Tag Archives: 2000

Capsules, It Came from the Reader-Suggested Queue

IT CAME FROM THE READER-SUGGESTED QUEUE: MONDAY (2000)

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DIRECTED BY: Sabu (Hiroyuki Tanaka)

FEATURING: Shin’ichi Tsutsumi, Yasuko Matsuyuki, Ren Ohsugi, , Akira Yamamoto,

PLOT: A businessman awakens in a strange hotel room with no recollection as to how he got there; as reassembles his memories, he discovers that a number of shocking acts lead directly back to him.

COMMENTS: “Get a little booze in you and you’re a tough guy,” the mugger’s moll says. And right she is. Koichi Takagi, a meek middle manager (in Japanese parlance, a salaryman) can’t even stand up to his mouse-voiced girlfriend. But get a few drinks in him, he becomes an entirely different person. Confident, even cocky, and – provided with the proper tools – a spree killer. Kanpai!

Like Garfield but so much worse, Koichi is having a truly terrible Monday. He wakes up in an unfamiliar hotel room with multiple religious tomes open on his bedside table and no clear memory of his weekend. When the neurons finally begin to fire, they first recall an incredibly uncomfortable funeral where, through farcical hijinks, he is called upon to snip the wires on the corpse’s pacemaker with disastrous results. From there, his girlfriend dumps him after he fails to explain why he missed her birthday party. An attempt to drink away his woes lands him in the orbit of a yakuza boss, and soon he’s engaging in a highly charged dance number with the gangster’s girlfriend. Alcohol definitely seems to have loosened him up, but maybe too much, as will become apparent once he gets a hold of the mobster’s shotgun. Whoops.

A surprising number of reviewers seem to think that “’Monday’ is a movie for those who believe that fate has once again dealt them an especially bad day.” The thing is, I don’t think this is really a case of bad luck. There are three very clear causes at the root of Takagi’s rampage: a gurgling rage from overwork and underappreciation, a distinct inability to keep a clear head with all the liquor that’s thrust upon him, and the sudden and unfortunate availability of a Philadelphia-made shotgun. (One of his selected poisons, Henry McKenna Kentucky bourbon, also throws some shade at all-American vices.) Maybe one can argue that none of these things are intentional on Koichi’s part, but this isn’t just a rotten roll of the dice. Rather, he has reached the point where he is unable to hold himself back from bad choices. In a funny/tragic moment, Koichi begins to compose a maudlin suicide note, expressing regrets to his family and offering explicit instructions for taking care of his plants. But while he writes, he idly takes a swig (and then several more) from a nearby bottle of booze, and his tone becomes less conciliatory and more aggressive. That proves unfortunate, but that’s not dumb happenstance.

The revelation of Koichi’s lost weekend plays out like a darker version of The Hangover, but when he discovers that every channel on the television is talking about him, as well as the regrettable ease of perpetrating gun violence, Monday takes on a different tenor as he tries to find a way out of this mess. It soon becomes clear that he’s the only guest left in the hotel, and the place is surrounded by authorities waiting to apprehend him as a brutal murderer. Here is where the film makes its true bid for weirdness, deploying a series of massive tonal shifts and elaborate setpieces in quick succession. When the drunk and armed Koichi emerges from his hotel room, we’re treated to a violent action scene to compete with the likes of John Woo or Gareth Evans. When Koichi enters an elevator to make his way down to the street, he is accompanied by a gaggle of giddy white-painted demons urging him on as he indulges his worst impulses. And when he reaches the street and takes the lead detective hostage, he indulges in an amusingly self-serving inspirational speech that culminates in a public celebration akin to the boys coming home from war. It’s a dizzying display, but even if you thought you could draw any meaning from it, Sabu yanks the rug out by returning Koichi back to the hotel room to contemplate his predicament. And there we end, certain that it all means something, but sure of little else.

Monday relies heavily on the goodwill engendered by Tsutsumi’s affable performance. He seems like a decent man in a world where decency gets eaten for lunch, and even when his actions are at their most appalling, you hold out hope that he’ll come to his senses and pull himself out of the muck. But despite his charm, you can pity Koichi but you can’t really forgive him. His excuses have merit, but his actions are indisputable. Friday may be pay day, but Monday is when the bills come due.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“The flashbacks become increasingly edgy as Sabu turns up the danger, as well as the weird… It’s the sort of thing that sends conventional moviegoers and I suppose overseas distributors running for the hills, but Sabu has too much on mind to be concerned about that. One thing Sabu is not is subtle, and serious issues, such as unchecked authority, glorified perceptions of violence, and the questionable right to take justice into one’s own hands, come to the forefront, even debated openly by the main character and those he confronts.” – Steve Kopian, Unseen Films (2022 screening)

(This movie was nominated for review by Tamori. Suggest a weird movie of your own here.)

