The Iconic Maintenance & Content Arrangement Break

As i said i would, i’ll be taking a break from full length reviews for a week sometimes near mid-May in order to properly flesh out the blog with more than rudimentary pages, updating rubrics, hopefully doing some cleaning of the PC itself, stuff like that.

While a bit earlier than anticipated, i will be doing so from the 9th of May up to the 16th (included), EXPRESSO reviews as already said will happen regardless, the one for Mortal Kombat II is actually planned to drop on the 9th, coincidentally so.

Also, i had to make a last minute change to the line up for Melee May, and since i didn’t happen to have something already prepared that could fill in/fit with the genre, i will be doing a completely unrelated, different review to close off the month.

Also no, i do not plan to do a review of the Mandalorian film that is coming out late this month, if it happens i guess you’ll be reading an unplanned EXPRESSO review.

As a last, last note, i saw the teaser trailer for the new Resident Evil movie that is gonna be directed by Zach Creggers (Barbarian, Weapons, Keeper). Looks good, and while there’s nothing very “Resident Evil” about it…. that might actually be for the best, let’s be honest, not that the fans deserve it (they didn’t even deserve the decent Resident Evil: Welcome To Raccoon City), as they really want stuff like the crappy old Paul W.S. Anderson ones, just with the plots being 1 to 1 the ones in the games.

And asking for the series they allegedly like to keep pumping out shit on the same quality as Return To Silent Hill… is definitely a hill to die on.

But i guess we’ll see about that, once the frothing stops and we actually get to see the actual film.

Peace.

International Workers’ Day Break

While we are ready to start off Melee May, today i’m gonna take a break since it’s International Worker’s Day and all.

So consider giving my EXPRESSO review of The Devil Wears Prada 2 a read, if you so desire, and since we’re on topic, no, i will not see nor review the Micheal Jackson biopic, i really don’t care, especially since it’s from the same producer of the Bohemian Rhapsody film, pity because i do like MJ.

i will be reviewing the second new Mortal Kombat film, Mortal Kombat 2, though, not on day one, but that EXPRESSO review is coming.

See you tomorrow!

The Post-Easter Food Coma Rehab Post

So, if you survive Easter, congrats, and to better digest the lamb and chocolate induced coma, i’ll soapbox about some things about upcoming reviews and the blog as a whole.

First, i would like to spend some time and then review in EXPRESSO form Arknights Endfield, i have it installed on PS5 but i wasn’t sure, despite me quite liking the original Arknights… as long as i could since i’m a F2P player that doesn’t spend money in microtransactions, period, so eventually i reach the “bottleneck” where they expect you to pay to actually get some progress done before you expire, i get bored and move on.

Still, i have been curious about it, so we’ll see.

Despite earlier planning to do Melee May in a redux fashion, it will happen, though i compromised with a rewrite.

This as i planned to slow down output in order to do some maintenance, organize the reviews proper in categories, that stuff, which i still plan to do during the usual mid-August hiatus, but i would like to do some during May, so if there are less reviews than usual, that will be the reason.

As you might have notices since we’re almost at the two digits mark, i’m committed to keep Platformation Time Again going and hopefully be somewhat costant of a featured rubric, and eventually i will expand the rubric with a specific tier/type about collections, since these are becoming more and more common, as the industry and publishers are scraping up anything that might have nostalgia value to it, heck, they even did remaster-port the Zool games.

On a closing note, One Piece Month will still happen but most likely in a redux fashion, due to how some other returning rubrics will happen, as i will explain later down the line.

[EXPRESSO] Keeper (2025) | ♬ Go to the woods and see ♬

After Longlegs and The Monkey, Oz Perkins is back with a new horror film (releasing just 2 days ago here), Keeper, but i’ve never heard much… well, anything about it, ill or good, but it might be me accidentally missing coverage, wouldn’t be the first time.

So i went in blind… and i kinda get why this didn’t generate much buzz, maybe, but first the plot.

A couple spends their anniversary weekend in a secluded cabin in the woods, and once there strange things start happening, revealing the house’s dark secrets..

I don’t think Keeper is a bad film, at all, but i’m willing to call it Oz Perkins first “trip up”, it is disappointing, because even if the final twist pays off, makes the build up worth it for an interesting turn… it doesn’t change that it has to do so with a character explaining the lore to us, instead of you known, just showing us, since it’s a movie and all of that, plus it it intriguing but nothing special enough to balance out and gliss over the fact the build up (and the premise in itself) seems to be made irritating and generic on purpose with how the cliches are placed.

Yes, obviously to play with audiences’ expectations (and with the horror archetype of the “cabin in the woods”), and it does work, but the story could have been more cohesive, or have people invested more by the narrative itself instead of the deliberate bold faced deception that also saps any mystery the story could have had when the loredump drops, to say nothing of how some subplots are simply kinda forgotten by the end.

It’s still far from unwatchable, mind you, thanks in no small part to Maslany’s great performance as Liz, but it’s also disappointing.

Giant Monster March is a-ready to go-go once more

FIY i also had a hands on ramble about the Virtual Boy accessory for Switch 1 and 2 that i planned to release earlier, but didn’t due to having to tie some uni knots, that article will still come out, for now we’re once again about to begin the now staple rubric of the blog, Giant Monster March, which will have some “obvious” picks alongside some a lot more obscure pulls this year.

