A Fugitive from the Past, Restored at the Japan Society

We're not saying Tomu Uchida’s three-hour film noir masterpiece is dark, but it starts with a ferry disaster killing hundreds of innocent people. Those currents off the coast of Hokkaido are so treacherous, they even spit up two extra bodies. It turns out they were ex-cons, mostly likely responsible for a lethal home invasion. Det. Yumisaka will pursue the “third man” like Javert in Les Miserables. The cop from The Fugitive might be an even more apt comparison. Although Takichi Inukai (if that is his real name) is not a one-armed man, he has a crushed finger that definitely counts as an identifying characteristic in Uchida’s A Fugitive from the Past (a.k.a. Straits of Hunger), which screens in its freshly restored glory at the Japan Society.

During the immediate post-war, black-market years, it was not just those straits that were hungry. Nevertheless, Inukai seems genuinely distressed by the fate of his traveling companions and also their victims. With the cops out in full force, Inukai takes refuge with hostess-oiran-prostitute-borderline dominatrix Yae Sugito, who gives him a bit of hard time, but rather takes a shine to the rough but shy character. The feeling is somewhat mutual judging from the whopper of a tip the mystery man left behind.

As Yumiska spends years following-up false leads, Sugito uses Inukai’s money to pay off her family’s debts and start leading a relatively straight life in Tokyo. Yet, ironically, she will return to her former profession, preferring the stability of life with her new paternalist mom-and-pop employers. Alas, the government eventually decides to be progressive and reformist by shuttering legal houses of prostitution. Forced to make another new start, Sugito happens to notice a provincial philanthropist’s picture in the newspaper. Mr. Kyôichirô Tarumi certainly bears a strong resemblance to the man responsible for her nest egg, who has taken on almost saintly status in her own head.

It is not hard to understand why Fugitive (or Straits) is regarded in Japan as one of the finest Japanese films of all time. It truly combines elements of the sympathetic (if not wholly innocent) fugitive thriller, in the tradition of Hitchcock’s The Wrong Man, with the sweeping scope and tragedy of Les Mis (which Uchida adapted straight-up in 1931). His use of gritty widescreen 16mm also gives it a 1960s docu-drama vibe, but what makes the film so appealingly idiosyncratic is the delight Uchida takes in breaking all the rules. Inukai disappears for a long period of time, allowing the second movement to become an empathetic woman’s story, roughly akin to Naruse’s When a Woman Ascends the Stairs.

Back to the Wharf

It is nice to know a film remotely connected to the reality of life in China can still slip by the China Film Administration (at least it did in late 2020). This noir melodrama is based on true crimes and very real government corruption. The fictional part would be the cops actually enforcing the laws. Regardless, karma remains what it always is in Li Xiaofeng’s Back to the Wharf, which releases today on VOD.

Nobody is a more dedicated plugger in his high school than Song Hao. Yet, his principal gives away the school’s coveted guaranteed university admissions slot to his politically connected friend, Li Tang, perversely justifying it for the good of the “collective.” Call it: “community solidarity with Chinese characteristics.” Enraged, Song rushes out to confront Li’s father, but since the working-class teen was never invited to the Li’s tony home, he barges into the wrong house, killing the enraged occupant in self-defense, during the ensuing scuffle.

Or so he thought. Actually, his city bureaucrat father, Song Jianhui, finished the man off, but he allowed his son to assume the guilt was solely his. For fifteen years, the once-promising Song works as laborer in a distant quarry, fearing his crime will eventually catch up with him. However, when his mother dies, he ventures back home for the funeral. There, he reconnects with his now prosperous father and his old “friend” Li, who witnessed the entire incident fifteen years ago, unbeknownst to the Songs.

Song would prefer to leave again as soon as possible, but his former classmate Pan Xiaoshuang is determined not to let an eligible single man of her “advanced” age leave town with a fight. While she pursues Song, he starts stalking Wan Xiaoning, the orphaned daughter of the man he thinks he killed, but out of guilt, rather than sexual obsession.

Obviously, this is a highly combustible situation. In many ways, Wharf is definitely a noir thriller, but Li Xiaofeng also incorporates a good deal social criticism. Song Hao is a character Clifford Odets could definitely relate to—but he would presumably be quite surprised to find him in a socialist country like the PRC.

Night Court (2023), on NBC

Jazz fans had our special reasons to watch Rienhold Weege’s popular 1980s sitcom Night Court. Not only was Mel Torme a regular guest star, it always started with a jazzy theme song, featuring the great Ernie Watts on alto. Unlike the family comedies that preceded it on NBC’s original “Must-see” Thursday night line-up (ironically including The Cosby Show), Night Court specialized in snarkier, take-no-prisoners humor. Sadly, several stars of the original series have left us, including Harry Anderson (Judge Harry Stone) and Markie Post (the public defender), but John Larroquette, who won four Emmy Awards as Assistant DA Dan Fielding, is alive and very much part of the new Night Court revival series, which premieres tomorrow on NBC.

Sadly, Judge Harry Stone has also passed away, but his daughter, Abby Stone, has just been appointed to the bench in his old New York City Night Court. In the pilot episode, the new Judge Stone does not think much of the current public defender, so she tries to recruit her father’s old friend and colleague, Dan Fielding, to come over to the bleeding-heart side of the Force. That won’t exactly happen, but Fielding still accepts the PD position, much to his own surprise.

The pilot episode should please fans of the old show, because it makes extensive references to Judge Harry. It also catches us up quickly, making it clear widowed Fielding’s beloved wife helped moderate his extremes, but he always kept his caustic wit, which has only gotten more acidic since her untimely death.

Even though he now defends them, Fielding continues to mercilessly mock the court’s weirdos and perverts. Obviously, that is the best part of the show. Larroquette can still milk a line for laughs better than anyone in sitcoms. He also brings a surprisingly wistfulness exploring the sadness of Fiedling’s grief. Of the first six episodes provided for review, the best is the third, “Dan vs. Dating,” wherein Judge Stone tries to coax the former ladies man back into the dating scene. Of course, Fielding is as acerbic as ever, but guest star Wendy Malick has the attitude and comedic flamboyance to hold her own opposite him. None of the regular cast-members can also say that, at least not yet.

Still, Kapil Talwalkar shows some potential as Neil, the lonely-hearted court clerk, who is desperate to up his romantic game. India de Beaufort also earns some laughs as Olivia, the self-absorbed, career-minded Night Court ADA. She is a bit of a mini-Fielding, but the show can always use more of him.

