Cellphone Investigator 7 (2008)

directed by Takashi Miike, Takeshi Watanabe, Hiroyuki Tsuji, Manabu Asō, Kazuya Konaka et al

Japan

4.5 stars out of 5

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As a tokusatsu fan, I should probably know better than to judge by appearances at this point, but I have to be honest: I did not expect the television show about a walking, talking cell phone who solves cyber crimes with a 16-year-old boy as its partner to be one of the best things I've watched in recent memory.

The show basically gives you everything you need to know about it within its opening credits. Keita, a high school student, suddenly finds the whole course of his life changed when he witnesses a man killed by a rogue construction crane in front of him, and discovers that the man was secretly an agent for Under Anchor, an organization developing special AI-powered cell phones to combat cyber crimes. Keita is reluctant at the beginning of the show but becomes a full-fledged Anchor agent soon enough, and by the end, god damn, that high schooler is the best agent they ever had. (Okay, maybe not the best, but probably the most emotionally invested.)

This show has pacing issues. I will say that up front because I think that what constitutes "issues" for any other show is instead, for CPI7, something it wears with pride. One of the things this show does that I really admire, and that I wish more series would do, is bring in different directors and let them keep their directorial style. Every so often there will be an episode that's so wildly different that you think "wow, who did that one?" and you look it up and surprise! It's Mamoru Oshii (for example), and you can tell it's Mamoru Oshii, because instead of keeping to a baseline throughout the entire series, some episodes are allowed to just be these wonderful little one-off capsules of weird that don't develop the plot but feel instead like a movie starring the characters of the show you've been watching.

For a show ostensibly about cyber crimes, there's really not a lot of cyber crime-solving going on. Most of what happens is very self-contained and usually the stakes aren't that high: Keita and some random guy almost get killed by gun smugglers, a little girl finds Seven (the phone) and he helps her get over feeling alienated by her parents' impending divorce, a really bad comedian makes it his mission in life to court Touko, and, like, literally just The Ring, to name a few. Like I said, the double episode that Oshii directed is one of the most astonishing things I've seen in the context of a television series, and it has absolutely nothing to do with solving crime. It just lets us meditate with the characters for a while in a world that is wholly a fantasy and is more real for it.

"Life is just saying goodbye."

"Then what is the spring that always returns?"

I think by far the crowning achievement of CPI7 is how much it got me to care about the phones. When we begin the series' storyline, Anchor had been developing cell phones called Phone Bravers with the ability to walk and talk and learn from their partners, seven of which were created but only three remain functional (we learn about the others as the show progresses). The phones are partnered with human agents who are referred to as their "Buddy", and develop a bond with them where each influences the other, as the phones provide tactical and logistical support that a human couldn't, and the human provides, for lack of a better term, life skills for the Phone Bravers. And let me tell you, they are doing some kind of magic with how well the Bravers are integrated into the cast. By the end of the show I was 1000% invested in the phones and 1000% forgetting they were little CGI phones and not actual human cast members. It's just absolutely perfect at making you care about the Bravers and feel for them as they respond to - and develop - emotions in their own flawed, weird, nonlinear, very human way.

To discuss the story in-universe a little bit: the bond between the Bravers and their buddies is integral to the overarching plot of the show. The ultimate villain is a rogue AI named Gene created by Ultraman Agul a shady tech CEO that evolves to come to the conclusion that humans are making the world a worse place and should be eliminated. Gene becomes a villain precisely because it's let loose without the ability to learn from an individual human the way the Phone Bravers are. Gene's creator failed to provide the kind of care, attention, and empathy that the Under Anchor agents did for their phones, and instead he just mass-produced them as quickly as possible with a childlike brain intended for rapid growth and self-sufficiency rather than emotional reasoning and understanding. The Phone Braver program works because the phones are treated like people, because they functionally are. The relationship between the Bravers and their buddies is a friendship between equals. Gene is a feral child left to fend for itself, with nobody else to learn from but other feral children.

