My Cultural Diet

It’s pretty safe to say that Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner is my favorite movie of all time. I don’t know how many times I’ve seen it over the years, but it never fails to draw me into its detailed and highly stylized world. I’m hard-pressed to think of another movie with a visual style that’s so captivating. As it turns out, though, the only thing that’s as captivating as Blade Runner’s visuals is its atmospheric and eclectic score, courtesy of Vangelis. Thus, it was a truly special treat to watch Blade Runner with live musical accompaniment courtesy of The Avex Ensemble, who pull off Vangelis’s score perfectly with an 11-piece band. I’ve never actually seen a live accompaniment quite like this before, but as soon as I heard that first booming percussion during the opening sequence, I knew I was in for something special. There were one or two moments when the live music threatened to overwhelm the movie, but I attribute that more to a mixing issue than the performance. More often than not, I simply forgot that I was watching a movie with live accompaniment. That’s how good the Ensemble’s performance was, from the opening sequence to an exhilarating rendition of the end titles theme. Finally, special kudos to the vocalist — sadly, I can’t seem to find her name anywhere — who nailed the Middle Eastern chants heard on “Tales of the Future.”

The fifth Lone Wolf and Cub movie begins in a really promising manner that suggests it might just be the franchise’s best title. Ogami Itto is contacted and tested by five retainers of the Kuroda clan, and as he defeats each one, they reveal the next piece of his mission. This is actually a really cool narrative device and makes for some delightfully insane moments, like the retainer who delivers his message to Ogami even as his body is consumed by flames. And when Ogami tries to complete his assassination, it leads to a bizarre supernatural moment that’s unlike anything else the franchise has offered to date. But then Baby Cart in the Land of Demons gets bogged down in a side story about Daigoro and an infamous pickpocket that I suppose is intended to prove just how brave and honorable Ogami’s young son has become. In truth, however, it’s a pointless rabbit trail that contributes nothing to the movie. By the time we get back to the original storyline about Ogami’s mission, the movie’s lost its momentum. Of course, the Yagyu clan are back, and there’s yet another grand finale involving Ogami slicing and dicing his way through countless samurai and ninja. It’s all pretty underwhelming, though, and I can’t stop thinking about the first act, and how it promised a far more interesting movie than the one we actually got.

Kenji Misumi, who directed the previous Lone Wolf and Cub movies, was replaced this time around by Buichi Saitō, who previously worked as an assistant to Yasujirō Ozu on Tokyo Story and Early Spring. But if you think that means Baby Cart in Peril is going to be more contemplative than its predecessors, think again. Under Saitō’s direction, the film veers fully into exploitation territory, featuring a female assassin named Oyuki who defeats her opponents by disrobing and revealing her tattooed flesh. (While accompanied by a very ahistorical psychedelic jazz soundtrack, to boot.) Ogami is hired to kill Oyuki for betraying her former lord and disgracing his retainers, but not surprisingly, things get complicated. Oyuki is seeking revenge against her rapist, a cause that Ogami can’t help but respect. Meanwhile, the Yagyu clan’s machinations continue apace, and the film reveals more of their vendetta against Ogami and the extreme lengths to which they’ll go to beat him. I’m really torn on this film. It dives headlong into the gratuitiousness that the previous films merely flirted with, which gives it a certain ickiness. As David Vining writes in his review, “the semblance of serious consideration of the samurai code that had been intermittently addressed gets tossed aside fully for empty action and titillation.” Also, the film’s insistence on moral ambiguity gets a bit tiresome. Exploitative aspects aside, though, Ogami and Oyuki’s parallels are interesting. Both are kindred spirits of a sort, sacrificing their own honor and humanity in order to get revenge on those who’ve wronged and disgraced them. I just wish the film had done a better job with their story, and actually earned the poignancy that it tries so hard to communicate.

The third Lone Wolf and Cub movie veers back towards arthouse territory thanks to its slower pace, complex plot, and less reliance on gratuitous content. Make no mistake, though, this is still a Lone Wolf and Cub movie, as evidenced by the abundance of arterial spray. This time around, the ever-stoic Ogami Itto — who has yet to crack even the slightest hint of a smile — sacrifices his honor to save a young woman sold into prostitution even as he’s still being pursued by his rivals in the evil Yagyu clan. Along the way, he encounters a former samurai who’s desperate to die with honor and a corrupt ruler. The film’s final battle is a doozy, with the titular baby cart revealing a veritable arsenal of machine guns and cannons. (Historical accuracy be damned here.) At times, director Misumi and writer Kazuo Koike seem to be questioning deconstructing the samurai code of bushido, which holds that a samurai can still be considered honorable even after he tried to cover up rape and murder, as much as uphold and idealize it. The film is far too concerned with spectacle to offer a really thoughtful deconstruction — Harakiri, this most certainly is not — but the moral ambiguity is interesting to consider.

