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The Visit (2015)
Movie is unrelated
If you like the site pictureisunrelated.com, this movie is for you. It's the quintessential WTF movie. All the characters are more or less deranged and their actions make no sense at all.
I won't linger on the myriad of plot holes and narrative threads left hanging, since other reviewers have said it all. The only comment I wish to add is about the creepy dissonance between the soundtrack and the actions depicted in the movie, for instance upbeat melodic opera playing in background during a bloody murder scene.
I guess it's a "homage" to Hitchcock, even though I've never seen one of his movies from start to finish. Pure psychological horror with hinted gore and practically no CGI at all, in the MNS best tradition.
The underlying message I seemed to grasp is that the truly scary entities on this planet are not monsters, aliens or supernatural creatures, but human beings themselves.
I'd never watch this movie again but I can see how some people might like it for its weird quality.
Mamma Mia! (2008)
Great music, great cast, great setting... uplifting
If you feel sad and lonely and it's raining outside, this movie will do wonders for your mood just in the first thirty seconds. That's what it took to get me hooked and make me want to see it till the end.
Movies like these show that a straight male can enjoy films that don't involve people shooting at one another in the face. OK, when I saw James Bond I thought for a second that a speedboat chase could be in store for the ending.
But no, he just sang and dance like the rest of the crew, still keeping his 007 cool while swearing eternal love to Meryl with his hands in his pockets.
Of course a little campy and tacky, but what did you expect given the flashy style of the 70's band whose music it's based on?
Definitely recommendable.
8/10
The Matrix Revolutions (2003)
Starts with P. K. Dick, ends with gospel
The first movie started by exploring themes covered by P. K. Dick (what is reality? if everything was just an illusion?). Then after the revelation that Neo's is the Chosen One, the main storyline heavy relies on analogies with the Christianesim.
Neo = the Saviour, the Messiah. In fact he's dressed like a priest.
Agt. Smith = the bourgeoisie, enslaving men to serve its own materialistic purposes by feeding them hand-crafted, pre-chewed reality (TV?)
Morpheus = St. Peter
Trinity = contrarily to her name, she's not a divinity as much as a mix of the Virgin Mary (who "gives birth" to Neo by saving his life in the first movie) and Maria Magdalena. She is also resurrected by Neo like Lazarus was.
Cipher = Judas (Lou?), selling his Saviour for a steak
Architect = God. He's also white bearded and white dressed.
The Oracle = a prophet.
Seraph = an angel without wings.
The symbols are particularly blatant in this third movie:
- all the plot revolves around the "faith" in Neo against all evidence and the "belief" that he's the one who will end the war
- the final battle against Smith looks like a flying priest is fighting an army of homologated yuppies all looking alike (or was it a Magritte nightmare?)
- when Neo is defeated by Smith the first time, a cross of light spreads from his real body lying in the city of the machines
- when finally the Smiths are destroyed, light beams crack their skin open ("I am the Light"); when they are annihilated, the explosion propagates as a Celtic cross of light
- the Zionist in the final scenes, when Morpheus announces that the Prophecy is complete, look like the first Christians gathered in the Catacombs
- the final lines of the movie go like this:
Children: "So you knew?" Oracle: "I didn't know. But i believed. I believed much."
And I'm sure I'm missing a lot of them.
Plus there where other minor references from oriental religions and philosophy, mostly Hinduism and Buddhism.
And a lot of kung-fu.
Fascisti su Marte (2006)
Better than the best Monty Python film.
An hilarious spoof of the "Istituto Luce" propaganda news report that the fascist regime used to project in the theaters before the feature film. Instead of the Libia's conquest, this is about the forgotten mission on Mars by which, May 10th, 1939, "Mars is fascist!".
A platoon of fascist soldiers, Pini, Freghieri, Fecchia, Santodio, commanded by the bold "gerarca Ba-R-R-R-bagli" (Corrado Guzzanti, also writer and co-director of this film), lands on Mars' unfriendly soil.
The first issue is the oxygen: there's no air on Mars. But our heroes, though badly equipped with no respirators (a bash of the fascist regime, which was often criticized for sending its soldiers low on budget on almost suicidal missions), don't waiver and, with a simple "Me ne frego!" ("I don't give a damn!") the commander Barbagli starts to breathe and order his men to do so, demonstrating the propaganda credo that a strong will is more than enough to win every material adversity.
From then on, our heroes are set to begin the journey on the red ("bolshevik and traitor") planet, soon discovering that it's nothing more than a huge desert (a "box full of sand", how the historians called the Libia's conquest before the oil was discovered). The only comfort to the soldiers' morale is the company of a Mussolini's statue in form of a bust which Barbagli pretends to communicate telepathically with and sometimes "romanly" kisses.
The lack of any life form to subjugate, though a problem at first, is solved when a clandestine "balilla" child (actually a 36-years-old adult dressed in the uniform of a fascist school boy), while running away from its punishment bumps into an inanimate egg-shaped rock with two antennas sticking out its head, swearing he heard it say the word "Mimimmi".
The rest of the movie unfolds as a quest for the water, and the history of the "battle" against the Mimimmi's people of rock, that like any good colonialist the fascists try at first to enroll in their army then, frustrated by their "lack of cooperation", begin to persecute when suspected of engaging in guerrilla against the conqueror. There is also a bash of the Iraqi war, when the narrator claims that "weapons of mass destruction are searched for inch by inch, (often the same inch), but what is found is the VOID: and the VOID is the most lethal of all the WMAs. So we are pulled into this conflict by the hair".
Maybe the most irresistible feature of this movie is the narrating voice, that mimics the solemn and bombastic timbre of the 1930's imperialist propaganda, using obsolete terms and bizarre pronounce of common words. There is also a mini "regime cartoon" that depicts the Mimimmi's as evil newborn-eaters that are at last defeated by a heroic Barbagli with the help of the infamous fascist's trademark tools of the billy club and castor oil.
Another hilarious moment is when, during a recreative Bingo night session when all the dates fatal to the fascist regime (8-9-43, 25-4-45, etc.) are drawn in sequence, Barbagli has delusions of seeing the martians in the shape of Teletubbies greeting him from the dark desert and starts to shoot at them laughing like a madman.
The story ends with some twists, a deus-ex-machina plot and an epilogue set in modern days.
An intelligent satire against the fascist (and the imperialist/colonialist at large) regime and mentality, packed with fun at a frantic pace. A must-see.
Year of the Dragon (1985)
Major plot flaws
This movie is definitely watchable because of the good rhythm, the magnetic acting of Rourke, Lone and (some) side roles, some breath-taking scenery (the Brooklyn bridge at night from the reporter's penthouse, the Thailand trip), the political uncorrectness, the action scenes and the twists in the plot. On the down side: bad casting, cheap score, major inconsistencies in the plot (White wants to nail down the hatred Chinese bosses and brings his WIFE to dinner at THEIR RESTAURANT and introduces HER to THEM?? Mother Cocaine knows that Joey is killing everyone around him to get to the top of the Triad and accepts an invitation to dinner from him, just to get beheaded??) and some exaggerations (White finds two dead Chinese kids in the soy's factory, knees besides them in the SOY POOL getting all soaked and hugs them as if they were his long-lost schoolmates??)