musicista-38011's Reviews

Fist of the North Star (1995)

5/10

3 January 2024

Yes because it's so bad it's nearly good. Yes because we have to keep in mind it was 1995 and CGI wasn't a thing yet.

No because, well, if you have watched (like I did) all the animated series (or even a handful of episodes of the first series) you know it's pretty damn impossible to create a credible live action of it.

This said, I applaud the effort and determination, while I silently roll on the floor cringing.

I do honestly hope in a remake, a proper one with proper CGI. To be honest I probably wouldn't mind the use of AI to make the characters more similar to the original ones, but then I have no idea of what it would look like, so I'll just wait.

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Star Trek Continues (2013–2017)

8/10

Better than I thought!!!

5 December 2023

I'm writing this review after watching only the first episode, just to be clear.

This said, I didn't have great expectations and I assumed this was going to be a pathetic attempt at recreating the feel of the original series. To be honest, during the first few minutes I thought I was right, but then I started to warm up to it.

The original series' vibe is very nicely recreated, the acting of the main characters is good enough to remind us of the original cast but doesn't try hard to just copy them. It rather feels like they have soaked up the original series and tried to just be inspired by it, and I think the operation was successful.

What a nice surprise! I wish I were wrong like this more often.

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Hellboy (2019)

6/10

Difficult to rate

19 November 2023

I find myself in a difficult position here, and I'll try to explain why.

I have some reasons to like this movie and some others to not-quite-like it.

Part of my problem resides in having see the two other Hellboy films and having warmed up to them. This one is quite a bit darker than the other two, which is in itself both a good and a bad thing, in my opinion. If on one side the darker feel is more appropriate to the character, on the other side I do miss the light humour.

I'd give it another half star if I could, however I hope for a sequel and for a new story, perhaps with the occasional little dash of light of a little innocent joke.

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Father Brown (2013– )

10/10

I absolutely love it!

18 November 2023

The series is extremely well written and crafted, the casting is just perfect.

I am a big fan of Mark Williams, and I believe this role is incredibly well fitting for him, almost as if he were born to interpret Father Brown.

The stories are engaging, not too light and not too dark, just very well balanced, not predictable at all and always entertaining. You get a very nice insight of small-village England in the 1950s.

Truth be told, there are some inaccuracies in the portrayal of some Catholic rituals, but I doubt it would cause concern among the RC clergy... in fact I am inclined to think they would be rather pleased with the series as a whole.

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The Man from Earth (2007)

9/10

This is the proof....

15 November 2023

Indeed this film is the proof that you don't need CGI and brain bending special effects to create excellent entertainment. You don't even need action, for that matter!

In this film the only action is seen at the very beginning, when all the characters congregate into a room. That's it.

The rest is dialogue.

'Oh my, how boring!' you might think... and you might be right only if all you can process is mindless action and no real depth.

The dialogue here is the king, and the writing is of superior quality. It will make you think, ask yourself questions, it will unsettle you probably. A film with no action that can impact you deeply and with great force.

Not to be missed.

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Blue Beetle (2023)

5/10

I had good hopes...

15 November 2023

I've always liked the original DC character, and to be honest I've always been more of a DC fan rather than Marvel.

I was hoping that this underrated character would gain some good popularity with this film, but -alas!- I was a bit disappointed.

The problem is that the first Marvel films were so good, we got used to a very high standard and our brains keep demanding great writing, character development, acting, special effecs and so on and so forth. Basically we have very high expectations and, as it happens, that leads often to disappointment.

Imagine, if you will, that you could show this film in 2003 for instance. The outcome would have been very different, it would have been a smash hit, a record breaker, even with the imperfections that are so obvious to us today.

Don't get me wrong, this film isn't rubbish... it's just a bit too predictable and the writing is a bit, umm, how do you say that in the USA? Ah yes, "half-a*sed".

Pity!

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Whiplash (2014)

7/10

A good film, but...

12 November 2023

How shall I put this? Sometimes for the sake of making something sensational, filmmakers descend into the realm of ridicule and make a fool of themselves.

