Invaders from Proxima B, on Fandango at Home

"Chuck" is a lot like Alf, but he can also body-switch. He is a gruff little troublemaker, but a Hollywood musician and his family decide to help anyway in director-screenwriter-lead actor Ward Roberts’ Invaders from Proxima B, which premieres today on Fandango at Home.

Fleeing his not very-Roddenberry-esque alien planet in a stolen flying saucer, Chuck crash-lands in Howie Jankins’ backyard. Of course, his wife Jane did not see anything, but he is sure there is something out there, so the next morning he calls Nathan Droogal, the world’s most annoying fire-and-brimstone exterminator. While Droogal hunts demonic vermin, Chuck reveals himself to Jankins, claiming to be on a mission to save planet Earth. Reluctantly, Jankins agrees to let Chuck temporarily switch bodies with him. Maybe he was a bit gullible, but coming face-to-face with a furry space puppet is bound to be convincing.

Nevertheless, things get a bit sticky when Wily and Marvin Felson start poking around. The father and son agents of a secret alien-liaison organization have been ordered to facilitate Chuck’s extradition. They also hope to get a kickback for their efforts. As the chaos mounts, Jankins accidentally uses Chuck’s body-switching powers on his wife, creating a real mess.

Viewers might initially fear Roberts’ extreme DIY aesthetic will lead to deliberately cheesy low-brow humor. However, Proxima is surprisingly inventive. Most of the special effects involve a puppet who looks like Oscar the Grouch’s cousin. Yet, it also boasts some reasonably slick-looking animated segments depicting Chuck’s flashbacks.

Skin Deep: Modern German Body-Swapping

This is the mysterious island of body-swapping, but the transfers are not funny, like in Vice Versa and Big, or scary like it Freaky or Suitable Flesh, except maybe in an emotional way. A woman with undefined troubles is convinced seeing life through a different body will cure what ails her in Alex Schaad’s Skin Deep, which opens Friday in theaters.

Leyla’s friend Stella has run the weird body-swapping island resort with her father, until he died from an aneurism in her brain, during their switch. Now, she carries on, in his body. Leyla’s boyfriend Tristan was skeptical, but he agreed to try it with her, for her sake. However, his reluctance is vindicated when Mo, his body-swapper, tries to sexual assault him, while in his own body. Yet, Skin Deep helps perpetuate the stigma many male victims of sexual assault feel, by making light of his trauma. Poor Tristan even laughs along with Leyla over the incident, when he tells her about it.

Not surprisingly, Tristan wants out, but Leyla still feels compelled to inhabit another body. Even they were forced to relinquish their swap-couples’ bodies, Roman, the handyman (and the much younger lover of Stella’s late dad) agrees to swap with her, because he is miserable in any body. Of course, she is frisky in Roman’s muscular frame, but Tristan is not so sure how he feels about that, which offends Leyla, who takes it as a personal rejection.

Yes, there is “gender-bending.” Fine, whatever. The thing that is troubling about Skin Deep is the way it suggests your sense of self is defined by your physical body. You have to wonder what the disabled community would make of this film. Would they be welcomed to swap at Stella’s island? That is a question the Schaads (director Alex and his co-screenwriter Dimitrij)  have no interest in answering. Regardless, it is pretty clear Leyla and Roman would laugh at the cliched notion that “its what’s inside that counts.”

Fantasia ’23: Devils

Evidently, Travolta had it easy in Face/Off. His mind-body swap was with Nic Cage, who was crazy, but not nearly as sinister as this Korean serial killer. Det. Choi Jae-hwan had been pursuing Cha Jin-hyuk, until he wakes up inside the psycho’s body. It is obviously inconvenient, but there are also potential advantages when it comes to catching Cha’s accomplices in Kim Jae-hoon’s Devils, which had its North American premiere at the 2023 Fantasia International FilmFestival.

Cha is the leader of a band of dark-web snuff film sickos, so yes, he is really bad. They have long eluded Choi, even killing brother-in-law, a fellow cop, during the prologue. Choi wants him bad, so he pursues him at all costs when they receive an anonymous tip. However, both Choi and Cha disappear into the forest, leaving the cop’s protégé-partner Det. Kim Min-sung completely baffled.