Awkwardly, the new Judge Stone and bailiff Donna “Gurgs” Gurganous have the same personality quirks—naïve and eager to be liked. That is unfortunate for Lacretta, who plays Gurgs, because Melissa Rauch, who stars as Stone, also serves as a producer and she has a lot of sitcom cred, having co-starred on Big Bang Theory (she was the one who was pregnant in about half the episodes). So, if one of them will ever be cut from the show, it is unlikely to be Rauch.

In fact, the new Judge Stone is the new Night Court greatest weakness. Yes, her father always tried to see the best in people, but he was also an old “friend of Stan Carlisle,” so he always recognized when someone was trying to pull his leg. His street smarts are dearly missed in the fourth episode, “Justice Buddies,” easily the worst episode of the initial half-dozen, about a pack of woke brats who try to occupy the court. Fiedling is trying to exploit the situation for his own benefit, which is reasonably in character, but that leaves nobody to deflate their juvenile leftist posturing. Frankly, it is just nauseating to watch their tantrum play out.

Sick, on Peacock

You know when they lose Blumhouse, the Fauci school of pandemic management has lost the nation. Maybe they haven’t fully lost the studio chief, but screenwriter Kevin Williamson has a lot of ironic commentary to offer on the quarantine lock-down era, while staying true to his slasher roots. Unfortunately, two millennials can’t quarantine themselves from a home-invading slasher in John Hyam’s Blumhouse-produced Sick, which is now streaming on Peacock.

With the economic and educational shutdown of 2020 looming, entitled party girl Parker Mason and her judgy, strait-laced pal Miri Woodlow decide to quarantine in the luxury cabin owned by Mason’s dad. Basically, it looks Kevin Costner’s Yellowstone character might live there, but there do not seem to be any guns in the house, which stretches credibility.

Of course, they both announce their every move on social media, so a tech-savvy stalker can easily follow them to Pop Mason’s cowboy McMansion. We can tell this psycho is effective, based on the murder he committed during the prologue. In this case, even Mason’s jealous hook-up, DJ Cole can crash their party. That means there are three potential victims, waiting to get hacked and slashed.

It is hard to explain the context without spoiling elements, but Williamson’s screenplay definitely skewers the compulsive masking experience. It also brings back embarrassing memories of Clorox wiping your groceries. Perhaps most incisively, it portrays the weird Covid-Puritanism (sometimes expressed by the likes of Howard Stern) that blamed victims and carriers. Arguably, the mystery slasher represents its fullest logical manifestation. However, all of Williamson’s inspiration is reflected in his razor-sharp dialogue, whereas the characterization largely falls back on flat stereotypes.

Regardless, experienced genre director John Hyams skillfully builds the tension and stages some hair-raising confrontations (even more so than he did in Alone). As is Scream, the slasher (if there is only one) is definitely a mortal, who takes bumps and bashes just like the prospective victims. Indeed, each grisly encounter could go either way, so there is genuine suspense. Among the cast, the clear standout is Jane Adams as Pamela, whose sinister role would be spoilery to reveal.

Death Knot, More Indonesian Horror

Instead of a "lottery," this rural Indonesian village has “The Harvest.” Each year, a shooting star appears in the sky and then several people commit suicide by hanging. Somehow, this was all Hari and Eka’s mother’s fault. When she hangs herself too, the locals do not offer much sympathy, but her estranged children are not very broken up over it anyway. Unfortunately, they soon start to believe the sinister forces plaguing the town are still claiming victims in Cornelio Sunny’s Death Knot, which releases Tuesday on DVD.

Neither Hari or his sister Eka had seen their mother in years. She changed after the birth of her daughter, picking up some rather pagan tendencies. According to the villagers, their mom made a deal with the devil, taking responsibility for the Harvest and basically terrorizing the locals. Weirdly, the night she hung herself, both Eka and Hari had vivid premonitory dreams, warning them to stay away.

Nevertheless, they come to do their duty, getting the cold shoulder from just about everyone, even their swindler uncle, who wants to cheat them out of their mother’s house. Pretty soon, creepy things start happening, especially to Eka’s boyfriend Adi. Of course, the locals won’t tell them anything, especially after another round of Harvest-style hangings.

Sunny and co-screenwriter Ike Klose conjure up some familiar-sounding folk horrors, but the execution is first rate. Indonesian horror films like this and Joko Anwar’s Impetigore certainly make the countryside look like a creepy place. To that end, Sunny (who also stars as Hari) relies more on suggestion than visual effects, which tend to be practical and rather modest in scope.

NYJFF ’23: Jews of the Old West

What name could be more synonymous with the Western Frontier experience than that of Levi Strauss? So, Jews definitely played an important role in the Old West. Case closed—but wait, there’s even more. Amanda Kinsey documents American Jewish life on the Frontier in Jews of the Old West, which screens tomorrow during the 2023 New York Jewish Film Festival.

It makes sense that people who would travel across an ocean in lousy steerage conditions to reach America would keep going west in search of a better life. Obviously, many immigrants settled in Northeastern communities like the Lower Eastside, but a fair number also settled out west, particularly in San Francisco, Denver, and Texas. Of course, maintaining traditions and religious observances was a challenge on the Frontier, but anti-Semitism was much less prevalent (because most hardscrabble settlers just didn’t have the time).

Many Jews of the Old West became quite notable, like Wyatt Earp’s wife, who eventually buried the famous lawman in a Jewish cemetery (even though he never adopted her faith, at least as far as we know). Some Jewish immigrants started enduring businesses, like Straus and the founders of Samsonite luggage. Plus, Denver in the early 1900s was home to a true icon, Golda Meir, during her precocious childhood years. In fact, Jewish Coloradans were instrumental in establishing the Denver stockyards, which remain to this day a major livestock hub.

Doug and the Slugs and Me, on CBC

They had a number of top 40 hits in Canada, but Doug and the Slugs’ greatest exposure in America might have come when their song “Too Bad” was used as the opening theme of Norm Macdonald’s The Norm Show. (It was a Canadian connection.) Despite having the original video for “Too Bad” in heavy rotation on early, music video-playing MTV, they never really caught on down here, despite their label charging back the costs of several expensive attempts. However, Teresa Alfeld only thought of lead singer Doug Bennett as her best friend’s dad, while growing-up next door to the family. Alfeld chronicles the band’s ups and downs from a half-inside half-outside perspective in Doug and the Slugs and Me, which airs Sunday night on CBC.

