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Capsules

CAPSULE: TOUCH ME (2025)

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DIRECTED BY:

FEATURING: Olivia Taylor Dudley, Jordan Gavaris, , Marlene Forte

PLOT: 27-year old underachiever Joey and her troubled trust-fund baby pal Craig spend time at the retreat of an alien, becoming addicted to the heroin-like touch of his tentacles.

Still from Touch Me (2025)

COMMENTS: I don’t think Gen-Z’ers are really afraid of, or attracted to, alien tentacle sex. What the characters in Touch Me are deeply afraid of is a life devoid of purpose, or even of a reasonable infrastructure to be able to pursue their dreams. Joey is unable to advance her journalistic career, a slave to student debt and just-over-minimum-wage barrista and bartender gigs. Craig’s privileged background and philosophy degree put him no closer to finding dreams; in fact, they’ve left him depressed and unemployable. Meaningless sex, drinking, New Age-y spiritual exercises, and, eventually, the blissful, numbing touch only an alien can deliver offer them relief from their anxieties. Heck, even procrastinating alien Brian can’t get his act together to either take over the world, or to save it from itself. As the characters struggle to find a place in society, the alien’s euphoric touch serves a metaphor for the distractions and temptations of co-dependent romantic relationships and, more explicitly, drug addiction.

The acting is remarkable for a low-budget indie horror. Olivia Taylor Dudley is a revelation: dreamy in a languid, damaged way, remaining likable even when engaging in vile drug-seeking behaviors. She begins the film with an 8-minute monologue about her first meeting with a track-suited, environmentally responsible alien with hair that’s the “good kind of wet.” It’s not quite a tour-de-force, but it is the kind of thing that makes you sit up and jot down the actress’ name. Veteran character actor Pucci is also sexy as the complicated, hip-hop dancing alien who might be a cosmic narcissist or might be a well-meaning but clueless visitor who can’t comprehend human relationships. Gavaris is believable, if mostly relegated to comic relief (although his friendship with Joey plays a crucial role in the movie’s emotional makeup), and Forte puts in fine work as Brian’s unappreciated human assistant resenting the presence of younger and more attractive visitors.

On the other hand, director Addison Heinmann’s tonal shifts and unnecessary stylizations can pose a challenge. Joey’s panic attacks are accompanied by swarms of picture-in-picture popups, and a flashback is done as a Japanese silent movie but with spoken dialogue. These bits sometimes aren’t deployed purposefully, taking us out of the story. Furthermore, the attempts at comedy don’t always arise cleanly out of the more serious themes. Henimann throws a lot of absurdity at the screen, and not all of it works (one thing that does work are Brian’s dance scenes, which are both fun to watch and endearingly quirky). The hazy, neon-lit interspecies sex scenes are also a blast; they’re almost tasteful.

Because of the undisciplined approach, this is an odd movie, as well as a weird one. That said, Touch Me is nowhere near as alienating as its miserable current 4.8 IMDb rating would suggest. Most of the negative sentiments seem to come from people who were hoping for a more straightforward live-action hentai sci-fi horror, and are along the lines of “this was a little too out there for me.” Regular readers of this site will likely find this on the low-to-average end of the weird scale, and uneven, but far from boring. You’re invited to Touch Me: you might enjoy it.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“The cherry on top of this admittedly weird cocktail is a strong streak of genuine sensuality – if it’s your first encounter with tentacle sex on screen, you might be surprised how appealing Heimann and his cast have managed to make it seem.”–Catherine Bray, The Guardian (contemporaneous)

Capsules, It Came from the Reader-Suggested Queue

IT CAME FROM THE READER-SUGGESTED QUEUE: RELICS: EINSTEIN’S BRAIN (1994)

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DIRECTED BY: Kevin Hull

FEATURING: Kenji Sugimoto

PLOT: A documentary account of a Japanese math professor who comes to America in search of his hero, Albert Einstein— specifically, the scientist’s brain, which was extracted during an autopsy and removed to points unknown.

