Yuru Camp/Laid Back Camp: The Movie (2022) [REVIEW] | Eiga Camp

We all make mistakes.

One is that i completely blanked out on the Yuru Camp/Laid Back Camp movie, despite basically worshipping the series, learning that it was coming later last year, even seeing a promo poster and the news that Crunchyroll would have it’s available for its worldwide release (as they did carry the entire series, OVAs and even the Room Camp spin-off)…. i somehow simply “forgor”.

Until the announcement of a third season woke me up and made me remember i somehow completely blanked out on the Yuru Camp Movie, so while it’s still Autumn (kinda), let me undo this stain on my campered soul. Let me do right by the Secret Society BLANKET.

(and yes, eventually i’ll get to the live-action adaptation)

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[EXPRESSO] The Marvels (2023) | Three Of A Perfect Pair

Once again i have to preface i do not follow the Disney + Marvel series, i simply do not, i do get a laugh at reading how the fuck Marvel has issues with the Blade reboot (it is absurd), but i do watch the theathrical releases, with this later one being pretty much a Captain Marvel sequel, with the twist of having Danvers form an unlikely trio with Kamala Khan AKA Ms Marvel, and her believed to be lost niece, Monica Rambeau, whom also received energy powers after an accident.

As to why, it’s because a new villain, a Kree survivor and rebel, has acquired a powerful artifact, which has the side effect of making the three heroines do a switcharoo every time they use their powers, and they’ll have to find a way to work together in order – as “The Marvels” – to avoid the universe is further teared apart by wormholes and space-time completely breaks down…

I wasn’t a fan of the first film, or Captain Marvel herself, but this feels like a step-up, as there’s more going on, Kamala Khan being….. herself is very cute, the premise is more fun, there’s definitely more energy to the characters and plot, and thankfully Nia DaCosta’s (Little Woods, Candyman 2021) direction embraces the fact this is a very simple and silly tale, and boy do i appreciate when these movies can actually play it simple.

Shame the villain, while making sense for this type of story, it’s kind of a forgettable tragic kind of foe, and the resolution seems kinda underwhelming, but i did enjoy it a lot more than the first one, also because it’s under 2 hours for a change, though once again the “cat-like creature” is arguably the best damn thing in this franchise.

Decent fun.

[EXPRESSO] The Expendables 4 (2023) | Crank 3: High Hospice

You know, when the first Expendables movie release, it was a fun little idea: let’s make an all stars action B-movie that’s a tongue-in-cheek throwback to 90s action cinema, with all the big name actors from that era and the modern ones, spouting one liners over huge explosions and so on.

Now it’s more of a coffin race for most of the actors… or so it would be if most of the people that were supposed to be in or back into… didn’t make the cut in Expendables 4, the plot of which barely matters even discussing, but it has something to do with a Gheddaffi old chemical plant, a nuke, a mole, and the team avenging the death of their leader, Barney.

Meaning one of the franchise’ selling points is borked to hell right away, but then again this the boring kind of trashy movie, as any energy or committment to the formula is gone, with the actors seemingly embarassed of delivering the awful dialogue, and quarter-assing their way through this boring, uninspired rethread with all the cliches but devoid of anything that made the Expendables movies endearing… and also looking very cheap, with embarassing CGI for a 2023 big budget release marred to subpar choreography.

Also, in what it’s mostly an obvious tactic to pass the torch to Staham for sequels, Stallone is barely in the movie, with Staham’s character as the focus, making in another vehicle for the actor…. which makes some “sense” since the climax is basically the same as The Meg 2 (it really is), also with Staham and released this year, coincidence or not.

Some fresh utter trash, that’s also sadly a mostly boring affair, a worthless, joyless relic for this day and age, filled with new, better and already iconic modern action franchises.

