What have you watched recently? 3D!

Gremlins (1984)

Weirdly, I have seen the utterly madcap sequel many more times than the original, and on this rewatch think I still prefer Joe Danté's subsequent lunatic swing: sure, there was an aspect of that anarchy here once the Gremlins started terrorising the town itself; and there was something pleasingly cathartic about a script setting up a town this openly twee, only to shred it up with murderous glee; but overall I think the film fell a little between two stools too often to make the whole neatly coalesce. The horror never that scary, the comedy a little too half-baked at times. Plus as fantastically inventive as all those physical props and FX were, some of its was pretty rough (including a kinda terrible stop-motion scene) and I saw a few too many rods holding up Gremlin arms such that it broke the spell.

Even structurally the thing felt a bit haphazard: sure I laughed at the running gag of the Dad's Acme'esque inventions constantly failing, but I also presumed this was going somewhere. A Checkov's Invention as it were and that ultimately, a key item that would be what saves the town and destroy the Gremlins; the Dad's persistence and idealism rewarded. Instead it remained "just" a gag, further contributing to the sense there was little relationship between the disparate ingredients of the movie. At least the sequel dispensed with any notions of verisimilitude entirely and dove straight into functioning as a Looney Tunes cartoon. I did get a great laugh from the beautifully edited "time machine" background gag, hinting at the kind of madness to come later.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978)

A film whose ending was and still is an All Timer, one whose final frames have ascended (or descended, depending on your point of view) to the status of internet meme. Yet it also contained something of an All Timer cameo as well: Kevin McCarthy's little scene of desperate mania served as a timely rejoinder to my current waning appetite & rising impatience for all these Legacy Sequels sloshing about our pop culture; here was how you link your prior film without the baggage of "everything's connected" (or hiring Ellen Burstyn 'cos you're a superficial fanboy). Not through the tedious scripting of shared universes, but a subtle nod for film geeks in using the original film's lead actor, but still functioning as a jolt to the senses that a world was starting to fall around the edges. 

Otherwise, here was a lesson in a taut escalation of hopelessness, centred around a threat never truly understood - and arguably impossible to fight. More horror should take this "in media res" approach to its internal sense of doom: where the paranoia and creeping dread is born from the slow realisation you've been on the losing side since the beginning. During the very first scene, we saw a priest (Robert Duvall?!) staring blankly as he swung on a playground swing; a surreal moment that quickly became unsettling and just the first of many background hints through the first act that the protagonists were already part of a dwindling number of humans left, before they started suspecting something was amiss. And when they did awaken to the threat: what could you do? This refreshingly normal group of people could only run, relocate and hope to find somebody in authority to take over & sort the problem. They weren't useless or lacking agency, but in somewhat Gen X fashion their faith in their own government proved their ultimate downfall. Their solitary attempt to fight back depressingly token. Now admittedly their collective cognitive leap that "they're duplicating people!" was a little corny and sudden but for the sake of pacing and getting the movie going, it made sense.

By and large here was a film of understated tension: of playing it as naturalistically as possible so the horror felt more acute among the reality of our world - rather than one of exaggerated cinematography, all spooky angles or blatant artifice. It stopped short at a fully documentarian look, save for an increase in handheld compositions as Donald Sutherland's character slowly unspooled realising his world was under the thrall of the invasion; while aspects like the constant presence of dump trucks collecting giant motes of dust asked the audience to joint the dots themselves, rather than give the game away too soon. Bar the opening credits, the FX was kept to a minimum and was grounded yet goopy; the pods engorging as a duplicate slopped out onto the ground, all of it as repulsive as it was impressively practical. 

All that said, the weakest link was perhaps the score: sometimes effective in its use of dissonance to seed a sense of discomfort and the uncanny, but also it occasionally became overly orchestral and needless bombastic, rendering scenes a little cornier than they might otherwise have played out. This became especially jarring when things hit the point of no return, the use of an enthusiastic orchestra suddenly entirely out of place. I also laughed at the use of bagpipes during the final act: first to suggest a glimmer of hope, then to cruelly pull it away - truly the music of the alien.

