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Suspiria (1977)
Argento's masterpiece: a wicked and dark fable
Today Suspiria returned in the theaters for its 40th anniversary and I decided not to miss the opportunity as I wasn't even born when it premiered...I have definitely not wasted the money for the ticket. The movie on big screen looks so much better than on TV: the main strengths are the camera work, the oversaturated colours, the use of light and the excellent soundtrack are amplified in a cinema and many little things that seem irrelevant. Like in most Argento's movie the plot is quite thin, and the script shows a certain naivety in certain parts, however the idea behind the movie is intriguing and of the "Mother's trilogy" Suspiria is definitely the best one. I understand that in the age of Transformers, CGI etc...Suspiria might result simplistic, not gory enough etc...but the tension buildup thanks to the music is simply amazing, unfortunately I feel people under 25 can't really appreciate it as well as other classics of the same era like Carpenter's Halloween, but the connoisseurs will appreciate this all female dark fantasy in technicolor.
Passengers (2016)
Sappy romance disguised as sci-fi movie
Passengers is a simple story of two people stranded on a desert island who get in love because there is nobody else available nearby. That sums it up, but the official plot line is the following: in a not too near future Earth is overcrowded (surprise surprise) and a big corporation offers the opportunity (at high price) to go to live on new terraformed planets. As they don't FTL most of the travel has to be done in cryogenic stasis on the space equivalent of a transatlantic. They are supposed to stay asleep for 120 years, but the impact with an asteroid 30 years after the departure causes a lot of tiny malfunctioning, including one chamber. A mechanical engineer is awaken on the ghost ship, he doesn't have access to the bridge of the chambers of the crew, the automatic robots on the ship are of no help and the most human face is the android of the lounge bar. After one year of getting mad he decides to awake another passenger, an attractive journalist, without of course telling her he has done on purpose, as in every relation based on a lie everything goes great until she finds out the truth...in the meantime the small malfunctioning escalate until the entire ship is in danger of self destruction... I don't think it's necessary to add anything else, while a fan of sci-fi movies of the same type (in particular Pandorum, a forgotten movie from years ago deals with the same scenario in more horror way and it's way superior to passengers) I found this film disappointing at best. The entire premise of the movie, that a company will build a completely automatized ship that doesn't allow to return in stasis, is simply ludicrous for a mechanical engineer (like me) used to work with the concept of "risk assessment", the right solution for these scenarios are to wake up at least some members of the crew to check the ship and let them return in stasis once they are sure everything goes fine. The idea of not letting anybody to access to the vital systems of the ship is simply criminal, but it's a plot device to allow the love story to go on. The cast indeed is good, Lawrence is a great actress and fills the screen even in stupid movies like this one, his sidekick is also good, Fishburne is the best even if he has less screen time, and also, and Sheen perfect in the role of the android barman, even if I find his weasel smile quite untrustworthy and I was always thinking he would have tried to kill the protagonists sooner or later. In conclusion as a sci-fi movie is awful and disappointing, but I assume the female audience will love that. As I already written, I would recommend to watch the lesser known Pandorum, an office flop but a more satisfying movie all around.
Rogue One (2016)
No war is won without sacrifice
After the disappointing experience with Episode VII (that I consider the worst SW movie ever, even worse than EpI) I had low expectations for Rogue One but I must admit I was pleasantly surprised.
Of course in this case 95% of the story was drawn by Lucas in EpIII and EpIV, they just had to connect the two dots, but at least in this case they made it right. The plot is quite simple : 10 years before the battle of Yavin a brilliant scientist refused to work on the creation of the Death Star, his boss tracked him down, killed his wife while his daughter was successful hidden by a Resistance member. Fast forwarding to the present time of EpIV, the daughter is captured by the Resistance and convinced to collaborate in finding her old associate who received a message from his father by a Imperial pilot who deserted. Around her and a captain of the Intelligence a cluster of different characters will assemble to try to win the first battle for the Alliance.
One of the strengths of this movie is that it deals with more or less "normal" people, not Jedis or heroes bigger than life like Han Solo, even if the protagonist suffers a little of Rei syndrome (also known as Mary Sue condition)...it is evident that Disney is actively chasing the young girls' market as probably the boys' one is already filled. After all they are a greedy corporation looking to get more money, right? The fans will appreciate the presence of old characters like Senator Organa from EpII, Mon Mothma, a younger CGI version of Leia Organa and Grand Moff Tarkin from EpIII who actually makes a good job impersonating Peter Cushing....all of them in smaller roles in comparison to the "little people" who take the main scenes.