Bennett didn’t exactly look like Mick Jagger, but he wrote catchy tunes. The Slugs became known for a brand of pop that combined upbeat melodies with sly humor. The Barenaked Ladies cite them as an inspiration, which totally follows. Regardless, to Alfeld, Bennett just seemed like another suburban dad, as indeed he was, even though he still toured pretty regularly while she and her friend were growing up.

A lot of the inter-band drama is not unlike so many other Behind the Music stories. There were jealousies and creative control issues. Alfeld never mentions drugs, but she certainly documents Bennett’s problems with alcohol. Still, they managed to stay together nearly forty years, long outliving many of their contemporaries. Weirdly, Bennett also wrote a terrific Canadian country song, “House Without a Soul” that he ultimately had Suzanne Gitzi record, but, of course, that musical detour also ended awkwardly. However, Gitzi is quite gracious discussing Bennett.

Super League: The war for Football, on Apple TV+

Football (soccer) is the most popular sport on Earth, but its international governing body is one of the most despised organizations in the world. Even after Sepp Blatter’s departure, FIFA probably ranks somewhere between the Mafia and the FSB in international opinion polls. The six continental football associations feeding into FIFA aren’t much better (some might be even worse), yet the European UEFA largely cast itself as the defender of the game when twelve of its richest clubs proposed a breakaway league. The resulting clash of money and egos is not quite concluded yet, but Jeff Zimbalist chronicles the fight so far in the four-part docuseries Super League: The War for Football, which premieres today on Apple TV+.

It is clear right from the start everyone underestimated UEFA’s new Slovenian president Aleksander Ceferin when he was elected. Slovenia was not exactly a football powerhouse, but the lawyer proved to be a savvy deal-maker. He thought he was negotiating in good faith towards that end with his friend, Andrea Agnelli, the chairman of the elite Italian club, Juventus.

Everyone acknowledged the financial outlook for clubs was growing ever more challenging, especially those who tried to compete with the salaries offered by English Premier League clubs. Ceferin thought he close to finalizing a deal to help clubs of Juventus’s stature, but he was blindsided by the sudden announcement of the Super League, an unsanctioned league outside UEFA’s jurisdiction, that included Juventus and six top English Premier League teams.

Zimbalist and his experts (including Kate Abdo, from Fox’s World Cup coverage team) do an excellent job explaining the structure of European football leagues and how revenue generated by the top professional clubs trickle down to the tiers of local and neighborhood clubs beneath them. A lot of fans saw the Super League scheme as a threat to this football ecosystem and they did not take kindly to it.

To his credit, Zimbalist (who previous helmed the football doc The Two Escobars and the narrative film Pele: Birth of a Legend) allows both sides to make their cases, which might lead some viewers to question their previous assumptions regarding the proposed Super League’s dire implications for grass roots football. (The “founders” insist their plan will disperse more funds to the small clubs.) However, the Super League’s PR game was extraordinarily tone-deaf.

Naturally, the current FIFA president, Gianni Infantino (Blatter’s successor) has a role to play in this drama, which he does so in characteristically opportunistic fashion. Zimbalist’s talking heads often frame the Super League controversy as a conflict of fans versus “capitalism,” but that is a simplistically ideological take. In fact, Super League partisans are not wrong when they accuse UEFA of acting like a cartel. Indeed, over the last twenty years, FIFA and the IOC have done more to tarnish sport (through corruption and “sports-washing”) than anything any owner has.

Nonetheless, the mini-series raises issues of club ownership it never fully addresses. The same fans who were up in arms over the Super League scheme hardly reacted when Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich (considered one of “Putin’s wallets”) bought Chelsea. He only appears as a footnote in Super League, but he is arguably quite symbolic of football’s institutional issues.

The Tomorrow Job

It is not the Butterfly Effect that kills you. It is the paradoxes that melt your mind. Such are the perils of time travel braved by Lee Warner’s band of thieves. A shadowy time travel syndicate is making time travel larceny even more dangerous for them, but they inevitably accept one last assignment in director-screenwriter Bruce Wemple’s The Tomorrow Job, which opens tomorrow in theaters and releases Tuesday on VOD.

Instead of Rod Taylor’s elegant throne, these time travelers merely take a pill that allows their minds to perceive one day into the future or past, for an hour in duration. Before and after such a trip, Warner’s crew takes great pains to perceive as little as possible, to minimize the chance of noticing potential paradoxes. Usually, they like to be blindfolded in an unmarked van.

Once they “return” from a job, they have to marry-up their actions over the next 24-hours, to avoid paradoxes. Schrodinger’s Cat is always very much top of mind for them. Frankly, it does not really make much sense for them to be committing heists in the future, but they do and Wemple’s fast-talking dialogue keeps viewers from asking questions in the moment. Warner has also used the technology to place big bets, which makes more sense.

For the general population the risk of paradoxes is relatively low. Warner was one of the few survivors of Dr. Jay Tupple’s time travel experiments—and he stole the corner-cutting scientist’s remaining stock of pills when he bailed on the study. The only other supply is in the hands of his fellow guinea pig-turned rival, Derrick Wagner. The rogue enforcer is determined to get his hands on Warner’s stash, which would be bad, because Wagner is much less concerned about the ethics of time-travel. That is saying something, because Warner is pretty dodgy. Unfortunately, Wagner has the backing of a shadowy Cabal led by “The Organizer” and he is willing to sacrifice the sanity of his henchmen to get the job done.

Or something like that. Figuring out how everything works in Tomorrow Job is more than a little tricky, but it somehow feels like it is being consistent, even when you’re confused by it all. At least everyone is trying to adhere to an internal system of logical, which imposes an intriguing set of constraints on the characters. However, the business with the Big Brother-like Organizer just doesn’t land right. His scenes come across as cheesy rather than ominous. In retrospect, Wagner probably should have simply been his own freelance master.

Still, there is something about the film’s low-key visuals and vibe that weirdly works for it. The cast, many of whom have worked previously with Wemple, also have a “Regular Joe” look that lends the film credibility. Crooks and grifters like Warner have to blend in, rather than stand-out, even if they are popping time travel pills.

