12 Days Of Dino Dicember #2: King Dinosaur (1955)

Ah yes, time to slip back into the comfy territory of “featured on MST3K” old 50 movies about dinosaurs, and of course when talking about MST3K featured flicks, Bert I. Gordon (or Mister BIG, as he was nicknamed by good ol’ Forrest J. Ackerman) is bound to be involved somewhat.

This is actually his first directed movie, followed 2 years later by Beginning Of The End, aka the one about giant locusts and “mantises in pantises”.

Sorry, getting back on track. Yeah, King Dinosaur marks Mister BIG’ first feature length work, after some television commercials, and let’s just say that its first step it’s already a good indication of him being incredibly cheap and fast in making a movie. And i mean both, as the movie was shot in a week, and was indeed cheap, since it has only 4 actors and it uses stock footage, not only for the scene of the mammoth’s attack it’s lifted from 1940’s One Million BC, but the army and the atom bomb explosions are just military stock footage, and there’s no cheaper than free.

Continua a leggere

[EXPRESSO] Diabolik (2021) | Pulp Noir

My final EXPRESSO review of the year, and – unless something unexpected happens, or the COVID shit gets worse here – my last cinema experience till next year, and it happens to be a movie that likely won’t mean or say much to anyone outside of Italy, as in a new cinematic adaptation of italian comic book series Diabolik, a pulp fiction tale written by the Giussani Sisters, set in the fictional city of Clerville that follows the titular Diabolik, a brilliant and ruthless master thief, aided by his partner & lover femme fatale Eva Kant, and pursued by police inspector Ginko.

While it’s one of the most popular and well known italian comic series ever, i feel most people remember the older 1968 adaptation by Mario Bava… but this new one it’s nothing like that, at all.

This new adaptation actually it’s more faithful to the earlier stories of the Diabolik series, as it depicts Diabolik itself as incredibly ruthless criminal, murdering everyone he can get away with in order to get what it wants and needs to pull off incredible heists, while continuosly slipping away from the grasp of the police and inspector Ginko, in what sounds like a Lupin III-esque dynamic but quite isn’t.

The plot isn’t an origin story but works quite well as an introduction the series as a whole, as it features Diabolik’s soon-to-be lover & partner Eva Kant. And while it’s a good adaptation, the acting its great and the style is good, the story itself leaves something to be desired (not that interesting) and the script it’s a bit bloated.

Still, even if flawed, it’s a realized adaptation by the Manetti Bros, who stuck to an actual vision they had, instead of trying to chase trends and ape modern comic book movies.

Monster On The Campus (1958) [REVIEW] | Coelacanth Jekyll & Hyde

Since today it’s Coelacanth Day, it’s the only time of the year when it’s “proper” to review the only b-movie about the coelacanth, you know, that primitive/living fossile fish that was thought to be extinct for decades, most likely you know it because it’s also the basis for the pokemon Relicanth.

And even that it’s quite tenous, because this isn’t the late 50s version of Bloody Waters of Doctor Z you might expect, even though we’re still going into psychotronic territory and a coelacanth fish it’s involved, with a college professor that acquires a newly discovered specimen of said fish, and an accidental exposition to its blood, which of course it’s radioactive due to gamma rays and the 50s.

Though this is really a triviality, given that this detail comes very late in the movie, i guess it had to be made a radioactive thing by the studio for marketing reasons, maybe not, but it’s indeed very 50s.

This somehow results in the college professor mutating back into a monstruous hominid-troglodyte that wreaks havoc on the campus, like a inner city Eegah minus the Arch Hall Jr.

Continua a leggere

Revisiting Satoshi Kon’s Tokyo Godfathers & the legacy of Keiko Nobumoto

Since Netflix is adding the movie to its catalogue in time for the season, i figured it was an excuse good as any to rewatch it, and yes, i’m totally gonna say you’re doing yourself a disservice by NOT watching it, especially since it’s available on the biggest streaming service worlwide.

You’ve got no excuse, so just go and watch/rewatch it, i’m not here trying to convince you if you should or should not do that. After all, this isn’t a review.

Continua a leggere

[EXPRESSO] House Of Gucci (2021) | This Is The Dynasty

House Of Gucci is not “accurate”, let’s make it abundantly clear.

