[EXPRESSO] The Brutalist (2024) | Nathan Explosion approved

For the prequel of Turtles In Time, there’s a distint lack of ninja turtles, flying brains, robot mice or mutants.

Guess we’ll see them in Part 2, as for Part 1 of The Brutalist the Statue Of Liberty is still there, “welcoming” the protagonist, Laszlo Toth, a Jewish Holocaust survivor and master architect that manages to immigrate from the United States but struggles to realize himself, until a wealthy client changes his fortune, even to spark hope he can reunite with his wife and family, whom he had to left in Europe….

Direct by Brady Corbet (Vox Lux, Childhood Of A Leader) might not be historically accurate, as Laszlo Toth searches bring up a geologist, while we have more of Ayn Rand inspired character, but in any other aspect it definitely lives up to the reception it’s gotten, and to the style of architecture it names itself after, because it is the history of a crossed, tormented, obsessed wreck of a man that its willing to go any lenght for its art, eccentric yet utterly flawed as any of his friends, loved ones and “antagonists” standing between his work, punctuated by the realities of immigration in the US, historical and religious events like the state of Israel’s foundation.

The fact alone the drama is constantly gripping for a movie that’s 3 hours and 30 minutes long is a feat in itself… i mean, it is, but the acting is phenomenal, cinematography is excellent, characters are quite good and there’s a remarkable snazz to it, very stylish and it does earn the “epic” epithet it shoots for, outside of its massive lenght.

Speaking of, if you’re gonna make movies this long, yes, do like The Brutalist and bring back the planned intermission (and Vistavision, it’s has been a while, indeed), stat.

Shark Exorcist (2014) [REVIEW] | #thesharksix

I knew the day would come.

I knew it was just a matter of time, and made sense since it had been so long, and my hatred for this film never subdued since i first saw it back in 2015. I wasn’t familiar with Donald Farmer’s “game”, so to speak, i though i knew bad, but seeing his Shark Exorcist made me realize i was still green.

“Still just a bud”, to quote Holly Summers from No More Heroes.

I did actually preorder the DVD for it, expecting it to be fun, a shitshow but we were still riding high from the Sharkenado phenomenon, before cheap homegrown filmakers realized you didn’t actually need these bad sharkmovies to be fun in order to sell them, and instead made poster than would never live up to the actual films, so yeah, a sweet summer child, etc.

And no, i didn’t plan to review the movie for it’s 10^th anniversary, and i didn’t realize it actually came out first in 2014 in some countries, but i guess it’s red raw anus-bound thread of Fate itself at work, pinching one out for the occasion, so let’s toast our glasses of expire communion wine!

Continua a leggere

[EXPRESSO] The Offering (2022) | Autopsy of Meshuggah Doe

One more for the recent subgenre of “Hebrew Horror”, which already gave us movies like the solid The Vigil some years ago, but with The Offering we’re into more typical territory, despite the change of social setting, religion and culture.

The plot concerns a man that after years goes back to visit his father, who still runs a jewish funeral home, bringing his pregnant wife along with him. His plans and good intentions are then shaken to their core when a mysterious corpse shows up, with an ancient demon sealed inside that soon escapes and has a synister plan for the soon-to-be-born child….

There’s also drama involving the man true reason for going back to his father, but that’s the gist, and it’s quite the decent one, but as i hinted at before, compared to The Vigil this one draws inspiration from its specific folklore for the demon (which you do get to see and looks quite good, some proper shitting pants daemon), but plays it far safer in terms of everything, and comparisons aside, The Offering has some cool demon lore but it uses a familiar playlist of tunes we’ve already seen a lot.

Which you can argue it’s not so much the movie fault as the possession/exorcism subgenre has been done to death and beyond, but if you swapped the jewish social background for the ol’ boring catholic paradigm, the movie would still be above average but nothing special that hasn’t been done better many times over.

I’m still glad to see less represented realities and new prospectives in horror (honestly i’m surprised no one still tried to do a modern horror movie about the golem myth), the acting it’s solid, but The Offering overall it’s just a decent horror film that plays it a little too safe.