Tag: Movie Review

Cinema Dispatch: Madame Web

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

Madame Web and all the images you see in this review are owned by Sony Pictures Releasing

Directed by SJ Clarkson

Sony’s attempts at building their own Marvel mini-verse out of the Spider-Man license have yielded mixed results, to say the least. I, for one, appreciated the two Venom films for their shameless swagger and playful take on the material, but Morbius was an absolute bore and I never thought Kraven was a good idea unless they got Sharlto Copley to play the part. Now we have this slice of the expanded Spider-Man canon that Spider-Verse hasn’t laid a claim to, but hey; at least this one has actual Spider-People in it which you’d think would be a bare minimum requirement to making a Spider-Man connected movie. Is this the film to finally get the Sony-Verse on track and competing with Marvel, or are those dreams as lofty as Warner Bros bringing back the Snyder-Verse? Let’s find out!!

Cassie Web (Dakota Johnson) is living a normal, unassuming thirty-year-old life in the early 2000s as she drives an ambulance with her best friend Ben Parker (Adam Scott) and… well, that’s about it. She does have a mysterious past as her mother died in Peru while researching spiders, but hey, what Gen Xer doesn’t have some weird stuff going on with their parents? Cassie just wants to get through life one day at a time without making any strong connections or getting wrapped up in other people’s problems, but fate has other things in store for her as a near-death experience starts to awaken future-seeing powers that are a real drag when you’re just trying to get through your shift. With great power comes great responsibility, however, as she sees three young women (Sydney Sweeney, Isabela Merced, and Celeste O’Connor) getting attacked on a train by what appears to be an Evil-Spider-Man (Tahar Rahim), though since this takes place before Spider-Man, I guess that would make Spider-Man the good version of whoever this is, and manages to save them while putting a target on her own back for the Spider-Jerk. Why are these three girls so special that they incur the wrath of the Wicked Web-Head, and what role does Cassie have to play in this clash of destiny? Does the Not-So-Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man hold the secrets to Cassie’s past that she’s been desperately searching for?  If Spider-Man doesn’t exist yet, does a guy walking on walls and wearing a spandex bodysuit even read as a spider?

“Why are we being chased by a sticky man!?”     “What even is his gimmick? Mr. Adhesive?”     “How about The Human Lint Roller?”     “How about we run, instead!?”
Continue reading “Cinema Dispatch: Madame Web” →

Cinema Dispatch: Top 10 Best Movies of 2023

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

I’ve got to say that 2023 was not the easiest year to come up with a Ten Best list. Partly because I had to cram a dozen movies into December to have a well-rounded list, but also because the year itself just felt underwhelming. The continued move to streaming has started to take the spark out of the theater-going experience, and without the constraints of the theater, it feels like movies are filling space rather than inspiring and exciting. Still, even with all this noise and overabundance of content, there are genuinely amazing creatives out there working on fantastic movies and I’ve collected ten of them to talk about today! Let’s get started!

.

Honorable Mention – Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

Full Review

I gave this movie a lot of praise on its release, and the accolades it’s received are well deserved. However, 2023 ended up being the year that I got sick of movies that got halfway through their story before telling us to come back later for part two. Unlike a traditional sequel which promises a new story, these films dangle the conclusion of the current one over our heads in a way that doesn’t have me on the edge of my seat but makes me want to turn back the clock and just wait to watch the entire story once it’s finished getting made. Spider-Verse has a lot going for it and there is little doubt that the story will feel complete once part 2 is released, but until it is I don’t feel like putting it in a proper spot on this list.

Continue reading “Cinema Dispatch: Top 10 Best Movies of 2023” →

Cinema Dispatch: Top 8 films of 2023 That Need Improvement

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

It’s a cliché to talk about how bad a year had been in a retrospective like this, but 2023 was pretty rough for me; so much so that, for the first time since starting this website, I took an extended hiatus to try and get my house in order in this nightmare we call modern life. Still, I tried my best to catch up on the big releases right before the end of the year and have been stewing on this list for a month until I finally found time to get my thoughts on the page. The elephant in the room as always is that we are still in a post-pandemic world, or at least it would be if we weren’t still dealing with COVID and its massive impacts daily, so some of these movies can undoubtedly trace some of their problems to the disruption it caused in the entertainment industry. That’s why I try to keep this list constructive with good faith analysis and a limited number of cheap shots. Granted, the last few months have left me feeling a bit salty about things in general, but I’ve done my best to keep the unproductive dunking to a minimum. Let’s get started!

