[EXPRESSO] Depeche Mode: Spirits In The Forest (2019) | Private Live

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Cards on the table: i LOVE Depeche Mode, it’s one of my favorite bands of all time, and i’d argue one of the most influential overall, and i could go on, but it’s a review and i’m no proctologist.

Many bands had their work translated into a feature length movie, often in a more typical narrative fashion, with a plot crafted around the history of the band and it’s members, but also in more odd, ambitious fashions, like the hybrid of animated movie and music video of Interstella 5555, or Metallica: Through The Never, which went for live-action story mixed with live recordings.

Spirits In The Forest goes for a mix of live recordings from the 2017/2018 Global Spirit Tour, specifically the performance at Berlin’s Waldbühne (“Forest Stage”), and private cinema, with the intimate stories of six special Depeche Mode fans, filmed in their respective hometowns, talking about how the band’s music impacted their lives and connected with them, regardless of age, religion, language barriers, etc.

At it’s heart, Anton Corbjin’s (better know for Control, the biopic on Joy Division’s Ian Curtis) docu-film has the typical message about the power of music to unite people regardless of the many barriers and differences life inevitably confronts us with, but it does so in a smart way, not focusing on explaining pointless stuff like “what is Depeche Mode?”, or why the band is still so beloved today, but on the experiences of regular folks that are fans of the band AND do have interesting stories to tell, personal stories from different realities.

They are presented in a sincere fashion, never becoming indirect propaganda, with a good balance between these recollections and the live segments from the aforementioned Forest Stage performance in Berlin, and a concise runtime.

A bit envious i wasn’t there, gotta admit.

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About that redesigned Sonic The Hedgehog…

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So yes, as announced after the huge (and in retrospect, highly predictable) backlash the original design shown in the first trailer, they scrapped that eldritch thing, and came back today with a new trailer, which shows some new scenes, and a new redesigned Sonic that’s a fuckton more pleasing to look at.

As i said before, i was kinda against this, for two reasons. Continua a leggere “About that redesigned Sonic The Hedgehog…”

[EXPRESSO] My Name Is Dolemite (2019) | Rat Soup

Time for me to get some use out my Netflix subscription, and this wasn’t gonna screen in Italy anyway.

Shame, because the idea of a biopic about Rudy Ray Moore, the comedian better known to film buffs as his character Dolemite, starring in the eponymous movie and the sequel The Human Tornado (and many others), is a great idea. Especially the first Dolemite is a legendary and beloved piece of blaxploitation cinema, one of the few films where the boom mic is visibly in the movie more than the villain, and with overall quality rivalled only by stuff like The Guy From Harlem.

Telling the story of Rudy Ray Moore, an aspiring 70s Los Angeles comedian that manages to finally find success with his alter-ego/character of Dolemite, a foul mouthed motherfucker in pimp attire, leading to do some comedy records, which brings him some fame and money, all risked to make a movie about the character, in spite of everyone’s advice and good ol’ common sense (like a 70’s black version of Ed Wood, in a way), but Rudy is not gonna have it any other way.

While it’s even better for film buffs that already knew of the story, it’s an amazing portrait of a man struggling to make his name known, to realize it’s dream, and his ambivalent relantioship to the Dolemite persona he doesn’t really identify with after all, but can’t also give up. And isn’t exactly a flattering portrait, but it shouldn’t be, and the script has a perfect balance of goofy and serious, with space for more somber (and not somber) self-reflection, but also to lovingly recreate ridiculous scenes from the first Dolemite movie, with a top notch cast (which includes Snoop Dogg/Lion), especially Eddie Murphy who is killing it as Rudy/Dolemite.

He ain’t lying.

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