Godzilla Raids Again (1955)

Welcome back to the Criterion Challenge/October Franchise Run/Godzilla Deep Dive (it's a little of all three for now.)

We're a bit late into the month, but still determined to keep moving. Over the next few days, we'll be covering the first 'arc' of Godzilla - from atomic menace to what I'd like to call 'friend to all children', but that's Gamera's beat.

Anyway, that's getting ahead of ourselves.

Flashback to 1954 - in the wake of Honda's original Godzilla becoming a success, Toho producer, Iwao Mori, already had the word 'sequel' on his lips.

An ambitious idea, to be sure. Save for the fact that the titular monster was dead.

Not that that's ever stopped a sequel before, of course.

Taking inspiration from a line from Professor Yamane (Shimura Takashi, briefly reprising his role in this) the movie found its hook - when your first radioactive dinosaur dies, get yourself another one. Or two, as the case may be here.

Going in this, and the subsequent entries, I am coming at this with a particular primary focus - tracking the franchise as a whole, and how each property evolves that from its beginnings to what is considered the 'traditional' Godzilla film.

The decision to have multiple kaiju is where Godzilla Raids Again distinguishes itself in that line. Godzilla is back, but audiences are also introduced to the second of what would become Toho's extensive bestiary - the giant ankylosaurus, Anguirus.

Okay, one new observation here - this is the first time it really hit me how at first they tried to keep to dinosaurs as far as expanding the roster went.

At first, anyway, but we'll come back to that.

Besides the another kaiju, the most marked change this movie has over its predecessor is that it is considerably less grim. This doesn't make it a light-hearted movie, of course, but it also avoids anything on the level of the destructive horror of the previous movie's Tokyo attack and its somber aftermath.

There is still a fair amount of destruction to go around (including a subplot involving one of cinema's more unlucky jail breaks) but it also spends much of its time looking at the impact of these giant monsters from a trade and supply line perspective. Which is an interesting take, don't get me wrong, but it also causes this to lose out on the horror of the previous movie.

Despite that, it does keep with its predecessor in its view of its titular monster - yes, Godzilla is fighting another kaiju in this, but that doesn't mean he's our hero. In fact, neither Godzilla nor Anguirus really pays any mind to what the humans around them are doing. They're just destroying whatever gets in their path - including each other - and the humans are left to determine how to handle the winner.

How those humans handle that marks the last major difference between this and the original - there is no oxygen destroyer and no troubled scientist to really drive the nuclear comparison this time. Which isn't a bad thing - as much as I love that aspect of the original, it's not an element you can expect to keep repeating to the same returns. In that case, I'd prefer they give it one good go rather than keep repeating it till the tank runs out of gas.

In turn, this version emphasizes the human effort in terms of trying to trap the surviving monster (including two pilots, one of whom is played by Kurosawa alum Minoru Chiaki.) There isn't a superweapon to save the day - just risky planning and a willingness to put one's life on the line to try and stop another catastrophe in the form of a radioactive dinosaur.

Godzilla Raids Again is an interesting part of the larger lore for me. On the one hand, it lacks the punch of its predecessor. On the other, it still makes a good effort to stand on its own, and marks the first expansion of the kaiju roster. It's a generally well made, eminently watchable Godzilla movie, especially if you're looking for titles from the era when the character was still seen as, literally, a walking disaster.

This also marks the last of the black and white era for Godzilla. Next time we step into the world of color, and Godzilla's first warm-blooded opponent, with the vaunted (and rumored) throwdown King Kong vs Godzilla.

Till then.

Godzilla (1954)

Well, I warned you all it was coming. If you didn't heed me before, now is the time to report to your nearest shelter.

Because October has come to the Criterion Challenge, and kaiju are coming with it!

As promised last time, from here till the end of the year, it's a deep dive into the complete Showa Era of Japan's most successful giant lizard himself - Godzilla.

So, let's begin --

This isn't my first time writing about Ishiro Honda's 1954 classic for this blog. It's not even my first time doing for October. Despite that, I'm not terribly worried about repeating myself, though I will be hitting a few familiar points in more detail.

The original Godzilla has an interesting place in my heart and in my life. It's one of those certain things - we all have them - that I come back to over the years and my experience with it is different every time.

There are two things I will say this movie has stayed consistent on for me. The first is that it has been a genuinely well made movie that still holds up for me. The other is that, for a film in which a giant lizard rampages through a city, it finds ways to genuinely unsettle me.

