Pinocchi-O-Rama #4: The Golden Key (1939)

While reviewing Pinocchio: A True Story, we touched upon the fact Tolstoy created his own take on the story of Pinocchio when introducing it to russian children in 1936, calling it The Golden Key Or The Adventures of “Buratino” (taken from the italian “burattino”, a term lifted from the commedia dell’arte and that indicates a wooden doll/puppet), which also became an iconic piece of children literature during the Soviet Union and it’s still remembered in Russia to this day.

So of course there were film adaptations of the “Russian rejigged Pinocchio”, and today we’re taking to task the first one ever, done in 1939 by the legendary soviet director and stop-motion master animator Aleksndr Pthusko, which fellow “MSTies” might remember for his later fantasy epics and adaptations of popular russian (and finnish as well with the Kalevala based “Sampo”) fairytales, from The Stone Flower to Sadko (absurdly retitled The Magic Voyage Of Sinbad) and of course Ilya Muromets (there’s a Fate joke here, but i ain’t touching it).

Without forgetting the more well known film that often overshadows this one, The New Gulliver, released 4 years priors, which got Pthusko praised by fellow legend animator Ray Harryhausen.

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Pinocchi-O-Rama #3: Geppetto (2000)

Yes, we’re doing a Disney Pinocchio movie, but not the ones you might think of, since we’re travelling back to the dawn of the millennium for the kind of Pinocchio film that’s actually more common than you’d think: the musical. One of them, anyway, we’re doing some of the more intriguing ones later this year, today we spotlight a fairly forgotten made-for-tv musical starring Drew Carey and Julia Louis-Dreyfus, simply called “Geppetto” and released in 2000.

The idea – as exemplified by the title itself – is a nice variation on terms of how to retell the story of Pinocchio, because one could reasonably argue how odd that the narrative prioritizes following a character who’s personality basically was “pre-loaded” since “birth”, while leaving mostly in the background the only character that has past and would feasibly benefit from an arc.

At least, that’s what a superficial analysis might lead one to believe, but there is some truth to it regardless, because Geppetto is important to the narrative, and after all he’s the one who wanted so badly to be a father, albeit not in the way the story does.

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Village Of The Giants (1965) [REVIEW] | #giantmonstermarch

Starting this Giant Monster March with one of the lesser discussed Bert I. Gordon flicks, Village Of The Giants, which also marks the first time our notorius B.I.G would harass poor H.G. Wells, specifically his novel The Food Of The Gods, which would later adapt again in a slightly “less loose” manner with 1976’s Food Of The Gods, spawning a fittingly loose sequel 13 years later, Food Of The Gods Part 2, which didn’t see Bert I. Gordon involved at all, and has somehow even less to do with H.G.Wells’ book.

Good old Bert this time basically used the book reference only so he could crib the idea of people turning into giants… this time via a generic “goo” chemical substance that falls in the hands of a group of teens, making themselves gigantic and decide to rule over the town and its grown ups using this newfound size, because they’re teens, and this movie has a lot more to do with Horror At Party Beach than Food Of The Gods, since it has a lot of elements from the “beach party film” which was indeed quite en vogue at the time, and also about to fizz out before the 70s came to be.

I haven’t strong feelings about the genre, it gave us Beach Blanket Bingo but also Arch Hall Jr. strumming his fuckin guitar while his face looks like they embalmed a Elvis impersonator in wax, and also the classic MST3K episode riffing his ass and teaching the evergreen lesson of watching out for snakes, even when the dub is off sync and the movie might not even have snakes at all.

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Pinocchi-O-Rama #2: Pinocchio: A True Story (2021)

Let’s get the “meme boy” one over so we can kill any mystique it could possible accrue in time, by tackling one of the more recent adaptations, the Russian 2021 one that pretty much nobody would have cared about if the english dub had Paulie Shore delivery such a stock effeminate – and most importantly out of place – performance as the titular Pinocchio, especially notable in the clip you’ve seen of him talking to Gepetto of how he wants to see the world on its own, as he ready for it.

Tybald being Pinocchio’s horse, which he never had in the original story, but then again, it bound to be expected from your movie when it can’t even have the gall to call itself “THE true story”.

Just one of the many. Whatever.

I guess someone finally saw Tangled and wanted to have a funny horse character, so much it presents the movie as a story he’s telling you about, giving the basic gist of Pinocchio being carved by Geppetto, dissing the “growing nose” thing and then actually… preseting more than actually narrating the whole thing. Liar. And odd as a Jiminy Cricket replacement. Sort of. Not really.

