[EXPRESSO] The Flash (2023) | Weather Report

Let’s get this over with, because i’m not really too comfortable with the idea of this review, as i previously stated, but i made a decision, so here we are.

Even casting aside the heinous shit Erza Miller pulled, i can’t say i was ever well disposed towards the film, as i didn’t really care much for The Flash as a character, the trailers and promos we eventually saw surface were more about Michael Keaton returning as Batman, an alluring prospect for older generations like mine that grew up on the 1989 Burton classic, paraded as “bait” because Batman brings ALL the boys to the yard, so to speak.

And i guess to remember you THIS world is unfair and cruel, the movie that should have been a total piece of shit… it’s not. I’d make a joke about dodging lightining, but why couldn’t Black Adam have been alright and this one a turd.. i guess it’s ironic in its own right.

The plot concerns Barry Allen, The Flash himself, using his powers to go faster than light and eventually to go back in time, all so he can avoid the incident that saw his mother die and his father wrongfully imprisoned. He eventually succeeds, meets his younger self, but learns that his actions led to a new timeline entirely, one where a lot of his super hero friends and colleagues never existed, but other villains did.

Thankfully he finds that reality’s Batman (Michaeal Keaton) and tries to launch a counter-offensive to save everyone…

Yeah, sure, some of the CG work can be uncanny valley levels of off-putting at times, the ending basically “pulls a JoJo” for more cynical reasons, but against all expectations, the movie it’s alright, it’s decent.

I’ve seen FAR worse offerings, especially from the DC side.

[EXPRESSO] Spider Man: Across The Spiderverse (2023) | Peter Parter

This review it’s only a formality, but yes, indeed, i had high expectations of this new Spider Man animated movie after Into The Spiderverse was a surprise smash hit, an unexpected excellent opus from an animation studio mostly known for Hotel Transylvania and The Angry Birds movie.

We never saw it coming, but it happened and while it had the side effect of making the live-action Marvel offerings kinda redundant and pointless, i would have been happy even if there wasn’t a sequel, despite being no reason to stop there, i mean, we got the new origin story/introduction of Miles Morales as one of the many Spider Man personas, the studio was gonna follow that up regardless.

This sequel to Into The Spiderverse also follows in the recent resurgence of “two parters” (giving even more proof that time is a flat circle, at least in terms of entertaiment media), and in this “part 1” we see Miles (and Gwen) venture deeper into the multiverse of various Spider personas from many dimensions/universes, meeting a new team of “Spidersonas” known as Spider Society, led by Miguel O’Hara (aka Spider Man 2099), but instead of collaborating they end up clashing in regards of how to deal with the villain at hand.

And honestly it meets the high expectations set by the previous movie, delivering a lot of inspired visuals, variety of animation styles and stylization, new charming and likable characters, plus the story dwelves deeper into the multiverse aspect, Miles’ role in this, so even if it ends on a cliffhanger for “part 2”, it’s not just 2 hours and 1/2 of setup, it’s already very very good as expected, and again it manages to make you really care even if you weren’t already much invested in Spiderman his many comic book incarnations/iterations.

Pinocchi-O-Rama # 5: The Adventures Of Pinocchio AKA Un Burattino Di Nome Pinocchio (1972)

Don’t let the deceptive and common international title that’s often attached to many Pinocchio films, or the fact it came out in 1972, the same year as the popular italian TV miniseries of the same name (later edited as a compilation film) by acclaimed director Luigi Comencini.

This is actually a different adaptation, originally titled “Un Burattino Chiamato Pinocchio” ( lit. “ A Puppet Called Pinocchio”), that’s also the more recognized work of italian animator-director Giuliano Cenci, whom at the time was hailed as the “italian Walt Disney”, and he almost was if the distributors didn’t fuck him over, with a fuckin mess of indipendent regional releases that basically doomed financially the film.

It was so badly handled that at a time, in Florence, it was seen playing in a red-lights cinema called Arlecchino, which of course wasn’t where families went for a movie time with the kids.

To say nothing of how the movie managed to reach Egypt as an unauthorized bootleg they pilfered from the Italian Embassy. XD

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[EXPRESSO] Fast X (2023) | Furious Finale, Part 1

As the Fast And Furious series sheds even more words from their movie titles (in order to gain even more speed, obviously), with Fast X we reached the finale… kinda, as it’s a two parter, given how over the top the series is nothing else would have quite sufficed.

I would say they fumbled the opportunity to make the franchise go into space… but that already happened, so Fast X had to somehow up the ante of absolute bullshit that most people have come to love over the years. Myself included, these movies are so dumb but also utterly and sincerely committed that they come off as endearing.

