So yeah, as this month comes to a close and coincidentally i go back to work, i’d like to announce that you will see a lot of shark movie reviews in june, as this quarantine was quite boring, with 15 planned reviews, and maybe some extra ones, if i have the time.
And no, i don’t plan to review JUST shark movies in june, nor i planned to dub it “shark month”, but you get the point!
There is something to be said when even The Asylum decides to NOT bother giving sequels to another random giant monster movie fully undeserving any kind of second chance.
Yeah, this isn’t the starting point of another Mega “insert animal name” series, or a “spiritual sequel” to the 2000’s movie called “Python” (which got an actual sequel two years later), this is a one-off for both the Mega Python and the Gatoroid, the latter being a very tortured pun not on a popular energy drink brand, but on the fact they “roided up” a fuckin alligator. Continua a leggere “Mega Python VS Gatoroid (2011) [REVIEW] | Potter, You Fool”
Piranha 3D was a good b-movie, directed by well respected and trustworthy horror director Alexandre Aja, who basically remade the omonymous old Jaws ripoff (produced by Corman, because why wouldn’t it be?), with 3D because it would have fit perfectly, is that kind of b-movie, the creature feature with killer fish, bikini ladies, and a party or holiday of some sort as the reason to gather people around, because fish is people too, and ripping off Spielberg never went out of fashion.
So a couple years later we got Piranha 3DD, a sequel… that’s actually a sequel, instead of just another movie about killer piranha slapping a “2” on the title, directed not by Aja, but by John Gullager, best known for the Feast Series, Zombie Night, and yes, it’s Glu Gullager’s (of Return of The Living Dead, The Last Picture Show fame) son.
And he took a surprisingly “smart” approach with this one, because why bother trying? Continua a leggere “Piranha 3DD (2012) [REVIEW] | Piranha Ate My Bunghole”
Oh yeah, baby, because parodying the Fast N Furios titling stylization is still kewl.
But it fits, given the tongue-in-cheek tone of the first Lavalantula (still think it should have been Lavantula, but whatever), which was a decent, enjoyable B-movie about lava spiders from director Mike Mendez (Big Ass Spider, the “Friday the 31st” segment in Tales Of Halloween), a genuine one that actually sets out to be fun and not just in the “let’s make as bad as possible on purpose” trend. Continua a leggere “2 Lava 2 Lantula (2016) [REVIEW] | Superfastula”
Oh yes, because every bad hand of Scrabble has the chance of becoming a SyFy Original, but only few chosen puns can become a Sharknado spin-off, featuring even Ian Ziering as as a “seal of approval” of sorts. And Phantom from Devil May Cry (along with its many sons) needed a new gig anyway. Continua a leggere “Lavalantula (2015) [REVIEW] | Can’t Stop The Dante”
Cards on the table: it’s an Asylum production, and is both directed and written by Mark Atkins, who brought us Sand Sharks, Planet Of The Sharks, 6 Headed Shark Attack, and Knight Of The Dead, just to lay off the sharks (poor things).
The UK DVD cover art is actually decent, and promises a mindless monster melee between giant squid, werewolf thingies, reptilian monstrousities and one that seems like an Orga rip-off… I love these covers, i do, but often than not they end up being better than the movies themselves, when we talk mockbuster and D-movies powerhouses as Asylum, and like the bottom feeders they are, this time they released Monster Island to steal the breadcrumbs of Godzilla II: King Of The Monsters, which came out on the 30th of May 2019 in US theathers, and this one on the 1st of June, 2 days later. Continua a leggere “Monster Island (2019) [REVIEW] | Some Monsters Mild Aggression Tantrum”
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)
While i’ve already done a retrospective on my italian blog, a new boxset (UK release by Arrow Video) will finally compile all Gamera movies together, so i will eventually review them all again on here.
So yeah, i was expecting to see Lupin III – The First movie and at least review the new american The Grudge reboot/remake/whatever, but many screening are being delayed indefinitely (unless it’s garbage, a national production or was already screening/i’ve already seen it), so who knows when i’ll be able to see Leigh Wannel’s The Invisible Man, and i don’t feel the mass hysteria will have died down before the 5th of March, so yeah, sorry, but these are the circumstances for now. Not good.
Since basically this screwed up my plans for EXPRESSO reviews, guess is time to get some use out of Netflix. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Stay safe, wash yourself (like you’re supposed to), and stop raiding supermarkets, this isn’t fuckin Judgement Day, fools.
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.
