Tag: Paramount Pictures

Cinema Dispatch: Office Christmas Party

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

ocpcd0

Office Christmas Party and all the images you see in this review are owned by Paramount Pictures

Directed by Will Speck and Josh Gordon

Christmas themed comedies for the most part (at least the ones that aren’t made for TV) have a pretty solid track record with classics like Elf, Bad Santa, Home Alone, Christmas Vacation, and A Christmas movies among their prestigious ranks.  I would also include How the Grinch Stole Christmas (the Ron Howard one) and even Jingle All the Way among those, but I tend to be in the minority with that particular opinion so we’ll save those arguments for another time.  The point is that there’s a certain sense of… shall we say EFFORT that comes to be expected when trying to cash in on the holidays; even if the goal is to make it raunchy like they did with A Very Harold and Kumar Christmas (another classic) which seems to be the intent here as this movie seems to be a mix between Project X, The Hangover, and the first ten minutes of Die Hard before the terrorist took over the Nakatomi building.  Does this wild party live up to the standards of excellence we expect from Christmas films, or is this just a lazy cash in that just so happened to wrangle in a whole bunch of popular comedians to do a whole bunch of lazy material before collecting their Christmas bonuses?  Let’s find out!!

Our story begins at the Chicago branch of Zenotek which sells servers or something like that where we meet our key characters for the shenanigan fueled debauchery that will unfold in due time.  We’ve got Josh (Jason Bateman) who’s basically if Jason Bateman worked at a branch of a tech company, Clay (TJ Miller) who’s basically if TJ Miller was in charge of said branch of a tech company, Mary (Kate McKinnon) who is what you’d imagine Kate McKinnon would do as a caricature of the head of human resources at said branch of a tech company, and a bunch of others played by Sam Richardson, Vanessa Bayer, Karan Soni, Randall Park, and Rob Corddry to fill out this scenario where a branch of a tech company as filled entirely by smart asses and awkward comedians.  Oh, and Olivia Munn is in here too as the uber savvy hacker Tracey to be Josh’s love interest and to provide the very obvious Chekov’s Gun for the finale.  Anyway, while we’re getting introduced to all these employees at Zenotech and setting up the boring typical Christmas Party, The CEO of the company Carol (Jennifer Aniston) who also happens to be Clay’s sister has informed them that the branch is about to get some HEAVY cuts and that the party is cancelled.  Well that certainly sucks!  If only there was a way to fix both problems at the same time…  Oh wait!  There’s a big contract up for grabs and the company’s representative is in town (Courtney B Vance) so maybe they can woo him into signing a contract with the BEST CHRISTMAS PARTY EVAR, giving their employees the great time they deserve and saving the branch in the process.  It could work, right?

ocpcd1
“FUCK ORACLE!!  OUR SERVERS ARE THE SHIT!!”     “HELL YEAH!!  WHERE DO I SIGN!?  Also, can I do so after I puke?”

Continue reading “Cinema Dispatch: Office Christmas Party” →

Cinema Dispatch: Allied

~ Matt Vetrano ~ 1 Comment

alliedcd0

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

Directed by Robert Zemeckis

Oh hey!  I remember that guy!  Didn’t he do that one movie no one saw last year?  Sure, Zemeckis hasn’t had the best track record since Cast Away (mostly due to his obsession with CG animated films for a while there), but The Walk was a pretty solid film that just didn’t get much attention for some reason.  Sure, it wasn’t full of explosions or even A list actors (Joseph Gordon Levitt still has a ways to go), but it still a really well made little caper that kept things light and fun.  Now it seems that Zemeckis is going in the opposite direction with this sizably budgeted war thriller with two super stars in the cast and a much more intense feel to it.  Not to say that any of that is a BAD thing; it’s just interesting that his new film seems to be so diametrically opposed to what he did just last year.  Is this movie not only another stellar outing for Zemeckis but the big hit that The Walk just couldn’t manage to be, or will we be wishing to see Philippe Petit walk across another tightrope before this film is over?  Let’s find out!!

