The Mask of Zorro is a 1998 ‘swashbuckler’ move directed by Martin Campbell and featuring Antonio Banderas, Anthony Hopkins and Catherine Zeta-Jones. Now, I don’t expect anyone to have watched the original TV series (I know I watched only snippets here and there) or to have read the books by Johnston McCulley (yes, just like…
Komi-san can finally communicate… more or less
After almost ten years, Komi’s story reached its conclusion, clocking out at 500 chapters. I will say that at the time the anime adaptation was pretty well made, which in turn had given me the curiosity to binge read the manga; now, after about a year and a half since, I returned to finish reading…
The Pirate Groom
The Princess Bride is a 1987 iconic fantasy film, directed by Rob Reiner, starring Cary Elwes and Robin Wright (honourable mentions are obviously due to Mandy Patinkin and André the Giant, two of the most charismatics rogues-turned-coprotagonists ever). It is the simple story of two lovers, how they faced the evils of a corrupted ruler…
The devil you’d want to know
We are in the romantic month after all, and considering that last year, for the ‘movie of the month’ column, I skipped it entirely in favour for a return to childhood theme, this time I have three more or less romantic suggestions. So now that you have a clue for the recommendations for March and…
Dan-Da-What?
How do you recommend to someone a series that is so preposterous, so over-the-top, so absurd that it will make you go ‘wut’ at every scene? A series that in the very first episode has aliens wanting the human’s ‘banana organ’ and a malevolent spirit called turbo-granny saying that she will let the protagonist ‘suckle…
Billy
Let me kick off the new year with a movie that that just reached its 25th anniversary; The Kid was directed by Jon Turteltaub and starred Bruce Willis and Emily Mortimer. The premise puts the main character, a successful, arrogant and stressed image consultant, to confront his past; the past in question, as such, is…
My star pupil
These will be just a few fast taught on an anime series that recently had its second season, Oshi no Ko – My Star. The reason I wanted to write something about it and why I find it interesting enough to do so is because the anime manages to combine the murder mystery genre with…
…but they can do so together
Jellyfish can’t Swim in the Night is an original animated production made by Doga Kobo to celebrate their 50th year anniversary. It features a group of young high school girls, each with their own dreams and problems, who band up together to produce music and animated videos. The series partially explores the difficulties that arise…
The farthest station of the Orient Express
The 2024 movie-of-the-month column began with an animation piece, and so it shall end, one that in fact just hit its 20th year anniversary (since this has been a bit of a leitmotiv as well). Polar Express is a 2004 animation movie directed by Robert Zemeckis (the same one that directed the Back to the…
City of Sin (no, not Vegas)
Since for the movie-of-the-month column in October I discussed The Crow – and how its style eventually influenced other similar graphic novel adaptations – I thought it would be opportune this time to discuss one such case. Without further ado, let me introduce a noir or neo-noir piece that had quite a unique style: Sin…