The Night of the Bastard

This is why most people are suspicious of hippie gatherings in the desert. Th particular cult in question talks like the Age of Aquarius and acts like the Manson family. The 1970s retro-grindhouse vibe really drives the message home. Beware of New Age sects, especially those led by a suggestively clad priestess, like the one terrorizing the hermit and the potential final girl in Eric Boccio’s The Night of the Bastard, which releases this Friday in theaters and on VOD.

Forty years ago, really bad things happened to a young pregnant couple. Reed wouldn’t know anything about that. He lives way out nowhere in the desert, because he wants to mind his own business. That’s why he tries to scare off Kiera and her loser friends with a shotgun, when they try to camp on his property. Unfortunately, Reed is our good guy, whether Kiera likes it or not. The bad guys will be Claire’s satanic cult, who have big plans for transformative ritual. Sacrificing Kiera’s friends in process suits them just fine.

Despite a stabbing wound, Kiera manages to find shelter with the reluctant Reed. His old steel-reinforced farmhouse will hold for a while, but her blood loss definitely adds to the urgency of the siege that unfolds.

Boccio’s film certainly isn’t fancy, unless you count the authenticate feel of the grubby 1970’s exploitation-evoking production design. However, if you are in the mood for some violent satanic panic, Boccio delivers with single-minded consistency. Claire’s ultimate intentions also turn out to be extraordinarily lurid, so don’t worry about Boccio wimping out. If you are the sort of infantile cry-baby who needs trigger warnings, pretty much consider them all applicable to NOB.

Chess Story, in The Epoch Times

Chess Story nicely captures the humanism and tragedy of Stefan Zweig's work. It is also notable (in a good way) to see the Anschluss-era drama features a capitalist money-manager as the good guy. Epoch Times exclusive review up here.

The Offering: Horror in Borough Park

Esoteric Kabbalah famously brought us the Golem, but it can deliver different kinds of horror as well. For instance, a learned scholar inadvertently raises Abyzou, a demon who preys on the unborn. He tried to take the evil entity with him, but the Orthodox mortician and his semi-estranged son do not understand what they are dealing with when they take delivery of his body in Oliver Park’s The Offering, which releases Friday on VOD and in theaters.

For some baffling reason, Arthur decided to pursue a career in real estate rather than work in his father’s mortuary. It sounds like an understandable choice, but it might have been a mistake, considering he is days away from financial ruin. Ostensibly, he has come home to Borough Park with his gentile wife Claire, to reconcile with his father before their baby arrives, but he needs the old man to put up his mortuary as collateral.

Initially, old Saul took the whole marrying out of the faith thing pretty hard, but he has clearly had a change of heart. Now, the old man is decidedly warm and friendly towards Claire and he is delighted to be a grandfather. Unfortunately, Yosille’s body changes everything. The respected scholar tried to resurrect his recently departed wife, through kabbalistic rituals. Instead, he raises Abyzou by mistake. He tried to seal the demon inside his own body, via suicide, but Arthur inadvertently breaks Yosille’s seals, while helping his father with the late-night in-take process. Before long, the demon is terrorizing the fractured family.

The Offering is a genuinely scary film, very much in the tradition of Keith Thomas’s Jewish-themed The Vigil. Even though it was shot in Bulgaria, Park nicely captures the vibe of Borough Park, Brooklyn. It hangs with many of the best demonic horror films, but its Judaic influences make it particularly distinctive.

The Devil Conspiracy

The Archangel Michael is a celestial badass according to Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. In Paradise Lost, he kicked Satan’s butt and banished him to Hell. Consider this the horror movie sequel. He is still the sort of angel who would rather beg forgiveness than ask permission, so jumps right in (into a dead priest’s body) when a cult of Satanists steal the Shroud of Turin. They’re only getting started in Nathan Frankowski’s insane film The Devil Conspiracy, which opens Friday in theaters.

Comparative religions student Laura Milton (fittingly) is present in the Turin exhibition when an elite team of Satan’s minions, led by the mysterious Liz, steal the shroud. They also kidnap Milton, suspecting she could be “useful,” but they leave her friend, Father Marconi for dead. However, with his dying breath, he graciously offers himself as an earthly vessel to Michael, who accepts.

It turns out Liz and Dr. Laurent, her evil geneticist, need the shroud to clone Christ’s DNA, to use him as a vessel for their dark lord. They tried before with regular mortals, but they were not strong enough to withstand the evil one’s power and rage. Conveniently, the unfortunate Milton looks like an excellent candidate to carry and birth their unholy infant.

This is definitely a Revelations-level crisis, but Michael quickly lays plans for his assault on their stronghold. He only stops for some intel gathered by Cardinal Vincini, a hardline demonologist, who was packed off into retirement, because he was considered a little too intense. Recent events have certainly vindicated him, but neither he or Michael is inclined to much care what people think.

One can only wonder what the Saints in Heaven might think of this film. It is basically Paradise Lost mixed with Jurassic Park, on an angel dust bender. This is the most over-the-top, deranged horror film to get a professional release since Will Klipstine’s The Harbinger, but that film somehow comes together at the end, whereas Devil Conspiracy undermines a lot of its wacky good will with a spirit-crushing seen-it-a-million-times-before ending, obviously intended to set up a sequel.

It is a shame, because most of the third act sustains a frenzy archetypal good versus evil clashes, executed through guns-blazing action sequences. This film literally goes to Hell and back several times over. The focal point for it all is the Satanists’ nifty looking fortress, supposedly erected over the crack in the Earth, where Michael pile-drove Satan into Hell.

To Save and Project ’23: The Cat and the Canary (1927)

In the 1920s Broadway was the place for horror. It looks a lot like Scooby-Doo horror to us now, given its old dark houses and masked villains, but it was what they had at the time. John Willard’s 1922 play was the Hamilton of its era. Universal’s initial silent adaptation established their competitive advantage for horror, but their subsequent soundie remake, The Cat Creeps, is sadly considered lost. Even the familiar silent print consisted of the “B takes” edited together for the international market, rather than the “A takes” intended for the American release. (Early Hollywood was stunningly penny-wise, pound-foolish.) Happily, the A-cut has been fully restored and screens at MoMA as part of their annual To Save and Project film restoration series.

Old miserly Cyrus West was first driven insane by his greedy relatives and then driven to his grave by his paranoia. As part of his questionably sound last testament, all his potential heirs are assembled in his creaky old mansion, on the twentieth anniversary of his death, for the final reading of his will.