The movie begins with Canadian Super Spy Max Vatan (Brad Pitt) arriving in Casablanca Morocco to meet up with French Resistance Fighter Marianne Beausejour (Marion Cotillard) to do the one thing you’re supposed to do Casablanca during World War 2; kill some damn Nazis!  Say what you will about the greatest generation; at least they knew not to VOTE for them!  Of course, during the course of this mission they end up falling in love and Max manages to get Marianne passage to England so that they can get married and he can take a desk job in British Intelligence.  Things seem to be going well for some time (they even have a kid together), but then one day some dude who’s like fifty pay grades above Max that they suspect Marianne to be a German Spy.  Not only that, but if they find OUT she’s a spy then he’ll have to kill her with his own hands; lest he get charged with treason hang from a noose.  Okay… I’m pretty sure that’s still murder even if some dude in the government tells you to do it, but whatever.  Needless to say that Max doesn’t buy this for a second and then proceeds to break every rule in the book to try and prove his wife’s innocence despite the evidence this government dude is laying out for him.  Will Max find the truth and is it the truth he’s hoping for?  Where exactly did the higher ups get all this evidence, and why are they coming to Max like this while they’re still investigating?  If she’s REALLY a Nazi what the hell could she POSSIBLY hope to get by going THIS deep under cover for THIS long when she’s hooking up with THIS pencil pusher!?

alliedcd1
“Did you get that promotion yet?”     “No, I’m still in Human Resources.”     “Oh well.  Let’s play Show Me What’s In Your Briefcase!”     “Again!?”

Continue reading “Cinema Dispatch: Allied” →

Cinema Dispatch: Arrival

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

arrivalcd0

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

Directed by Denis Villeneuve

Well this is another movie that just kind of snuck up on me.  Apparently we’re not supposed to know movies are coming out unless they’re part of a franchise or have talking animals in it.  The thing is that had I known about this more than a week before it came out, I probably would have gotten really excited to see it as it’s directed by the same guy who did Sicario which was one of my favorite movies of last year.  That, and hard sci-fi is usually an easy sell for me, so maybe it wouldn’t have hurt to throw this trailer in front of that new Independence Day movie or something.  Anyway, does this in-depth examination on the problems with communicating not only work as a scientific procedural but as a badass alien flick, or is all the moody imagery and themes about humanity’s inability to effectively talk to one another just a cover for a mediocre slog?  Let’s find out!!

The movie begins with a montage as we see Dr. Louise Banks (Amy Adams) give birth to her daughter Hannah and watch her grow up and die due to some sort of illness.  After that uplifting introduction, we see Dr. Banks go back to work (presumably some time has passed since the funeral) where she’s a professor of Linguistics at… some college.  Unfortunately, it JUST SO HAPPENS that aliens have started landing all over the planet in these giant spaceships that are referred to as Shells, but always looked like black contact lenses to me.  Because she’s so good at what she does, Colonel Weber (Forest Whitaker) brings her to one of the landing sites to see if she can help them understand the alien creatures inside.  Those two, along with Ian Donnelly (Jeremy Renner) who is a theoretical physicists need to work together to get these aliens talking or else the world governments, especially a Military leader in China General Shang (Tzi Ma), get too antsy about the shells just hanging around and start firing at them.  Can this rag tag group of smart people unlock the secrets inside of these spaceships and prevent humanity from destroying them and possibly themselves in the process?  Just what exactly do these aliens want, and why are they just hanging around instead of doing something productive?  Seriously, they mastered light speed travel, but they couldn’t figure out a way to communicate with the primitive species BEFORE parking their giant spaceships!?

arrivalcd1
“So wait, we’ve only been able to access THIS part of the ship which is basically a stage for the aliens to walk past?”     “Yup.”     “Are you sure we’re not on some intergalactic prank show?”

Continue reading “Cinema Dispatch: Arrival” →

Cinema Dispatch: Jack Reacher: Never Go Back

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

jrngbcd0

Jack Reacher: Never Go Back and all the images you see in this review are owned by Paramount Pictures

Directed by Edward Zwick

Everyone liked the first movie, right?  It had depth, a decent mystery to solve, some solid action scenes, and Tom Cruise was charming as all hell!  Sure, he was the embodiment of the masculine ideal which comes with a certain amount of baggage (just ask James Bond) , but that film brought a lot to the table where so many others would just coast on its star power and wouldn’t even worry about telling a decent story.  Now it’s time for them to pump out a sequel, and of course they couldn’t get the same writer/director to return this time (instead he’s just a producer) leaving it up to the director of The Last Samurai and Tom Cruise’s raw charisma to pick up the slack.  Can they catch lightening in a bottle twice for this franchise, or are we domed to exponentially worse films until Tom Cruise gets tired of this series?  Let’s find out!!

