The Girl Who Leapt Through Time (4 Stars)

This film is the fourth adaptation of the 1967 novel by Yasutaka Tsutsui with the same name. The films were made in 1983, 1997, 2006 and 2010. There was also a TV series in 1972. With all this interest in the story, I'm surprised it's never been filmed in other countries.

The film begins in 2010. Kazuko Yoshiyama is a university professor who has developed a means of time travel. She has a car accident, and she thinks she might not recover. She asks her daughter Akari to travel back to her school science lab in 1972 and give a message to Kazuo, her first lover. She says that Kazuo was waiting for her. Unfortunately, Akari travels to 1974 and can't find Kazuo. There's no record of him ever being in the school. Akari meets her mother and shows her a photo of Kazuo, but she doesn't recognise him. Akari says she'll remain in the past until she solves the mystery.

This is a slow-moving story. It's a love story. Akari meets a boy in her mother's school and falls in love with him. There are a lot of interwoven plots and subplots. It's a film that's worth watching a second time.

Marty Supreme (3 Stars)

I've been hearing about this film for weeks. It's received nine nominations for the Academy Awards, including best film. One of my friends has told me it's his favourite film of the year so far. So I expected to enjoy it today. I wanted to enjoy it. But I didn't.

It's difficult to say why I don't like a film without giving away spoilers, but I think I can do it with "Marty Supreme". The main reason that I don't like the film is because I find the character Marty unpleasant. He lies, cheats and steals to get what he wants. He's conceited. He's not someone I can cheer on. He's not someone I'd want as a friend.

A second reason is that he has no noticeable character arc, not even in his table tennis skills. He starts the film as the best, and he ends at the best. That's all I can say about him.

The critics disagree. They see something in the film that I don't. I don't want to put my readers off. Maybe you'll enjoy it more than me.

Mondays (4 Stars)

Wow! Does everyone in Japan work so hard? Akemi works in a small advertising agency, in a single room with five colleagues and their boss. They don't go home in the evening. They sleep on the floor or slump over their desk.

Akemi wakes up at 9:17 on Monday morning. She's surrounded by her sleeping colleagues. Gradually they wake up. Then she's approached by two of her colleagues who tell her that they're stuck in a time loop. She doesn't believe them, but they try to convince her by predicting what will happen next. The whole week passes, a day at a time. Until next Monday when she wakes up at 9:17 again, and her colleagues tell her they're stuck in a time loop. Now she believes them, and they try to persuade their other colleagues one by one. They also speculate what's causing the time loop.

This is a very low key film. There's not much action, just a lot of repetition. How often is the week repeated? Late in the film we're told it's been 70 times by the secretary, the only person who noticed the loop immediately. We don't see that many repetitions, and I wasn't counting.

I'm a sucker for time loop films. I love them. I need to watch it again, if I can find the time among all the new films on my watch list. Maybe if I get into a time loop I can watch more films.

Scream 7 (4 Stars)

A new Scream film! I couldn't wait. I had to go see it on the first day.

The cinema was less than a quarter full. I expected more people. I'd read that based on advance ticket sales "Scream 7" will probably the most successful film in the series so far. Does it deserve such success? That's a difficult question to answer. It's a good film, but I wouldn't rate it as highly as the first three films.

I'll only give two spoilers:

1. There's no after-credits scene.

2. There's a mid-credits scene with bloopers.

Dust Bunny (3 Stars)

Aurora is a 10-year-old girl who lives in an apartment in Manhattan with her foster parents. One night she discovers a monster under her bed. Her parents don't believe her – parents never do – so she sleeps outside her window on the fire escape to avoid the monster. The next day her parents are eaten by the monster, leaving her alone. She's witnessed her neighbour (an unnamed man played by Mads Mikkelsen) killing a dragon, so she asks him to kill the monster. Unfortunately, she's misunderstood what she saw. He actually killed a man wearing a dragon costume in Chinatown. The neighbour is a secret agent at war with enemy agents. He doesn't believe in monsters, but he agrees to help Aurora, even though it brings her into contact with the enemies attacking him.

