Great White Death (1981) [REVIEW] | #thesharklist

The frenzy was immediate, the clones numerous and fast, sometimes bothering to swap the shark for some other animals, waterbound or not.

But the mid-70s were also the period for exploitation cinema blooming into grindhouse theathers and drive-ins, and among them there was also the “Mondo movie” craze… well, it was that trend of exploitation still surviving almost 2 decades after the 1962 film Mondo Cane (an italian idiom translating roughly to “Doggone World/The World’s Gone To The Dogs”).

While the cannibal craze was indeed at its peak, with good ol’ Cannibal Holocaust releasing just 1 year prior, director and producer Jean-Patrick Lebel figured you could mix the “killer shark” and “shockumentary” subgenre in one, so the world was given Great White Death.

And you know it’s gonna be a good one when they have not one but two different title “sequences” that still use the same title.

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[EXPRESSO] Pokemon Champions iOS/ SWITCH | Pokécore Posse

While this launched earlier on Switch (as Pokemon F2P games do nowadays)…. i couldn’t be arsed, but since the iOS/Android version released recently, i figured i’d give Pokemon Champions a proper go.

Pokemon Champions is indeed what you’d think it was and what it is advertized as, a competitive focused title that it just about the Pokemon battles, with a sprinkle of context-story of you being a new promising Pokemon Trainer that “inherits” a gym in the city of Frontieropolis, and you’re expected to bring it glory by raising the ranks.

Combat is the classical turn based affair of the series, which is good, as is the idea of streamlining info, explaining move effects more clearly, letting you customize aspects like IV or the pokemon natures, to help new players get ready to battle ASAP…. problem is the tutorials given are shallow and lackluster, not even properly explaining all weather effects or how these work against or alongside priority moves.

This means longtime series players that already knew the many systems and all the combat intricacies will immediatly have an edge, and there are no NPC battles to let players learn on the field before entering ranked or random.

Plus, aside from some roster “omissions”, there isn’t much content yet, and in a strange effort to balance itself despite the F2P economy, the single currency can’t be bought with money, but you can get bundles of deluxe training items, the expected “Battle/Season Pass”, and Pokemon Home support means the hardened Pokefanatics can import meta-relevant Pokemon of recent series titles from there.

It’s a pity because otherwise it’s actually fairly decent, an actually solid foundation, and even with its F2P economy and tutorials nowhere as in-deep as needed, it does manage to make competitive more accessibile, which i think it’s good.

Veteran Of The PSN Wars + The August Shakedown

Almost as a divine punishmen (or a reality check), 4 days ago the entire PSN infrastructure went down for an entire day, while Sony is still standing by their decision to abandon physical moving forward, and despite a remarkable backlash that hopefully will keep going, because it should be going and make the company reverse course.

Because, let’s be real, even Microsoft initially said that the X-Box One had to be online only (or how Kinect was gonna be mandatory for it), i remember them telling people off to “go buy a 360 instead, you peasants… and it all had to be walked back when it became both unpopolar and unappealing to customers.

This isn’t fuckin holy text, it’s business, and while i still wish people used half of this outrage for more pressing political issues instead of letting apathy steer us into an Orwellian novel, i’m not here to go on that soapbox… or so i would say if they didn’t immediatly made the gesture pointless by telling it has an expiry date, in a week they’re gonna stop.

As i said before, sadly “gamer boycotts” is a joke in itself for a reason.

I’m not here to tell you what i was obviously gonna think about the issue (of course i was gonna say this situation it’s shit, it’s beyond just “shit”, it’s far worse), i’m here to go full Abe Simpson, sit by the lemon tree and just think back to 2011, when the Playstation Network was hacked and Sony gave everyone a couple of free games.

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[EXPRESSO] The Odyssey (2026) | Our 1UP Man

I will say that there are legitimate criticism to be made about this new Nolan adaptation of the greek epic, especially those about historical accuracy, in a movie that opts for a realistic war movie-ish tone…. but on the other hand, what did people expect when Anne Hathaway is Penelope and one of the first thing we saw about the film were those superhero style armors?

Since it not even a 3 hours long film, it doesn’t opt for a complete retelling, but in line with Nolan’s style, the whole thing is framed as “ memory box/machine” for Odysseus to unravel as he wakes up from 7 years of oblivion (as the lotus flowers he was fed make people forget) on Calypso’s island, this after ending the 8 year longs Trojan War via his wooden horse ploy, and had many adventures on his attempt to reach his home island of Ithaka.

