Lima

Classic quality stuff from Ishiro Honda. So it's not surprising to see precise work with miniatures, models of tanks, forests, villages, ships at sea, etc. When the oversized Frankenstein walks through the Japanese woods, you can clearly see the painted background and artificial trees, but that's the beauty of it, like looking at the set of Josef Lada in the fairytale Playing with the Devil. Of course, if you don't buy the synopsis that a little boy carries the immortal heart of Frankenstein inside him, mutates to giant proportions due to radiation, and has a fair fight with a kaiju monster at the end, then ignore it, as there's no logic or realism. Speaking of Baragon, he always managed to bring a good mood in Kaiju movies, at least to me. I love those big floppy ears of his, he's adorable :o) The head of the team of good guys, as was quite common in Ishiro Honda's movies from the 1950s and 60s, plays a low-cost version of Lex Barker – I wonder where Honda always dug up these uncharismatic types, who were not even barked at by dogs in Hollywood. The fiercely physical, sweaty final fight between a half-naked actor and a stuntman in a Baragon costume is unforgettable, it has the same grit as Godzilla’s brawl with King Kong. Honda really knew how to enjoy that. PS: Thanks pepuo for the good subtitles.

Very, very tame Fulci. It's not a Giallo by any stretch of the imagination, nor is it a horror film, in fact you wouldn't even know that it was made by the father of gore, except perhaps for the constant panning and zooming of eyes, which was his trademark. There are a few close-ups of bloody bodies, but very subtly conceived, and good-old Lucio could have spared us the repetition of the effect of the falling body from his previous piece Don't Torture a Duckling, where the face of a fallen person is rubbed bloody against a rock and we can clearly see that it is a stupid dummy. It looked silly back then and it looks silly today, too. But the story isn't bad, it has logic, it keeps the mystery until the very end where the cards are laid on the table, and it builds up quite nicely. And once again it was confirmed that Fulci knew how to choose beautiful women for his films and give them expressive roles that were a joy to play.

Well, yeah. Bava's film is thematically seven to ten years late, it would have fit much better into the '50s, especially considering what Kubrick came up with just three years later (let's be grateful for that timeless work!), but as a distinctive Italian take on the Golden Age, it's actually ok. The first thing that strikes the eye is the cheap-looking spaceship sets and the even cheaper-looking special effects, but Bava did a great job with the planet. He plays with all the colours, the cinematography is fine, and the distinctive visuals are quite different from what was being made in Hollywood studios at the time in the field of cheap sci-fi. You'll probably hate the characters who behave like utter idiots, but the cynical ending will gladden the heart of any nihilist :o)

Monty Python presents: Phenomena – Revenge of the Chimp… Wait, it wasn’t a parody? I'm amazed what kind of horrible nonsense the diehard Argento fans are willing to put up with. Exactly as Fulci said: Argento is a skilled director of eye-popping scenes, but a terrible screenwriter. All that was missing was that the killer was the chimpanzee, and actually, in the context of the events in the film, I wouldn't be surprised. After all, his entrance with a razor at the very end was the cherry on top.

I remember the TV coverage of the disaster and the film captures it faithfully, including the injection of a sedative to one of the distraught mothers. Anyway, one thing is clear from the film: if something similar happened to any of the NATO armies that the local Putin trolls spit on as much as they can, their leadership might break ranks to save these boys. But the Russian military leadership has a different yardstick, the ‘there’s plenty of us’ rule. In Russia, human life has never been worth anything, ever since the Battle of Stalingrad, when they deployed young unarmed boys to the front lines with firing squads at their backs. As Papa Stalin used to say: “The death of one man is a tragedy, the death of millions is a statistic.” Russia, a land of unlimited possibilities...

