12 Days Of Dino Dicember #52: Baby: Secret Of The Lost Legend (1985)

Unlike the other 1985 film review for Dino Dicember this year, this one is indeed a proper dinosaur film, and one that does know the target demographic its going for, not that a title like “Baby The Lost Legend” would led to people assuming the opposite.

It’s also another dinosaur themed by Disney, this time under the Touchstone Films/Pictures label

like One Of Our Dinosaurs Is Missing, thought thankfully no “Yellow Peril” age chinese stereotypes, we’re moving to Africa as the movie premises involves a couple of archeologists trying to track down the local legendary monster known as mokele mobembe, whom happens to share many characteristics with sauropods, dinosaurs basically, leading the two to find a family of brontosauruses deep in the jungles of Congo.

The two are followed by the African military, which seems the dinosaurs as a potential treat and will have to escape them in order to save the baby and its parents as well…

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12 Days Of Dino December #51: Ice Road Terror (2011)

Another one that’s been long overdue, and not because of any specific reason, besides resulting absurdly elusive to find so far, outside of buying a used import DVD of it on Ebay, which was also unbelievably expensive, hence the post-poning until eventual availability.

That did came when i found the thing uploaded on Youtube in full some months ago, glad i didn’t blow 40 bucks or something on just the US DVD copy. Without the box.

Especially for what is literally just a random SyFy dinosaur movie, Ice Road Terror is nothing more than that, and in hindsight it might sound like a mockbuster of that Liam Neeson starring film, The Ice Road, but that came out a decade later, in 2021, the title of this – apparently – its meant to reference a TV series i’ve never heard before, called Ice Road Truckers.

This movie too is about “ice road truckers”, as in a couple of truckers that are driving through Alaska’s frozen rivers in order to deliver some equipment to a remote diamond mine in the region.

But on arrival they encountered a prehistoric creature that had been long dormant in the ice.

Typical.

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12 Days of Dino Dicember # 49: War Of The God Monsters AKA The Flying Monster (1985)

I know this is technically Giant Monster March material, but it’s Christmas, and kaiju are often dinosaurs in some way, so let’s have some technically correct fun with this obscure South-Korean kaiju film, The Flying Monster, better known as War Of The God Monsters because it is law for genre cinema films like these to have multiple titles.

1985 was definitely an interesting year for kaiju film as this was most likely made as a response to the North-Korean produced Bulgasari, itself made because of Return Of Godzilla debutting one year prior. Then King Kong Lives almost killed all of this new found momentum.

Directed by Jeong-yong Kim, War Of the God Monsters/ The Flying Monster (originally titled “Bicheongoesu “, which would translate literally to “(The) Undead Beast”), and it does somewhat still fits for Dino Dicember, the plot IS about a shunned professor trying to prove that dinosaurs still exist, with a young reporter trying to get a story from him.

But at it turns out, “Vegamunk” is right, as various giant dinosaurs (and a Pterodactyl kinda thing, the titular “flying monster” i suppose) suddendly appear, forcing the odd to confront the peril and find a way to save the world from the kaijusauruses.

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Christmas Bloody Christmas (2022) [REVIEW] | Mecha Santa MK-II

Okay, just ONE christmas themed slasher to review under the tenenbaum.

It is Christmas’ Eve, after all.

Also, not one of the more obvious one, yet not an oldie, so that brings us to 2022’s Christmas Bloody Christmas, which is an apt if generic title, unrelated to the Silent Night, Deadly Night series (even though it started as a remake of that one, which did get a remake-reboot released earlier this month) or Black Christmas, the 2020 reboot which i was denied seeing by local distributors saying it was coming to theathers here too…. it never did in any widespread way.

We’ll do that next year, i’m really not feeling it this time around, nor dumpster diving for another shitty Krampus film that might or not be about the Krampus.

No thanks, i’ll stick to something more recent and normal, like this film about a defective robot santa malfunctioning on Christmas’ Eve and starting a killing spree.

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[EXPRESSO] Knives Out: Wake Up Dead Man (2025) | Crusader: No Remorse

Sorry for this being later than planned, got sidetracked.

No limited theatherical screening for this one in my area, as with Del Toro’s Frankenstein. Bummer.

Master detective Benoit Blanc is back again for the third Knives Out film, Wake Up Dead Man, called upon to investigate another impossible murder mystery, this time teaming up with a zealous young priest to solve the mysterious murder in the church of a sleepy small town, itself harboring a sordid past that’s about to be uncovered.

