Every Studio Ghibli Film, Ranked

Posted on March 22, 2020 by necromoonyeti

My kids love Ghibli, but not every Ghibli film is suitable for kids. As pre-screenings evolved into a month-long binge of every film in the studio’s catalogue, I committed to ranking them. I mean hey, who doesn’t love a big dumb list? But let’s be real up front. These are the works of two of the all-time greatest masters of animated story-telling and their closest collaborators. Room for armchair criticism runs dry pretty early into the charts. I just want to share some films I’ve been passionate about lately, and ranking them is a fun way to go about it.

22. Ocean Waves (Tomomi Mochizuki, 1993)
Times watched: 1

Ocean Waves was never intended to be a masterpiece. This made-for-tv anime was a training project for younger staff in the studio, and a lot of reviews I see give it a positive nudge for accomplishing anything at all in this context. I’m not going to pretend to like it. The animation itself is decent enough for a straight-shooting high school romance, but the plot hedges on downright unpleasant. Rikako Muto, the only character with a distinct and memorable personality, is a devious narcissist bent on exploiting anyone who offers her a helping hand. Of course she has a tragic past that justifies it all. Of course she just needs a strong man and her issues will wash away. Of course our generic protagonist Taku sees her inner beauty and falls ever deeper in love the more she treats him like crap. Of course they chance into each other at a train station at the end and Taku embraces his hormones as we fade to credits, our lead characters now destined to live their probably really crappy lives together. It’s dull, cliche, and foregoes any sort of meaningful progression on Rikako and Taku’s rocky, manipulative bond in favor of a half-hearted happy ending.

21. Tales from Earthsea (Goro Miyazaki, 2006)
Times watched: 1

Tales from Earthsea is so universally panned that I feel like I’m beating a dead horse to point any of it out, but in brief, the plot is an incoherent mess that necessitates awareness of the novel series its based on to get the slightest grip of what’s going on. The dialogue is comically trite. The characters are hollow facades of Hayao’s visions, with Hare in particular feeling like a chaotic evil caricature of Nausicaä‘s endearing antagonist Kurotowa. The story telling is devoid of vision, jumping around in a haphazard rush to cram in sequences that seem pre-determined, like Goro sat down thinking from the outset that these 100 things have to happen and just crammed them all together without evolution. Yeah, Tales from Earthsea is bad, but unless this is the first write-up you’ve read, you probably knew that.

So let’s talk a little about what it does right. The music! Tamiya Terashima’s score is solid, lending a lush and imaginative soundscape to a world in desperate need of spirit. Some of the landscapes are very tastefully drawn, with Hort Town in particular presenting a number of striking backdrops. While the only villain type Goro seems to grasp is one-dimensional chaotic evil, Cob presents as a legitimately creepy lead antagonist. And lastly, there’s an interesting story to be told outside of the movie itself. Hayao was strongly opposed to allowing his son Goro to direct this film. He knew Goro wasn’t ready, wanted him to start with smaller projects and gain more experience. His concerns were thoroughly legitimized, but Earthsea was not Goro’s final effort. There’s a tale of redemption to it all; the son of a master biting off more than he can chew, failing hard but rebounding to create something entirely decent in its wake.

20. Arrietty (Hiromasa Yonebayashi, 2010)
Times watched: 2

Arrietty is a film based on The Borrowers, telling the story of little people living secretly in the walls and how one came to befriend a human ‘bean’. Arrietty’s travels through the house and garden from a mouse-sized perspective are imaginative and compelling both visually and musically. It’s got an awful lot of potential.

Unfortunately, the story telling and character development just aren’t there. Sho is a self-loathing dolt I think I’m supposed to feel bad for but just end up despising, and the emotional rejuvenation he experiences by way of befriending Arrietty feels forced and cliche. Haru might be the worst antagonist in the entire Ghibli catalogue, inconsistently projected as a caring if harsh caretaker, an imbecile injected for comic relief, and a downright sadistic villain. Spiller’s presentation as a stereotypical cave man, pronoun deficiency and all, might serve a purpose in the book–I haven’t read it–but feels completely random and pointless in its film setting. Ultimately Arrietty is a fun, adventurous movie for kids with a pleasant atmosphere, but it tumbles into an abyss at the threshold of the character realism I expect from a Ghibli film.

19. When Marnie Was There (Hiromasa Yonebayashi, 2014)
Times watched: 1

When Marnie Was There takes a notable leap from the bottom three, with a carefully crafted protagonist who feels entirely human cast into a world that’s legitimately mysterious. Anna is unlikable for all the right reasons, and sympathy was developed in me gradually and naturally, not forced down my throat like with the equally unpleasant Rikako of Ocean Waves. Marnie has this air of a pre-school siren, innocent in motive but certainly not considerate of Anna’s safety either, and Anna is finely tailored to feel believable as she abandons herself into Marnie’s world. I knew it was going to have a happy ending, but that never fully resolved the twitch in the back of my head that this could turn into a horror film very quickly. And while the plot twist is ultimately predictable, it was sufficiently creative to leave me satisfied.