I want to nominate Masataka Kubota, who plays Keita, for every award retroactively. The way he handles the massive tonal shifts from episode to episode is admirable. He does at times feel authentically like a 16-year-old boy, but he doesn't play Keita like a parody of himself. And he always sells his interactions with Seven and the other Bravers. The whole cast does, but Keita has more direct interaction with the phones than anyone else. I was so fully invested in the final episode due to how Kubota was nailing it and how the writing team was managing to make these phones feel like real living characters that it was honestly a little overwhelming.

So, yeah. I watched the cell phone detective show and it got me really emotional. I wish there were more shows like this, but this one is a special, rare thing, and maybe that's how it should be.

Mystery Comet Tsuifon

Godzilla vs. Megaguirus (2000)

directed by Masaaki Tezuka

Japan

105 minutes

3 stars out of 5

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As its full title ("The G Extermination Strategy") suggests, this is one of those Godzilla films in which the goal is simple eradication - not finding a way to live with Godzilla through psychic mediation, not putting him somewhere where he can never be a problem again, just killing him dead, no nuance. This straightforward approach reflects Godzilla's role in the film as well. However, even though he is a cut-and-dry villain here, this is one of the more comedic Godzilla iterations. I was actually surprised by how comedic he is on my most recent rewatch; some of the fight scenes are Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster-level goofy.

Some of these movies give Godzilla a real "jealous boyfriend" attitude: on the one hand, when humanity does anything he doesn't like - such as developing nuclear weapons - he comes to put us in our place. But on the other hand, if any other kaiju emerge to threaten humanity, he'll also come and dispatch them. Not to protect us, but because Godzilla can only ever be the sole arbiter of humanity's fate, and no potential usurpers will be tolerated. This film in particular takes place in a neatly explained timeline in which the original Godzilla was the beginning of a series of attacks, where any time a milestone of scientific development was reached, Godzilla would appear and destroy it. There is a human villain at the end who is unscrupulous enough to risk getting Japan stomped in favor of financial gain, but humans on the whole are not the bad guys per se. Still, the human characters are too thinly developed to really root for: the protagonist is given the most predictable of backstories (her mentor was killed by falling debris during a Godzilla attack in front of her, now she swears vengeance), and Godzilla is just doing what he usually does in knocking humanity down a peg when they get too high and mighty.

I really don't like bug kaiju. Not because I'm afraid of bugs but because I think "thing, but huge" is a really silly and uninteresting format for a monster (this is also why I dislike King Kong). Megaguirus is no exception. I appreciate the level of detail put into her (her?) design, and the puppetry was so good I kept forgetting it was puppetry, but as a character she doesn't compel me nearly as much as other Godzilla antagonists, especially considering this movie was sandwiched between Godzilla 2000 and GMK, which - and you can dislike 2000 as much as you like, but Orga was a cool idea - both have great kaiju casts.

This kind of feels like a Godzilla movie for people who don't particularly want to watch a Godzilla movie. It is good, and I enjoy it whenever I watch it, but it's a movie I watch and then don't think about very much, whereas every other Godzilla movie occupies a permanent spot in my brain. The black hole gun is an interesting idea but it becomes almost laughable when Godzilla repeatedly shrugs it off almost every time they fire it at him. Killing Godzilla for real at the end of the film was basically not ever going to happen, so even the big moment where they seemingly blast Godzilla into the crust of the Earth has its impact dulled by the final scene implying the Dimension Tide didn't work so well after all.

This is not my favorite Godzilla movie, but I rewatched it on New Year's Eve, and - without timing it at all - it hit midnight almost exactly as they fired the Dimension Tide for the last time, and let me tell you, it got me hype as hell.

