emildandy Reviews

Beneath Still Waters (2005)

Give Yuzna a chance.

[7/10 · 5 July 2008]

"Beneath still waters" is'nt comparable to some of the masterpieces in which Yuzna has been involved as a director ("Society") or producer ("Re-animator"). It has some serious flaw too, like the quite predictable script (with some really terrible line in the dialogues). But it's worth watching, if only for the spirit of the operation: low-budget euro-horror made with love and care. Plus very good locations and suggestive underwater shots, a right amount of gore, a perfect villain and a final orgy that cannot fail to remind "Society"'s finale. The entertainment is not missing.

I think it's a kind of cinema that should be supported.

Mother of Tears (2007)

Alas, poor Argento...

[3/10 · 3 November 2007]

Dario Argento may be a little overrated, but still is one of our most successfully exported directors. Profondo Rosso, Suspiria, L'uccello dalle piume di cristallo are surely milestones in the horror/thriller janre; and also the more recent Phenomena was, at least, worth watching.

Unfortunately, La terza madre is awful. So ugly that is somewhat beautiful. The acting is dreadful, the dialogues are unbearable and the story is totally inconsistent, but not inconsistent in the old-times onirical and fascinating way (Suspiria-like), just in a stupid way. Was it trashier Daria Niccolodi appearing as Obi Wan-Kenobi, or the fake boobs of Mater Lacrimarum? Hard choice. On the bright side, the gore-effects by Stivaletti are very good.

My Name Is Tanino (2002)

Funny and a must for all Americans loving Italy

[24 July 2007]

At a first see, My name is Tanino is a funny, well-directed and well-acted comedy (things that are not at all a given in the recent, mediocre Italian cinematography). But it's also a (extremely light) description of the not always easy relationship between Europe (and, in particular, Italy) and US; I mean the ambivalent view of admiration and suspicion toward each other. And if, to an American viewer, the depiction of the typical WASP family and of the typical italo-American family may be a bit stereotyped, the character of Tanino is quite different from Italians you see in movie and TV-show from the States (like the infamous Paolo from Friends...). My name is Tanino could also be a drive to the foreigner to discover other Virzì's movies, like Ovosodo... I don't know if it was ever subtitled, though.

Carandiru (2003)

Somehow rough, but interesting

[8/10 · 24 July 2007]

Individual stories of inmates in the huge, overcrowded and infamous Carandiru penitentiary in Sao Paulo, Brazil; the fil rouge being a doctor (a narrow character who ain't but a narrative excuse) who decides to take care of the prisoners during the outbreak of AIDS epidemic. At the end, a futile fight starts a riot which will eventually end with the death of 111 inmates.

Carandiru is'nt a masterpiece. But it's a good, solid, non moralistic or stereotyped and yet entertaining prison movie which manage to transport the non-Brazilian viewer to feel the noises, the colors, even the scents of a lively, desperate and merciless world in which good and evil, guilt and innocence are inextricable.

Way better than Ciudad de Deus ("City of God") by Meirelles, which was a lot more successful abroad; IMHO, it was just a stylish gangster-movie with a Brazilian location.

Killer Condom (1996)

...

[8/10 · 29 December 2006]

Funny, well acted, well directed, well edited: a surprise. Way less camp than you could imagine (for a movie about carnivore preservatives). In the movie you can dig the sensitivity and yet the somewhat teutonic brutality of the great cartoonist Ralf Konig, author of the script (more known for his comics about neurotical homosexuals). It makes regret to us Italians the times when WE did silly but good slasher movies, with little budget and many ideas. It's a bit weird hearing new-yorkers speaking German (weird and slightly disturbing...), but Americans should'nt bitch too much, considering that in Hollywood pictures everybody world-wide speaks English.