Loved the performances too: Leonard Nimoy tapped his most famous role in playing a celebrity psychologist whose manner was so cold and detached you questioned his being from the off. Donald Sutherland was a great Joe Everyman who straddled the line between competency and being inadequate enough such that it kept you thinking things could go either way yet maybe, just maybe he had the nous to find a victory somehow. While an early-doors performance by Jeff Goldblum was so curiously understated compared with the distinct idiosyncrasy that he'd become known and hired for later. The only weak point perhaps being Veronica Cartwright: between this and Alien, her hysterical shrieking and constant sense of being on the edge of a nervous breakdown got very old, very fast.

It was kinda funny though how ultimately she was

Despite being rather useless and hysterical throughout the whole film. Definitely a YMMV situation 'cos I dunno, just found her schtick hard to stomach, especially as it was the same routine in Alien; itself the low-point in that other, particular personal favourite as well!

Also laughed how Donald Sutherland's character's first assessment of a pod person was that maybe they had some "social disease, or had become a Republican." 🤣

Tokyo Godfathers (2003)

Man, I entered this film with the entirely wrong expectation: I jumped into it with Paprika relatively fresh in my brain and keen to watch more from Kon's tragically limited CV; thus I made a kneejerk presumption this story of an abandoned baby found by a trio of homeless people would be something despairing or grim - maybe even bordering on... yikes, "Misery Porn". A film engineered to crush one's soul and leave you feeling a little more miserable.

I was wrong & then some: rather, this was a madcap celebration of industrious invention, endemic compassion and unwavering loyalty between those at the bottom rung of society & with nothing left except each other - and damned sure to make the most of it. And all this uplifting sentiment took place during Winter too, making it an instant member of any seasonal list. Structurally this was a capital-C comedy aiming for laughs and strategically deployed tears; that's not to say it took a idealistic view of homelessness either because a few darker hues managed to manifest at times, with a shocking moment of violence against an old homeless man acting as the coldest shower between all the screwball frivolity.

I especially loved how much of the script was based on a foundation of constant, unapologetic and unremarked coincidence - as any good fairytale has tended to have. Indeed with a little divine intervention here & there, this was bordering on (urban) fantasy if we started trotting out genre titles. Nearly every story beat had a degree of wild fluke that in another film might have demanded criticism or comment, but here it was all just part of the playful DNA; this was at its core a dramatic farce, and in the best tradition of those we pin-balled between madcap set-pieces thanks to a stream of pure chaotic chance. A comedy whose honest & raw emotional heart went hand-in-hand with a joyful sense of the openly absurd, both with that aforementioned buttress of coincidence but also the execution of those various gags and punchlines.

But this wasn't superficial comedy either, just trotting out gags for their own sake: while the three lead characters nuzzled tropes of classic comedy duos and trios, they were grounded & real people at their core; yes they operated as comedic foils for each other but they were also deeply flawed humans and those moments the jokes stopped, we saw vulnerable and broken people struggling to reconcile their lot from the lowest rung of the ladder in a country whose caste system left them twice-damned. They very much operated like a "found family" to use the modern term, three lost souls who coalesced around each other and their respective need for some human closeness and emotional support. Even before they found the baby they were making do along the margins through wits and cunning - while everyone else either ignored them or tried to convert them to Jesus.

Hana was the obvious standout of the three, certainly in terms of invoking a degree of social retrospection: her very presence in the first place was quite progressive for 2003, even if some aspects of her character felt a little too broad, her best friend a little uncomfortably quick to use the F word. Fundamentally what was worth celebrating was that she was a rounded character and her very existence never itself a grotesque punchline: indeed, her former life proved to be one of those happy coincidences that ensured the little family unit endured and survived; where her old haunt, a seedy drag club, was treated with a modicum of respect and empathy rather than derision, judgement or cheap gags. This was a film about outcasts and the shunned - all equals at the bottom and all worthy of each other's compassion.

As to the animation itself? With the farcical tone came a looser style that was full of broad expressions and expertly staged laughs; it had the energy of a classic screwball comedy, with the added benefit of the kind of smart editing Kon had already shown with Paprika to really work the pay-off of various moments. Sure there was little of that sense of the surreal manipulation of perception, instead something very playful & joyous. While the tactility of the animation also struck a chord: nothing overly grotesque but here was a Tokyo of trash-bags, detritus and cobbled together shacks; even some folks we met with "permanent" roofs over their heads were living in a touch of squalor; it was all a heady mixture to the extent there was almost a smell permeating through the animation cells.