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[EXPRESSO] Vampire Survivors iOS | Italian Belmonts On The Go

I am a little quite late on this, since i didn’t know Vampire Survivors was ever gonna see a port on mobile platforms, but it did at the end of last December, and i DID want to see for myself if this iOS (and Android) port was any good.

I don’t really think i need to introduce the game itself, since it has been one of the ever-so-rare Steam success stories, especially since it launched at a really budget price, but the deal is that Vampire Survivors struck a new combination by basically having a roguelite RPG- “reverse” bullet hell using a “legally distinct Castlevania” vibe, with your character attacking automatically in the direction it’s facing, but still needing to be manually manouvered through the increasingly thick hordes of enemies homing onto you, while collecting exp drops, levelling up, getting new weapons or upgrades to the arsenal of auto-attacks, learning what to keep and use in order to survive longer.

It’s incredibly simple but also very addictive, and honestly this is a nearly perfect port, as the controls just require moving your character via a virtual joypad, so it’s easy to get into on a whim but also to keep going at for prolonged sessions/runs.

Here on smarthphones it has been released as a free-to-play title, but thankfully the developers at Poncle decided to actually care, so it’s a benign case of watching ads for extra gold or a revive when dead, at the time of writing it’s seriously devoid of any microtransactions or way to spend real money on anything.

Obviously this version is currently not up to date with the Steam release, and most likely will remain “behind” for a while, but even so free Vampire Survivors on smarthphones it’s a match made in italian vampire hunters’ heaven.

Pinocchi-O-Rama #1: A Tree Of Palme/Palme No Ki (2002)

While it’s not completely unknown, i’d say A Tree Of Palme it’s quite obscure, definitely forgotten, overlooked and rarely discussed, despite being created, written and directed by respected anime veteran Takashi Nakamura, who also previously worked as a key animator for Nausicaa And The Valley Of The Wind, joined the acclaimed anime anthology of Robot Carnival in 1987, and just the next year would be animation director for a little movie called AKIRA.

It was also laboriosly made over the span of 6 years, and you can just tell by the cinematography that indeed A Tree Of Palme was treated as a big project that Nakamura wanted to cultivate as well as possible without compromises to his vision.

The story concerns the titular Palme, a puppet created by a man for his sickly wife, and upon her death the puppet becomes paralyzed by sorrow, until he accidentally stumbles upon a misterious woman (whom Palme mistakes for the man’s dead wife, Xian) being pursued, and she entrusts the puppet to deliver a certain special item to a sacred place called Tama.

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Pinocchi-O-Rama: the 2022 “Pinocchio frenzy” and celebrating the 140th Anniversary of Collodi’s classic

No review today, sorry, but we’re doing something a bit special.

If you remember, last year was surprisingly full of Pinocchio adaptations, from the resurfacing of Guillermo Del Toro’s project, that cheap russian retelling/reworking with the infamous Paulie Shorie english dub (called Pinocchio – A True Story, FIY), and Disney continuining with their crusade of shitty live-action remakes of their classic animated films.

And italian audiences were also treated with a live-action Pinocchio movie in 2019, directed by acclaimed italian director Matteo Garrone (Dogman, The Tale Of Tales), and starring beloved italian actor Roberto Benigni, which already was world famous for playing the titular character in the 2002 Pinocchio movie.

If you’re like me, as in italian and pretty much hailing from Tuscany, living nearby Florence, hence more than familiar with the original book by Luigi Collodi, you’d be wondering why now, as it seemed random to see a resurgence of Pinocchio adaptations out of the blue. I mean, the book was already in the public domain in the U.S. since 1940, so i wondered if there was some anniversary relating some of the more famous adaptations…. but nothing that made sense.

As in, the original book was first published (in full, after it was published in a weekly children’s magazine starting 1881, then stopped and eventually resumed with the second part) in 1883, so the following year would mark the 140th anniversary, notable but not the kind of number that publisher choose to publicize some new edition of a popular book.

Doesn’t have quite that ring, but somehow 2022 was the “Year Of Pinocchio” regardless, so irked by this i’m gonna do “sumethin about it” and actually spotlight a noteworthy or overlooked Pinocchio adaptation or “heavily inspired by ” work each month of 2023, with special reviews, starting with a post/review at the very end of January.

There will be no precise release windows for each piece, just each a month for the entirety of 2023.

[EXPRESSO] Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio (2022) | Splintered Spectacular

Years in the making, but Guillermo Del Toro’s take on beloved italian literary children classic Pinocchio is here, available worlwide on Netflix, after a very brief debut in some select theathers.

