[EXPRESSO] Eddington (2025) | Divide Schmivide

Ari Aster doing a COVID-19 crime western comedy thing?

Sign me in!

Set during the 2020 pandemic, we see the local sheriff (played by Joaquin Phoenix) of the small town of of Eddington, New Mexico, get spiffy against the local mayor (played by Pedro Pascal) for the mask mandate, and it escalates to the sheriff deciding to run for mayor himself, sabotage his rival on social media, while the climate gets worse due to events such as the George Floyd’s murder, etc.

I will respect that Aster doesn’t give a shit about making movies that unearth a recent, hugely divisive period of reality people would rather move on from, and yes, this is a cornucopia of deliberately unlikeable characters, from Q-anon pilled conspiracy theorists in-laws, hypocritical liberal youths into activism as long as there’s some pussy to gain from it, cult leaders, grifters, etc.

Problem is, it’s an unfocused mess which satirizes everything but does so in such a shallow and frankly unsatisfying manner, regurgitating stuff we already know and are still living through, with barely a plot to hold onto, something to actually build to, or characters that actually have any depth, feeling even more cartoonishly stupid than they’re meant to, and somehow able to make actors like Pascal and Phoenix come off as bad, which is sadly impressive.

It’s more frustrating than anything else, as the actual jokes that work are too few and far between for an almost 3 hours long movie, and while it picks up a little midway through, it borders on being an completely boring, unfunny movie.

It all feels like an uncomfortable but also flavourless remasticated portrait of 2020 and today’s America; plus, while i did suggest it might take some time to revaluate Beau Is Afraid…. i’m not so sure about Eddington.

[EXPRESSO] War Of The Worlds (2025) | Redditors VS Aliens

Yep, we doing this one.

The plot sees a Homeland Security officer, Will Radford (Ice Cube) at work being “benign Big Brother” for the government (while also monitoring his family, to their dismay), when a meteorite shower reveals to be a worlwide attack by alien machines, forcing Will to do what he can to save his family and help fight back the invaders however he can.

On paper it’s not necessarily a bad idea to make a modern War of The World remake focusing on the aliens taking over data infrastructures in the surveillance state internet reliant reality where everyone’s on their phones, playing up the “government conspiracy” angle… and proposing it as a screenlife thing, like a sci-fi Unfriended.

Yeah, that already sets off more bells than a Blue Oyster Cult comment section, and makes it abundantly obvious this was shot during the 2020 Covid pandemic, with Amazon sitting on it for 5 years before they remembered, “bothered” to do post-production and made it available on their streaming service.

They knew they were sitting on a turd, one so riddled with brazens self-promotion it’s comical (the climax of the movie involves an Amazon drone helping save the day), not that the movie actually decides if it’s against or pro “Big Tech”, and while Ice Cube’s acting is bad, it’s not like he has much to work with, the entire thing is so fuckin stupid and becomes even stupider, and a cinically rushed shitshow with plenty of IA generated news segments (and stock footage that looks bad enough to be IA generated slop too), on top of very shitty special effects.

And yet it’s so fiercely bad it does actually become one of the rare modern “so bad it’s good” movies, it has that kind of entertaiment quality to it.

Virus Shark (2021) [REVIEW] | Bad Taste Sharks

While i promised myself i wouldn’t review stuff like the Corona Zombies films (made DURING the height of the pandemic in 2020 by an even more more shameless and cynical Full Moon Pictures)… i still will pretend they didn’t actually happen, alongside stuff like Angry Asian Murder Hornets, but chance and curiosity took the best of me when i stumbled upon this movie while walking down the river. I figured i could at least use it for this year’s Shark Month, and i selected it for the title alone.

So color me…. not really surprised when i actually started doing some research and finding out it’s yet another Polonia Bros joint.

And no, i didn’t plan out to review so many of their movies, at all. It just sorta happened.

At least they waited until 2021 came around instead of shooting it 3 days during mid-2020 so it could be “shot” and released during the height of the pandemic?

Continua a leggere

Happy Easter

I guess, here in Italy we’re still knee deep in quarantine, so much theathers didn’t even re-open, and we still have no dates for when some of the hot new movies will hit streaming services here, so that’s why i haven’t posted a review of Godzilla Vs King Kong, i simply have yet to see. And boy i do wanna see it BADLY, even if i really wanted to see in theathers…. it’s not gonna happen this year where i live.

So look forward to some more anime reviews from last season (i do plan to see and review Godzilla Singularity Point, though), and MAYBE an EXPRESSO review of the Snyder Cut of Justice League. MAYBE because i really don’t care about it to be honest, but i did watch the theathrical cut back then, which gives somewhat of a limp excuse and – regardless – is more than i can say for Man Of Steel.

I probably won’t, because it’s 4 frigging hours, but who knows.

Reviews in quarantine

So yeah, today the entire of Italy is officially in lockdown, and you could easily recreate the entire of Die Pest En Florenz, on the upside. On the downsides (as far this blog is concerned, as the obvious problems shouldn’t need explanation) cinemas are closed, and it’s quarantine, so, time to do the NEET, i guess, until the start of April, where cinemas should open again so we can catch up to all most english speaking countries already saw months ago (didn’t manage to see the new Grudge reboot-sequel-remake, i wanted to review it, but at this point i’ll have to see on streaming or home video).

I already explained some of this in a previous article, but the situation has gotten worse (we should had declared quarantine much earlier, i think, but it’s Italy, so of course every decision of this magnitude is half-assed and done at the last minute), so keep that in mind, and as i said before, i had some reviews planned and prepared, so the blog will keep going like before.

Stay safe and look forward to more One Piece reviews, as well as the Azur Lane anime review as soon as the last episodes arrive in the coming days.. if they don’t get delayed again. We’ll see!