marekoropallo

IMDb member since December 2016
    Lifetime Total
    50+
    IMDb Member
    7 years

Reviews

The Craft: Legacy
(2020)

Poor
It is possible for a movie with female protagonists to simply exist without having to ooze feminism and feminist cliches?

Is it noticeable to the screenwriting world that this fatally deforms and polarizes the story?

The original movie was completely successful in showing an all-female bond capable of great power...but was not forgetful of the responsibilities it brings. The characters were all developed and you felt always the presence on what characterizes a witches flick - i. E. horror. The actresses seemed indeed more talented.

Subtract all those elements, add instead a goofy plot + a miscasted David Duchovny + some bad music...you'll have the present movie.

True Detective
(2014)

Tue Detective IV: Feminist Nights
If you like me loved the first season, accepted the second and even praised the third...do yourself a favor and skip the fourth.

Otherwise you'll find there everything that a good series has to avoid: absurdities, plotholes, bad pacing, campy horror tricks, clumsy references and a woke taste that's so rabid and stereotyped it's even unintentionally ridiculous.

It's a shame. Even with an actress like Jodie Foster and a very inspirational elements (a murder, a research facility, alaskian nights,...) it's no wonder that the original showrunner (Pizzolatto) hardly criticized...this pile of unsubstantialities.

House of Darkness
(2022)

What a waste
It must be tedious to write movies like this one: the ending is obvious from the premises, so the remaining time must be filled by characters' development.

Unfortunately, the evil one (Long) is not evil at all, and the heroines (the vampires) are not heroic. Instead, they all share bad lines.

After 90' of watching, one gets the long predicted ending - and there could have been an interesting plot twist: e.g. The victim could have proved himself as a vampire hunter and kill the monsters...but this is simply forbidden in Hollywoke.

More, if the movie had not involved a male dismemberment, it would never be done.

So pathetic.

The Invitation
(2022)

The epitome of racism
If you are searching for a full display of what "racism" means in 2022, you could take a look at this movie: the "heroines" are two black chicks that constantly argue who's the whitest person they have met, that whites are inherently evil, and so on.

And the evil and deceptive ones are (unsurprisingly) all white european, and almost all men.

The two girls, armed just of an art degree(!), succeed in bringing down three entire families of those "monsters".

In fact, even if it had to be a vampiric movie, the vampires walk freely by daylight, eat normally and barely drink blood - so even if depicted as heinous ones, they are below the cruelty average. Nevertheless they get dismembered and burned by the two "good girls".

As an european man, I feel deeply offended.

Don't Worry Darling
(2022)

Expecting better
"It's a complete rip off of Stepford Wives with 2022 Twitter sensibilities" says an objectively written review - and I agree.

Unless the fact that the first "Stepford Wives" was a bright and not pretentious movie placed perfectly in its times - the 70s, while the 2004 remake was a light comedy with some witty lines.

Here instead the pretentiousness is rampant in every scene, and the cast was at least partly chosen to supply it. The script is poor and I'm very sorry, but the attempt to melt "Stepford Wives" with "Matrix" does not guarantee additional originality.

Maybe it's a step ahead of the horrendous "Booksmart" (the first movie Wilde directed) but as a single work it is below average.

Wednesday
(2022)

Unsatisfactory
Did you think the liminal irony of "The Addams Family" would fear nothing?

You were wrong - greed, wokeness and predictable one-liners easily corrode even the sardonic but mild gothic classic. At first you'll find intriguing the subject, and interesting the main actors' performances (even if cocooned into a sort of "Harry Potterish" story).

But delving more in the series you'll find that the good elements fade, and you're left with a repetitive teen comedy with an excessive tonnage of outcasts-Vs-normals rhethoric.

Maybe the goal was nothing more than this - to use the original series' reputation to tow an ordinary comedy for the young audience. IMHO, every audience deserves (far) better.

American Crime Story
(2016)

The third season lowers the rating
It's extremely hard to review altogether three seasons so different in pretty every aspect, so I'll focus just on the third (whose subject I know better).

Unfortunately, even if it's a carefully crafted product (even if a bit less than the first season) and offers some great moments, it's flawed by inexplicably wrong casting choices (with the sole exception of Sarah Paulson) and a too much perceivable left-leaning interpretation.

Vita da Carlo
(2021)

Below expectations
Some good actors show up, and Verdone enjoys the play.

Unfortunately one of the series' announced goals - "Verdone senza personaggi" - is fatally missed: from characters to tone, everything replicates Verdone's past works, leaving a sense of complacency that's not comedic at all.

Watch it if you love Verdone&romanesco. Otherwise skip it without remorse.

Black Christmas
(2019)

Horrible instead of horrific
I've seen so many bad movies, but here you have to abandon all hopes - it's a desperately ugly and silly one, a constant facepalm not even with a bit of unintentional humor.

The Stand
(2020)

Shallow
You'll find here some good ideas, but lost in a sea of bad directorial choices - and with no help from the cast, because half of it was inappropriately chosen.

In this historical moment this series could have been so many things. But does not take any of those possibilities, and in the end, fails to reflect the power and thematic complexity of the Stephen King's original work.

