[EXPRESSO] Marcel The Shell With Shoes On (2021) | Solid As They Come

Did not 100 % expect to see this one arrive in theathers here since it’s technically a 2021 release, but it has just now, and i just HAD to see it.

Based on a series of shorts of the same name by the same director, Dean Fleischer-Camp, this mix of stop-motion animation and live-action tells of a recently divorced documentary filmmaker, Dean, whom, while staying at an AirBnB, discover the titular Marcel, a one-inch high, talking, antrophomorphic seashell with one eye and “feet gloves”, living there with his granma Connie.

Fascinated, Dean starts filming the seashell’s daily routines, and when he blows up on the internet, Marcel hopes his newfound success can help him and Connie in finding the rest of his seashell community that used to live there, but was swept away after some kind of incident in the past.

Aside from the hilarity of having the Chiodo Bros (of Killers Klowns From Outer Space fame) deliver the top notch stop-motion animation for this utterly wholesome subject, it’s worth noting that – as other critics have pointed out – this movie does remind one of the japanese style of slice of life anime entertaiment, as it understands the appeal and finds the “magic” in everyday activity and routines, with the oddity here being these decorated seashells that are just alive, can talk, etc.

The plot it’s simple as expected, it does conclude properly and serves the needed purpose of tying together the various vignettes/situations the movie is composed of, but it’s not the strong suit, nor was it ever intended to be, that would be the amazing characterization, with Marcel being not just wide-eyed and charming, but also fairly relatable, quite chatty and surprisingly funny too.

Quite good one, that also cleverly keeps the runtime short for the better.

[EXPRESSO] Decision To Leave (2022) | Mountain Malaise

Let’s celebrate San Valentine’s day by talking about the new opus by Park Chan-wook (Oldboy, Stoker, The Handmaiden), which has earned rave reviews, after the award for best direction at the 75^th Cannes festival last year.

So, the short version of it it’s that Decision To Leave it’s freaking amazing, fantastic, well deserving of the glowing reviews that it got, and that’s the movie you should bring your Valentine date to see, instead of the 4K 3D remaster of Titanic that been re-released in theathers, being that movie’s 25^th anniversary and whatnot.

The longer version is as follows.

Decision To Leave it’s about detective Hae-Jun, investigating the mysterious death of a man, apparently occurred while he was climbing a mountain-side.

He soon meets the deceased man’s wife, Seo-rae, a woman of chinese descent and mysterious enough to become the principal suspect in the investigation, especially since she doesn’t seem very afflicted by her husband’s death.

As he keeps digging deeper into the case, by interrogating and learning more about her, Hae-Jun, finds himself fatally obsessed with the widow, making him both scared and enraputed by Seo-rae, to the point he starts mixing his forbidden affair and his duties as detective, swallowed up by a storm of conflicting emotions that impact his investigation and integrity as a police officer.

It may not sound too original, understandibly so, but make no mistake, this a top notch police thriller romance drama, through and through: the investigations are intriguing, the characters are complex, compelling and “perfectly flawed”, the drama it’s excellent, the romance is great as well, and overall direction it’s enthralling to say the least, making for a slightly long watch where nothing feels amiss nor you ever feel like some editing was “needed”.

Absolutely a must watch, just go see it already.

[EXPRESSO] Vampire Survivors iOS | Italian Belmonts On The Go

I am a little quite late on this, since i didn’t know Vampire Survivors was ever gonna see a port on mobile platforms, but it did at the end of last December, and i DID want to see for myself if this iOS (and Android) port was any good.

I don’t really think i need to introduce the game itself, since it has been one of the ever-so-rare Steam success stories, especially since it launched at a really budget price, but the deal is that Vampire Survivors struck a new combination by basically having a roguelite RPG- “reverse” bullet hell using a “legally distinct Castlevania” vibe, with your character attacking automatically in the direction it’s facing, but still needing to be manually manouvered through the increasingly thick hordes of enemies homing onto you, while collecting exp drops, levelling up, getting new weapons or upgrades to the arsenal of auto-attacks, learning what to keep and use in order to survive longer.

It’s incredibly simple but also very addictive, and honestly this is a nearly perfect port, as the controls just require moving your character via a virtual joypad, so it’s easy to get into on a whim but also to keep going at for prolonged sessions/runs.

Here on smarthphones it has been released as a free-to-play title, but thankfully the developers at Poncle decided to actually care, so it’s a benign case of watching ads for extra gold or a revive when dead, at the time of writing it’s seriously devoid of any microtransactions or way to spend real money on anything.

Obviously this version is currently not up to date with the Steam release, and most likely will remain “behind” for a while, but even so free Vampire Survivors on smarthphones it’s a match made in italian vampire hunters’ heaven.