It Came from the Reader-Suggested Queue, List Candidates

APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: THE SEA THAT THINKS [DE ZEE DIE DENKT] (2000)

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DIRECTED BY: Gert de Graaff

FEATURING: Bart Klever, Rick de Leeuw, Devika Strooker

PLOT: A screenwriter is hard at work on a film about the impossibility of reality, and begins to incorporate his every thought and action into the script, which in turn directs the action of the writer, which results in the very film we are watching—unless he decides to delete the document.

Still from The Sea That Thinks (2000)

WHY IT MIGHT MAKE THE APOCRYPHA: The Sea That Thinks is a rich, dense text about the intangibility of everything, and it has the guts to put this challenging concept into practice, making for the most self-reflexive motion picture imaginable. An exercise like this should be the height of navel-gazing, and an astonishing amount portion of the soundscape is given over to dry oration about the futility of independent thought, but the mix of captivating imagery and surprising action makes for a fascinating film, regardless of whether you acknowledge that it exists.

COMMENTS: I am writing this review. That’s a thing that is happening, right now, as I type these words on a laptop. I will keep on typing until some point in the future when I have concluded that the words I have assembled to describe this movie and its weirdness are good enough to submit (although, being a writer, I will never think it’s “good enough”). Then I will transfer the words into a content management system, where the esteemed editor of this website will look them over, make appropriate changes to produce a marked improvement in the quality of the piece, and finally choose a day for the review to be shared with the world, forever joining the public discourse…

…except that I can’t be writing this review because I’ve already written it. The present moment is you reading this, right now. Unless, of course, you’re not reading this right now. Maybe you’ve paused, or perhaps you’ve skipped ahead to the comments. It’s possible that no one is reading this at this particular moment. And if they’re not, do these words even exist? Did I even have the thought? Did I watch the movie? Is there a movie? Is there a me? How can you be sure there’s a you?

By now, you should be getting a taste of the mental ouroboros that is the mind of Bart Klever, a writer who is struggling to churn out a screenplay and who is caught in an intellectual loop about the nature of creativity and reality. And while you’re at it, welcome also to the mind of director Gert de Graaff, who has crafted the screenplay for De Zee Die Denkt, which is about writing a movie called De Zee Die Denkt and which includes a character named “Bart Klever” to be played by an actor named Bart Klever. Yes, it’s the infinity mirror gone Hollywood. This is a movie that lays out its challenge from the very beginning and never lets up.

We don’t meet Bart right away. Instead, we begin with the three awakenings of a character named Rick (played by an actor named Rick): first in front of a frustrated camera crew whose latest take is interrupted by a cannon blast of water shooting through the windows; next, the film crew is gone, but when Rick gets up to answer Continue reading APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: THE SEA THAT THINKS [DE ZEE DIE DENKT] (2000) →

It Came from the Reader-Suggested Queue

THEY CAME FROM THE READER-SUGGESTED QUEUE: ENDGAME (2000) / OPERATION: ENDGAME (2010)

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The second highest-grossing motion picture of all time—the product of a little indie shingle that hit the jackpot, called Avengers: Endgame—is also by fiat the highest-grossing motion picture of all time with the word “endgame” in the title. That’s not as easy a title to grab as you might think; IMDb lists several dozen features, shorts, and TV episodes that have relied upon the handy term for the final moves of a chess match, most of which preceded Marvel’s grand finale. So it’s probably the law of averages that put two different Endgames on our reader-suggested review queue within spitting distance of each other. Aside from their titles, these two films share exactly two common elements: they both use hurtful language with reckless abandon, and they are both shot on film. Beyond that, you couldn’t ask for two similarly titled stories to be further apart in style, tone, and subject matter. What makes them both worthy to bear the standard of games that end? Let’s dig in.