There his wife, Penelope, has held off contenders to the throne for 20 years via a scheme, and his son, Telemachus, that still believes his father is alive, goes searching for him, while Odysseus himself comes home posing as a vagrant, only to prove his identity and slaughter the disrespectful contenders that leeched off his hospitality.

It does most of the expected stories of the epic, while taking various liberties (especially in the Polyphemus encounter) and arguably omitting a lot, but i’ll say that despite some flaws (the superhero style armours, trying to frame the Greek morality in a certain way, the Hollywood casting), Nolan’s The Odyssey does live up to expectations, delivering a powerful rendition of the poem in a way that calling “epic” does actually seem fit, it has that gravitas and majesty of the old Hollywood, it’s arguably one of Nolan’s best in a while too.

The Mysterious Island AKA Odysseus And The Giant Polyphemus (1905) [REVIEW] | Odeon Days

You know me, i’m not one to go try and please the algorhythm, and since there’s no really much in terms of full lenght features trying to adapt the whole Odyssey itself (there is a recent UK production called Itaka: The Return, but even that is mostly focused on the titular return of Odysseus at his home in Itaka after decades, and not much else)…… you know what, we’re going REALLY back this time around.

Not to the 70s miniseries for TV, back to the 1900s, when cinema was in its “puppet stage”… actually, more aptly it’s “parlor trick era”, since today we’re talking about one of the many films (by now not even registering as short films, or shorts) by the profilic primordial magician of cinema, Georges Meliès, which i feel needs no introduction, otherwise this will turn into an introduction to the early days of cinema, but basically, he was a magician in the literal sense, a stage magician but using film as his tool, and to which we owe a LOT of early cinematic special effects, which now look primitive, but sure as hell weren’t when people weren’t used to video footage of any kind.

For the time it must have felt like real magic, to say the least.

Even more impressive, Melies had been doing these films for a decade, so in a way it’s not too surprising this 1905 adaptation isn’t more remembered than his Voyage To The Moon or The Impossible Voyage, despite not being lost or anything like that, quite the opposite, since – as far as i know – this always appeared in the catalogues of production by Melies’ company, Star Films.

Sure as hell it doesn’t help that its original title was L’ilè De Calypso, literally “Calypso’s Island”, even less when it was sold internationally as The Mysterious Island, or given the subtitle of “Ulysse et le geant Polypheme”, Ulysses And The Giant Polyphemus.

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[EXPRESSO] Evil Dead Burn (2026) | Cthuga Chant

In other circumstances, i would lament the fact that an old franchise like Evil Dead or its name are being used for making new films unrelated to the old ones…. but in this day and age, this approach works, it doesn’t lock viewers into expanded universes continuites, and while it is a sequel to Evil Dead Rise, it doesn’t really depend on you having watched that, to the point this could be another stand alone sequel or reboot, and yet it would have fit being called Evil Dead.

Evil Dead Burn is about a young woman who has lost her husband, and after the funeral is meeting with her in-laws in a secluded house in the woods. The family reunion starts off glacial and tense at best, but goes quick south as the family members gradually start turning into Deadites….

The movie doesn’t reinvent Evil Dead as a formula, it has the nasty ass Deadites demons-undead fucks, the Necronomicon is involved too, there are chainsaws that you know will be used for lots of gore, and like Rise it involves family, though in this case it does so to tackle domestic abuse, familial dysfunctions and guilt-tripping…. and deliver a fuckton of very very nasty, over the top gore, with a bit of comedy to the delirium, not pulling any punches in any aspect.

Again, this movie isn’t trying to buck the “Evil Dead formula”, but it manages to give this Evil Dead film a slightly different feel, while balancing very well its elements, so gore never lacks its grisly punch, the comedic bits aren’t too clownish to undermine the nastiness of the violence or gore, we have likeable characters and yet never feel like we’re wasting time, as it’s all a costantly entertaining, retentless, fun, bloody damn good horror romp.

[EXPRESSO] Supergirl (2026) | Poco Lobo

Following the 2025 Superman reboot by James Gunn, we now have the spin-off/sequel-thing of Supergirl, about Kara-El, the cousin of Superman himself, as she is forced out of her drunkard-vomiting in the back of the space-caravan lifestyle when she defends a young girl in search of a mercenary or anyone able to kill the evil space brigand that killed her entire family, and said intergalactic thug almost “John Wicks” her dog, forcing Kara/Supergirl to track the bastard down so she can get the anti-venom she needs to save her dog Krypto, and aid the local girl along the way.

This brings the young girl and Kara to also stumble upon the legendary intergalactic bounty hunter Lobo (played by Jason Momoa)….

