Come-and-Review

With Last night in Soho Edgar Wright takes a new directions in terms of capabilities of his poetics, but the film itself, despite its overall impeccable structure, lacks in the something that would make it a masterpiece.

A ghost horror story, Last Night in Soho's storyline ultimately is indeed coherent and well conceived, with little details and hints pervading every frame, some foreshadowings, but ultimately not innovative. Some scenes become a bit predictable, the twists are rather unoriginal, derivative of several ghost horror films. At some point, it appears that the film could have taken a much more daring and interesting direction but ultimately does not.

It is also the style that strikes in this film. Borrowing the lighting effects from Dario Argento and the convolution of the story from Polanski, Wright builds a new visual language for himself.

If the previous filmography by Edgar Wright was well known for its comedy and fast editing, Last Night in Soho seems to abandon these most unique traits. Instead, Wright opts for a more fluid cinematography, which does not however slow down the final result. The energy that pervades Wright's previous cinematography stilll pervades every frame.

Ultimately, the best trait of Last Night in Soho is the door it leaves open for Edgar Wright's future films, projected towards radical new directions.

(excerpts from full review available at comeandreview)

The answer to the question that most are asking, following the huge internet buzz that resulted from the release of critics ratings, is this: it is definitely far from being the worst MCU film, but as a MCU film, it's not the most memorable one, even if, thanks to Zhao, visually and storyline-wise it is one of the most distinct Marvel films.

Zhao's film balances rather safely between being a film belonging to the MCU system and being a Zhao film. There are minor elements of Zhao's cinematic poetics that permain. Even if Zhao's touch is palpable, what prevails is the dimension of the film as a MCU film.

In an almost unprecedented fashion, Eternals is non-linear in its story structure, one of its many perks. The issue in the first 40 minutes of the movie is that the flashback scenes prove to be more interesting than the main storyline. It feels almost as if this parallel storyline could have been expanded in a more interesting full feature film. Eventually, threads are connected and the non-linear structure becomes interconnected enough to justify the unification of the subjects in one single film, but the "present day" storyline lacks coherence in some aspects.

Ultimately, the biggest issue of Eternals is inherently linked to it being an MCU film. The Marvel signature approach, that demystifies superhero characters and turns them into comic figures, flawed and human, hardly works well for a set of god-like entities with millenary lifespan that have guided the early evolution of mankind, such as the Eternals.

In terms of MCU lore, Eternals brought forward a vast area of expansion, that if implemented well, might possibly lead to new directions for the franchise. Weighing the pros and cons, Eternals leans more towards the postive, but its flaws prevents it from utmost greatness.

(full review on comeandreview)

The greatest virtue of Ariaferma is its versatile balance between its themes, typical to contemporary italian cinema, and an unexpected freshness in such themes' depiction.

Prison overcrowding is a pressing issue currently being discussed in Italy, yet Leonardo di Costanzo chooses to tackle it through subtraction, not by presenting an overwhelmed jail, but by portraying an anomaly: a penitentiary in the sardinian mountains is due to close down, but the transfer of a small number of detainees is delayed. A group of very few prison guards are tasked to maintain order, despite not having the required resources.

Rather than a prison story, Ariaferma is best described as a human story, a story of reconciliation between two opposite groups, the guards and the prisoners.

Through the self-contained setting, the film examines the difficult coexistence of two groups that normally identify each others as enemies, but that now inevitably are both forced into isolation.

The isolated microcosm is further shut out from The narrative that eventually focuses on two main characters: an old detainee, likely an ex member of organised crime, and the appointed leader of the prison guards. Portrayed respectively by Silvio Orlando and Toni Servillo, it is their confrontation that makes up for the powerful statement of human equity that the film aims at.

Most surpisingly, it is not a story of good versus bad, or of oppressors and oppressed, and herein lies the greatest achievement of di Costanzo's work: the true antagonist of the film is the distance imposed by society on the characters, a distance that in this setting becomes extremely thin. Ariaferma truly manages to maintain the status quo without personifying this abstract antagonist into some character.

Ariaferma is however not a mere depiction of a reality or an emotional reaction seeking film, it is a most cinematic work. The prison's setting, a round cathedral-like structure makes for a very appealing location, the aforementioned rhythm, the palpable tension, the performances all round up for a film that, ahead of being a film about a social issue, is pure cinema, a carefully constructed craft of motion picture.

(excerpts from full review available on comeandreview)