[EXPRESSO] Diabolik 3: Diabolik, Chi Sei? (2023) | Flashback Finale

Teased at the end of Ginko Attacks!, the new and final movie of the Manetti Bros. Diabolik trilogy recently hit theathers here, titled “Diabolik- Chi Sei?” (Diabolik, Who Are You?).

Given how i loathed Ginko Attacks, i watched the new film mostly for completition’s sake… and this one it’s a little better, but it has its own set of issues.

The plot sees a new criminal gang arise in Clarville, proving to be even more ruthless than Diabolik itself, much to the dismay of officer Ginko, whom loses one of his most trusted men to the gang, and is later held hostage… alongside a captive Diabolik. So its up to Ginko’s love interest, Countess Altea, to seek help from Diabolik’s partner in life & crime, Eva Kant, in order to save them.

Sounds decent but the idea it’s undermined by how quickly this new gang can capture Diabolik, the supposed master of crime, how once again most of the work is up to Eva Kant more than Diabolik itself, even worse this time around, as Diabolik’s main contribution is chatting with Ginko and telling him his origin story. In the third fuckin movie of the trilogy, mind you.

The origin story itself it’s more interesting than the actual plot of the movie, which feels thin, so why not at this point spend a third of the movie on that to reach a 2 hours runtime. The kinda anticlimactic actual resolution of the whole gang subplot doesn’t help either.

Like the other two modern Diabolik movies, this one too perfectly captures the style and mood of the comics, but it kinda forgots you maybe should adapt the decades old stories for modern audiences, or actually try to improve them for the big screen.

This one it’s mediocre and not much else.

[EXPRESSO] Home Education (2023) | Bone Flute Lullaby

I’ve discussed the stigma attached to modern italian horror movies before, but despite the fact there’s very little horror movies that get made and get some kind of theathrical release (or even a streaming one), despite those that manage to emerge being often pretty bad and/or confusingly disinterested in being horror movies to begin with… it’s worth giving them a shot, because sometimes you do get a movie like Home Education, written and directed by Andrea Niada.

The premise centers about a weird family living in the middle of the woods, with the father passing down/indoctrinating his family in his esoteric cultish beliefs, so much that when he dies, the daughter and mother preserve his body and perform a series of obscure rituals (including the daughter using a bone flute to search for her father’s soul) as they think that in doing so and believing, REALLY believing in them, the father will come back from the world of the dead.

The mother especially pushes these beliefs on her daughter, whom she home schools, but the friendship with a young metal head boy will make the daughter question everything that she was taught, proving to be a potential obstacle for the resurrection ritual….

It’s a creepy and far from banal premise that does not go where you’d think it will, it manages to feel constantly creepy, with a great atmosphere, some solid and stylized effects that “give away” this having some financial baking, as it’s well presented but actually manages to make the most out of a limited number of characters, few locations, that limited but “effective if used right” deal, which the movie nails, making you on edge and guessing up until the great ending.

A really damn good surprise, one worth watching if/when it gets distributed outside of Italy.

[EXPRESSO] A Haunting In Venice (2023) | Halloween Party

The adventures of world renowed french master detective Hercules Poirot continue in the new installment of Brannagh’ series of Agatha Christie adaptations, with Haunting In Venice.

Retired from the world and any kind of detective work in the town of the real “Aqua Laguna” after the events from Death On The Nile, Poirot just passes his days in slovenly eating italian pastries and avoiding any case, he is eventually roped in by an old time acquaintance of here, a detective novelist that based her books on him, as she wants to join a seance during Halloween in one of the many supposedly haunted Venetian houses, and discredit the medium as a phony.

Things go south quick as first someone attempts to murder Poirot himself, then theathrically kills the medium, forcing our mustache-armed detective to lock up the place and discover the murdered before the police can arrive, with events making him even – maybe – consider that the rumors of haunted buildings and lore of a horrifying children asylum have a modicum of truth to them…

It’s pretty decent, like the previous Kenneth Branagh Poirot films, i wasn’t quite woved, but i did quite enjoy them, and i did like this one a bit better than Death On The Nile, mostly due to the less sprawling script that doesn’t feel the need to add shit like the “WWI prologue for the ‘stache”.

