cicalinarrot Reviews

Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins (1992 Video Game)

Not worth rediscovering for most people, one of the worst Marios

[4/10 · 20 February 2023]

Most people seem to believe this is better than the first Super Mario Land. I strongly disagree. I frankly think it's just people who find it cute when they were kids. Don't hate me, nothing wrong with that and I'm sure it's a great game for those people but I'm trying to give a different perspective to new players who are looking for a nice retro Mario game, now that it's available on the Switch. And I suggest to skip this one, unless you're on a quest to play ALL Mario games.

It looks much better than its predecessor but the bigger sprites come at a great cost: most of the platform dynamics that made the first game similar to the rigorous first Super Mario Bros are gone but aren't replaced by anything meaningful. Not by some advanced platform dynamics like Mario Bros 2 and 3, not by the exploration and transformations of the gameboy/color Wario saga.

Most levels feel too easy for a skilled Mario player. Easy, short, often generic, even if there are some memorable and unique moments.

Some difficulty is artificially added with pretty annoying physics that can change. Platformers lovers will find most parts too easy and a few just irritating. It rarely feels like you're playing a difficult game, at best it feels like playing an easy game while your little brother is trying to steal your gameboy. For each level, the number of moments that feel like they've been studied to represent a platforming challenge goes from 0 to 3. The rest of the difficulty comes from random elements to deal with on annoying counterintuitive physics. Maybe that's your thing but it doesn't change how lazy the level design feels compared to other Mario games.

The final level is probably the best part, even if some of the difficulty is just imposed by the no-save relatively long structure. The actually challenging parts that were clearly given more attention than the rest of the game, show that this had a potential to be a much better games, despite some of the limitations I've mentioned.

Bosses are averagely cool early-Mario bosses.

Again, graphics are as nice as it gets on a little B&W gameboy screen and some enemies are objectively cute.

Historically, I give this game the merit of opening the awesome Wario saga and pushing GB graphics but not much more.

It's a skippable Mario title for most people: unless you just really enjoy it from the beginning (or, of course, have fond memories of it) I'd recommend looking elsewhere.

Gilda (1946)

Poor screenwriting

[3/10 · 15 October 2022]

The main feature is of course Rita being herself, and the movie surely takes care about that, which is the sole reason why it's even remembered.

The good production makes it appropriately directed and acted, which, as mentioned, means the whole focus is on her.

The dialogues are inexcusably bad and I frankly think they ruin everything. The writers were aiming at Casablanca or something like that and wanted to get a fast pace made of witty replies and hidden meanings. So they tried to develop every scene as a puzzle ...and every line does indeed fit perfectly but it also very often makes no sense on its own, just like a piece in a puzzle. So many lines only seem to be there as a set up for the next one. The same gimmicks, like a character omitting something and delivering an unintelligible sentence to force the other to ask, are repeated over and over.

Characters become rarely natural and often very inconsistent. Much of their wittiness that drives the conversations makes their lines almost interchangeable, since they often have to finish each other's sentences. And from one scene to the next, or even in the same scene, they can turn from cool, confident and carefully keeping their secrets to clumsy and revealing, then back to cool, with no reasonable reaction from others. Their intentions and what they think of one another are always unclear, and I don't mean mysterious, just unclear because the heavy inconsistencies.

When any character can give an arrogant witty reply to any other at any time, even if he/she is supposed to be embarrassed, submissive, grateful, appeasing or hiding something, power relationships that should move the plot become just as unclear and inconsistent. So the whole plot is reduced to a sequence of things that happen to them and the psychological side that should clearly have been a central feature is hidden behind the messy dialogues.

Again, there's something good in this but poor screenwriting is way too pervasive for me to consider it a good movie.

Late Night with Seth Meyers (2014– )

A sober, almost intimate show, for few people

[9/10 · 30 September 2022]

Premise: I'm european.

And I find most US talk shows of this kind way over the top. It feels ridiculous most of the times.

I understand why, historically: there used to be two or three absurdly relevant ones, with universally loved hosts that were as important as the president but lasted much longer and developed this incredible devotion over the years.

Fine but now there's a dozen brand new talk shows like this so maybe calm down. You have to earn that crazy respect instead of faking it: take yourself less seriously, be kind and rewarding with your selected audience, make it a nice time among friends.

This is exactly what Seth does best.

If you follow the show, most of the things that people seem to hate in reviews seem to fit perfectly. Guests are rarely superstars for the easy youtube clicks, they're people Seth likes and can have a fun conversation with. Jokes are soberly funny and sometimes just silly, to the point that Seth often jokes about how insecure he is about them. He doesn't show the absurd and pathetic confidence that other hosts have, even when they deliver a bad joke with no irony about it. That really makes me cringe.