ENDGAME (2000)

DIRECTED BY: Conor McPherson

FEATURING: , , Charles Simon, Jean Anderson

PLOT: In a barren house at the end of the world, a blind and decrepit old man lives with his parents (who occupy a pair of rubbish bins) and his hobbled servant, who is contemplating a departure.

COMMENTS: Let’s give a warm welcome back to Samuel Beckett, previously seen round these parts waiting for a friend. Another entry from Irish television’s epic “Beckett on Film” cycle capturing all the great writer’s stage works on celluloid for posterity, Endgame is here to deliver the author’s vision of a bleak and doomed future for the human race, precisely according to the author’s wishes. The set is an almost-empty room, devoid of any decoration or furnishing that isn’t occupied by an actor for the duration. Beckett was notoriously allergic to anything ornamental (as with Godot, he originally wrote Endgame in French to curb any tendencies toward florid vocabulary), so what we see and hear is not just what matters but all that matters.

What we can see is definitely a surreal nightmare. All four characters are stricken with various invalidities. Hamm, the apparent lord of the manor, doesn’t enter so much as he is unveiled, and when he speaks it is to declare himself the center of the universe. “Can there be misery loftier than mine?” He is immobile, and thus relies upon the assistance of a crippled man who is himself unable to sit down. The apocalypse has obliterated everything outside of this room. (“Nothing on the horizon?” Hamm asks. “What in God’s name could there be on the horizon?” Clov replies.) And then there are the upstage trash cans that Continue reading THEY CAME FROM THE READER-SUGGESTED QUEUE: ENDGAME (2000) / OPERATION: ENDGAME (2010) →

Apocryphally Weird

39*. UZUMAKI [SPIRAL] (2000)

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AKAWhirlpool

“Nature does not proceed in a straight line, it is rather a sprawling development.” – Robert Smithson, creator of Spiral Jetty

DIRECTED BY:

FEATURING: Eriko Hatsune, Fhi Fan, Hinako Saeki, Eun-Kyung Shin, Keiko Takahashi,

PLOT: High schooler Kirie notices a growing and dangerous fascination with spirals throughout her small town, beginning with her friend Shuichi’s father, who develops a compulsive need to own and consume objects with the pattern. The affliction spreads to her classmates, who take on whorled physical characteristics and even transform into snails. With increasing numbers of cases and deaths, Kirie and Shuichi decide if they should–or even can–escape. 

Still from Uzumaki (2000)

BACKGROUND: 

  • Uzumaki was adapted from a manga by , who makes a cameo of sorts on a “Wanted” poster in the sandal-wearing policeman’s office.
  • Production on Uzumaki began before Ito had finished writing the series (possibly at the studio’s insistence, so that it could coincide with the release of another Ito adaptation, Tomie: Rebirth). As a result, the manga and film have significantly different resolutions.
  • A four-episode animated TV adaptation was announced in 2020; it is still in production after many delays.
  • Director Higuchinsky took his name in tribute to his birthplace of Ukraine. This was his first feature, up to this point having worked primarily in music video.

INDELIBLE IMAGE: It’s not the most shocking sight, nor does it draw upon the many examples of body horror that define the spiral epidemic. But the appearance of an enormous spiral-shaped storm in the sky, which begins to coil downward and reach out to the town like the accusatory finger of God, is when Uzumaki lays all its cards on the table. The spiral is everything, can reach everywhere, and will affect everyone.

TWO WEIRD THINGS: Mr. Saito’s eyes; Kyoko’s crazy curls

WHAT MAKES IT WEIRD: Uzumaki lacks a proper monster, any kind of terrifying villain. The bad guy here is a curling pattern. It’s to the film’s credit that it not only pulls off this unlikely trick but adorns it with truly unsettling examples of its malign influence. The fact that there are no sorcerers or alien invaders to blame only makes the events of Uzumaki more unnerving. This outwardly harmless force has no clear point of origin, no cause to be addressed, which only makes its effect on the populace more disturbing.

Original trailer for Uzumaki

COMMENTS: In order to appreciate the strangeness of Uzumaki, it’s Continue reading 39*. UZUMAKI [SPIRAL] (2000) →

List Candidates

APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: THE NINE LIVES OF TOMAS KATZ (2000)

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DIRECTED BY: Ben Hopkins

FEATURING: Tom Fisher, Ian McNiece, Will Keen, Tony Maudsley

PLOT: On the day of a rare solar eclipse, a stranger with the ability to switch places with others arrives in London. His identity-swapping and subsequent trouble-making have an immediate impact on the natural order of things. A police inspector suspects that the disappearance of the Astral Child That Represents Existence may be responsible for the strange happenings and interrogates the spirits in an attempt to stave off disaster.