Only a motley collection of nephews and nieces still survive, including flapperish Annabelle West, the most distant relative. She also seems like the most decent, so it makes sense to viewers that old West leaves his fortune to her. However, there are a few stipulations. She must spend the night in the creepy house and pass a sanity test, because the crazy old codger was pretty defensive on the subject of mental health. Should she fail to uphold these terms, the estate will pass to the alternate heir mentioned in the sealed envelop in the possession of his trusted attorney, Roger Crosby.

Unfortunately, Crosby is murdered before he can warn the heiress whom she should look out for. Presumably, the murder was the escaped lunatic the guard from the asylum has been searching for. However, West should probably only trust her distant cousin Paul Jones. He is not a bad guy either and he clearly adores her, but he is total coward. For context, Bob Hope played in the 1939 Paramount remake, giving a performance that was not stylistically dissimilar from that of nebbish Creighton Hale.

While Hale’s Jones supplies somewhat shticky comic relief, Leni’s gorgeous, German Expressionistic visuals are a joy to behold. Leni’s approach is largely credited with shaping the aesthetic of the subsequent Universal monster movies—and fairly so. His use of perspective is extraordinary. The vanishing point of the mansion’s long, dark corridor is not unlike that of the split-rail fence in Invaders from Mars.

PSIFF ’23: Melchior the Apothecary

Melchior Wakenstede is not a doctor but he understands herbal remedies. When all else fails, he can sell a cup of wine, which always helps his customers feel better. Being a man of reason, by Medieval standards, the Sheriff immediately deputizes Wakenstede when a knight is murdered in the castle. Of course, discovering the guilty party and bringing them to justice are very different propositions in Elmo Nuganen’s smash Estonian hit, Melchior the Apothecary, which screens again during the 2023 Palm Springs International Film Festival.

Knight Clingenstein just arrived in Tallinn from Gotland, but he already managed to make enemies with some of the locals. However, the coins stuffed in the mouth of his severed head were from Gotland. Wakenstede pretty quickly figures out the how, but the question of who remains.

In addition to a local merchant Clingenstein swindled (through force), Wakenstede’s inquiry takes him to the local monastery, where the brothers gave shelter to a hunchback who shared some nasty history with the knight. However, he is most likely not the mystery “Prisoner of Tallinn,” Wakenstede finds references to. Nor is it the sole remaining inmate of Tallinn’s municipal dungeon. That would be Rinus, the mad leper who murdered Wakenstede’s father.

Obviously, this is a highly sensitive scandal. Even the shrewd Wakenstede could use some help, but the Sheriff is entirely out of his depth. Providentially, a prospective apprentice presents herself to Wakenstede under the assumed (and masculine name) of “Gerke.” It is pretty obvious to viewers she is a woman who will fall for the apothecary, but apparently people’s gender-bending radar was not very well attuned during the Middle Ages.

Frankly, the business of Gerke’s passing is not very convincing, but the mystery is definitely intriguing stuff. The secret is not quite as erudite as The Name of the Rose (the original novel, at least), but the Medieval historical conspiracy underpinning it all will definitely appeal to fans of Umberto Eco and Arturo Perez-Reverte. It also shrewdly depicts the competing powers of the Medieval Church and state, with Wakenstede and his allies caught in the middle.

Marten Metsaviir does not look very Medieval, but he instills Wakenstede with a lot of charisma and smarts. He also develops some nice chemistry with Maarja Johanna Magi, as Keterlyn Kordt (a.k.a. Gerke), which hopefully will deepen over the next two films. Yes, all three were shot back-to-back during the pandemic—a gamble that paid off, considering the first two have already done huge box office in the Baltic Republics.

Quantum Leap: Paging Dr. Song

You don't see a lot of hospitals in science fiction, aside from James White’s Sector General novels. Dr. Ben Song would have preferred to keep it that way. He is a theoretical physicist (time travel scientist) rather than a medical doctor. However, he will have to practice as best he can when he leaps into a first-year resident’s body in “Paging Dr. Song,” this week’s episode of Quantum Leap, which airs tonight on NBC.

It turns out delivering the baby in the cold-open will be the easiest task presented to him, while he inhabits the good doctor. Somehow, this leap involves three patients, who have not checked in yet. He finds Eli Jackson rather quickly, but the retired corporate lawyer wants to check out immediately, rather than transfer to oncology for the cancer treatment he urgently needs. Song will have to convince him, but he will need help from Jackson’s estranged daughter, who happens to be his host’s mentor, third-year resident Dr. Sandra Turk.

“Paging” builds to a climax involving a subplot in which an experimental drug the hospital is testing will cause the death of one of Song’s patients. It is your basic Big Pharma demonization, but it feels rather dated in the era of Covid vaccine controversies. Seriously, do the writers want to encourage greater skepticism and distrust of the pharmaceutical industry at a time when only 68% of the United States is fully vaccinated?

On the plus side, this episode again draws on the military background of Song’s fiancée and holographic guide, Addison Augustine, who helps coach Song before breaking some hard news to a patient. Caitlin Bassett is terrific delivering the second-best speech of the series so far, right behind Magic Williams’ explanation of his experience as one of Sam Beckett’s original Quantum Leaps.

The Man Who Fell to Earth, Season One (and Only), on DVD

Nobody is ever going to forget David Bowie starred in Nicolas Roeg’s The Man Who Fell to Earth, so, wisely, the creators of this series avoided any need to accuse the “Wild Eyed Boys” of “toxic fandom.” Their series adaptation of Walter Tevis’s novel builds on the 1976 film, instead of trying to tear it down (in a way that is somewhat akin to the 2022 Quantum Leap series). Let’s give thanks to Bowie, for being such an icon. Decades after Thomas Jerome Newton arrived on Earth, another alien from Anthea comes looking for him in Alex Kurtzman & Jenny Lumet’s 10-episode The Man Who Fell to Earth, which releases this Tuesday on DVD.

It turns out Newton was an adept, whereas Faraday is just a drone on Anthea. Yes, this series’ intergalactic sociology is as didactically class-conscious as afternoon tea at the Glasgow Labour Party HQ. Environmental catastrophe is also on the horizon for us, but it is already choking Anthea to death. Newton was supposed to be the planet’s best hope, but he has gone dark, thanks to human fears and his own adoption of earthly vices. Faraday is supposed to get him back on track. Of course, his name really isn’t Faraday. He just picks it up from the intake officer, who processes him after he is arrested for being naked and weird.