It’s definitely an instance where it’s important to emphatize the “inspired by real events” disclaimer, because this isn’t “All The Money In The World” Ridley Scott, this is him going full soap/telenovelas on the real life Gucci family feud that started in the 70s and culminated in 1995, with Patrizia Reggiani ordering the assassination of Maurizio Gucci, her husband and also the entrepreneur & president of the Gucci fashion firm.

The story here is presented with the focus on Patrizia introducing herself to Maurizio as a way to get into the Gucci family business, then manipulating and orchestrating the Guccis to turn against each other in order to force the hand of Maurizio in taking rein of the company, despite him starting out as totally indifferent to his heritage and without any true ambition to get involved in it.

She basically turn what start out as fairly decent people into monsters for her own ambition and ruthless desire for dominance, and at one point a tarot card reader is involved, etc.

This is a 2 hour soap opera with a huge movie budget, make no mistake about it, that it’s the main tone of House Of Gucci, as a bombast story about the rise and fall of a dynasty (pun not intended but fitting nonetheless), with very little interest in realism, given the odd – and i feel deliberate – direction some of the cast was given, as some actors feel like they’re acting in a completely different movie, like an unrecognizable Jared Leto in overacting overdrive as “Gucci’s Fethry Duck”.

Despite the sometimes inconsistent tone and it being really trashy, there’s a magnetic kitsch charm to it all, great performances, and it’s massively entertaining all the way through.

[EXPRESSO] Dos (2021) | Flesh Sewn Shut

Browsing Netflix new releases and this caught my eyes, i mean, the simple title made me curious and i’m always in when it’s a spanish horror thriller about two complete strangers waking up to found themselves literally sewn together and placed into a room.

It’s not human-to-walrus surgery, but i will indulge regardless, it’s also fairly short, clocking just above 60 minutes (plus credits), quite surprising some other bloated films Netflix has as exclusives.

It has definitely an arthouse feel (the finale with the title reveal it’s really indicative of director Mar Taragona’s ambition), but the bold decision to compact it all in a shorter runtime pays off in spades, both for impact and in cutting out the fat from the narrative.

The main mystery keeping the story going is the identity of the culprit, and of course the purpose of joining together two people by literally sewning their flesh together, which is ultimately not the Saw-esque random ass gruesome torturer with a deviant penchant for justice and retribution you might think it’s gonna be revealed. It’s not that… exactly, and it’s a shame because the script never properly explore the themes it tackles, nor manages to fully utilize the isolated setting and premise, going for an arthouse ending, with some impact but ultimately not that satisfactory.

A shame since the movie is already intriguing before that, with plenty of questions and the grisly circumstances, while the two are trying to make sense of the really uncomfortable – even more since they’re butt naked – situation they’re in, leading to some good drama and time spent with this likeable and relatable “surprise duo”.

Shame it hasn’t much depth to it as it clearly wanted, (i’d guess it was originally meant to be a lot longer), but it’s a decent watch.

[EXPRESSO] Netflix’s Cowboy Bebop (Season One) (2021) | It’s time we blow

I was gonna make a full review, but then realized it wasn’t deserving of it.

Often you see people wondering who the hell is the target for live action adaptations of anime series that etched theirselves as classics, even more when it’s a series that become a hit even outside the anime circles, so you can’t really pull the snarky excuse “no normal people have seen the thing”.

In this case, i feel no one, because it’s incredible how they managed to create something that not only the fans will despise but newcomers will just find bad, and wonder why the hell people liked Cowboy Bebop to begin with.

An adaptation of an anime that should actually work better than most in live action, but manages to be a genuine complete wreck.

It’s also a live action adaptation made by and for people that scoff at anime, because that sentiment it’s made pretty much manifest by the many changes made to excuse, justify or alter many elements and expand on stuff regardless if it makes sense or if it’s good.

This was always gonna be different from the original, but this is such a witless, soulless, boring, badly paced and barely recognizable adaptation that fundamentally misunderstands the material and it’s willing do any random garbage with it, hypocritically treating the original as gospel but without really respecting it, or even understanding it, not really caring too much to anyway.

The fairly cheap CG it sparely uses to remember you it’s technically set in space doesn’t help. I seriously hope the budget for the One Piece live action they’re also working is higher than this.