I really wanted to make it extra this year but couldn’t due to the aforementioned universitary education business taking a lot of my time, but after all, the new Monsterverse Godzilla film is scheduled for 2027, so..

[EXPRESSO] Hamnet (2025) | The House That Will Built

Chloe Zhao (Nomadland, Eternals) is back for an adaptation of Maggie O’ Farrell book of the same name, a semi-fictionalized retelling of the lives of William Shakespeare and his wife Agnes.

Agnes is a peculiar woman for 16^th centhury Stratford: she is skilled with herbs, animals and ointments, she often walks alone in the forest, which makes the town gossip of her as a “witch”. One day she is noticed by Will, a man teaching latin to sons to repay the family’s debt, who falls in love with her, is reciprocated, and despite Will’s family being against it, the two marry, and have three sons: Susanna, Judith, and a boy, Hamnet (which we’re told by text in the prologue was equivalent of “Hamlet” in that day).

Though fate has it in for the young Hamnet, which contracts the plague and dies, further straining the relationship between Agnes and William, the latter which is often away to pursue his budding theathrical career in London…

I think there’s some irony in how the more this tries to work in the famous Shakespeare lines and have this whole familial tragedy serving as what would inspire William Shakespeare to write Hamlet… the more it feels oddly “forced”, almost using the idea as a crutch.

This in a movie where William Shakespeare isn’t actually the protagonist, which is fine, since this IS Agnes’ story by far and large, i get that, but it’s also undeniably way stronger when it’s just being this familial period drama about the loss of a son to illness with some touches of a pastoral magic reality, incarnated by Agnes herself, the “forest witch”.

It just makes the final act a bit wobbly (almost clumsy in how direct it is), but still amounts to Hamnet being a very good film, nonetheless.

The Day The Anthem Died

So, as of today, Anthem’ official servers are being pulled, so the game – unless some fans do resurrect it via fan hosted servers, which some are working on – is officially dead know.

Hence now it’s the perfect time to plug back my review for the thing, as it’s indeed a “funeral-dirge” piece, why not, it’s also a very slow week and i won’t be having much if any EXPRESSO reviews (maybe i’ll do one tomorrow) out due to some unfavourable schedule issues (let’s put it that way) and most relevant films coming out on the 15th.

Don’t expect much of an eulogy about Anthem itself from me, since i never touched it again after the review, and what i played of it… hasn’t me weeping over it, to put it nicely.

The Befana Break

As announced , i will be taking a week long break from full lenght reviews after wrapping the latest 12 Years Of Dino Dicember.

We’ll be back on the 15th, just in time for some horror film releases to debut in cinemas here, like the 28 Years Later prequel, a new Silent Hill movie (yes, a sequel to Silent Hill: Revelation), among others like a new Sam Raimi film, but honestly i’m a bit more curious about that Anaconda reboot that won’t reach theathers here until early February.

Happy New Year? Not off to a good start, really, but the sentiment remains.

The very early December grabbag update post: Dinos, Animatronics Boogaloo, Letting It Die, PS5, and winter breaks

Time for an update post as Dicember looms very close… and is here already.

As previously announced, the first week of December i will be taking a break from full lenght reviews, which will resume on December 8th, on a weekly basis leading up to Christmas, and of course 12 Days Of Dino December.

Which will go on as always, no big changes.

I will have reviews of the new FNAF film out, and i guess the third James Cameron’s Avatar film, because that is a thing, and one i do not care for, i’d rather have Cameron work on that Alita Battle Angel sequel, if he’s willing to gamble zillions into a series, better than his First Nation alien Smurfs saga that apparently no one cares for but will see to go anyway, though the more it goes on the faster it might cull itself out (if you break records, then it becomes increasingly hard to keep doing that on a regular basis), so nevermind.

Continua a leggere

[EXPRESSO] Duse (2025) | D’Annunzio in the Sky with Diamonds

A period piece biopic (one that has been quite a while in the making but finally started production in late 2024, on her 100^th anniversary) about Eleonora Duse, widely recognized as the greatest actress of her time, one of the all time greatests, because of her unorthodox approach to theathre and her ability to shock and wow audiences worlwide even if she kept reciting in Italian, unique as she both carried on old traditions yet was an anti-diva of sorts in the late 19^th Centhury, and she’s basically recognized as one of the more important figures of the period, alongside Nietzche and Ibsen.

This movie depicts her last years, as after having a downright legendary career, she feels the call to return to the stage during the turbolent period after the end of WWI and the upcoming rise of fascism, as she wants to reaffirm herself (and her art) in a nation hurling towards the political deep end, which mirrors her own ailing health…

I’m not sure exactly why i’m reviewing it here, i was gonna see it anyways since i did happen to study her life and career, but i just don’t see this reaching out anywhere else, it’s just a kind of movie that will basically be for very few people, even less when it leaves Italian theathers, where is bombing hard regardless because Eleonora Duse is not a popular name here either.

It’s a shame because it’s a very good historical drama about “turn of the centhury” theather, the importance of art in response to the traumas of war, the scenography is good, the performances are great and so are the perfectly flawed characters.

So if you can still catch it in theathers or if it becomes available on streaming, i strongly recommend watching and-or buying/supporting it.