In general the retro approach to FX gives its fruits, the movie has a nice 70s feel to it, there are few innovations like the U wing and the atmosphere variant of the TIE fighter, from a photography point of view nothing to complain.
What I didn't like? Well, first the inclusion of Darth Vader is totally unnecessary plot wise and must be interpreted as the usual fan service, the excessive role of the protagonist good to do everything is another one, but minor in comparison to the Rei aberration. The movie should be around the story of the Death Star but it doesn't deal with three fundamental aspects: one is the Geonosis' origin of the weapon, the second one is that it never explains the delays of the development of the Death Star (they are just mentioned), the third and final is that it never deals with the second Death Star from Endor: as the first Death Star takes almost twenty years of R&D it would be reasonable to assume the construction of the second one should have started in parallel with the former, and it might also give a good reason of the long development of two pharaonic constructions at the same time.
Having said that, they are minor, I enjoyed the movie and I would give it a 8 over 10. The best thing of the movie overall is its message:without spoiling much most of the people should already understand the end, and while in the main episodes the good guys always win easily, Rogue One teaches that victory can be achieve without heavy sacrifice.
Veloce come il vento (2016)
After twenty years of darkness, finally an unpretentious good movie from Italy
Once upon a time there was the Italian Cinema: until the 90s they were able to make almost any kind of genre film with any kind of budget (or lack of).
Then Berlusconi took over all the majors and faithful to the Latin Motto "panem et circenses" he filled all the theaters with mindless comedies with his pretorians Boldi and the De Sica and their fine humour based on big tits (usually silicon based, not natural), big asses, farts and various vulgarities. It worked well because for twenty years he could have directly or indirectly the control of the country.
Now that his cinematographic dictatorship is almost over something starts to re-emerge: I can say for sure that this is the first Italian movie I have enjoyed since more or less Trauma and the last Italian horrors of the early 90s.
The story is a sort of composition/homage of the real lives of a famous and unfortunate rally driver and a young teenage girl who tried to became a GT driver in the Italian championship.
The movie starts from this premise making them estranged brother and sister that come together after the untimely death of their father, who left the girl with a Porsche 996GT but no money for the team. Plus, he also mortgaged their own house to fulfil her dream, but without money all her crew but the old chief mechanic (who is also the narrator of the story) leaves her. There is no other option but to accept the offer of help from his heroin addicted older brother, once a great racer in the early 90s/late 80s but now reduced to a pathetic figure due to his late stage drug addiction. Another threat derives by the presence of a third brother, six years old that might be taken by the social services as the sister is still underage, without work and the older brother and his girlfriend they can't evidently take care of themselves.
Besides the mortgage and a Porsche with no team, their father also left them the older brother's Peugeot 205 GT Turbo Group B, a real monster for that era,that might be also of some use in the case the money runs out and some of them might need to participate to a clandestine race more interesting that the usual Fast and Furious BS....
That's the plot in a nutshell, regarding the casting, they all make their job fine, especially the chief mechanic, Accorsi's portrait of a long term addicted is believable, the photography is nice but it shows a overuse of popularizing filters that saturate the colors in a disturbing way sometimes, and unlike many Italian movie it has a proper script that besides the boring "Italian style" ending is believable and not too corny.
IMO the movie is recommendable for a larger (read international) audience as it does show very well a slice of Emilian/Romagnan (North-Central Italy) very different from the Roman "Grande Bellezza" (in reality Grande Bruttezza) or the degraded South of Gomorra: Italy is ALSO what you will see in this movie.
8 out of 10 because I didn't like the ending.
The Magnificent Seven (2016)
Remarkably unremarkable remake made like a old John Wayne western
The Era of remakes in Hollywood never ends: this time it was the turn of the Magnificent Seven. Not that is a bad thing per se, actually the classic movie of the 60s was a remake of Kurosawa's the Seven Samurais, but this time the result is very different. From a technical point of view the cinematography is indeed good, but it looks like the "reimagination" of the Wild West that was in auge in Hollywood in the 40s and 50s, before the Spaghetti Western and the consequential revisionist westerns of the 70s: the costumes are nothing like the fashion of the XIXth century,we have scarfs, open shirts and waistcoats like at the time of John Ford...that is a big step backward for the genre IMO. Besides that the story at the beginning follows the original but the directors decided to add more or less all the Old West stereotypes taken from other movies, in particular the revenge theme of Once upon a time in the West, the situation of the village recalls more closely High plans drifter than the original(s)...besides the population actively helping the seven. Instead of a band of Mexican masnadieros we have a filthy rich psychopath that remembers a little Gary Oldman's character in Leon or Satan in Constantine, in short too cartoonish to be interesting. The battle takes inspiration from the Wild Bunch plus dynamite and a Gatling gun that has a range of a 12 pounder gun that makes it a parody for what should be. Regarding the cast they all try to do their best with the little material given but Denzel Washington is far from his prime (the 90s) and Ethan Hawke looks like a man in his 60s. In conclusion the new Magnificent Seven is a big disappointment that brings back the Western to the 50s, recent movies like Appaloosa or the remake of 3:10 to Yuma were much better and more entertaining.
