[EXPRESSO] Toy Story 5 (2026) | Adeptus Ludicrumicus

I’ll skip the spiel about the increasingly pointlessness of the series’ messages as just Toy Story 4 existing made clear there’s no “growing out” of Pixar’s most profitable long-time franchise, there’s no letting go while we make this much money.

Actually, no, since there’s this implied sense of resignation about the idea of growing up that permeates Toy Story , as Bonnie is basically the same age as she was in TS4 (released in 2019), the movie just acknowledges smart devices and social networks, but it also glosses over much of the ramifications of these with wanton, lazy optimism; “ the technological divide will work itself how somehow, whatevs”, the movie seems to say.

Also, the way which some characters like Woody return basically retroactively invalidate previous resolutions, they are back for nostalgia’s sake, and this isn’t clearly about keeping in touch with the child inside, but an implied capitulation to the nurturing of an “eternal manchild within” that can never stop (or wanna stop) buying the same old toys.

But most of you already knew that, and despite all of the above, i have to say this is at least better than Toy Story 4, it has bit more of a reason to exist since the plot is about the toys having to content with generations raised on smart devices, with Bonnie pressured to conform in order to make friends of her age, which results in the parent buying them a kids tablet, a “Lilypad”.

All things considered, it’s a decent movie in itself, the animation is great as always, and the highlight is indeed the army of Buzz Lightyears (alongside the “dream sequences”), but even that feels kinda random, like they had the idea and kinda crammed it because they already had the marketing lean heavily into that.

“We only used AI as reference”

Slippery slope arguments are ironically slippery slopes in themselves, but this clearly isn’t the case, as this isn’t the first time we have seen this disclaimer, but personally what set me off was it coming immediatly after the announcement of a new Crazy Taxi game, Crazy Taxi World Tour, rumored for months but now finally proper announced and arriving on current gen consoles and PC next year.

This should be a time of excitement as the summer reveals for upcoming titles are shown…. yet it’s all a parade of poisoned chalices, as the newly shown/announced Tomb Raider game, also has a similar, and it’s even worse as it’s a remake to boot.

I don’t blame the staffers, as this is 100 % a decision imposed by the corpo as they bought on this bubble that’s bound to burst even sooner than expected (and it should), forced upon the people that actually do the job instead of being handed golden parachutes.

Again, this new tech so good it has be imposed and made mandatory at every level to try and justify the use, again, because investors emptied gajillions on the new tech fad/buzzword that makes them sound “in touch”, fuck any expenses or impact it has on the world, the business doesn’t care, as abundantly shown, and nor do the people actually responsable for it.

I don’t like having to write this, i really do not, i’ve been wanting a new Crazy Taxi in forever, the little gameplay footage from the trailer does look good…..but not like this.

It’s shitty when the Let It Die sequel of sorts did, and i swore off on that, i’ve done the same with the new Layton (and other stuff of theirs) due to new Level 5 CEO being so adamant and obviously fellating in words and actions this new fad, it’s even worse (if a lot more expected) when big companies do this.

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[EXPRESSO] Passenger (2026) | Roadside Hitchin’

I was a bit concerned when i saw Passenger pushed by very little marketing even here, given it’s the new horror movie from respected director Andrè Øvredral (Trollhunter, The Autopsy Of Jane Doe, Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark, The Last Voyage Of The Demeter).

The plot involves a couple that has to leave their house and decide to start living on the road, driving their little caravan around the US, but when they stop one night to try and help the victim of some gruesome road accident, it turns out they involutarily picked up a sinister entity, dubbed by early travelers as the “Passenger”…

The premise isn’t bad at all, and i’m glad we have Øvredral directing, because he can actually do effective jumpscares, the photography is good, the characters are decent, the acting is pretty solid too, but Passenger as a whole isn’t even bad, it’s just disappointing, especially coming from a director that has already proved he can do better than this.

most of the script has either half baked ideas or just rehashes very generic horror elements, which is especially true of the “Passenger” itself, this derivative, generic ass looking and acting demon motherfucker, and even with the lore being an American roadside folklore mythology affair, it then pivots into religious territory… which doesn’t really fit.

There are some nice ideas like them using the cinema projector to visualize the entity, but the rules of the entity seems vague at best, often ignored anyway, the setpieces don’t really build upon each other, and overall the movie just doesn’t do anything original, interesting or that hasn’t been done WAY better before.