There are many things about the film that I don't like, but I'll just name one problem: even though Aurora knows there's a monster under the bed, she returns home to sleep in her bed every night. That's totally illogical.

I don't intend to buy the film, but I'll give it another chance when it's available on streaming.

The Fantastic Magic Baby (3 Stars)

"The Fantastic Magic Baby" is one of the strangest entries in the famed Shaw Brothers catalogue; rather than the hard-hitting kung fu epics the studio is known for, it plays like a filmed Peking Opera adaptation of a chapter from Journey to the West, focusing on the impish Red Boy (aka the Fantastic Magic Baby) and his clashes with the Monkey King and the celestial pantheon.

Visually and stylistically, the film is a vivid feast of opera-inspired choreography, flamboyant costumes and painted-backdrop stagecraft, with fights unfolding more like acrobatic dance numbers than conventional fight scenes; this gives the film a theatrical energy that is incredibly distinctive but can also feel disorienting or slow to viewers expecting standard martial arts spectacle.

The narrative itself is skeletal: there’s a simple arc about rescuing the monk Tripitaka and guiding Red Boy toward righteousness, but most of the enjoyment comes from the sheer performative flair. For some, that makes it a mesmerising oddity; for others it drifts toward the baffling.

In short, it’s less a traditional martial arts film and more a vibrant, theatrical curiosity; worth watching for fans of Hong Kong cinema and anyone curious about the fusion of opera and wuxia, but likely not representative of Shaw Brothers' typical action fare.

Lost Highway (5 Stars)

Finally I'm watching my favourite film again. It's a masterpiece. Maybe I shouldn't say finally, because I watched it twice last year. It's a film I could watch every day, or maybe only once a week, because it's overpowering and I need time to recover.

It's a film that I'd like to watch with friends who appreciate it as much as I do. It's a film I'd like to discuss with friends, preferably over a beer. Tonight I was sitting alone, during and after the film, so I tried something new. I started a discussion with ChatGPT. First I asked what the film meant, and I was glad that ChatGPT gave the time loop interpretation, not the fantasy interpretation that Fred Madison invented everything while he was in his prison cell. The latter interpretation was popular for years, until David Lynch came out and said it was wrong. That's probably why ChatGPT sticks to the time loop theory.

Our discussion revolved around two questions:

1. Who is the executioner?

2. Did Fred Madison really kill his wife?

A couple of times I contradicted ChatGPT, saying "That isn't true, because..." and I always got insightful replies. Either ChatGPT said "Yes it is", giving arguments to back up its position, or it agreed with me.

This was clearest in the case of Fred Madison killing his wife. ChatGPT said a few times that Fred was a murderer, but when I said "I don't think Fred really killed his wife", it backed down and said "There are a lot of arguments in favour of your position". After the alleged murder the body is never shown on screen. More to the point, at the end of the film Fred finds his wife in the hotel having sex with Dick Laurent. The only other explanation for this is that in the time loop the final scenes of the film might have happened before the murder. Maybe. That doesn't add up, because Andy is alive before the murder, but he's dead at the end of the film.

The executioner must be Fred. He kills Dick Laurent in cold blood. Dick Laurent was guilty of killing people in snuff films, so he was condemned to death. Where was he sent to wait for his execution? Into the time loop. Where was the executioner? Fred was hiding in Pete Dayton's body.

The main argument against Fred being the executioner is that he dies at the end of the film. Or does he? The final scene takes place outside of the time loop, where anything is possible. In the opening scenes, when Dick Laurent's death is announced, we hear the police cars chasing Fred; but Fred is still in his apartment.

Interestingly, ChatGPT tried to smooth over all our disagreements by saying David Lynch is painting a surreal picture which can't be fully explained; it doesn't matter if Fred killed his wife or not.

A friend of mine – if you're reading this you know who you are – said to me that David Lynch makes films which only he can understand. That's not a viewpoint I like. I prefer ChatGPT's surreal picture explanation.

I'd still prefer to discuss the film with a person. Preferably in person, but if anyone wants to leave comments on this post I'll answer him.

Success Rate:  - 3.9

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