Perfect Blue (1997)

Perfect Blue (1997)

Dir. Satoshi Kon

PB explores the true cost of success for twenty-one-year-old Mima Kirigoe as she makes the difficult transition from beloved Japanese idol status to impressionable TV drama actress.

Eager to please, when the fiction in Mima's head overlaps with the fiction on the film set, shit gets real, with the kind of meaningful editing that Alfred Hitchcock might applaud, if he was alive.

Perfect Blue is director Satoshi Kon's début full-length movie, but it flows like it was his fourth or fifth. It's both a careful study of splintering, crumbling reality and a skilful exercise in artifice.

The result is a genre classic that's chilling, creepy, and can be uncomfortable viewing at times, but is highly recommended to fans of anime with bite.

Tactical Unit: The TV Movies (2008-09)

Tactical Unit: The TV Movies (2008-09)

Dirs. Various (see below)

Note: Five TV Movies that followed Johnnie To's PTU (2003). You don't need to have seen PTU in order to follow the story of each TU movie, but it might be helpful and it's such a good film that I feel compelled to encourage a viewing, anyhow.

Tactical Unit TV Movies in the order released:

01. In Tactical Unit: The Code (2008), directed by Wing-Cheong Law, three members of the PTU are captured on CCTV while beating up a civilian (i.e., crook), but the picture is grainy and their faces aren't clear. While an internal division that deals with corrupt cops tries to uncover the truth, the guilty trio hunt for the one man who can identify them: the man that they left bleeding in an alley. Ultimately, it's a race against time for both parties.

Star Trek: Picard - Season One (2020)

Star Trek: Picard - Season One (2020)

10 episodes, approx 44-55 minutes each.

Firstly, the important date stuff: it's set in the year 2399, which is twenty years after the tragic loss in ST: Nemesis (2002). We're told that Admiral Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) has been retired from Starfleet for fourteen of those years. No longer trotting through the stars on impressive starships, he resides now at Chateau Picard, overseeing the family business. [1]

Visually, it's modern sci-fi, which means it's darkly lit, has glary lens flare (real and CGI), and periodically weighs every happy moment down with a semi-dystopian undertone. As someone who loves the bright, futuristic, optimistic look of The Next Generation era of Star Trek, it's an affront to my eyes on almost every level. Even so, I watched all 10 episodes, because there was room in my life for more Picard adventuring.

Blood into Wine (2010)

Blood into Wine (2010)

Dirs. Ryan Page + Christopher Pomerenke

A documentary about wine making, specifically the Caduceus brand wine produced by Maynard James Keenan and Eric Glomski on a vineyard in Arizona, of all places. I don't like wine, but I do like documentaries, so I gave it a try and enjoyed the majority of it.

Glomski's knowledge of geology and cultivation was thoroughly engaging, as were his feelings about our relationship with the natural world.

Maynard James Keenan, for those that don't recognise the name, is a singer / songwriter, most notably of Tool and A Perfect Circle. His contribution is equally as interesting, structured as a kind of creative journey with some deeply personal interludes. Not one for media-whoring, he doesn't succumb to ego, and doesn't come across as a typical 'Rock Star' asshole. [1]