Tag: Salma Hayek

Cinema Dispatch: House of Gucci

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

House of Gucci and all the images you see in this review are owned by United Artists Releasing

Directed by Ridley Scott

It’s that time of year where the big performances come out, the A-List directors strut their stuff, and the biopics are as far as the eye can see!  Oscar season is in full swing and Ridley Scott is doubling down this year with two prestige films; both of which star Adam Driver, funnily enough.  Now I don’t know the first thing about Gucci or the story behind the family, and the closest I’ve ever been to designer clothes is seeing them in shop windows.  Still, stories about the grimy underbelly of powerful families and giant corporations can be very entertaining (provided they aren’t poisoning the planet or something like that), and while Scott can be hit or miss with a lot of his projects, the good ones can REALLY stand out in an otherwise crowded and lukewarm award season.  Does this movie capture the whirlwind drama around one of the most recognizable brands in the world and the eccentric family that built it, or is the only interesting thing about this family the name they carry?  Let’s find out!!

Our story begins with Patrizia Reggiani (Lady Gaga) as a young up-and-coming socialite who may not come from a truly wealthy family, but she’s ambitious and wants to prove herself as a woman to take seriously!  Well, she’s in luck because one of the parties she goes to is where she meets Maurizio Gucci (Adam Driver), the son of Rodolfo Gucci (Jeremy Irons) who is the current head of the Gucci business along with his brother Aldo (Al Pacino).  Whether or not she truly had feelings for him is ultimately secondary as her Prince Charming was in her sights and she was not about to let this opportunity go!  Over time the two get close and Maurizio agrees to marry her, but it’s clear her wants very little to do with the family business as he’s seen how it has turned his family bitter and cold; including his cousin Paolo (Jared Leto) who may be jovial on the outside but is nursing some serious resentments that threaten to bubble up in unpredictable and inopportune ways.  Patrizia is having none of that wishy-washy nonsense from her husband however, and pushes him to get more and more involved.  In fairness, was more than likely to happen with or without Patrizia’s involvement, but with her at his side, he’s poised to not just be A Gucci, but to become THE Gucci!  Does this tale of power, wealth, family drama, and high-end clothing have a happy ending for the ambitious Patrizia?  What makes Maurizio different from the rest of the family, and will this aggressive push from her wife make him the very thing he didn’t want to become?  I know we got a MacBeth movie pretty recently, but any chance we can get another one so Gaga can be in it?

“I lost out to The Favorite, did I? Fine! I’ll show them what a REAL Queen looks like!”
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Cinema Dispatch: Eternals

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

Eternals and all the images you see in this review are owned by Disney

Directed by Chloé Zhao

One thing you can say about the MCU is that they’ve never met a character, no matter how obscure to the general public, that they couldn’t find a way to work.  Well except maybe Iron Fist, but the Netflix shows are their own thing anyway so I wouldn’t bother counting that anyway.  Heck, the ONLY thing I knew about Guardians of the Galaxy prior to the movie being announced was Rocket Raccoon’s inexplicable inclusion in Marvel Vs Capcom 3, and that turned out to be one of the best things the MCU has popularized!  The Eternals however seem like Marvel REALLY trying to challenge themselves as far digging up obscure characters to make into household names as I STILL couldn’t tell you a thing about them despite seeing the trailers a few times!  It’s definitely going to be its own thing which could be its saving grace considering how lackluster the Post-Endgame MCU has been so far, but is it too far away from what audiences’ expect for them to latch onto?  Let’s find out!!

The Eternals are BASICALLY to Marvel Superheroes what Dracula is to other vampires.  This group has been doing the super hero shtick before it was even cool to do so since they’ve been around since the time of Quest for Fire; protecting humanity from alien creatures known as Deviants, while also giving us a few pointers in the right direction.  Of course they can only influence humanity so much and are forbidden to interfere with human conflicts as decreed by their Space Creators known as Celestials, and over time they just kind of drifted apart as the Deviants became few and far between.  Cut to modern day where Sersi (Gemma Chan) is working as a school teacher in London when a SUPER POWERFUL Deviant comes out of nowhere, and she along with fellow Eternals Sprite and Ikaris (Lia McHugh and Richard Madden) have to stop it before it can cause too much damage.  Clearly there is a new threat on the horizon if the Deviants are reemerging, so the trio must scour the globe looking for their fellow Eternals (Kumail Nanjiani, Brian Tyree Henry, Lauren Ridloff, Barry Koeghan, Don Lee, Salma Hayek, and Angelina Jolie) and convince them to put aside whatever difference they may have and come back together for a mission to save Earth!  Can The Eternals overcome whatever threat is looming over the planet this time?  Just what split them up in the first place, and how have the years away from each other changed them?  Seriously, I know they’re doing their own thing here but can we at least get ONE Avenger to tag along?  It can be one the B-Listers like War Machine or Hawkeye!