[EXPRESSO] El Conde (2023) | Pinochet The Dirty Old Man

Pablo Larrain, after years of historical biopic dramas about his home country of Chile, he finally tackles Pinochet…. by reinventing him as a vampire that has lived on since the French Revolution, faked his death many times, and most famously established a dictatorial bloody regime.

But after 250 plus years of undeath, he just wants to die, and this causes the vultures to come, in the form of Pinochet’s mortal sons, hungry for more blood money to inherit, and an exorcist nun is also sent in by the Church to kill the monster… and see if he drops some fat cash, too.

We’ve seen the vampire comedy format used to tackle various themes, and there’s definitely potential in making Pinochet a literal horror monster to comment on his legacy and the political troubles of modern Chilean society, in how the past keeps repeating and evil finds a way, and indeed the satire is relentless… but the comedy is surprisingly scarce, mostly stemming from excess cruelty via dialogue more than graphic content (gore is far from missing, btw).

Even that feels like breadcrumbs, for a 2 hours runtime with a geriatric pacing, fitting, perhaps, but it’s really not that funny, the narration is ironically lacking proper bite, and the elements of horror, history and humour do not so much gel together as are just placed there, neglected of proper growth more than balanced against each other.

The black and white photography it’s excellent, acting it’s good, it has some great golden age horror atmosphere at times, but El Conde ultimately just feels stuffy, too slow and bloated for its own good, and despite all the pretense, there’s not much under the gothic capery to gawk at.

Interesting experiment, but a disappointing one that’s also hard to sit through, to my dismay.

One Piece Pirate Warriors 4 – Additional Episode 1 “Yamato’s Adventure” PS4 [DLC REVIEW]

I initially misread that Namco/Koei planned to release all the 3 episodes in the pack by the end of September 2023…. but it’s actually September 2024, so instead of reviewing all the episodes packs at once, i will do mini-reviews for each of them as most likely they’re gonna accompany the release of the other 2 DLC Character Packs.

I will also release a “review addendum” after the Character Pass 2 and all the additional episodes release, because as Namco made a new bundle for the game and all (available and announced) DLC called “Ultimate Edition”, so it’s fairly logical to guess they don’t plan to do more with Pirate Warriors 4, for better or worse.

Regardless, these episodes are surprisingly cheap, with the Yamato one here costing 3 bucks on its own, and the complete pack of 3 episodes going for 7 bucks.

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Pinocchi-O-Rama #9: The Adventures Of Buratino (1975)

For this month’s issue of Pinocchi-O-Rama, we’re going back to a “combo mix” of sorts.

We’ve seen live action adaptations, we’ve seen adaptations of the russian version of the novel, The Adventures Of Buratino/The Golden Key, we’ve seen musical adaptations.

So yeah, time to squish them all together for this 1975’s forgotten cult classic Soviet live action children musical TV movie adaptation of Buratino/Pinocchio shenanigans, made by Belarusfilm and released as a 2-parter, because media trends are cyclical after all.

Thankfully there’s no waiting for the climax as it’s almost a 50 yo adaptation, a fairly obscure one that thankfully can be found with hardcoded english subtitles on Youtube (fittingly spit in 2 parts, as well), and at the time of posting still is.

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One Piece (Netflix’s) (2023) [REVIEW] | You’re My Treasure Box

It’s time.

I’ve been meaning to talk about this thing since we saw the first trailer (ok, let’s be honest, the announcement of this being greenlit), but i mostly held off because i didn’t want to speculate much but just actually watch the show and then judge it accordingly to what it actually is and NOT what it might or might not turn out to be, as much pontificating on widely distributed promotional material is the bread and butter of this job here, especially when you have to appease the “content God”.

And since we’re being more upfront than usual, yes, i was preparing me own buckets of tar and feathers, even as the trailers close to release did make one wonder if maybe this time we don’t have a huge manga-to-live action stinker, i mean, it comes from the same production studio that gave us the rightfully despised Cowboy Bebop live action shitwreck, let us not forget that.