Aside from Newton, the only name Faraday has in his mental rolodex is that of Justin Falls (presumably short for “Justina”), who should have invented cold fusion, but came up tragically short. According to his instructions, Faraday is supposed to help her finish the job, but he needs the double-secret patents locked in the vault of Newton’s old tech company. Falls was already taking care of her daughter and her ailing father, but she reluctantly agrees to guide Faraday on his quest.

After Newton went-off the grid (and we mean way, way off), the Flood family took over the company with the CIA’s backing. Yes, the CIA are the bad guys, yet again. Spencer Clay is the worst of them—and also the most neurotic. Newton has been one of his two driving obsessions, so when he discovers the arrival of a new Anthean, he hopes Faraday can lead him to Newton.

The reclusive weirdo really is out there somewhere. Occasionally, he will even communicate with Faraday, his former drone back in the day, through the Force, or whatever. Who could credibly step into David Bowie’s platform shoes? Actually, the casting of Bill Nighy is pretty shrewd. He has a similar physicality and he projects the right degree of oddity. Each episode is titled after a Bowie song too, so Kurtzman and Lumet definitely show the proper respect.

The first six episodes or so are surprisingly engaging, thanks in large measure to Chiwetel Ejiofor’s distinctive performance as Faraday. Instead of cutely quirky, like Starman or Brother from Another Planet, he is so alien (literally) he is almost non-functional. Naomie Harris portrays Falls with toughness and sensitivity that successfully counterbalances him. She is definitely one of the best things going for the series. Plus, Martha Plimpton has a terrific guest shot in the first episode as Officer Faraday and Zoe Wanamaker is a showstopper as Watt, Faraday’s unlikely advisor.

The Son, on OVID.tv

Some of these graduating Spetsnaz recruits have likely gone on to commit war crimes in Ukraine, or died as cannon fodder. Dima Ilyukhin, the filmmaker’s cousin, was already the latter, having been killed during one of Putin’s black ops in Dagestan. Alexander Abaturov contrasts the Spetsnaz militarist indoctrination with the grief and despair of Ilyukhin’s family in The Son, which premieres this coming Tuesday on OVID.tv.

There is no commentary on Dagestan or the related operations in Chechnya and Crimean Ukraine, so Abaturov never directly criticizes Putin’s fascist military campaigns. However, he captures the tragic results for Ilykhin’s family in scenes of unvarnished intimacy, which definitely would not be good for Putin’s business, if more Russians had the opportunity to watch it.

Frankly, the training sequences do not look particularly extraordinary or damning. Yes, the process is physically and emotionally demanding. That is what military discipline is like. Still, I hope someone in the U.S. military eventually watches this film, in case they pick up on something lost on us civilians.

Regardless, anyone can see the anguish of Ilykhin’s parents. Surprisingly, his mom seems to be handling it better. She even seems to be settling into the role of grieving military mother and the minor leadership status it entails. However, his father appears to be literally and profoundly inconsolable.

Reba McEntire’s the Hammer, on Lifetime

She mostly lives out of her truck, like Frances McDormand in Nomadland, but she can send people to jail with the bang of a gavel. Kim Wheeler is one of the last traveling circuit court judges in America, who has just been appointed to dispense justice in a network of remote rural Nevada communities. Unfortunately, her predecessor met a rather untimely death. Since Wheeler is probably even more principled when it comes to applying the law, she inevitably becomes a target too in Reba McEntire’s the Hammer, which premieres tomorrow night on Lifetime.

Technically, Wheeler should have been nick-named “The Gavel.” Regardless, she did indeed go viral when she knocked a crazed defendant cold when he charged the bench on her first day. Apparently, the nomad lifestyle suits her fine, since she never wants to stay in proper motel rooms when traveling the circuit with her bailiff.

Awkwardly, her predecessor died in the trailer park bordello owned by her mildly estranged sister, Kris. Now that she is back in the area, Wheeler tries to patch things up with her, but it is probably too late for her dementia-plagued father, especially since the judge has yet to forgive him for abusing her as a child. Frankly, the abuse-themed sub-plot rather clashes with the TV movie’s generally light-hearted sassy tone.

The biggest case on Wheeler’s docket is the negligent homicide charge lodged against tech entrepreneur Bart Crawford’s surly and entitled son. The late judge refused him bail and Wheeler declines to over-turn his judgement. That definitely makes Crawford a prime suspect, but the judge still finds him strangely fun to drink with.

Indeed, somewhat logically, the best scenes showcase the chemistry between McEntire and her real-life off-screen partner Rex Linn (who recurred on CSI: Miami and co-starred in the Oscar-worthy Zombeavers), as Wheeler and Crawford. This is not exactly the most complex screenplay ever filmed, but the uncertain direction of their relationship is entertaining to watch.

Invaders from Mars, Restored

James Cameron's mega-expensive Avatar saga owes a debt of gratitude to William Cameron Menzies’ 1953 cult classic. Up to that point, science fiction had always been the cheapest of the B-movies. His film was the first alien invasion movie filmed in color and possibly the first science fiction film overall, depending on how you define science fiction and whether you allow far less vivid earlier color processes. The SuperCinecolor process became obsolete soon after it was produced, so it presented considerable restoration challenges, but it looks terrific in the new 4K-restored Invaders from Mars, which ships on BluRay this month from Ignite Films.

Little David MacLean wants to be a scientist like his indulgent father George, which is why he is constantly watching the sky late at night. This is how he happens to be the only Earthling who witnesses an unusual meteorite-like object crashing in the dunes behind his house. Through the same telescope, he sees his father sucked into the sand. The next morning, his father returns, but he is not nearly as cool as he used to be. Likewise, the two police officers investigating his reported disappearance return from the dunes behaving in a similarly cold, withdrawn, and contemptuous manner.

Before long, young MacLean finds other adults in town acting equally suspiciously, including the chief of police. (It is important to note Invaders predates both Don Siegel’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers and the Jack Finney novel it was based on.) However, Dr. Patricia Blake is at least willing to hear him out and they soon learn his pseudo mentor, astronomer Dr. Arthur Kelston, already harbored suspicions an invasion could be underway.