Godzilla vs. Mechagodzilla II (1993)

directed by Takao Okawara

Japan

108 minutes

4.5 stars out of 5

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Yeah, four and a half stars. Objective film ratings are a sham. I'm finding that I've yet to rewatch a Godzilla movie and see it as being worse than I thought it was the first time. It's funny, I can look back on certain films - especially the Heisei ones - and remember not liking things about them, but then it comes time to rewatch them and I don't know what I was thinking. This was definitely the case upon my third rewatch of vs. Mechagodzilla II, one of the Godzilla movies I frequently forgot existed, and a film that I feel is possibly hampered by being marketed as a Mechagodzilla movie while containing the most sauceless Mechagodzilla in the series. (Unbelievable soundtrack, too - those drums hit right in your soul.)

vs. Mechagodzilla II takes place in the Heisei continuity where humans have, if not a firm grasp, then at least some vague ideas and plans about how we might be able to live with Godzilla, born out of repeated encounters that end in disaster for both parties (but largely for us). The anchor for this timeline is of course Miki Saegusa, whose psychic abilities and emotional link to Godzilla represent an alternative way of looking at humanity's relationship with him. In this film, Saegusa - as well as Azusa Gojo, a biologist and BabyGodzilla's foster mom - are essentially blocked at every opportunity by a faction of hard-nosed military men who seem increasingly less tolerant of both Saegusa and Gojo's attempts to seek a nonviolent resolution to the threat of Godzilla.

I think the human characters in this one are interesting because this is one of those times where you really get the sense that humanity is starting to get a little too big for their britches. I probably shouldn't say this because it is outright blasphemy but looking at BabyGodzilla gave me a feeling like you're supposed to get when you look at icon paintings of Christ with the Virgin Mary that contain allusions to Jesus' eventual crucifixion. What should be a picture of an adorable baby instead betrays the foreknowledge that the child is born to be a sacrifice. Movies that involve a juvenile Godzilla always also involve people trying to use it to manipulate the adult Godzilla: no matter how cute and friendly Baby is, Gojo can't keep him under lock and key forever, not only because his appearance lures Godzilla into whatever area he's being housed in, but also because the government will never stop coming after him and trying to enlist him into their plan to defeat Godzilla.

I know this is really weird but I kind of get a feeling like Godzilla is ashamed of himself in this one. I think "ashamed" is maybe too light of a word, actually. Godzilla is grappling with what he is. He is drawn magnetically to the presence of an infant member of his species only to sense psychically that said infant is terrified of him, at which point he sulks his way back through the city he just stomped. I feel like there's even an allusion to Godzilla (or a Godzilla) having placed the egg in Rodan's territory on purpose when Gojo mentions how some birds will lay eggs in other birds' nests if they feel they can't care for them.

The weakest part of this movie is Mechagodzilla. Its origin story is by far the least compelling out of every other Mechagodzilla. We've got a ruthless killing machine constructed by aliens, a haunted fortress made to fight its own brother against its will, and basically a big flying warship shaped like Godzilla, piloted by a bunch of guys whose only personality traits are "cocky and irritating". The two other main-line Mechagodzillas have some aspect that makes them feel narratively interesting and, to put it plainly, worth keeping around: '74/5 Mechagodzilla is the first of its kind put to film and is such a formidable threat with its boundless supply of missiles that it's an outright joy to watch, and Kiryu is just horrifying to think about. But what is this Mechagodzilla? Human hubris given the form of our most enduring enemy. We keep building superweapons, we never learn. This Mechagodzilla is just another mistake.

I'm not sure what my problem was with this movie that made me remember it as one of the least good of the Heisei era. There's something so comforting about these movies - everything about them is so familiar and welcoming to me now, even the fuzzy, warm colors of the un-remastered DVD rip. We've also lost some people since I last watched this - Akira Nakao, Kenpachirō Satsuma - so I think it's even more important to keep watching these movies even as it seems like the Godzilla series might finally be moving forward again. Every Godzilla movie is good. That's that about that.

