Reviews

"I want to be a soldier" is a wonderful movie for all the wrong reasons. The general plot follows the vicissitudes of Alex; he is a child who wanted to be an astronaut and had an astronaut imaginary friend, up until his parents bought him his own TV. Since the TV shows lots of violent acts like shootings, murders and war movies, Alex is now a violent 10-year-old who wants to be a soldier (and has a US officer as his new imaginary friend).

The direction is quite poor in and of itself. A good portion of the movie consists of the main character monologuing about being a soldier so he can kill people, torture prisoners, make Nazi-like experiments on his victims, become a dictator and so on, while a collage of violent stock footage runs on the screen. This happens quite often, too, and I think makes at least 25-30% of the whole movie.

The characters are about as stereotyped as possible, what with Alex hanging around with the geeky kid when he's "good" and then with some bullies who smoke and have knifes after he switches over to the "bad" side. Alex's family is about as cliché as possible, with the mother being obsessed with the newborn twins, the father having an affair and both dismissing their kid's behavior as "a phase".

The "imaginary friend" concept is sort of nice and adds an interesting layer to the movie as both friends (astronaut and officer) are played by the same actor, and they switch roles depending on the phase Alex is currently in. It's not enough to save the movie from its silliness, though.

"I want to be a soldier" is quite enjoyable to watch for its "so bad it's good" wackiness and its unending stream of dumb plot devices that ultimately end up in Danny Glover stating how "TV is evil". However, it's far from a good movie if taken seriously. I can only suggest you rent this film if you're smashed and/or in for a laugh with some friends.

Let's get right to the point: Sweeney Todd is a disappointment. Neither Tim Burton's awesome Gothic atmospheres nor Johnny Depp's and Helena Bonham Carter's great acting can save this movie.

Since Sweeney Todd is a musical/splatter movie, it offers both a lot of songs and a lot of blood. Both done poorly.

The songs aren't what you would expect: basically, each character has a "theme" song: Anthony keeps singing his annoying Johanna song, judge Turpin repeats "pretty women" a dozen times (and it's called a song?), Toby has his "while I'm here, blah blah blah" part and so on. All these characters do is talk, sing for a couple of seconds, and go away. The exceptions are the main characters: Sweeney Todd, a man torn by vengeance and a bit of a psycho, and Mrs. Lovett, owner of a meat pie shop, who is, at times, even crazier than him. These two do have their theme songs (Sweeney's is like judge Turpin's, except he sings "London sucks" instead of "pretty women"), but also sing with each other, or with other characters. Sometimes there is a song that's not awful like the "theme" ones, which is a welcome addition (for example, Mrs. Lovett stating how she makes the worst pies in London).

As for the splatter part, it can be summed up in two points: 1) the blood is done VERY poorly, to the point it looks like (and flows like) red paint... 2) there are only a few gory scenes, with some 10 or so executions, all done in the same way, which means when you've seen the first two, you've seen them all. Add that, in my opinion, the movie's Gothic ambiance hardly suits these blood-filled scenes, which are more suited to a B-movie.

The characters themselves are one-dimensional and can be summed up by their theme songs: Anthony is your usual idealistic youngster who falls in love with a girl he's seen ONCE at the window, and gets obsessed with "stealing her"; Sweeney's lust for revenge, and blood in general (I guess one could say he's emo) is reflected in his "London is full of crap, London is this, London is that" lines, and so on.

Of course, this movie does not suck that bad (hence the 5/10): some of the scenes are in fact very enjoyable, if not downright comical, like the "duel" between Sweeney and Signor Pirelli, but they alone are not enough to save the whole film. There is a total of ONE plot twist, towards the end, which can leave the viewer in shock for a second or two, but nothing too exciting.

In the end, Sweeney Todd doesn't offer much: a Gothic atmosphere, some forgettable songs, great acting by the protagonists, and that's it. I was very disappointed with this movie, so I can only advise you to think twice before watching it...

So, this is the third Spiderman movie. Which is kind of funny since there is nothing about Spiderman. OK, there's a guy in a red-and-blue costume who hurls webs and climbs buildings, but that is NOT Spiderman. Perhaps this is a spoof...

The story is all about this symbiote which randomly falls near Peter Parker and colors his spider suit black. Oh, and it also turns him into a dancing goth. Meanwhile, his girlfriend is depressed, his best friend is nuts, and two villains arrive in town.

However, in this movie Spiderman has lost his spider sense, his sarcasm, his charisma, and his personality, being only able to do Tarzan in Manhattan and stare at MJ with his idiotic smile. In fact, Maguire manages to wipe that stupid smirk off his face even twice. When he turns goth (BTW, what has that to do with the symbiote?) he's even dumber, dancing in the streets with all the girls either walking away or ignoring him. WTF~? MJ, too, isn't herself, acting depressed all along, and even managing to depress Spidey himself. And the audience, of course. It felt definitely better when she was slapped to the ground. On to the enemies now -- the first one, from being a small-time nobody in the comics, is now at the center of the story...not to mention Raimi even altered the events of the first Spiderman. The second one, however, from being one of Spidey's fiercest foes, is now a wuss who only appears for 10 minutes...not to mention he is quite different from his comics counterpart: - no muscles - much shorter - no "we" speech - pika-cries a la pokémon

Also, there are some very stupid scenes, like Harry's butler (seriously, what were they smoking?) and the appearance of Gwen Stacy. Who is even depicted as a brain-free chick.

To be honest, the movie isn't that bad (hence the "decent"), since it features exciting (yet absurd) fights and managed not to bore me despite its length. If you're a fan of Spidey, however, be warned: you'll curse A LOT.

The Crusades are over, and valiant knight Baccello da Sernano is about to return home to his beloved young wife Ubalda, whom he had left three years before...with a chastity belt. On his way home, however, Baccello loses the only key to unlock such belt... Baccello (exceptionally played by Martufello) will encounter old acquaintances, like the inventor Capoccione, and meet new...let's say...friends, like said inventor's very hot but also very pious wife Genuflessa, while trying to retrieve his key, his honor, and his not-so-loyal Ubalda. I loved this movie, it's filled of parodies about almost any aspect of Italy, and never gets too vulgar or dull. It never falls into the "italian sex comedy" genre, and it maintains itself funny and spicy. A drawback is that, well, someone who doesn't come from Italy won't understand much about the film, mainly because every character speaks dialect instead of proper Italian...