What have you watched recently? 3D!

Ran (1985)

Kurosawa dipped into Shakespeare once more with King Lear acting as the primary inspiration this time. And while I've warmed to this the more I've thought about it after the fact, just as a story-driven experience I'd rate this below how Throne of Blood or The Bad Sleep Well managed with their own interpretations of the Bard. It was another one of those slightly intangible responses where all the ingredients seemed to be there - and on an intellectual level I fully engaged with the film as a true technical marvel - but just something about the emotionality of it all left me indifferent. Maybe I should blame Shakespeare - not Kurosawa - cos if the structure of the story had flaws you could arguably put them at the feet of the playwright and not the director.

Regardless of my own emotional response to the story, this was one of Kurosawa's more visually striking epics: one where the use of colour was so vibrant and singular, everything felt painterly without dipping into excess; these were deft strokes by a master late in career, most strikingly used during those spectacular battle scenes (just to pause for a second to pour one out for the death of the "cast of thousands" epics), or a pivotal moment near the end that was punctuated with the kind of bright arterial spray we'd later see over & over in Tarantino films. And often all that deep saturation sat against vast landscapes of dark desolation. The volcanic plains of Japan - coupled with the near permanent appearance of the Lear stand-in as a haunted & skeletal figure - made the whole affair seem like it took place on some plain of hell; doomed men grasping over for brief moments of power in a world of ruins and ash. Smouldering castles of former "glory" left to mock an addled king as he struggled to comprehend the familial chaos he caused.

But within all that sat a script full of coincidences, sudden heel turns and that kind of declarative or expositional dialogue that could only have come from the era of Shakespeare; and while something like Throne of Blood's inspiration had a focused escalation as power slowly unraveled, here the wandering of Lear-Ichimonji seemed to be part of the structure of the film itself, with a slight sense of aimlessness in the whole thing that just stopped me short from being fully gripped by the otherwise solid tale. This kind of story has been scripted better - even if few looked half as good.

Hmmm. Now that you mention it, perhaps that's why I found it became such a chore after a while: cos after that battle scene it was quite the drop in acceleration and pace when it just became 'aul Lear'san wandering about aimlessly for an hour.

What an absolute masterclass in organised chaos that battle scene was; as I said I miss the days when War Movies actually necessitated a shít tonne of extras (or the Yugoslav army if you preferred) to film the battles & do them justice.

Panic Room (2002)

I have to commend a director whose CV has bullishly yo-yoed between near flawless, top-tier cinema for the decade they came out in - and airport thriller trash. Buttressing The Social Network and Zodiac are The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (ignoring Benjamin Button for convenience, though arguably that works as "prestige" drama), and this 2002 film: both pure pulp that never once tried to elevate themselves beyond being seedy, gripping tales - but both directed with the same rigorous flourish we know Fincher brings to the table. Maybe more directors should do this? Just pick up a New York Times bestseller and adapt it with an honest intensity of effort. It'd make for an interesting conversational spitball at least, and add a bit more directorial excitement to what has become rather staid umbrella of movie genres.

Conversely though, I wonder how many walked out of cinemas in 2002 somewhat disappointed that the man who helmed such a Gen X screed as Fight Club - satirical as it was - would as their immediate follow-up work on a conventional Home Invasion thriller? A thriller that for sure, had an overqualified cast and crew working it, and looked absolute fantastic - but also nothing remotely as culturally impactful as the prior film either.

Honestly I can't think of anything particularly insightful to take from this film myself: beyond the satisfaction of having been thoroughly entertained by a precision craftsman knocking out whatever passes for a crowd pleaser in the mind of noted misanthropist, David Fincher. Or having watched Jodie Foster's best work during that brief phase she starred in mainstream Hollywood thrillers.

Akira (1988)

The original & only prior watch of this was one of those experiences I took upon myself out of cultural obligation, but maybe too young/stupid/uncultured to understand it as anything more than a kickáss movie that looked cool as shít - with some gnarly body horror as events unravelled. Ain't nothing wrong with that, I might add.

To watch it again was an entirely different experience, this time finding the subtext such that I'd speculate if this might rank as high as Godzilla in interrogating Japan's collective sense of trauma & guilt over its unique & tragic atomic legacy. With, ya know, some gnarly body horror as events unravelled. This was a world in media res, where Tokyo was already coming away at the seams long before Tetsuou's sudden degradation into a monster: protests quickly morphed into riots; urban rot & violence suffocating and surrounding even the upper levels of cyberpunk opulence; a rogue Colonel believed himself Lord Protector as he casually shuttered what was left of democracy; while scheming politicians' own power disintegrated as they bickered among themselves. And all this born from the ruins of an apocalyptic event caused by an ineffable power; one that had since become part mystical, another part scientific conspiracy - but entirely endemic.