I’m not sure the story couldn’t have been conveyed better visually. The characters are presented more through color than detail, leaving a glossy feel that didn’t resonate quite so harmoniously with the broader ambience as the lush palettes of say, Arrietty or Ponyo. A grittier look and feel may have done this one well, but at #19 we’re already into movies I enjoyed.

18. From Up on Poppy Hill (Goro Miyazaki, 2011)
Times watched: 1

Or Goro’s redemption, if that’s how you care to think about it. From Up on Poppy Hill is a light comedy that never tries too hard but accomplishes everything it aims for. It felt at risk of the same one-dimensionality as Earthsea at first, but I stopped caring about that when the characters proved to be enjoyable for their simplicity. Umi and Shun’s embodiment of the ultimate made-for-each-other extrovert protagonist couple ends up driving a lot of the humor, and in that sense Goro really flipped one of his major weaknesses in Earthsea on its head and used it to his advantage. It also offers a snappy seaside soundtrack that suits the mood of the movie beautifully. Satoshi Takebe did an outstanding job here; maybe the most well-placed Ghibli score not composed by Joe Hisaishi.

17. My Neighbors the Yamadas (Isao Takahata, 1999)
Times watched: 1

My Neighbors the Yamadas is a collection of light comedy sketches about daily family life reminiscent of classic American sitcoms. The kids fight, mom is lazy, dad comes home drunk, grandma complains about everything. There’s no unfamiliar territory here. But the most central theme throughout is that they all sincerely love each other, and that’s portrayed without ever being forced. For a ‘movie’ that rarely goes ten minutes without a hard break to the next episode, there’s a persistent warmth to it. The most stereotypical gags never feel superficial. Takahata understands people, and I can really pick up on that here. Unfortunately from a ranking standpoint, it barely qualifies as a film and could have just as easily been released for tv as a season of episodes. The minimalistic animation is appropriate but hard to compare in a studio famous for its stunning artwork. It’s an easy one to rank low, but My Neighbors the Yamadas is grand in its humility.

16. The Cat Returns (Hiroyuki Morita, 2002)
Times watched: 3+

This was the hardest movie to rank for me, personally. The Cat Returns is hands down, without question, the most poorly animated film in the Studio Ghibli library. It’s not a remotely introspective or thought-provoking film, either. But wow, what a weird, Alice in Wonderland-esque adventure. My 5 year old son’s favorite Ghibli movie, The Cat Returns is an outwardly innocent romp through a secret world of anthropomorphic felines. The plot is pretty simple from a kid’s perspective. The human protagonist Haru gets stuck in cat land, the bad cats try to keep her there, and the good cats help her escape. Basic.

But there are so many dark undertones to this film. The Cat King is an inbred nutjob who makes his court humiliate themselves for his entertainment and will execute on a whim. His servant Natoru is ever smiling and humbly debasing himself while carrying out the king’s dirty work, pulling creepy stunts like trying to get a character to eat himself to death. The anthropomorphism is twisted; the cats are still cats to the fullest, and they walk about on two legs with all the stagger and imbalance that a real cat might. The entire cat kingdom is warped and unnatural, and it’s all presented with such superficial innocence that I feel completely at ease letting my kids watch it. It’s a real trip and I strongly recommend it. The animation quality is just so poor and the plot so basic that it’s hard for me to juxtapose this to a Takahata or Miyazaki work and call it ‘better’ with a straight face. In terms of raw enjoyment, you’ve got to check this one out.

15. Kiki’s Delivery Service (Hayao Miyazaki, 1989)
Times watched: 3+

The most controversial placement on my list was necessarily going to be whichever Hayao film I ranked lowest. Well, here you have it. Kiki’s Delivery Service is a great movie, no doubt about it. But looking back over the collection of Hayao Miyazaki’s works, I just find it to have the least distinguishing character. That is, everything I like about this movie–and I like it quite a lot–I feel like he’s done better since in one form or another. If I really want to get at the root of why this one comes in last though, I think it’s this:

Miyazaki and Takahata are masters of character realism. Of all the things that make Studio Ghibli films so compelling, I think character portrayal carries the day. To take a world as bizarre and foreign as Princess Mononoko and make the characters feel so utterly human… That’s the glue that holds so many other amazing talents on the table here together. Some of these films are focused on deep, complicated subjects. Others are innocent, kid-friendly worlds. Kiki’s Delivery Service is very much a kid’s movie, and her coming of age tale is cast in pure innocence. But she’s going it alone and independently, with a capacity for self-confidence that just doesn’t resonate well as our world spirals back into a dark age that may have felt behind us in the 1980s. Even Hisaishi’s soundtrack has an air of carefree independence about it that’s harder for me to embrace than most of their collaborations. It’s a tale for more confident times. I read a quote by Miyazaki himself along these lines when I was digging for alternative opinions on this film, and I thought “that’s it.”

14. Castle in the Sky (Hayao Miyazaki, 1986)
Times watched: 2

Castle in the Sky, also known as Laputa, has a lot of historical value in the evolution of anime, but I’m not enough of a buff to put weight into that. It’s ambitious in a way I think only a younger Miyazaki could be, attempting to fit every expected element of a high fantasy steampunk action film into one package. Towards that end, he does a hell of a job. Laputa is absolutely a classic, but it feels like one. It’s almost like this is the film where he thoroughly proved himself as a master of the traditional and freed himself to delve into his pure artistic sensibilities without any further pressure to create some pre-defined thing.