The movie begins with Jack Reacher (Tom Cruise) heading toward Washington DC to meet up with a friend of his who’s his only real connection to his past life in the military, but when he arrives he finds out that Major Susan Turner (Cobie Smulders) has been arrested for her e-mails or something (ha ha).  Of course, Jack Reacher finds out pretty much immediately that this is all a setup but gets arrested by the military for killing Turner’s lawyer which he obviously didn’t do.  I don’t know why the bad guys felt it necessary to do this, especially because he’s getting processed at the Military Prison at the same time the bad guys are sending hired goons to kill Major Turner in this co-ed prison.  Jack Reacher kicks everyone’s ass, the two of them escape, and now they have to find out who it is that set the both of them up.  Of course, it’s not quite that easy.  You see, it turns out that in ALL this time that Jack’s been contacting Major Turner over the phone, she failed to mention that he’s had a paternity suit pending for the last fifteen years which means he might have a kid out there who probably hates his guts right now.  The kid in question is Samantha Dayton (Danik Yarosh) and sure enough the bad guys know about her and start targeting her to get to Jack which means he has to drag her along until this mystery is solved.  Can Jack and Turner figure out who’s responsible for their incarceration and what they’re so desperate to cover up?  Is Jack really the father of this surly teenager who’s not in the mood to deal with any of this bullshit?  Seriously, there’s like twenty of these Jack Reacher books.  Was this the best story they could get out of them!?

jrngbcd1
Oh HELL no!  You’re not getting out of this one so easily!

Continue reading “Cinema Dispatch: Jack Reacher: Never Go Back” →

Cinema Dispatch: Ben-Hur

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

BENHURCD0

Ben-Hur and all the images you see in this review are owned by Paramount Pictures and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Directed by Timur Bekmambetov

On the list of unnecessary remakes that no one was asking for ever, I can’t imagine one being worse than this except maybe Citizen Kane or ANOTHER remake of The Jazz Singer.  Hell, I haven’t even SEEN the original Ben-Hur (I know.  Shut up!), and even I can tell this is completely unnecessary!  Oh well.  Maybe this will be a faithful adaptation that understands what made the original so great in the first place and gives its own modern interpretation of those amazing qualities?  Yeah… I doubt it too, but you never know!  Is this a new classic that can stand alongside the original film, or is this a half assed effort that’s hoping to make big bucks on the name alone?  Let’s find out!!

Judah Ben-Hur (Jack Huston) is living his life of luxury as the rich prince of Jerusalem which by this point was embroiled in strife due to the Romans continuing to push into their lands and occupying them.  It’s not of much concern to him though because he’s the one percent, and nothing bad ever happens to them!  Well when his adopted brother Messala (Toby Kebbell) goes off to join the Roman army and comes back years later as one of the lead occupies, things get a bit strained and Judah can’t keep living under a rock.  When some shit goes down that’s totally not his fault, his brother ends up enslaving him and sending him to be a rower in a warship until he keels over and dies; leaving the rest of his family to presumably die for whatever trumped up charges the Romans can think of.  Judah eventually escapes after five years however and SOMEHOW washes back up onto Jerusalem (boy was THAT convenient!) and meets some dude who trains chariot racers (Morgan Freeman) who agrees to help him get revenge on his brother and Rome.  Oh and Jesus (Rodrigo Santoro) is in the background somewhere.  Will Judah be able to avenge those who were so viciously taken away from him?  What will he find after his five year absence from his homeland?  Wait a minute… is this the story of Biblical Batman!?

BENHURCD1
“First I make the cape, then the pointy hat, and then I stab him forty times in the gut. That’s plan A, but maybe I should come up with a plan B just in case.”

Continue reading “Cinema Dispatch: Ben-Hur” →

Cinema Dispatch: Star Trek Beyond

~ Matt Vetrano ~ 2 Comments

STBCD0

Star Trek Beyond and all the images you see in this review are owned by Paramount Pictures

Directed by Justin Lin

We’re once again invited to visit this new Star Trek universe, though it doesn’t quite have the same shine that it used to now that we saw the bafflingly mishandled Into Darkness, and even that really crappy video game that came out.  Remember that?  While we all may fondly remember the first reboot film in this series that kicked off this new universe, there’s no doubt that some damage has been done in the intervening years that it’s now up to this movie to start correcting.  Do they manage to steer the ship back on course, or should we all start heading for the lifeboats before this whole franchise crashes and burns?  Let’s find out!!

