Categoria: Cinema

Cruel Jaws (1995) [REVIEW] | Editing Sharks

Cruel Jaws 1995

How could i do a shark movie extravaganza without covering one of the most notorious pieces of “sharkxploitation”, especially if it comes from the motherland?

Italian exploitation cinema had always been very quick at tapping into trends (even inventing one, with the cannibal craze), but even without waiting for a resurgence of the shark movie (Jaws was released 20 years before, remember), many genre directors were quite happy to pump out monster movies like this regardless. And of course Bruno Mattei (credited as “William Snyder” here) wasn’t one to back down from anything. Continua a leggere “Cruel Jaws (1995) [REVIEW] | Editing Sharks”

Deep Blue Sea (1999) [REVIEW] | Shark Brainiacs

Deep Blue Sea 1999

So, yeah, for a change let’s watch a shark movie made in a pre-Sharkenado era, but also after everyone and her grandma was making Jaws rip-offs (like the italian Great White and Cruel Jaws), a shark flick that actually looks like a movie and not a college graduate attempt at a movie during a boring summer holidays, or an attempt to sell your shit movie as ironic “so bad it’s good” material.

Given the kind of shark movie i end up watching and reviewing here, i’m surprised by many things in Deep Blu Sea, as production values, company logo you don’t have to google, a cast with recognizable actors, cinematography that doesn’t remind of Weasels Rip My Flesh, set designs classifiable as such, special effects made with budget and expertise, i’m really feeling spoiled by this one! And a bit sad because of how the bar got embarassingly lower and lower for shark movies in time. Continua a leggere “Deep Blue Sea (1999) [REVIEW] | Shark Brainiacs”

[EXPRESSO] The Grudge (2020) | The House That Kayako Built

The Grudge 2020 poster

(finally got another chance of seeing this in theathers)

Despite the mostly negative reception in the States and the frankly stupid idea of doing ANOTHER remake of Ju-On/The Grudge…. at least it had to just be better than the 2004 american remake, and that one had the same directors of the original. Then again i haven’t watched any of the sequels yet (american or japanese ones), but i can confirm this one is a “side-sequel” meant to connect with the 2004 american The Grudge.

And this is the main problem, as it wants to not disregard the previous american movies, but also doesn’t want to rework the premise to make sense in a completely different place and culture, or to make you forget that this a western remake of japanese movie. So there a willingly suicidal tendency to this one taking place in America with an american cast (plus John Cho), but still having to originate from Japan, with the curse basically using a character as a vessel to propagate itself in a small town, where a local sheriff investigates strange murders seemingly connected to a single house, all told in a non-linear fashion (as you’d expect) with the characters acting as “chapters-victims”.

It’s kinda tragic, because Nicolas Pesce manages to craft good characters and make you care about them, the drama is decent and the acting good, but when it comes to the horror parts, you’d wish the movie didn’t bother at all, even without throwing into the mix the trite j-horror movies cliches, or stuff that “has” to be here regardless, just because it’s The Grudge. The open ending doesn’t help.

Definitely a step up from the 2004 The Grudge, but please, let this type of “reboot/remakes of japanese movies” stay where it belongs. In the past.

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EXPRESSO movie reviews (kinda) coming back

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Yeah, against all odds, i won’t have to wait until dicember to get back into cinemas, as i happen to live near one of the few cinemas of the Uci Cinemas chain that will be re-opening next week (with obvious safety precautions, we’re not out of this yet here in Italy, despite what we would love to believe). Pure luck, as in many other cinema chains are staying closed, and even of this specific chain, just 4 cinemas in Italy are re-opening (but more are expected to follow suite).

The catch is that since the release schedule was never updated since the beginning of March, so it mostly old movies (some ones that debutted in theathers in January, or even older) but still, it’s great just to go back to the cinema experience. And i have some unfinished business exactly because of the closure due to the COVID-19.

So, if not anything else, expect an EXPRESSO review of The Grudge (2020).

Hopefully, more, but not that soon, i fear. 😦

Cinemas Of The Christmas Future

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If you live in Italy, there’s a good chance you already know this (so skip ahead), but as of now, cinemas (and theathers) should re-open in december, so yeah, we didn’t see Onwards in theathers last month, as you can guess.

Which is a bummer, to say the least, especially since the last thing i saw in theathers before the shut-down was Cats, yeah, the 2019 movie.

I’m writing this also to say that’s basically the reason i didn’t do any new movie review for the EXPRESSO column. I could, but i have plenty to do for the following months, i resurrected Kaiju-A-Go-Go on Wise Cafe (the italian blog) for this month, and i miss the cinema experience. I really do.

Thankfully i invested in a projector and some stuff, but still.

(image is from Yuru Camp/Laid Back Camp, which i love)

Reviews in quarantine

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So yeah, today the entire of Italy is officially in lockdown, and you could easily recreate the entire of Die Pest En Florenz, on the upside. On the downsides (as far this blog is concerned, as the obvious problems shouldn’t need explanation) cinemas are closed, and it’s quarantine, so, time to do the NEET, i guess, until the start of April, where cinemas should open again so we can catch up to all most english speaking countries already saw months ago (didn’t manage to see the new Grudge reboot-sequel-remake, i wanted to review it, but at this point i’ll have to see on streaming or home video).

