El Conde (2023) - Movie Review

Time to add a new dot on this blog’s global cinematic coverage with a look at some Chilean cinema… although this isn’t necessarily all that new for this blog, or indeed for just the stuff I’ve seen outside of it. We’ve looked at director Pablo Larraín’s work on here twice before with the historical biopics Jackie and Spencer, and there’s some ‘6 Degrees To Kevin Bacon’ that can be played connecting this to the only other Chilean film I’ve seen in The Wolf House, an animated horror story set in the Colonia Dignidad, whose overlord, Paul Schäfer, has been publicly defended by conservative minister Hernán Larraín, Pablo’s father.

Guillermo Del Toro's Pinocchio (2022) - Movie Review

My original intention with making today a Pinocchio double feature was that I would look at a film I was fairly certain wouldn’t work out (and then it did, at least in my opinion) with the Zemeckis version, and then I’d look at this Guillermo Del Toro-directed version to see it done right. Well, that would imply that the two are comparable, even in regard to their shared source material, but this really is an entirely different beast. It’s also, as much as I will go to bat for the Zemeckis film, even better.

Crazed Gender Twisters From Planet X (2022) - Movie Review

 

It has been way too long since I last looked at some proper underground cinema. And this is about as underground as it gets, from what I can tell. Much like with The Exorcism Of God, you can thank a late-night scrolling session on YouTube for me stumbling onto this thing, and… yeah, I admit it, it also peaked my interest out of sheer morbid fascination. Except this was even harder to find out anything about its creation, leading to what is probably the most intensive research I’ve had to do on a film review all year (for this blog, at least).

Jojo Rabbit (2019) - Movie Review

In June of 2017, in-between being named New Zealander Of The Year and making Thor: Ragnarok, filmmaker Taika Waititi made this video in collaboration with the New Zealand Human Rights Commission.

It’s hard to imagine anyone other than Waititi making something like this. A video so bursting with ironic social cringe, made by a creative who has built an entire career out of weaponising it, that its discomfort can make it difficult to watch. Being able to sell the message that even the smallest act of racism adds to the larger picture (basically the concept of micro-aggressions in a nutshell) is what immediately won me over that this is the guy who should make a fascist satire in a “you couldn’t make a Mel Brooks movie today” cultural climate. And thankfully, the man does not disappoint.