[EXPRESSO] The Lodge (2019) | Ich Sect

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After the tragic suicide of their mother, a couple of sibling is spending the weekend before Christmas in a mountain lodge with their new stepmother, whom they actively dislike (and kinda blame for their mother’s death, for reasons that are kinda spoiler). As thing between them seem to finally improve, strange events start affecting them, and the stepmother’s past as the only survivor of a cult mass suicide begins to surface…

Good atmosphere, good performances, but there’s also a reason if it felt similar to Goodnight Mommy, of course it does, it’s from the same directors, Veronica Franz and Severin Fiala, which in itself should be a glowing recommendation, but this simply isn’t as good, as – besides the slow pace – it feels more indecisive if to go the paranormal-possession or the paranoia-hallucination route, so it kinda takes time before unveiling the twist, which makes sense and brings some intense scenes, but it’s not particularly satisfying and can kinda be see coming.

Doesn’t help it’s edited in a way that i kinda expected the film to end a couple of times before the actual finale (not sure if good or kind of a cop-out), and the whole stepmother’s backstory about the religious cult doesn’t really make for original or particularly effective visuals (kinda cliched, actually), but it handles them better than regular movies about possessions and religious rituals. And still, it has its creepy and intense moments, the acting is quite good, it’s a more than decent horror thriller that it’s worth seeing, even if a better script would have been welcome.

And the – sadly – unfavorable comparison to Goodnight Mommy isn’t unfair, i fear it’s kinda unavoidable (for the previously mentioned reasons). Not exactly disappointing, but it’s a bit frustrating as you can see how it could have been better. 😦

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[EXPRESSO] 21 Bridges/City Of Crime (2019) | Good Cop, Bad Cop

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Here in my country this one (retitled “City Of Crime” because originality) was advertised highly on having Black Panther’s star Chadwick Boseman and being “from the creators of Avengers Endgame”, the marketing cleverly not specifing it’s just produced by Joe and Anthony Russo, and after watching it i realized why, the signals were fairly clear to begin with, and it’s not exactly a “con job”.

It’s just a ploy to get you to watch another cop thriller with a manhunt through the streets of Manhattan, or in these case, the titular 21 bridges (which isn’t actually correct, but whatever), closed in order to avoid the killers (guilty of killing many cops in a failed heist) escaping, but it has to be done all in one night, etc. etc. It’s not a bad setup, but it’s a fairly typical nonetheless, like the main character, the exemplary cop with an unbreakable sense of duty and justice, who finds his beliefs challenged as things get more complicated and he suspect of an internal conspiracy… not that you need that to explain corrupt cops, but whatever.

And it’s decent, even if you’ve already seen this kinda of plot and characterization many many times, with a great cast that’s a bit too good for these characters, not completely stereotypical ones, but – again – very typical. Direction by Brain Kirk (TV director on Boardwalk Empire, Penny Dreadful, GoT, etc. here at his movie debut) is decent-good, it’s fairly fast paced, doesn’t pull punchers, and there’s no tonal problems or unbalance in themes like the movie rooting a bit too much for the cops despite showing how blatanlty corrupt they can be, nothing like that.

If anything, the italian marketing will “dupe” people into seeing a perfectly decent – if fairly disposable – cop thriller drama.

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EXPRESSO 2020: The Unchanging

Happy 2020, fellas, the novelty has already worn off, or maybe not, whatever, i just wanna say that all the EXPRESSO reviews from now on will be made only here, previously i wrote them mostly for the italian blog Wise Cafè, and i rewrote them (often from scratch, sometimes coinceived in tandem, etc.) in english, or i just wrote here some new ones that weren’t on the italian blog.

This will save me some time, which i can then focus on more articles for both blogs, though i plan to eventually write here mostly. Bye!

[EXPRESSO] Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker (2019) | Let’s get this over with

Yeah, why not, let’s review this one and hopefully after some weeks “the discourse” on social media will have died, until a new trilogy is planned and we’ll all do this dance again.

So, i don’t particularly like or dislike Star Wars (like most peoples, i do like the simple idea of fairy tales in space with beam swords, weird looking aliens, magic, sci-fi and shit), but i’ll watch them, why not, and while i wasn’t feeling it with The Force Awakens, i got a new found appreciation for it, because at least it was a good repackaging/best of.

Now, this was gonna be a mess anyway, since J.J. Abrams for some reason wasn’t director and writer on all the trilogy, which brought us the quite good The Last Jedi, but also this, a movie that not only is far different from the one before, but basically tries to undo and retcon most of what was said there, like it has to “fix” many plot points in order to basically re-do Return of The Jedi.

Hell, they even bring Palpatine back, which is both good and bad, because it’s a tacit admission that they can’t do any better than reharsh the same old shit, without adding anything to it, in fact a notable regression, stuffed full of fanservice in a nakedly cynical bid to appease a fanbase that will never be appeased regardless, and with a script that’s embarassing, with plot points pulled out of the arse all over the place.