I have to say, the Dola gang is up there with Calcifer and Donald Curtis for Miyazaki’s most endearing comic relief, but I think on the whole this movie strives too hard to be great at everything to fully perfect any one thing. Colonel Muska in particular is Miyazaki’s most shallow antagonist–and arguably the last time he ever attempted to employ a pure unconditional bad guy. The climax is weak for its binary portrayal of good and evil. And–no fault of Miyazaki–I think Disney gave it a really low effort dub job compared to the top notch voice acting of his other works. Still a fabulous film that I recommend. Everything is relative.

13. Howl’s Moving Castle (Hayao Miyazaki, 2004)
Times watched: 3+

The only Miyazaki film that leaves me conflicted, Howl’s Moving Castle is visually stunning, beautifully animated, highly imaginative, and offers two of the most enjoyable secondary characters of the Ghibli universe in Calcifer and the Witch of the Waste. The world it’s set to is disordered and ill-defined, and knowing that Miyazaki was aware of this and chose to roll with it anyway doesn’t resolve the fact that half the time I really have no clue what’s going on. Howl himself is a hot mess, and Sophie falling for him is a hard sell from a director famous for character development.

Howl’s Moving Castle is filled with compelling scenes and some of Miyazaki’s best animation ever. The way the castle moves and breathes is just fascinating to behold. I’ll never get tired of watching the sequences. Yet out of Miyazaki’s 10 major works, this one leaves me with the least sense of a clear vision. I enjoy it in the moment, but I don’t carry it with me days and weeks later the way I do with many of his other works.

12. The Wind Rises (Hayao Miyazaki, 2013)
Times watched: 1

The Wind Rises is Miyazaki’s final film pending the potential completion of How Do You Live?, and it’s definitely his most subdued. A two hour slow roll through the fictionalized life of Japanese World War II aircraft engineer Jiro Horikoshi, action is mostly limited to a few dream sequences. The movie gets off to an incredibly strong start. The airplanes of Jiro’s childhood dreams, not restricted by physics, are an imaginative thrill. Miyakazi makes great use of sentient sound effects to bring the 1923 Great Kanto earthquake to life. Scene after scene he finds ways to imbue motion into a movie that is ultimately about a guy sitting in front of a desk all day.

But by the mid point, The Wind Rises starts to lose some of its charm for me. The narrative is lost for a moment as the passage of time becomes unclear. Is this failed test flight another dream or an actual event? Have we advanced a day or two years since the last scene? It’s not the sort of transition where the vagueness reflects some internal point; it just seems like a brief lapse in focus. When things come together for me again, Jiro is pursuing a family, and the remainder of the film is told mostly in small rooms and conversations: things that certainly can be portrayed through animation, but don’t facilitate an advantage over live acting; stories that have been told before. Somewhere down the line, the Miyazaki magic was lost to me. Not a flaw per say, just a bit of unfulfilled potential. I still thoroughly enjoyed it.

11. The Tale of Princess Kaguya (Isao Takahata, 2013)
Times watched: 1

This one’s hard. I don’t think I’ll ever watch it again. A lot of people say that about Grave of the Fireflies, but for me Takahata’s most difficult film is his final one, The Tale of Princess Kaguya. This is the story of a simple girl living a simple life and loving it with all the innocent fascination of a child until her parents, given the opportunity, force her to pursue a jaded adult’s perception of a ‘better life’. What follows is two hours of superficially well-intended child abuse, as her father, indulging his self-serving vision of a perfect life for her, strips away everything she holds dear. It’s heartbreaking and highly relatable despite being set in a classic Japanese world far removed from modern life, and Takahata takes intriguing liberties with the animation to portray Kaguya’s emotions through varying degrees of visual refinement.

As the film nears its end, it’s hard for me to escape the desire for her to just murder her father and run away forever, but she stays faithful to the end. There’s no forced commentary on whether her obedience is a virtue. It just leaves me to think, rather unpleasantly but not without purpose. At 137 minutes with no action and the narrative fully defined within the first half hour, it does drag, and drag, and drag some more. I could argue that even that plays a meaningful role in casting the viewer into Kaguya’s world. It’s the sort of movie I’ll never find a true fault with because it’s not intended to be pleasant. But I have to draw a line somewhere on the roster between evocative power and evoking emotions I actually want to feel. Don’t be a jerk to your kids. Moving on.

10. Pom Poko (Isao Takahata, 1994)
Times watched: 1

Pom Poko is very serious drama about magical anthropomorphic raccoon testicles. Ok well, raccoon dog testicles. Raccoon dogs are an Asian species most closely related to foxes, but they look like a cross between… you guessed it. Talk about a cultural barrier; the MPAA must have had a field day figuring out how to rate this one. It ultimately got a PG for “thematic elements”. Heh heh.

