I have never played League of Legends, and I have no idea what it’s all about. I have seen a lot of game artwork around, and I have been duly impressed by the look of the thing, but I am not that much of a gamer anymore – if I ever was. On the other hand, I am a sucker for good animation, and for steampunk, so when the trailer of Arcane, the new Netflix series, was posted, it got my attention.
Now the first three episodes are here – and clocking at 40 minutes each, they are just what the doctor ordered for a break and a cup of tea between writing sessions. And I am duly impressed.
I have always loved the radio. My earliest memories are not of television (that as something that existed only after 5 pm back in the day) but of listening to the radio, that my mother kept going all day long as she did her chores at home, and then listened to when she wanted to relax in the evening. Radio dramas (“original radiofonici” as they were called), and shows like the hit parade and “Alto Gradimento” (a radio comedy program that did for Italian radio what Monthy Python did for British TV).
Much later, when I was touring Italy, giving lectures in various universities, the radio kept me company during long drives, and a good way to stay awake. Also, as I had to spend my nights in dreary dorms and other cheerless places, I got myself a small, ultracheap multi-band radio from Lidl, that I carried with me on my travels, and that otherwise rested on my nightstand when I was at home.
It’s been a while since I last reviewed a Tits & Sand movie – to use the label coined by Maureen O’Hara. These 1001 Nights-style movies were a staple of my childhood, and I thought I had seen them all, repeatedly. And yet, I’ve just found a movie I had missed – which is quite strange.
The film is called The Adventures of Hajji Baba, and it was directed in 1954 by Don Weiss, a director with a long TV experience, whose best known films are probably The Affairs of Dobie Gills and the beach party classic The Ghost in the Invisible Bikini, with Boris Karlof. The Adventures of Hajji Baba features John Derek, an actor I always found insufferable, and this might explain why I never watched this specific film. Opposite Derek – who portrays the titular Persian barber – is Elaine Stewart, in the role of bratty, spoiled princess Fawzia of Ispharan.
And so last night, limping and short of breath, I joined my brother and our friends for a night out at the movies. We opened with an excellent (as usual) pizza at Casablanca’s, and then went to the Sociale, Nizza Monferrato’s oldest cinema, to watch Villeneuve’s Dune.
This was our first movie outing in over 18 months and there were seven people in the cinema last night – five of us, plus two other punters.
I was 23 when Luc Besson’s La Femme Nikita hit the screens, and it was wild. There had been action thrillers before, of course, but none like this – Anne Perillaud was absolutely stunning, and she was a killer. In the true sense of the word. La Femme Nikita was tough, dark in an almost neo-noir way, elegantly shot, and it featured a woman that did what usually was done by a guy, in this kind of movies.
Fast forward thirty years, and the kick-ass dame has become a common trope of modern action cinema, to the point it is now almost its own genre – the crime/espionage action thriller with the lone woman fighting her way from the first act to the third. You know, stuff like Atomic Blonde.
Today being Sunday, and this being August, I decided to take one day off. I spent the morning (re)reading the dark, disquieting The Devil in Nanking, by the late lamented Mo Hayder, and in the afternoon, it being too hot for anything else, I started the fan and then went to see what Prime Video had to offer. I watched three movies. First, I watched Kate Beckinsale kick ass in New York in Jolt, then I watched Sasha Luss kick ass in Paris in Luc Besson’s Anna, and finally I watched Karen Gillan kick ass in Berlin in Gunpowder Milkshake. Let’s talk about it.
Karavansara 