[EXPRESSO] Knock At The Cabin (2023) | Bautista Of The Apocalypse

Shyamalan is back to it after the aging beach shenanigans of Old, to tell the tale of a couple and their adopted daughter that, while going on holiday in a remote cabin in the woods, are visited by four mysterious, cultish individuals that invade their home, and then tell them they have been chosen and that the fate of humanity depends on them choosing a member of their own family to sacrifice in order to avoid the Apocalypse….

Quite the out-there premise, it’s a Shyamalan film alright, one that’s actually kinda difficult to discuss in any proper detail to avoid giving away hints of any kind about the “twist” could be, so i won’t be doing that (hence no talk about the ending, as you could assume by what i just wrote), but i will say that it’s quite intense and you never properly get to rule out definitely that these strange “home invaders” are saying, as you find yourself secondguessing what seemed like definitive proof, despite their odd behaviour and explained motives seeming truthful, so you end symphatizing with the antagonists as well with the couple and their child.

It starts out strong too, and it manages to keep the suspense all the way through, thanks to the excellent performances by the peculiarly assumbled cast of stars and the characters that make the movie stay consistent, the narrative gripping and help in make you overlook how heavy handedly are some themes approached (and some of the flashbacks feeling a bit like filler), making it all quite effective and honestly some of the best work M. Night Shyamalan has put out in recent years.

It’s perfect? No, but honestly it’s quite good and if you’ve ever liked one of the director’s movies, you’d be missing out by skipping this one.

[EXPRESSO] Junji Ito Maniac (2023) | Adaptation Curse

At this point in time i believe there is a factory somewhere producing monkey paws exclusively for adaptation of Junji Ito works, because you’d have to be a heathen to ask for more after the incredibly disappointing animated anthology known as Junji Ito Collection.

It hurts even more since this “sequel series” (once again handled by Studio DEEN as “Collection” was) basically showed up out of nowhere on Netflix, while the Uzumaki anime announced back in 2019 and supposed to release October last year has been postponed again.

In a fitting roundabout way, i’m not approaching in good spirit this 12 episode series, which also opts for sticking two short stories in one episode.

And honestly i’m not really surprised to realize that Maniac makes Junji Ito Collection look better in comparison, at the very least it had a better selection of stories, while this one seems to be running on fumes, so much that they do Tomie… AGAIN. Actually, they don’t do even that, just the chapters about the photos out of context and don’t even give that a conclusion.

Animation it’s mostly fine (CGI aside), but the selection is odd, questionable at best, the many stories often don’t work for a reason or another, be it editing, excessively brief runtime, lackluster direction, this when the stories themselves aren’t just kinda weak, underwhelming, not scary and forgettable to begin with.

There are some standout pieces, like the “Hanging Baloons” episode, and some odd comedic picks like The Bizarre Hikazuki Siblings, and it does get a bit better halfway through, but it’s not enough, not for a second attempt/season, and while it’s NOT the worst thing ever… please just go experience the various Junji Ito short stories in their original manga form instead of this sub-par anime anthology.

[EXPRESSO] Asterix & Obelix: The Middle Kingdom (2023) | Dynasty Gauls

We’re going into “eurocomics” territory today (AGAIN), as in, the beloved Asterix & Obelix series, which is indeed quite nostalgic for many older folks that grew up by either reading the many print adventures of the titular duo of gauls, or the many animated movies based on them, and it’s regardless a very influential comic book series, even to this day.

While i’m very familiar with the series, i can’t say as much for the many Asterix & Obelix live-action movies.

I really can’t compare how it fares against the previous ones, so keep that in mind.

This time we have the village deal with, Fu Yi, the daughter of the current Empress of China which – alongside with her trusted bodyguard – escaped to ask help in saving the Empress and stopping the schemes of an evil prince that guns for the throne.

Honestly i think the idea of having them go to China is timely (and no, this is not based on an existing story, it’s an original script), and it’s perfect for the deliberately implausibile-but-not-quite approach to history the series always had, i mean, it’s a movie where we have Ceasar use “vibrating cum ringtone” carrier pigeons, and soccer player Ibrahimovic plays a divo centhurion that has the Roman soldier sing his Queen-style knock-off anthem.

So yeah, french actors in cartoony costumes that can send a person flying into the stratosphere with a single flick can have some wuxia stuff to contend with, why not, but the characters of Asterix and Obelix are on point and the comedy it’s pretty cute.

I mean, it’s aimed at a “young audiences-family” target (as it would be), and for that i feel it’s a decent silly romp, you could far worse in terms of live-action films based on old comics.

10 Hours-ish Into One Piece Odyssey

While i’m overburdened to even conceive putting out a full review for the game (since i’m still early into it, as the title may suggests, since it’s a JRPG we’re talking about) before Spring hits, i do wanna talk about it since i have been looking forward to it since the announcement, and i pre-ordered the collector’s edition with the figure and season pass and shit.

