The Cinema File #256: "Cloudy With A Chance Of Meatballs 2" Review

I love puns. I love puns so much that I named my podcast The Dirty Sons Of Pitches, because, you know, we're dirty, and we pitch stuff. Anyway, no matter how much I might love the art of punning, usually just for the pun of it, even I am amazed at how well the makers of the new film Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs 2 have been able to sustain not one, but two movies solely on the strength of them. Glutton for punishment that I am, I made a pledge at the beginning of this year to see every wide release animated movie, and with the exception of my white whale of terribleness Planes, I've seen every one so far. Cloudy 2 is easily one of the better ones if not the best, though in 2013 that must always come with the caveat of just how lousy this year has been all around for film, and that at least one of the animated movies on the low end had Smurfs in it. Still, low standards notwithstanding, this is one animated adventure that's great to look at, just heartwarming enough without being cloying, and just plain pun as phuck. Yeah, that's why I did that. Sorry, I'll stop now.

The Cinema File #255: "The Family" Review

You'd probably be hard pressed to find a list of the greatest American films of all time that doesn't have The Godfather somewhere in the top ten (if not the top five). It was one of those extremely rare cases of a movie that was so original and proved to be so culturally indelible that it essentially created its own genre, providing the blueprint for and standard by which we judge any ensuing movie that dares to tackle the same subject matter. Its a style that's been ripped off, parodied, honored, dishonored, and run through pretty much every possible permutation of cross-genre meddling short of Mafia Space Epic (at least until Star Wars gets there). If any director was capable of finding a fresh spin on this well-worn material, one would think it might be someone as prolific and eclectic as Luc Besson, but while his approach in The Family does result in a mostly charming and entertaining experience, it ultimately feels a little too beholden to the canon it should be trying to transcend.

Unnecessary Retrospective: The Chucky Franchise (Part One - Child's Play)

[Editorial Note]: Hi everybody. Welcome to another installment of Unnecessary Retrospectives. If you don't know what this is, the basic idea is that I take an indepth second look at a movie franchise from my childhood with an eye towards the greater mythology and how each film is integrated into the larger series. You can check out the first two HERE and HERE. On second thought, don't. I posted them back before I used pictures, and before I learned that people didn't want to read 20+ paragraphs about the Critters movies in one sitting. I'll probably re-post them at some point in easily digestible chunks with pics, but in the mean time, here's part one of Unnecessary Retrospective #3, in a format that's short and visually engaging enough that you might actually be able to read it without wanting to kill yourself. Enjoy.

So have you all seen Curse of Chucky yet? Can't see why not, I mean, I recommended it like yesterday, giving you more than enough time to buy it and watch it. Well, your loss I suppose. In any case, being able to indulge in the nostalgic glee of everyone's favorite killer toy possessed by Brad Dourif inspired me to take a look back at the series that started it all, to see if Chucky 1 through 5 were really as good as I remember them. Now, for the one guy nerdy enough to read that last sentence and be mad at it, I should stress that while I'm aware the first three movies don't have Chucky in the title, I will be using Chucky and Child's Play interchangeably when I refer to them, because its common parlance, and I don't care enough to be that precise. So first up, Child's Play, or Chucky 1, whichever you prefer.

The Cinema File #254: "Curse Of Chucky" Review

Who doesn't love a Killer Toy movie? Well, most people actually. The most recent one I can think of not counting Ooga Booga or anything made by Charles Band was Dead Silence way back in 2007, and there's a reason we don't see as many of them nowadays as we did back when the Child's Play series was in its prime. Don't get me wrong, I love them, but I also understand how most people might find it hard to suspend their disbelief with the idea that a flimsy piece of plastic come to life could be a credible threat. Sure, back in the 80's and 90's when everything came to life as a killer, maybe, but in the post Saw/Hostel age of horror, a monster like Chucky the Killer Doll just doesn't cut it. While I don't think it will, if there's any movie that could bring some new life and new found respect to this faded franchise, its the latest installment, Curse of Chucky, a sequel/reboot hybrid that does pretty much everything right.

The Idiot Box: Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. - 1x01 - "Pilot" Review

Okay, far be it from me to once again assume the role of wet blanket to a legion of Marvel fan boys who've attached their self-esteem to the erroneous notion that The Avengers is a good movie, but come on, even the most dedicated sycophant to the Marvel Cinematic Universe has to acknowledge that something was lacking in this pilot. Whatever my feelings were towards the shitty, shitty movie upon which this series was based, even I still had high hopes for this one, as it represented Joss Whedon back in his element on the small screen, where I would have thought he would have more freedom to be the Joss Whedon we all know and love. Admittedly, being an original story about mostly all new characters, Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. does avoid many of the specific problems I had with the film that inspired it, but in trying to recapture the tone of that film on such a smaller scale, it just creates a host of new problems that I almost think might be worse.

The Idiot Box: The Blacklist - 1x01 - "Pilot" Review

Did you ever watch that show The 13 Ghosts of Scooby Doo? Not the original series, but the later one with Scrappy Doo and Vincent Price. Call it sacrilege, but I always liked it better, because they were actually going after real monsters instead of just Old Man Wilkins in a mask or something. The thing is, the show only had thirteen episodes, one for each ghosts, and it always seemed strange to me that they would limit themselves like that right off the bat. Of course, sometimes this works in the reverse, like in The 100 Lives of Captain Black Jack Savage or The 100 Deeds Of Eddie McDowd, two shows cancelled long before they reached their goal, their centennial promise now seeming a bit lofty in retrospect. It took a while, but it looks like we've finally learned that when building a show around a finite definable goal, its best to keep the exact number vague. We never find out how many criminals are on the blacklist in the pilot to The Blacklist, and I hope we never do, because this is a show that should get to go on long past the point where this plot device would otherwise be plausible.

The Dirty Sons Of Pitches - Episode Sixty! Now Available!

Hey guys, check out the latest episode of my podcast The Dirty Sons Of Pitches! In this episode we deconstruct the summer movie season and re-pitch some of the worst summer movies as if they were good. Also, masturbating to severed feet. Yeah...

Download HERE