.

Fool’s Paradise

Fool’s Paradise is owned by Roadside Attractions

Directed by Charlie Day

Frankly, I don’t want to come down too hard on a guy’s directorial debut, even if it’s someone like Charlie Day who has a reasonable amount of clout to throw around. Making movies isn’t easy and not everyone can make a graceful leap from actor to director; especially on their first attempt. That’s very much the vibe of the movie; something that was made with passion but not enough discipline. Everything from the obvious Hollywood satire to its homages of the silent era is not as clever as it thinks it is; nor as ambitious as its inspirations. The jokes have no wit to them and the story is held together with outdated caricatures of the Hollywood elite that still aren’t goofy enough to carry this silly premise and so the narrative bends over backward to try and make it work to with middling results. Also, while I wouldn’t call myself an aficionado of silent comedies, I’ve seen enough to know how half-hearted the slapstick is, and that lack of effort here compared to the immense effort and genius that went into crafting a lot of those classic films says a lot about this movie. It’s like reading the first chapter of a textbook and thinking you’re as knowledgeable as the professor, or assuming you can be a professional chess player after watching a few YouTube videos. By all means, follow your passions and be inspired by the talent of others, but maybe let the ideas cook for a little bit before presenting to the class.

Continue reading “Cinema Dispatch: Top 8 films of 2023 That Need Improvement” →

Cinema Dispatch: Cade: The Tortured Crossing

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

Cade: The Tortured Crossing and all the images you see in this review are owned by Neil Breen Films

Directed by Neil Breen

Neil Breen has been a curious figure in the recent cinematic landscape as critics and audiences alike are always on the lookout for the coveted So Bad Its Good movies and seem to have found a cash cow in the form of Breen’s bizarre and uncomfortably amateurish productions.  His latest feature, a sequel to his quasi-superhero flick Twisted Pair, has certainly garnered some buzz off of his reputation and the silly trailer he released, but the thing about Breen that makes him endearing is his clear earnestness and how fame hasn’t stifled his creative drive.  He could be out there on the Tommy Wiseau circuit and embrace the clownish reputation of his work, but he comes off as a sincere, if utterly incompetent and a little regressive, auteur who wants his movies to have genuine acclaim for their deep ideas and disturbing revelations.  Well, I plan to give him what he wants and to take this movie seriously.  No cheap shots, no, tired jokes, and no feigned bafflement at what we’re seeing.  We’re here to find out if Neil Breen has improved as a filmmaker and if his latest project is worth anyone’s time who isn’t in on the joke.  Will this be one step closer to Neil making his Oscar-worthy magnum opus, or has the king of bad movies somehow regressed further into incompetence?  Let’s find out!!

After the events of Twisted Pair where Cade Altair (Neil Breen) crushed the Cuzzx empire using his AI science-magic superpowers, he’s gone into philanthropy and has donated lots of money to a nearby mental asylum.  All is not as it seems, however, as the head doctor (Amy Solomon) is in cahoots with an evil corporation to perform horrible experiments and extract precious fluids from their patients.  A good doctor (Nicole Butler) is trying her best to make the situation better, but Cade is unimpressed when he realizes the terrors going on at this asylum and vows to help its patients become warriors of humanity and justice.  Seems straightforward enough, but what Cade doesn’t know is that his long-lost brother Cale (Neil Breen) has been hired by the corporation to kidnap patients and is trying to use the extracted fluids to make himself as powerful as his brother Cade once again.  Will Cade be able to save these patients from the dastardly corporation and bring justice to the world?  What does Cale have planned for Cade if he was to find out about his misdeeds, and is there any hope for him to turn his life around?  Is it just me, or does it seem that Neil Breen watched The New Mutants during the Pandemic and literally nothing else?

“I gave you clear blueprints for this place!  What the heck happened!?”     “Those weren’t blueprints, they were a stack of comic books with Bible passages glued over everyone’s face!”
Continue reading “Cinema Dispatch: Cade: The Tortured Crossing” →

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.”
Continue reading “Cinema Dispatch: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem” →

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!!

.

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
Continue reading “Cinema Dispatch: Barbenheimer” →

Cinema Dispatch: Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny and all the images you see in this review are owned by Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures

Directed by James Mangold

I’ve actually gone back and rewatched the Indiana Jones trilogy recently, and for the most part, they still hold up pretty well.  Not so much Temple of Doom, but even that one has some charm to it and the big action packed finale is a sight to behold.  There’s just something unique about them that has kept the series relevant after all these years and sadly could not be recaptured with the fourth movie which at the time felt a bookend for the series.  Now we’re back with one more adventure starring the even more aged Indiana Jones and without Spielberg or Lucas behind the camera.  Does this change in direction bode well for Indy’s final adventure, or will this just feel hollow and cheap without the original creators who couldn’t even make it work again back in 2008?  Let’s find out!!

