[EXPRESSO] Moonage Daydream (2022) | Sovereign Supreme

There are many kinds of films based on and featuring music behemoths, but when we step outside of fully fictionalized retellings with a proper plot, we often see two specific kinds prevail, the docufilm, the mixture of live recordings with some talking heads providing hindsight and opinions on the importance of the band/artist at various points in time.

Sometimes it will be something else entirely, be it the full lenght silent anime film/music video of Interstella 5555, or the mix of a music video-style narrative wrapped around live recordings done in Metallica: Through The Never.

But usually, the promotional pieces will tut about this not being another docufilm based on a popular, world-beloved music legend, as if the word “docufilm” itself has become dirty.

Though, in the case of Moonage Daydream, the claim of this not being labeled as “just another music docufilm” is actually true, as this it’s a full on experience, a proper spaceborn roller coaster into the life of David Bowie, trying to understand the nature and intimate essence of the chameolonic rockstar, helped by the privileged access of director Brett Morgen (Crossfire Hurricane, Kurt Cobain: Montage Of Heck) to the complete catalogue of archive footage and with full blessings from Bowie’s estate.

It’s a tall order to make justice of the incredible, majestic and ever transforming figure of David Bowie, but Moonage Daydream actually manages to do it, marrying rare archive footage, previously unreleased live performances, stunning visuals (that i feel benefit from the IMAX treatment) and depth without being bond to a strict linear narrative or having things overexplained by other people telling what they think David Bowie was as a person and rockstar,

It’s also incredibly well edited, with a delightful smorgasboard of movie references that are just the cherry on top. Masterpiece? Masterpiece.

Paripi Koumei / Ya Boy Kongming! (2022) [ANIME FIRST IMPRESSIONS]

(Impressions based upon the first 3 episodes)

I stumbled by chance into this new anime, and i feel it was meant to be, given my love for Romance Of The Three Kingdoms i’m not gonna skim over a new anime with good ol’ Zhuge Liang (AKA Kongming) as the protagonist, especially since it’s not a historical tale, but a sort of isekai-ish story where, after his death by illness in the Wuzhang Plains, sees him reincarnated as his young self in modern Shibuya during Halloween.

He gets drunk as a skunk and enjoys the party life that night, then the next day he’s helped by a young girl, an aspiring singer called Eiko, realizes what actually happened to him, and decides to help her back by serving as her “career strategist”, but first he needs a job to secure some “war funds”.

Luckily Eiko works and sings at a club run by a huge ROTTK nerd, so “ya boy” Kongming is hired as a barman.

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Antlers missed and the 500th+ posts celebratory post & extra ramble

So, yeah, due to the movie Antlers having a surprising – ok, not that surprising – shortlived run in theathers here and being released in a very busy week, i missed it completely, so who knows when it will arrive on VOD here, i’ll just wait for when it releases on home video, most likely wil import it from the UK.

Meaning that the EXPRESSO review of Antlers i planned just won’t happen at all. Pity.

But we did reach the 500th posts total more than a week ago, so bathe in the celebratory anime dance gif, busting out and oldie but goldie.

Not looking forward to that Netflix’s live action Cowboy Bebop adaptation, just putting that out, but i feel like i have to say something about, so i’ll give it a watch and a full review. At least it not an outlandish proposal as the darn live-action One Piece, i saw that post and the partial cast reveal, the cast looks fine, honestly, just can’t imagine that series working in any satisfying or acceptable way with real actors, doesn’t matter how much money they put into the CG.

I guess we didn’t learn the most important lesson of Jump Force (which btw Namco Bandai it’s gonna stop selling – DLCs included – the coming February 2022, so if you want to own it for collection purposes, get it now): realistic redraws of anime characters from One Piece can be quite the terryfing looking human simulacra.

Watch Kill Me Baby, that’s the lesson today kids.

Wario Ware: Get It Together NSWITCH [REVIEW] | Bugfixing Bonanza

Since i have been waiting a lot for Nintendo to resurrect the Wario Ware series, especially since they kinda blew it on Wii U with Game & Wario and since then we got simply a collection on 3DS (which is still better treatment other not-major Nintendo franchises got in decades), i was quite ready for a new one to come out, and then bam, Nintendo Direct, new Wario Ware. Yeah boi!

This one i preordered at a slightly lower price, because 50 bucks for a Wario Ware seemed a bit much in this day and age, but we’ll get to that later.

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#E32021 Conferences Recap/Review/Thing

As already pointed out, E3 coming back this year was kind of a big deal, as the pandemic made it impossible to be held as usual in 2020, and even with the usual croc of shit that the event is and promotes… it’s a ritual, it’s a tradition for many people with huge interest in videogames, it’s a communal experience.

But i wonder if one year of non holding the event made many companies just forgot what the hell the expo was even supposed to be, like old people forgetting something they usually did out of habit because they had to stop doing it for a reason or others.

Mind you, E3 history is full of cringy – and often legendary – conferences often full of people that barely could speak english or had any PR experiences, overblown lies and hype for everything, announcements of announcement without nothing to show for titles of interest, so it’s telling this year’s output was a complete mess.

I don’t think that’s too hyperbolic to say.

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One Piece: Jango’s Dance Carnival (2001) [REVIEW] Obey The Dance Commander

One Piece Jangos Dance Carnival 2001.png

Director: Daisuke Nishio
Writer: Hiroshi Hashimoto

The first One Piece featurette, shown alongside the theathrical release of the second One Piece movie, Clockwork Island Adventure, and never re-released outside of Japan (even thought it was included in the japanese DVD release of the movie, if the wikias are correct), for reasons that will become clear, outside of its 5 minutes runtime.

Like the title “implies”, it’s a mainly a musical number featuring Jango, the secondary antagonist in the Syrup Village arc, a pirate hypnotist with passion for dancing and a very minor character overall. The plot sees him seeking refuge in Mirror Ball Island (which is actually kinda canon, as he had a mini-arc told via chapter cover pages in the manga, the Jango Dance Paradise cover arc, like the one narrating what happens after Ener reaches the Moon), but he gets so into the island’sgroove he ends making a fuss and attracting Marines. Continua a leggere “One Piece: Jango’s Dance Carnival (2001) [REVIEW] Obey The Dance Commander”