Tag: tom kenny

Cinema Dispatch: The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

The SpongeBob Movie: Search for SquarePants and all the images you see in this review are owned by Paramount Pictures

Directed by Derek Drymon

When the first SpongeBob movie came out, my grandma had to take me to see it because I was way too young to drive myself. That is how old this franchise is, which is an impressive feat in its own right, but with a quarter-century of episodes, spin-offs, streaming originals, and now four movies under its belt, well, let’s just say that it could easily start to resemble another series with yellow characters that hit its peak some time ago. Will this latest SpongeBob adventure be a delight for fans both old and new, or are we just running out the clock until Tom Kenny gets tired of doing that iconic laugh? Let’s find out!!

SpongeBob SquarePants (Tom Kenny), Bikini Bottom’s premiere fry cook and most eligible bachelor, is ready to become a proper Sponge-Man instead of a mere SpongeBob, but after hearing tall tales from his idol and boss Mr. Krabs (Clancy Brown), he doesn’t feel confident that he has what it takes. Fortunately for him, The Flying Dutchman (Mark Hamill) hears his laments and offers him the opportunity of a lifetime!  Sail with him to the mysterious Underworld and face the challenges that await, with the promise of a Swashbuckler certificate at the end if he can prove himself.  With his best buddy Patrick (Bill Fagerbakke) at his side, he boards the ship, and they head to the mysterious lands below the deepest depths of the sea, but Mr. Krabs knows the Dutchman’s tricks and chases after him with Squidward (Rodger Bumpass) and Gary in tow.  What truly waits for SpongeBob at the end of this adventure with The Flying Dutchman, and are the consequences as dire as Mr. Krabs fears?  Can the friendship between SpongeBob and Patrick be enough to withstand whatever challenges they will face, or will the road to manhood finally be what tears these two apart?  Seriously, are we just never gonna get a Squidward movie?  Sandy got a movie, but not Squidward!?

“Talk to my agent, you yellow Philistine!”    “Okey-dokey, best buddy!”
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Super Recaps: Tom Goes to the Mayor (Saxman)

~ Matt Vetrano ~ Leave a comment

TGTTM

Tom Goes to the Mayor and all the images you see in this recap are owned Warner Bros and Adult Swim

Created by Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim

We’re back with another episode of Mayor as Folk where Tim & Eric introduce their first explicatly queer character in the series; though after watching it becomes pretty clear why GLAAD didn’t throw a Media Award their way.  The episode begins with a sweeping view of Jefferton’s pier district where we get a nice snapshot of people going about their daily lives (which mostly consists of them standing around), all set to the third sexiest saxophone song of all time; first and second being Careless Whisper by George Michael and Runaway by SunStroke Project & Olia Tira respectively.  But wait!  These mellifluous melodies are not merely an audio track layered on top of this idyllic scene during the editing process!  This lovely tune is coming from The Saxman (Tom Kenny); a homeless dude with great musical talent but is about to lose his home on the pier.  Why is that?  Well a Mattress Mogul known as Captain Lew Peterson (Robert Loggia) is gentrifying the area with a new outlet store and so the homeless in the area are basically getting muscled out.  At least that’s what I THINK is happening as we only have Saxman’s word on any of this, and as we’ll soon learn he’s not the most reliable of sources.

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“I was rooming with this starfish for the LONGEST time, but then this new store polluted the hell out of our pad, so now I’m out here playing for my meals.”     “Well shirt!  That’s just not fair!”

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Cinema Dispatch: Transformers: The Last Knight

~ Matt Vetrano ~ 1 Comment

TTLKCD0

Transformers: The Last Knight and all the images you see in this review are owned by Paramount Pictures

Directed by Michael Bay

Good ol’ Patron Saint of all things wrong with cinema, Michael “The Boom Master” Bay!  For a lot of film critics, he’s become something of a symbol for the worst that summer blockbusters have become even if that characterization is somewhat unfair.  Heck, even I’m guilty of generalizing the dude to an extent as I’ve only managed to sit all the way through two of the Transformers movies (Revenge of the Fallen and Age of Extinction; neither of which were the least bit tolerable) and I do genuinely like a few of his films such as Pain and Gain as well as The Rock.  This is gonna be the first film of his that I will review for the site, so I don’t just want to parrot my usual talking points about Transformers being THE WORST THING EVAR (even if it’s probably true) and am gonna try to go into this with an open mind as well as a critical eye.  Is there SOMETHING in this latest entry of the series that will be worth talking about and even appreciating, or are here to say the same shit for a franchise that makes too much money to ever need to change?  Let’s find out!!

The movie begins with Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen) landing back on Cybertron (I think) where he meets the creator of all Transformers (I think) known as Quintessa (Gemma Chan) who… wants to destroy Earth I think?  I don’t know, but that’s where we start and we’ll get back to that eventually.  From there, we find out that the humans no longer trust the Transformers (again) and have set up the Transformers Reaction Force (TRF) to hunt down any remaining Autobots and Decepticons which usually isn’t a great idea, but whatever.  The few remaining Autobots from the last movie (including a few Dinobots) are being protected by Cade Yeager from Age of Extinction (Mark Whalberg) who’s now a fugitive from the law despite having a very visible base of operations in a junk yard.  Anyway, he’s being chased by the humans as well as Megatron (Frank Welker) but during an admittedly decent action scene where the three factions come to a head, a strange human sized robot named Cogman (Jim Carter) informs Cade that an artifact he found holds the key to saving the world or whatever and jets him off to the UK along with Bumblebee (Erik Aadahl) to meet with his master Sir Edmund Burton (Anthony Hopkins).  The dude informs Cade that he’s got a destiny much bigger than his own, there’s a professor named Viviane Wembly (Laura Haddock) who ALSO has a destiny much bigger than her own, and there’s a Cybertron MacGuffin somewhere that they need to find in order to fight off the impending doom brought about by Quintessa and a brainwashed Optimus Prime.  Can Cade and his gang of rascally robot friend find the MacGuffin of Ultimate Destiny before it’s too late?  Can Optimus Prime be brought back to his senses before he does something he’ll truly regret?  WHY IS IT So HARD TO DESCRIBE THE PLOT TO A MOVIE ABOUT GIANT ROBOTS!?

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WHAT THE HELL AM I EVEN LOOKING AT!?

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