In his previous effort, Edwards handled the legacy of the Toho films much more deftly. He stretched the cues effectively and delivered a clear action set-piece with some iconic moments at the end. But this? This sequel has a fantastic, exciting trailer, with a wonderful musical theme “Somewhere Over The Rainbow” that will make you swoon. Unfortunately, the film itself is not fantastic, let alone exciting. In every one of the 27 Godzilla movies I've seen so far (not counting Emmerich's crap that has nothing to do with Kaiju), I've had more fun than here, including the worst of them, the infantile Son of Godzilla, which was at least a pleasant guilty-pleasure. This film is just guilty, but without any pleasure. You don't care about characters who have a mouthful of family values, visually it's not great either. The golden-hued color filter is downright ugly and the action is cluttered, with a shaky camera that's often a clump of pixels you don't care about. It has a few moments, a few references to Toho's predecessor, which are nice (the woman is also the catalyst for plot twists, and we can hear about three times the notorious Godzilla arrival motif we know from Japanese Kaiju), but that can't be enough even for the most diehard Toho/Godzilla fans, among whom I count myself. It's a disappointment that I hope won't break the lizard's neck in the future.

Too bad there aren't more film clips. Rather, it's just a succession of talking heads, with the first half in particular favoring Dario Argento, who praises himself for almost 40 minutes. In this respect, I was delighted by the words of Lucio Fulci, who said – confirming my old impressions – that Argento is a great director but a lousy screenwriter. That’s exactly the feeling I get from Argento’s films. Then there is Fulci's observation that Argento despised him, which he said didn't surprise him, because Argento is known to like only himself. I'm not surprised, Argento's films have big egos, even though they’ve had nothing to be proud of for the last 30 years, just like their creator; though here you can see some nice praise for his latest pieces, which are not worth the price of admission. For me, Fulci was always a better craftsman than Argento. If I were to break down the film, Mario Bava has about 10 minutes, Argento almost 40, Fulci about 10, and the rest is "the others". They have not forgotten Luciano Ercoli, Sergio Martino, and the legendary sex bomb Edwige Fenech has the biggest space among the actors. The whole thing ends with the great craftsman Umberto Lenzi, who is still on fire despite his old age.

For me, two things are central to a film: the ideas and the atmosphere. And John Wick 3 has both to spare. During the New York scenes, I felt like Blade Runner had spawned a baby with frenetic Hard Boiled-type action. I really haven't seen such a beautifully lit, atmospheric, visually rich action set-pieces in a long time, so brimming with ideas in the contact fight scenes, and yet so fantastically scored that you can feel every punch and hear the difference when Jonathan fires the Magnum and then switches to the shotgun with its typical hollow sounds. And once again I must repeat the key word – ideas!! Nowhere else, in any other film, have I seen such inventive use of horse power, in no other film have I seen such a good knife fight scene (perhaps only the kitchen scene in Evans's The Raid 2 could compete with this) and at the same time I congratulate the dog trainers, the ones who performed there are to be applauded at length. And you know, I was expecting the plot to be an weak tea, but even in that respect it made sense and the mythology, with its laws and rules that can't be broken, has something to it and I enjoy it. And Keanu Reeves? I admire his shape at 55 years old, I prefer to take the elevator when I need to get to the 2nd floor, and here he is doing physically demanding moves like on a treadmill, and he's 8 years older :o) I'm looking forward to #4, here with him!

The most important film today. Gandhi once said that "The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated." These words should be set in stone, but given the reality and the clear facts that we don't want to hear about (lest each of us perhaps sully our rosy microcosm), it’s clear that our "superior human race" has nothing to be proud of at all; let everyone make up their own minds. The worst thing is that there’s still a huge force of idiots in the world who do not hesitate to label films like this as “green propaganda”. It’s very, very sad, really. For those interested, the film is available for download at uloz.to.

I'm not a big fan of comic book CGI coloring books, but I have to capitulate here. Especially thanks to the middle section, when it clicks together beautifully like a sophisticated jigsaw puzzle that recalls all the previous Marvel movies, and the film rolls out such incredible fan service that it's almost admirable. That and the last nostalgic quarter of an hour will actually show how the suits from Marvel have it perfectly thought out in advance, even ten or fifteen years in advance. A perfectly tuned machine that is unparalleled in today's film studio constellation. Kevin Feige is a stud.