As previously hinted, i will be taking a weekly break from any and all posts on here, from August 11 until August 17, to also celebrate some holidays here.
That’s about it, see ya next for the a couple more reviews before the break!
Another dip into Netflix fresh batch, this time a German sci-fi thriller about aging that tries to mesh In Time and Children Of Men, with the plot set in a dystopian future where people can “donate their time” in order to receive big money (without the big prizes), the years taken converted into a serum that transfers the “timespan” to the receiver, often rich people.
Basically a more boring sci-fi version/application of the Soul Soul Devil Fruit eaten by Big Mom, but whatever, i can roll with it.
When the protagonist wife has to pay her debts with personal belongings that include 40 years (due to their insurance not covering the apartment accidentally catching fire), her husband swears to take them back, eventualling bumping into Aeon, the terroristic organization that opposes this controversial procedure, especially the rich gaming the system in their favour.
It sounds interesting enough on paper, but this is undeed the textbook example of “surface deep” sci-fi thriller that wants to touch upon heavy themes… as in, just “touch” and never really explore anything to any degree of nuance, or flesh out its worldbuilding, so it can focus on its basic “employee of evil megacorp is wronged and then turns against it for revenge” plot.
it’s also a 2 hours filmwith a slow pacing and characters that are mostly cliched, like the corpos villains that are evil because the narrative demands it, not that the heroes are any better.
The frustratingly open ending further grounds Paradise into disappointing mediocrity, direction is solid and makes for a movie that’s not boring, but has untapped potential as the script overdoses on clichès instead of attempting any nuanced exploration of the subjects its plot brings up, itself constructed with ideas borrowed from better films.
Still, watchable, at the very least.
From the director of Dracula Untold, a maritime horror movie that’s also technically a Halloween movie too, since it shifts between 2 (well, two and a half, to be correct) main storylines taking place on the titular ship, now sitting as a tourist historical attraction rife with horrific past events, like the massacre that happened on the Queen Mary during Halloween of 1938, where the father of a family of entertainers went on an unmitigated killing spree.
In modern times, the Calder family visit the ship for a business trip, but the young child comes across some of the ghosts that haunt the luxury translantic, and in an attempt to save the lost soul of their boy, the Calders enter the ship again to try and learn of his terrible secrets and centhury old mysteries that are more than “spook tour material”…
I was honestly pleasantly surprised by this one, though this lead to some frustration as the set-up it’s good, it’s great, it’s rife with potential but the execution kinda stumbles, with the direction being uneven and falling back on jumpscares or cliches even though it doesn’t really needs it, having already established a solid atmosphere and having some fairly tense sequences.
The 1938 sections are by far the more interesting, visually intriguing, and while the narration does a solid job in slowly revealing how the massacre went down back then and what it implies for the modern day events… these often aren’t as strong in terms of either story, action or characters, feeling overall kinda uneven, and some questionable choices (like how the “dream scenes” are shown and the direction lacking confidence at times) stop this one to being straight up good.
Still, as it is, The Haunting Of The Queen Mary it’s a decent-and-above supernatural horror thriller.
If we’re talking about comics, we all known where Pinocchio comes to mind, though indirectly, as “The God Of Manga” Osamu Tezuka was inspired by Disney’s adaptation of Carlo Collodi’s book, and wanted to create a “reverse 21th Centhury Pinocchio”, a robotic boy already created to be as close as possible to perfection. I really don’t need to introduce Astro Boy, do i?
Tezuka would eventually do his own manga adaptation of Pinocchio, which would be interesting, but maybe too obvious, so we’re not reviewing that or Astro Boy.
Nope, we’re going for something far more recent, and pay visit to what i feel it’s an underestimated country in terms of comics, South Korea, that while it did get inspired by Japan’s anime/manga style and legacy, managed to create something distinct or similar but possessing its own personality and soul, dubbed as “manwha” for shorthand.
Though one could be forgiven to think that mostly it’s a matter of where its coming from instead of the content itself, given we had many distincly “manga” series come out from european or non-japanese artists (an easy example is Tony Valente’s Radiant), and the more successful/publicized often are aimed to the same age demographic as shonen mangas, or belong to popular genre trends.
But for each “God Of High School”, we have more unique work, like Hyung Min-woo’s western horror themed Priest, inspired by Monolith Productions FPS game BLOOD.
