Tag: Snoop Dogg

Cinema Dispatch: The Addams Family 2

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

The Addams Family 2 and all the images you see in this review are owned by United Artists Releasing

Directed by Greg Tiernan & Conrad Vernon

It’s no secret that I was not a fan of that 2019 Addams Family movie which was ten percent Addams Family goodness and ninety percent rote nonsense, and the prospect of seeing another one was a prospect I found altogether ooky; and yes, I think I used that joke in the last review.  Then again, watching more movies at home and being pickier about what I go out to see has perhaps led to me missing out on some genuine gems as well as, let’s face it, PLENTY of opportunities to write a darn good review of a truly awful movie.  Heck, there’s a Gods Not Dead 4 floating around out there that I haven’t even bothered to watch, and the reviews I did of the other sequels are pretty darn good if I do say so myself!  So yes, I went into this expecting to hate it which is a first for a movie this year, but in a way, it feels like returning to a comfortable routine as I continue to get back into the swing of things with more and more movies coming to theaters.  Is it somehow a surprisingly effective sequel that irons out the flaws of the original while giving us something new and fresh, or is it like every other sequel to a bad animated movie; just more of the same?  Let’s find out!!

The Addams Family are going through a rough patch as Wednesday Addams (Chloë Grace Moretz) is spending less and less time with the rest of the family and young Pugsley (Javon Walton) is working on his girl problems with Uncle Fester (Nick Kroll) and you can probably guess how well that’s going.  With this in mind, Gomez (Oscar Isaac) with the tacit approval of Morticia (Charlize Theron) gathers the family together for a road trip across America to see its most ghastly landmarks and hopefully bring the family closer together.  All is not as simple as it seems however as some mysterious lawyer (Wallace Shawn) along with his giant associate Pongo (Ted Evans) are chasing the family on behalf of some mysterious benefactor who believes that Wednesday Addams may not be the daughter of Gomez and Morticia.  I mean OBVIOUSLY, right?  It’s not like they look anything alike!  Whatever scheme is being concocted with those guys, Gomez and Morticia want no part of it and are tactfully spiriting their family away whenever the lawyer catches up, but it’s only a matter of time before this all comes to a head.  How long can they keep this ruse going, and will it interfere with the family fun that Gomez is trying so hard to cultivate?  What is the reason that the lawyer is after Wednesday, and could there be something to his story that the Addams family doesn’t want to confront?  Doesn’t it kinda seem like they’ve given up if we’re already doing a road trip movie by the second one?  Even Alvin and the Chipmunks waited until the fourth film for that!

“What do you think!?” “Uh… good job?” “Don’t LIE to the child, Gomez!” “We’re supposed to be encouraging!”
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Super Wrestling: AEW Dynamite (01-06-2021) – New Year’s Smash Night 1

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

AEW Dynamite is owned by All Elite Wrestling, Tony Khan, Shahid Khan, and TNT

After things were so tragically derailed at the end of the year, it’s time for AEW to get things back on track and to hopefully start the New Year off with a bang!  With a solid card, celebrity cameos, and a main event with Kenny Omega and Rey Fénix, do they bring enough bang for your buck, or is this a fireworks show that consisting of three sparklers and half a cherry bomb?  Let’s find out!!

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Young Bucks & SCU Vs. The Acclaimed & TH2 – Eight Man Tag Match

This definitely feels like a filler match which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but despite there being a baked in storyline here with all four teams in some sort of feud it’s mostly just to show off some cool moves and for Kazarian to cut a promo at the end.  There are some fun spots here (mostly from The Bucks who clear the ring at least TWICE in this match) and I like that they’re foreshadowing SCU’s promo by having Daniels be the one on the receiving end of the heat segments, but it also means that none of it particularly stuck with me.  Jack Evans has a really cool looking spin kick from the apron, There’s a BTE trigger with Nick Jackson and Kazarian, and Angélico is definitely someone who should get more of the spotlight (much like Kazarian), and eventually Matt Jackson and Christopher Daniels finish off Jack Evans with a Meltzer Driver.  Short, sweet, and to the point; certainly a solid enough way to start off a show.  It’s then time for Kazarian to grab the mic and confirms what was announced on Being The Elite.  The next time he and Daniels lose a tag team match, SCU will dissolve and they will be a team any longer.   I’m pretty sure Kurt Angle had a similar deal going on in 2010 that eventually went sideways, but it was at TNA and I’m pretty sure AEW can do a better job than them with this kind of story.  If nothing else, it’s a chance for Daniels to get the spotlight again before he puts his career to an end.