Santa Jaws (2018)

directed by Misty Talley

USA

88 minutes

3 stars out of 5

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Santa Jaws cold-opens with a dream sequence that I wish had set the tone for the rest of the film. Yes, the Christmas humor is goofy, but it's a clearly deliberate goofiness that everyone involved appears to be enjoying. But then the protagonist wakes up, and - ugh, we're going to be dealing with an angsty teenage boy for this entire movie?

That being said, though, I want to emphasize that Reid Miller absolutely kills it in the lead role. I think this movie would have been far worse had there been some other kid playing Cody. The material he's given to work with is frequently clichéd and the actors he plays off of - including most of the adults - kind of phone it in sometimes. But Miller 100% believes everything he's saying, and it makes me believe him too. There's a delicate balance here where the peripheral characters who exist mostly as comic relief and/or to get shark-murdered are allowed to be a little hammier, but the protagonist, around whom everything revolves, could not risk being even a little bit unserious. Miller nails that. I've never heard of anything else he's been in, but if he eventually moves beyond bad shark movies, he could really have a future - ditto for the director, who appears to, thus far, have worked exclusively in bad shark movies.

I say as if I'm somebody who knows anything whatsoever about acting.

Anyway, this is a killer Christmas shark movie. You already know what to expect when you sit down to watch it. The aforementioned seriousness with which it treats its premise is a big plus; it is silly to us, but feels dead serious to its characters. And there's a lot more going on here than in your typical shark movie or your typical Christmas slasher: the main character is gifted a magic pen that brings everything he draws to life, and when he uses it to ink a drawing of the villain in his comic book Santa Jaws, the demonic shark becomes real and immediately begins picking off his entire circle of family and friends. (The shark gained its powers by eating Santa Claus. It is attracted to Christmas items and Christmas music and likewise can only be injured by Christmas-y things, such as a crossbow with garland wrapped around it.)

The parts where the film drags are the parts where a lot of slasher films drag: the spread of the threat beyond the protagonist and into the larger world. It's just always really boring to go through the motions of having one person try to make everybody around them believe they're in danger - the cycle of "what are you talking about, don't be silly!", getting brutally killed, everyone finally believing the danger is real, everyone arming themselves, so on and so forth. There's not much avoiding that in a lot of cases, but sometimes a movie can find creative ways to make it feel like less of a chore, and Santa Jaws doesn't quite do that, despite all of its originality in other areas.

But you can tell that there's talent across the board even though the premise is silly, so the film is fun to watch and doesn't have too many amateurish pacing issues. The location also feels authentic (the comic shop looked like a real comic shop) and it's tasteful enough with its sub-par CGI gore that when there is a shark kill it feels genuinely funny as opposed to immersion-breaking.

I'm starting to realize that I really don't like watching Christmas movies, but things like this make me realize that there are a few out there that mess with the formula enough to be fun. While it never gets ridiculous enough to make for good "you and your friends pretending to be Joel and the bots" fodder - which works in its favor, the balance of seriousness and humor is the best thing about this - it's definitely recommended if you've seen everything else and are tired of Santa-themed slashers. You kind of have to not think about it very hard, though: how hard is it to not get killed by a shark? Just stay away from the marina and it'll probably eventually starve to death or just get bored and look for less wily prey.

I'm cooking on my other blog.

Just FYI.

I've done scanlations of the Kodansha The Mysterians/Atragon mook and the H-Man/Secret of the Telegian one. Only took me two weeks of constant work, part of which was done in the dark with snail-speed internet thanks to a tripped breaker that wouldn't come back on.

You should check out my other blog anyway, it’s pretty fun. If you follow me exclusively for Godzilla content, I went a little extra for Godzilla Day over there this year as well.

Secret of the Telegian (1960)

directed by Jun Fukuda

Japan

85 minutes

4 stars out of 5

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Rewatched this a third time after far too long. Coming back to these movies after having seen more tokusatsu - especially Toho films - is always rewarding, because now I feel like I understand them in their context much better. In particular it's impressive how Jun Fukuda was able to direct a film that fits so neatly with the rest of the Transforming Human series despite never having directed a tokusatsu film before (although he was assistant director for Rodan) and only having solo directorial credit on one other movie thus far.