The year is 1969 and Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford) is now just crotchety old Dr. Jones teaching college classes that no one cares about when he’s not sleeping in his old man armchair.  Needless to say that the glory days have long been over with a few personal tragedies peppered throughout for good measure, but all of that is about to change as the daughter of an old friend shows up and asks him about an ancient artifact.  Her name is Helena (Phoebe Waller-Bridge) and she’s looking for a mysterious dial that her father was obsessed with and that Indy took off a Nazi researcher back during the war.  Said researcher, Jürgen Voller (Mads Mikkelsen), is also after the dial which holds some mysterious power and when he sends his goons to take the piece of it that is at the university, Indy finds himself whisked away on one last adventure to settle an old score, solve a mystery from his past, and save the day once again!  Can Dr. Jones summon the courage and dust off the cobwebs to become Indy once again?  Why did Helena show up after all this time, and what are her plans for the Dial once they find all the pieces?  Seriously, is he wearing a fedora in 1969?  That’s somehow more disconcerting than the guy running around with a bullwhip.

“Anyone who cracks wise about my hat gets one right between the eyes!”
Continue reading “Cinema Dispatch: Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny” →

Cinema Dispatch: The Flash

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

The Flash and all the images you see in this review are owned by Warner Bros. Pictures

Directed by Andy Muschietti

The Flash has been in development since at least Suicide Squad and its journey to the big screen has been fraught, to say the least. Controversy with its main star, the shifting sands of the DCEU project as a whole, Warner Bros getting sold to Discovery, and let’s not forget the Global Pandemic that threw everything into chaos and continue to affect us to this day. On top of all of that, in case there wasn’t enough going against this, it was a movie that frankly few people seemed to ask for as it was borne of the earliest version of the DCEU that people have roundly rejected and that even Warner Bros has started to correct course on. The DCEU may yet have a happy ending now that we’re finally starting over with a new creative vision under James Gunn, but is this last hurrah a bittersweet epithet to everything that it had previously stood for or is it the nail in the coffin that will finally put it all to rest? Let’s find out!!

It’s not easy being a superhero as I’m sure most of them will gladly tell you, but for Barry Allen (Ezra Miller) it comes with an extra dose of sadness as they are the perpetual New Guy of the Justice League. Unlike their teammates who are either God-like figures or super rich, they’re just a person trying to live their life and deal with their tragic backstory which involves their mother being murdered and their dad taking the blame for it. With their father’s last appeal coming fast, Barry is overcome with grief and finds out, much like Superman back in 1978, that angry running is the secret to time travel; giving him a chance to fix what went wrong all those years ago. Sadly for them, however, we’re following Butterfly Effect rules and every change makes things much worse which cascades into more and more problems that he is tasked with fixing which includes a much goofier Barry Allen who needs to learn to take care of himself and an older Batman (Michael Keaton) who gave up the cowl long ago. Oh, and General Zod (Michael Shannon) is about to take over the world since there’s seemingly no Superman in this timeline, and there are very few outcomes I can think of that are worse than having to live through Man of Steel again. Can Barry fix the timeline and perhaps leave the world in a better place than where it was when they started this adventure? Can Barry be a proper mentor to younger Barry and set them on the right course, or will this interference in the timeline create unforeseen ripples for them as well? Is there any way I can go back in time myself and have Warner Bros cancel this instead of the Batgirl movie?

“What’s up? I’m the new Supergirl and I’m gonna get a movie soon.”     “Yeah, just like how I’m alternate Barry, and I’ll be getting a spin-off!”     “Whoa, whoa, whoa! None of that’s gonna happen until I get my sequel first, right?”
Continue reading “Cinema Dispatch: The Flash” →

Cinema Dispatch: Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse and all the images you see in this review are owned by Sony Pictures Releasing

