Spy X Family: Code White (2023) | Alpine Capers

So, the Spy X Family movie, which feels kinda odd to see release in most territories (EU and english speaking ones) now in late April, as it debuted Dicember 2023 in japanese theathers, an and it’s very easy to notice it was meant as a winter/Christmas release, because of it taking place in a faux-Switzerland-esque city and the tone of a winter holiday vacation.

Not having watched further than Season 1, i was a bit worried to accidentally spoil myself, but this is a non-canonical original story…… that actually doesn’t even really need you to have watched Spy X Family at all, as it introduces the main characters and quickly explains the gist (which i won’t for time’s sake) anyway, you will miss some context for some side characters, but there’s nothing that you can’t catch on the fly by watching the movie.

The plot has the Forger family go into a vacation in the nearby alpine and Switzerland-esque town of Frigis in order to get the recipe for a cake that will make Anya pass the cooking exam at her prestigious school, in turn advancing her career and letting Lloyd get closer to the target of the secret operation he undertook and formed the family for.

But things go south when Anya accidentally gets imbroiled with the army and discovers their plan to undo the fragile peace between non-East Germany and non-West Germany…

It’s a fun time, but it could have been easily a 2 parts long special episode instead, very little feels “cinematic” until deep in the second act, but even in terms of animation quality there’s little (some brief dream sequences, mostly) that feels like this “needed” to be a movie.

Still quite cute and wholesome as is the series itself, but nothing really impressive either way.

[EXPRESSO] Wish (2023) | “Feel the power of my MAAAGICKK!”

I was gonna skip this entirely, but since this is the animated film Disney chose to celebrate the company 100^th anniversary, i feel bound to cover it.

And it’s a special movie, but for the all the wrong reasons, as it’s a perfect crystalization of the company’s modern status, where the movie you’d rather see is the one lost in the original drafts, not the final product apparently assembled by focus groups and marketing than imagined by creatives.

The plot is about a guy named Magnifico that learned magic and created an ideal city, Rosas, on a island somewhere in the Mediterranean Sea, where he rules and fulfills the wishes his citizens entrust him.

But not all wishes can be granted, as her apprentice-to-be Asha founds out when the wish of his 100 yo granpa is still unfulfilled, then she accidentally summons a real star, making Magnifico paranoid enough to use a book of forbidden magic…

It’s a very arrogant movie that isn’t interested in pleasing its viewers, too busy up its own arse pulling a disgusting amount of Disney references and stuck wallowing in nostalgia to the detriment of everything else, while also exhibiting all the negative-cliched traits associated with Disney animated films, like overuse of musical segments, the talking animals, etc.

Plus it’s just plain uninspired, derivative, boring, the characters are utterly uninteresting and istantly forgettable, and while there was some potential, it’s all brought down by a senseless “magic system” that’s at the center of the story, even diegetically makes little to no sense and renders the final message moot.

The animation is good (even if the style reminds one of a 3DCG Netflix anime) and it’s a short sit, but this is just utter, recycled, cynical mediocrity that’s almost insulting coming from Disney, even modern Disney.

[EXPRESSO] Gamera: Rebirth (2023) | Stand By My Gamera

Lil G is back after 15 years of official silence… and it’s a Netflix animated series by the co-director of the Godzilla anime film trilogy, with similar 3D CG animation, despite being handled by ENGI (Kemono Michi, Uzaki-chan Wants To Hang Out) and not Polygon Pictures.

We’re not starting on the right foot, but it’s not like Gamera fans can be picky, this is the first official anything since 2006’s Gamera The Brave, though the premise gave me ‘Nam flashbacks of Gamera Super Monster, since it has my boy face off against 5 old foes, including his arch nemesis Gyaos, over the course of 40 minutes long 6 episodes.

The series is set in the summer of 1989′ Japan, with a group of young boys (six-graders) that have their savings stolen by a bully nicknamed “Brody”, the son of an American army commander, confront him, then a giant monster, Gyaos, attacks Tokyo, but the children are saved by another giant monster, dubbed Gamera.