Anyway, Pom Poko. What a film. Magic raccoon balls actually have a place in Japanese folklore–Takahata didn’t just make this up–but it’s thoroughly self-aware of its outlandishness. Pom Poko is an adult cartoon in the truest sense, with characters reminiscent of the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles animations facing very real starvation and extermination from human encroachment. Slapstick comedy really shouldn’t be able to deliver a socially conscious message, but Takahata finds a way. For better or worse, I’m not going to find another movie like this one. Not in Studio Ghibli. Not anywhere. I loved it.

9. My Neighbor Totoro (Hayao Miyazaki, 1988)
Times watched: 3+

My Neighbor Totoro was Studio Ghibli’s first children’s film, and while it’s not half as famous as Spirited Away in the west, you’ll probably recognize the eponymous character. The heartwarming tale of two girls recruiting a forest spirit to help their mother recover from illness stands apart from Miyazaki’s other works in being thoroughly grounded, literally. It’s his only work that lacks a persistent theme of air or water. That might sound trivial, but it gives the movie a really unique texture to me. Something in its landlocked landscape vis a vis the rest of his works makes the world feel smaller, warmer. Independently of that and Joe Hisaishi’s arguably finest score, I’m not sure the movie would do terribly much for me. Satsuki and Mei are adorable, Tatsuo and Granny are endearing, but Miyazaki continued to improve on his character development for decades beyond this film. There are side characters in Spirited Away that develop more personality than Totoro or Catbus in five minutes of screen time. Even the soot spirits, novel for their day, find much more refined character in their second appearance. It’s an early work, and that’s evident. I’m not bound to it for sentimental reasons the way longer-term fans may be.

But the music and setting fit so snugly around it that I can’t help but feel completely at ease every time I put this one on. If you want to talk about a holistic vision, Miyazaki absolutely had one walking into this film and captured it to his fullest potential at the time. The end result is a film that, despite feeling less refined in plot and character development than his later works, emits a constant warmth beyond the scale of any given scene.

8. Whisper of the Heart (Yoshifumi Kondo, 1995)
Times watched: 2

Kondo’s only director role at Ghibli before his untimely death is one of my favorites. What a beautiful film. Despite the box art, Whisper of the Heart is set in reality. ‘High school romance’ is about the most generic description you can slap on an anime, and it’s not out of place here, but this one is just so endearing and true to itself. At 35, I’m pretty far removed from any age of self-discovery, and I didn’t exactly grow up in a world anything like Shizuku’s, but the film makes it so easy to slip into Shizuku’s life and go through the experience with her. It’s not just her, but the whole supporting cast. Sugimura’s rejection and the way he reacts to her through the rest of the film, the subtle expressions and gestures between the characters, there’s so much attention to detail in bringing all of their emotions to life. When Shizuku’s singing and Nishi and his friends come down the stairs… I don’t know, one of my childhood friends had a musical family, and there wasn’t a romantic factor but I can absolutely relate to that completely non-judgmental, beautiful emergence of sound out of one person picking up an instrument and letting their spirit take them. Maybe it’s not as direct for everybody, but this film evoked so many memories of my childhood in spite of its foreign setting that I have to imagine anyone can find an intimate connection somewhere in it.

7. Porco Rosso (Hayao Miyazaki, 1992)
Times watched: 2

Something about swine noir, gets to me every time. Well, Porco Rosso is an entirely kid-friendly movie on the surface, complete with an anthropomorphic pig protagonist, and in a lot of ways it’s more conforming to expectations for a kid’s movie than most. Marco is a stereotype anti-hero, the enemies are more like lovable hoodlums than legitimate villains, and even the main antagonist Curtis is among the most likeable characters in Miyazaki’s universe. It’s charming for all of that, and the final showdown between Marco and Curtis is absolutely delightful, but there’s a lot of depth to Porco Rosso beyond its cartoony face. Marco’s playful vigilante policing of the Adriatic serves as the backdrop for exploring his less admirable past as a World War I fighter. There’s a lot of death behind the scenes that a kid wouldn’t readily pick up on. Secret police are hunting him down for desertion. His entire transformation in an otherwise human world is never explained beyond the simple quip that war turns men into pigs. Porco Rosso feels simple and straight-forward relative to Miyazaki’s other works, but it meets me half way whatever level I want to engage it on.

6. Only Yesterday (Isao Takahata, 1991)
Times watched: 1

Before Takahata was exploring the intricacies of how to animate raccoon dog scrotums, he was directing one of Studio Ghibli’s most grounded works. Only Yesterday is the story of a woman in her late 20s reflecting on her inner city childhood during a vacation to her aunt’s farm. That’s it. Nothing magic, nothing tragic, just a straight-forward character portrayal set to the real modern world. The heroine is homely. Her childhood is normal. The choice she is faced with in the end, if life-changing, is hardly extraordinary. It’s just a two hour display of humanity with no frills attached.

Takahata’s mastery for depicting people as they are stands strong through all of his films, but it might be the boldest here. There’s simply nothing else in play. The entire movie is propped up by and dependent on the portrayal of Taeko as a piece of non-fiction. Its broader simplicity allows Takahata the room to focus in on the complexity of the basic human experience, with all its intricate interwoven emotions. Taeko comes to life in an identifiable and immersive way that stuck with me for days. Only Yesterday keeps sneaking further up my list the longer I dwell on it. It’s beautiful, and I definitely intend to watch it again.