Let's go in order: the film is good overall, a very good film with a very interesting message and lots of excellent thinking points.

There's this young drummer who has talent, grit and ambition, and of course the right amount of youthful stupidity. There's the ruthless machiavellic teacher, for whom it is unconceivable to compromise on standards.

As a musician who trained old-style, I find all this quite relatable.

But then there's the scene where our main character practises so hard his hands bleed. Seriously? I don't think this ever happened to any drummer (or other instrumentalist) in history. This is so hyperbolic it's laughable. I found myself rolling my eyes and saying 'why, for goodness' sake, why?????'.

For this scene alone I lowered my rating by one star.

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Mashle: Magic and Muscles (2023– )

6/10

Borderline plagiarism

11 November 2023

Perhaps my headline is misleading. This looks like full on plagiarism!

I've just watched the first two episodes and I could see Harry Potter written all over it.

The design of the castle, the school robes, even some of the characters are like copy-paste! There's a headmaster who looks uncannily like Dumbledore and is even dressed up accordingly, and a magic teacher who looks suspiciously like McGonagall. How did they get away with this? Magic lawyers? Seriously, one wonders!

Obviously there are differences, as the main character is (as far as I can tell at this point) a muggle (non magic person) who possesses superhuman strength and stamina and an incredibly naïve mind.

There's also a whole lot of hyperbolic silliness, which gives this series a quite distinctive flavour.

What can I say, I'll watch a few more episodes to decide whether to keep watching or stop and forget it.

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Swamp Woman (2023)

2/10

No, no, no, definitely not!

8 November 2023

Where do I start? Well, let's start from the style of this film: do you remember those b-movies from the late 1970s - early 1980s? Yes, that's the style. From the very first 10 seconds of the movie you get that vibe, and for a solid minute I thought I had misread the release date.

The acting is pretty bad, mediocre high school production bad. There's a lot of female nudity, perhaps they thought it could make up for the abysmal acting, but it doesn't; I even actually found it quite unpleasant, to be honest.

The plot... well, it is very much in line with all the other b-movies we're already familiar with, so nothing to report here.

Overall a very disappointing film, not worth the time. Unless you're a fan of the genre and quite drunk.

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The Circle (I) (2017)

7/10

Ahh this is good!

29 October 2023

Honestly, one of the best movies I have watched in the last few years.

It makes you think about some VERY real things, if you have a little bit of intelligence you won't escape the inevitable reflection on today's reality.

I do not intend to spoil anything, so I must be somewhat vague. Think about this: nowadays we talk a lot about privacy, there are many laws in place all across the planet and yet millions of people every day infringe on their own privacy and willingly give away as many details of their personal lives as they can.

These personal details are sold and bought daily, and this commerce has the purpose of changing (or influencing) our choices.

Now, what is the next step? Where will this lead us? What will the consequences be?

This movie will make you think about all this, and some more.

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Star Wars: Episode VII - The Force Awakens (2015)

4/10

No, no, no...

29 October 2023

Warning: Spoilers

I went to a very good cinema to watch this, and paid good money to watch it. Was I disappointed? Oh boy...

I don't want to spoil too much, and I'll try my best, so let's start:

First and foremost, Star Wars is a franchise that has a huge fanbase of people who know A LOT about it, and I believe that this should not be disrespected.

This said, it is very well known that stormtroopers are (at least from episodes IV onwards) the worst combatants in the galaxy. The could shoot at you at point blank and still miss. Their average survival time against a Jedi knight was of mere seconds.

And the Disney decides that a stormtropper can singlehandedly hold off a jedi knight, who was also trained by Luke Skywalker (yeah, THE Luke Skywalker, not my grandpa in slippers!) for a solid three minutes AND LIVE TO TELL THE TALE???

Ah, and there's also the new heroine, who until five minutes earlier didn't even know the Force existed, and manages to achieve the impossible. Obviously every jedi who had existed before trained relentlessly for decades for no obvious reason, anyone who is blessed by the Force can instantly be a successful jedi master!

I'm sorry, but this is outrageous. Shame, because otherwise the movie would have been good.

