12 Days Of Dino Dicember #36: A Sound Of Thunder (2005)

Since we’ve looked at a LOT of low-to-no budget dinosaur films this year (maybe even more than usual), let’s end with something that actually released in most english-speaking cinemas, had some actual movie studios and actually known industry faces attached to it, with A Sound Of Thunder.

Based on a short story of the same name by Ray Bradbury and set in the still “distant” future of 2055, it tells the story of a company, Time Safari, that offers to rich customers the possibility to travel back in time and hunt dinosaurs.

Due to the huge risks involved with the “space-time fabric and whatnot”, the company regulates the safari by hunting species of dinosaurs that would have eventually died anyway of natural causes and keeps the clients from stepping off the designated path of the safari experience.

While on a hunt, a gun malfunctions, forcing the team to scatter and flee from an Allosaurus, and even if they eventually regroup, when they come back to their time with no harm done… they soon find out their actions had consequences, like a sudden increase in global temperature and the over-night instant, abudant growth of plant life, with further trips resulting in even more messing with the space-time continuum and endangering the existence of humanity as a whole…

Continua a leggere

12 Days Of Dino Dicember #35: Walking With Dinosaurs 3D (2013)

Figured we would eventually feature a dinosaur documentary film into Dino Dicember somewhat…. not yet, because we’re not talking about the BBC’s prolific and historically signifcant series of dinosaur documentaries, we’re talking about the movie based on those.

Which doesn’t mean much since i didn’t grow up seeing that BBC miniseries, quite odd given i was interested in dinosaurs as a boy, and you can bet by me making a recurring yearly rubric about the dinos, i still am.

Though doing some research on the BBC series made me wonder why the fuck was the point of making a movie when the series’ main appeal, one that would influence later prehistoric life documentaries, the idea of making a traditional nature documentary but using advanced state of the art CG to recreat the extinct creatures that once romped n stomped on planet Earth.

Exactly the kind of concept that really doesn’t need to have a plot attached, but i guess because any IP of some success has to have a movie, even just to remind people that the series still exist.

And to make some movie tie-in videogames, because dino moolah.

Continua a leggere

Dino Apology

(couldn’t find a dinosaur doing the bow, so here’s a screenshot from that Gintama scene)

So today there was another 12 Days Of Dino Dicember review planned…. but due to unexpected complications in my personal life i couldn’t deliver, sorry.

So it just means we’ll catch up and close 12 Days Of Dino Dicember with the 2 reviews scheduled for the occasion, again, sorry.

12 Days Of Dino Dicember #34: Dino King: Journey To Fire Mountain (2019)

I was a bit anxious when i saw the poster for this sequel to The Dino King pushing the Lion King vibes even more obviously, let alone the very “Land Before Time”-feeling cover for the UK DVD release, implying a more kid-friendly sequel.

And my fears were kinda confirmed when i noticed the cast… as in, the first movie had a “fake cast” at the end listing the various types of dinosaurs appearing in the film, since the creatures didn’t speak and the dialogues were offered as a post-humous narration by the titular protagonist.

It was a fairly unique thing for these dinosaur movies also aimed at kids, the combo of mostly non-humanized animals that don’t actually talk like people, even with the narration acting as a compromise… which is dropped entirely by the sequel, Dino King: Journey To Fire Mountain.

Continua a leggere

12 Days Of Dino Dicember # 31: The Dino King AKA Speckles The Tarbosaurus (2012)

Time for a little trip to South Korea, though this time we aren’t going back to the 90s like for Tyranno’s Claw, just back to the early 2010s, where after the success of a two parter documentary movie about dinosaurs in the Korean peninsula, Tarbosaurus: The Mighiest Ever, director-writer Han Sang-Ho decided – helped by Avatar making popular the 3D fad again – to follow that up with a computer animated feature film

I actually own the UK DVD release, going under The Dino King title, and at least this specific release has the english dub only on it, no korean audio with english subtitle options.