Still from "Relics: Einstein's Brain" (1994)

COMMENTS: Among the most cherished books of my childhood were the three volumes that made up “The People’s Almanac,” a peculiar reference book that purported to comprise only the most interesting and widely unknown stories and facts from the span of recorded history. Where else would biographies of fictional characters who have become immortal through extended popularity sit comfortably alongside histories of some of the world’s leading news publications? A particularly memorable story was the one told in “People’s Almanac #3” by journalist Steven Levy about his successful search for Albert Einstein’s mind-meat, harvested (and possibly pilfered) by a pathologist named Thomas Harvey. Levy chronicled the strange afterlife of the physicist’s brain, culminating in his memorable description: “I had been granted a rare peek into an organic crystal ball. Swirling in formaldehyde was the power of the smashed atom, the mystery of the universe’s black holes, the utter miracle of human achievement.” So the result of screening a documentary about another person’s hunt for this very same organ 15 years after Levy’s article was a uniquely odd sensation for me specifically. For a film that proposes to solve a deep and thought-provoking mystery, I kept watching with a nagging question in my mind: “Didn’t we already figure this out?”

Maybe Levy’s report was lost to history, or only the barest of information made it through time’s game of telephone to tickle the fancy of a Japanese math professor. In any event, Einstein’s Brain kicks off the search with a retroactive information deficit, armed with only the knowledge that the mind behind relativity was plucked from its braincase during an autopsy in Princeton in 1955. From there, we pick up the trail with Professor Kenji Sugimoto in hot pursuit as he crisscrosses the country in search of the wayward noggin-nugget, encountering a university professor in New York, a neuroscientist in California, a police officer in Missouri, a pile of redacted FBI records in Washington, DC, a biologist in New Jersey, William S. Burroughs (who plays him a clip from “The Day After” and provides directions to Harvey’s home), and even Einstein’s granddaughter, working our way ever closer to Albert Einstein’s cranial cortex.

Einstein’s Brain has its origins in television, airing on the long-running BBC documentary program “Arena” as part of a series called “Relics” that purported to be about treasured artifacts but was really more interested in the people who sought them. That makes Prof. Sugimoto an intriguing subject, because the only thing we know Continue reading IT CAME FROM THE READER-SUGGESTED QUEUE: RELICS: EINSTEIN’S BRAIN (1994) →

Capsules

CAPSULE: BIRD (2024)

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DIRECTED BY:

FEATURING: Nukiya Adams, Franz Rogowski,

PLOT: Twelve-year-old Bailey comes of age among a family of social outcasts, feeling like an outsider until she finds hope in her acquaintance  with an enigmatic boy named Bird.

Still from Bird (2024)

COMMENTS:  British cinema has always had a fondness towards the marginalized. Since the late fifties and sixties, kitchen sink realism has put the working class on the foreground. Contemporary movies have portrayed social outcasts, too: in Marxist terms, the sub-proletarians (the poorest of the working class) and lumpenproletarians (a group without class consciousness—criminals, the chronically unemployed—a distinct class below the workers). Andrea Arnold’s most recent feature film tackles the subject of coming-of-age in such an environment while maintaining a lighthearted tone, in a similar vein to Charlotte Regan’s Scrapper (2023).  Both films combine the harshest aspects of reality with a healthy dose of fairy tale magical realism, a merging of styles that seems to be a tendency in contemporary British cinema.

Bird‘s plot revolves around a twelve-year-old Bailey. It is clear from the beginning that she feels like an outsider even in her own family, who are already a band of misfits. Her father plans a wedding with his latest girlfriend, ignoring Bailey’s wants, and her brother is preoccupied with his criminal gang and refuses to include her because she is too young. Feeling lonely and angry with the world, Bailey finds comfort and inspiration in animals. That is, until she meets Bird, an enigmatic young man looking for his own parents.

Bird is a mysterious person with an even more obscure past. He is an angelic figure, always willing to help. He is also a bird trapped in a human body. The way he finds comfort by standing still on top of buildings or walls is uncanny. Every now and then his expressions and movements imitate those of a bird, especially when, in a late choreography of desperation, he turns around like a fowl with broken wings. He is more than he seems, although his origin and true nature remain open to interpretation.

Bird drives the plot, but Bailey is the main character. The camera follows her around in her wandering misadventures, while short flashbacks offer windows into her inner thoughts. Bird is essentially her coming-of-age tale, showcasing landmarks of her physical transformation into a woman—her first period—as well as her mental maturation. Birds and the eponymous boy will play a major role in the latter. Birds are not only symbols of freedom, but become agents of a change; the film has an animistic worldview.