“It’s good of you to join us, Winter Solider!” “No, it’s me. Ikaris.” “Oh wow, really?” “YES, REALLY!!” “Hey, you’ve got to admit, the resemblance is eerie.”
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Cinema Dispatch: Bliss

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

Bliss and all the images you see in this review are owned by Amazon Studios

Directed by Mike Cahill

So hey!  Either studios are getting bolder in 2021 and are actually releasing stuff, or I’m finally paying attention and now have about two months’ worth of releases to look forward to across my various streaming services!  I’m definitely ready to get back on that movie reviewing horse (even though this review is coming out almost a week after the movie did), and what better film to herald this renewed vigor than a movie literally named after a word for happiness!  So does Amazon’s sci-fi take on a less action heavy Matrix (or a less dreamlike Eternal Sunshine) prove to be as good as the title promises, or is the true bliss the moment you decide to turn the movie off?  Let’s find out!!

Gregg Wittle (Owen Wilson) is your typical upper middle class miserable white dude.  He’s recently divorced, he hates his job, and while he loves his kids they’re pretty much grown now and there seems to be some issues there he doesn’t feel like confronting.  Instead, he spends his time drawing pictures of a better life which may be cathartic for him but because that’s ALL he does at work he ends up getting fired.  Just as well, I mean the place is a dismal office building with all life and personality scrubbed out of it, but in the real world you can’t just get fired and let everything fall to the wayside.  Or can you!?  Drinking his misery away, Gregg meets a woman named Isabel Clemens (Salma Hayek) who recognizes him as someone special and whisks him away on an adventure of homelessness and telekinetic powers!  Why?  Well according to Isabella, this is a fake reality that she built and that nothing here matters!  The people are fake, the boredom is fake, the lousy jobs are all fake, and she’s here to show Mr. Wittle that’s he’s not so Wittle after all!  Seems like an enticing proposition and there is certainly some evidence to support this, but there are also many questions as well that Isabel either has a convenient technobabble excuse for or is outright hesitant to confront, so does Greg dare to hope that his boring meaningless life can be changed in an instant by this benevolent benefactor?  If everything is a simulation though, doesn’t that mean his kids aren’t real either?  How would you even define if they are real if the feelings are genuinely there?  Can we call Morpheus in to explain this?  He’s pretty good at this kind thing.s

“Real is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain, and guess who’s got a Taser!” “Whoa.” “Heck YEAH, whoa!”
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Cinema Dispatch: Like a Boss

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

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Like a Boss and all the images you see in this review are owned by Paramount Pictures

Directed by Miguel Arteta

Now that I think of it, have I really liked ANY of Tiffany Haddish’s movies?  I’ve reviewed most of them by now, and outside of The Kitchen and MAYBE Keanu, her movies are mostly meh or worse which is a pattern that certainly doesn’t bode well for this film.  Then again, she’s never the reason why those movies are bad and is often the complete opposite!  She’s someone who can make a terrible film tolerable and a mediocre one a delight which goes to show how strong of a performer she is even if she’s not the most adept at picking scripts.  In any case, is this latest entry in the Tiffany Haddish oeuvre worthy of her talents, or is she stuck shouldering the weight of another lousy movie along with every other talented person that was roped into this?  Let’s find out!!

Mia Carter and Mel Paige (Tiffany Haddish and Rose Byrne) are best friends and co-owners of a beauty store that they opened together; Mel & Mia’s!  They have good employees like Sydney and Barett (Jennifer Coolidge and Billy Porter), they have great friends they hang out with (Ari Graynor, Natasha Rothwell and Jessica St Clair), and aside from being in quite a bit of debt at the moment, they’re their own bosses and are living the American Dream!  Things couldn’t get any better for them, EXCEPT THEY DO!  A big makeup conglomerate owner named Claire Luna (Salma Hayek) has taken interest in their little shop and she is offering to clear their debts AND let them retain fifty-one percent of the company once it merges with Luna’s!  Sounds like a sweetheart deal to me, but Mia is skeptical of such a good deal and she turns out to be right as Luna is hatching an EVIL scheme to screw them out of their company!  There’s a clause in the contract that if either one of them quit their job that Luna would be the one to take over, so as long as Luna finds a way to break these two best friends up, she will be able to cut them out; leaving them with a mere… forty-nine percent of a company that Luna hopes to make millions off of.  Okay… seems like an awful long way to go to make a fraction more money and to NOT use the experience and expertise of these women who got on her radar in the first place because of their good ideas, but whatever floats her boat I suppose.  Can Mia and Mel weather the storm that Luna will be putting in their path and come out he other side still friends?  What will these trials reveal about these two and has their friendship always been as strong as they claim it to be.  How will they survive if they fail this challenge are left with no debt and a huge amount of money anyway!?

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“We’ve got to stop wasting the caviar!  When you’re done with it, put it in the fridge!”     “You’re not my mom!”