A month later, they mysteriously re-appear. The man who looks like Choi claims to have no memory of the last few weeks, whereas the man who looks like Cha wakes up in the hospital, knowing he is in fact Choi. He also realizes his family is in serious danger from his nemesis.

It all sounds like Face/Off, but its not. Devils turns out to be much more sinister and devious, but the big secret holds up incredibly well, at least by high-concept thriller standards. Arguably, Devils turns out to be more believable than that John Woo film it so readily brings to mind.

Spiritwalker, on DVD

It is like Quantum Leap, but with non-stop fighting. Our protag’s consciousness jumps bodies every twelve hours, but thanks to his amnesia, he has no idea who he is or the identity of the people he inhabits. However, it turns out he is closely linked to all of them in screenwriter-director Yoon Jae-keun’s Spiritwalker, which releases tomorrow on DVD and BluRay.

Kang I-an (or “Ian” in the English subtitles) is having a very bad day. He doesn’t even remember he is Kang. That is something he will have to puzzle out on the fly. His only ally will be the nameless homeless who keeps crossing paths with Kang after each jump. Nevertheless, Kang keeps turning up just in time to save his former lover and colleague Moon Jin-A, even when it is very much out of character for the bodies he possesses.

There is a secret to all this that probably shouldn’t be revealed. Regardless, the important thing is the explanations work well enough, so viewers can just settle down and enjoy the wall-to-wall action. This is a total run-and-gun film, featuring fight choreography from Park Young-sik and Chung Seong-ho, who shared a SAG Award for the stunt work on a little project called Squid Game. Yet, Yoon also pulls off some wildly cinematic transitional scenes for Kang’s jumps.

This is a terrific rollercoaster ride, very much in the spirit of Cho Sun-ho’s A Day. A lot of casual streamers are just now discovering Korean film and TV, but they have been making some of the best high-concept thrillers for the last two or three decades. In addition to the fantastical twist, Moon’s honest and heartfelt Christian faith also helps distinguish Spiritwalker from the field. As a result, concepts like the soul and confession have real meaning in this film.

Cinepocalypse ’18: Cop Baby

In Vladivostok, you can never find a gun-wielding infant when you need one. He might not look imposing, but he is one of the few honest cops in Russia. After a bust went bad, the wounded Major Igor Khromov did the old body-switcheroo with the newborn son of green-belt policing Oleg Leykin. Leykin is even less intimidating-looking than his son, but together they are cops and buddies in Alexander Andrushenko’s Cop Baby (trailer here), which screens during this year’s Cinepocalypse in Chicago.

Khromov did a year of jail time as part of his deep cover. As a result, he should be able to get close enough to bust the Triad boss who has taken over the Vladivostok drug trade. Unfortunately, Leykin ill-advisedly intervenes when the Triad limo crushes a flower bed, but it really isn’t his fault. Everything just unfolds according to the curse a fortune-teller placed on the rude, crude Khromov. Unfortunately, the consciousness of Leykin’s little boy is now stuck in the presumed to be brain-damaged body of Khromov.

Itching to get back into action, Khromov soon reveals himself and his impossibly deep, growling voice to the nebbish Leykin. Despite their radically differing temperaments, they will try to work together to bring down the Triads and lift the curse, because that is what you do in a body-switch movie.

Basically, if you thought the Baby Geniuses franchise had potential, but was too subtle and refined, then Cop Baby should be your samovar of tea. Let’s just say Cop Baby is no Wolfcop. The lycanthropic cop movies have real heart and some clever humor. Most of the gags here revolve around the contrast between the innocent looking rug rat and Sergey Garmash’s gravel-voice delivering a torrent of cynical dialogue. It is amusing for a short while, but it quickly dead-ends.

Garmash is as hard-bitten as ever, resembling Lee Marvin, circa Death Hunt. However, Andrey Nazimov is painful watch as the gawky Leykin. As his wife Katya, Elizaveta Arzamasova is also a pretty forgettable shrinking violet. Even the kid lacks screen charisma, which is a problem.