The trust was not there, at least not for me, despite Oda being vocally supportive and letting it more than know this was not just a random gig he lazily supervised in terms of actual involvement, but that he indeed wanted this to happen for a long time and was excited about this thing, he really wanted for it to work.

I mean, after Franky’s timeskip design…and him helping rehabilitating colleagues (let alone his sensei Nobuhiro “Maybe A CP Ringmaster” Watsuki) of his that in a better world would not have returned with a new serialization on Jump.

Leaving THAT hornets’ nest aside, he was never gonna advocate against it, or something stupid like that, but i did question why he was so hyped about something everyone almost immediatly catalogued as a write-off thing that they’d bring up years later as a “that was weird” kind of story.

So at the very end of August the One Piece live action Netflix series was made available on the plaftorm, composed of eight 45 to 60 minutes long episodes composing the first season, which covers from the very beginning at Shells Town (with Foosha Village visited via flashbacks of young Luffy with Shanks and his crew) up to the conclusion of the Arlong Park arc.

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Girls Nite Out AKA The Scaremaker (1982) [REVIEW] | Bear Claws In

Would it really be September here without a school themed slasher from the 80s that has been mostly forgotten? Yep, there were so many of these that the “content vein” seems to never end, there’s always more slasher to pick and revaluate, here thanks to the UK (and also US) release on Blu-Ray by Arrow Video, who else?

I’m NOT gonna review the Blu-Ray itself and the many extra contents (especially if you managed to get your hands on the Limited Edition with the extra slipcase with the poster art of the movie under its alternative release date “The Scaremaker”), but i will say the 2K restoration it’s hella good.

I said school, but in this case we have a sorority group of college girls that are killed one by one by a degenerate in a bear costume (the college’ sport mascot) during a night-long scavenger hunt taking place on campus, with the story of a former student – called Dickie Canavaugh– that was recovered in a sanitarium and speculations on why he hanged himself.

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[One Piece Film Retrospective] #15: One Piece Film Red (2022)

Yeah, bringing back the One Piece retrospective…. kinda, more like continuing it, with a full, detailed review of the last released One Piece movie, Film Red, that hit theathers in 2022, after the EXPRESSO review done at the time it released in theathers here.

For context, that year i was able to see the tie-in episodes of the series during the yearly Lucca Comics & Games convention in Italy, sadly i missed the early projection of the movie itself, but i did see the aforementioned episodes meant to tie-in to Film Red that detailed a young Rufy meeting a young Uta in Fusha Town when Shanks and his crew set anchor there.

Which are cute but as you would expect they’re not mandatory viewing in order to understand the plot of Film Red, it’s a big popular franchise, they’re not gonna risk alienating people who don’t watch or follow the TV series but do follow the manga, for example.

Who’s Uta, you might ask? But she’s the new character and protagonist of Film Red, a world famous livestreamer and renowed singer that is finally having a concert on the island of Elegia, ammassing a huge amounts of fans coming from all walks of life, be it Goverment soldiers, Navy officers or pirate ships, and of course the Straw Hats come too, as Luffy arrives there and reveals he and Uta were childhood friends.

And then he drops the bombshell that Uta is Shanks’ daughter.

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One Piece Odyssey: Reunion Of Memories PS4 [DLC REVIEW] | Overdrawn At The Memory Bank

For disclosure, i pre-ordered the super duper deluxe edition of the game that came with the big Lim & Luffy figure, and the expansion content also included in the Deluxe Edition version, so i didn’t cash out extra to access the DLC story expansion for One Piece Odyssey that released in May 2023, Reunion Of Memories. Otherwise, to buy the DLC normally the MSRP is 25 bucks.

Keep that in mind because it will come back later in the review, but before beginning i will preface by saying while i will keep this DLC review spoiler free… i’d recommend either reading my full review of the base game or finish the game yourself before reading, because some plot details regarding the finale are simply impossible not to touch upon.

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

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