Blair Witch (2016)
My God, it was awful!
Seriously, I find it hard to write a review of this...mess.
In 1999 I went to watch the original BWP, everybody was talking about it, I sort of liked it but I already felt it was overrated and it earned its reputation thanks to the sophisticated advertisement: in the first years of the net things didn't work like today, the producers set up a website to find the protagonists of this lost tape. At that time a lot of people believed it was true.
Not that the idea of the lost tape was new, it was first used in a pretty ugly Italian movie called "Cannibal Holocaust", but let's return to the 2016: there is little to say plotwise, more than a sequel it looks like a remake with today's technology (drones, digital cameras, GPSs that are of course completely useless), the story is the same, but with more characters. To be honest I cared about none. The tricks are the same: stones, wooden dolls, and the magic Baba Yaga house. Like in the previous movie you never see the witch but you feel from the noises that she's coming. A little more background on the legend is given, but it feels it doesn't really matter.
What does matter is the slowness of the movie itself, which drags too long about the same clichés', in particular the long sequence inside the house looks like the longer version of the original movie, but while in BWP it's short and effective here we have a character excavating a long tunnel beneath the house, another one who gets older in few seconds and the main protagonist who endlessly looks for his sister.
It finishes as the previous one and the viewer is already aware of that, so there is no real pathos or surprise for him.
I find really hard to watch such an heavy movie: while the little tricks of the original in 1999 were fresh and inventive (along with Ringu it restarted the interest in supernatural horror, a genre that has almost disappeared in the second half of the decade) in 2016 they just prove that Hollywood can only look backward.
The Shallows (2016)
This is the story about a surfer, a shark and a G shock...
...the other characters are either food for the Big Bad Shark or pale appearances to flesh out a bit the character of the protagonist.
But in order, the plot is fairly basic: overattractive blonde college dropout who happens to be a skilled surfer wants to follow the footsteps of her recently deceased mother (who also happened to be an overrattractive blonde surfer) and instead of studying medicine like her boring father would like decided to individuate a remote beach in Mexicoland her mother told it was the best place to surf in the world.
Thanks to a convenient tall, dark and handsome Mexican guy she is able to arrive to the secret place (which can be identified by some rocks like in the Goonies) where other two locals are performing crazy evolution with their board...everything goes great (especially the striptease and the convenient choice of a wetsuit that covers her waist up) until she decide to surf for too long almost at dawn.
At that time the carcass of a whale magically appears off the beach, she has the bad idea of investigating the finding and unbelievably she finds out that a nasty Big Bad Female White Shark feeding on the whale. For some unknown reasons the shark decides that the skinny surfer would be a better meal than ton of fatty muscle and she decides to attack Blondie.
Survived to a deep bite she has no choice but withdraw on some rocks during the low tide alone besides a useless seagull called Steven Seagull with a broken wing and her trusted "Babe" G-Shock (BG169R- 8,that is clearly shown at full frame more than once, perhaps some Casio product placement), that proved to be more useful during the long siege.
That's the plot in short, as you can see it's a straightforward monster movie with a hot babe, few supporting actors destined to be eaten and a big monster whose vengeful behaviour bears little resemblance to the one of a real shark. It has been done several times, it can work or be absolute junk according to the director and actors.
In the case of the shallows it works because the directors prove to be very skilled with the camera, photography and underwater sequences (in particular the shots of the surfers from below are brilliant and usual even for more rated proper surf movies), regarding the acting Blake Lively does a good work with the little material she is given...and of course she's a first class eye candy for the male audience. The rest of the cast are cardboards, in particular sister and father are present just to try to give some depth to the protagonist that would result nothing more than a playboy centerfold.
Plotwise, both the surfer and the shark are way too smart and resourceful for being credible, most of the movie becomes a sort of chess game between the two, both create very sophisticated strategies to win and to be honest the way the shark is killed definitely breaks the voluntary suspension of belief more than a fistful of dynamite.