The cast it’s quite good and does an unbelievable job, but they can’t save this pitiable, hackneyed, utterly ill-conceived trash from itself. Don’t even bother hatewatching it.

Ninja Operation 4: Thunderbolt Angels AKA Ninja Power Force (1988) [REVIEW] | Gangsta Code Of Ninja Honour

Ok, one more, and yes, this is a brand new review, we’re just “going backwards” in the non-existent Ninja Operation series, as we previously talked about Godfather The Master, a ninja flick that was released as “Ninja Operation 5: Godfather The Master”, and now we tackle “part 4”, aka another Ho ninja potpourri that was originally titled Ninja Power Force (or Powerforce, whatever floats your boat), and eventually got the alternate title of “Thunderbolt Angels”.

Despite not featuring any of those, as we all could guess by now, pretty easy to do.

One thing that i did not fully expect it’s the absolute scarcity of informations on what film had Ho “hijacked” for his ninjas means this time, IMDB has no info on the matter, thankfully the Hong Kong Movie Database came to the rescue and i was able to determine it’s a 1986 taiwanese action drama called “The Return/Return Home”, not to be confused with another taiwanese movie from 2016, also called “The Return”.

Don’t say you never learn anything from these reviews.

Continua a leggere

[EXPRESSO] The French Dispatch (2021) | Tales From Ennui-sur-Blasè

Yes, i was quite excited when this was announced, i love me some Wes Anderson, especially when he’s doing stopmotion animation, but the live action casts for his movies have everyone in them, so i’m willing to “overlook” the issue time, though i’m not entirely sure about William Dafoe not being made out of clay to some degree.

After his japanese themed envorimental tale of samurai dogs, this time we’re dealing with a story about the world of journalism, as an anthology of stories adapted from the fictional “The French Dispatch Magazine”, here presented as a “real” side column to the Kansas-based paper “The Evening Sun”, originally conceived for travel logs and such but eventually got big and based itself in the little french town of “ Ennui-sur-blasè”, attracting the best journalists from all over the globe.

All framed as the newspaper founder dies and by his will the French Dispatch itself will close, with the writers and staff selecting the best stories for the last issue of the magazine itself, ranging to a student protest to a romance between a psychotic prisoned artist and his warden.

As you can guess, expect and tell, this sound indeed like an ensemble cast for a huge “vignette variety hour” on the subject of journalism, promising all the zany quirks of Wes Anderson’s eccentric directing and writing style… and sure as hell you’re not gonna change opinion on his works with The French Dispatch, which plays to all the strenghts and flaws of Wes Anderson with even more vigor than before, for best or worst.

Personally i loved it, but i think it’s fair to say it could have been better.

Especially since we have reasons to expect a lot.

Even so, at the very worst it’s good, so i do recommend it.

[EXPRESSO] Last Night In Soho (2021) | Perfect Bleach

Eloise, grown up with her grandmother due to her mother’s suicide, arrives in London with the dream of becoming a stylist, with the myth of the Swinging London and 60s music she listens to on her old portable jukeboxs. After an unhappy experience while training at the school she was admitted to, she moves to an apartment in Soho rented to her by an old lady.

There, Elosie dreams of traveling to the past, to the romanticized London she worships, and there she meets Sandie, an aspiring singer living the glamour and the excitement of a colorful hip city.

Slowly Elosie keeps confusing her own personality with Sandie, learning about the squallor and misery of her real life, continously slipping between nightmare and reality, leading Elosie to “witness” a murder that happened in the past.

If this sounds like it could be described Edgar Wright’s Perfect Blue via Hitchcock and a not insignificant amount of supernatural horror elements… it’s not quite that, but it’s hard not to draw some comparisons and notice some of the inspirations (and i wanna avoid spoilers), even if at the end the result definitely feels like something Wright would direct, as -aside his use of music for stylish fair and editing’ sake- it pulls off something noteworthy and incredibly easy to fuck up, especially the horror elements would have been so easy to mishandle with disastrous effects.

But as one would expect of the director, nothing feels out of place in Last Night In Soho, the cast it’s great as expected, the atmosphere is consistently unsettling and the script plays some good tricks and delivers a pretty good twist, remaining enthralling all the way through his 2 hour runtime.

It’s pretty great, so good see it while it’s still in theathers.

Definitely a must watch.