PlayTime (1967)

@johnny_ultimate given your avatar, if this isn't a favourite of yours, I'll be shocked. 😂

Playful, the title hiding no trace of irony, with a subtle impish energy that slowly crept its way into an initially cold landscape of glass and steel, the medium an American tourist full of curiosity and wanderlust; her simple interactions bringing colour and joie de vivre to this little slice of contemporary Paris as she meandered about. Which is probably both the film's greatest charm and weakness: this was a dawdling, meandering film with no discernible purpose except as something of a "Slice of Life".

What started with stiff-gaited people walking straight lines through edifices of pragmatic future living ended with chaotic joy, as a restaurant's facade of sterile pomp literally fell apart as its customers danced and sang with each other. But given the current retroactive appreciation for mid 20th century architecture (even Brutalism is getting its noisy advocates), those locations of brushed steel and greys encompassing what became known as "Tativille" contained their own inarguable level of beauty, however sterile they were intended to look: every scene and image burst with retro-futuristic detail and artifice; literal world-building by Tati to a degree that almost defied sense - and the likes of which we'd not see til decades later when Wes Anderson gained enough clout to start building his own little toy-towns and locales. 

Indeed this film felt so oddly prototypical of Anderson's own aesthetic in places, had Adrian Brody walked into a scene I'd have thought nothing of it. Yet even with larger budgets and technological horizons available Anderson only builds a house here, some hotel sets there - not an entire functioning city block of 15,000km2. Madness. I always love good production design - simple aesthetics can be something that does a lot of heavy lifting with my entertainment levels - but this was something else entirely. Something bordering on folly really: I've read that it took Tati 10 years to find the finances to build that city, bankrupting him by the end - but hard to argue with the end-result all the same. I hope he was happy, and it was worth the hardship incurred - cos watched via the remastered edition this was, to be trite, a feast for the senses.

As to the content? This was where it took a little longer to reach me. I suppose I went in expecting a simpler structure of crazy comedy set-pieces, Tati's Mr. Hulot creating chaos and confusion while ambling around as he had done before, but instead this was something quite unique and more subtle. Subtle to the extent that I nearly bailed a few minutes into the 40(!?) minute restaurant set-piece - but powered through, only clicking with me after the fact. One of those scenarios where reading other people's opinions crystallised my own confused & wavering judgement - finally settling on retroactive enjoyment. 

This was a comedy where the extras were the stars; the chuckles gleaned from a dozen different people milling about the background - not of one or two significant clowns centre-screen. Indeed Mr. Hulot himself often disappeared during a scene, or was broadly incidental while we focused on someone else's own pratfalls and calamity. Again, I read Tati would consult with each of the dozens of extras in any given scene, all to make sure they understood their role in the overall symphony - and it showed. I can't even begin to imagine how Tati coordinated all this, how you even storyboard this kinda chaos, or show the patience required to get so many people and props all bouncing off & in time with each other - sometimes culminating in the smallest of gags around the edge of the vast and dense 70mm shots. Our high-definition era has demanded an exactitude in production so paused frames don't reveal gaps, goofs or the tape holding everything up - here was a film that came out 40-odd years before that era and yet instead rewarded exactly that desire. 

It was also a very quietly but intently satirical beast as well, with that subtly of purpose eeking into the subtext: as mentioned the film started with humanity squared off into boxes and cold modernity, tourists wowed by gadgets and skyscrapers rather than the traditional Parisian sights; the picturesque version of the city we only saw reflected on the glass of doors and windows, broadly going unnoticed. The zenith of this gentle chiding came during a silent set-piece as the viewer watched from outside while Mr. Hulot visited a friend in their "fishbowl" apartment - one of many as its inhabitants sat quietly watching their TVs, their faces washed in the blue glow of the screen. Or a similar moment where hungry patrons at a café sullenly ate food glazed in the fluorescent - and unappetising - green light thrown out by the cafés signage.

Body Snatchers (1993)

Something about this had the distinct whiff of studio interference: I haven't had it confirmed and couldn't quite place it, but there was this constant unshakeable sense like there were two movies constantly warring with each other.

One, a really neat little subversive spin on the Body Snatchers concept: where the notion of indoctrination or conformity in the military made for a natural thematic fit for this particular alien invasion story; but there was also a clever deployment of familial tropes, one where step-parents were already perceived as cuckoos & interlopers long before any tentacular intrusion. Or even how American suburbia itself could be a patina of civility, a false shell in which already hollow people rattled around. All intriguing stuff - but also kinda piecemeal in execution too.