I mean, i have been expecting a proper One Piece RPG to wash the horrid taste Romance Dawn on the PSP/3DS left in me mouth for years, and i’m not feeling like digging out emulated and/or translated roms of those very old and very “Japan-only” One Piece RPGS on the Wonderswan and Game Boy. I do have some of those imported, but whatever, i do want to play something modern once in a while, you know?

Btw, these first impressions are based on the PS4 version running on a PS4 Pro (and there’s also a demo version available), so you know.

Continua a leggere

Asterix & Obelix XXL: Romastered PS4 [REVIEW] | For Toutatis!

Oddly, this was the last of the Asterix XXL series to get the remaster treament, the first being XXL 2 in 2018, then we had the brand new XXL 3 in 2019, then the “romastered” version of the first game in 2020, the one we’re talking about today, to celebrate the release of a new Asterix & Obelix movie in theathers.

One of the live-action ones, but still, it’s new Asterix & Obelix material!

Originally developed for PS2, Gamecube and PC (with a GBA version that’s basically another game entirely) by defunct french studio Etranges Libellules and published by Atari Europe, this remaster was instead published by Microids (which pretty much took the place Infogrames had back then) and developed by the quite non-defunct (at the time of writing, anyway) french Osome Studios.

The plot sees the titular duo wander off of their little Gaul village to the ol’ boar hunt only to come back and find out Ceasar (yes, Julius Caius Ceasar from Caligula, exactly) has somehow managed to storm the village, capturing most people and sending them off to various distant ends of the Roman empire in order to have locked out sight and mind, hopefully for good.

But with the help of a fired roman spy, you find out that most of the imprisoned gauls most likely managed to get a piece of the map indicating their location, as Ceasar took the extra step – just in case – of ripping the map in pieces and scattering them in various locations.

Good enough as an excuse in terms of videogame logic to have Asterix & Obelix travel to various places like Egypt, Normandy, Greece and Helvetia, freeing their fellow gaul citizens and getting more pieces of the map along the way.

Continua a leggere

Pinocchi-O-Rama #1: A Tree Of Palme/Palme No Ki (2002)

While it’s not completely unknown, i’d say A Tree Of Palme it’s quite obscure, definitely forgotten, overlooked and rarely discussed, despite being created, written and directed by respected anime veteran Takashi Nakamura, who also previously worked as a key animator for Nausicaa And The Valley Of The Wind, joined the acclaimed anime anthology of Robot Carnival in 1987, and just the next year would be animation director for a little movie called AKIRA.

It was also laboriosly made over the span of 6 years, and you can just tell by the cinematography that indeed A Tree Of Palme was treated as a big project that Nakamura wanted to cultivate as well as possible without compromises to his vision.

The story concerns the titular Palme, a puppet created by a man for his sickly wife, and upon her death the puppet becomes paralyzed by sorrow, until he accidentally stumbles upon a misterious woman (whom Palme mistakes for the man’s dead wife, Xian) being pursued, and she entrusts the puppet to deliver a certain special item to a sacred place called Tama.

Continua a leggere

[EXPRESSO] Burning Fight (Arcade Classic Archives Neo Geo) NSWITCH DDL | Streets Of Mid

I’m a simple man, i see some Arcade Classics Archives games on sale on the Switch eShop, i usually buy them, especially if it’s early Neo Geo beat em up i’ve never even seen mentioned before.

With 3 bucks less to my wallet, i realized why exactly.

I mean, it was the age of the beat em up, and while it’s not often fair to just call them knock-offs…. Burning Fight really can’t be called anything else than a “knock-off” of Final Fight, Streets Of Rage, heck even Double Dragon, and one that embodies the definition of “one of those”, since it’s so predictable and derivative to have even the special health-draining moves feel like “legally distinct” imitations of Capcom’s other big series about punching people.

The only distinctive feature is that you can enter some of the shops/facilities and smash some furniture to find health and point pickups, but even these diversions last 4 seconds tops, though there’s some attempts at doing something new with some stages where you move on a conveyer belt while thugs throw explosive at you from the background, but it’s very small stuff.

This is as straightforward, simple and generic as a beat ‘em up could be in that era.

Originality aside, the problem with Burning Fight is that it’s indeed a cheap, brazen and almost sub-par knock off, not unplayable or anything, but the kind it inevitably just makes you wish you were playing the older titles on SNES and Genesis it’s clearly aping, since they’re better in every regard.

So ironically the only way i can justify bothering with this one it’s if you’re a beat em up buff that has already played all the popular ones and are searching for a fix, something that “will do”, and not really anything else.