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Cinema Dispatch: The Addams Family

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

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The Addams Family and all the images you see in this review are owned by United Artists Releasing

Directed by Conrad Vernon and Greg Tiernan

I’ve actually been looking forward to this movie for quite some time.  Not in a BIG way, but everything I saw at first was very promising.  The new designs were quite good and the initial teaser seemed to have the right tone that retained what worked about these characters in the first place while making something that worked in a modern context.  After that though, once we got the trailers with more of the plot (and those terrifying human characters), the skepticism started to creep in and my enthusiasm waned as my attention turned elsewhere (*cough* Maleficient 2 *cough*) in the last month or so.  Still, a mediocre trailer is hardly a good barometer to how a movie will ultimately turn out (especially with so much of the marketing knocking it out of the preceding months), so were my negative feelings ultimately unfounded or did something go horribly wrong (and not in the good way) with this latest Addams Family venture?  Let’s find out!!

The Addams Family are a bunch of wealthy eccentrics who basically act like spooky monsters year round instead of just on Halloween.  The family consists of Patriarch Gomez (Oscar Isaac), possible vampire queen Mortitia (Charlize Theron), their daughter Wednesday  (Chloë Grace Moretz), their son Pugsley (Finn Wolfhard), Uncle Fester (Nick Kroll), Gomez’s mother (Bette Midler), the zombie butler who is IN NO WAY of any actionable resemblance to Boris Karloff known as Lurch (Conrad Vernon), and… I guess their OTHER butler who is just a hand called Thing.  Are they goths?  Murderous blue bloods?  If they were made in the mid nineties, would they all be Juggalos?  These are questions we may never get the answer to, but rest assured that whatever box they would most comfortably fit in, it’s one that will freak out the normies of the world whenever they happen to come in contact with them.  Said normies by the way are a bunch of nameless and nearly faceless upper middle class yuppies that built a community around the Addams family mansion and are just now realizing that there’s a spooky castle full of weirdos on top of the conspicuously nearby hill, and the head of the yuppies named Margaux Needler (Allison Janney) is none to please about it.  While this little pot of… I don’t know, spooky-phobia I guess, is brewing outside of the house, the Addams family itself is having a bit of tension as well as Gomez is trying to teach Pugsly a sacred family ritual known as The Mazurka but Puglsy seems to have no gift for it, and Morticia is trying to keep young Wednesday from falling into the wrong crowd; the kind that embraces unicorns, the color pink, and young pop stars.  Can the family stick together through these trying times both inside and out of the house?  Just how far will Margaux go to keep her little community nice and conformed now that this family has thrown a wrench in those plans?  Will The Addams family adjust to their new surrounds and join the rest of us in the living nightmare we all must suffer through under late stage Capitalism, or is that the wrong kind of terrifying for them?

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“A Panera Bread!?  AND a Chipotle!?”     “Ugh… it’s so GHASTLY commercial…”     “So is that GOOD ghastly, or BAD ghastly?”     “Well it’s BAD of course… but that’s actually good.  Because it’s bad…”

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Cinema Dispatch: The Beach Bum

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

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The Beach Bum and all the images you see in this review are owned by Neon

Directed by Harmony Korine

Did you know that I once asked John Waters a question at one of his shows?  Yeah, unlike people who actually do this for a living, I don’t have any celebrity stories to speak of, but I saw him at a show once and he picked me during the Q and A.  Anyway, my question was whether I thought his work had been a major influence on modern filmmakers and if anyone in particular came to mind.  He said that he doesn’t really see himself DIRECTLY influencing people, but that he did break down barriers for others who would come later… and he also said that Todd Solondz as Harmony Korine have PROBABLY seen his films.  I don’t know if that means much in relationship to the latter’s most recent film, but I figured this is probably the best chance I had to tell that story, so there it is!  As far as Mr. Korine himself, I’ve only ever seen Spring Breakers which I actually liked quite a lot, though I haven’t seen it in years and I get the feeling that it’s more uncomfortable moments don’t hold up all that well, but that’s why directors solider on and film NEW movies such as this one here!  Is The Beach Bum another success for this unique voice in Hollywood, or has his worst tendencies come to the forefront even more so than usual?  Let’s find out!!