Cos on the other hand the film was a more straight-laced action / horror / thriller, full of running around, occasional gunfire for no real reason and (admittedly meaty) explosions; there was even a bit of limp teen romance too for that 90s Four Quadrant appeal. The ending was also something of a hat-tip towards potential studio noodling: where there was a conscious attempt to give the heroes a win, all while a bookending voiceover suggested maybe all wouldn't be well. All of that meant the film didn't feel as cohesive as its superior predecessor, didn't quite stir the pot quite as ably or really work those aforementioned themes to their fullest. Nor did it have a single moment that stuck in the brain like Philip Kaufman's mic-drop. So just as this film seemed to be going somewhere really twisted, there was an action set-piece.

While in comparing this and the prior 1978 version, if the older film had quite a naturalistic approach to its aesthetics where the artifice of cinema only intruded at key points - there was no mistaking the decade or era this variant was sprung from. And that's not necessarily a criticism mind you: the aforementioned facade of suburbia was manifested by striking cinematography that was both vividly expressionistic and very of its time.

Some scenes almost dropped into a form of black and white, full of angular shadows and canted camera angles in sterile empty homes. While other compositions drifted into that "music video" style that informed much of 80s to early 90s mainstream cinema; an aesthetic where night time wasn't that of darkness but dramatic, smoke infused shadows thrown out by the staged spotlights hitting blinds and curtains at every window. And when the nightmare scenario finally reached a zenith, culminating in an especially eery monologue by Meg Tily, the family home became irradiated in red light, the stark noir lighting swapped for a descent into hell as the pod people announced their intentions.

All of the above came after a rather fabulously icky use of practical FX - an aspect this version had a nose in front of the 1978 version. There was some truly gross FX for the in-progress conversions or the disintegration of the victims. The only sore part of the otherwise impressive FX was a rather terrible bit of compositing during a key moment, a character taking a Hans Gruber style fall - and it looked pretty terrible.

I'll be thinking of this film for ages I suspect: if for no other reason than remaining astonishment Tati managed to make it work. Just on a technical level the ability to herd that many people into these communal gags seems impossible - while the idea of just building 15,000km2 of sets 'cos how else would you have made it? seems equally insane. At first I was wondering where in France they shot this that they got the retro-future look so down, then as it went on I realised OH MY GOD THIS WAS ALL CUSTOM BUILT.

Perfect Blue (1997)

Disregarding the actual meat of this film for a minute, it was hard to suppress a wry chuckle during a moment that ensured the film will forever exist in a highly specific moment: as in, that period in the late 90s when someone needed an explanation of what email or a website was - and how to access either.

This was a sometimes intense & disturbing shakedown of how our social contract's idea of "celebrity" could become a brittle foundation for one's grasp of reality or basic self of self; jokes about email aside, it was kind of remarkable that with the online landscape barely out of nappies, Satoshi Kon managed to already deconstruct the new media & the deleterious effects or psychological torture born from cyber bullying/stalking and online harassment in general.

Here Kon displayed what can be a positively dystopian branch of our pop culture: where a manufactured and deeply one way transactional identity, precision-engineered to be a point of lustful obsession for young male fans, was already a brittle facade before it went online; one that barely shielded your own personal safety or sanity, your agents only seeing you as a commodity to be utilised. Lead character Mima's attempt to disentangle herself from a previous life as a "pop idol" only metastasised into something even more dangerous and corrupting, her former public career the catalyst in a slow deterioration of her grasp on reality as she navigated the slippery facade of acting.

All of which might sound very complex and meaningful such that the film was a bit impenetrable, but it was all carried off with a cinematic aplomb and thrills that wasn't far removed from the classic Hitchcockian mould. Or maybe DePalma was the more accurate genetic cousin, given that director's own obsession with the voyeur. And as has become rote while watching Kon's slim body of work, I had to admire the crafty use of editing and the "meta" structure that was deployed to stir the slow fragmentation of Mima's sense of perception, all while mixed with arresting and downright disturbing sequences of violence or action.

Like Paprika, the most shocking moment wasn't "real" as such, yet this time a scene of violation felt a shade too close to gratuitous if I'm honest, even if it had function to further Mima's loss of identity, reality - or in this case, her bodily autonomy.