The wealthy Davenport family is thrilled when their daughter Poppy agrees to marry her first cousin Archibald, since that means they’ll get to keep their fabulous estate. But when Poppy leaves Archibald at the altar, it falls to their other daughter Rose to save the family’s wealth. Unfortunately, Rose has all sorts of crazy notions about being an independent woman, and she also happens to be in love with one of the family’s servants, a lovable rogue with an entirely predictable secret. All bets are off, however, when the Davenport patriarch turns up dead one morning. On paper, mashing up Downton Abbey-style historical drama with ZAZ-style slapstick comedy (e.g., Airplane!, The Naked Gun) seems like a winning proposition. And perhaps it will be someday, but Fackham Hall isn’t it. This might’ve been a hilarious 10-minute YouTube sketch, but when stretched out to 90+ minutes, it quickly overstays its welcome with running gags that soon run themselves into the ground and a surprising number of jokes that just don’t land. I certainly chuckled on several occasions, but honestly, I expected more bite from comedian Jimmy Carr, who co-wrote the script. Even with all of the jokes about incest and bestiality, Fackham Hall is quite tame, and I’m surprised that Carr didn’t opt for a more ruthless skewering of his movie’s blue bloods. To their credit, the cast is clearly game for whatever the script asks of them — Thomasin McKenzie, in particular, manages to look radiant even as she delivers pratfalls and stupid jokes — but it’s just too bad that they weren’t in a funnier movie.

Whereas Sword of Vengeance is a relatively straightforward samurai film, bloody arterial sprays and quasi-exploitation notwithstanding, Baby Cart at the River Styx gets surprisingly abstract and even existential — for better and worse. This time around, Ogami Ittō is hired to assassinate an expert at making indigo dye. Unfortunately, the expert is guarded by three brothers who are infamous martial arts masters. Further complicating things, the Yagyu clan is hot on Ittō’s trail, this time sending a clan of female assassins after the former executioner and his young son. At times, the abstractions make the film more intriguing, such as when Ittō and his son heighten their senses to keep safe; the soundtrack and Kenji Misumi’s direction really sell the idea that Ittō’s quest for vengeance has made him something inhuman. And then there are the fights where the combatants’ colorful outfits are as much a weapon as their blades, or a dying man comments on the sound of the blood spraying from his neck. (Which is ridiculous but still quite apropos for Lone Wolf and Cub’s blood-soaked world.) The psychedelic editing employed to make the martial arts look superhuman has a charm that CGI just can’t match. But there are also moments when the film slows to a crawl, and scenes are dragged out to make them feel more significant and portentous. As with the first film, it still looks gorgeous thanks to Chishi Makiura’s cinematography. But perhaps in trying to make a heavier, more serious film, the filmmakers robbed Baby Cart at the River Styx of some of the edge possessed by its predecessor.

Years ago, Ogami Ittō was the shōgun’s official executioner, a task he carried out with diligence and honor. But when the rival Yagyu clan murdered his wife and framed him for treason, Ittō was forced to go on the run with his young son Daigoro. Now working as a lowly assassin, Ittō travels the country while carefully plotting his revenge against the Yagyu clan. Based on Kazuo Koike and Goseki Kojima’s influential Lone Wolf and Cub manga series — Koike wrote the movie’s screenplay — Sword of Vengeance is filled with all of the arterial sprays that you could possibly want, as Ittō slices and dices his way through rival samurai and ninja with his dōtanuki blade. (I actually paused and rewound several action scenes just to try and better understand the action choreography and Tomisaburo Wakayama’s impressive movements.) Sword of Vengeance does get lurid in places and verges on exploitation territory, but director Kenji Misumi still keeps things artful. You’d never mistake it for an Akira Kurosawa or Yôji Yamada film, but there are moments when Lone Wolf and Cub looks and feels like my platonic ideal of a samurai movie.