I mean, it’s still less boring than senate hearings of a galaxy far far away, yeah, but it’s a complete mess of a story, at least it’s the kind of bad that ‘s watchable and goes by relatively fast. MH.

Well, time to finally watch Parasite for me!

[EXPRESSO] Knives Out (2019) | Ye Ol’ Murder Mistery

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The short of it: it’s quite good, as you’ve probably already heard said by many others, and i do recommend you check it out in theathers.

The plot concerns the death of successful novelist Halan Thrombey on the day after his 85th birthday, celebrated with family and guests the night before. Assisting the police in unraveling the situation is famous detective Benoit Blanc (Daniel Craig), who surveys the interrogatories of the numerous Thrombey family members, scrutinizing possible motives and alibis, as everyone could have gained something, and the already complex family affairs are complicated further when Blanc has the intuition of Martha, Halan’s young nursemaid, being at the center of it all…

Here we have Rian Johnson (Brick, Looper, Star Wars: The Last Jedi) taking on the typical mistery murder format and – as you probably heard elsewhere – doing a “table flip” on the narrative structure and flow you expect from a murder mistery movie, but without being a pointless exercise in subvertion for it’s own sake, as it is still a murder mistery about a dead patriarch and his vile, grubby offsprings, after all, with a sense of humour (like the bit where they see a spanish dubbed Murder, She Wrote episode), an amazing ensemble cast of famous actors, and a tight script that plays well with expectations, and even if you get what’s it gonna go for, it’s still intriguing see the mistery unraveled knot by knot.

And, as a “plus”, it’s quite fun, well paced, and doesn’t stretch things out more than it needs. It’s not the movie of the year, but being just quite good is more than enough, and there’s very little else to say without going into spoilers.

So i’m just gonna share this unrelated thought: hope the new Black Christmas remake is any good.

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[EXPRESSO] Depeche Mode: Spirits In The Forest (2019) | Private Live

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Cards on the table: i LOVE Depeche Mode, it’s one of my favorite bands of all time, and i’d argue one of the most influential overall, and i could go on, but it’s a review and i’m no proctologist.

Many bands had their work translated into a feature length movie, often in a more typical narrative fashion, with a plot crafted around the history of the band and it’s members, but also in more odd, ambitious fashions, like the hybrid of animated movie and music video of Interstella 5555, or Metallica: Through The Never, which went for live-action story mixed with live recordings.

Spirits In The Forest goes for a mix of live recordings from the 2017/2018 Global Spirit Tour, specifically the performance at Berlin’s Waldbühne (“Forest Stage”), and private cinema, with the intimate stories of six special Depeche Mode fans, filmed in their respective hometowns, talking about how the band’s music impacted their lives and connected with them, regardless of age, religion, language barriers, etc.

At it’s heart, Anton Corbjin’s (better know for Control, the biopic on Joy Division’s Ian Curtis) docu-film has the typical message about the power of music to unite people regardless of the many barriers and differences life inevitably confronts us with, but it does so in a smart way, not focusing on explaining pointless stuff like “what is Depeche Mode?”, or why the band is still so beloved today, but on the experiences of regular folks that are fans of the band AND do have interesting stories to tell, personal stories from different realities.

They are presented in a sincere fashion, never becoming indirect propaganda, with a good balance between these recollections and the live segments from the aforementioned Forest Stage performance in Berlin, and a concise runtime.

A bit envious i wasn’t there, gotta admit.

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[EXPRESSO] My Name Is Dolemite (2019) | Rat Soup

Time for me to get some use out my Netflix subscription, and this wasn’t gonna screen in Italy anyway.

Shame, because the idea of a biopic about Rudy Ray Moore, the comedian better known to film buffs as his character Dolemite, starring in the eponymous movie and the sequel The Human Tornado (and many others), is a great idea. Especially the first Dolemite is a legendary and beloved piece of blaxploitation cinema, one of the few films where the boom mic is visibly in the movie more than the villain, and with overall quality rivalled only by stuff like The Guy From Harlem.

Telling the story of Rudy Ray Moore, an aspiring 70s Los Angeles comedian that manages to finally find success with his alter-ego/character of Dolemite, a foul mouthed motherfucker in pimp attire, leading to do some comedy records, which brings him some fame and money, all risked to make a movie about the character, in spite of everyone’s advice and good ol’ common sense (like a 70’s black version of Ed Wood, in a way), but Rudy is not gonna have it any other way.