There’s really not much point to submitting a goonie goofball movie like this to a rigorous critical analysis. What people really want to know is just how long Andrushenko can keep up the ridiculous premise. The answer is forever—at least, that is what it feels like. Not really recommended, unless you want to see something defiantly stupid, Cop Baby screens again tomorrow night (6/25) at the Music Box Theatre in Chicago as part of Cinepocalypse 2018.

Obayashi at the Japan Society: I Are You, You Am Me

It came nearly six years after the original Freaky Friday, but the body-switch comedy was far from the acknowledged comedy sub-genre it is today. In fact, Nobuhiko Obayashi got into the game early on and he delivered exactly what people wondered about—the experience of suddenly having different private bits. Teenagers Kazuo and Kazumi Saito (no relation) are about to experience the switcheroo and quite a difficult transition it will be for them in I Are You, You Am Me (a.k.a. Exchange Student), which screens during the Japan Society’s Obayashi retrospective.

Obayashi’s picturesque home town, Onomichi was probably a pleasant place to grow up, because he has frequently returned to shoot films there. Kazumi Saito spent her early girlhood years there and has recently moved back with her family. On her first day of at her new high school, she is delighted to recognize her old playmate Kazuo Saito. However, she inadvertently embarrasses the teen meathead. That will lead to serious bad karma for her when a freak accident somehow causes a body swap. The not particularly introspective Kazuo will make the best of things in her body, but she has a much harder time adjusting to a boy’s life. At least Kazuo’s grades will improve.

It is strange I You, You Me has not been more aggressively marketed as a vintage rediscovery, because it would have been perfect for the body-switch craze of the late 1980s, but also speaks to more contemporary issues of gender identity and sexual orientation. Not surprisingly, during the switch-off, Kazuo is frequently taunted for his supposed homosexual mannerisms, while Kazumi’s mother is frustrated with her sudden tomboyisms.

Satomi Kobayashi is pretty incredible playing both Kazumi as Kazumi and Kazumi while Kazuo is stuck inside her body. She nails the body language of a goony-ish teen boy and just generally radiates energy. It is easy to see why she won best newcomer at the Yokohama Film Festival. On the other side of the coin, Toshinori Omi deserves credit for projecting what must have been a socially risky persona for 1982 Japan (but presumably less so for his successor when Obayashi remade it in 2007). Together, they play off each other in the various personas with real gusto. They largely carry the film, sharing both co-lead parts, but Masae Hayachi is also rather charming as Kazumi’s science fiction reading friend Akemi Yoshino, an all too brief supporting role.

Onomichi looks like the definitive coastal Japanese town, which it sort of is. After all, parts of Ozu’s Tokyo Story and Oshima’s Boy were filmed there. Yet, it still brings back nostalgia for the teen American 1980s, when the best way for parents to understand their kids (and vice versa, so to speak) was to spend time in their respective bodies—even though Obayashi takes it deeper and franker than Hollywood ever did. Recommended as another strangely distinctive coming of age tale from the under-heralded master, I Are You, You Am Me screens this Saturday (11/21) as part of the Obayashi retrospective at the Japan Society in New York.

NYKFF ’15: Wonderful Nightmare

You would think Heaven would have the best clerical help available, but it is apparently hard to find officious bureaucrats with good hearts. Just like they did in Here Comes Mr. Jordan and Heaven Can Wait, the celestial paper pushers have summoned a soul before its time. In this case, high-powered super attorney Yeon-woo still has a perfectly good body resting in a coma. If she merely takes the place of a woman whisked away one month early, she can be transferred back to her regular body and the life that goes with it. Of course, that will be plenty of time for her to forge emotional attachments in Kang Hyo-jin’s Wonderful Nightmare (trailer here), which closes the 2015 New York Korean Film Festival.

Yeon-woo grew up as an orphan when her sailor father was lost at sea and her mother died prematurely of a broken heart. She learned to rely only on herself. She now thrives as a cutthroat power lawyer, but concrete traffic barriers are just as solid for her as they are for the rest of us. Nevertheless, she was supposed to walk away from her accident—and she still will, once she has done a solid for Mr. Lee, the manager of Heaven’s processing center.