To give this some context - Godzilla, as a character, has been a part of my life since I was a little kid. To the point where what memories I have of my grandfather on my mother's side (who died when I was young) were watching some of the Godzilla vs movies with him. The big lizard has been a nerd gateway drug for me in a lot of ways.

I say this to make clear - I first knew the version of Godzilla that was akin to The Incredible Hulk: he's big, he's destructive, but at the end of the day, he's still on humanity's side.

So, as a kid, my first time watching this movie (in its Americanized King of the Monsters cut) was like watching Superman toss a little old lady into traffic.

I had gone in not knowing this started as a very direct take on the impact of the atomic bomb on Japan, so I was shaken by seeing this character I had come to love as a horrific force. I still liked the movie, but seeing the very human toll of destruction was genuinely upsetting to me at the time.

I would come back to the movie over the years, first through that redone version and later when the original Japanese finally became more readily available, and over time, I've been pleasantly surprised to realize it still shakes me, but for different reasons.

A big part of that comes down to how I've looked at the movie over time. As a kid, I came to the movie for Godzilla, so my attention was largely there for Godzilla (and credit where it's due, for pushing 70, the effects work still looks good in this movie.) As I've gotten older, the human face of the movie becomes more prominent.

Which is part of what makes it fascinating to watch in the larger arc of the property. A lot of the later installments in the series we'll get to are over the top, silly, and yeah, I'll say - fun.

By comparison, the first movie in this series, true to its origins as a movie made in response to the horrors of the atomic bomb, is a very somber, human story. Even the movie's main set piece - in which Godzilla rampages through Tokyo - takes a lot of time to focus on the people on the ground caught up in the destruction. As a result, moments like the news crew reporting on the rampage to their bitter end, or a terrified mother trying to reassure her children as death bears down on them give the scene more heft than it would have as just an actor in a suit tearing up a cardboard city.

That the movie commits as much to showing the destruction and aftermath on that level is part of what makes it work so well. It takes itself seriously enough that it's hard not to engage with it on its own terms, rather than just a kaiju rampage.

Alongside the destruction, there is one other part of the movie's human side I have to acknowledge my increased appreciation for. That is the depiction of the brooding, troubled Dr. Serizawa.

For much of the first two acts, the man is framed as a cypher - his major role being as the fiancé to Emiko that complicates her relationship to Ogata. His work is secretive, he is aloof, and even his appearance, complete with eyepatch, suggests a mystery. It's only in the wake of Godzilla's destruction that his secret comes - not even from himself, but from Emiko recognizing his research could be vital.

With the reveal, in which we learn of his work developing the device known as the Oxygen Destroyer, our perspective on the character changes. If Godzilla is the atomic bomb, Serizawa is the movie's answer to Oppenheimer - he didn't have a hand in the lizard's creation or rampage, but in turn, his research has birthed the one destructive force that could match or surpass him. Like his real life analogue, he's not proud of what he's created - the reason he is secretive is because he's horrified with the potential for what he's created. Even when Ogata and Emiko come to him to ask him help stop Godzilla, he is justifiably reluctant - he recognizes the good, but is also all too aware of the evil that his research could do in the wrong hands. When he ultimately does agree, he does so with the assertion that this will be the only time his device is used - a vow he guarantees in his decision to die with Godzilla.

That the movie presents Serizawa in as nuanced a light as it does is a pleasant surprise. Given how fairly fresh the memory of the atomic bombs was at that point, one could see a lesser version of this where a character in this role would be as a monster in his own right. Instead, the movie frames him much as history would come to remember him - someone who didn't set out to unleash this sort of power, and who genuinely regretted it on seeing what it could do.

It's also part of why the ending has come to resonate more for me over time. Those final scenes draw a  comparison, even a kind of kinship between Serizawa and Godzilla. Ultimately, neither set out intending to be destructive (while a stand-in for the bomb, the movie also frames Godzilla's dinosaur origin as tragic - potentially the last of his kind, out of his own time) but the fact remains, their paths have both led them to that outcome. More simply put, wo beings who, like it or not, are too dangerous to live in the world as we know it. I realize that makes it sound edgy put into text, but it's a tragic beat within the film, and the fact the movie commits to it as seriously as it does helps offset any underlying silliness the premise could otherwise have.

In a few years, this movie will turn 70 years old. It speaks to the dedication of the people involved that, even after all this time, there is a power to how it commits to its themes. This isn't to say it's all silliness from here on out, but that this can still resonate this much after all this time is something to commend this movie for.