Moondog (Matthew McConaughey) is just some dude who spends his time in the Florida Keys bumming drinks off of people, sleeping on the beach, and finding joy in life wherever he can find it.  Oh, and he’s also a famous writer, super rich, and has a loving family who he can go back to any time he needs to dry out from his latest binge.  His wife Minnie (Isla Fisher) adores his free spirited attitude towards life, love, and the law, but that last one kind of gets them in trouble as the two end up drinking and driving on the night of their daughter’s wedding (Stefania LaVie Owens) and Minnie ends up dying in the crash.  In her will, she tells Moondog that he won’t inherit her vast fortune until he finishes his latest novel which he’s been procrastinating on for some time, so he decides to do just that.  Of course he’ll be getting drunk, having sex, and… well doing what he’s always been doing as well, but he’ll find time to write a few lines here and there!  With adventure, drugs, friends including his buddy Lingerie (Snoop Dogg), is there anything that can keep Moondog down?  Will he eventually finish his book before he runs out of whatever money he has left as well as the goodwill of the people he’s met throughout his wild and bombastic life?  You know how some movies are clearly made so the filmmakers can take a vacation?  Why do I get the feeling that was the case here but less luxury hotels and more drinking tequila under a bridge and calling it “research”?

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Academy Award Winner Matthew McConaughey, seen here hoping to God he didn’t crap his pants last night.

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Cinema Dispatch: All Eyez on Me

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

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All Eyez on Me and all the images you see in this review are owned by Summit Entertainment

Directed by Benny Boom

If there’s one thing that we know Hollywood is good at it’s driving a good idea into the ground, and with the record breaking success of Straight Outta Compton, imitators were bound to pop up to try and ride its coattails.  Now that’s not to say that piggybacking off the success of one film is necessarily a bad thing; especially when the film being made is good enough to deserve the attention it wouldn’t otherwise get by following in a successful movie’s wake.  I know nothing about Tupac Shakur, but from what I understand he’s just as influential in the world of hip hop as NWA was in their day which makes his story ripe for adaptation.  Does this movie manage to live outside the shadow of its most obvious influence and stand on its own as a great biopic, or will this fail to find an identity outside a Straight Outta Compton cash in?  Let’s find out!!

The movie follows the life of Lesane Parish Crooks, also known as Tupac Amaru Shakur (Demetrius Shipp Jr), who rose to prominence as a rapper, actor, and black liberation advocate in the early and mid-1990’s.  Starting out from a young boy, he saw the horrors that institutionalized racism inflicted on his community and his own family as his mother Afeni Shakur (Danai Gurira) and step father Mutulu Shakur (Jamie Hector) were prominent figures in The Black Panthers Party.  After growing up in Baltimore where he met Jada Pinkett (Kat Graham) who remained a lifelong friend, he was eventually forced to move to California which is where he took off as a rapper and became part of the Digital Underground which is where he started to branch out as a solo artist and make a name for himself in the wider public.  Of course, being a huge success comes with its own caveats and Tupac has to face a corrupt criminal justice system, disloyal sycophants who want to suck him dry, and even his own personal demons which are brought to the forefront once he becomes a household name and a superstar.  Does this retelling of the life of the legendary rapper manage to capture all the nuances of the man behind the headlines?  What can this man’s story tell us about how broken the system is even to this day?  If this movie is anything to go by, was the dude even a human being or simply a demi-god walking among mere mortals?

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“It’s actually a lot colder in here than I thought.  Can someone get me my shirt?”

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Living on Netflix: Mac and Devin Go to High School

~ Matt Vetrano ~ 1 Comment

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You may recall a jaunty little tune from 2011 called Young Wild and Free by Snoop Dogg and Wiz Khalifa.  If you saw the music video, you might think that it’s making fun of dopey movie soundtracks because scenes from what appears to be a REALLY terrible high school movie are being played during the video.  What a great gag, right?  Harkening back to the days when soundtracks would overshadow the terrible films they were written for!  Wait, they actually made that movie?  And it’s on Netflix?  And Timmy is trapped in a well?  I’m not sure how to solve that last thing, but I guess I now have to watch this crap.  Get ready everyone, because we’re about to take a look at Mac and Devin go to High School!

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