Yeon-woo’s instructions are clear. She is not to make any consequential changes to her host body’s life. Of course, the highbrow attorney chafes at their lower middle class lifestyle. She is also freaked out at the prospect of having a teenaged daughter and a son in kindergarten. At least her husband Sung-hwan is handsome, but his work as a civil service salaryman hardly impresses her. Eventually, you know exactly what starts to happen, despite Yeon-woo’s initially standoffish, nervous breakdown-like behavior. That means tough choices and sacrifices are inevitable.

Nightmare was a huge hit domestically, so you know you’re going to need a hanky. However, screenwriter Kim Je-yeong cranks up the sentimentality in rather clever ways. It is manipulative as all outdoors, but at least it calls back and closes loops in ways that enrich the narrative. We’re going to get played by Kang and Kim, but played well.

Uhm Jung-hwa is game enough in the ostensibly anti-diva diva role. In the 1990s, she was sort of like the Julia Roberts of Korea, but she is still at the top of her game. Obviously, you do not maintain that kind of clout by phoning it in. She also develops some appealingly easy-going chemistry with Song Seung-heon as her husband for the month. Rubber faced character actor Kim Sang-ho mostly keeps the shtick in check as Kim from above. However, the film’s real discovery is the charismatic Seo Shin-ae, who is perfectly cynical and sarcastic in a teen kind of way as her daughter Ha-neul.

You had better believe there are lessons to be learned in Nightmare. There is also a good deal of body-switching comedy that is more worthy of groans than laughs. Nevertheless, when the film throws down the melodramatic hammer, it somehow gets it all together and brings it home. In all truth, The Beauty Inside (screening today at NYKFF) is an even more emotionally satisfying romantic fantasy, but Kang closes strong. Recommended for fans of feel good, slightly supernatural rom-coms, Wonderful Nightmare screens this coming Wednesday (11/11) at the Museum of the Moving Image, as part of the 2015 NYKFF.

NewFest ’15: Girls Lost

This seed is nothing like Jack’s magic beans. It grows a flower that causes body switching, but not the kind you saw in Big or Freaky Friday. Three bullied girls of ambiguous sexuality will have the opportunity to experience life as the opposite sex in Alexandre-Therese Keining’s Girls Lost (trailer here), an adaptation of Jessica Schiefauer’s award-winning Swedish YA novel, which screens as the closing night selection of this year’s NewFest.

Kim, Momo, and Bella have always been bullied by classmates who assume they are lesbians. Naturally, the teachers look the other way, because they are bitter, low-level civil servants. The girls’ homes share a common backyard, so Bella’s greenhouse serves as their clubhouse. In her recent online nursery order she was surprised to find an exotic bonus seed, but being a teenager she plants anyway. The next day, it fully sprouts into a slightly sinister looking black flower. Juice from its buds will indeed produce the gender switch effect, but it is only temporary—and each usage clearly depletes the flower’s vitality.

For Momo and Bella, it is an interesting experience, but it does not hold deep psychological significance for them. In contrast, the transitory periods confirm Kim’s suspicions she is really meant to be a boy. Despite the pain it causes her friends, she spends more and more time in her altered state, so she can get close to Tony, their bad boy classmate, whom she suspects is also deeply closeted.

The ensuing complications regarding gender and sexuality get wickedly thorny. However, that complex rat’s nest of passions and resentments is what gives Lost so much power. This is not your average high school coming-of-age or coming-out story, but rather a supernaturally zeitgeisty love triangle. The young cast does some remarkable work selling the intricate and conflicting series of relationships, especially Tuva Jagell, Louise Nyvall, and Wilma Hollmen as Kim, Momo, and Bella in their original female selves. Emrik Ohlander, Alexander Gustavsson, and Vilgot Ostwald Vesterlund look like perfect male analogs, but only Gustavsson displays a similarly forceful screen presence.

