Reviews

In a confused situation in which team are not defined and deeply modified by lies and fiction, Bond has to defend his peculiar ability and understand which are the good and which the bad ones. Russian, English, Turkish and other: Bond is immersed in a world of strategical fiction, due to the SPECTRE that wants to make him not understand who are the enemies.

In general, Bond is the technical hero: a man that manages to do what he does because of his instruments (the mythical bag, now visible for the first time) and because of his ability to understand situation and lies and to act perfectly as a gentleman and a spy together.

With beautiful dynamical scenes (especially on the train), with beautiful atmospheres and actors, this second chapter is one of the best of the saga.

Even if it's formally part of the saga, this their Smurfs' movie is something really different from the two prequels, because of its realization completely in 3D (also Gargamella that in the previous movies was interpreted by a man) and the more centrality of Smurf' action (there are in fact no humans apart from Gargamella).

Based on the ancient theme of the trip, this new chapter investigate the relation between smurfs inside critical situations and in front of diversity (they found a colony of all female smurfs) and gives a real importance to Puffetta, who's particular condition (different from other smurfs, created artificially) is analyzed deeply. This psychological dimension, together with dynamic action and beautiful graphics, makes the movie appreciable more than the previous, even if there are the frequent stereotypes about happy ending and manichaeism between good and bad characters.

One of the first movie ever, dated 1896 and produced by Italian Italo Pacchioni. The movie, as all in that period, is extremely short and simple, and based in Lumiere's style: a take of a ordinary episode; but maybe recreated (as the exit from the industry for Lumiere's movie), that's here the situation of a "Finti storpio" in a square. What's I find interesting in this kind of movies, beyond the childish atmosphere and the simplicity, is the fact that the cinema is still seen as something purely experimental, as a form of technique useful to put the reality in a sequence of images: is still far away the idea of a narration, that however can be primitively found in the artificial reconstruction of a situation.

The second chapter of "Puffi" saga is essentially based on Puffetta and the risk for her to become bad: Gargamella infact creates Frullo and Pestifera to attract Puffetta to the bad side. But the frequentation between Puffetta and the two little evil smurfs make them to become good and the story is resolves in a stereotypical way: the good triumph. Nothing special, in final, also if it's considered as a kid movie. Interesting just the scene between Notre Dame's architecture.

With a poor and conscious vulgar style, this movie has become a kind of cult b-movie for Italian cinema, especially for roman public. "Amore tossico" re-adapts neorealistic techniques (unprofessional actors, fedelity to reality, poor ambientation etc.) to eighties and roman world, to talk about heroin toxicodependence during that period. Viewed in original language, it sounds also comical for roman expressions and vitality; but I'm reality it's a kind of tragedy: it counts of ordinary life of toxic people and its emptiness and precarious situation in a constant and pathological desire of drugs, risking death and living life as something superficial that can be refused in any moment. With actors that are really toxicodependent people, Caligari's build a pasolinian world (and Pasolin's grave compares in the movie that's ambientated in Ostia, where Pasolini died) and explore what was (and still is) a tremendous problem, which one of drugs.

Technically, a comedy structured with typical modern/adolescent elements: revenge of nerd group; the mean cool guy that lose; happy ending for a love story; etc. But the couple Wilson-Vaughn is always comfortable and cute, even if the movie doesn't shine a lot. The most interesting thing is the focus of Google's idea of job: a comfortable world in which you are followed and treated with respect, and in which competition is awarded more for group spirit than for material efficiency. If these features are really proper of Google universe or if they are just a sort of promotion of the brand (sometimes it seems like this), we can't say; but it is sufficient, added to Wilson-Vaughn energy, to make the movie appreciable even if not wonderful.

With technique that uses metacinematographic language to expresses unconscious deliriums (broken frames, images that are disconnected by the plot etc.), Bergman shows the pathological fertility of human: the opposition and relation between two women, the nurse and the patient, that are rapidly reversed in the nurse that's follows a therapy through dialogue and the second that listens. In fact, the second one is mute: with this method, the nurse starts to feel the patient (actress) and body as an instrument to talk about her past and her problems, until to feel rage and hate against her because of her silence. It is the play of double character and of identification with other people (in fact "Persona" refers to the Latin word that indicates theatrical mask and also to the etymological meaning if voice's amplifier), that can happen in the silence of this relation (also with subtile homo-erotical tensions) until the delirium of impossibility of language (and communication) and impossibility of understand the past. Humans remain in their silence, as body disconnected one to the other and constricted to live their complexity in their own incomprehensible bodies (the maternity - aborted - also communicates this power and at the same tragedy of human body).

As a kind of deus ex machina, the samurai warrior arrives in a village in chaos because of the fight against two Yakuza clans. His aim is to resolve this war and bring again peace in the community: beyond his concrete strength in fight, his technique is based on a apparent relativistic morality, through which he pass from a boss to the other. In reality his false behaviour is an instrument to bring the bosses to fight themselves definitely, and his relativistic morality is revealed instead as full respect of samurai's values (the scene, for example, in which he gives his money to the family that has to run away). So, in a typical Japanese atmosphere, "La sfida del samurai" Is a movie about peace and war obtained through a free use of morality for a common aim: the freedom of the village is a more precious treasure thantge "protection" of any boss.