2016’s Zootopia was one of those rare movies that was far better than it had any right to be, delivering a message about diversity and tolerance that was entertaining and thoughtful rather than heavy-handed and preachy. It took almost a decade for Disney to return to the animal city, where all kinds of mammals live in harmony thanks to a complex system of environments. Zootopia 2 also tries to deliver a thoughtful message, but gets a bit muddled along the way because it can’t quite decide which thoughtful message to deliver. One moment, it seems to be indicting those members of the 1% who feel entitled and emboldened to take from those they fear and hate. (One sequence in particular seemed clearly inspired by the 1921 Tulsa race massacre, an episode in American history that still too few people know about.) The next, it’s about Judy Hopps (Ginnifer Goodwin) and Nick Wilde (Jason Bateman) dealing (or not dealing) with their obvious differences and personality clashes. Either one of those stories would’ve made for a good movie, but by trying to do both, Zootopia 2 sells both of them short. The constant stream of animal puns and movie references (e.g., Babe, The Shining) don’t help either. If it sounds like I’m being too harsh on Zootopia 2, don’t worry: I still had plenty of fun watching it, but the first movie was so delightful that it set a pretty high bar for its sequel.

For his final Hong Kong action film, John Woo decided to pull out all of the stops and go for broke. But whereas previous Woo films like A Better Tomorrow and The Killer had glamorized criminals and assassins, Hard Boiled instead glamorized the city’s cops (a decision Woo made in the wake of a real-life psychopath poisoning baby food). Of course, in Woo’s action cinema universe, the cops — led by Chow Yun-fat’s Tequila — don’t care one whit about due process. But more importantly, they never, ever have to reload their guns, which comes in handy when Tequila has to take on wave after wave after wave of nameless goons, each one of which is loaded with squibs for extra bloody effect. Meanwhile, Tony Leung’s undercover cop finds his morals increasingly challenged as he infiltrates the gang of a violent gun smuggler (played with vile glee by Anthony Wong). Will Chow and Leung be forced to work from opposite sides of the law to bring down Wong’s triad boss? C’mon now, what do you think? There’s nothing but excess in Hard Boiled, be it the many gun fights — which, despite influencing countless Hollywood films like the John Wick franchise, have never been equalled — or the intense bro drama between Chow and Leung’s characters. Hard Boiled is definitely silly at times (and this time around, I was struck by just how funny it can be). But when it’s on (e.g., the warehouse shootout), few movies are this deliriously stylish and enjoyable.

I think it’s safe to say that most of us have never given a single thought to the carpet that we walk on in hotels, restaurants, airports, and other public spaces. But it’s a massive industry that affects the entire world, and a good deal of it is based in the town of Dalton, Georgia, aka the “Carpet Capital of the World.” Carpet Cowboys travels to this small city to meet with the colorful characters that drive the carpet industry. Chief among them is Roderick James, a Scottish expat, perpetual entrepreneur, and fan of all things country and western who’s always angling and hustling for his next big break, even if that means leaving his life in Dalton altogether. Unfortunately, Carpet Cowboys is hindered by a fragmented and inconsistent narrative that occasionally verges on the absurd; at times, my wife and I thought we might actually be watching a Christopher Guest-style mockumentary, which isn’t the best sign for a documentary. Carpet Cowboys is less an insightful look at the inner workings of an overlooked industry, and more akin to a tone poem that certainly awakens your curiosity but leaves it unsatisfied.

At first glance, George and Kathryn look like a stylish and devoted couple living a perfect life in their upscale flat. But given that both of them work in British intelligence — he’s an interrogation expert, she’s an operative — their marriage is fraught with things they simply can’t talk about or share with each other. Which would seem like a threat to a healthy marriage, but George and Kathryn make it work. That is, until some top-secret software gets leaked to the Russians and Kathryn becomes one of the prime suspects. Black Bag looks like the sort of slick, stylish thriller for mature audiences that Steven Soderbergh can direct in his sleep. But the film’s chilly tone, implausible scenarios (including a dinnertime party turned interrogation that gets increasingly preposterous as it unfolds), and icily aloof performances constantly kept me at arm’s length. Scenes obviously intended to be taut and suspenseful never once caused the needle to move on my blood pressure, and had I watched the film any later in the evening, they might have even put me to sleep. That said, I did enjoy Michael Fassbender’s performance as George, a tightly wound and always-suspicious man who’s deeply in love with a woman who could very well be a traitor.

Plot-wise, Sword of Silence is close to inscrutable at times, as a black-clad figure wanders silently across a bizarre, sun-less landscape, encountering various odd and unsavory characters whilst experiencing strange, ominous visions that are somehow related to the sword he carries. Nevertheless, I remained hooked from the opening scene. Some of that was from a curious nostalgia, as Reese Cleveland’s film ably summons the ghosts of low-budget fantasy fare from the ’80s. Much of that, however, was due to the film’s unique look: Cleveland and his small group of collaborators shot Sword of Silence at night and only by the light of the full moon. (As such, it took five years and 27 full moon cycles to complete the film.) The lunar lighting, combined with the Australian landscape and some clever visual effects, imbues Sword of Silence with an otherworldly tone that’s further enhanced by the obtuse storytelling and an atmospheric dungeon synth soundtrack. I can certainly see how some might find Sword of Silence interminable, especially whenever the digital cinematography and YouTube compression conspire to render the film nigh-unwatchable. But I found it compelling and consistently fascinating, a prime example of the sort of inventive indie filmmaking that we need more of these days.