The soundtrack also bizarrely features Muzsikás, a Hungarian folk ensemble that I’m pretty sure I featured when I was doing music write-ups for this site a decade ago. Small world eh?

5. Princess Mononoke (Hayao Miyazaki, 1997)
Times watched: 2

This is… a difficult call, and a lot of people would argue for Princess Mononoke as #1. It definitely left me with a lot to process, so much so that it’s probably the Ghibli movie I thought about the most after watching it. Miyazaki’s distinct way of animating fluid motion hits some surreal high points in this film. I don’t know that I’ll ever forget the demon boar’s flesh withering away. So many other-worldly images etched into my mind. San’s mask. The forest spirit’s face. It’s a visually unprecedented film. It’s also Miyazaki’s most adult film, in the sense that it’s grim and tragic from start to finish.

So why only #5? Maybe that bleakness. Just like it took a lot of introspection to not tank The Tale of Princess Kaguya, Princess Mononoke had to grow on me. It didn’t exactly leave the best taste in my mouth. It takes some stewing around to discover that it’s not meant to; to find value in that negative experience. Ashitaka is a strong lead but hardly relatable. San’s desire to kill resonates stronger, and there’s no clear resolution that she or Eboshi or anyone else wins out in the end. There are no winners. That’s part of the point. I mean, the most likeable character in the film to me was Jigo, and he’s the closest thing to a true antagonist Miyazaki’s introduced since Dola’s generic role in Laputa. It leaves a lot to chew on. Perhaps it deserves a higher placement for that, but again, appreciation and enjoyment only coalesce so far. I certainly do love the film.

4. Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (Hayao Miyazaki, 1984)
Times watched: 2

Despite that Nausicaä predates Laputa and pursues a similar style, I feel like there’s no comparison. This movie is absolutely wild and offers better character development to boot. Nausicaä‘s world is entirely Miyazaki’s creation, the film being based on his own manga. The insect forests are surreal on a level I didn’t see again until Princess Mononoko. Nausicaä and Ashitaka are very similar characters, but Nausicaä’s given a lot more room to develop through interactions with friends and family where Ashitaka stagnates in isolation. The village legend is vague enough to manifest without feeling forced. The giant warriors fill the same role as the robots in Laputa but with all the amorphous mystique of Mononoko‘s night walker. Joe Hisaishi’s soundtrack is out of this world, and the abrupt audio transitions throughout the film are jarring in a positive way. The English dubbing dodges all of Laputa‘s shortcomings, with Patrick Stewart really stealing the show.

Yeah, video quality looks like it was ripped from a VCR tape, but I can live with that. I love the emotional range this movie projects. Nausicaä has a tangible bond to the people in her village. The insects are at once bestial and more empathetic than many of the humans fighting them. Kurotowa might not be developed to the same extent as Jigo, but he effectively doubles as light comic relief and a human face to an invading army in need of one. The way they lure the ohms is downright disturbing. Nausicaä’s Biblical sacrifice and the giant warrior’s inglorious end… One thing that really stands out to me looking back now is how everything in the film is the catalyst for its own destruction. The Tolmekian capital is destroyed by Tolmekians. Kushana pushes her ambition to ruin. The ohms’ fury leads to suicide. Nausicaä’s own fate. One of Miyazaki’s major reoccurring themes is that there are no winners in war. Nausicaä does an interesting job of portraying that.

3. Grave of the Fireflies (Isao Takahata, 1988)
Times watched: 1

I’m not sure what to say about Grave of the Fireflies. Takahata’s strength is in portraying people as they are. This is a movie about World War II orphans. You get the picture. It’s more watchable for me than Princess Kaguya. From a step back, part of that is definitely rooted in the differing animation styles, the differing lengths, the more modern setting, the differing levels of action. This film is more engageable on its face. But one thing Seita and Setsuko have that Kaguya lacks is each other. Their tragedies are quite different. I can’t imagine much resistance if I said Seita and Setsuko’s tragedy is fundamentally worse. But they have each other. I think everyone should watch a couple films like this. Maybe the world would be a better place if we did. Love your kids. Moving on.

2. Ponyo (Hayao Miyazaki, 2008)
Times watched: 3+

Ponyo is a fantastic movie for kids, but I think it was made about them just as much as it was made for them. I see it trend low in a lot of lists like this, often quoting that two five year olds just don’t make for complex and compelling characters. I guess it depends on what you want out of the movie. Is Miyazaki creating a magical world for kids, or is he showing us, the adults, what a kid’s magical world looks like?

The supernatural mystery is appealing on its face. Fujimoto’s bizarre, unexplained duty to shoot colored lights at passing fish in the intro; the bubble windows of his sanctuary that hint at some rule for safe passage but never resolve on a consistent pattern; the well of life exploding into a stream of millions of half-formed sea creatures. It’s visually presented as no other animator can, and Hisaishi’s score is brilliant. The “Ponyo’s fish wave” sequence is just amazing to me–the way the music is choreographed for big booming percussion as the waves crash down onto the road; the way they phase back and forth between lifeless water and living creatures while Ponyo leaps back and forth. There’s a lot to enjoy here without digging deep, at least in the first half.