Story of a black musician and a white bodyguard, "Green book", through the archaic system of trip and adventures during it, is based on the opposition between this two characters that discover to like each other beyond the differences of status and skin that society stresses. The particularitg is in the fact that the white man is of asocial condition less higher than the black man's one, that's instead a rich and famous pianist. This strange condition, for 60s racist USA, brings the protagonist to a tragedy of not being part of a defined group: he is richer than other black men but always different, for the skin, from "real" white people; so his dramatic situation is to be outside of all of categories. Through ironical and light expedients, the movie condemns racism but also understand complexity of psychological lifes behind conventional social divisions, and, even if for wasn't the best movie of that year to win the Oscar, it is appreciable and original.

On a thematic level, this movie tries to deal with questions like morality and war, lies and teams and the difficulty of understanding who are the good ones and who the bad ones. But all of this is showed in a confused way that is in line with the unfocused plot and character: if the idea was to use a superhero with his powers since from the start of the movie (without discovering them) and break with the now traditional scheme (discovering-learning-fighting), the result is still imprecise and not so attractive. On the MCU level, moreover, this appears really nothing more than an appendix: there are no epical fights, and the usefulness of this chapter result really hard to understand. In generale the movie is not too much terrible, but the fact that the most interesting thing is the Nine Inch Nails' shirt demonstrates how this movie is anonymous. Maybe the most anonymous of the entire saga.

Nowadays a cult movie, "The Rocky horror picture show" didn't get popularity since the first moment. This because it is thought as a work that have to scandalise the audience - especially if the audience is bourgeois and dead in its appearent reassuring "normal" life - both on the plot level and the general movie's aim level. In fact, the main characters of the story are two guys that comes from "normal" life, with a good family and an ordinary existence: the fact that Brad has always to say his name and the name of his girlfriend, with surnames, its remarkable in this sense. After different adventures they are initiated to a different world in which extravagant sexuality and unpredictable events make life something more fluid and without all the obstacles that "normal" life impose to body and mind creativity. The ambientation in a remote castle works well in this direction: it is a narrative mechanism to isolate the main characters and constrict them to a kind of catabasis in a different, "infernal" universe. Full of references, parodies of b-movie, sci-fi, macho movies, road movies etc, with a wonderful soundtrack and an amazing Tim Curry, TRHPC is really a must, and not just for musical-lovers.

Sanjuro, the main character, helps a group of samurais against soldiers of a liar that want to obtain political power making his opponents seem in fault. The group of samurais act often without an intelligent strategy, so Sanjuro, at first a stranger in the situation, becomes little by little a kind of deus ex machina that manages to resolve bad situations: all problems of the plot are linked to strategical lying and what's determinant is always understand who's really who and if signals mean something instead of other. Than "Sanjuro" reveals the thin meaningless of war and violent actions, that seem all degenerated behaviours around a narrative center that's overrated and incomprehensible. In this concept, samurais can't understand really their position or the sense of their life and of political facts, and the only one that understands, Sanjuro, coherently, decides to go away.

We know that long distance sequels are often terrible, and this one isn't an exception: surely the worst movie of the saga (except for the two crossovers with Alien, that are also worse).

In general this movie offers again things done in the other chapters, especially the third; but the worst point is not the repetition but the addition of things, that result all ridiculous: Predator-dogs, for example, are simply a terrible idea. Than the characters situation in general: a group of jailed finishes to form a kind of poor A-team against the alien, with the protagonist that acts really bad and seems a parody of western heroes in a sci-fi movie. The element of scientists that want to study aliens and those that want to kill them is an ancient story; here it is also effort with superficiality, with villains that result really stupid and without a little sort of psychological definition.

I save also Predator graphic effects; for the rest a boring action Sci-Fi and unfortunately the worst Predator movie ever.

Between sci-fi, noir and comedy, "Howard e il destino del mondo" has not to much to do with superheroes' movies. It is quite an effort to make the spectators laugh with continuous sketches that arrive too statically and too frequent to be appreciated. The adventure part is based on the fight with a creature that took scientist's body, but, beyond a poor animation, there's not, moreover, a real definition of characters that can make you empathize with one of them or simply think about psychological strengths that would have to be showed. What save a little this movie are the 80s ambientation that nowadays is interesting, the difference with modern Marvel movies and the fact that has become a kind of cult for entertaining eighties b-movies. Adviced just for collection.

A group of rich men and women decide to have a party after a theatrical show; but when the party is over, they can't go outside the house: something invisible and unknown doesn't allow them to do it.

With this surrealistic expedient (and other incomprehensible events as a chicken in a bag or the presence of beasts inside the house), Buñuel manages to show all that energies, especially the negative, that are hidden by bourgeois with ipocricy: physical and erotical instinct, moral of surviving, hate, sense of superiority. So all the invited start to act nevrotically and there are fight one against the other, a man also dies and is hidden in a wardrobe.

The condition of surreality makes people reveal their real nature, that's really animal behind the false elegance of a rich party, and creates the paradox of a bourgeois group that is obligated to live in its congenial situation (the party) for days, until it becomes a kind of hell.

Quite faithful to the book for what regards the plot, but really different in ambientation: this movie transports London's story in a middle 900s Napoli and adapts the situation to Italian features. This choice, however, doesn't screw London's concept, that instead is maintained as well: the story of a man that for love tries to transform himself from a popular condition to a life of richness and knowledge.

But love, in this story, is just the narrative input: it is instead the tragedy of a man that wants to pass in bourgeois world and than discovers all human limits of that universe (made of lies and unrespectful behaviours) and at the same time loses part of the ancient world. The suicide is the unique form of freedom for this man strange between men. With an excellent interpretation of Marinelli and wonderful landscape and photography, this movie manages to maintain London's aims and at the same time gives them the beauty of italian atmospheres.