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Cosmoball (2020)

6/10

Underrated

29 October 2023

I do honestly believe this movie is underrated. At the time I'm writing it has an average 4.7 score here, and I think it is unfair.

The story is very well delivered, the pace was very well managed, the special effects were top notch, the plot made sense, the acting was good. What went wrong then?

One could argue that the characters did not develop that much, ok, point taken. One could say that the story itself wasn't much. Yeah, but... hang on, how many highly rated movies have ridiculous or irrelevant stories? I can count quite a few, including some which were only made great by their soundtracks (and I still like them)!

I don't know what drove people to rate this movie so low, I can only advise you to watch it, for some nice and light family-friendly sci-fi entertainment.

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Infinitum: Subject Unknown (2021)

3/10

How? How???

29 October 2023

How on earth did they manage to get the excellent Ian McKellen to star in this? How???

I find this utterly baffling, it escapes my understanding.

The movie itself is boring, the story had some potential but was delivered so badly it failed to make much sense and to entertain.

I get it, this was filmed during the much loved (please forgive the euphemism) lockdowns, and it must have been a challenge. Alas, this is the nature of life! Some challenges are met and end in triumph (or victory, or something positive anyway) and some others... eh... end in defeat.

This said, in response to my opening lines, I suppose we all do something in our lives, something we're not proud of. And sometimes we do that despite our better judgment, even in our maturity. I should think this gives Ian (one of my favourite actors, by the way) an even more human dimension.

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Finch (2021)

8/10

I liked it!

29 October 2023

Another great performance by Tom Hanks. Keep it up man!

The story is very well developed throughout, the pace of the movie is very well managed.

It has a little bit of Wall-E and almost evokes the memory of Johnny 5, in an apocalyptic future.

This movie made me feel pretty much the full gamut of emotions., and the whole thing was very well managed within the script. At times it makes you believe you know where it's going, and then obviously it takes a different turn and you feel glad it did. Only good writing (and direction) can give you this feeling.

I'm glad I watched this movie, I was somewhat hesitant for no obvious reason.

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Mia and the Dragon Princess (2023)

3/10

I tried...

29 October 2023

I really tried to watch it all, I'm not lying!

The acting was pretty unconvincing, the story was told in a somewhat confusing way and had plenty of holes, way too many for me.

I caught myself checking my emails more than once, and decided I had enough at the bar scene. You will know when you see it.

That was the point when I decided I had had enough and believe me, to abandon a movie before it ends isn't something I do lightly, or often at all!

When things stop making sense and you get the distinctive impression that no one has quite understood what is going on (including cast, director and everyone else), well... what do you do?

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Ghostbusters: Answer the Call (2016)

5/10

I was negatively biased, nevertheless...

29 October 2023

Let's be honest: when I heard of a reboot with opposite sex lead roles I thought "this can't be good". Nevertheless I decided to watch it, as I should not judge a book by its cover, and a good friend of mine said he liked it.

Let's start with the positives: Chris Hemsworth delivers a very funny performance and had me mostly laughing (and occasionally rolling my eyes), and I get it, his character has so been written as a sort of revenge against all the stereotyped silly-female-secretary characters we have seen on the big screen for decades. I get it, revenge is better served cold.

CGI is very good.

These two positives aren't -I'm afraid- enough to create a good movie, even with the help of the cameos offered by the original actors.

The female characters could have been written quite a lot better and the plot could have been presented in a better way.

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Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny (2023)

6/10

Saved by the soundtrack

29 October 2023

I had high hopes for this one, despite the geriatric state of my beloved main actor, but -alas!- I was quite disappointed.

I shan't spoil anything, so all I say is that there are plot holes IMHO (is this news anyway?) and the choice of cast could have been wiser. By this I mean the female lead role, which I didn't manage to like despite my best efforts.

If you are looking for some not-too-bad entertainment, this movie might be for you, after all it contains all the right tropes, more or less.

The ending managed to be more entertaining (to me) than the rest of the movie, to be fully honest.

Kudos to Harrison Ford for saving all that was salvageable in the movie, and of course to John Williams, without whose music many movies would have flopped royally.

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