Keining does not chicken out of showing the transition process, but the special effects team renders them in a way that is wonderfully subtle and evocative. Likewise, Ragna Jorming’s rich chiaroscuro-like cinematography and Sophia Ersson’s electro-soundscape score work perfectly in tandem to create an eerie mood. While the teen angst approaches melodramatic levels from time to time, Keining explores the emotional implications of the fantastical premise with brutal honesty. Obviously, it is an appropriate fit for NewFest audiences, but the characters’ insecurities should resonate for a wide range of “outsider” teens. Recommended for fans of teen urban fantasy, Girls Lost closes the 2015 NewFest this Tuesday night (10/27) at the Bow Tie Chelsea.

Ana Maria in Novela Land: A Telenovela Pulls a Body Switch

The only thing Ana Maria Soto is industrious about is tweeting telenovelas. She has a fair number of followers, but none them are her quickly exasperated work colleagues. Those gigs never last long anyway. Frankly, even her long suffering family hardly notices the difference when she pulls a 1980s style body-switcheroo with the heroine of the telenovela she currently tweets. Fish will be out of water and lessons will be learned in Georgina Garcia Riedel’s Ana Maria in Novela Land (trailer here), which opens this Friday in Los Angeles.

Soto just got pink-slipped from another job and flaked out on her older sister’s bridal dress fitting. Her family is pretty bummed out with her, but everything seems to make sense when tonight’s episode of Passion Without Limits starts. However, a freak electricity surge exchanges her consciousness with the lead character, Ariana Tomosa, who is engaged to a wealthy older man, while carrying on an affair with his brooding son.

Of course, Soto knows all this, so she adapts to life in the telenovela relatively easily. On the other hand, Tomosa is out to sea in the real world, but Tony, the young neighborhood internist who always carried a torch for Soto, will help the presumed amnesiac start to act like a real person. In fact, she soon becomes easier to live with than the real Ana Maria, despite her dramatic nature. Meanwhile, Soto enjoys vamping it up in the telenovela, but she knows full well its limited run will soon conclude—and then what?

Initially, Novela Land is kind of amusing and it features fan favorite Luis Guzmán playing Schmidt, Tomosa’s scheming attorney nemesis. Sadly, it is also the final film of Elizabeth Peña (Lone Star, La Bamba, Down and Out in Beverly Hills), who has some nice moments giving uncooperative bridal staff what-for. Still, there is not much heft to the film, even before starts recycling its body switch jokes.

Everyone hams it up, because obviously. Still, Edy Ganem effectively differentiates Soto from Tomosa. There are a few inventive gags, such as when Soto happens to wander into a Korean soap opera. Pepe Serna deadpans nicely as Father Miguel, but the forthcoming Man from Reno is a much more compelling (and infinitely darker) showcase for his under-appreciated chops.

Unfortunately, Soto’s K-drama interlude is as surreal as the film gets. Given the premise (essentially an updated riff on the John Candy movie Delirious), Riedel and co-screen-writer Jose Nestor Marquez could have played more mischievous games with on-screen reality, but they mostly just keep it safe and sentimental. Too sitcom-my and not nearly out there enough for mainstream genre audiences, Ana Maria in Novela Land is mostly just for fans like Soto when it opens this Friday (2/27) at the Burbank and Orange AMC theaters in California.

The Dutch Cat Woman: Miss Minoes

Do not call Miss Minoes catty. The proper term is feline. She should know what passes for political correctness amongst the cat population. She used to be one. Indeed, she has a difficult time acclimating to the human world in Vincent Bal’s Miss Minoes (trailer here), which opens tomorrow in New York.

After an unfortunate accident involving a mysterious barrel of chemicals from the local deodorant factory, Miss Minoes suddenly transforms into a human. However, she retains many of her feline characteristics, including a taste for fish, the fear of dogs, and an ability to caterwaul. Though some of her former friends now shun her, she can still communicate with the cats of Killendoorn, whom she uses as a network of informers for Tibbe, the incompetent journalist temporarily sheltering her. Naturally, newsmakers do not think twice about talking in front of cats. They are commonplace in this quaint little town and frankly rather disposable.

For a while, Tibbe becomes top dog at the paper. Unfortunately, when Miss Minoes and her feline associates goad him into writing an unsourced attack on the deodorant factory owner (a secret animal hater) he becomes the Mikael Blomkvist of Killendoorn. Still, a philanthropic industrialist will surely be no match for a woman with the mentality of a house cat and the eight year old girl living below Tibbe.

