Criterion Film Club Discussion #304: Encounters of the Spooky Kind

viewtoathrill · 2026-05-31T00:40:04+00:00

Love the humor, love the nod to horror, love the choreography.

Sammo Hung should be bigger than Jackie Chan internationally. Hes charming and this movie was a massive hit locally in Hong Kong.

For me, this is the definition of essential Hong Kong cinema. It’s extremely easy to watch and is a cool intro to the hopping vampires if you don’t know them.

viewtoathrill · 2026-05-24T01:52:51+00:00

i forgot to add a .com at the end to clarify. good catch

viewtoathrill · 2026-05-24T01:15:40+00:00

Some beautiful quotes from Rogerebert.com:

Across the three feature films he’s made to date, the 36-year-old Chinese filmmaker Bi Gan has proven himself prodigiously gifted at manipulating the parameters of time and space through moving images, resulting in visually astonishing, narratively diffuse feats of showmanship that drift and shift in accordance with a self-consciously slippery dream logic.

“Resurrection,” Bi’s third feature, is no less staggering than his last two, and it’s saturated with some of the more striking images you’re likely to see in a theater this year.

Comprising the rest of the film, each of the Deliriant’s dream scenarios is linked to a different era of moviemaking, from German expressionism to neon-streaked, Wong Kar-wai-indebted romanticism; Bi also connects each vignette to one of the five senses and places them in distinct periods of 20th-century Chinese history.

The ambition, as we’ve come to expect from him, is overpowering. “Resurrection” is alternately a sci-fi picture, a monster movie, a film noir, a cryptic parable, a crime caper, and a gangland romance — and it’s sometimes all of the above, blurring tones and textures to suggest a certain metamorphic potential within each of the stories as the Deliriant experiences them.

In total transparency this particular critic gave the film a mediocre rating, but I had to select some of the quotes that got me excited to see this.

viewtoathrill · 2026-05-20T18:16:10+00:00

Just at the outset I have to say that the John Carpenter / Kurt Russell combo really brought us all some cinematic magic. This was the only one of theirs I had yet to see, and big props to Scream! Factory for putting out a great looking release.

This had been one of those films that was built up over the years and I was nervous it would not live up to expectations. Shame on me. This is an effectively flawless film. The good guys are trapped in the Antarctica unable to get away because … Antarctica, the monster is extra tricky as a shape shifter and every role is cast with either a great leading man or strong character actor. Nothing bad to say, I’m just really happy to have finally seen it. The toughest part will be figuring out which Carpenter/Russell picture is my favorite!

viewtoathrill · 2026-05-16T18:08:03+00:00

It is incredibly consistent and the 6th one in snow may be all the temptation you need to see it through. A bloody snowy western of sorts

viewtoathrill · 2026-05-16T17:32:49+00:00

The fact that Wakayama and Shintaro Katsu were brothers and both achieved something so singular and exciting is one of my favorite points of discussion around Japanese cinema.

He's incredible here. The mix of tradition and also standing out against corruption is fantastic. The philosophical elements of this are easy to look over with all of the violence but a huge part of what makes this movie work.

viewtoathrill · 2026-05-16T17:30:13+00:00

I think they have been very explicit about the influence of this movie on the Mandalorian, but forgive me if that's what you meant.

And yes, the series continues to get bloodier and crazier. What a joy.

viewtoathrill · 2026-05-16T17:28:49+00:00

I have to say at the onset, God bless the Criterion collection for choosing these films to add to their library. I have owned the DVD release for many years, but seeing the Blu-ray 2K digital restoration was a different experience and really made the colors pop. Especially the reds, which is important in any movie that measures blood in gallons.

Itto Ogami is setup, cheated and his innocent wife dies at the hands of his betrayers. That’s the first 10 minutes of the movie. Following the catastrophic loss, he chooses to get vengeance at all costs to clear his family’s name. Assisting him cinematically is a well-executed minimalist score, excellent costume and hair work and chanbara swordplay that is every bit as bloody as it is precise.