But the film gets more interesting to me when I look at how Miyazaki transforms the way Sosuke might experience life through a child’s eyes into the actual reality surrounding Lisa. Of course a kid’s going to think a simple fish can understand him, and sure enough, Ponyo comes to life. A tsunami sweeping away the village is thrilling with no awareness of the danger, and when it calms we see that everything is perfectly intact under water. Sosuke expresses no fear in the car. They’re going home. Home will be safe. So the raging sea comes to a halt at his doorstep. A fish trapped in a bottle, mom leaving for a few hours, those are the tangible sources of dread in Sosuke’s life. Rescuing Ponyo and finding Lisa then manifest as the two central plot directions of the film.

I see my children in Ponyo and Sosuke. I see a bit of myself in Lisa. (And I can’t help but think Koichi is meant to represent Miyazaki himself.) The uncompromising, innocent bond they share; the way Lisa dotes on Sosuke unconditionally while arguing with her husband; the way Lisa copes with her own bewilderment by setting the kids down, expressing herself on their level, and turning her focus onto caring for them–“Alright. Sosuke, Ponyo, life is mysterious and amazing, but we have work to do now.” It just resonates so authentically. On that note, I can’t speak for the Japanese original, but Tina Fey’s voice acting is outstanding throughout the film. The lack of action in the second half of the movie doesn’t bother me because by then I’m already so emotionally invested in the characters. Ponyo paints the big, fascinating mystery of a child’s small, isolated world directly, but the film is just as easily viewed through the eyes of the adults around them. It’s my daughter’s favorite movie, and I think it’s the single happiest thing I’ve ever watched.

1. Spirited Away (Hayao Miyazaki, 2001)
Times watched: 3+

Where do I even begin with Spirited Away? It’s rare for ten seconds of this film to pass without some new bewildering oddity of Miyazaki’s imagination rearing its head. The bath house emits a glowing warmth that tethers the supernatural to a sense of comfort. The constant flowing water everywhere makes the world itself a reflection of the strange creatures within it. For me it’s not just about great characters, great music, a driving plot, an imaginative setting. I love how Miyazaki ties it all together with such careful attention to the surrounding ambience. I don’t think people will need much convincing to check out a film regarded as one of the greatest ever made, and there are so many brilliant components in play that no one of them makes or breaks it, but if I had to put my finger on one thing that stands out to me uniquely, it’s that constant motif of water and the bath house as a refuge from the amorphous, half-submerged world beyond. Is the bath house a safe space? Yes. No. Spirited Away doesn’t lend itself to simple black and white answers. Miyazaki poured too much life into it for that.

And there you have it. Great stuff. In summary, after mulling it over I wound up at:

1. Spirited Away
2. Ponyo
3. Grave of the Fireflies
4. Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind
5. Princess Mononoke
6. Only Yesterday
7. Porco Rosso
8. Whisper of the Heart
9. My Neighbor Totoro
10. Pom Poko
11. The Tale of Princess Kaguya
12. The Wind Rises
13. Howl’s Moving Castle
14. Castle in the Sky
15. Kiki’s Delivery Service
16. The Cat Returns
17. My Neighbors the Yamadas
18. From Up on Poppy Hill
19. When Marnie was There
20. Arrietty
21. Tales from Earthsea
22. Ocean Waves

Hope you enjoyed. Cheers.

18 Days of Paranoia #9: Blunt, The Fourth Man (dir by John Glenister)

Posted on March 22, 2020 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Based on a true story and taking place in 1951, the 1985 film, Blunt: The Fourth Man, tells the story of Anthony Blunt (played by Ian Richardson).

A graduate of Cambridge, Anthony Blunt appears to be a proud member of the British establishment. He’s upper class with impeccable manners. He’s the King’s art surveyor, which he says makes him literally a member of the Royal Family. He belongs to all the right clubs and he expresses all of the right opinions and he has all of the right friends.

However, Anthony Blunt leads a secret life. First off, he’s gay at a time when that was still illegal in the United Kingdom. Unlike his flamboyant lover, Guy Burgess (Anthony Hopkins), Blunt is discreet and always keeping an eye out for the vice cops. Blunt is also a socialist and has been one since his days at Cambridge. However, he’s not just a socialist. He’s also spying for the Russians. It’s not that Anthony thinks much of Russia as much as it’s just that he thinks even less of the U.S. and the U.K. He feels that the U.S. is pushing the world towards nuclear war. When his driver says that the UK needs a Joe McCarthy of their own, Blunt can barely hide his distaste.

Even though it was Guy who originally recruited Anthony to spy for the Russians, Anthony now appears to be in charge of the so-called Cambridge Spy Ring. He’s the one who regularly meets with the group’s Russian contact and he’s also the one who is put in charge of arranging for one of the spies to flee the UK. The Russians don’t seem to have much faith in Guy Burgess, largely because Guy is an alcoholic and a drug addict. (Upon returning to London from America, Guy declares that he’s no longer drinks whiskey and that he’s given up Benzedrine. He then proceeds to get very drunk.) In fact, the only person who seems to really care about Guy is Anthony but how much does Guy actually care about Anthony?