Yeah. What can I say? I have a lot of feelings on this one.

As we're at the end of the movie with that point, it seems as fitting a place as any to wrap up the writeup. Keep an eye out, we'll be back soon with the still serious, if less grim follow up to this in Godzilla Raids Again.

Till next time.

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year...

Well, it is for me, anyway.

The Criterion Challenge may be a new idea for this year, but I still wanted to continue my custom of the past few years, dedicating October to a seasonally appropriate franchise.

Within the confines of the Criterion Collection, that limits the options.

Limits, but does not exclude.

In truth, this was something I had started this project fully intending to build to - the Godzilla Showa collection. Fifteen entries for Toho's king of the kaiju.

To anyone who's reading this and thinking "Two to three entries a month and now fifteen? You're insane!"

Well, you're right.

I'm not going to run these all this month. This is the rest of the year.

That's right, folks. I hope you weren't pinning hopes on a holiday theme, cause it's kaiju all the way down from here through December!

(Maybe next year. I've had fun with this.)

So, the big press begins, starting with Ishiro Honda's 1954 classic here real soon.

Till then.

Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982)

Welcome back. Class is still in session here at the Criterion Challenge, albeit not for much longer.

Now that we got class elections out of the way (give or take a disgraced educator), it seemed fitting to find a movie that would cover the rest of the school year.

Okay, not my sharpest transition, but deal with it, we're here to talk about Amy Heckerling's seminal high school comedy Fast Times at Ridgemont High.

This was a first for me - I knew the angle I wanted to dig into as soon as the movie was done, but it took a while to figure out how to put it.

Which is even more fitting because I wanted to focus on the movie's surprisingly sharp sense of awkwardness.

Yes, this is a good thing.

It's something I'd been kind of aware of before, but this is the first time that I really appreciated how much this movie is willing to let its teenage characters be, well, teenagers.

I'm impressed with how it's willing to have that awkwardness while also never quite feeling like a cringe comedy (and I'm a sucker for a good cringe comedy, so don't take that as a dig.) The movie is able to have an arc like Sean Penn's surfer burnout Jeff Spicoli and at the same time Jennifer Jason Leigh's Stacy Hamilton navigating dating and the significance of losing one's virginity, and the shifts never feel jarring.

Part of what helps is that it never leans too heavily to either side of that line. To use them as examples again: as goofy as Spicoli is, the wildest his stunts get is having a pizza ordered into school or having to bluff out of getting a car wrecked. Stacy, meanwhile, has moments like her less than romantic first time - in a baseball dugout (a great detail being her being distracted by the obscene graffiti on the ceiling above her) and for as weird as it gets, it never feels like the movie is trying to heap abuse on her for it.

The movie is more than Stacy and Jeff, of course. We also have the similarly young and inexperienced Mark (Brian Backer), the increasingly unlucky Brad (Judge Reinhold) and the older, presumably wiser Linda and Mike (Phoebe Cates and Robert Romanus respectively.)

If there's a word that sums up the larger arc of all of these characters, it's 'unromantic.' Not in the sense of relationships, though there is some of that as shown by scenes like the above-mentioned dugout. In this case, unromantic being with regards to the idea of a rose-tinted high school experience. It's surprising to remember two years after this would see the rise of John Hughes's teen comedies ,given how differently Heckerling tackles things by comparison.

There's something that feels more, for lack of a better term, human in the way Heckerling presents her teens. They can be messy. They can make mistakes with consequences that aren't simply written off the very next day. As cool and experienced as an older kid may be, they may not have all the answers they want you to believe they do (as the movie shows from both Linda and Mike.) They are flawed, but ultimately likable individuals in a way that it feels like many later mainstream high school comedies are reluctant to show.

To bring this full circle, the culmination of Stacy's story is one that feels strange to see in a modern mainstream high school film - after an awkward hook-up with Mike, she finds herself pregnant and in need of an abortion (that alone being a risky prospect.) The resolution of the arc isn't a big dramatic beat, but a few smaller ones - an attempt to get a ride from her older brother (Brad) which he figures out, but ultimately still supports without asking too many questions, and an act of revenge by Linda in the form of graffiti. Despite being smaller beats, they still feel like a satisfying resolution narratively and thematically.

Also, it's not part of my main point, but I do feel like
I need to give a shout out to the late, great Ray Walston
as the put-upon Mr. Hand. Another great showcasing
of that crotchety snark that he could play so very, very well.

