Tag: Movie Review

Cinema Dispatch: Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga and all the images you see in this review are owned by Warner Bros Pictures

Directed by George Miller

Mad Max: Fury Road was an important film for a lot of people, but for me, it was my first attempt at reviewing a contemporary movie I saw in the theaters. Sure, I had been reviewing movies on streaming services for a while before then, but there was something about the movie that made me feel I could say something interesting about it. It’s been nine years since then and George Miller has finally made the Furiosa movie he’s been dreaming of, and I’ve written an absurd amount of movie reviews since then, so it’ll be good to reconnect after all this time! Is this a proper follow up to one of the most intense and brilliantly crafted action films of the last decade, or is a Mad Max movie without Mad Max just another post-apocalyptic slog? Let’s find out!!

The post-apocalypse isn’t fun for anyone, but a small group of people have at least managed to pull together a modest and healthy living in an area known as The Green Place of Many Mothers. One of its residents is the young Furiosa (Alyla Browne and Anya Taylor-Joy) who gets kidnapped by minions of the dreaded Lord Dementus (Chris Hemsworth) who may not be able to extract the Green Place’s location from her, but definitely sees something special in the young girl. Through political wheeling and dealing that keeps a modest peace between Dementus and the terrifying Immortan Joe (Lachy Hulme), Furiosa ends up in Joe’s kingdom and manages to maneuver herself into a mechanic role building War Rigs to transport supplies between the major outposts in the wasteland. Still, Furiosa has not forgotten everything that Dementus took away from her and the horrors she narrowly avoided while under Joe’s thumb, and with the help of a driver (Tom Burke) she just might have a way to return to her old life and leave nothing but a scorched wasteland in her wake. Well… at least a slightly more scorched wasteland. What trials and tribulations will Furiosa face that led her to the events of Fury Road? Does she have any hope of getting revenge against Lord Dementus without losing everything that matters to her in the process? Things like, oh I don’t know… say your left arm?

“You’re lucky I’m a righty, or else I’d be REALLY pissed!”
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Cinema Dispatch: Hundreds of Beavers

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

Hundreds of Beavers and all the images you see in this review are owned by SRH

Directed by Mike Cheslik

It’s always interesting when my local theater gets a movie in for a single screening. I’m curious what the motivation is for something like that, as they did the same thing with Cade: The Tortured Crossing. Is there just someone on staff who really wanted to see it, or do they think it’s got enough juice in this town to fill the theater once before interest fizzles out? In any case, this strange little comedy that I’ve barely heard anything about certainly caught my eye with its odd trailer, so perhaps the person they brought this movie in for was me the whole time! Is this an underappreciated gem that will delight whatever audiences can find it, or is this better off being screened to as few audiences as possible? Let’s find out!!

The Applejack magnate Jean Kayak (Ryland Brickson Cole Tews) is living his best life serving apple infused alcohol to the local fur trappers while indulging in his product as often as he can. Sadly, his life is brought to a screeching halt when his distillery is destroyed in comedic fashion, and he’s left with nothing but the clothes on his back in the harsh and frigid wilderness. He works his way from chasing rabbits to catching raccoons and eventually finds himself seeking the hand of the local fur trader’s daughter (Olivia Graves) while apprenticing under a master trapper (Wes Tank). As Jean hones his craft and is forced to seek his fortune on his own, he gets the attention of the local population of beavers, who seem to be up to something and don’t much care for this new interloper. Will Jean win the affection of the fur trader’s daughter before bumbling his way into an early grave? What do the beavers have planned to stop him from interfering with their secretive plans? Does it possibly involve a large number of said beavers? Maybe in the three digit range?

“In my defense, you all have really nice fur!”
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Cinema Dispatch: Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire and all the images you see in this review are owned by Warner Bros. Pictures

Directed by Adam Wingard

We’re five movies deep into the Monsterverse, plus one TV series I haven’t bothered to watch yet, and excepting Kong: Skull Island, none of them have left much of an impression on me. A bit of an odd thing to say when it comes to movies about giant monsters getting into fist fights, but something’s always felt missing that kept me from engaging with it beyond a very rudimentary level, and it seems unlikely that we’ll be pulling things back to see what can be fixed when they can just go bigger with each movie. Then again, we’ve come quite far since the dreary days of Gareth Edwards’s Godzilla feature, and if nothing else the addition of a robot arm for Kong and pink highlights for Godzilla show that they aren’t afraid to escalate the goofiness which could be just enough to get me back on board. Will the pieces finally fall into place in this latest monster mash, or has this franchise simply left me behind without even glancing in the rearview mirror? Let’s find out!!