But on the other hand the flirting with the horror elements this entry does… it’s just that, some mild flirting with the ideas of ghosts, just about as committed as it could ever realistically be given it’s an Agatha Christie’s story and whatnot.

Also, characters and story are less detailed and interesting this time around, but overall it’s a decent time, thought not really scary or super enthralling.

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] Denti Da Squalo (2023) | Pool Shark Summer

Time for a review of an italian movie that most likely won’t ever come out internationally (but who knows), for the sake of variety.

Denti Da Squalo (translated literally as “Shark Teeth/Teeth Of A Shark”) is about a 13 yo boy, Walter, that recently lost his father, a former crime boss, and while wandering about finds an apparently abandoned villa with a shark living in a salt-water pool, and Walter makes of the villa his secret getaway place. Only to find another, older boy, Carlo, is squatting there, but Walter keeps coming back, entranced by the literal pool shark, and ends up befriending Carlo…

It’s definitely a very nice surprise of a movie, as not only it avoids pulling the “metaphorical animal we can’t show on screen” bit, the shark it’s seen very early and very often in the movie, and honestly the effects are top notch, obviously it’s not a real shark but it looks and feels real, as it needed to be since it’s both a plot device and symbolic incarnation of the criminal life.

Also, despite having the elements and touching upon the relative themes, it’s not a story of criminal formation, but of emotional formation and reckoning with the loss of the father figure (here played by beloved italian actor Claudio Santamaria), seen as an imperfect, human example that does not glorify nor 100% wilify criminal life, and not as the only real figure to aspire to, not the inevitable set of footsteps for Walter to follow.

For a feature debut, Davide Gentile manages to create a solid and emotionally meaningful modern take on the themes of criminal life, grief, legacy and family, following indeed all the familiar steps of the coming of age story, but the execution and performances make it worth checking out.

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

Continua a leggere

[EXPRESSO] Pantafa (2023) | Abruzzidook

Time for a freshly released italian horror film that will probably never leave “the Boot”.

Oh yeah, the italian mish mash of Somnia, Hereditary and Babadook that apparently was wished upon by someone, with a slightly laughable title even in its original language, at least if you’re not familiar with the regional Abruzzian folktale of the “pantafica” (here’s where the italian readers giggle, reasonibly so), a sort of ghost/witch.

The plot concerns a woman, Marta, moving with her daughter Nina to the little mountain burg of Malanotte (lit “Badnight”), in hope of curbing Nina’s sleep paralysis by escaping the frenetic rhythms of city living. But it happens that the house they moved into isn’t really helping, as is the lack on any children on the streets of Malanotte, and Nina symptoms get even worse, as she begins hallucinating a ghost of sorts that while sleeping steals her breath.

And bugger me senseless, it’s a surprisingly solid, effective mesh of the aforementioned movies, as it uses Southern Italy folklore to frame the uneasy relationship between the mother and the daughter, as well as the obvious conflict between the ways of small village seeped in religious rites, superstitions, legends, etc.

It’s a shame because it would even be straigh up good, if it didn’t slip notably at the end, with some rushed scenes in the final act that feel like the director decided to kinda learn the “wrong” lessons from the movies that clearly inspired it, but still, it’s a surprisingly well produced folk horror-thriller, gripping and definitely above mere decency, and i wasn’t always sure where exactly the plot was building to, already way more than i bargained for.

Flawed and a bit frustrating in how close to being great is, but still, color me pleasantly surprised by Emanuel Scaringi’s movie.

[EXPRESSO] Guillermo Del Toro’s Pinocchio (2022) | Splintered Spectacular

Years in the making, but Guillermo Del Toro’s take on beloved italian literary children classic Pinocchio is here, available worlwide on Netflix, after a very brief debut in some select theathers.

It takes many liberties from the book but does so in a way that makes it a more interesting adaptation of the story, and the changes (also needed cause of the tale being retold/reinterpretated squillions of times) do compliment that, like it now taking place in fascist WWII Italy, Jiminy Cricket being an actual character with agency and some background to him, Geppetto being more important of a character, with a new tragic backstory involving its dead, unwooden, real son.