I just want to talk about how much I love that opening murder scene where we see Sudo for the first time (although we don't know who he is yet). We follow a man entering a haunted house at a theme park, not to enjoy it like all the other attendees but to meet up with someone. He's surrounded by witnesses, who are later interviewed by police and can't describe what they saw happen next. The man reaches the back of the cave and all of a sudden something happens to him: out of nowhere there is another man standing exactly where he had been, and all we the viewers see of this second man is his back - there one second, gone the next - before his victim collapses dead with a knife in him. There are shots like this of Sudo throughout the film and it's something I think is absolutely fascinating: these back shots, other characters framed on either side of his shoulders, no face, nothing to identify with, just this looming presence. The camera almost has the same POV as him, but he himself blocks some of the shot.

Tadao Nakamaru plays this character really, really well. After he saw his own performance in a test screening he apparently realized with some horror that he was "in a ridiculous movie" and didn't want to play his role in The Human Vapor because of that. I think we can reevaluate this character now, because he isn't ridiculous and neither is the movie he's in. Sudo is interesting because he really was at one point a victim: even if he comes off uptight trying to stop some guys from stealing gold bars in the chaos at the end of the war, the fact is that he was murdered for it, and his murderers got away with it. But in the process of reinventing himself into the tele-transmitted man, he's lost most of his humanity. I absolutely love the reveal at the end that he's physically scarred and burned because of the teleporter he uses. It may have been simple revenge but now it's taken him over. It's really the teleporter that's the scary thing, in conjunction with its user - I think both World Wars kind of quashed the idea of technology and science being a basic universal force for good, and now all we can do is be afraid of what people are going to do with the new weapons we keep inventing. 

Also, in the original Japanese, Sudo is never referred to as the "Telegian" or anything like that. The in-universe name for him is "juken-ma", which translates to something like "bayonet demon" or "bayonet devil". This is what the police and reporters call him by.

I read somewhere that Toho didn't do a lot of noir films at this point like some other studios did because they "weren't good at them", but when it comes to noir with a sci-fi element, they really nail it. Aside from Sudo, none of the characters in this have much personality, but everybody fills their various generic cop roles really well and in concert it makes for a riveting investigation into something that looks more and more as the film goes on like a supernatural event. That being said, it's weird that Koji Tsuruta is here. I never get used to him in this movie. From what I understand he was close with Fukuda and was in this as kind of a favor to him since he was a new director (Tsuruta was one of Toho's biggest stars and it was probably very expensive and difficult to get him in a movie). But his character is just some guy, a nebulously-defined "old college friend" who gets in the way at first but eventually is absorbed into the main cast. A lot of Toho movies are like that, actually: the cast of characters is just whoever happened to stick around the longest.

I will say the pacing is also odd - this is one of the only times I've looked to see what time it was and realized I'd been watching the movie for 55 minutes when I thought I'd only been watching it for 15 or 20 at most. And something about the filming occasionally feels a little awkward, like shots are starting and stopping at not quite the right time. But you will never catch me saying a bad word about the practical effects, which are the highlight of the film. Toho is known mostly for large physical work, kaiju suits and vehicle miniatures and things like that, but rotoscoping scanlines onto Sudo undoubtedly took an excessive amount of time and meticulous frame-by-frame effort.

The last thing I want to mention is just this really small detail: in the final scene, where Sudo's teleportation goes wrong and he dies horribly, clutching at his coat collar in agony, Tsuruta's character Kirioka is watching him and holding his own collar as well. This could have been totally unintentional, and since practical effects and drama scenes were filmed in separate locations, they probably weren't even actually looking at each other, but I got a real sense of Kirioka being absorbed in and horrified by what he was seeing.