With the discovery of the Hollow Earth, the world has somehow managed to keep on trucking with Godzilla on the surface to bash any monsters that start giving humanity funny looks, and Kong enjoying an early retirement in the Hollow Earth; chilling under waterfalls and basking in whatever the equivalent of sunlight is in the Earth’s core. Still, retirement can be a lonely thing for the last of one’s kind, and Kong can only talk to his awesome warrior axe so many times before it gets weird. Thankfully, the Hollow Earth is like an ogre in that it has many layers, and he stumbles into the home of a race of giant apes like himself. Before we can throw Kong a family reunion, however, it seems these apes are not too friendly towards the big guy and something about their reemergence has put Godzilla into butt-kicking mode as he powers himself up for whatever happens next. What are these apes up to in their own little corner of the world, and will it spell doom for the surface world? Can Kong show these apes a path towards peace, or will he be forced to take them down alongside his frenemy Godzilla? Seriously, who had the foresight to make Kong a power glove? What, did they think he’d have to win an arm wrestling tournament to save humanity!?

“Pound it, bro”
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Cinema Dispatch: Love Lies Bleeding

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

Love Lies Bleeding and all the images you see in this review are owned by A24

Directed by Rose Glass

Somehow we got two lesbian crime movies released within weeks of each other, and while I sadly didn’t get a chance to see Drive-Away Dolls, at least not yet, this one became a top priority for me when I saw the trailers. Kristen Stewart is already a good indicator of quality for me and A24 has a mostly solid track record, so the math added up, and I went to check it out as soon as I had a window in my schedule. Was this grimy slice of eighties mischief worth getting excited for, or is this a situation where all the right pieces are there, but it just doesn’t come together in the end? Let’s find out!!

One night in Nowhere Middle America, a woman comes into town with big dreams and even bigger muscles. Her name is Jackie (Katy O’Brian) and she catches the eye of the local gym manager Lou (Kristen Stewart) who gives her a place to stay and the two fall madly in love. Sadly, the Beatles were incorrect when they said love is all you need, and their lives start to encroach on their whirlwind love affair as Lou’s estranged dad (Ed Harris) is a local gun runner always on the outskirts of their lives and Lou herself is not exactly the perfect partner for someone who’s been through as much as Jackie has. It all comes to a head when Lou’s sister (Jena Malone) is in serious trouble, and Jackie’s instincts lead her down a dark path that will drag Lou and her entire family down with her. Can Lou keep her love life and her family in one piece despite barely keeping her own life intact? What does Lou’s dad want from her, and what does he want from Jackie as well? Seriously, if there’s this much drama around, why don’t you just move? It’s the eighties! People could actually afford that back then!

“We can get a place in California. Clean beaches, nice weather…”     “What, and buy our bologna at someplace OTHER than the Piggly Wiggly!?”
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Cinema Dispatch: Dune: Part Two

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

Dune: Part Two and all the images you see in this review are owned by Warner Bros Pictures

Directed by Denis Villeneuve

Dune as a series is a confounding one as it has attained a huge following but is also full of goofy and un-filmable concepts. David Lynch certainly gave it a go and bothered to include the giant space fetuses, but with Denis Villeneuve’s adaptation in 2021, we got what is easily the most digestible iteration of the story. I appreciated a lot of its choices that cut back on the specifics and relied on the themes of the narrative, but splitting it up into two films feels like the IT gambit; do the easy part first and hope that you can cobble together enough workable elements in the sequel to carry it to the finish line. With the straightforward coup of the Atreides already covered, can this sequel possibly live up to such a strong opener and deliver a satisfying conclusion? Let’s find out!!

Following the fall of the House of Atreides, Paul Atreides (Timothée Chalamet) and his mother Lady Jessica (Rebecca Ferguson) have joined the Fremen and have acclimated to their new life in the deserts of Arrakis. Still, they can’t rest easy as Baron Harkonnen (Stellan Skarsgård) is back in charge of Spice production, and he has no qualms about cleansing the ethnic population if it makes harvesting Spice just a little bit easier. The Fremen will need to fight back and Paul is up for the task as he wants to avenge his father’s death and protect his newfound family; especially Chani (Zendaya) who fights alongside him and makes sure he doesn’t embarrass himself in front of the other Fremen. That may not be enough to win this war, however, as Lady Jessica knows how brightly Paul’s star can shine and continues to push the idea that Paul is the Messiah of Fremen Prophecy to the consternation of Paul who knows that such a story could spin out of control and cause more destruction than anyone could imagine. Will Paul lead the Fremen to victory against the sinister Harkonnens and the Baron’s youngest nephew Feyd-Rautha (Austin Butler) who’s as sadistic as he is ambitious? What other allies to the Atreides are still hiding in the sands of Arrakis, and will they be a help to Paul’s cause or a hindrance to his new life among the Fremen? So wait, if Paul is a guy who can see the future through his dreams, fights like a true warrior, and tames the mighty sandworm, why wouldn’t you want him to be your leader; Messiah or not? He may not be a Jesus, but he’s at least a Goku, right?

“By the power of Grayskull! I HAVE THE POWER!!”
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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!?”
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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!

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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.

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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!

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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.

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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!”
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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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