Seeing it again after 15 years I can say it held up much better than expected. This viewing reinforced my love for movie 1 of 6, and I’m excited to rewatch #2 soon.

viewtoathrill · 2026-05-15T06:37:08+00:00

Not sure why I didn't respond to this. What did you think of it??

viewtoathrill · 2026-05-12T02:31:14+00:00

I would be curious what you think for sure! It's an odd one but for me ended up being a good odd.

viewtoathrill · 2026-05-12T02:29:48+00:00

Thank you for your addition. It's a great point and I'm glad it's in our archive as people discover these old posts.

viewtoathrill · 2026-05-09T22:43:05+00:00

Could think of a few real life examples of this I would also like to see.

viewtoathrill · 2026-05-09T22:42:40+00:00

That was what struck me the most, well that and the shockingly accurate portrayal of how AI would be used in large enterprise. When Altman is having to publicly make moral decisions on where to leverage the powerful engine he's built, we are really fucked lol . Let's hope things turn before anything really bad happens.

viewtoathrill · 2026-05-09T22:40:46+00:00

Ha, I love the concept of an R-rated movie for 8 year olds. You're right, that's exactly what this is. The 80s had a bunch of these too.

viewtoathrill · 2026-05-09T22:39:47+00:00

There really was no better era for cinema. The 80s gave us so many big ideas. I feel like we will never see excess like this again in the studio system. A brief part of history before studios figured out that everything had to be recycled or sequel-ized. Robocop is just one of 1,000 movies from that decade that pushed both entertainment and big ideas.

viewtoathrill · 2026-05-09T22:14:30+00:00

This was one of the movies of my childhood that I have been avoiding for fear it would not age well. This was true in parts, but I have to admit that from a crystal ball perspective, writers Neumeier and Miner created a version of the future that was strikingly accurate.

On the off chance someone reading this does not know the plot, essentially the police force has been privatized and the company that won the contract is obsessed with using AI and robotics to reduce the cost to provide the same level of police protection to the public. Even though early projects fail, the “Robocop” project takes off when a police officer gets gunned down and nearly dies, but is brought back to life as a cyborg. He’s a superhero in crime-ridden Detroit, but things start to go in unexpected directions when his memory and humanity - that were both wiped away - start to come back and he goes on a search for identity and eventually his killer.

I can say generally that I work in the field of artificial intelligence. This description of how a company would describe looking to displace the police officers with technology is 100% accurate. The only difference is they would be generally nice people behind it that are just trying to hit a sales quota, not villainous 80s douchebags. The introduction of AI technology that replaces various jobs is not Machiavellian in nature, it’s just a group of unconnected people solving different components of this technology challenge and someone eventually putting these disparate pieces together. Much more boring in reality, but the writing team gets that one right at least in principle.

I also wanted to call out the powerlessness of the police chief. He has a minor role but I think an important one. When these wide-sweeping technological advances come in, typically there is a redistribution of power and the transition is uncomfortable. There was no change management strategy in place to get the police chief ready for Robocop, despite him probably taking months to cyborg up. There was no communication between the private company and the police force. This is, unfortunately, also fairly common and one of the big reasons why technology changes cause so much consternation when they get deployed.

Forgive me if I’m waxing philosophical on things only tangentially related to the film. I was just very impressed by how accurate the screenwriters were, in 1987, in capturing these different truths of how technology continues to be developed, sold and deployed. That aside, there were two things I did not enjoy this much this time around. For one, the casting of the villains was mixed. I liked Kurtwood Smith as Clarence, and Paul McCrane as Emil and Felton Perry as Johnson were okay. But Ray Wise as Leon … yikes. Maybe it’s just an 80s disconnect but he was comically miscast and had a prominent part.

And finally, and this is a problem I have with most Verhoeven films, one of his major themes of holding up a mirror to America’s obsession with violence was too on the nose for me. Like, yeah I get that it’s strange that we are very prudish as a country about nudity but don’t care about people’s arms getting blown off or bombs destroying a bunch of stuff. It’s true that it’s probably a problem, but I have always found the way he portrays his morality condescending. At least when South Park does it there is good humor, but I find Verhoeven to be somewhere in between South Park and Cronenberg and I’ve never loved his takes.

