Trancers II: The Return of Jack Deth (1991):

Trancers II: The Return of Jack Deth (1991):

“6 years after a time cop returns home from battling future alien zombies, his settled life is turned upside down when a mad scientists creates more.”

Dr. Wardo is creating more “trancers”. (Psychically-controlled alien drug zombies.) Trancers is basically Blade Runner with zombie movie twist. Jack Deth returns to the 20th century investigating why trancers still exist after his first mission. (See here.) He discovers that his wife is alive, but she'll die when they go back to the 23rd century.

Meanwhile, he's living in the 1990s as a married man already, to make things more complicated. They explain again that some technology from the 23rd century allows for stuff to be time-travelled through as long as you've got ancestors “down the line”. In his case, Jack Deth befriended an old drunk baseball player, his ancestor, Hap Ashby. Deth's former police chief inhabits the body of a 15-year-old girl.

They find out that Dr. Wardo is brainwashing mental patients, and addicting them to a futuristic drug, SKROB78. Wardo is building a “trancer farm” just like Whistler, from the first mission. He does it with the help of the Green World cult, and hypnosis. All the while, Jack must save the people, take out Wardo, and possibly his own future wife. There's a good mix of comedy, horror, and action here for a B-Movie. I say check it out!

Gunpowder Milkshake (2021):

GUNPOWDER MILKSHAKE (2021):

"To protect an 8-year-old girl, a dangerous assassin reunites with her mother and her lethal associates to take down a ruthless crime syndicate and its army of henchmen."

If I had 3 words to describe Gunpowder Milkshake, they'd be "cute John Wick". It has good gun scenes, and the noir aesthetic is good, but the whole atmosphere clashes with a sort of strange cutesy vibe in the clothes, music, and style. I get that it's supposed to be funny; and it is! But, it's like...is she the best assassin, or isn't she? Maybe every assassin just says they're the best.

Anyway, fun watch if you can turn your brain off, accept that they just let their best assassin go completely rogue, and some kawaii stuff. It really is "cute John Wick". Watch it with some snacks, if you've got the time.

Wizards (1977):

Wizards (1977):

"On a post-apocalyptic Earth, a wizard and his faire folk comrades fight an evil wizard who's using technology in his bid for conquest."

Wizards is pretty weird. An evil wizard fights against hippie elves after he discovers Nazi film propaganda. A silent bounty hunter! Trippy visuals by Ralph Bakshi. It satirizes war, religion, and technology. Check it out.

Dreamscape (1984):

Dreamscape (1984):

"A young psychic on the run from himself is recruited by a government agency experimenting with the use of the dream-sharing technology and is given the inverse task of planting an idea into the mind of the U.S. president."

So, a lot going on in this movie. Allegedly, the dream tech is to help mental patients. But, in this movie we see: nightmares of a boy haunted by a lizard man, a cuckolded husband's dream, and of course dream assassins trying to kill the President. Not the best movie, but a weird one. Check it out. It's more like a general idea of a movie that someone just slapped together.

Heavy Metal (1981)

Heavy Metal (1981):

"A glowing green orb - which embodies ultimate evil - terrorizes a young girl with an anthology of bizarre and fantastic stories of dark fantasy, eroticism and horror."

A series of loosely related sci-fi stories holds together this weird animated film. My favorite is the story of the cab driver. Worth it for the animation alone. If one story doesn't grab you, another will. Watch it any way you can.

Ghost in The Shell (1995):

Ghost in The Shell (1995):

Ghost in The Shell is about a cyborg spy woman (Major Makoto Kusanagi) working for the intelligence agency Section 9 to track down The Puppetmaster who hacks into people’s brains making them commit terrorist actions they can’t remember through their “ghosts” or computer brains. While it is uniquely 90s in its presentation of tech, with wires and virtual realities galore, its philosophy is both uniquely Japanese, and timeless. In the first scene we see The Major taking down some terrorist separatists negotiating with the gov’t. She guns them down and jumps out the window naked, before disappearing. This establishes her as a badass.

Every action scene is really well done. When she’s tracking down the Puppetmaster she has to jump from a truck to tracking down the puppet masters victims by foot and using martial arts, again while naked and invisible. It would be easy to dismiss Ghost in the Shell as eroge were not the rest of the story so good. Every intense action scene is followed by philosophy.