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Cinema Dispatch: The Hitman’s Bodyguard

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

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The Hitman’s Bodyguard and all the images you see in this review are owned by Lionsgate

Directed by Patrick Hughes

Okay, so MAYBE Atomic Blonde didn’t turn out to be everything I was hoping for, but that’s not the ONLY move I was looking forward to this year!  Who DOESN’T want to see two of the best action/comedy actors of the modern age bounce off of each other in an over the top buddy shoot’em up!?  That’s at least what we were promised in the trailers, but if there’s one thing that Atomic Blonde (and admittedly lots of other movies) has taught me, it’s that trailers aren’t always the best at telling you what a movie will ACTUALLY be about.  I know; SHOCKING revelation there!  Does the team up between these two titans of Hollywood blockbusters manage to work even better together than they do as individuals, or was this a team up worse than when Pouty Superman fought with Even Poutier Batman for no reason whatsoever?  Let’s find out!!

The movie begins with Michael Bryce (Ryan Reynolds) who is a TOP NOTCH bodyguard with his own security company that’s apparently richer than half their clients considering how styling him and his crew are, but his idyllic life of protecting the rich and powerful is abruptly brought to an end when someone he’s supposed to be protecting gets shot right the head by an unknown sniper.  He spends the next few years stewing in his own self-loathing and is stuck protecting losers and drug addicted lawyers as he tries to climb his way back to the top.  An opportunity presents itself though when super hitman Darius Kincaid (Samuel L Jackson) is to be brought before an international court to testify against the Belarusian Dictator (Gary Oldman) who everyone seems to know committed NUMEROUS war crimes, but only Kincaid has the evidence… for some reason.  Michael is given a chance to possibly redeem himself if he can get Darius to The Netherlands in one piece as the Belarusian Dictator is sending out a lot of hired goons to put him in a body bag before he can testify.  That’s not the REAL problem though.  No, what’s REALLY gonna make this the mission from hell is that Darius is a TOTAL asshole who likes to do things dirty which clashes with Michael’s preference of being clean and professional about everything he does.  It’s like The Odd Couple, but with guns and a lot more swearing!  I don’t recall Walter Matthau calling people mother fucker before shooting them in the head!  Can these two get along JUST long enough for Darius to testify and put that dictator behind bars once and for all?  Will Michael finally redeem himself and get his life back on track after delivering Darius to the international authorities, or will he end up shooting him in the head out of sheer frustration before that?  Seriously, does Samuel L Jackson own the rights to the words mother fucker?  He HAS to be getting royalties considering how much he says that!

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“I see you driving round time with the girl I love, and I’m like… MOTHER FUCKER!!”

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Cinema Dispatch: Sausage Party

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

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Sausage Party and all the images you see in this review are owned by Columbia Pictures

Directed by Greg Tiernan and Conrad Vernon

I’m pretty sure I’ve been hearing this movie for at least five years and Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg have been trying to get this made for even longer than that.  I’m not sure how it took so much work to get this movie made as both of them are bankable stars and this movie ended up costing next to nothing (ten million is nothing in terms of Hollywood features), but regardless of whatever strife they had to work through, the day has finally come for us to see a movie about dicks, vaginas, and assholes being played by hotdogs, buns, and bagels.  Does this movie end up being a classy as fuck masterpiece for the ages, or was all that effort for naught and this is just a giant steaming load of lameness?  Let’s find out!!

The movie follows the misadventures of several food items in this one grocery store known as Shopwell’s, but for the most part our focus is on Frank the Sausage (Seth Rogen).  He’s living the perfect sausage life; namely staying fresh inside his package and praising the Gods every day in the hopes that he will be chosen to leave the store and enter the great beyond!  Well he’s also praying that he can nail that hot little number in the bun package, Brenda Bunson (Kristen Wiig), but he’s got to keep those urges in check.  After all, the Gods only want FRESH food that isn’t tainted with sin!  Now all the food in this store (and presumably all the other stores in the world) seem to all follow this belief system where the humans are Gods taking them to a promised land, but as we all know humans tend to be to total assholes and will end up eating them instead which is SUPER fucked up!  The day finally comes for Frank, his other sausage buddies (Carl and Barry played by Jonah Hill and Michael Cera), and Brenda as one of the Gods chooses them and they’re put in its holy shopping cart.  Of course, things don’t go quite as planned as the shopping cart runs into another one; splattering a lot of the food in a very gruesome manner and knocking both Frank and Brenda (along with a few other items) out of the cart and into the store… OUT OF THEIR PACKAGES!!  Now you may have assumed that the shopping carts collided due to bad luck.  Not quite so, as a jar of Honey Mustard (Danny McBride) had seen some shit and jumped out of the cart after telling the rest of the food how fucked they are, and that was the cause of the crash.  Why is this important?  Well there was one person listening the entire time, and that was Frank!  So on top of getting back inside a sausage package (along with Brenda who needs to find a bun package) Frank is on a journey to find out the truth and if what Honey Mustard was saying had any merit to it!  Can Frank discover the dark secrets that the world outside the grocery store holds?  Will this inevitably create a schism between him and Brenda, the latter of which still has faith in the Gods and their divine plan?  And what about Carl and Barry!?  WHAT THE FUCK IS GONNA HAPPEN TO THEM!?

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Oh, you know… probably nothing good.

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