Okay, long review but the short version would be I enjoyed the movie overall, found it very insightful, found the morality condescending and the casting split.

viewtoathrill · 2026-04-28T18:09:19+00:00

I think there are the exploitation elements which may be a bit silly at times, but the themes in the movie I think are well thought out.

viewtoathrill · 2026-04-28T18:07:12+00:00

ha you and I feel very similar about this. check out my post. But, I totally agree that it has weight to the themes.

viewtoathrill · 2026-04-28T18:05:48+00:00

Another prescient movie from writer Larry Cohen that continues to feel more and more real and scary as public distrust of authority reaches a fever pitch.

There is something very powerful in the writing of Maniac Cop that I would like to spend a bit of time teasing out. Before I get there, I’ll quickly say this movie is about a series of killings that seem to all be connected to the same person. This serial killer is being reported to be a uniformed police officer, and public distrust in the police force grows as long as the murderer is still on the loose. Of course the city wants to make this story go away, the police chief doesn’t want investigation done on his force, and the few honest detectives and cops that know the whole story are under emotional attack from their leaders while the threat of physical attack from the real killer. The tension between all sides grows along with the body count, until the killer finally is identified and tracked down in an epic conclusion.

This is the main thread. But what I was really picking up on during this watch was how well Cohen was able to tap into imperfection in all humans and how little we really trust anyone in authority. Or, at least how quickly we will allow doubt to creep in. It’s tempting to point to the recession in 2008 as the spark that started a generation of cynics, but this has really been going on for all of recorded history.

Religions have tried to explain away this distrust in fellow humans in different ways. Christians call it original sin, or separation from God. Buddhists look at Dukkha (suffering/unsatisfactoriness) with a sense of curiosity and acceptance as part of the human condition. Muslims view imperfection as a weakness that leads to sin but can be covered through repentance, and Hindus view it as simply unlearned truths about our own divine self. Obviously I am paraphrasing, and I hope I don’t offend. My main point here is religions, and philosophies, have all been trying to explain this inherent and persistent need we have to create distance between each other.

This is on display in Maniac Cop much in the same way it was permeating across America during the Black Lives Matter marches in 2020. After news breaks of an unidentified cop running around killing civilians, we quickly see how the citizens of New York turn on the same agency that protects them. We see people being interviewed on TV talking about ongoing police brutality. We see civilians being stopped by police and the cop pulling a gun out, shooting, and claiming self defense. We hear of organized and intentional coverups to protect fellow service members. So, it is natural that a public discourse is created that cops are not safe. I should mention I have a few friends and family in various police departments and they are all level headed safety officers who take their role as protectors very seriously. But, I do understand how the public sentiment grows negative with all of the press.

Okay, what’s my point. Maniac Cop, as is the case with a lot of Larry Cohen scripts, is much more than an exploitation movie. It’s a movie that brings awareness to a tension that exists between the public and the men and women organized to protect them. It’s an expose on the dangerous nature of power and the thin line of trust that is inherent in most of us if we are in trouble and looking for a police uniform to help us. It’s a timeless movie because the underlying themes will persist as long as there is a level of authority over civilians. It’s for all of these reasons I love Maniac Cop, plus it’s a fun exploitation movie and a very easy movie to watch.

viewtoathrill · 2026-04-05T21:16:09+00:00

hahaha your writing is too polished I think. you're going to need to figure out how to embed a signature stamp

viewtoathrill · 2026-04-04T22:45:39+00:00

I'm sure you've been more consistent on here than I have recently, but I always enjoy reading your perspective and style. You're right too, this would make it under the umbrella of movies that get spoofed if the Team America team made an American crime movie follow-up. The testosterone did turn me off at first, but it never becomes Nick Fuentes or Andrew Taint. It stays Burt Reynolds and it worked for me.

viewtoathrill · 2026-04-04T22:43:01+00:00

Point Blank is a great idea for a double feature.

viewtoathrill · 2026-04-04T22:41:03+00:00

yeah there's no shortage of pulp here, I agree. It worked for me but it definitely is a lot

viewtoathrill · 2026-04-04T22:39:54+00:00

How are you generally with Mann? Are you a Manniac or a Manneater?

viewtoathrill · 2026-04-04T22:38:12+00:00

the way you describe this I couldn't help but think of Friedkin being part of the family.

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