Directed by Joaquim Dos Santos, Kemp Powers, and Justin K Thompson

The first Spider-Verse movie had a lot of things going for it before everyone realized what a masterpiece it was going to be. Spider-Man movies reliably make money, animated features are one of the more bankable box-office draws, and it had some pretty amazing trailers with a unique art style and some fun ideas to play with from the comics that we haven’t seen on screen before. Still, I’m not sure anyone expected it to be the overwhelming success that it was, both critically and commercially, and the prospect of a sequel was certainly exciting as the studio would be throwing everything they could at it. Still, the idea left me at least a little bit anxious. Capturing lightning in a bottle is a rare feat in its own right and even the best filmmakers have struggled to pull it off a second time, though oddly enough none of the original directors returned to direct this one. The trailers for this certainly didn’t help matters as I made clear in a Twitter thread earlier this year and I wasn’t thrilled to find out that it would be a Part One instead of a singular movie, so going into this one was both a delight and a moment of dread with expectations being higher than for almost any movie I’ve seen. Does this manage to exceed all expectations yet again and deliver another Oscar-caliber animated feature, or do even the best creatives fall victim to the Subpar-Sequel curse? Let’s find out!!

After saving the multi-verse and becoming the new Spider-Man, Miles Morales (Shameik Moore) has started to learn the hard way what it means to try and live as both a superhero and a teenager with only enough time in the day to perhaps make one of them work. This struggle has not escaped the notice of his parents (Brian Tyree Henry and Luna Lauren Vélez) who are getting fed up with his absentmindedness which only puts more pressure on the budding superhero. It comes as a relief when Spider-Gwen (Hailee Steinfeld) pops up into his universe despite the pathways between them getting closed at the conclusion of the last film, and it turns out that some Spider-People, led by Miguel O’Hara and Jess Drew (Oscar Isaac and Issa Rae) are able to cross dimensions with super-science wrist watches and Gwen had joined up with them not too long ago. Unfortunately, the reunion is cut short as one of Miles’s less competent villains, the Spot (Jason Schwartzman), has somehow upgraded to an inter-dimensional threat and Gwen is forced to pursue him with Miles tagging along and experiencing the multi-verse for himself. Will Gwen, Miles, and a host of other fun Spider-People catch The Spot and stop his absurd schemes? How did Gwen end up with this group of Interdimensional Spider-Cops, and what secrets are they keeping from Miles? Is it the ultimate swing technique or perhaps the secret to a chafe-free Spider Suit?

“I call this the No Hands Spider-Wobble!”     “He’s growing so fast…”
Continue reading “Cinema Dispatch: Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” →

Cinema Dispatch: Fast X

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

Fast X and all the images you see in this review are owned by Universal Pictures

Directed by Louis Leterrier

Fast & Furious as a franchise has been quite the ride with one of the more bizarre gear shifts that any franchise has gone through. Sure, the series was always ridiculous, but the change in scope from simple street racers to international super spies has given the series a lot of room to experiment and hone in on its core appeals. For all the jokes we make about Vin Diesel’s bottomless well of familial aphorisms, the cast is really what keeps it compelling enough for audiences to return year after year. Still, all good things must come to an end and it’s been stated that this is part of a two-part finale for the main series before it gets spun off into side projects like the already-released Hobbs & Shaw and the long-awaited female-led movie. Does this penultimate feature set us on the path to a graceful ending, or will the series crash and burn right before it hits the finish line? Let’s find out!!

Life for Dominic Toretto (Vin Diesel) and his family has been going smoothly since they saved the world and turned his brother Jakob (John Cena) back to the good side, but after living such an extreme life and crossing so many paths, can he ever truly hope to live peacefully with his wife Letty (Michelle Rodriguez) and his son Brian (Leo Abelo Perry)? Well not if Dante Reyes (Jason Momoa) has anything to say about it! Yes, it looks like the criminal mastermind that Dom and his crew robbed and killed back in Fast 5 had a son and he’s come back after all this time to exact his revenge and starts by taking on Cipher (Charlize Theron) and stealing her tech which allows him to play with Dom and his crew like a cat plays with its food. After orchestrating a disaster in Rome with Dom and his crew in the center of it, they all end up on the Most Wanted list, and Roman, Tej, Ramsey, and Han (Tyrese Gibson, Chris Bridges, Nathalie Emmanuel, and Sung Kang) are forced to go into hiding while Dom tracks down this new threat to end his reign of terror and clear his family’s name. Can Dom reckon with his past and come out the other side unscathed? What does Dante truly want out of all of this, and is the answer more terrifying than Dom could ever imagine? Will we ever learn the secret to Dom’s barbeque chicken, or does that come with its own convoluted backstory as well?

“It all started thirty years ago today.” “Come on, man. You’re just supposed to say grace.”
Continue reading “Cinema Dispatch: Fast X” →