Invaders deserves a place in the holy quartet of alien invasion films, alongside Body Snatchers, The Thing from Another World, and the George Pal-produced War of the World, which Invaders beat into theaters by a few months. Each film has its own merits and its own unique spin on the alien menace.

Menzies keen visual sensibilities definitely sets this film apart from subsequent knock-offs. Perhaps most acclaimed for his art and production design work, Menzies took a rare double credit as director and production designer on Invaders—and he put his stamp on nearly every scene. At times, he harkens back to the German Expressionists, with sequences like those in the police station, using scale sets built to accentuate a child’s perspective. Given how much consideration went into the look of the film, it is nice to be able to better appreciate it with the new restoration.

Arguably, Invaders does not get the credit it deserves as a cultural trail-blazer. Beyond employing expensive color for formerly trashy sf, it depicts Dr. Blake as MacLean’s savior. She is a doctor, not a nurse. She is also sufficiently intuitive to recognize little David is absolutely terrified—and the adults around him are very strange. Helena Carter plays her with smarts and sensitivity, but her character was not presented as forcefully in the cheap-looking reshoots ordered a year later for the European market, without Menzies’ participation. (Ignite includes then as bonus content, but they add little to the viewing experience.)

LandLocked: Analog Media Strikes Again

Is there a more frightening prospect than watching a stranger’s home movies? At least Paul Owens never breaks out the old school slide tray. To be fair, he puts his father’s old VHS camcorder footage to creative use, achieving a Boyhood-like effect in LandLocked, which releases tomorrow in theaters and on-demand.

As he explains in a video tape, Mason’s father arranged to have their old family home demolished a year after his death. It is still packed with the memories and detritus of the years they spent living there, so Mason has come to pick over whatever might be worth taking. While rummaging, he comes across a camcorder that mysteriously records scenes from their past.

Despite visits from his brothers, Mason becomes increasingly obsessed with revisiting and capturing the past. It seems like their family history was mostly happy, but there are hints of something ominous lingering over the house. Something bad must have happened, right? Why else would his father want it razed to the ground?

There are a few scenes of some kind of supernatural or fantastical something. However, LandLocked is mostly about mundane ghosts—the artefacts and stains that stubbornly persist, reminding us of the past. It is a thoughtful genre film, but Owens (screenwriter-director-cinematographer-everything else) sometimes gets lost down the same rabbit hole as his protag (and real-life brother). Nevertheless, the marriage of the vintage home movies with the original footage is eerily realistic. It is more than “found footage,” but it is more believable than most found footage films.

The Rig, on Prime

Deep sea oil rigs are an effective setting for movies like ffolkes and The Burning Sea and series like Brazil’s Ilha de Ferro (“Iron Island”), because when something goes wrong out there, the crew has to fix it out there. Far off in the Scottish North Sea, Kinloch Bravo station boss Magnus MacMillan has all the usual personnel challenges, but his team must also face a fantastical (and perhaps even primordial) threat in creator David Macpherson’s six-episode The Rig, which premieres Friday on Prime Video.

Many of the crew, especially Baz Roberts were already upset, because they were bumped from their scheduled rotational flight home, to accommodate a corporate meeting arranged by company hack, Rose Mason. Unfortunately, that chopper won’t be coming anyway when the weather takes a freakish turn and all the communications signals cut out.

Tempers flare when Roberts is hurt during the storm, perhaps because Mason’s not-so-secret workplace lover, Fulmer Hamilton did not fully follow procedures and protocols. On the plus side, Roberts physically recovers at a superhuman pace. However, he seems to have a personality-altering “infection.” Between creepy Roberts and Lars Hutton, an openly insubordinate, crusty old field worker, MacMillan will have unnecessary distractions inside the platform, diverting his attention from the growing danger outside.

As you might guess, there is an environmental angle to all this ominous chaos, not unlike Larry Fessenden’s The Last Winter, but Macpherson and his co-writers present and explain it with much more intelligence. They are clearly sf-literate, considering MacMillan’s trusted manager Alwyn Evans is often seen reading John Wyndham’s The Kraken Wakes.

The Pale Blue Eye, on Netflix

Despite his frail, dissolute image, Edgar Allan Poe fared rather well as an Army enlisted man, rising to the rank of Sergeant Major. Rather unconventionally, his success as a soldier convinced his patron to secure Poe an appointment to West Point, where he effectively started over, as the Academy’s oldest cadet. He is now probably the most celebrated cadet to be court martialed and expelled. As this films starts, Poe has not yet completely sabotaged his officer prospects, but he is happy to assist Det. Augustus Landor’s investigation, at the expense of his studies in Scott Cooper’s The Pale Blue Eye, which premieres Friday on Netflix.

Remember, Poe’s reputation as a drunken basket case is largely the result of a slanderous biography, written by his greatest literary rival, Rufus Wilmot. However, all objective sources agree Poe did not thrive under the Academy’s discipline. The cadet found strung-up in a noose presumably had it worse. It certainly looks suspicious, especially when the body is subsequently mutilated in a ritualistic manner, so the Superintendent (a position that would be held by Robert E. Lee and William Westmoreland) recruits retired New York City Det. Landor to investigate death, which becomes the first of several violent crimes.

Despite Poe’s poetic soliloquys, Landor recognizes the cadet’s intelligence, so he recruits him to be his eyes and ears. Eager to help cast an unflattering light on the military academy, Poe immediately accepts. However, as Poe ingratiates himself with the dead cadet’s social circle, largely through heavy drinking, he falls for Lea Marquis, the sister of the Academy’s alpha cadet and the daughter of West Point’s physician, the questionably competent Dr. Daniel Marquis.

Essentially, Pale Blue Eye is a mystery, but Cooper’s adaptation of Louis Bayard’s source novel cleverly incorporates elements of gothic horror and the occult. Yet, the final revelation sequence rivals the conclusions of some of the best Agatha Christie films.

Compared to William Mosley in Raven’s Hollow and John Cusack in The Raven, Harry Melling might be the most Poe-looking movie Poe yet. Melling still portrays Poe as a bit of mess, but a romantic, romanticizing mess, rather than non-functional Wilmot-suggested mess. However, Christian Bale is even more compelling as the grizzled and tormented Landor.  He slow burns like nobody’s business. Plus, Toby Jones is appropriately squirrelly and off-puttingly nebbish as Dr. Marquis and Timothy Spall is suitably gruff as Superintendent Player.

