Five Cool Things and R.E.M. Reuniting

Welcome once again to Five Cool Things where I talk about all the fun, interesting, and yes, cool things I’ve discovered over the last two weeks. In a world full of chaos and awfulness, I hope these things can give you a slight reprieve. I know they did for me.

Porco Rosso

I thought I had seen all the major Studio Ghibli films, but this one apparently slipped through the cracks. We’ve had it on Blu-ray for years, but somehow I just now got around to watching it. That’s a shame because it is terrific and feels somehow prescient to today’s times.

Buy Porco Rosso Blu-ray

Set between the two World Wars, Italian fighter pilot Marco Rossolin is a bounty hunter, chasing pirates in the Atlantic Ocean. He’s also a pig. Like literally. Somehow, somewhere, some time ago, he was cursed by someone and turned into a pig. What I love about the film is that it doesn’t give us any of those details. It is a good 20 minutes into the film before the fact that our hero is a pig is actually commented on. There will only be a few vague mentions of the curse. It is just simply a part of his life. People do make cracks about him being a pig (both literally and figuratively) but the reasons for the curse are never told. In the background, a fascist regime is on the rise. When asked to fly for them, he utters the immortal line, “I’d rather be a pig than a fascist.”

An American is hired by the fascists, and much of the film is made up as a sort of duel between him and Porco. They engage in air battles and joust with their wits. Porco also befriends a young girl and spends time with an old mechanic. Like so many films from Studio Ghibli, the world-building is full of wonderful details and heartwarming moments. It is a beautiful, magical film.

The Last of Us – “Long Long Time”

The Last of Us is a tense, dark post-apocalyptic thriller set in a world overcome with zombies (I know they aren’t technically zombies; they are people infected with a cordyceps brain infection, but that’s a mouthful to say). Episodes 1-2 are full of big action sequences and nail-biting moments. Episode 3 takes a step back and does something completely different.

Buy The Last of Us: The Complete First Season Blu-ray

In what amounts to one long flashback, the episode leaves our heroes behind to focus on Bill (Nick Offerman), a lone wolf-type who has been preparing for the apocalypse long before it actually happened. We watch him cackle with glee in his underground bunker as the thing he prepared for all his life begins. Time passes and he survives quite well. But then Frank (Murray Bartlett) falls into a hole Bill has dug as a trap for intruders. Frank begs for mercy and bargains for a meal and a shower.

Frank sees beyond Bill’s hard, gruff exterior and into his warm and lonely heart. They bond and fall in love. Over the course of the episode, we watch them grow old together. In about an hour, the episode fills these characters out, develops their relationship, and makes us care for them. It is beautifully written and wonderfully acted. It also has meaning for the larger series and our main characters. It shows them that life isn’t just about surviving, you have to have something to live for.

Taskmaster

This British comedy panel show is unusual in that it spends quite a bit of its runtime having our comedians watch themselves on television, and those comedians compete against one another not just for a single episode but an entire season. Created by and co-hosted by Alex Horne, Taskmaster has its host (the titular taskmaster) Greg Davies give five comedians a series of ridiculous tasks that they do their best to complete. Davies then judges their performance and gives them points. Each episode has a winner and at the end of the series, the total points are tallied for an overall winner. The tasks themselves are performed at a rented house in London. The show is taped in front of a live audience inside a studio where they, the comedians, and hosts watch the tasks on a large monitor.

That sounds kind of dumb writing it all out like that but it is a lot of fun to watch. Nobody takes anything seriously. The tasks are hilarious to watch but better still are the jokes Davies makes at everybody’s expense.

Trick or Treat

A groovy slice of 1980s horror. A metalhead (a pretty great Marc Price), bereaving the loss of his favorite lead singer, resurrects the dude by playing his last record backward. At first, the dead rocker helps our hero play some harmless pranks on the school bullies but before you can lift up your hands with devil horns things get dangerous and deadly.

Buy Trick or Treat (1986) 4K UHD

The film has a lot of fun playing around with the times, satirizing Satanic Panic and all the political hand-wringing about the dangers of rock and roll. There are cameos by Gene Simmons (unrecognizable without his makeup playing a DJ) and Ozzy Osborne goofing on his wild image playing a straight-laced preacher ranting about rock lyrics. But mostly it’s just a wonderfully fun horror flick. Synapse Films has given it a nice 4K UHD upgrade and you can read my full review of it on this site very soon.

Heathers

Speaking of super fun 1980s horror movies I sat my daughter down to watch this classic over the weekend. I gotta tell you that a satire about high school students killing each other, teen suicide, and blowing up a school with dynamite plays a lot differently today than it did when I was a teen.

Buy Heathers Blu-ray

But it is still pretty spot in its depiction of teenaged life (the details have no doubt changed, but the cliques, the angst, and the all-encompassing need to be popular feel very much the same – my teen daughter agrees). It is incredibly quotable and Winona Ryder and Christian Slater have never been better.

I’m proud to say my daughter loved it too and immediately texted her friends that they needed to watch it.

R.E.M. Unite to Sing “Pretty Persuasion”

Buy R.E.M. – Fables of the Reconstruction CD

Actor Michael Shannon and musician Jason Narducy have been touring the country playing R.E.M. songs in honor of their album Fables of the Reconstruction turning 40. At their stop in Athens, they were joined by all four original members of the band for “Pretty Persuasion. I can’t say it is a great version, but it is awesome to see one of my favorite bands get back together even for just one song (and even if most of them aren’t playing instruments and Michael Stipe just sings backup.