It’s basically a kaiju gauntlet of sorts, with the human side of the story feeling very Stand By Me-ish but also fitting in theme of Gamera being linked to children, proposing a reinvention of the character and franchise that mixes elements from the old Showa era films with the beloved Heisei trilogy, meaning it’s not actually intended for kids at all, as the plot unfolds more in the ways of conspiracies and dark secrets.

And both the plot and characters are surprisingly compelling, making for a good series in spite of studio ENGI trying to emulate Godzilla Singularity Point’s animation as well… but with lesser results of awkard, stiff looking animated 3D CG humans, when the monsters do look good, sport some great redesigns, and their fights – even if often brief – are indeed quite good.

Interdit Aux Chiens Et Aux Italiens (No Dogs Or Italians Allowed) AKA Manodopera (2022) | Piedmotion Animation

A french-italian stopmotion animation, already a white fly, and for less than 4 bucks due a nationwide italian & european cinema initiative? Say no more, i’m so gonna see this, even more as it won a prize at Annecy 2022’s edition.

This is basically the director, Alain Ughetto, tracing back his italian ancenstry, depicting the lives of his grandfather and family of farmers that back in early 1900’s moved from their small mountain village in Piedmont (dubbed affectionally as “Ughetterra”, the land of the Ughettos), crossing the Alps to start a new life in France, in search of any menial or dangerous labor that they could do, their eventual rise to small land-owners, and their nomad lifestyle due to labor but also – among other things – the rise of the Fascism in Italy.

This is told in an amusing and wholesomw fashion, that not so much breaks the fourth wall but use it as a “portal” tool to deliver the narrative, as the director-animator narrates and creates the stopmotion sets, its characters, directly interacts with them (like letting his hand into frame to hand a character a tiny hammer), but frames it as a dialog with his grandmother that recounts the chronicles of the family through the decades, encompassing many heavy subjects as wars, epidemics, racism, clerical hypocrisy, but also the joyful moments (and some fun meta gags).

It’s a really intimate, charming and emotional portrait of turn of the centhury italian immigrants bound to a rough life of difficulties, of split loyalties and fractured national identities due to family always living – often literally – on the borders, malincholic but also fond of having a few laughs and exactly as long as it needs to be, even if that means on the shorter side of things.

Warmly recommended.

[EXPRESSO] Elemental (2023) | Avatar reference here

I’ll be honest: since the teaser trailer i had very low expectations for Elemental, and frankly the marketing didn’t make it any better, as it either led you to believe that this is Zootropolis again, but with the themes of racial prejudice and coexistence made even more ouvert by just making the elements people. And it’s also a simplistic. gimmicky variation on Romeo and Juliet.

And while there is some truth to those assumptions…. to be honest, this is far from the worse or insipid we’ve seen from Pixar lately.

For example, it’s mostly a story about first generation immigrants (Korean immigrants, as it’s a personal story for the director himself), a couple of “fire people” moving to Element City, and her daughter, Ember, divided between inheriting the store of her parents, who worked themselves to the bone, and following her passion and potential career, with the disruptive force igniting all this being a water guy, Dave, a safety inspector whom accidentally enters the shop, finds and reports the many safety violations, but then wants to help Ember avoid the city shutting down the store, and eventually they fall in love as they get to know each other.

It’s fun, quite pleasing, the romance it’s not original but it’s cute enough, Elemental it’s a decent film overall, but it’s also indicative of the troubled state of Pixar, as they exhaust their formula to the point the criticisms stopped being hyperboles and became truths, the whole concept is overly simple to the point it hurts its own worldbuilding and almost completely undermines its own themes, the premise is Zootropolis but the racism allegory makes even less sense in context, and while the character are fun and the animation is impressive as expected… we have seen this done better countless times before.

[EXPRESSO] Spider Man: Across The Spiderverse (2023) | Peter Parter

This review it’s only a formality, but yes, indeed, i had high expectations of this new Spider Man animated movie after Into The Spiderverse was a surprise smash hit, an unexpected excellent opus from an animation studio mostly known for Hotel Transylvania and The Angry Birds movie.

We never saw it coming, but it happened and while it had the side effect of making the live-action Marvel offerings kinda redundant and pointless, i would have been happy even if there wasn’t a sequel, despite being no reason to stop there, i mean, we got the new origin story/introduction of Miles Morales as one of the many Spider Man personas, the studio was gonna follow that up regardless.