All talk show writers have to deliver way too much material for it to be always good. But I enjoy much more a lame joke when it's delivered in a humble way. That's why I perceive Seth more like a friend than other God-like hosts.

The whole writing process is exposed and demystified in the show through jokes about his writers. They become characters and make you feel like the team is just a group of friends. These grew even stronger after the lockdown and massively rewarded the audience loyalty. Many new segments are self-referential but not in an arrogant way, just to make fun of the show.

Then, of course, there's a strong political element, which I find myself quite in tune with or I probably wouldn't enjoy the show. He's very open about it and I don't agree with all of the points of view but it makes fine segments.

It's not a talk show everyone enjoys. But it gets better and better for those who do.

The Bourne Identity (2002)

What if the music video of Darude's Sandstorm was a feature film?

[2/10 · 25 July 2022]

(If it didn't have a ridiculous 7.9 score, I'd give it a generous 5 or even 6)

An uninspired spy movie that tries to play the horribly overused (better used, most of the times) gimmick of a protagonist that has no idea what's going on with his life. The excuse to do that is a plot as thin and lazy as it gets, even for its genre.

They clearly started from the concept of an all-mighty Matt Damon running from someone, kickin' asses and meeting a chick for no apparent reason but instead of finding a decent reason during later production stages, they just integrated that "for no apparent reason" all the way to the final plot.

And the unaware protagonist in a supposedly mind-bending scenario that wants to make you say "woooa dude, that's dope" is just the first of an infinite series of around-year-2000-movie-trying-too-hard-to-be-cool clichés that were handled better somewhere else.

A cool guy who masters martial arts? Check. Unsettling and inconsistent overuse of color correction? Check. A male and a female protagonists that you expect to have sex because they are both sexy and they're both there? Check. A whole lot of chasing scenes with late 90s trance music? Check. Matt Damon? Check.

It's a somewhat entertaining action movie, surely better than all the obvious-trash ones. The acting is mostly acceptable and the situations are rarely as ridiculous as the rest of the genre. It may work for lovers of the genre, don't think it does it for more generic cinephiles.

Us (II) (2019)

An unsettling gem

[9/10 · 24 July 2022]

I don't love horror/thriller movies but I like movies with some well-crafted material and this surely is one.

It's not ashamed of playing its genre's game with its clichés but it also finds time for some breathtakingly good and memorable artistic scenes. I think those scenes really hold the movie together and both set and solve its whole tension.

It's an entertaining, at times even silly movie that deserves some serious attention nevertheless.

Last Night in Soho (2021)

Best Wright's effort so far

[10/10 · 22 December 2021]

I'll be honest, I'm a fan of Wright's work and I have apreciated everything he's done, but I can find heavy flaws in all of his previous movies.

This one has flaws too but they're buried by a long list of things it gets very right, almost to perfection.

First of all it's a thriller with relevant horror elements to it that truly understands and modernizes some of the greatest features and clichés of both genres. It does it by using CGI tricks in a honest way: it doesn't feel ashamed of some impressive but clearly digital touches and instead uses them to bring out some "uncanny valley" feeling from the creepy characters.

In this way, it's 100% Edgar Wright. A lot of what he started in "The World's End" seem to reappear here in a more mature way. The use of digital effects I mentioned feels perfect now and suits greatly a very serious movie.

And a very serious movie it is. It starts as what seems to be a homage to the lovely fairy tale of the 60s London and works hard to demystify it and show it's scarily dark side, facing important issues. And these issues in exchange make the horror face of the movie more scary and convincing, they make you care about the characters. Most other movies that touched feminist issued I've seen felt at least sometimes forced to me, especially when the director is a man. This feels creepily inspired all the time, as if he wanted to use the powerful weapon of a scary movie as precisely as possible to help a great cause.

All technical aspects of the movie are good-to-excellent, as expected. Acting is good-to-very-good for this kind of movie.

So, to sum it up, it gets right the use of its genre, the director's strong points, the ethical aspects, the technical ones.

To me this is everything a movie has to do, that's why it gets a 10.

The Godfather Part III (1990)

A filmmaking masterclass

[10/10 · 30 December 2020]

Most of those who worshipped the first two parts believe this was a boring movie. It doesn't have the same universal strenght the first two movies had. It's less of a pop movie for sure. It starts as a sequel that tries to respect its heavy heritage. Quite self-referential even though not as much as Part II, and much more subtle when borrowing those atmoshperes that made the first movie legendary. Then starts the opera sequence. Simply jaw-dropping, more than half an hour of perfection. So many very quick incredible shots as the tension grows. None of the great trilogies in cinema history has a better ending. On the acting side, Al Pacino is surprisingly good and both Sofia Coppola and Andy Garcia fit their roles and introduce a fresh new generation in the saga. This may not be the best movie by Coppola but I hardly recall a director putting this much abilty and effort combined into something. Shame on cinephiles who consider this a minor work.