2022’s Prey expanded the Predator franchise into an 18th-century Native American setting, which gave the venerable sci-fi franchise some historical heft. I was a big fan of that film and thus, pretty excited for Predator: Badlands. Alas, the latest Predator film doesn’t really measure up to its predecessor; the return to a more traditional sci-fi setting has decidedly mixed results. The setup’s promising, with a young Predator (or Yautja, as they’re called in-universe) traveling to the galaxy’s most hostile planet in search of quarry that will prove his mettle to his tribe. Unfortunately, he soon crosses paths with a Weyland-Yutani android (played to bubbly extremes by Elle Fanning) who really, really loves meeting non-human lifeforms. From that point on, things just get goofy, especially when compared to Prey’s grounded intensity. If you ever wanted to see a movie in which a Predator and an android have a meet-cute, well, here you go. There’s even a cute alien critter thrown in for good measure. Things improve slightly in the film’s second half, but by then, it’s too little, too late.

For the record, I haven’t kept up with Jackie Chan’s recent films. I think I tried watching 2023’s Hidden Strike, which also starred John Cena — emphasis on the word “tried.” Thus, I went into The Shadow’s Edge with, shall we say, lowered expectations, and was quite pleasantly surprised. Chan plays a former police officer who’s called out of retirement to train a younger generation of cops in old school surveillance after their AI-powered systems fail to capture a gang of audacious thieves. Soon enough, they’re on the track of an infamous ex-spy turned assassin (played by Tony Leung Ka-fai) who’s dealing with his own complications. Although it suffers from an occasionally convoluted plot, The Shadow’s Edge is a decent popcorn film packed with glossy, Mission: Impossible-style action and loads of melodrama. Chan is still pretty nimble for a guy in his seventies, and he still knows how to use a prop or two, though the film’s use of CGI, editing, and stunt doubles gets pretty obvious, especially whenever Chan gets into a knock down, drag out brawl. In addition to the action, The Shadow’s Edge has some genuinely affecting moments as Wong imparts some hard-earned wisdom to his young protégés, and I was honestly impressed at just how suspenseful the cat-and-mouse game between the cops and the spy would get. The film ends on a cliffhanger that totally sets up a sequel, though no official announcements have been made yet. If and when one is released, I’ll definitely be checking it out.

Continuing in my quest to watch all of those movies whose VHS covers fascinated me back in the early-to-mid ’90s, I checked out this dystopian martial arts action flick starring Billy Blanks (of “Tae Bo” fame) as a police-like enforcer who protects the underground city of the wealthy from the scavengers of the surface world. TC 2000 isn’t a great movie, even by cult standards, although Blanks certainly gives it his all, right down to some film noir-ish voiceovers. I do, however, have a fondness for how ’90s films envisioned societal and environmental collapse in the not-too-distant future — TC 2000 is set in 2020 — and in that regard, the film doesn’t disappoint. I love all of the ’90s architecture (e.g., Ontario’s Mississauga Civic Centre) as well as the little ways the movie tries to communicate “futuristic,” from the fashion to the vehicles. Still, it’s hard to watch TC 2000 and not be consistently reminded of far better films like The Terminator, RoboCop, and even Demolition Man. That, and the endless martial arts sequences eventually become a slog, meaning the film wastes both Blanks and Bolo Yeung. Oh, and the film also serves as a 90-minute promo piece for a line of martial arts gear. So take that for whatever it’s worth.

The Return of the King contains some of Peter Jackson’s biggest liberties with Tolkien’s original epic, like the reforging of Andúril and almost everything involving the Army of the Dead, from their skull-filled underground lair to their arrival on Pelennor Fields. And don’t get me started on Denethor, especially his nonsensical death. At times, such moments almost seem like they could undermine the film, but it contains far too many grace notes for that. Gandalf’s encouraging words to Pippin. Sam’s glimpse of stars while in the darkness of Mordor. Éowyn’s battle with the Witch-king of Angmar. And of course, the charge of the Rohirrim. I find every single one of them deeply moving even to this day. (I can’t think of Théoden’s battlecry — “Ride for ruin and the world’s ending!” — and not get a little choked up.) I remember the movie often being mocked for its many endings, but how else could such an epic tale end? I love Gandalf’s line about not all tears being an evil; the fact that the film, like Tolkien’s story, ends on a melancholy note with a bittersweet farewell and a return to simple domestic life, and not some massive military victory, is precisely what makes it so endearing and enduring.