Passenger isn’t terrible or anything, it’s watchable, but also incredibly disappointing and frustrating, because you can see the better movie this could have been.

[EXPRESSO] Remarkably Bright Creatures (2026) | Psych-opus

Due to wallet woes, why not, let’s see what’s new on Netflix, this film about a woman and an old intelligent octopus she cares for in the local acquarium sounds cute enough, why not?

Based on the best selling book of the name same by Shelby Van Pelt, Remarkably Bright Creatures is the story of Tova, a widoved old woman that leads a lonely existence and does night shifts of taking care-cleaning the aquarium of a small coastal town.

She still struggles to cope with her son, Erik, having passed away decades ago, and the only one that she seems able to communicate with is Marcellus, a big old octopus that lives in the acquarium, its thoughts expressed in an elegant and sarcastic voiceover by Alfred Molina.

That is, until Cameron, a failed musician and a bit of a wanderer, troubled by his the absent father, comes into town…

While fairly obvious where the story points (and goes) to, it’s more about the manner of which these two will manage to connect for the better, with the touch of “whimsy-magic” of the octopus that acts an involuntary psychiatrist recipient and is given a “talking” voice to comment back for the audience’s sake.

That is actually the problem, as the film is either too scared to let the silent moments work, or maybe because it’s a Netflix release, it explains any metaphor or anything that expects audiences having some semblance of basic narrative literacy.

Yet, despite that and some issues like subplots being a bit too superficial, it does work because it’s not trying to “Oscar-max”, it’s actually just a little gentle, melanchonic, genuine feel-good tale of lonely people, normal people that talk as such, one never cynical in intent or execution.

Could have been better, but definitely worth a watch.

Steel Ball Run anime debut [FIRST IMPRESSIONS]

I wasn’t planning to, i have a JoJo themed review coming next month, but i’m doing a quickie first impression piece now because despite the incredible success of the first episode of Steel Ball Run, that launched on the 19th on Netflix… there’s no simply no telling when the second one will drop, if it’s gonna have a weekly release or if they’re gonna drop it in batches like for Stone Ocean.

Hopefully an event meant tied to SBR taking place on the 28th should reveal that and these speculations will quickly become outdated, but i wouldn’t put it past Netflix to be idiots on this subject…. again.

Regardless, at least we have the first episode out, and they basically went for a big double sized episode to start things off, as most likely David Production didn’t knew what the hell the release schedule was gonna be like, and decided to at least deliver a sizeable debut episode to the fans as this did have a release date announced for certain.

In case you don’t know, this is Part 7 of the long running, beloved Jo Jo Bizarre Adventure series, though i can also be a perfect entry point if you are not caught up or completely new to Jo Jo, as – to put it spoiler free- Steel Ball Run is basically a fresh new start, with new characters and a new storyline unrelated to the previous 6 parts, so you don’t really need to know those to just follow the plot… and i will leave it at that, again, to avoid any spoilers.

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Attack Of The 50 Foot Woman (1958) [REVIEW] | #giantmonstermarch

One thing that might surprise younger people is that despite its popularity, Attack Of The 50 Foot Woman ain’t a precursor on the trend of giant/miniaturized people, quite the opposite.

It’s also funny how is such a movie obviously conceived for the drive-in circuits, since it’s so short than of course it had to be shown as a double feature, that being Corman’s War Of The Satellites.

So short than to expand the runtime from 66 minutes to 75 for the TV version they had to basically reuse sequences, add a long crawl at the beginning and even fuck around with frames manipulation to artificially lenghten the thing. Jesus Christ, the desperation indeed.

In hindsight, one does learn to appreciate the efficiency of these cheap movies from the era, for better or worse they ended up not wasting your time as much as some crap movies now do, even if they clearly wanted to reach the standard 90 minutes, but in the “age of content”, these films being to the point are quite welcome in their brevity.

Even though often they are so more due to budget than anything else.

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[EXPRESSO] The Bride! (2026) | Mary Shelley’s Frankenmess

This was a film i did look forward to see, obviously, being a peculiar take on Bride Of Frankenstein, with the trailers showing off The Creature (the Frankenstein monster) and The Bride in a Bonny & Clyde, Syd & Nancy style dynamic as they travel a 30’s America of gangsters and trenched detectives.