What still astounded without caveat and nearly 40 years after its release was the level of fidelity, fluidity and motion in the animation. It was something to behold. With CGI in 1988 still nothing more than an expensive folly, this was hand-drawn animation taken to a phenomenal level that even to this day is arguably a little unmatched. There were scenes I sensed would now be thrown to a render farm, as opposed to what must have been painstaking hours of drawing; a commitment right down to the smallest moments, like a character's neck & gaze turning gently as they watched something they approached.

And with all that beautiful and expressive motion, you'd have forgiven the movie if the action was sparingly sprinkled across the film - but Akira's was constant and visceral from the very first scene; a thrilling bike chase an introduction to how things would start - and continue. A constant stream of tangible, crunchy violence and set-pieces throughout the two hour runtime; it barely took a breath, the pace was breakneck. To a fault, if I'm honest.

Adaptations are a tricky needle to thread: compromise is often the necessary evil during translation, no more than when going from the written word to that most visual medium in cinema. While many a tome and epic has proven problematic by their sheer scope & volume: ask Tom Bombadil how he felt about the Lord of the Rings adaptation. So given that Akira the movie was sprung from a 2,000 page Manga novel, you could appreciate the need for brevity at every moment: watching this was like experiencing four different movies at once: not so much a sense of tones jarring, but just the sheer density of events and characters big & small left you feeling there was much sometimes critically underdeveloped. To the film's credit though, I wasn't left utterly confused either. Much was left unexplored, but not to the extent it became an incoherent mess.

The question of running time seems perennial and has once again arisen with the Killing of Flower Moon, but leaving aside the probable reality that the animators could only perform so much magic, 2 hours wasn't remotely enough for this thing; another 30 minutes of subplot or world-building garnish would have been appreciated. Not least 'cos Tetsuou went from a teenager with misplaced anger, to a mutating physic behemoth with misplaced anger in what has to be record time for the genre. Either way, it still all looked cool as shít.

High and Low (1963)

Ok, maybe this is now my favourite Kurosawa flick.

A distinctly bifurcated feature, where a taut chamber drama suddenly, but not jarringly, pivoted into a prototypical police procedural that was engrossing in its own way. The drama kicked off as something quite theatrical with an almost claustrophobic setting of a living room; what might otherwise have come across a little stagey was counteracted by Kurosawa's usual supernatural ability for blocking: all his tricks were put to good use in a predominantly one room environment to heighten an otherwise mundane location; and each character constantly moved around as hierarchies and power shifted during the tense hours following the (mistaken!) kidnapping that functioned as the inciting incident. Then, with a chaotic interstitial set aboard a train and all shot handheld, the focus shifted to the shoe leather and necessary monotony of the police investigation. Yet it wasn't monotonous to watch as Kurosawa managed to make the routine of an active investigation quite riveting; while the style turned into something a bit more matter-of-fact in places, little moments of important minutiae were highlighted to the audience by a sudden change in composition, or a sudden pause in motion - or in one specific, spectacular case, a single splash of colour to emphasise an earlier detail returning to the fore. 

It's a well known phenomenon that there has been an increased appetite for all things forensic, the catalyst perhaps the "true crime" podcast or streaming shows like Mindhunter; but by and large I think Hollywood has tended to skirt around all that evidence gathering and testimony as a dramatic device - preferring the cheap melodrama and individualism of Sherlock'esque savants with uncanny abilities where others cannot see the patterns. Moments of Eureka! preferred to the simple diligence of a reality that tends towards something more communal. Something that can be tough to work into standard narrative convention - but in the right hands too it can be engrossing in its own way.

So for a 60 year old film to feel both like a prototype yet still an outstanding example in that approach is kinda crazy: maybe it also speaks to cultural difference where I'd draw comparison between America's predominance towards an individualistic mentality, compared with the lingering caste structure of Japan; something perhaps evident with constant deference from the police towards the nexus of the crime, the wealthy businessman Gondo. Indeed it left a constant sense of the peculiar that the film's moments of empathy were not directed towards Gondo's chauffeur; instead the father of the son actually kidnapped kept his head bowed like he was ashamed of it all, all while others chastised his behaviour - including the police! No, instead his employer and all the monetary or career damage caused by the whole affair was what received sympathy.

And in Gondo himself it was yet another barnstormer from Toshiro Mifune, where this time his standard resting energy of simmering physicality was played as something impotent: he fumed (mifune'd if you will?) and often stood with a rigid posture like he was holding it in, powerless as he could only stomp and snap as his livelihood and fortunes whithered in the face of a necessary sacrifice. And if I didn't quite share the script's insistence towards sympathy for Gondo at first, Mifune wore me down through that sense of a wounded & once-powerful animal now brought down low, rendered in that characteristically Japanese sense of formal emotionality. Even at the end, all he could do was watch in silent & sullen confusion as the motives for the kidnapping were laid bare in front of him.