It embraces the darker tone and themes of the original work, like, completely, far more than 2019’s Matteo Garrone take, for one, as in to committs to retain the savage nature of many events, Pinocchio’s ability of being far worse than “rambuctious”, and the often terrifying imagery, while also showing a lot of creativity in both reworking or adding new characters and lore to expand the story, give some surprises and changes to make the story interesting and different from previous adaptations, without completely transforming into something that isn’t Pinocchio anymore.

After all, this is Del Toro’s vision and if i wanted the original Pinocchio experience, i’d just read the book (which i still recommend doing, if you haven’t, btw) again.

I’d say more but i would just spoil some of the original material, so i will just bite me tongue.

the stopmotion animation it’s excellent, absolutely impeccable work, the songs are nice enough, plenty but quite brief (never overstaying their welcome, and overall i’d say this is easily one of the best adaptations of Pinocchio, like ever, and somehow able of actually living up to expectations.

Simply excellent.

[EXPRESSO] Bones And All (2022) | Suspicious Minds

After his controversial but quite good remake of Suspira in 2018, Luca Guadagnino returns to the big screen with the coming of age horror road movie Bones And All.

An interesting proposition to be sure, sure as hell i’m not gonna turn down any chance to see a cannibal coming of age romance on the big screen by a big name director.

Set in 1980s Middle America, the movie it’s about teen Maren Yearly ( Taylor Russell) as she has to flee with her father from Virginia, after she bites off one of her classmate’s finger in a cannibalistic pulse, settling somewhere else then getting abandoned by her father as he doesn’t know what to with her anymore, only leaving a recording in case she wants to confront her mother.

On her voyage she also meets another young cannibal, Lee (Timothee Chalamet), and as they travel their way through small American towns they begin to fall in love.

The cast it’s great, the idea it’s sound, not that original, but still, promising, the blending of horror and romance works pretty well, and the period soundtrack it’s excellent.

BUT it’s also very uneven, as Guadagnino wants it to be set into a specific American period and mood, but it also feels more european in terms of how the themes of sexual liberation are tackled, so it never fully comes together in this regard.

There are still some noteworthy sequences, but the romance isn’t that great, the characters not that interesting, and – again – it’s pretty uneven, not helped by some really gratituous scenes (like the “pre-kill cornfield gay masturbation” one ).

Bones And All it’s not bad, but for all its pretension and ambition, it amounts to just being decent and kinda disappointing, since Guadagnino can and has done better.

[EXPRESSO] Diabolik 2: Ginko Attacks! (2022) | Color Cinecomic Photoplay

After the Diabolik revival movie of 2021 was surprisingly succesfull, we now have the sequel, Ginko Attacks, with inspector Ginko pressing its dogged hunt for master criminal Diabolik, managing to find its hidden lair, and eventually collaborating with a betrayed Eva Kant.

Though Diabolik himself was recast, here being played by Giacomo Gianniotti instead of Luca Marinelli from the 2019 movie.

As of why, Gianniotti does look almost identical to Diabolik as depicted in the original comics, but it’s a bad trade-off as Marinelli was by FAR a better actor, and a better Diabolik.

He doesn’t even feel like the same character either, but then again almost no character in Ginko Attacks has a semblance of personality, just existing as a barren narrative gear.

Cumbersome pacing (for a 2 hours and 20 minutes movie) doesn’t help, nor having Monica Bellucci in the cast.

Dialogues are pretty awful too, and tipify the whole problem with the movie, as it feels excessively faithful to the source material, making one wonder if they lifted the text verbatim from the comics, without ever considering how (or if) they would work in an actual film, or to actually update the literal decades old material for modern cinema standards.

So it’s no wonder the plot it’s also bad, utterly predictable from the get go regardless, with the twists/reveals actually making thing worse, because the entire narrative relies on almost every “character” being way too fuckin stupid to predict what the audience did hours ago.

Though it’s hard to get angry because it’s such an alienating, empty experience, with some style backed…by absolutely zero substance, and it’s very disappointing since the first movie was flawed, yes, but also WAY better.

So i’m not exactly looking forward to the third one already in the works.

Awful. Disappointingly awful.