of this though seems to have much impact on the story at hand which is about Elizabeth constantly fighting against the wishes of her mother to settle down with whatever lout with have her, including her own cousin Mr. Collins (Matt Smith) and her steadfast refusal to agree to marriage for anything less than love.  Will she and Mr. Darcy eventually find out that they’re perfect for each other… for some reason?  Will they be able to stop the zombies from getting any closer to wiping out all of Britain?  Couldn’t we have just ended this shtick with the one about Lincoln?

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“Look!  Another dead horse!”     “GET HIM!!!!”

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