If Glass Onion was a huge piss take on not-Elon Musk and his ilk, Wake Up Dead Man goes to a more classic murder mystery scenario type, the religion themed ones, foregoing taking the piss of techbros for taking on the modern realities for the Church and its struggles with new realities, that often are rejected and taken in stride to be more regressive, to harbor hateful, homophobic, fascist-spirited circlejerks of zealots ready to fight the “holy war on the heathens”.

As in, we don’t eat the rich, we eat the bigots as well, makes sense.

This time around we aren’t dropped into the aftermath but we spent a good amount of time characterizing the young priest struggle against the local monsignor and depicting the various, utterly despicable-pitiable soon-to-be-suspects, as Daniel Craig’s character doesn’t show up until 40 minutes in. He’s slightly less fancy this time around, but still a great genre savvy quirky genius detective as ever.

It helps this sequel (though like Glass Onion this can be enjoyed on its own) stand out for itself, which is kinda needed since it’s the third Knives Out film, and in short it’s indeed more of the same, it is what we’ve come to expect from the series, but damn, it’s still quite good, funny and fairly witty stuff.

[EXPRESSO] Alice In Borderland (Season Three) (2025) | Mistaah Jay

So, it’s one of those cases, as season 2 teased a “joker” card at the end, implying a continuation, despite the events seemingly having been wrapped up for good.

Fine, i guess, i assumed there were more volumes of the manga to draw from… there were not, Season 2 adapted that fully, and apparently this third season it’s not a direct adaptation of the sequel series, Retry, nor the prequel Border Road, though it (allegedly) takes some elements from those.

Years have passed, the survivors of “Borderland” have come back and forgot about the death games, moving on with their lives, but someone is bringing new people into that world, like a professor obsessed with the afterlife, while also stringing survivors from previous games back into the fray, including Arisu and Usagi….

It’s not even bad, but even just going blind into this third season there’s this air of contrived cop-out, it just feels like this wasn’t planned but imposed upon from the higher up that demanded another season of the show regardless, and so the writers had to wing it because “the content must flow”.

And to their credits, the new games (aside from the bullshit one with the fire arrows) are fun enough and do feel in line with the show, some of the new characters are somewhat interesting, but that and the crumbs of worldbuilding about “Borderland” aren’t enough to sustain or incite much curiosity, not helped by the timeskip that allows for some convenient off-screen characterization.

It just feels mostly unnecessary, existing because the series (allegedly) keeps breaking its own viewership records, and while it being shorter than the previous seasons is most likely for the best, i’m not gonna praise them for it since the ending teases a fourth one taking place abroad.

[EXPRESSO] Avatar: Fire And Ash (2025) | Cigarette Butts

Here we are again.

Somehow “disappointed”.

Sound silly, i know, the second one was admittedly a bit better than i expected and had some surprises in there… this one having a new Nav’i tribe of brutal savages (just short of being cannibals) isn’t enough to stave off boredom, but then again plot comes third or fourth more than usual this time around, taking a backset for just repeating almost verbatim the same plot beats of Way Of The Water, with some extra piles of new stuff that conveniently happens just because the script needs to -once again – free from capture these dumbass characters.

It’s pointless to be angry about an Avatar movie being another pile of shallow, utter nonsense, but this time around is even more boring dull nonsense that goes for a 3 hours equivalent of jiggling keys to infants, and it has framerate issues, which i don’t remember being a thing when i watched Way Of The Water in theathers just 3 years ago.

Maybe i got lucky back then, but regardless of how it looks that way, it’s distracting since it often fluctuates from looking like a big budget cutscene of a videogame, looking like we’re a HD camera feed from the set, looking actually cinematic, and so on.

It’s just insanely distracting and the added motion smoothing almost gave me a headache, and mind you, this was for a 2D screening.

I was reminded of something actually borderline unwatchable, Resident Evil: The Final Chapter, but the sentiment is there, as i wonder why Cameron keeps making tech demo movies for proven tech (or telling a worthwhile plot with this astounding technological prowess), or he just doesn’t go make videogames instead.

Not that anything of this matters, as people will go see this on droves anyway.

[EXPRESSO] The Thing With Feathers (2025) | Corvus Surplus

At first i thought this was the marketing trying to trojan horse this Benedict Cumberbatch movie as a horror film when in reality it was a thriller or something… and i almost wish it was the case.