While a number of manwha series were and are given print editions in many countries (including Italy and France), the most common way to consume and access manwha in both its country of origin and international is “the internetz” and sites like Webtoon.
Continua a leggere “Pinocchi-O-Rama #7: Gepetto (Manwha)”
Told you we’re gonna do this dance again, and i feel now it’s the time to address some of the issues left unchallenged and unchanged, as anyone with any foresight could have told you before.
I guess the catalyst for new lamentations is the new blockbuster releases mostly doing very bad, regardless of quality or marketing employed, as even movies coming from recognizable and renowed studios and carrying recognized names and brands come out to basically big box office woes most of the time, in what most people have accetted as a “post-Covid 19” world, even in countries where it’s still far from over because reality and consequences and such.
Because i’m a dumbass, instead of making a thumbnail with a load of nonsensical buzzwords on it for a “video essay” (really, words mean nothing anymore to a certain subset of creatures) that’s somehow longer than the movie it discuss… i’m gonna say it’s obvious this wanna gonna happen.
Even if we collectively agreed to pretend the pandemic is over everywhere and forever, even pretending and disgarding the argument/issue as a thing of the past, this newly found “box office bombagery” should really not surprise anyone that has been to theathers more than once in recent years.
To avoid repeating what i said before, i’m just gonna link the previous editorial so you can check that out instead. Consider this an addendum more than a “follow up”.
Continua a leggere “The Cinema Show Experience Debate Cycle (2nd Round)”
To celebrate the second return of Futurama on TV (even if i’m not expecting much given how these modern resurrections-continuations of beloved animated TV series-franchises, but who knows, i’m remaining cautiously semi-optimistic), time to take a look at its forgotten – and by now quite rare – PS2/X-Box tie-in videogame, simply called “Futurama”.
And what it might as well be the only Futurama videogame, since there’s not much to say about the mobile only Futurama: Worlds Of Tomorrow, besides it being a cheap and shallow cash grab akin to many other free-to-play tycoon simulators, like Simpsons Tapped Out, maybe a little more complete since it had a combat system in it from the start, but still, mostly a shallow time waster very heavy on aggressively try to make you fork out cash for anything of “substance” available.
Then again, it’s not like you can play it anymore, the servers were closed for real (as in they were announced to be closing in 2022) this year on the 9th of March.
Continua a leggere “Futurama PS2 [REVIEW] | … With Blackjack and Hookers”
For once i’m glad here in Italy we don’t get movie releases as the US do, because Oppenheimer is releasing in late August here, so i can bury that stupid “Barbenheimer” shit.
So, the Barbie movie, by renowed director Greta Gerwig, it’s definitely something i’d been looking forward since announcement, wondering what the fuck the plot of a live-action Barbie movie could be, this isn’t aimed at children like the dozens of animated Barbie movies we’ve seen over the years, at all.
The basic gist is similar to Enchanted, as we’re introduced to Barbieland, a world where Barbies live perfect days, party and have fun in perpetuity… until the “Stereotype Barbie” (Margot Robbie) has an existential crisis, seek help from the wise old “Weird Barbie” that tells her she has to go to the real world and reconnect with the girl that played with her in order to fix the situation. Problem is, Mattel itself learns that “Barbie has breached contaiment”, and one of the Kens (Ryan Gosling) sneaks away into the real world too…
It’s a feminist comedy that use the brand to tackle the obvious themes you’d think, in modern ouvert (and very meta) fashion as expected and… well, neeeded, because at this point we know audiences can be quite “thick”, but it’s as brazen as it’s funny and caring in poking fun, showing a profound love of cinema in doing so, with some really nice musical segments and amazing sets.
It’s not perfect, for example the main plot is basically resolved 40 minutes in and then it kinda feels like they had to follow a “b-plot” for the sake of the runtime, the feminism itself it’s slightly superficial (not shallow, but not deep either), but even with its flaws, it’s a really sincere, entertaining and witty film.
I eventually had to find out this existed, because words like “sequels” don’t mean anything anymore, even more when we dwelve in the “homegrown/DIY” territory of the shark movies, where one name echoes through the vast oceans, Mark Polonia, and he stands atop of his carboard throne, commanding beasts of papermaciè and plastic (and whatever the budget can afford) to fend off the rare adventurers setting off in the desperate quest for the homegrown crown.