It’s a coming of age story of Kara actually becoming Supergirl, a relatively small side adventure for her which also gives us a bit more background on the fall of Krypton (in this continuity anyway), with relatively small scale, and its fine, i don’t think this was ever meant to be much more, though the script fails to capitalize on its themes of sisterhood, and it’s too bound to Superman, not just in the sense that Kara is made to be not that different character wise, but also how the film is directed by Craig Gillespie trying to imitate Gunn’s style.

And while it is a big cameo in the end, it’s undeniable that having Lobo helps a lot in making the film rise above general mediocrity, and you kinda wish he was given more space (shame they canned his movie), or that the movie actually made the emotional turmoil deliver the proper punch they are going for, which doesn’t quite do, but it’s still above average and there’s some fun action to it, making for a decent superhero film.

[EXPRESSO] ChaO (2025) | Suzaku’s Choice

I’d say the Japanese had the fascination with mermaids steam from the old fishemen’s tale of the nyngyo but in the case of Yasuhiro Aoki’s ChaO, this is more reminescent of the old American romantic comedy Splash by Ron Howard, not a direct remake but still about a man that finds himself engaged to a mermaid that saved his life, though here he doesn’t remember doing so, yet is pushed into being the fianceè and husband-to-be of the mermaid princess Chao, as the situation is favorable to the man’s boss, a transportation mogul, despite initially being kinda put off by Chao’s out-of-water appearance of a bipedal fish.

I’d say the main issue is that the plot is fairly thin and predictable, but the movie is definitely aware and Yasuhiro Aoki instead decides to focus on the love story AND in delivering insanely creative visuals, with deliberately weird, off-kilter character designs, not just relegated to the magical sea creatures just living alongside humans, but the humans themselves already have a distinct design even when they are regularly proportioned, and aren’t just giant toddlers, have giant heads or spherical bodies, or weird elongated limbs.

It’s very visually striking and interesting, definitely helps to have Hiroshi Takiguchi (also behind many Shinkai films) as the creative director here too, and animation studio 4°C help deliver the remarkable extreme sensory overload that goes along an otherwise very nice, very sweet but predictable romance, most likely because they know the romance itself is fine but not original (despite the political undertones since the marriage is basically sold as a public “race relation PR stunt”), and hence could use some great visuals, even some cool actions scenes and a fitting bonkers direction to go along with it.

Definitely worth seeing, even more as it just 90 minutes.

[EXPRESSO] Arion (1986) | Anime Titans

Yeah, i’m gonna bend the rules this time around since this is a 40^th anniversary restoration of a 1986 anime film that never got released here in theathers (or anywhere), just preceed by a recent release of the manga of the same name the film is based on, needed since i never even heard of this.

Somehow, as this isn’t some random anime film, this is written, directed and illustrated by Yoshikazu Yasuhito (also behind the original manga work), a legend known for his character designs on the original Mobile Suit Gundam anime, with orchestral soundtrack by composer Joe Hisashi of Ghibli fame.

Despite being named after a mythological black horse that – among other things – saved the king of Argos, thestory of Arion is basically a retelling of Greek mythology filtered through Japanese sensibilities (worth remembering Saint Seiya started just a year prior) that mashes the many myths and re-elaborates the various gods, demigods, humans and lore in a way that’s still kinda unique to this day, and fits the subject matter while standing on its own legs.

Arion is the demi-god spawn of Poseidon, kidnapped as a child by Hades and raised to believe his mother’s blindness was caused by Zeus and that killing him would cure her, so he sets on a quest only to eventually find out the truth and try to fight back against the fate as the Olympian gods willed it…

Honestly it’s amazing, it’s definitely not just stunning to look at with his meticulous hand drawn animation by Sunrise that still looks impressive, it also lives up to being an epic action-adventure, with lots of action, conflict, magic and brutality (plus very brief occasional whismy), superbly paced, that is still pretty dang impressive to see in cinemas even today.

Very good stuff.

Snakes On A Train (2006) [REVIEW] | Poco-loco-motion

Since we took the opportunity to review Snakes On A Plane some time ago for the movie 20^th anniversary and the 4K UHD Bluray rerelease by Arrow Video meant to celebrate that, i guess it’s inevitable we cover the mockbuster version the Asylum cooked up the same year, as in, Snakes On A Train.

I mean, why not, i got the UK DVD release for peanuts years ago, might as well.

As with most of their mockbusters, the plot is legally distinct from the movie whose cottails they’re riding on, and just shares the same idea/copies the same gimmick, this time a public transport vehicle being filled with killer snakes, a train in this occasion as it’s cheaper to shoot.

In a way, this should have been a really fuckin easy one.

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