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Micio Nero
Reviews
Fracchia contro Dracula (1985)
Stay away from the castle...
... and from this movie!!!
My oh my, what a bad movie! I have seen lots of bad movies (like Troll 2, or Robot Monster), and this one is as bad as those are! I am a fan of Paolo Villaggio, and normally I like his movies, the Fantozzi series for example, but also many of the less known movies from the 1970's, but this one is a stinker. It's a spoof of the classic 1950's and 1960's horror movies, with Villaggio as the improbable hero, Fracchia, a man afraid of virtually everything. The feeling is actually that of the classic horror stories, and if it wasn't for the attempts at comedy it would indeed make an almost decent b-movie... but unfortunately it tries to be a comedy, failing all the way. The plot is as thin as it can be (Plot? What plot?), and there isn't a single memorable scene, nothing at least a bit funny. Actually, I felt almost sad after watching this movie. Why would Villaggio accept to make a film like this in 1985, when he had already had quite a lot of success with his Fantozzi movies? I guess he needed the money badly, I can't see no other reason for him to do this.
This is a difficult one to find (my copy is a videotape I bought back in the 80's), especially outside of Italy. In this case, this isn't a bad thing. Let's hope they never release this one, somebody may buy it... If you really want to see some funny Paolo Villaggio movies, try the first two from the Fantozzi series, those are the real classics.
Neko no ongaeshi (2002)
Too short!!!
*** ATTENTION: SPOILERS ***
I must first tell you that I love cats, and that I think Studio Ghibli is the best anime studio there is. I have seen most of their movies (I haven't seen Omohide Poro Poro yet), so you can imagine how excited I was about a Studio Ghibli movie with mostly cats as the main characters.
The begin of the movie is okay, we are introduced to the main (human) character, Haru, a teenage girl. One day Haru saves a cat from being run over by a truck, and to her surprise the cat thanks her for saving her life! But from here on the movie goes very wrong. We discover that the cat is a prince and that his father, the King of Cats, wants him to marry Haru. Haru seeks the help of a fat white cat (Muta) and of a statuette (of a cat, of course) which is actually alive (Baron), but she is kidnapped and taken to the kingdom of cats. Of course Muta and Baron go there too and rescue her just in time. It's a happy ending story, after all. The big problem is that the plot remains very unclear. We see an evil King who has a central role, but learn nothing more about him than the fact that he is evil. There is Baron, but who is he, why is he there? We are not told (of course, if you saw Mimi Wo Sumaseba you'll know something about his past, but nothing is told in this movie). Why are Muta and Baron against the King? At one point we are told a little about Muta's past, but Baron remains a complete mystery. The same about the Prince who was saved by Haru: he seems to have a love story with a cute servant kitten, but we are told nothing more about it. Now, I understand that we can't pretend that Studio Ghibli keeps making two hour long features like Mononoke or Spirited Away, but this movie is just 75 minutes long, and that includes a few minutes of end credits... had the story been better developed, it would have been long enough, but it left me with the feeling that it should have lasted at least 20-25 minutes longer, just to explain a little more.
Super Fantozzi (1986)
Forgettable movie
The "Fantozzi" movie series is quite popular in Italy, but this fifth movie is really a forgettable one. The whole idea is to show how the Fantozzi family has lived as losers through time ever since the beginning of the world. This is done by showing a number of episodes: we see Fantozzi as a caveman, a Greek soldier, a crusader, a French revolutionary and more. Nothing wrong with it, but unfortunately most of the episodes are not so funny, and the movie is actually quite boring. Sure there are a number of funny episodes, but they are very few, too few actually to make the movie interesting. I don't know if these movies are shown outside of Italy (they are unknown here in the Netherlands, and I think I once saw one on German TV), but if you happen to find them, take a look at the first ones ("Fantozzi" and "Il secondo tragico Fantozzi") and leave this alone, you won't miss much...
Fantozzi alla riscossa (1990)
They should have known when to stop...
Let's get right to the point: this movie is bad. Okay, the story it's not really important in a Fantozzi movie, so the fact that there isn't one is no big deal. But this movie not only doesn't have a story, it also doesn't have an underlying idea, and this is bad. The previous Fantozzi movies really tried to make a statement, even if for most viewers they were only silly comedies... they are a criticism of capitalism and of modern society in general. In both their form and their statements they are almost a 20th century version of Rabelais' "Gargantua and Pantagruel" stories. They are comedies, but there is always a serious tone at the base of the gags, and each gag criticizes an aspect of our society. The sixth movie of the series ("Fantozzi Va In Pensione") is a clear example of this: the movie handles with Fantozzi's life after his retirement, with him slowly realizing that he has become an 'old man', a socially unimportant and undesired person. This movie really says something to us and in the end it makes us feel sorry for the poor guy.
"Fantozzi Alla Riscossa", on the other side, is only a collection of old, recycled gags, stripped of all the serious tones I was talking about. What remains is a bunch of silly gags that won't make you laugh at all, because you have seen them before in much better Fantozzi movies, and although they 'look' the same, they feel very different, empty. Paolo Villaggio should have known when to stop, "Fantozzi Va In Pensione" was the perfect ending to what is probably the most successful and loved Italian movie series of all time. All the movies after that one are only poor, commercial imitations of the originals.
Guinea Pig: Ginî piggu - Akuma no jikken (1985)
Soooo fake and boring...
I watched Guinea Pig for the first time a few days ago. I had never seen the series before, but I had heard a lot about it, about how realistic and extremely violent it was, so I had high expectations.
But the movie turned out to be a big disappointment right from the start. No story, very fake special effects, a victim who looks like she's going to die of boredom before they actually kill her... I mean, she's been tortured like that and she almost doesn't scream or cry at all!!!
If you really want to see a realistic, disturbing movie about torture and humiliation, do yourself a favor and watch 'Cannibal Holocaust' by Ruggero Deodato, or 'Salò' by Pier Paolo Pasolini.
Sen to Chihiro no kamikakushi (2001)
The Master's Masterpiece
First of all, I must say that I grew up with the works of Hayao Miyazaki. "Future Boy Conan" has been at the #1 spot in my Top 10 of anime series for a long time, and I also enjoyed movies like Kiki's Delivery Service, My Neighbour Totoro and Princess Mononoke, which means that my expectations of Spirited Away were very high, almost to the point that I started to fear that the movie wouldn't be able to match them.
This said, I must admit that I almost fell off my chair while watching Spirited Away for the first time... Totoro is maybe a little too childish and slow paced, and you may say that there is too much graphic violence in Mononoke, you could even protest that there is too little magic in Kiki, but Spirited Away is almost pure perfection. There is action, love, magic, and fun. The story is well paced (when it ended it seemed much shorter than 2 hours), the graphics are great, the characters, even the secondary ones, are well developed.
The movie itself is a wonderful fairytale, one that can be watched by children and adults alike, not difficult to follow, but elaborated enough to keep a grown-up interested in it.
As I said, perfection is *almost* reached here. Almost, because a few (very few) things could have been done better, in my opinion. First of all the CGI. Generally very good, but not so good in some scenes. Second, I personally would have liked to know a little more about the relation between Yubaba and Zeniba, but I watched the japanese version with english subtitles, so maybe some parts of the dialogue haven't been fully translated...
This is really a great movie, no wonder it won a Golden Bear in Berlin. You can't miss this one if you love anime. And if you don't love anime watch it anyway, you might discover you *do* love them after all...