This sequel to Into The Spiderverse also follows in the recent resurgence of “two parters” (giving even more proof that time is a flat circle, at least in terms of entertaiment media), and in this “part 1” we see Miles (and Gwen) venture deeper into the multiverse of various Spider personas from many dimensions/universes, meeting a new team of “Spidersonas” known as Spider Society, led by Miguel O’Hara (aka Spider Man 2099), but instead of collaborating they end up clashing in regards of how to deal with the villain at hand.

And honestly it meets the high expectations set by the previous movie, delivering a lot of inspired visuals, variety of animation styles and stylization, new charming and likable characters, plus the story dwelves deeper into the multiverse aspect, Miles’ role in this, so even if it ends on a cliffhanger for “part 2”, it’s not just 2 hours and 1/2 of setup, it’s already very very good as expected, and again it manages to make you really care even if you weren’t already much invested in Spiderman his many comic book incarnations/iterations.

Pinocchi-O-Rama # 5: The Adventures Of Pinocchio AKA Un Burattino Di Nome Pinocchio (1972)

Don’t let the deceptive and common international title that’s often attached to many Pinocchio films, or the fact it came out in 1972, the same year as the popular italian TV miniseries of the same name (later edited as a compilation film) by acclaimed director Luigi Comencini.

This is actually a different adaptation, originally titled “Un Burattino Chiamato Pinocchio” ( lit. “ A Puppet Called Pinocchio”), that’s also the more recognized work of italian animator-director Giuliano Cenci, whom at the time was hailed as the “italian Walt Disney”, and he almost was if the distributors didn’t fuck him over, with a fuckin mess of indipendent regional releases that basically doomed financially the film.

It was so badly handled that at a time, in Florence, it was seen playing in a red-lights cinema called Arlecchino, which of course wasn’t where families went for a movie time with the kids.

To say nothing of how the movie managed to reach Egypt as an unauthorized bootleg they pilfered from the Italian Embassy. XD

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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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[EXPRESSO] Demon Slayer: Prelude To The Swordsmith Village (2023) | Stock Breathing Style (UPDATED)

Okay, i’m not gonna sugarcoat it, this feels a bad joke to pull on the audience.

Sure, this was billed as a compilation film of the second season with the juicy carrot being the inclusion of the first episode from Season 3 of the Demon Slayer anime (covering the Swordsmith Village Arc), which will be airing normally this April, i’m not complaining about that.

But it’s not a compilation of the second season, it’s actually the final 3 episodes of Season 2 plus the never seen before episode 1 of the upcoming third season, and i would question it even being a compilation film, since they did slap the aforementioned episodes together, didn’t even bother to cut out endings, title cards, eyecatches or do any noticeable edits for better narrative flow.

I can kinda understand why only these episodes, as they sports movie level quality animation and are even better to see on the big screen, but this is supposed to be a compilation movie, so it’s a matter of editing… and even then i struggle to use that word, as they mostly added a brief gist of what the series it’s about in form of text over reused footage, and recycled the opening songs over very brief montages of battles and events leading to the action packed finale of the Entertaiment District arc, which you’re thrown upon.

Could have added some voice over narration here and there to give more context than zero or actually summarize the events leading to that, insteading of bugger all.

At least it’s not an extra pricey theathrical release, but still, this is lazy and bad even for a compilation film, complete cashgrab.

Even if episode 1 of Season 3 is quite good, just wait for the season to air regularly as it will.

EDIT 14/03/2022: i was made aware that the original trailer for the movie DID specify the contents as the movie just being the last 2 episodes of Season 2 plus the first one of Season 3, i didn’t know that since why bother seeing the trailer for a recap movie, and many news outlets didn’t quite specify what exactly was in the movie (the ones here in Italy just advertisedit as “recap movie of the Entertaiment District Arc” or something generic and non-descriptive, for once).

So i upgraded my rating to Americano to refelect, as in, it’s at least what they advertised, though this doesn’t fix the fact it was clearly marketed in a vague way by many news outlets (by choice, a malicious person might suggest), nor my complains about it lacking any kind of basic edit of the reused footage,

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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