In the end, Bailey finds her place. A joyous conclusion  pays respects to family, however unconventional they seem at first glance. Bird stands out as a unique combination of social and magical realism, but it won’t appeal to hardcore fans of the weird and the bizarre. For those that love their social realism with a touch of poetry, though, it merits a recommendation.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“The introduction of surrealism has the ironic effect of breaking the spell that has marked Arnold’s best films… A resolutely realistic filmmaker turning to magical realism has the uncomfortable effect of making the whole movie… feel inauthentic.”–Jake Coyle, AP (contemporaneous)

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Capsules

CAPSULE: WETIKO (2022)

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DIRECTED BY: Kerry Mondragon

FEATURING: Juandaniel García Treviño, Dalia Xiuhcoatl, Neil Sandilands

PLOT: A Mayan boy delivers hallucinogenic toads to a jungle love cult led by a Western shaman and is sucked into their petty intrigues.

Still from Wetiko (2022)

COMMENTS: It’s all fairly coherent until the moth flies into Aapo’s ear. Zake, sus shaman of the “Empire of Love,” wants to host a ritual trip for a tour group in the Mexican jungle. As an outsider, he can’t legally buy the necessary psychedelic toads, so through his sexy right hand gal Luz he drops a wad of cash to rent the toads and milk their trippy secretions for a night of enlightened debauchery. Teenager Aapo motorbikes into the heart of darkness to deliver the bufo, but through plot contrivances ends up staying there all night, despite his mother’s wise warnings to stay away from the unsanctioned ceremony. The Empire of Love compound is inhabited by  assistant shamans, a cadre of quiet servants all bearing the first name “Maria” (one of Wetiko‘s creepiest ideas), and a cray-cray drug-damaged westerner who seems like he will play an important role in the plot, but quickly disappears. Aapo spends an inordinate amount of time prepping the frogs, since his skill with them may be less than the group requires; then, while touring a sacred cave, he gets the aforementioned moth lodged in his ear. Of course, Zake has him chug a bottle of vile-looking green liquid to expel the bug, and of course, the fluid makes Aapo start trembling, sweating, and seeing montages. Although he will sober up every now and then, the remaining two-thirds of the movie are basically a long psychedelic trip. Although everybody seems pretty high, the actual toad ceremony takes forever to arrive, particularly since everyone continually loses track of the frogs themselves.

A lot of people inside the Empire have their own agendas, but with the distracted and fragmented narrative, we never get a clear sense of where the players stand. Even so, lack of clarity in the plot is not a huge impediment for the movie. But the lack of clarity in character motivation is. Aapo is positioned to go on a vision quest, but his character is so bland and ill-defined that we have no sense of what that might entail, other than, perhaps, his sexual initiation into adulthood. The movie is more concerned with villain Zake, who is suitably Machiavellian but whose schemes and plans are little more than a bundle of anti-colonialist and cult-leader tropes, as nebulous the gobbledygook (“welcome, star beings, to our Empire of Love…”) he uses to manipulate his dupes. Sure, the movie drops hints of sleazy land purchases, sexual exploitation, even murder, but what is Zake’s end game? Aapo supplies the hallucinogenic toads, but why Zake is specifically interested in him beyond providing that simple service is left to your imagination. That’s not to mention all the other people in the cult, some of whom may be playing their own games, but all of whose motives remain a mystery, making their eventual power grabs seem arbitrary. Zake is a baleful influence, sure, but he hardly feels real: he’s more a non-specific, obvious symbol of destructive western exploitation.

The rich opportunity to satirize ethnobotanical tourism—the phenomenon of crunchy rich white people traveling to the jungle to take drugs with native shamans—is barely grasped at. Although not strictly a horror movie, Wetiko fits into the folk horror tradition, the kind of flick that might share space on a disc in 2040’s “All The Haunts Be Ours, Vol. 9.” There’s a scene intended to remind you of the ending of Midsommar, and you might almost be tempted to dub it The Wicker Mayan. What Wetiko lacks in logic it seeks to make up through febrile atmosphere, although the low-budget drug scenes relying on odd camera lenses, echo-y audio, neon lighting, and incoherent editing are nothing you haven’t seen before. What’s more effective is the setting itself, the feeling of being abandoned deep in the jungle with no civilization around to help out if things take a turn for the worst. In fact, the movie is at its best in its sober first act, when everything is new and feels more ominous and portentous than events eventually justify. Wetiko initially seems exotic, but ultimately it’s little more than Aapo getting sucked into a bad trip of colonialist metaphors. I’ll stick with street drugs.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“…has the hazy vibes of an acid trip, putting the audience alongside Aapo as he’s drawn deeper into this baffling, dangerous underworld.”–Josh Bell, Crooked Marquee (VOD)

Capsules

CAPSULE: FRESH KILL (1994)

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DIRECTED BY: Shu Lea Cheang

FEATURING: Sarita Choudhury, Erin McMurtry, Abraham Lim, Jose Zuniga

PLOT: When their daughter disappears after developing green-glowing hands, her moms begin to suspect a mega-corporation involved in a tainted cat food scandal.