I figli... so' pezzi 'e core
(1981)

Dickens in Neaples
It's one of the classics (along "Zappatore") of the sceneggiata genre. It's campy, it's gross, it's set in a reality that doesn't exist anymore. The good speak neapolitan, the evil italian. But when Mario Merola starts to sing it's hard to not feel, at least a bit, moved.

Tradimento
(1982)

If you like Merola and D'Angelo, watch it!
It's a movie created from a song (a "sceneggiata"), indeed it has good pace and the switches (often unintentional) between drama and comedy are interesting

Hodináruv ucen
(2019)

Watchable
Not as good as a classical fairytale, but it's far from some campy ones. Or some deconstructed others. The technical details are indeed nice.

Sala samobójców. Hejter
(2020)

Many pros (and some cons)
PROS
  • The movie subject is disclosed without lenience, bringing to some extremely grievous but meaningful moments
  • So many urgent themes (troll farms and social media Babel, exclusion and class struggle, overt and indirect violence, idealism and interest...) orchestrated together
  • Great directing and acting
  • The tone's cold and dark, and even if there's no good, it doesn't mean it lacks humanity and credibility


CONS
  • The plot suffers from some minor flaws, unfortunately their synergy affects the power of the message
  • No equal deepening is granted to the various aspects

Finché c'è Prosecco c'è speranza
(2017)

Pleasurable
There's comedy, there's mistery, there's drama. There's an extraordinarily rich cast. There's a wonderful part of Italy. It could have been a masterpiece, but the director's aim was to make just a good "giallo". And so it is.

Sotto una buona stella
(2014)

Below average
Verdone seems to condensate here some of his most repetitive schemes and stylistic devices, and the result is a bit insubstantial. Even humour is confined just to some sketches in romanesco. Surely not one of his best movies

Transformers: The Last Knight
(2017)

What a mess
The most "michaelbayish" of Bay's movies I've ever seen: refined digital work, but it's so filled with puberty-level jokes and madly edited, that the plot is almost unfollowable. And it's a thin plot.

Alice et le maire
(2019)

Taste the comedy, forget the message
The movie genre showing political backstages is firmly established, but what does happen if the boss is Fabrice Luchini and an improbable but brilliant philosopher joins the party? Well, you'll get a thoughtful comedy with punching, suggestive dialogues and a warm look on an ending left-wing political career. And extremely vague answers.

Greyhound
(2020)

If you like WW2 sea battles, you'll not be disappointed
As others yet noted, the movie seems to be made entirely by lethal naval duels in a very cold weather: from this viewpoint, it's a good depiction of what presumably meant escorting a convoy in the "Black Pit". Indeed, the human aspect isn't absent but rests on the shoulders of Tom Hanks and the (expert) cast entirely - some stereotyping (even gross) is not avoided.

Christmas Under Wraps
(2014)

Slightly worse than the average Christmas movie
It would have been a good Christmas fairy tale if 1) "the princess" wouldn't look in her twenties and "the prince" in his fifties, 2) Santa would be just a bit more resembling, 3) the magical mistery would have raised some disbelief and surprise instead of being accepted as a normal consequence

WarGames: The Dead Code
(2008)

You wouldn't believe how bad it is
Sure, the original film was quite campy. But casts a glance on so many things - the rising hacker scene, the beginning of home computing, the first AI studia, the technological war between USA and URSS, etc - that everyone reminds it as much more than a teen movie. This one at the contrary fails from every point of view - all the ideas are much better realized in other movies, the FX tremendously suck, the IT aspects are ludicrous or hardly outdated, there is no climax, and even the main characters are not credible as high school students. If you don't expect nothing...turn to another flick. This is just bad.

Color Out of Space
(2019)

Partly good, but in the end follows the fate of most Lovecraft's adaptations
It's pretty unbelievable that the most inspiring moments of a 2019's movie are those where a Lovecraft's story passage is read in the background. Don't get me wrong: we are used to every possible horror gimmick on screen, what is not imageable could hardly be represented, and the movie is full of willingness. Unfortunately (also maybe due to the low budget and the wrong choice of Nicholas Cage) the final result seems a colorful version of "The Thing"

Les misérables
(2019)

Not as good as you could expect
Some will praise the technical realization and the director's mastery, and some will point out the movie stratification: a police action flick placed upon a crime movie placed upon a social critic. The problem is that all those aspects are very shallowly analized, leaving an impression justifying those who will turn their heads from the multicultural hellhole France has become.

L'incredibile storia dell'isola delle rose
(2020)

Cute
Living not more than 30km from the place where 'Insulo de la Rozoj' was built, I was always interested in a movie depicting its history...This one leans too much on the comedic side (maybe to avoid a historic drama tone), leaving to the (skilled) actors the task of saving characters' depth. The technical details and photography are indeed very enjoyable, maybe it's just a bit noisy.

Hammamet
(2020)

Lacking something...!
If you grant (a lot of) indulgence to the controversial protagonist, you'll enjoy this nostalgic movie (Amelio is the right director), taste some subtleties, and praise the great performance of the lead actor - "adesso li fa tutti Favino", and for a very good reason - and the whole cast. On the other side, even forgetting about history, you'll also notice the flaws: the most important political facts are just fainted, the identities are hidden (even ridiculously, as for Craxi's sons), there's no real plot (the Vincenzo's son escamotage does not work) which contribuites to the image of a insufferable crumbling king

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