This is where Peter Jackson’s liberties with Tolkien’s story really become noticeable, for better or worse. There’s the obvious shifting around of story beats, like moving Boromir’s last stand to The Fellowship of the Ring, or more seriously, altering the character of Faramir. (I have friends who absolutely hate that particular change, claiming that it ruins one of the Tolkien’s noblest characters. I get where they’re coming from, but I also understand why Jackson made the change for dramatic purposes, even though I don’t think it works as well as it could have.) On a more positive note, The Two Towers introduces us to Bernard Hill’s King Théoden of Rohan, whose desire to save his people might prove their undoing, and Miranda Otto’s proud Éowyn. But more importantly, it brings us Andy Serkis’s Gollum, who is brought to life by detailed visual effects work and is both loathsome and pitiable, sometimes even in the same scene. This time around, I was particularly struck by the interplay between Gollum, Frodo, and Sam as the two hobbits argue over how to treat the creature formerly known as Sméagol. Frodo is driven by a sense of mercy and compassion that borders on naïve while Sam’s suspicions are as warranted as they are cruel. It’s tricky storytelling, especially considering one of the characters is entirely digital, but done in a very compelling manner here.

I’m sure that when Peter Jackson — director of such splatter classics as Bad Taste, Meet the Feebles, and Braindead — announced that he was adapting J. R. R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, one of the most revered stories in Western literature, more than a few people doubted that he would deliver a modern cinematic epic that verges on transcendent. But that’s precisely what we got with The Fellowship of the Ring. Much of that’s due to the film’s incredible production design and art direction, which transform Tolkien’s Middle-earth into a living, breathing place that I believe can be visited every time I watch the film. Although Jackson’s changes to Tolkien’s story merit criticism in the trilogy’s subsequent titles, here they largely make the film a stronger and more cohesive story. (I’m sure Tom Bombadil has his fans, but he’s not really missed here.) From the first frame to the very last, Jackson and his incredible cast and crew deliver the very definition of movie magic that — to quote Yeats — I feel “in the deep heart’s core” every time I watch it.

When construction workers uncover the long-lost burial ground of the Black Ninja clan, the clan will stop at nothing to reclaim their ancestral home, even sending ghost ninjas to haunt the landowner’s family. At the same time, the clan’s after a precious artifact that’s been hidden away by Gordon of the rival Diamond Ninja Clan. Gordon — who’s played by Richard Harrison in all of his mustachioed and eyelined glory — just wants to live a normal life with his lovely wife, but when she’s killed by the Black Ninja clan, he’ll need to summon all of his Diamond Ninja skills to avenge her death. Diamond Ninja Force is as delightfully incoherent as any Godfrey Ho movie. (Leo Lau and Frank Ford are credited with continuity and story development, respectively, which I suspect took them all of five minutes.) In classic Godfrey Ho fashion, Diamond Ninja Force recycles the Golden Ninja Warrior idol and Garfield phone from Ninja Terminator, throws in random scenes of Harrison doing his ninja schtick, and ties it all together with footage cribbed from an entirely different film. In this case, the other film is Feng-Pan Yao’s Ghost Rapist, a cheap Poltergeist knock-off from Taiwan that — as its title suggests — let Ho sneak in a bit more skin than usual. As is often the case with Godfrey Ho’s ninja movies, I wish he’d have made a film that’s just Harrison doing wacky ninja things, but the inclusion of a supernatural/horror element — as well as music from Kraftwerk, Tangerine Dream, and Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark — does make Diamond Ninja Force more interesting than other IFD offerings.

I’ve been an unabashed Edgar Wright fan for years now thanks to titles like Hot Fuzz, Shaun of the Dead, and Spaced. His brand of meta humor combined with a unique visual style has been total catnip for me. Thus it pains me to say that his take on The Running Man is an incoherent mess from start to finish. Wright tries to mix bleak dystopian humor, commentary about the media’s controlling effects on our society, and over-the-top violence, but the resulting film is a slog that beats you over the head with its supposedly satirical points until you decide to hate watch it simply so you can say you weren’t defeated by its inanity. Glen Powell, God bless him, certainly gives it his all as the down-on-his-luck schmuck who agrees to participate in an ultra-violent TV gameshow to provide for his family. However, his too-handsome features are just a constant reminder that you’re watching a Hollywood movie that thinks it’s more subversive than it actually is. And yes, I remember that the original Running Man starred Arnold Schwarzenegger of all people, but that film leaned heavily into camp — something that’s sorely lacking from Wright’s film.