In conclusion The shallows is a solid aqua thriller but the comparison with the original jaws from 1975 is absurd, it doesn't have a Milius writing the dialogues, a Spielberg directing but especially not a Scheider, a Shaw or a Dreyfuss...just a male teenager blinded by Lively's ehm "qualities" might believe that.
Ghostbusters (2016)
I thought it was bad, but I was pleasantly surprised...but Chris Hemsworth steals the show to the girls
As an ex kid of the 80s I grew up watching movies like Ghostbusters, Goonies, Explorers, Back to the future etc... I was also an avid fan of the cartoon series that I considered from some point of view better than the movie itself. When I heard they were remaking it I thought "God, this is going to suck!", and when I heard about the all female cast I thought "It'gonna suck more".
After checking what they were saying on the net I was seriously considering not going to watch, but on Saturday the other choices were even worse, so I gave it a try. The first surprise was that the theatre was almost full, pretty rare in the area I am currently living, and the audience giggled a lot during the projection, which is even rarer in these days when comedies are not funny at all.
Going straight to the movie, the premise is simple: it's a remake of the 1984 movie with female cast, the protagonists do not closely match the original team but they have a good chemistry, in particular the two long time friends, while the punk engineer is definitely the funniest character of the movie AFTER the receptionist, Hemsworth, who actually is fantastic and should play more comedic roles...to be malignant we might add he's born to play the part of the dumb beefcake. He might even become a serious competitor for Zac Efron.
The original cast plays a series of cammeos that unlike many remakes (remakes) are real characters who speak and do something for the plot, their appearance actually work. The movie is funny in a 80s tongue in the cheek style, so it might appears outdated to a younger audience, the direction recreates in a decent manner the atmosphere of those years with all the science gadgets the Ghostbusters are using. Mention of honour to Ozzy Osbourne who plays Ozzy, Gerry Garcia who plays a godfather like major of NY and his hysterical assistant.
In conclusion, valid movie IMO (7.5 rounded to 8), unfortunately it is receiving bad press from Omega males who think the movie is sexist (???) and/or male teenagers in heat who complain the women are not carbon copies of Kim Kardashian or some other plastic looking celebrity. Well, they are supposed to be funny, not attractive.
Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens (2015)
The copy of a copy: an empty shell with the shape of Episode IV
I just watched TFA and although I expected the "Master of Clonation" J.J.Abrams wouldn't have deviated from the original formula I remained shocked to see that as a matter of fact this movie is a carbon copy of Episode IV. In order here we have:
1) A copy of Luke Skywalker 2) A copy of Obi Wan Kenobi 3) A copy of Wedge Antilles 4) A copy of Darth Vader 5) A copy of the Emperor 6) A copy of the Empire 7) A copy of the Death Star 8) A copy of Tatooine 9) A copy of Yavin 4 10) A revolving copy of R2D2
The plot perfectly follows Episode IV: the young orphan protagonist leaves on the desert planet and she's poor, she comes in possession of a droid with important information for the Rebellion (why they are still called Rebellion is a mystery), the Evil Neonazi Empire (that here is called First Order) destroys a village to come in possession of the droid but the protagonist with one useless sidekick is able to escape on the Millennium Falcon and bla bla...I would not bother the reader with further details, (s)he already got the plot.
What surprises me is that this movie is critically acclaimed, that nobody rose these points and it appears everybody is happy with that: the "movie" looks like the result of a very professional consumer poll made by Disney and Jar Jar Abrams using the SW fans, in the end the final judgment is in the eye of the beholder: if (s)he is a consumer (s)he'll like the product they prepared for him/her, if (s)he is a critical viewer (s)he won't like this movie at all and will return to watch the original trilogy.
In Lucas' defense at least he tried to invent something new with the prequels in order to move forward the mythology, TFA does nothing in this sense and doesn't want to do anything in this sense because it aims to make as much money as possible making everybody happy...oh well almost.
Kyaputen Hârokku (2013)
I haven't seen a Space Opera like this in a long time
Like almost all the Italian kids of my generation I grew up watching Matsumoto's series like Battleship Yamato, Galaxy 999 and of course Captain Harlock.
I was surprised to see that a movie had been developed and I had nothing about it, I saw the trailer on TV and even if I'm not a CGI fan at all I decided to give it a chance...well I wasn't disappointed.