I don't want to say 'they couldn't make this movie anymore', because that is a phrase that feels like it's been misused too often for misguided commentary on culture. At the same time, this is a movie it's hard to picture being made now because of how frank, if funny, it is about the messier sides of teenage life. I wouldn't say it can't be made, but it would definitely not be on the level of a studio release quite like this one.

Which makes me appreciate that this happened at the level it did even more.

I could take this as a moment to add my vote to the larger sentiment that we as a society never really gave Heckerling her due as a director, but that would be a whole other topic, and the fact is, I'm running out of September.

October is right around the corner, and, as I promised, I'll be doing another franchise this time out.

And at the risk of laying it on too thick, this one's gonna be a real monster.

Till then

Election (1999)

Ahhh, fall. Possibly my favorite time of year.

The days are getting cooler, the leaves are turning, and Halloween is right around the corner.

But first, it's September, and for many, including the Criterion Challenge, that means back to school.

To kick things off, we're going back to the far off (oh God, I'm old) year of 1999 with Alexander Payne's black comedy Election. A movie that touches on all the high school experiences - finding yourself, running for student government and...let me check this note again...torpedoing your career when you take out your newfound midlife crisis on the overachieving student in your class.

I'm sure that was a high school experience for some. Thankfully I dodged that bullet.

As a rule, I try not to go into these with a direct focus picked out. A broad direction sometimes, but I feel if I zero in too much, I could miss something, so I'm reluctant to pre-plan too much.

I did break that rule a bit this time. It was hard not to with the debate this movie has sparked with regards to how we're meant to see the above-mentioned overachieving Tracy Flick.

If it helps, that became a jumping off point rather than the sole topic (hence 'a bit'.) As that question kicked around, I found myself instead focusing on a throughline of the movie that I hadn't put too much thought into before - misplaced blame.

Election is a movie that is spurred forward often by grievance. It's the entire reason Jim McAllister feels the need to try and put a stop to Tracy's presidential ambitions. It's what pushes Tracy to nurse a venomous degree of hate for opponents who don't share her enmity. Finally, it's what leads to Tammy Metzler's 'burn it all down' bid for class presidency that throws even McAllister's plans into disarray.

In the interests of some semblance of order, let's start from the bottom of that list and work our way to the top.

Of the three lashing out in this movie, I feel like Tammy is the one who comes out the best, both in terms of recognizing her misplaced anger and how to address that. Yes, her grudge with Paul and Tracy is largely a consequence of her much more justified anger with her former friend/spurned romantic interest Lisa, but that also allows her to step back from it, rather than let it consume her. By the end, even though she's expelled, she is ultimately happy at her new school with the bad blood left in the past.

Tracy's issues with blame are what really got me on this path in the first place. First and foremost in this movie, Tracy Flick is a victim. This is presented to us on multiple levels - first and most abhorrent being her sexual relationship with disgraced teacher Dave Novotny. Behind him, we have her mother, Judith, who is presented as channeling her own frustrations with unfulfilled ambitions into her daughter (I let out an audible 'oof' this time around when her mother's reaction to Tracy's losing is simply "maybe you needed more posters.") Bringing up the rear, of course, is Jim McAllister, Novotny's friend who ultimately makes Tracy the target of his own anger born out of his blossoming midlife crisis (we'll get back to that.)

I mulled over numerous ways to compare the dynamic
between Tracy and Paul to Frank Grimes and Homer Simpson.
I couldn't quite make it stick, but I maintain there is
a case to be made.

Despite how clearly toxic these adults are, Tracy bears them no ill will in her narrations. She commends her mother's drive, she speaks of Novotny sympathetically and recalls their relationship fondly, and even after McAllister's efforts to sabotage her election, she looks on him with pity more than anything else. By comparison, her attitude towards Paul and Tammy is one of complete and utter scorn. She views them as unworthy of the presidency and beneath her, even though neither has done anything to slight her personally.

This watch was the first time I ever really processed how much those toxic adults have affected Tracy. Her narrations give the impression of someone still unwilling to admit they were a victim, and rather than fire back at those who did mistreat her, she takes out her anger on those she sees as beneath her instead. It's part of why, while working on this writeup, I was pleasantly surprised by the reports of Tom Perotta looking to write a follow up to the original novel where Tracy coming to terms with what happened to her is a factor.