It’s like a live-action shonen manga version of The Italian Job where superpowers are replaced by improbable car manouvers and the universe is themed/styled after the Gasolina music video, where Vin Diesel instead of unleashing a Bankai presses the NOS button or tailspins like a beyblade, it’s fucking great preposterous nonsense and i love it.

In terms of plot we have another shadow from the past style character, Dante Heyes, come and unleash vengeance for the “Toretto team” having killed his father many movies ago, and he’s planning to go full on the eye for an eye business upon Toretto’s family, prompting Vic and his allies on a world throtting chase to stop Dante’ schemes.

To be honest, this is kind of a lukewarm “part 1”, aside from the fact that yes, this is supposed to be heavier on setup… it’s a bit “meh”, as in, still entertaining but we’ve seen better and far more absurd shit happen in these movies, thankfully we have Jason Momoa as a fruity sociophatic villain stealing the show and giving the movie some needed energy.

Cautiously optimistic part 2 will actually be a worthy pay off.

Anatar (2022) [REVIEW] | Howard The Fuck

No, this isn’t a typo. And it’s not that kind of pun.

And yes, this poster is 100 % legit.

Since it’s my birthday, let’s review a movie i’ve been meaning to cover here for a while.

This is an actual italian parody/spoof of Avatar, that released in italian theathers, for actual money, with the intent of launching a new brand of “cinepattone” (aka a type of italian extremely low brow dumb comedies that once infested theathers every year around christmas), the “spaghetti-fi”, in the words of Anatar’s producer Salvatore Scarico, whom also literally and openly calls this an Avatar’s mockbuster film.

So much for clarity.

Reeling back my jaw from the freezing pavement after realizing this isn’t a troll style marketing campaign for another, real movie…. i must also point out this was never really properly advertised anywhere (or almost anywhere) and i stumbled upon its existence last year while browsing upcoming early dicember cinema releases here.

While this also gives me whiffs of Creators: The Past (a huge italian scifi epic that flopped back into the obscurity from whence it came)… you know, at least they marketed it at popular Italian anime/manga/videogames cons that year, Lucca Comics & Games. They tried proper. And at least that movie had William Shatner.

Here they were so spineless that at the last second (literally, 2 days before the intended 1^st December release, hence 2 weeks before Avatar: The Way Of Water opened in theathers here) they chickened out – ha ha – and rescheduled the release between January and February 2023.

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12 Hours Into The Legend Of Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom

I expected many things, but i wasn’t quite ready to get the sequel to Breath Of The Wild and see that the development team actually “pulled a Nuts & Bolts”, but actually do it in a way that doesn’t leave disappoiment and bewildered fans.

Mostly because Tears Of The Kingdom doesn’t completely goes away with almost everything from the previous movies (and its open worlds/spaces have actual shit to do in it, instead of meaningless wandering for few collectables in oversized dromes), retaining pretty much the same basic gameplay seen in Breath Of The Wild, from attacking, the stamina management for climbing, running, flying, item collecting, having to deal with freezing cold or scorching hot enviroments, Sacraries acting as both mini-dungeons and fast-travel locations where to collect orbs in order to power up life or stamina, tower that need to be actived to scan the area you’re in, etc.

And of course the weapons are made of biscuit crumbs, which is both worse and better, as now there’s is a real, honest-to-god story justification for Hyrule’s metal weapons having becoming corroded (which is fuckin hilarious in a way)… BUT at least now you can find more resistent variant of the weapons, the last strike that would seen the weapon break always deals a critical hit damage, and one of the new abilities is also there to help, as it lets you combine weapons with items to strenghten them or create weird ass weaponry.

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[EXPRESSO] Beau Is Afraid (2023) | Rightfully So

The new movie from Hereditary and Midsommar director Ari Aster, and what do you know, it’s indeed quite the intriguing piece of cinema.

Heck, i’d go further and say this one is quite the experience, and definitely something you’ve never seen before, not this way or with this imagery or themes, as Aster goes fuckin insane by delivering a surreal kafkian odyssey out of a very simple and – on its face – thin premise: a man named Beau (Joaquin Phoenix) with a troubled relationship with his mother is set to do his yearly visit home for the anniversary of his father’s death.

Then he learns of her dying in a horrible accident too and scrambles, shame he lives in what could be classified as “Kafkian suburban slums”, with naked murderers, tattooed man with black reptilian eyes, and crazied hobos.

Not that the world outside it’s better, as Beau is trapped in an eternal super short-circuit of grotesque weirdos accusing, manipulating or threatening him in ways meant to fuel the Kafkian uroborous, as Beau it’s guilt tripped into everything by everyone, while he stews in the “damned if i do, damned if i don’t” miserable state of existence, getting involved in weirder and increasingly surreal scenarios as his adventure unfolds from just him wanting to come back home.