Typically, in the West we have the theme of Man vs. Machine, and we have the idea that punks are lowlifes, bad people. Ghost in the Shell purposes that man and machine are inseparable, that they improve each other. Kusanagi wonders aloud throughout the movie if she was ever human, and what that would mean, while drinking beer, and smoking. Which is typically not what we see in the West. Her vices humanize her, even if she is a machine.

After discovering that The Puppetmaster was designed by another intelligence team (Section 6) she meets with the Puppetmaster who blows up the place and announces that he is a living AI named Kaze. Think of a living internet. Kusanagi followed Kaze to the Kyoto docks, but is ambushed by a Section 6 spider tank with machine guns. She is able to hold her own for a while, but is torn apart by the tank. During this time, Kaze suggests that they merge into one new digital body. Kusanagi’s partner Batou destroys the tank, and Section 6 stands down, since the Puppetmaster has been subdued/vanished. He has merged into a new body with The Major.

Overall, I think the original Ghost in The Shell is a classic. Easily 8/10. Great fight scenes, great art, serious subjects…my only complaint about the original is that with all the heavy philosophy some scenes do drag. Particularly, after the great action scenes. But, it is nice to see the movie say something beyond Man vs. Machine. That mankind would exist with machines. The answer to The Major’s question seems to be in my opinion that it wouldn’t matter who she was before she was a cyborg. She drinks, and smokes, and kills just like humans. Most humans don’t really live anyway.

It’s never really answered, but the fact that she merges into a new body plays into this idea, as well as Buddhist ideas of reincarnation and impermanence, which I think are really Japanese. It’s just a shame that each series after the classic movie has diminishing returns, and only looks more dated each time. The Netflix 2020 series is very action heavy, but still good if you like seeing The Major and Section 9 in action. Then, there’s the series which has tiny talking spider tanks, as sort of comic relief. The Scarlett Johansson Hollywood movie, while good on action, both completely avoids philosophy and answers the question if she was ever human. It’s all very silly.

In conclusion, the original Ghost in the Shell is a classic which takes time to appreciate and savor its plot. Its message is as timely as ever. Technology is here. It’s not good or evil. It’s part of us. Who hasn’t zoned out in front of a computer? But, who’s to say that life would be any different without it? In the end, it’s up to us and what we do with it.

Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus (2006)

Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus (2006):

Strange movie based on the imaginary life of a photographer who photographed circus freaks. In this version, her husband is the photographer. Eventually she meets a circus freak neighbor (man with werewolf syndrome.) and they begin a romance, and it encourages her to start exploring her body, desires, and the human form.

Pre-Iron Man RDJ does a great job as the neighbor with werewolf syndrome. Unfortunately, the DVD cover gives away a huge spoiler. In any case, it's a great quirky film with a lot of dark tension and heavy romance themes. I've never quite seen anything else like it.

Kafka (1991)

Kafka (1991):

"Kafka is a 1991 French-American mystery thriller film directed by Steven Soderbergh. Ostensibly a biopic, based on the life of Franz Kafka, the film blurs the lines between fact and Kafka's fiction (most notably The Castle and The Trial), creating a Kafkaesque atmosphere."

Here is a strange film. It's about Franz Kafka working as an insurance salesman and trying to write his uncanny stories. While it presents itself as a biography, he soon finds himself pursued by anarchists, a zombie, devious cops, and even a mad scientist.

Kafka finds that his regular office life is now subject to the uncanny horror he writes about, including being summoned to The Castle. While it does take some liberties with Kafka himself, what this film does is essentially put Kafka himself, in the role of his stories' main characters and mixes them with a monster movie. Jeremy Irons plays a good Franz Kafka. Definitely a weird film. Check it out.

Trancers (1984 -)

Trancers (1984):

"A trooper (Tim Thomerson) leaves 2247 Angel City for 1985 Los Angeles to stop a zombie mystic (Michael Stefani) out to change history."

A good cheesy sci-fi series that's something like Blade Runner meets Quantum Leap. Pure B-Movie fun as Jack Deth tries to adapt to the 80s, and solve his case. Won't stop using weird slang. Part of the comedy is the modern people being oblivious to zombies a.k.a. "squids". Each movie has diminishing returns however.

Trancers 1-3 are good. The rest just feel like standard sword-and-shield fantasy, like someone mixed up two scripts. Pretty weird sci-fi concepts executed as action-comedy. These are all available on Tubi. Take a look!