Almost everyone in Blunt, the Fourth Man is either a spy or a former spy. And yet, we really don’t see anyone doing much spying. Guy has a closet that’s full of undeveloped film, official files, and a picture of Lenin and that’s about it. Throughout the film, Guy brags about how powerful he and his fellow spies are but we’re left to wonder whether Guy’s telling the truth or if he’s just drunk. For his part, Anthony is more concerned with getting caught and losing his place in society. He knows that one member of the group is on the verge of getting unmasked and has made arrangements for him to escape to Russia while visiting France. The problem is that the plan involves Guy and Anthony is not sure if he can trust Guy to play his part. If Guy’s willing to betray his country, why not his friends and lover?

For the most part, the entire film is Anthony and Guy having cryptic discussion with themselves and with others. There’s a threatening subtext to almost every conversation in this film. There’s also a pervasive atmosphere of regret. Anthony, Guy, and their friends are no longer the idealists that they were back in Cambridge. They’re now middle-aged men who know that they’ve devoted their lives to a lost cause. Each deals with it in their own way. Guy drinks. Anthony insists that his spying has less to do with betraying a country and more with staying loyal to his friends. What’s perhaps most interesting is that almost all of these upper class socialists are most worried about losing their place in society.

This is a very talky film. Fortunately, it stars two great talkers, Ian Richardson and Anthony Hopkins. The two of them play off each other very well and create two fascinating, if not necessarily likable, characters. Admittedly, there are a few scenes where Hopkins comes dangerous close to going a bit overboard with Guy’s drunken ramblings but Ian Richardson’s performance is close to perfect. Somehow, he makes Anthony both smug and vulnerable at the same time.

Obviously, this isn’t a film for everyone. It requires a bit of patience. But, for history nerds like me, it’s an interesting historical document, a recreation of one of biggest spy scandals of the previous century.

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Time Chasers (1994, directed by David Giancola)

Posted on March 21, 2020 by Jedadiah Leland

People, I know what you’ve heard but Time Chasers is not that bad.

I know that Time Chasers has got a reputation. It was featured on one of the most brutal (and funniest) episodes of Mystery Science Theater 3000. That, in fact, is probably how most people know about this film. (Some members of the MST 3K crew subsequently revisited Time Chasers for Rifftrax.) It’s true that MST 3K was known for taking apart bad films and it probably hasn’t helped the film’s reputation that it’s been reported that some members of the production were not amused about being mocked by Mike Nelson and the bots.

But that’s all in the past and I think that today, we can finally admit that Time Chasers is not that bad.

It’s certainly one of the few films to suggest that time travel can be achieved by an airplane, five oversized floppy disks, and a Commodore 64. Nick Miller (Matthew Bruch) is a scientist and amateur airplane pilot who has discovered how to travel through time. He hopes that we can use time travel so that we can figure out a way to “stop killing ourselves.” Lisa (Bonnie Pritchard), the local journalist who went to high school with Nick, is impressed, especially when Nick takes her on a trip to the future (which does indeed look much like a mall food court). Lisa is less impressed when Nick decides to sell the idea to J.K. Robertson (George Woodard). J.K.’s a rich businessman and that automatically makes him evil. Lisa understands this. Nick does not.

J.K. promises that he won’t use time travel to develop weaponry but, when Lisa and Nick take another romantic trip to the future, they discover that the world is in ruins and it no longer looks like a food court. Instead, people are shooting at each other. J.K. lied! Nick and Lisa go back to the present to confront J.K. but J.K.’s not willing to give up time travel that easily. Soon, as a result of all the time travel, there are multiple Nicks and Lisas and J.K. Robertsons all over the place. It all ends with a trip back to the American Revolution, where many of the colonists wear wrist watches and modern-style eyeglasses.

It is easy to poke fun at something like Time Chasers but I’m going to defend it. The plot is actually more ambitious than you would expect from a low-budget sci-fi film and there are some clever touches that indicate that the director actually did give some serious thought to what would happen if you had multiple people jumping from one time to another. (I like the fact that, when Nick meets his past self, Past Nick can’t understand why Present Nick won’t stop talking about Lisa.) For all the ribbing that they took on MST 3K, both Matthew Bruch and Bonnie Pritchard are likable as Nick and Lisa. Bruch may not look like a conventional hero and, in this film, he’s got a mullet that’s goofy as hell but there’s a lot of sincerity to his performance.

I love MST 3K. When I first saw the Time Chasers episode, I laughed so much that it hurt and it’s still a favorite of mine. (I cannot see an empty field without saying, “Hey, Children of the Corn.” Lisa — our Lisa, not the film’s Lisa — is usually kind enough to reply, “Hey,” so my joke isn’t just left hanging in the air.) But taken on its own, without Mike and the bots riffing on it, Time Chasers is not that bad. It’s goofy take on time travel and, dammit, I like it.

18 Days of Paranoia #8: The French Connection II (dir by John Frankenheimer)

Posted on March 21, 2020 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 1975 film, The French Connection II, opens up three years after the downbeat conclusion of the first French Connection.