It’s all so absurdly grotesque, preposterous and outlandish in the peak of weirds the movie reaches, definitely making you wanna see what the hell could ever happen next, but even with Joaquin Phoenix being incredible as usual, the deliberate slow pace and excess of…. well, everything, those take a toll on the movie, which ends up feeling too long and repetitive.

But still, even flawed as it is, Beau Is Afraid remains a movie that has to be seen to be believed.

Touken Ranbu Warriors NSWITCH [REVIEW] | #musoumay

As i previously said while discussing the demo for it, i eventually did get the pricey ass retail North American version, since i wasn’t paying full price for digital, or 100 bucks for the game and one of the most desperate and worthless example of season pass content ever devised by a publisher.

Due to import taxes i paid the same anyway, but we’ll talk about that later in the review.

FIY the game is also available worlwide digitally on Steam.

Touken Ranbu Warriors story is set in 2205, about a group of Touken Danshi sent back in the Sengoku period in order to avoid timeline alterations by the History Retrograde Army.

What are Touken Danshi? But beatiful boys with the souls of legendary japanese swords (often as iconic and famed as their possessors/wielders) bestowed upon them, because nothing else aside “bishounen sword boys” would strike fear in those dastardly time travelling history revisionists.

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[EXPRESSO] Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol.3 (2023) | Third Time’s The Charm

The overdue closing chapter of the beloved Guardians Of The Galaxy trilogy if finally here, with its 3^rd volume that does signal an end for this particular line up of characters and their stories.

We know we’ll hear the name “Guardians Of The Galaxy” again, somehow, but let’s make it clear that this feels like the final entry and provides closure, without being too bothered by any overarching or carryover plot points building to anything bigger for what it’s now Phase 5, but in hindsight (given the Johathan Majors controversy and its fallout), maybe that’s for the best.

Volume 3 sees the Guardians chilling in their home base of Knowhere, with Quill still not dealing well with the “Gamora situation”, until a mysterious foe attacks them to capture Rocket, and after failing the gang (including the alternate universe Gamora we got from Avengers Endgame) is forced to confront The High Evolutionary (colluding with the Sovereign race, still hankering for revenge on the Guardians after the events of the second movie), an eugenetics cyborg genius from Rocket’s past, in order to save their friend from imminent death.

As the trailer alluded, this one deals heavily on Rocket’s horrendous origin story by the hand of the villain, The High Evolutionary, which is a truly despicable monster obsessed with creating the “perfectiom” and makes for a very good villain.

It’s no surprise GOTG Vol. 3 had very big expectations to live up to (since it’s also one of the MCU series people loved the most over the years, unsurprisingly so), and i can safely say it does not disappoint, with Gunn still putting out very fun space adventures with cool fight scenes, stylish use of vintage licensed music, good humour, good emotional scenes that pack a punch, great, lovable characters, etc.

Highly recommended.

[EXPRESSO] 65 (2023) | Adam Driver VS Space Dinosaurs

It’s Adam “Kylo” Driver versus dinosaurs in a prehistoric Earth for one of the worse movie titles i’ve seen in a while, even ignoring how it undermines completely the marketing push of being “the sci fi movie where Adam Driver crashlands into a primal planet that has dinosaurs”, and it’s not the kind of movie that can afford the lackluster exposure it has got before release.

Seriously, it’s not surprising to see some countries like Italy adding subtitles like “Escape From Earth”, because it begs for anything to help described what it’s about, since its way too simple to even get across the title “65” implying dinosaurs because of the extinction event that happened on our planet 65 million years ago. Some seriously boneheaded marketing choices here.

Not that we have a masterpiece whose wings were Icarus’d too soon, but one wonders if Sony wanted this to fail, or why, since i can assure you there’s an audience for big budget dinosaur films, especially sci-fi ones, even more after years of no budget offerings and disappointing JW sequels.

Plot it’s pretty straighforward, about a pilot of a spaceship that’s forced to crashland on an alien planet…. which happens to be Earth, in its primeval, dinosaur dwelling days, so he and the only other survivor of the crash, a little girl, have to locate an emergency pod to leave the planet before they get eaten by the wildlife, or worse, as a storm of massive meteorites it’s coming down..

Dinosaurs look pretty good, there are some effective jumpscares, there’s a solid atmosphere of danger, and the good performances help sell what are somewhat generic characters (equipped with fairly stock motivations and tragic backstories) and a predictable, yet satisfying plot, all packaged in a fairly succint 90 minutes runtime.

Pretty decent overall.