It takes many liberties from the book but does so in a way that makes it a more interesting adaptation of the story, and the changes (also needed cause of the tale being retold/reinterpretated squillions of times) do compliment that, like it now taking place in fascist WWII Italy, Jiminy Cricket being an actual character with agency and some background to him, Geppetto being more important of a character, with a new tragic backstory involving its dead, unwooden, real son.

It embraces the darker tone and themes of the original work, like, completely, far more than 2019’s Matteo Garrone take, for one, as in to committs to retain the savage nature of many events, Pinocchio’s ability of being far worse than “rambuctious”, and the often terrifying imagery, while also showing a lot of creativity in both reworking or adding new characters and lore to expand the story, give some surprises and changes to make the story interesting and different from previous adaptations, without completely transforming into something that isn’t Pinocchio anymore.

After all, this is Del Toro’s vision and if i wanted the original Pinocchio experience, i’d just read the book (which i still recommend doing, if you haven’t, btw) again.

I’d say more but i would just spoil some of the original material, so i will just bite me tongue.

the stopmotion animation it’s excellent, absolutely impeccable work, the songs are nice enough, plenty but quite brief (never overstaying their welcome, and overall i’d say this is easily one of the best adaptations of Pinocchio, like ever, and somehow able of actually living up to expectations.

Simply excellent.

A review of Pokemon Scarlet/Violet is coming later this month, actually + EXPRESSO review of Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio

While i did make some first impressions/ramble on both Pokemon Arceus and the Diamond/Pearl remake, i figured this time i HAD to make a proper full lenght review of the first 9th gen Pokemon title, especially since it’s a mainline release. And since i did actually preordered the damn thing this time around, and i kinda wish i didn’t. Kinda.

Seriously, while the game has already been discussed and fairly criticized enough for the obvious reason (it runs and looks like ASS, let’s be brutally honest about it), and while the undeniable fact of Violet/Scarlet selling 10 millions in 3 days it’s kinda depressing and makes it clear once again how “boycotts in videogames” are useless for many reasons and most often feel moot since we’re talking about franchises that do incredible numbers by name recognizition alone… we do gotta talk about Violet Scarlet’s issues proper.

Especially since the fact of it being Pokemon means for many the plethora of issues are mostly handwaved or pre-forgiven, when we’re pretty much in a Cyberpunk 2077 situation, yet we didn’t and we’ll never see the same backlash, despite derserving it and the criticisms being pretty similar in origin and nature.

So i’ll do what i can to “balance the scales”, and talk in length about the many problems and strenghts of Scarlet/Violet, a game i’m currently enjoying despite everything, but one i’m also feeling quite disappointed, since it was clearly something that Game Freak should have been made able to cook in the “development oven” for at least 1 more year.

To misquote Strong Bad “this goose isn’t cooked”.

Seriously worried this will be become another costant issue plaguing Pokemon releases, because sure as shit Nintendo isn’t gonna make Game Freak take more time, but crack on with the “AAA pretty much biannual” style of releases.

On another tangent, while i did find some theathers that showed Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio almost a week before it’s Netflix release date… it was literally like 5 days, as much as i prefer watching movies in theathers i also can use to save me some cash, and i still have a Netflix subscription, so the EXPRESSO review for that it’s gonna be a little later than it could have been, but regardless, it’s coming soon.

[EXPRESSO] Disney’s Strange World (2022) | The Ventures

Apparently Disney’s latest animated film (no, it’s not a Pixar joint) is bombing in theathers, and i do wonder why exactly, especially in its home market where people celebrate “turkey day”.

Probably the choice to market it a little too late to generate some online buzz, and as much it’s funny to point out how many “first gay character in a Disney movie that can be easily edited out for China” Disney seems to possess and parade about… in this case the discussion distracts from the fact this one it’s pretty good.

Strange World is a surprisingly good throwback to adventure films of yore, pulp adventure comics, and of course the old literary classics involving discovering new worlds with bizarre or extinct animals and fauna, especially Verne’s Journey At The Center Of The Earth.

The movie starts with a Davy Crockett-esque tale of Jaeger Clade bouts of ventures alongside his son Searcher, then we see Jaeger continue alone his voyage to find out what lies behind the enormous mountains that surround their village, while his son decides to remain to study a rare plant they found while exploring.

25 years later Searcher has basically created a new utopia as his botanical discovery led to them farming the plant (named Pando) and using it as an energy source/fuel that powers everything.

He lives with his wife and his son Ethan, but as the Pando plants begin to suffer from a sort of disease, he’s forced to journey into the inner depth to find out why, but it accidentally leds to them discovering an entire new world full of bizzare creatures, alien flora and living “isles”.

Likeable characters, fun interactions, lots of adventure and action in a world that does amaze and inspire in its oddities, and solid themes of enviromental coexistence.