The movie follows the crew of the USS Enterprise who are in the middle of their five year mission to explore strange new worlds, seek out new life and civilizations, and to boldly go where no one has gone before.  Of course, for some reason there’s a Federation space station in the middle of this supposed unknown, but whatever.  They need to fuel up the tank every once in a while.  Anyway, during their pit stop at the space station Yorktown, Captain Kirk (Chris Pine) is getting ready to give up his command of the Enterprise… for some reason, but can’t do it just yet as a distress ship manages to make it to Yorktown with an alien who’s begging Starfleet to help them out.  Kirk agrees to get everyone back on board the Enterprise (probably pissing off a lot of the crew in the process) and heads to wherever this planet is which honestly doesn’t seem to be too far but there’s a giant nebula between Yorktown and this mystery planet so maybe it’s just that no one wanted to fly straight through that.  Kirk does however, but once they make it to just outside the planet’s orbit, a fleet of a bajillion tiny ships tears the enterprise to shreds and the bad guy of this movie simply known as Krall (Idris Elba) JUST SO HAPPENS to find that the Enterprise is carrying the ONE piece of a superweapon that he’s been searching for all this time that’s only on the ship due to a fluke peace mission from some point during their five year mission.  Luckily Kirk manages to hide it before the ship goes down in flames, but now the crew is completely separated and needs to find a way to get back together, defeat Krall, and get the hell off this planet.  Spock and Bones McCoy (Zachary Quinto) are together constantly kvetching at each other, Scotty (Simon Pegg) ends up meeting a local alien trying to get herself off the planet too named Jaylah (Sofia Boutella), Uhura and Sulu (Zoe Saldana and John Cho) are captured by the enemy along with most of the remaining crew, and Kirk and Chekov (Anton Yelchin) are left with the alien who initially sent them to this planet and are working together to find what remains of the enterprise.  Can these heroes set aside their differences and work together so they can survive this mission?  What is Krall planning to blow up with the super weapon once he finally gets the pieces together?  Most importantly, just how grumpy can Bones get!?

STBCD1
“So what’s the plan again?”     “You forgot already?”     “Damn it Spock!  I’m a doctor, not a-”     “Alright fine!  I’ll explain it again!”     “Is he always like this?”     “All the time.”

Continue reading “Cinema Dispatch: Star Trek Beyond” →

Cinema Dispatch: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

TMNTOOTSCD0

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows and all the images you see in this review are owned by Paramount Pictures

Directed by Dave Green

The first Bay-Turtles movie was pretty damn awful.  Maybe not as bad as the WORST Transformers film, but certainly no better than the arguably best one (Marky Mark for the win).  With this one though, there seems to be a conscious effort to integrate more of what people ACTUALLY liked about the cartoon and incorporate it into the Bay-Turtles universe, so maybe a middle ground can be struck here between big budget extravagance and nostalgic sincerity.  Does this manage to AT least be better than the first one?  Let’s find out!!

The movie picks up some time after the first one with the Turtles (Noel Fisher, Jeremy Howard, Pete Ploszek, and Alan Ritchson) continuing their hero shtick in the shadows while Vernon (Will Arnet) is taking all the credit for defeating Shredder (now Brian Tee instead of Tohoru Masamune) and putting him in Jail.  Eric Sacks by the way is not even mentioned here.  At first they made him NOT The Shredder, and now they’ve retconned him out of existence!  The turtles are restless about all the lack of kudos they get or kicking so much ass, but those concerns will be secondary soon enough as Shredder escapes jail with the help of Super Nerd Baxter Stockman (Tyler Perry) and recruits two new soldiers in his army in the form of Bebop and Rocksteady (Gary Anthony Williams and Stephen Farrelly AKA Sheamus) so that they can build a teleporter device that will bring Krang (Brad Garrett) and The Technodrome into our world.  Oh, and I’m pretty sure April O’Neil (Megan Fox) is around doing something.  So is Casey Jones (Stephen Amell).  ANYWAY!  Can the turtles stop Shredder from his latest evil schemes?  Will they do as the title says and come out of the shadows to stop this latest threat?  Seriously, how much longer before they do a crossover?

 

TMNTOOTSCD1
“Can you say… CHA-CHING!?”     “COWABUNGA DUDE!!”

Continue reading “Cinema Dispatch: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows” →