While it’s even better for film buffs that already knew of the story, it’s an amazing portrait of a man struggling to make his name known, to realize it’s dream, and his ambivalent relantioship to the Dolemite persona he doesn’t really identify with after all, but can’t also give up. And isn’t exactly a flattering portrait, but it shouldn’t be, and the script has a perfect balance of goofy and serious, with space for more somber (and not somber) self-reflection, but also to lovingly recreate ridiculous scenes from the first Dolemite movie, with a top notch cast (which includes Snoop Dogg/Lion), especially Eddie Murphy who is killing it as Rudy/Dolemite.

He ain’t lying.

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[EXPRESSO] Gemini Man (2019) | I, Will Smith

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Based on a 70’s tv series i have never seen (heard the name, but that’s it), this movie has spent his fair amount of time in development hell, it seems. But even if i didn’t made some research before watching, it still would seem like a movie from decades ago, defrosted now due to the technology permitting to have an actor and a young, de-aged version of same actor on screen and making them interact in a believable fashion.

The premise sees Henry Brogan (played by Will Smith) as one of the most talented snipers the US government ever, now wishing to retire. The news isn’t taken well so he’s framed by an old aquaintance of his, that in meantime carried on the Gemini project, and unleashes a younger and zealous version of Henry at him, when everything else fails. Henry (aided by an old friend and a D.E.A. agent that had the misfortune of knowing about him) so tries to stop his younger clone and to steer him away from his path…

Technically impressive, with some decent-good action scenes, themes fairly typical of Ang Lee’s cinema, the movie has a good – albeit not original and kinda retrò – premise, and you want to see it fulfilled… but it never truly does. Performances are mostly good, but the script really isn’t up to snuff, it too seems unearthed after a decade or two, with some minor upgrades (like drones), and it’s the big bad problem here.

Doesn’t help that the supporting characters are… definitely there in the scene with a purpose, the romance is fairly bland (inoffensive, but also dated), and the dialogue isn’t anything to write home either. Pity. 😦

At the very least, it’s miles, miles better (even as basic entertaiment value go) than Rambo V, so… It’s alright, kinda.

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[EXPRESSO] Yesterday (2019) | Beatles Beatles No Mi

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Preface: i never saw Across The Universe.

I don’t know how much (or if) it matters, but keep that in mind.

I’m not even a particularly big Beatles fan, but hey, Danny Boyle at the helm, i couldn’t refuse, especially with an original premise like this. Jack struggles to make it as a music star between shifts at the supermarket he works, and despite his best friend/crush egging him to persevere, he at last gives it up. But he’s hit by a bus (coincidentally timed with a worlwide lights out, not a truck, this isn’t an isekai), and when he gets out of the hospital he realizes everyone else in the world has forgotten the Beatles and their music, it’s not a joke of sorts from his pals.

So he decides to use this miracolous opportunity to relaunch his music career by singing Beatles’ songs as his own, which eventually leads him to stardom, fame, fortune, to the success he wished for, in an inescapable spiral that Jack find himself trapped in as time goes on, because for all the others know, the Beatles were never a thing, which is fortunate since Jack doesn’t even precisely know by memory the lyrics for every song.

And i’d argue it’s one of the best movie i’ve seen this year. A great balance of great comedy, romance and music that tackle to the importance (or lack there of) of the author, the meaning of legacy and respect in a business that eats you and spits you out in a snap, with an amazing cast of hilarious supporting characters (his weed enthusiast best friend, his absent minded and mildly dismissing parents, and Ed Sheeran as himself), a satisfying romance that never gets too mushy or depressing, amazing editing and radiant attitude.

It’s very good, indeed.

Recommended.

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[EXPRESSO] Tolkien (2019) | Warlocks & Dragons

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Preface: i didn’t read any of the novels of mr. Tolkien, i didn’t knew what
his actual life was like, i watched the Lord Of The Rings movies. That’s it, that’s how much i knew before seeing this in theathers. That, and how the Tolkien family didn’t approve or endorse the motion picture.

So i didn’t exactly know what to expect, besides the obvious. And frankly you just get that, the expected from a dramatized biopic of a fantasy author. We start in media res when J.R. Tolkien is figthting in the trenches of WWI while searching disperately for one of his friends, and he struggles to survive we get to see his life with his brother and mother living in slums, then as orphans in the foster home of an Ofxord aristocratic lady that took them in, his romance with Edith, another orphan already under her wings, and his circle of friends made at the Ofxord university.

Tying this all together is Tolkien passion for creating stories, legends of magic and fantasy lands, great dangers and journey, even going so far as to create a new alphabet and language specifically for his tales, which carries over in significant event of his life and here is made to create parallel with his fantasy creations, and the struggle to make the unevitable truths of life better with the power of art, and how it lead to him writing the Hobbit, etc etc.

It’s got a decent-good cast, a very good scenography, likeable characters, it’s heart it’s in the right place, and it’s not like it undermines its own point or anything like that.

But it’s also a very standard romanticized biopic of a creative’s troubled life, it’s decent, fairly enjoyable, but, you’ve already seen this before, and done better.

It’s alright.

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