Based on the short novella “Grief Is The Thing With Feathers” by Max Porter, this movie adaptation sees a recently widowed husband, left to raise his two kids after his wife suddendly passes away, and he has a breakdown, leading to him allucinating the giant crow-man from his drawings (he works as an illustrator for children books), which starts mocking his anguish but eventually become visible to his children too, and an oddly supportive force there to help the family move past their loss.

It’s like a benign take on Babadook, yet again, but the problem is that the film, despite good intentions and Cumberbatch trying his best, the characters and grief drama are so overdone, one note, and it being a horror does not help the concept, since it just goes for some cliched, cheap visuals and ill-fitting jumpscares, just a mesh of horror elements as token as the grief drama ones.

On one hand, i do like the scenes with the giant crowman, i do, even if just for visual entertaiment, since they do undermine any attempt at making the drama itself work, but on the other hand, the drama is undercooked anyway and it’s just too nice to work as a horror film either, so it feels stuck in between, not helped by the fact it’s also a bit of slog that goes exactly where you’d think it would, and just repeats itself over and over.

I don’t think this is a bad film, it means well, it tries but sadly it just doesn’t work either way you slice it.

[EXPRESSO] Lupin The IIIrd The Movie: The Immortal Bloodline (2025) | Mystery Of Monkey

So, i did decide to just go see this new Lupin The 3^rd film for funsies, i mean, i sure do love me some Lupin (and it’s a freakin institution here in Italy, so it’s already screening here), and is directed by Takeshi Koike, of Redline fame, i am in.

Problem is, i haven’t really kept up with Lupin many anime iterations, i’m more of a casual enjoyer, and this is meant as the conclusion of Koike’s “Lupin the IIIrd” subseries, maybe a send off for the character of Lupin itself, as it also takes story elements from the very first Lupin The 3^rd movie, The Mistery Of Mamo.

Not that you needed this digest as the movie does a handy recap, which also makes it obvious this isn’t a random Lupin movie at all, but for what concerns this film, is about Lupin & the gang being lured into an uncharted island by someone that knows them very well, and forced to face not only the island venomous mists, but an apparently immortal being known as “Muom”….

I don’t know if this will actually be the last Lupin III film ever, doubt it, but it’s the first one in 30 frigging years made in traditional animation, and it sure as hell looks great, even with the occasional 3D CG bits for the monsters, it’s very stilish, the action is great, but it’s also lacking on plot and character development, despite the very strong start the pacing also suffers as soon as the story does, so it ends up being “almost good” but nothing feels properly developed, more focused on being stylish old school pulp action (more serious in tone than “classic Lupin”), which it is still fun, but the film does ultimately suffer from it.

Decent, but kinda disappointing.

Platformation Time Again #6: New Joe & Mac: Caveman Ninja PS4

HISTORY

Fiction has more or less cemented the general vision of the prehistoric past as “caveman and dinosaurs” for entertaiment media as a whole, despite the fact our unshaven ancestors did not live at the same times as the dinosaurs, there’s no hunting down brachiosauruses when the things had gone extinct 65 millions years ago, or writing middling yet kinda charming newspaper comic strips (the fabled “western 4-koma”) that can change that.

But it was not reality; it was the 90s.

Indiana Jones discovered ancient shit every so often, and Jurassic Park ignited the dino craze… no, the dino mania, got the fever for these ancient creatures sky high, and Data East, a company mostly dealing in pinball machines but also occasionally videogames, was more than happy to oblige and carpe the dino diem quick and hot, by releasing Joe & Mac: Tatakae Genshijin (the original japanese subtitle translating roughly “Caveman Fight”), better known worldwive as Joe & Mac: Caveman Ninja or simply Caveman Ninja.

The “Ninja” in the title is there because the 80s craze with the japanese born assassins still made for attractive videogame marketing, as fun and crazy as it would have been to have a game subtitled “Caveman Ninja” to actually have caveman ninjas…it’s just marketing.

But boy it worked, as Joe & Mac proved to be a smash hit for Data East, a very big hit (so big you couldn’t avoid it going into arcades even in my country as well), so much that many ports followed for basically every system of the era, including the NES (which was quite old back then) and many home computers, not the usual for a Data East game, so much it cameoed in Tumblepop, had a spin-off in the vein of Tumblepop itself, Joe & Mac Returns and eventually spawned sequels.

For reasons i will explain later, this also – if indirectly – counts as a review of the original Joe & Mac: Caveman Ninja game that released in arcades and today can be found as a Switch download, part of the Johnny Turbo branded series of releases…. Well, could.

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