One of my few gripes with the movie actually lies there, as the movie opts for no talking animals in the Disney stile, BUT we have the main protagonist narrating over the events of his life, but in the english dub the voice for him as a youngling tarbosaurus (which is in the same family of the Tyrannosaurus Rex, FIY) has that “4KIDS dub of a toy anime from the late 90s”, like i’m fully expecting to hear a secondary dinosaurs explain some obscure effect of a Yu-Gi-Oh card to the viewer for no diegetical reason whatosver.

Continua a leggere

[EXPRESSO] Aquaman and The Lost Kingdom (2023) | Wrath Of Black Manta

I quite enjoyed the first Aquaman film, a phrase i’d never expect to write down ever, so yeah, why not a sequel, which thankfully ignores all the DCEU reboot kerfluffle.

No need to known any of that, just having watched the first film, and in this direction continuation we see Arthur Curry having trouble living his double life as a father taking care of his son on the surface, and having to deal with the taxing diplomatic duties of Aquaman, king of Atlantis.

While trying to fix his suit and continue his quest for revenge against Aquaman, David Kane (aka Black Manta) discovers an underwater set of ruins in Antarctica, finding a mystical trident and a material known as Orichalcum, which he uses to power his newfound stash of Atlantean technology also lying in the ruins…

This leads to climate change-based disasters, forcing Aquaman to secretly free its previously imprisoned half-brother Orm in order to find Black Manta and stop his plans…

James Wan it’s back on the director’s chair, and he does manage to expand on the worldbuilding, with many varied locations (including the titular lost kingdom), squeezing a lot of story, action scenes, while also making Black Manta more the proper villain than the “accidental” one it was in the first movie, though that’s kinda undermined by the revelations about the Black Trident.

Which i don’t mind too much since it lets Wan infuse some horror elements in the mix, i’m always up for that, and the movie does manage to fit a lot in 2 hours while feeling just long enough.

Maybe it’s not better than the first, but it’s still a lot of fun, dumb fun, if you must, with a hearthy attitude about action fantasy superhero shenanigans that aims to give the viewers its all.

[EXPRESSO] Wish (2023) | “Feel the power of my MAAAGICKK!”

I was gonna skip this entirely, but since this is the animated film Disney chose to celebrate the company 100^th anniversary, i feel bound to cover it.

And it’s a special movie, but for the all the wrong reasons, as it’s a perfect crystalization of the company’s modern status, where the movie you’d rather see is the one lost in the original drafts, not the final product apparently assembled by focus groups and marketing than imagined by creatives.

The plot is about a guy named Magnifico that learned magic and created an ideal city, Rosas, on a island somewhere in the Mediterranean Sea, where he rules and fulfills the wishes his citizens entrust him.

But not all wishes can be granted, as her apprentice-to-be Asha founds out when the wish of his 100 yo granpa is still unfulfilled, then she accidentally summons a real star, making Magnifico paranoid enough to use a book of forbidden magic…

It’s a very arrogant movie that isn’t interested in pleasing its viewers, too busy up its own arse pulling a disgusting amount of Disney references and stuck wallowing in nostalgia to the detriment of everything else, while also exhibiting all the negative-cliched traits associated with Disney animated films, like overuse of musical segments, the talking animals, etc.

Plus it’s just plain uninspired, derivative, boring, the characters are utterly uninteresting and istantly forgettable, and while there was some potential, it’s all brought down by a senseless “magic system” that’s at the center of the story, even diegetically makes little to no sense and renders the final message moot.

The animation is good (even if the style reminds one of a 3DCG Netflix anime) and it’s a short sit, but this is just utter, recycled, cynical mediocrity that’s almost insulting coming from Disney, even modern Disney.

Open Letter to Dino-Santa

hello Santa, it’s me, again.

“Again” to a certain extent, i haven’t written a letter to Santa since decades, so i’ll be brief and quick, he has to bring coal to Darkseid each year, and i have this year’s 12 Days Of Dino Dicember starting tomorrow.