The plot is simple, doesn't have anything to deal with the previous TV series of the 70s, the 80s or Arcadia of you Youth, the Endless Odyssey or any other OAV, it seems that the Japanese have never been interested in developing a consistent continuity or mythology of any kind while they are more focused in re-creating the same..."atmosphere" perhaps is the right word. Here we have the same basic ingredients of Harlock's history: he's a pirate, an ex captain of a military ship in a previous war that he lost, he fights for freedom and for Earth, a place from where he is banned (this time everybody is banned, for the matter), his dear friend Toshio is dead, his crew consist in outcasts and among them his right hand is Key and left hand Yattaran. I don;t know why in the FAQ it is written that his love interest in the previous movie was Esmeralda because as far as I remember she was Toshio's girlfriend and the alien Mime is again the woman who dedicated her life to him, the last of her race that here we are informed were the Nebelung,who possessed an esoteric technology that is the center of the story. The main antagonists are the gerontocrats of the Gaia Coalition who banned Humanity from Earth, some real life references to aging population and the decline of Civilisation are new and interesting elements that reflects some themes of our actual times especially in Japan (I guess) but also in Western Europe.
Without giving too many spoilers the story makes relative sense until the end when something unclear happens: on one side it seems there is a cosmic regeneration ongoing and the baton is given to Yama (that here like in the original series always looked a "young" Harlock) but in reality it doesn't seem that Herlock's original plan was carried on...perhaps the movie has been cut for the European release or there has been something lost in translation ( for instance certain dialogs of Z Gundan in Italian or English don't make any sense at all,it seems the characters are discussing about Philosophy during a duel), I don't know but however the romantic atmosphere of the movie has not been disturbed, at least for me.
Talking about CGI: this incarnation of the Arcadia is cool but from the outside I preferred the original blue version or the green one of Arcadia of my youth, the turrets and the interiors have a real mechanical feel that rarely CGI can give (I think about the "fakeness" of Transformers first), the ship of the Coalition have a beautiful retro' style that seems taken from Alien and Aliens, the 3D works great too, without feeling too intrusive.
CGI as usual fails portraying realistically humans: Harlock and Yama look a little like Big Jim dolls, Key on the other side being a woman and "smooth" is more similar to a real actress covered with make as it is fashion today, of course the "best" looking character is the Alien Mime, much better than anything we have seen in Cameron's Avatar. All the character and costume design are faithful to Matsumoto's original design, so men and women are slender and ethereal, the hairstyles are pleasantly 70s (Kay looks like a Norwegian model of that era) as well as the costumes (I want Yama's leather jacket! Or at least, it looks like leather), it is surprising what the Japanese can do with a budget of just 30 million dollars, the American directors and Hollywood managers should watch this movie, they can learn one thing or two.
In conclusion, I liked the movie, in comparison to the Hollywood's crap-fest we are watching on screen in the last years it is a masterpiece, the weak points are the traditional "Matsumoto" flaws: a certain lack of consistency, no real relation with the other media, evanescent plot, but if you are familiar with him and generally speaking the world of Japanese Anime you have to deal with that.
Zeder (1983)
Surprising...really surprising...
...in an historical period like the end of the 70's/beginning of the 80's when the Italian horror panorama was dominated by gore and splatter cannibal/zombie B movies Avatu chose to make very different movie, not based on gruesome and cheap FXs, but on Gothic atmospheres and darkness.
Surely the result was light years far away from Fulci's Zombie 2 or worse trash like Zombi Holocaust, not just in "philosofical" terms but also as final result: Zeder (I refuse to use the silly title used by the American distribution) is one of those rare movie that effectively creates a sensation of tension and a climax of fear and emotional cliffhanger from the beginning to the final scene, showing in front of the camera very, very, few. Less is more.
From certain points of view the movie shows the typical weaknesses of the Italian production (especially Argento's) of that time: the series of unfortunate events that leads Stefano little by little to the central theme of the movie doesn't work well and it's totally unrealistic, performance of the two main characters, Stefano and Alessandra, not really persuading to be at the required level (Stefano is quite wooden and looks lunatic, I wonder why a "light" woman should be able to live with a man of this kind, while Alessandra never seems to realize what's happening and the dangers of their situation so she always reacts in a silly way), the music sometimes is disturbing but contributes to build up thrilling little by little.
The most amazing fact behind this movie is without doubt the "coincidences" (not to use a stronger term) between Avati's plot and Stephen Kingìs "Pet Semetary", later in 1989 a movie but published in 1984. In certain points nobody cannot deny that the basic concept (a territory very well known in ancient times to be able to reanimate the dead buried there)and many scenes, especially the end when a desperate husband buries in the cursed cemetery the corpse of her loved one, that coincide perfectly.
Just a case? Before watching the movie, I didn't believe this rumor, after this night I think uncle Stephen should give some..explanations about it.