Indeed if I did have a grumble, it's that while the movie made sure we also saw the kidnapper's perspective at all times - perhaps making it more a three-part structure than one of two halves - it never quite managed a convincing landing in terms of motivations. I couldn't draw the connection that lead to kidnapping and murder. It was hurried and when it was explained it left me feeling a bit underwhelmed - albeit relieved it wasn't something more melodramatic like a scorned illegitimate child. But as is often the case in life, the journey was more entertaining than the destination

Showing the backstories also meant the very last moment landed far better in Sorcerer: the tragedy and waste of it all felt more gut wrenching given it was a hitherto forgotten detail about the character's predicament from his past life. We don't even see what happens - but you just know. I always forget how Sorcerer ends and go "ah yeah, fúck".

Wages' ending was instead just an "Idiot Ball" moment and kind left a sour taste where they just scribbled out a quick downer end. And even though a downer it kinda came from that sense of jauntiness that as you pointed out, just didn't exist in the more cynical, nasty minded 1970s film.

The name was and still is monumentally stupid, Star Wars or no Star Wars. Without knowing the backstory I'd wonder was that more of Friedkin's Exorcist clout being flexed; cos I don't believe for a second any studio wanting to make money off an expensive shoot like that would have gone with such an obscure, off kilter name. "Wages of Fear" is a fantastic name in the first place, it couldn't have done the film any worse than "Sorcerer". The best ever movie with the worst ever name? 🤔

Still kinda surprised nobody has picked up this idea again for another go: it's a cracking set up and one you can tell without necessarily stepping on the toes of the prior version.

Never saw it, had to look it up! But as it's not Sorcerer I will say: no, no it's not 😎

Ed Wood (1994)

A treatise on the bulletproof confidence of those possessing more hopeless optimism than talent, manifested through a ragtag & talentless group of charismatic misfits & losers; the shunned basically, whose latent good nature even while surrounded by adversity was a source of the film's positive energy, no matter if actual "success" eluded them all. All around these earnest faces lay tragedy, addiction and rejection yet Burton's arguable masterwork never once wallowed or indulged in excessive exoticism or turmoil: this was a deeply empathetic story that admired its characters, even as darkness would intermittently interrupt the goofing about - such as the visual motif of Bela Lugosi's pin-pricked arm reminding what lay beneath all the cheery gumption. Indeed the very last scene's text scrawl managed to drop a bum note in the lap of the audience: a close up of Johnny Depp's hopelessly amiable rictus grin as text on screen spoke of later alcoholism and squalor; Burton dropped the mic with a curt reminder that eventually, reality can shatter our belief things might yet turn out OK.

As said I think this might be Burton's best film: perhaps it lacked the kind of signature eccentricity of his early work (that would eventually become a sad empty pastiche), but it had enough of that sense of the macabre coupled with a really deft control of his visual impulses that all the jumbled tones neatly slotted into each other. HIs use of black and white here was fabulous, some of his compositions quite stunning really. It was a reminder that mainstream cinema lost one of its more creative voices when Burton started picking up easy pay cheques to churn out anemic studio flicks. Ed Wood felt like a point where maybe in another universe, he kicked on and really honed his style - instead it may yet be the zenith? Certainly, I hold zero hope for Beetlejuice 2 arresting that sense of decline.

His films might now be box office poison, and his personal life the subject of tattle and controversy, but this film served as a reminder why Johnny Depp was such a big name for a time: his performance was a touch theatrical - but in all the right ways. It was a balance of ostensible cheer full of encouragement for his friends, and an internalised sense of simmering frustration; it was sometimes fleeting with a quick twitch of the eye, but I always got a sense that this performance of barrelling enthusiasm was nothing more than a patina. Like I said, the very final shot of his grinning face as the text read of a downward spiral really sold that sense of how the only truly convincing special effect Ed Wood ever managed was this bubbly persona. Then there was Martin Landeau selling - but never overselling - the sad, defeated cantankerousness of a Bela Lugosi already well out to pasture. In Wood he found a spark of bonhomie again, but the resignation in the old actor's shoulders told a different story - there was only one way it was all going to end.

It was also surprisingly nuanced and sympathetic in its portrayal of Ed Wood's transvestism, or his friend Bunny's desired transgenderism: this was a film from a time where while both were present in cinema, they were deployed as something grotesque, shocking or deceitful (see The Naked Gun 33⅓, Ace Ventura or even The Crying Game in its own way); instead, the film had a sense of foxhole camaraderie, ordinary people finding and accepting each other as they came; there was no judgement, only support. Sure a few moments were pitched as jokes, relying on others' reaction to Wood's clothing choices - but it never asked the audience to point and laugh either. Again, it was all part of this encouragement of the audience to embrace and cheer these losers whose only desire was to shoot some films together.