The premise sees the ghost/spirit of Mary Shelley, the author of Frankenstein herself, meta narrate about her “sequel” about the “Bride” of Frankenstein, in this case the corpse of a prostitute working undercover to gather info about a particularly violent mob boss, which is dug up after the Creature travels to America and seeks the help of Dr. Ephronious to make him a companion in order to soothe his unique loneliness.

The experiment is successful and so the Bride is borne, but it becomes difficult for the two monsters to go unnoticed, not only due to the police and the mob befuddled by a presumed dead woman showing up on the newspapers’ headlines, but also because Mary Shelley herself occasionally possesses the Bride’s body…..

the idea of a feminist take on Bride Of Frankenstein makes perfect sense, i do believe so, even if discordant by design, as it’s not only a horror-crime duet of deranged protagonists complementing each other’s delirium, but it’s also a gothic romance that often dips into comedy and even musical sequence that seems to tribute-spoof Frankenstein Junior.

It’s ambitious and – again- by design tries to combine together pieces that don’t really naturally fit, which is indeed “very Frankenstein”, but the execution honestly feels like a really hot mess of intentions, even more stitched together and messier than intended, downright clunky.

I do respect its ambition, even if the final result is indeed quite flawed, but also proper interesting and never quite boring.

The Black Scorpion 1957 [REVIEW] | #giantmonstermarch

There are many giant monster bugs themed films from the ’50s, and if you made one back then, there’s a good chance that legendary fx maestro Willis O’Brien worked on most of them, curating the creature effects made in stop motion animation, and The Black Scorpion is indeed one of the less discussed 50s giant monster flicks, alongside the often forgotten-ignored piece of Eugenie Larie’s “dinosaur trilogy”, The Giant Behemoth, also with effects by O’Brien.

Yes, before you point it out, yes, a scorpion is not a bug per sé (and we’re gonna split hair, ants aren’t bugs either), is an arachnid, but it’s not like audiences cared about this back in ’50s, nor do they now.

Doesn’t really matter because if we can make it big, we can make a movie about it, thems the rules, and a scorpion is a really intimidating crawly for most, so why the fuck not?

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I.K.U. (2000) [REVIEW] | LGBT Robosexual Runner

While i most likely won’t be reviewing the new Wuthering Heights film adaptation, to prove my platonical love for you, the audience, i will review this film i found on DVD in a flea market, and no, it wasn’t on the porn section.

I know i had to get it, it was like, 5 bucks at max, and with a title that screams “CINEMA” as IKU gets a IGN certified “10 out of 10” just for reference-pun combo that is the subtitle “I, Robosex” added in the Italian DVD release.

Sometimes i get to find import DVD copies of weird state sponsored video art when i go thrifting, sometimes i pick up fully localized and officially distributed “technically not porn” like this.

So, the hell is this?

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[EXPRESSO] My Father’s Shadow (2025) | Abiola ’93

Presented as last year’s Cannes, My Father’s Shadow is one of those films that they sneakily released in theathers and i almost missed, which would have been a shame.

Though i understand there’s no point pushing to general audiences an UK-Nigerian coming-of-age story presented with subtitles only.

It is June 12^th 1993, day of the presidential elections in Nigeria, and two young boys, Remi and Aki, are brought along to Lagos by their often absent father, Folarin, as he goes there to ask for months of unpaid salary to begin with, but decides to bring the boys along and – as he waits for the supervisor to come back later that night – have them seen some city life, relax at the beach, go to an amusement spark, spend some time with them.

The boys in turn get to see more him open up to them, but in the tense political atmosphere of the city (with military mowing in pre-emptively into town after denying a massacre happened some days prior) and eventual uprising due to the election failing, their father is suspected of subversive activities, making them question even more who he really is…

It’s a really good coming of age story that while is enhanced by taking place on the backdrop of a politically troubled piece of Nigerian history (which doesn’t narrow it down much, the more i think abourt it), it doesn’t use it as a “crutch” for the characters dynamics, and is a heartfelt drama about absent fathers with great characterization and terrific performances.

In spite of the predictable “revelation” at the end, it still lands quite the emotional punch, since the drama and characters are relatable but not banal, heavy but not sensationalized, making My Father’s Shadow an amazing debut film for director Akinola Davies Jr.