Interstate 60 (2002)

A quite kiddish movie

[1/10 · 20 December 2020]

The general quality, in each single aspect is similar to a half-decent tv show of its era. Actors, very much including a lazy Gary Oldman, fit that category. The plot, probably the worst thing, is seriously trivial and tries so hard to teach you how to be a free spirit, it somehow manages to get preachy about it. Filmmaking is uninspired and generic. It's a movie for early-teenagers and frankly not a great one.

The Best Offer (2013)

Mediocre

[1/10 · 28 October 2018]

Decently directed, some pretty good moments.

Rush is the only acceptable actor, which makes others feel like the cast of some TV noir movie. Which, they kinda are. Try balancing the budget in a better way next time, folks.

...and then comes the plot. A pseudo intellectual mix of clichées, as classy as a $4 book you buy to read on the beach, which is not 100% predictable only because the final "twist" is based on the unbelievable inconsistency of the protagonist, turning from a brilliant man to a complete idiot because he falls in love. I saw it coming but was still surprised because I really couldn't believe the plot could be this dull.

This is not just far from a masterpiece, this is a mediocre movie.

Solo: A Star Wars Story (2018)

A lot of good, nothing really that bad, nothing great except...

[9/10 · 29 May 2018]

There's everything we expected: all the most famous and loved things about Solo explained. Very predictable: Chewie, the Falcon, Lando, even the dices (which originally seems to be just a tacky hint of his pretty generic past, not some important symbol), the "i love you"-"I know" joke, the Solo-shot-first thing. All of this things have been forced together. To make fans happy? I think Disney doesn't know us, nobody is happy because this kind of predictable references.

But there's more. There's how Solo became what he is. When you first see a pretty non-ironic young passionate boy you ask yourself: is THIS supposed to be solo?! And when the transformation is slowly completed, every single bit of the character fits perfectly. Also because the incredible performance by Alden Thirdreich. He has made some serious work to put some Harrison Ford details into his acting in a very natural way. And the details make everything because you could never say what made Ford perfect but when you see them in the new boy you just say "that's Solo!". A smile, the way he holds the gun, a way of walking related to how he feels... just a great job. So, the great part about Solo is... Solo. Both the screenplay and the acting.It seems like the heart and soul with their raison-d'etre are really good.

And then there's the rest. The usual aesthetic perfection only Mickey Mouse money can buy. Some (many) a bit generic adventure movie parts. It's a pretty serious movie. I feared a clowny Solo, Episode 7 style. But, getting a serious one, I still kinda wanted a few good, original touches of the mature Solo, not borrowed from the first trilogy. I got a couple sexual innuendos instead: a black d*cks are big joke (about Lando! The only black guy in the old trilogy, the Martin Luther King of the old trilogy) and a robot-sex joke. Mmmh... mesa no happy.

R1 is the SW movie we needed but not the one we deserved. Solo is the SW movie we deserved but not the one we needed. The movie was not really necessary, so I'm surprised of how much not-a-disaster this came out. The core, as I said, is great and the (too many) references don't spoil it.

Three Amigos! (1986)

Biased review

[10/10 · 27 March 2018]

10 stars is really to much, I'd give a solid 7 or even 8 if people were less black-or-white on this stupid site. This movie really has an old-times comedy vibe. It doesn't have a lot of gags and they mostly try to make you sincerely smile instead of making you laugh your lungs out. So it's silly but it's also pretty refined while doing it. It features some great talents, it's a parody of westerns but that's not the only purpose of the movie, it's... great at what it was meant to do. I feel like, since it's comedy, people expected today's standards or even 80s laugh-your-lungs-out standards (like "Airplane!" or something). Guess what, their expectations don't define the movie's goodness and there's a lot of it.

Phantom Thread (2017)

Solid, beautiful, some doubts about the plot

[8/10 · 22 February 2018]

Just as dramatic as many Anderson's movies, but in a more subtle way, without any spectacular action, as british as the mood was supposed to be. This movie has some real beauty you must be blind not to see but it takes its time and it's surely not as easily entertaining as most Oscar nominees but we're not talking about a Marvel movie, this is pretty refined. Actors, costumes, photography (even in cloudy England! Where most fail) and direction are perfect. Just perfect. The plot almost surely isn't and I have some doubts. Thought it was mostly me but many agree, there's something just not as perfect as any other aspect of the movie. But I'm going back to acting. Daniel Day-Lewis is a monster, as usual and he feels in his perfect habitat. He's not just carrying the movie, the movie is not just a stage for him, he is granted the possibility to do his best in a (bad pun alert) taylor-made role. He just fits perfectly. I was expecting this, that's what I found, so I could just ignore my doubts about the plot (not some secondary aspect actually...).