GUILLERMO DEL TORO’S PINOCCHIO (2019) is a wildly entertaining film that takes elements of the original novel and the Disney movie and throws in Italian fascism. It’s the brink of WW II and Gepetto is grieving his son’s death in an earlier bombing raid. When he carves a puppet boy out of a tree his son once planted, the Blue Fairy (Tilda Swinton) brings Pinocchio (Gregory Mann) to life which leads to inevitable trouble as he tries to make sense of life, dies and returns, gets drafted into the army (Ron Perlman plays the local fascist leader) and struggles to find his dad with the help of a somewhat self-centered Crickett (Ewan MacGregor). Odd, grotesque — but it works well. With Christopher Waltz as a conniving showman and Cate Blanchett as his monkey sidekick. “Sometimes fathers feel despair like anyone else.”
With WW II cutting Hollywood off from the European market, 20th Century Fox hoped DOWN ARGENTINE WAY (1940) would sell well enough in Latin America to compensate. This stars Don Ameche as the son of an Argentine horse-breeder who strikes up a romance with American horse-loving socialite Betty Grable; alas, it seems Ameche’s father has a bitter feud with Grable’s and declares his is a love that cannot be. This successfully launched Grable as a musical star though I’m damned if I can see why — she’s way too bland an actor for my taste (though tough enough offstage to stare down the studio head when he demanded to sleep with her).
However my primary reason was that the Nicholas Brothers, the amazing black tap dancers, appear here doing a solo number, which was typical for their film careers (easier to cut for Southern markets). I’m a fan of theirs and they are spectacular here, more than worth watching. The supporting cast includes Carmen Miranda as herself and J. Carroll Naish as a gigolo — oh, my mistake, he’s a Tour Guide, got that? “If he ever looks into my eyes again, I’ll show him a storm rising over the pampas.”
I was never a fan of the original He-Man series but I had some free time and Amazon was streaming MASTERS OF THE UNIVERSE (2026) free and Camestros Felapton thought it was worth seeing, so …
A sneak attack by Jared Leto’s Skeletor forces Prince Adam (Nicholas Galitzine) to flee to our world where he loses the Power Sword. As an adult he’s stuck living as an HR worker, searching for the sword and convincing everyone around him he’s a borderline nutjob. Worse, when he finds the sword, the movie’s threat level ratchets upwards ..
This feels like it’s shooting for a Guardians of the Galaxy-type balance between comedy and adventure and it does reasonably well. The cast includes Idris Elba as a drunken, washed-up Man At Arms, Alison Brie as Evil-Lyn, James Purefoy as Adam’s dad, Kirsten Wiig as the voice of Roboto, Morina Baccarin as the Sorceress and Camilla Mendes as Teela. “No match for the Netflix She-Ra (though “Force Commander Adora” does appear in an endbit), but fun enough. “There is no good left in me for you to find.
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