Rekt Reviews

This week Paul and Erik are joined by special guest Florentino from The Changing Stage radio show to talk about Creed and Krampus. Florentino and Paul discuss Creed, a quite tasteful installment of the Rocky series, with Sylvester Stallone giving one of his best performances in years.Paul and Erik talk about Krampus, the out-of-left-field Christmas horror comedy featuring an evil antipodal Santa…which sounds terrible…and is terrible, but not completely. The movie is a mixed bag, in turns clever and imbecilic, predictable and surprising, clearly out to just have fun. Think National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation meets The Gremlins.We also take a detour to discuss the fantastic new Netflix shows, Marvel’s Jessica Jones and Daredevil, which take B-side superheroes and use them to create smart, dark, multi layered dramas.

This week we are joined by special guests Ronnie Revoredo, cohost of the Shark After Dark radio show and Dr. Thu Ho, a woman after Bond’s own heart, who shares his obsession with other people’s Aston Martins.We discuss Spectre, the latest installment in the Daniel Craig iteration of James Bond films. Everyone shares their disappointment with the movie, especially considering how highly all of us anticipated its release, (in the naïve hope that it will be as good as the previous Bond film – Skyfall). Sadly, Spectre seems to have taken everything Skyfall and Casino Royale got right and decided to throw it all out the window, replacing a smart, taught, complexly characterized spy thriller with a clichéd, caricaturistic, sloppy romp, reminiscent of the Roger Moore Bond era. The movie is rife with plot holes, lazy writing, tired gimmicks, ludicrous and cumbersome back stories, and vague, hastily sketched motivations for the characters’ actions. Craig is basically just phoning in a well-worn but no longer inspired

After a lot of James Bond related non-sequitourism, Erik, Chris, Paul and Shark delve into the review of “Sicario”, starring Emily Blunt, Benicio Del Toro and Josh Brolin. A gritty and realistic portrayal of a desperate drug war waged around the U.S./Mexico border, the film is very tense, building suspense in layer after layer and taking the viewer on an eye-opening journey through a world where law and lawlessness are no longer distinguishable.Erik and Chris discuss why they think this could be the best film of the year, Chris learns to use his mic’s mute button to mask the suckling sounds of his vaping and Paul disgraces the show by drinking hot tea instead of alcohol, citing an illness as an excuse for what is clearly an absence of cojones and leaving the listeners to wonder – “where have all the cowboys gone?”

Paul takes a night off and Shark returns to the show for a Halloween episode of horror. The guys first talk action movies, which may seem off topic but segues smoothly into the unholy horror that was Die Hard 5, (which none of them actually watched but seem to all be horrified by.) Chris and Erik rave about Sicario, which will likely warrant a Reking in the near future.Erik, Chris and Shark discuss Crimson Peak, their shared love for director Guillermo Del Torro and their shared disappointment in this film. Though visually quite stunning, immaculately detailed, and well-acted, the plot is a bit thin, predictable and ultimately un-engaging. None of the ghosts are scary or dangerous and though the movie is not without blood-curdling moments, these are achieved by very gory murder sequences, horrific due to their stark realism rather than anything paranormal.The guys finish up by talking about some of their all-time favorite horror movies.

Erik and Paul are joined by special guest “Shark”, who actually has a film degree, a monster radio voice and shows up with 3 kinds of beer and a bottle of Southern Comfort – in short, a gentleman and a scholar! We talk about The Martian’s strengths and weaknesses, how the film compares with the book and with other movies in the Sci Fi genre, including Ridley Scott’s previous hits (Alien) and misses (Prometheus).The Martian, though not without a few faux pas, is a solid and quite entertaining Sci Fi film, anchored in real science, tonally taut without taking itself too seriously and very sharp visually.

Chris, shirking his responsibility to drink on a Thursday, takes a night off and Paul and Erik are left on their own, to dissect the intricate anatomy of Pixar’s “Inside Out”. They discuss the clever and often hilarious metaphors the movie uses in describing the human psyche, as well as Pixar’s unparalleled ability to craft movies equally appealing to children and adults (even intelligent adults). Paul and Erik dive into the imaginative scenes which tackle topics like personality formation, repression, compassion, sacrifice and maturity.The movie strikes an amazing balance of being entertaining, intellectually stimulating and deeply engaging emotionally – which is artistically very gratifying in a story where emotion is the main theme.

Erik, Paul and Chris discuss the epic awesomeness that is Fury Road. The idea behind Rekt Reviews is to juxtapose the opinions of Erik (who is dead inside and loves nothing), Chris (who finds subtle beauty even in Nic Cage movies) and Paul (who ignores plot and character development entirely, focusing only on finding hidden Illuminati symbolism), but in this case the crew found very little to disagree over. The film is undeniably kick-ass, taking the viewer back to a time when action movies had you on the edge of your seat and presenting a never-before-seen spectacle to an audience that thought it has seen it all.The guys discuss the bold plot choices Fury Road makes, its lean expository devices, Tom Hardy’s fetish for face masks, the production challenges the film had before finding its footing, and the hoopla surrounding the feminist themes it allegedly explores.

Erik, Paul and Chris inaugurate the show with a review of Jurassic World, the gazillion-dollar-grossing cautionary tale on the dangers of messing with nature…yet again. Paul and Erik let their hater flags fly, exposing the movies weaknesses and ill-executed conceits, leaving Chris to defend the movie’s raison d’etre on his own. Everyone finds common ground in the fact that seemingly, God never closes a Goldblum without opening a Pratt.