Without question, Carice van Houten’s work as Miss Minoes is quite a pleasant surprise. Her twitchy cat-like mannerisms and wide-eyed naivety are rather disarmingly winning. Though an international star, she is clearly not afraid to look silly, which is cool. On the other hand, Theo Maassen’s Tibbe is just a big lunkhead. He might be somewhat “likable,” but it is hard to invest in a character that is dumber than the animals around him.

Yet, the biggest problem with the film is the standard issue villain, Mr. Ellemeet of the DEO factory (broadly but flatly played by Pierre Bokma). Frankly, the nefarious businessman-slash-hypocritical fussbudget is such a cliché even the cats in the film seem bored with him. It really is a shame, because his subplots are so rote and uninspired, they weigh the film down like an albatross around its neck.

Indeed, there are some nice elements to be found in Miss Minoes, including an appealingly eccentric lead turn from van Houten. Cinematographer Walther Vanden Ende’s warm lighting and autumnal color palette are also quite inviting. They just get no help whatsoever from the inert, paint-by-numbers screenplay, based on Annie M.G. Schmidt’s Dutch children’s book. For cat loving little girls, it is probably still quite engaging, but parents should be warned, there is some mild dubbed cursing. Cineastes should also beware, the dubbing is considerably below current anime standards. Mostly harmless and occasionally charming, despite trafficking in the worst class-based stereotypes, Miss Minoes opens tomorrow (12/23) in New York at the Cinema Village and Elinor Bunim Munroe Film Center.

Cine Fest Petrobras Brasil ‘09: If I Were You 2

Brazilian music has captured the ears of the world. While its cinema has also found an international audience, it is the sound of bossas, sambas, and choros that most readily come to mind when Americans think of Brazilian culture. Shrewdly, this year’s Cine Fest Petrobras Brasil capitalizes on the popularity of Brazil’s musical heritage, programming a number of music documentaries and launching the festival with a free concert from Silvia Machete in Central Park.

There is something refreshingly politically incorrect about watching a performer wearing high heels and a decorative bird in her hair hand-roll and then smoke a cigarette while suggestively spinning a golden hula hoop, as her musicians solo. Silvia Machete has showmanship.

Backed by a combo of trombone, electric guitar, electric bass, and drums, Machete performed an energetic set of Brazilian pop flavored with forró and samba. Her saucy sense of humor comes through both in her stage banter and choice of repertoire, including a silky smooth pop rendition of “Sweet Child of Mine” and a heavy metal cover of “Ipanema.” If not a household name in America, Machete is a real entertainer who had the crowd up on its feet, kicking the festival off in style.

Evidently, every country periodically experiences a body-switching movie craze. We had films like Big and Vice Versa in the late 1980’s. Now Brazil is embracing Daniel Filho’s If I Were You and its aptly named sequel, If I Were You 2 (trailer here), which opened the proper film portion of the festival with a free screening following Machete’s concert.

Married couple Cláudio and Helena already exchanged bodies in the previous installment of the series. However, they seem to have forgotten the lessons of those four days spent in each others shoes. With their marriage teetering on the brink of divorce, simultaneously they mistakenly utter the same old jinxeroo that serves as the film title. Sure enough, once again they switch bodies, which makes their divorce proceedings some awkward.

Aside from a disastrous soccer match, number 2 actually seems somewhat restrained in its physical comedy. After all, they are no longer total strangers in their partner’s bodies. Still, the comedy is certainly broad, aimed at a popular audience. At least, Tony Ramos and Gloria Pires are game enough as the quarrelling body-switchers and Filho keeps the tone light and frothy. Best of all, since it includes a wedding scene, the Central Park audience got to hear “Oh What a Night” in Portuguese.

If 2 is definitely Brazilian popcorn cinema, well suited to a muggy summer outdoor screening. Cine Fest Petrobras continues through Friday at the Tribeca Cinemas, with a diverse bill of popular and art cinema from Brazil, including several music documentaries like Paulo Henrique Fontenelle’s Loki—Arnaldo Baptista.