I can't really say I see her as a hero or villain as some would contest, but I have to admit, she is a fascinating, complicated character the more I look at her.

If there's anyone I WOULD say is a hero in this movie,
it's the janitor who undoes McAllister's plan because he's
had enough of his shit.

Finally, we have Jim McAllister. Like Tracy, I was struck by how differently he read to me on this viewing. If anyone in this film could be read as a villain (besides Novotny), it's McAllister. A big part of that is just how far he slides over the course of the film. At the start, the depiction of McAllister is, decidedly, positive (taken with a grain of salt, of course - the movie is rife with unreliable narrators). He is a respected teacher, well liked by his students, and when Novotny confides in his affair, his response is one of shock and disapproval. When Novotny's subsequent disgrace is recounted, McAllister isn't immediately hostile to Tracy. It starts to creep its way in as the first signs of what the movie ultimately plays out as a mid-life crisis, not unlike the one that destroyed his former colleague. Perhaps because of that point of reference, rather than recognize what he's going through and trying to sort himself out, he instead focuses himself on Tracy and destroying her ambitions.

Unlike Tammy or Tracy, McAllister's behavior is much harder to forgive, especially because of how he's introduced. He is presented to us as a man who, for all intents and purposes, should know better - he has a good life, is well respected, and at first has a recognition of how reckless and stupid his friend is being. When it happens to him, however, he ignores that, and ultimately abuses the trusts of his students, his friends, and his wife.

The movie's epilogue further adds to why it's harder to forgive him. As everything settles, we see each of the students finding their way in life - Paul and Tammy each happy with the paths they choose, Tracy continuing to aspire higher and still begrudging those around her. McAllister, we find out, lands himself a museum job and seemingly gets his life back on track. He does see Tracy one more time, this time in the cadre of a noted politician. At first, the movie gives you the impression he's let go and moved on, until he dwells on it more, and we find out he still has some unresolved blame for her and her ambitions proceeding while his are stymied. It's a feeling that then carries into the last scene, as he once again finds himself haunted by an overeager student, reluctant to acknowledge her.

Adding a bit of a darker note -
Remembering that this was a movie made in 99, following
the Clinton scandals, this scene very clearly implies
Tracy is again being taken advantage of by someone
abusing their authority.
Which, sadly, ties well with her never quite reckoning
with what happened to her.

Whew. This was a lot.

What can I say? After taking the summer easy, this one gave me a lot to turn over, and I'm glad to be back in the swing of things.

We have one more entry left before October (where, as I promised, we're still doing a franchise dive, and oh what a dive it will be!)

Stick around for one more class next week and then we'll be on our way!

Till then

Local Hero (1983)

Ahh, the dog days of summer.

Enjoying the last of the wind down before September, then it's back to the grind.

I suppose The Criterion Challenge counts as part of that, huh?

Well, I've still got one more day of vacation left. So after Hausu, I decided the best way to end this month was Bill Forsyth's funny, charming 1983 comedy, Local Hero.

 

 
This time last month, I wouldn't have thought I'd spend this much time comparing this movie and Hausu. As I tried to explore this as a vacation movie, however, it was hard not to.

It's not as though these are especially similar in terms of set-up or style. In fact, even as experiences, they're vastly different - where Hausu is like a funhouse ride, Local Hero is more like a warm bath or a comfortable sweater. Despite that, much of what I find appealing in this is similar to what appealed to me last time.

Like Hausu, I'm hard pressed to think of many other movies I'd say quite hit me the way Local Hero does. There's movies that get parts of it right, but something about the way it all comes together makes this one unique for me.

I know I've said it before, but over the past year, my view of movies has shifted from 'this could have been better with' and more to 'this could have gone *, and I'm glad it didn't.'

I can see a lot of the ways a more generic take on this could have played out - how Peter Riegert's Mac could have been the cocky big city fast talker (with shades of his earlier role in Animal House). How Burt Lancaster's Happer could have been the cold-blooded dollars and cents boss. How Denis Lawson's Gordon could have been the more 'pure' country figure to counter Mac and refuse to sell out his home town.

All familiar tropes. None of which Forsyth settles for.

Instead, Riegert is a man out of his element, able to local down a deal easily by telex, but much less certain having to close the deal in person. Happer is working to advance his company, but his heart is more in his dreams of the stars. Gordon is very willing to cash out, as are most of the other locals, and they are happy to welcome Mac to help close the deal. That Mac is then charmed by their small town happens inadvertently as a result of their efforts to help sweeten the deal.