So powerful he is that only he can received the task of doing a sequel of a low budget shark movie he didn’t originally make, as Jurassic Shark was directed and produced by Brett Kelly, but that isn’t even the stranger thing about Jurassic Shark 2: Aquapocalypse.
That would be this one standing as the “official” sequel, as Brett Kelly also directed Raiders Of The Lost Shark, which was a surprise kind of sequel to Jurassic Shark, as i discussed when reviewing it.
But this one gets to have the Jurassic Shark name and slap a 2 on the end, for whatever reason, and so it kinda surprising the plot has anything to do with the first, as the oil company from the first movie (whom accidentally released the megalodon) is back and wanting to drill for oil of the coast of Cat Island (not that one), and its up to the workers of the oil rig – that accidentally discover the beast – to try and save what they can from its unfeeling jaws… And its amazing inflatable fin.
Continua a leggere “Jurassic Shark 2: Aquapocalypse (2021) [REVIEW] | Sequelgeddon #sharksncrocspartdeux”
To celebrate the release of the long awaited Pikmin 4, i’m revisiting Pikmin 3 in its Deluxe port (that does include all its previously release DLC) on Switch, after originally beating on Wii U (yes, i was one of those who owned the thing when it was yet “current gen”) years ago.
I could have chosen Hey Pikmin!, but i haven’t gotten around to play that yet, and after devouring the Pikmin 4 demo, i’m willing to get some proper Pikmin fix, so Pikmin 3 is it.
An introduction feels kinda superflous since by this point in time Pikmin is arguably a mainstay Nintendo series, not one of the most famous, but far from niche and obscure, yet i guess i could be utterly brief in describing them as a floreal theme space adventure-RTS hybrid where you control one of many “potato shaped” humanoids that explore space for some noble cause or desperate struggle, and crashland into planets where they get saved and helped by a weird breed of “planimals” called Pikmins, which become your little army, ready to pounce on enemies, destroy obstacles, gather resources and basically depending on your decisions to prosper alongside you.
Pikmin 3’s plot follows a new squad of characters (a trio this time around) that hail from planet Koppai and are on a mission to locate a new planet to combat the increasing caresty going on, as they keep scanning planets to no avail, until, at last, they find one that’s full of food, but their ship mysteriously crashlands, ejecting them in various parts of the planet.
Along the way to reunite and gather food resources with the help of the Pikmins, they also need to locate Captain Olimar (the protagonist of the first Pikmin) for a engine key, and stumble upon Louie (introduced as Olimar’s assistant in Pikmin 2) along the way, because this is also a direct sequel, oddly enough.
Continua a leggere “Pikmin 3 Deluxe NSWITCH [REVIEW] | Famine Quest”
That ol’ darn Ethan Hunt is at it again, with the seventh installment of the Mission Impossible movie series, or its first part, because – as it should be clear by now – the two parter trend is back for mainstream big budget movies released in theathers. Heck, even Fast And Furious did it!
But if you had somewhat lukewarm or mixed expectations about Dead Reckoning, especially when it also follows the other trend of making movies even longer than before, inching ever so close to that dreaded 3 hours runtime…. well, Dead Reckoning Part 1 will put those to rest, because it’s actually a rare treat, in a way, both as the new installment of a very long running series that remained mostly constant in tone and style, but also as a demonstration that this kind of blockbuster action thriller movie can still be done today and actually impress audiences.
First, the plot it’s actually very modern (though a decade before would have been considered pure sci-fi), with an advanced learning IA that went rogue, became sentient, then made its incredible power of changing reality known, thus starting a race between nations for the only item that can give control over this almost-omnipotent entity.
Ethan Hunt and his crew are enlisted too, but they realize that to do the right thing they will have to go rogue themselves, given the unbelievably high stakes at play.
In a way there’s – mostly – nothing we haven’t seen before, but the execution is so good, the dedication to not cut corners and actually use the budget where it matters, especially the incredible stuntwork, there’s just so much obvious committment to make this as intense, suspensful and entertaining as possible, while not making the long runtime feel excessive.
Quite a blast, honestly.
Wise Cafe (International) 