Last Resort, More Thai Action from Jon Foo

It is nice to see some filmmakers resist the temptation of virtue-signaling. Of course, even if Jean-Marc Mineo made a show of cutting ten minutes of “gun violence” from his latest film (like James Cameron claims he did), there would still be one-hundred six minutes of guns blazing left. Basically, the other two minutes consists of our hero sitting on the couch watching cartoons. He has been difficult for his wife and daughter to live with since he came home from a mission-gone-bad, but when terrorists take his family hostage, he immediately reverts to action-mode in Mineo’s Last Resort, which opens this Friday in theaters.

Michael Reed was left for dead in Syria, but it was his captors who ended up dying. Since then, he has been such a mope around the house, his wife Kim is planning to leave him. She even went to the bank with their daughter Anna to open her own account. Unfortunately, they are taken hostage by a group of Islamic terrorists led by Cooper, a ruthless mercenary. It turns out they are really after a WMD stashed in one of the safety deposit boxes. Of course, Cooper thinks he can stall and deceive the Bangkok police, but Reed easily infiltrates the bank and starts knocking off Cooper’s gun-toting extremists, one by one.

Admittedly, Last Resort is not exactly original (the Die Hard elements are so obvious, they hardly need pointing out), but it goes about its business with gusto. It delivers dozens of shoot-outs and fight scenes that are all executed with energy and clarity. This is quality VOD-action workmanship. Mineo and much of the cast and crew previously collaborated on Bangkok Revenge. Since then, they have learned to play to their strengths. There is considerably less extraneous drama in Last Resort, and even more action.

First Contact: An Alien Encounter, on PBS

Are we suitably prepared for a potential encounter with an alien intelligence. Sure, there are plenty of governmental and UN protocols. That was true for global pandemics too, but when one actually happened, a lot of that went out the window. Also, do we really feel comfortable with the prospect of the United Nations managing first contact? After all, the current UN Council on Human Rights includes China, Cuba, Sudan, and Kazakhstan. (Russia was a member too, until April of last year.) Scientists might handle the science the way this hypothesizing hybrid-documentary suggests, but the political leaders are another question. At least, screenwriter-director Nic Stacey encourages us to think about the issues and process in First Contact: An Alien Encounter, which premieres Wednesday on PBS.

It all (hypothetically) starts with a transmission that does not act like any other signal our interstellar telescopes have picked up before. However, there is still some precedent for it, like the 1977 “Wow! Signal” detected at Ohio State University. Earth had never picked up any similar since then—until (hypothetically) now.

Over the course of 12 days, Stacey’s fictional scientists determine the object’s trajectory and identify potential star systems that could be the source, based the elements they detect. Meanwhile, real scientists, like George Mason University Prof. (and Baking Impossible judge) Hakeem Oluseyi explain the underpinning science and technology that drives their investigation.

In many ways, First Contact is very similar in tone to Michael Madsen’s docu-essay The Visit, but it actually creates a case study to show how this could all play out. It is worth noting, nobody explicitly refers to Chinese sf writer’s Liu Cixin’s “dark forest” concept that argues any first contact must be assumed hostile, because the potential downside is so profound.

Unfortunately, the pacing of First Contact is also comparable to Madsen’s unapologetically cerebral Visit. However, Stacey is much more concerned with the impact first contact would also have on the public consciousness, showing how each new revelation is reported in the media—and reacted to by social media.

Quantum Leap: Fellow Travelers

If you could travel through time, preventing Clifford Brown’s fatal auto accident and the plane crash that killed Ritchie Valens, Buddy Holly, and the Big Bopper could be musically rewarding ways to use that technology. Dr. Ben Song will have that chance when he leaps into the body of the bodyguard working for Carly Farmer, a fictional late 1970s pop singer. However, even after he saves her from a freak stage accident, someone still murders her a few days later. Despite Song’s efforts, the killer remains lethally persistent and motivated in the “Fellow Travelers” episode of the Quantum Leap continuation series, which premieres tonight on NBC.

Despite the title, this episode does not feature the rival leaper introduced in “Salvation or Bust,” or 1950s Communist sympathizers. This is basically the Quantum Leap take on The Bodyguard, with Farmer being a Carly Simon-like vocalist, who is starting to fall for her bodyguard, Jack Armstrong. Farmer basically understands her manager is a snake, but she does not realize he has manipulated her to turn against her former-junkie sister Jamie.

Unfortunately, someone is also about to frame Jamie for the murder of Farmer. Each time Song prevents her death, the mystery killer simply murders her “again” the next day. This happens to be a particularly cleverly-written episode, because much of the dialogue exchanged by Song and Addison Augustine, his fiancée and holographic guide, appliers both to Armstrong’s efforts to save Farmer and Song’s revelation that his unsanctioned premature leap was intended to save her life at a future date. If only he could imagine the details.

American Experience: The Lie Detector

Many laid claim to inventing it, including a police officer and an academic. Somewhat ironically, it was the cop who worried about its civil liberties implications. The academic was the weirdo who created Wonder Woman. Right from the start, the so-called “polygraph” was controversial, but it eventually supplied some work for ambulance chaser F. Lee Bailey, who hooked people up to it on his early 1980s reality TV show. The history and disputed authorship of the polygraph is chronicled in writer-director Rob Rapley’s The Lie Detector, which airs Tuesday as part of the current season of American Experience.

John Larsen was a rookie cop with a PhD, who actually wanted to make policing more scientific and less thuggish. On the Berkley, CA police force, he had a reformer Chief, who was open to his potential creations. A lot of shrinks had already created dodgy lie detectors, measuring one thing or another, but with the help of his high school intern, Leonarde Keeler, Larsen put them all together and created the iconic print out of the subject’s responses.

Yet, Larsen quickly started second guessing his invention after it supposedly help solve a rash of thefts at a Berkley women’s dorm. He would argue his device only measures strong emotional responses and not necessarily lies. However, Keeler broke with his one-time mentor, applying his lie detector with great fanfare in Los Angeles. William Marston was an inventor of one of the half-baked predecessors, but he could talk a good game. Eventually, the three became bitter rivals of each other in the media.

Rapley’s documentary is only one-hour long, but it tells an interesting story. The subject definitely raises issues regarding civil liberties and law enforcement, but it does so in a reasonable, levelheaded manner. It helps that all of his talking heads are real experts, rather than cheesy celebrities trying to virtue-signal.