I also can't not give a shout out to a young Peter Capaldi
as well. For someone who first encountered the man as
the surly, foul-mouthed Malcolm Tucker on The Thick of It,
his turn in this was an awkwardly pleasant surprise.

On paper, Local Hero has a lot of familiar elements of the 'city v country' fish out of water comedy. It plays a few straight, but for every one of those, there are one or more it subverts or takes for a fresh spin. There is no heavy dramatic baggage, no overtly villainous presence, or moments of severe stakes. It's a very relaxed, funny movie where the big mystery is how everything will play out while still seeing everyone's desires fulfilled. We come to like these people and, despite their clashing goals, want to see everything work out for all involved.

This really is the perfect movie to close out the summer with. It's light, but involving, warm, funny, visually striking for the local scenery. Even the final scene, with Mac back in the states feeling a sort of melancholy for the Scottish village that became home for him is a feeling that seems appropriate as one unwinds from their vacation and prepares to return to daily life.

Even if you're reading this in early September, I'd recommend giving this one a watch as the temperatures start to cool and the leaves change. After how hectic this month has been, it's a downright therapeutic 110 minutes.

Of course, with September around the corner, the challenge rolls on and it's time for this writer to get ready for something he hasn't had to do in quite some time - go back to school.

Come back next month for a few trips into cinematic academia as we ramp up for October.

And oooh, that's gonna be a doozy.

Till then.

Hausu (1977)

 Hello and welcome back to another round of the Criterion Challenge.

And let me start by saying - oof.

It's been a rough summer here. Technical issues. The heat. The weirdly dark turn last month's entries took.

Oh, and just about the entirety of the world at large right now. But, that's a talk for another time.

As we come into the dog days of summer, I decided there was only one way to end this summer - vacations! So, for the next couple of entries, we'll be looking at films about packing up and getting away from it all.

So what better place to start this trip than one of the most batshit haunted houses in cinema?

This isn't my first time seeing, or writing about, Nobuhiko Obayashi's cult classic Hausu (officially House, but the other pronunciation has been adopted to help avoid confusion with the 1986 haunted house movie with the same name.) At first, I wasn't sure what would be a good new perspective here.

Then it hit me - lean in to the vacation. Yes, this is a movie about a group of schoolgirls who take a fateful trip to a friend's aunt's haunted house. But it's also a movie that is its own miniature ninety-minute vacation.

This is a refreshing movie to watch for how weird it is, and how unapologetic it is about that, from start to finish.  This is a movie where, among other things - someone is eaten by a piano, people are turned into produce on multiple occasions, and someone is killed by being attacked by futons.

No, I don't feel bad about telling you this up front, because reading it is one thing, seeing it is something else.

For Hausu, it's all in seeing the weirdness unfold. It sounds pretentious to say, but this really is an experience. There's a lot of great haunted house movies out there (I can't recommend the likes of The Innocents and The Changeling enough come October) but I'd be hard pressed to think of another quite like Hausu.

A large part of this is thanks to Obayashi's direction. From the start, this was going to be a wild, imaginative movie, thanks to his decision to make his creative partner his young daughter Chigumi. That helped give the movie a lot of its more imaginative touches (Obayashi has been quoted as saying he felt like adult thoughts would cause the film to stay "on a boring, human level.")

From there, Obayashi's direction adds to the stylish strangeness. Between the animated tangents, the stop-motion style of some scenes, and the musical numbers (did I forget to mention this movie is also kind of a musical?) Obayashi keeps the movie lively. Even at the one serious beat, exploring protagonist Gorgeous's aunt's tragic backstory, is presented in a visually striking way that keeps it from snapping the tone in a way it can't recover from.

Seriously. Did I forget to mention the musical thing?

Cause it sort of goes there. This little dance number also
involves a cat.

I admit I haven't seen much of Obayashi's other work (though having seen his earlier short, Emotion, I can definitely see that his bold directorial streak wasn't an isolated aspect) but this has me wanting to see more. There's a lot of great haunted house movies out there, but not many (if any) others like this - it's a movie that captures the feel of being a kid on a well made haunted house ride. Once you're on, it's a blast from start to finish.

To pivot on this theme - it's a movie about a vacation that also doubles as a short trip all on its own.

Ahhh. I needed this.

One more trip to come this month before it's time to be moving on with fall, and coming into the big project for year one.

But that can come later. For now, still on vacation and enjoying it.

Till next time.