COMMENTS: Claire and Shareen are just trying to get by. Shareen works as a trash picker. Claire waits tables at a trendy sushi joint called “Naga Saki,” whose only perk is the free sushi she brings home to their daughter. Honey, one of those unusual four year olds who prefers raw fish and wasabi to mac n’ cheese, can’t get enough of Naga Saki’s specialty roll, “kissing fish,” a variety with obscenely red lips. When the little girl starts intermittently glowing green—a phenomenon her mothers never directly witness—they take her to various specialists. A pediatrician, a child psychologist, and a fortune-teller all fail to figure out the cause of the “green.” Honey then mysteriously vanishes, as stories about glowing cats begin to take over the news.Fresh Kill innovatively conveys its central mystery through endless streams of information. News reports, radio broadcasts, snippets from talk shows, and commercials regularly interrupt the narrative, adding clues to the overarching plot. Accounts of the real-life debacle with the infamous garbage barge alternate with fictional news items, like the corporate takeover of a major television news station by “GX,” a conglomerate that over the course of the film also buys up pet food products. The GX slogan, “because ‘We Care’” ominously repeats amid stories of a stray hydrogen bomb “harmlessly” dissolving in the ocean and a recall of GX’s recently acquired cat food brand.

Along with the many communication technologies on display—from televisions, to radios, to Web 1.0—the diverse cast speak a variety of languages, often code-switching in the middle of a sentence. Despite an unconventional makeup, family remains the anchor of the narrative, even as it spins off into various directions. While searching for Honey, Claire and Shareen interact with the residents of a neighborhood homeless enclave, their friends, and their own difficult parents. Claire’s mother is the diva-like talk show host of a program on public access who refers to Shareen as “Shirley.” Shareen’s father is a retired cop whose wife left him because he could never be off-duty, and who hasn’t caught on that his daughter isn’t straight. Supporting characters represent such various voices as the queer community, Wall Street, the homeless, computer hackers, immigrants, and environmental activists, contributing to the channel-surfing aesthetic.

The owner of Naga Saki rushes to buy the last of the kissing fish stock, just as her customers, too, begin glowing green. One night,  a friend of the sushi chef/hacker Jiannbin sees the kissing fish glowing, but no one else does, and so they remain skeptical. Eventually, Claire puts two and two together, insisting the contaminated fish must have infected Honey. She convinces Jiannbin to hack into the GX website to see what he can find.

Director Shu Lea Cheang pioneered the use of what we called “new media” back in the ’90s. Primarily known as a visual artist who works with digital technologies, one of her early works comprised a website complete with interactive chat rooms. A similar sense of hypertext and polyphony pervades her first feature film. The messages of corporate news sources contrast with the word on the street. Text scrolls sometimes appear along the bottom of the screen, and -ian intertitles with phrases like “Security = Control” intercept the imagery.

The “green” people’s speech gradually becomes glitched and warped until it’s completely unintelligible. Just as the image modes skip around, the soundtrack features varying styles of music, like a radio set to scan all available channels. A song by Sheila Chandra, who rarely allows her work to be licensed, pairs beautifully with an emotionally charged moment of Claire and Shareen grappling with Honey’s absence.

While the story of a missing kid could easily get dark and depressing, Fresh Kill maintains an ironic sense of black humor. The script consistently plays on the many meanings of the word “green” and its cultural connotations. Everyone gets mocked, from the finance tycoons who speak in corporate buzzwords to people who mindlessly follow the “green” movement by buying into eco-branding.

It’s easy to see why Fresh Kill experienced a resurrection in the 21st century with a 2026 Criterion Collection release. The seeming prescience of its themes demonstrates how these “contemporary agita” were already a part of American cultural discourse thirty years ago. Green may equal “environment,” but Cheang never loses sight of how it also always equals “money.” In the closing scenes, Naga Saki gets re-branded as “Mumbo Gumbo,” now specializing in farm-raised catfish, completely free of toxins!

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“Unfolding as a hallucinatory montage of Marxist critiques, ecofeminist diatribes, and queer, futuristic, dystopian imagery, the multimedia artist’s 1994 feature-length directorial debut is a prescient work of sci-fi agitprop from the early internet era. Think of it as a Godardian cinematic essay restructured for the MTV, channel-surfing age.”–Derek Smith, Slant (Blu-ray)

Fresh Kill (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray]

Fresh Kill (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray]

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