I have been a reasonable boy this year, so henceforth i ask the following petty and first world requests:

-a new, proper 2D run and gun Metal Slug videogame that isn’t a mobile gacha spin-off or remake tied to a mobile platform stuffed with microtransactions up to tank’s exhaust, i love turn based tactical strategy games and Metal Slug Tactics is looking mighty good, but it’s still not got even a vague release date and updates are still MIA, so yeah, the new SNK could actually employ a studio to develop a proper console/pc mainline Metal Slug game. It’s been a while, more than enough to create demand.

Otherwise, i would settle for an actual outside of arcades releases of Dolphin Blue.

-Please do not let the new One Piece anime remake/series redo by Wit Studio be using AI art to avoid paying people the meager anime industry salaries, i don’t care if Oda is fascinated, i just hope he grows out of it, alongside the rehabiliting of his colleagues and teachers that did not deserve such a thing, since we’re asking.

we can’t be perfect, but we can avoid falling for every cheap ass scam that goes around.

-Speaking of which, can we reroll this economic system to one where i can afford a house and can actually retire instead of dying on the job?

Also, a new Gundam Musou would be very welcome.

That will do.

Regards.

[EXPRESSO] Wonka (2023) | Dagashi Kashi KING

Wasn’t sold on Chalamet as a “young Willy Wonka”, but i grew curious as i learnt it was from the director and team behind the Paddington movies… even though i never did saw them, but regardless, i gave this prequel-reboot story a punt and i did walk away pleasantly surprised.

Though you have to approach it fully aware this isn’t even trying to imitate the older, far more popular and iconic Gene Wilder-starring adaptation of Dahl’s story, but clearly keeping it in mind, as this modern take deliberatly downplays the frothing vein of cynicism of the 1971 movie adaptation, going for a far more positive, whimsical and wholesome tone that both fits the source material and actually manages to invent a worthwhile origin story for the wonderful wizard of candy, the dagashi kashi king of ye old fantasy Europa.

The origin story in question has him arrive in a city where the major chocolate manufacturers show off their products, getting hoodwinked into pretty much life-long debt, but he finds friends in an orphan girl named Noodle and the other people tricked into working laundry, that help him concoct a plan to still sell chocolate, despite the city’s big nose chocolate moguls working hard to have him gone for good at any cost…

It’s very, very cute and wholesome, the musical numbers are still a sizeable part of the movie and those here are also quite charming, the plot doesn’t overcomplicate things, the 2 hours runtime is supported by good pacing so never feels overwhelming, Chalamet does a very good job depicting a young, overly naive and quirky weirdo chocolate salesman-inventor-street magician Willy Wonka, and the rest of the cast (including Rowan Atkinson as a glutton priest and Keegan-Michael Kay as a rotund police chief) also delivers with some delightful overacting.

Pinocchi-O-Rama #12: OcchioPinocchio (1994)

Pinocchi-O-Rama comes to an end with a movie that will absolutely say nothing to anyone outside of Italy, despite being technically released in the US i seriously doubt there’s a solid stratum of english language coverage on OcchioPinocchio, which isn’t surprising since in time the film has not gotten much of a revaluation, heck quite the opposite, even by people that discovered it unaware of its messy production history or the figure of Tuscanian comedian and director Francesco Nuti.

While i’m not gonna over how a primer of Nuti’s work as there’s no time and i’m far from the right person for the job, the movie itself did hit all the snags while in production, expected to be in theather for Christmas 1993, shot in Texas and Louisiana, nowhere ready by the expected date, with a budget of 13 millions (pretty luscious for an Italian production at the time) that, due to the death of one of the distributor’s namesake founders, balooned to 25-30 millions.

Worse, as the dwindling relationship between Nuti and the production company had the set being stripped, he eventually had to sue the producer to try and make shooting proceed, which didn’t stop Nuti having to fork out 2 millions out of his own pocket to get the thing done and released by 1994.

All for a movie that basically nuked any goodwill and expectations left for Nuti as a creator, not only marking his creative crisis but also being a huge flop, bringing in 5 millions in box office.

Continua a leggere