Still from The Nine Lives of Thomas Katz (2001)

WHY IT MIGHT JOIN THE APOCRYPHA: Combining stark surrealism, a heightened and aching sense of dread, and a heaping dollop of British absurdism, The Nine Lives of Tomas Katz has a profoundly distinctive point of view—there’s a perverse thrill in the way the film not only accepts its incongruities but relies upon a relentless commitment to them.

COMMENTS: Tomas Katz – whose name might in fact be “No” – has a ready answer to a casual question about what he does for a living: “I cut people open to find out where their dreams lurk.” What he doesn’t say is that he knows the ugly truth about most of those dreams: they are fractured or forever out of reach or consigned to the dustbin of memory. And this is the day when Tomas Katz will resolve all of those dreams by ending the world.

If The Nine Lives of Tomas Katz could be said to have a theme, it is that the world is simultaneously ridiculous and tragic. For a movie ostensibly about the end of everything, there’s not much concern about the actual end. It all seems pretty messed up, and usually in a pretty amusing way. We’ve got war, but it’s declared by the Minister for Fisheries against a country with a silly name. We’ve got financial calamity, but it’s brought about by an angelic choir. We even have the mass of humanity marching to Gehenna, but that just turns out to be the last stop on the London Underground. It’s nihilism with a smile, a sweet-smelling hangover.

The world into which No enters, which is primarily London as encompassed by the M25 motorway, is one where Britain’s famous stiff upper lip has metastasized into a blend of habit and ennui. Londoners are trained to silently endure the wait for their train, so when an announcement informs them that their trip will be delayed to accommodate the souls of the dead, there’s barely a perceptible change in tone. Similarly, the deployment of a tuning fork that kills all children on national television might seem destined to arouse anger and protest, but broadcasters know just how to smooth over the ruffled feathers: “The BBC would like to apologize for the widespread destruction and loss of infant life.” It’s not that the world will end with a whimper, but just that nobody wants to make a fuss.

There may be no better synthesis of the mood of Tomas Katz than a sequence where No encounters a boy bemoaning his fate: he has no friends, and his Tamagotchi died just that morning. The scene turns into a silent film, complete with wailing strings and ornate title cards. “The tamagotchis will be freed from their cages,” No assures the boy, “and all will be released.” Then he swaps places with the boy and experiences all the highs and lows of childhood, the joy and the cruelty, the pleasure and pain. It’s not too hard to understand why No feels tremendous pity for the doomed human race, and why he’s simultaneously content to burn it all down.

Tomas Katz is a genuinely funny movie, but it’s an especially English kind of funny, Britbox with bite. Consider the rabbi whom the BBC has called in to offer his wisdom to the nation despite the inconvenience of having been dead for two years. Or perhaps the police report of a window conspiracy, which is an amusing combination until we actually get to see it play out. In fact, the tone shifts so widely that the film could easily be called The Nine Films of Tomas Katz, yet it never loses its focus or its bleak humor.

For a small-scale, microbudget endeavor, Tomas Katz plays big. Huge credit goes to lead Tom Fisher, who embraces the chance to play multiple characters with a unique blend of sympathy and savagery. Kudos also to Ian McNiece, whose fearful police inspector manages to find drama and pathos in connections that make no logical sense. And a special shout-out to Dominik Scherrer’s diverse and adaptable score, which encompasses opera, techno, klezmer, Klaus Nomi, patriotic marches, and more.

Fittingly, it isn’t No who brings about the end of the world. He hands that honor to a security guard named Dave, whom he identifies as “the most vacuous being in the universe.” (Dave doesn’t seem too put out by this.) We will ultimately be the agent of our own demise, it turns out. The Nine Lives of Tomas Katz shows what that grand finale will look like if we all just keep calm and carry on.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“This has to be one of the strangest films of the year, a weird apocalyptic vision shot in the most mundane of London surroundings, with all too obvious budgetary constraints pushed asunder by the sheer energy of the director’s imagination.” – George Perry, BBC (contemporaneous)

(This movie was nominated for review by “Phantar.” Suggest a weird movie of your own here.)