I already explained some of this in a previous article, but the situation has gotten worse (we should had declared quarantine much earlier, i think, but it’s Italy, so of course every decision of this magnitude is half-assed and done at the last minute), so keep that in mind, and as i said before, i had some reviews planned and prepared, so the blog will keep going like before.

Stay safe and look forward to more One Piece reviews, as well as the Azur Lane anime review as soon as the last episodes arrive in the coming days.. if they don’t get delayed again. We’ll see!

[EXPRESSO] Cats (2019) | IDW DA NYA

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Yes, we didn’t get this till now, and i was honestly looking forward to see this, to witness how bad it was, for someone that never saw or cared about the play or Thomas Steams Elliot book upon which the musical was notoriously based on.

Maybe it’s because of this, but i was expecting a mountain of weird and baffling stuff, and i wasn’t disappointed, actually found myself quite enjoying it as a “so bad it’s good” experience.

What’s the plot? A group of cats calling themselves “Jellicle Cats” find an abandoned new cat in the streets, they present themselves to her in musical fashion (as you’d expect), tell of their annual dance communion, which culminates in a contest to determine which Jellicle Cat will be sent to the Heavyside Layer in order to be reborn. But an evil magical cat (that seems to have eaten the Sand Sand fruit) wants to sabotage the ritual in order to be chosen for the “cat rapture”.

Why the human-cats hybrids’ size and proportions are constantly changing and not quite matching the size of streets and interiors? Why are they both naked AND clothed at the same time? Why do they look so fuckin creepy and uncanny, being frankly unbelievable in every sense of the word, despite the CG being not cheap by any means? Why is Ian McKellen here to basically mutter and meow like he’s just minutes away from dying? Why Tom Hooper (definitely not the right choice) decided to direct it?

Why Judie Dench is so freaky as Old Deuteronomy, and becomes even more uncomfortable to watch when she lays in the cradle, splaying and spreading?
Really, she’s uncanny.

Not that you’re supposed to ask many (or preferably, any) of these questions.
It don’t matter anyway.

Some nice songs, though.

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[EXPRESSO] Sonic The Hedgehog (2020) | Amish Paradise

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So after Sega decided to let the internet hivemind make artistic decisions for its Hollywood blockbuster movie based on its most iconic franchise, after that FX studio fixed the ghastly design Paramount was originally gonne use for Sonic (and got axed, as proof that karma is a phantom under capitalism), after the delays from late 2019 to now, the live-action Sonic The Hedgehog movie hit theathers.

The premise here sees Sonic as an alien who escaped to Earth from his home planet after being hunted for his powers, and hides for years in a little town in Montana called Green Hills, until he accidentaly causes a power outage, prompting the authorities to send the eccentric genius known as Dr. Robotnik, and Sonic has to run for its life, helped by Tom, the local cop who accidentaly discovers him, in a quest to recover the lost magical rings.

I was skeptic and waiting for this one to be a regression after the Detective Pikachu movie, and it’s Sonic, there are legitimate reasons why the series has this sketcky (at best) reputation nowadays outside of the 2D style releases. … and sadly i wasn’t too far off. Mind you, it actually fairly good as an adaptation, with pretty much all elements associated with Sonic displayed or worked into the plot, but it’s also a very formulaic kids movie at heart (no “liar reveal”, thankfully).

And while having Jim Carrey back to chewing the scenery with mighty gusto like he did before is nice, he isn’t given very funny lines, and it all feeds into the 90 nostalgia this movie leans heavily on without trying much on anything else.

It’s not bad, at all, but i’m not gonna say it’s decent just because we are trained to expect weird baffling shit from Sonic as a brand.

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[EXPRESSO] Fantasy Island (2020) | Horror Spice

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So this is basically a horror reimagining of a 70’s/80’s tv series, one i’ve never even heard before i stumbled upon the listing of this movie, but i guess if children shows like The Banana Splits can get remade as horror movies, it’s fair game for everybody.

The premise centers around the eponymous, remote tropical island, where the mystical Mr. Roarke (Michael Peña) makes the most secret dreams of his guests come true. But as the fantasies morph into nightmares, the captive guests have to solve to mystery of the island if they want to escape it, and the true reason they were all brought there.

I frankly don’t know or care if this is a “needed” or random remake of the source material, but even so, i could see this movie working even without the horror elements, which at times they do spice things up a bit, but on other occasions are so tacked on and clichè to the point of being just laughable, just thrown together into the supernatural thriller-drama cauldron, using the premise to link together scenes from different genres (a bit of Saw, a bit of war movie, a bit of heist movie, a family drama) in a coherent way.

And it works, it’s what i would classify as “movie meatloaf”, but it’s entertaining, fairly well acted, has decent characters, but it should (and could) have been shorter, as the last act drags on by using horror cliches, and it’s odd how mostly bloodless it is for a horror movie, not that this one actually needed Braindead/Dead Alive levels of gore, or horror elements to begin with. It’s not a case of “neutering for the sake of PG-13”, it just a story that could have done without being horror “flavored” and not lose much.

It’s alright.

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