Having escaped from the police at the end of the first film, the wealthy and suave Alain Charnier (Fernando Rey) is still smuggling drugs and living his best life. He goes to parties with wealthy people. He has lunch dates with important businessman. Even though the French police are keeping an eye on him, Charnier seems to be virtually untouchable and he knows it. If Charnier seemed impossibly smug in the first French Connection, he’s even worse in the second one.

Charnier may be enjoying himself in Marseille but what he doesn’t know is that there’s an American tourist in town. He’s a very loud American, one who insists on trying to speak to everyone in English and is shocked to discover that most of the French natives don’t have the slightest clue as to what he’s talking about. He’s shocked when he goes into a bar and fails to impress two young French women. He also doesn’t seem to understand that even French people who speak English are not going to appreciate being called a “frogs.” He wanders around town in loud shirts and with a fedora sitting rakishly on his balding head.

Yep, it’s Popeye Doyle (Gene Hackman). The anti-hero from the first French Connection is still on the case and he’s now come all the way to France to help track down Charnier. The last time we saw Doyle, he had just accidentally killed a cop and was running through a dark warehouse, firing his gun. In fact, the first film ended with the suggestion that Doyle was such a loose cannon that his career as a narcotics detective was probably over. Instead, in the sequel, we learn that Popeye is still working in narcotics and he’s still just as much of a loose cannon as he ever was. If you thought people in New York found Popeye to be obnoxious, just you wait to see how the French react to him!

What Popeye doesn’t know is that his superiors in New York have only sent him to Marsielle so that he can be a target. They know that Popeye will never be able to blend in. Charnier will spot him and, hopefully, Charnier will panic and make some sort of mistake that will finally allow the police to capture him. French detective Henri (Bernard Fresson) goes along with the plan, despite his own moral objections. Henri can’t stand Popeye but he doesn’t want to see him killed either.

It doesn’t take long for Charnier to notice Popeye. After Popeye is captured by Charnier’s man, they inject him with heroin until soon, Popeye is an addict. Before Popeye can finally get his shot at Charnier, he’s going to have to overcome his own drug addiction….

The French Connection II starts out well, with Gene Hackman wandering around Marsielle and acting like a stereotypical ugly American. Director John Frankenheimer does a good job of keeping the action moving at a steady pace during the first half of the film and there’s a lot of great scenes involving Popeye being followed around town by not just the police but also Charnier’s men. The first half of the film does a great job of establishing an atmosphere of paranoia, which is not surprising when you consider that Frankenheimer’s other credits included The Manchurian Candidate, Seven Days In May, and Seconds.

Unfortunately, once Popeye is captured and gets hooked on heroin, the action not only comes to a halt but the normally reliable Gene Hackman starts to act up a storm. When Popeye, while going through withdrawal, starts talking about how he used to play baseball and how he once has a try-out with the New York Yankees, the scene seems to go on forever and Hackman’s performance becomes so histrionic that you basically just end up feeling like you’re watching someone auditioning his heart out for a spot in the Actor’s Studio. Gene Hackman was one of the world’s great actors and Popeye Doyle was a great role but, in The French Connection II, we’re reminded that even a great actor occasionally needs to have his performance reined in.

Eventually, after Hackman’s had his big Oscar moment, the action kicks back in and the film kind of regains its momentum. There’s a big action scene towards the end of the film. (Ironically, it’s the type of big, good guys vs. bad guys shoot out that the first film deliberately avoided.) The film ends with a literal bang that’s abrupt yet undeniably effective.

As far as sequels go, The French Connection II is good. It’s not great and, not surprisingly, it doesn’t come anywhere close to matching the power of the first film. But it still has enough effective scenes to make it worth watching. You just might want to hit fast forward whenever Popeye starts talking about baseball…..

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4 Shots From 4 Film: Special Gary Oldman Edition

Posted on March 21, 2020 by Jedadiah Leland

4 Shots From 4 Films is just what it says it is, 4 shots from 4 of our favorite films. As opposed to the reviews and recaps that we usually post, 4 Shots From 4 Films lets the visuals do the talking!

Today is the 62nd birthday of one of the best actors currently working, Gary Oldman! In honor of both this day and also Gary Oldman’s amazing versatility as a performer, here are…

4 Shots From 4 Films

Sid & Nancy (1986, directed by Alex Cox)

The Firm (1989, directed by Alan Clarke)

The Fifth Element (1997, directed by Luc Besson)

The Dark Knight (2008, directed by Christopher Nolan)

Cinemax Friday: Sworn to Justice (1997, directed by Paul Maslak)

Posted on March 20, 2020 by Jedadiah Leland

Janna (Cynthia Rothrock) is a psychologist who is also a martial arts expert. One night, she comes home to discover that her sister and her nephew have been murdered and that the killers are still in the house! Though Janna manages to fight off the attackers, she also gets a nasty bump to the head. Weeks later, after she’s gotten out of the hospital and she’s ready to get back to work, she discovers that she now has ESP!

All Janna has to do is touch someone or hold something in her hand and she has visions of the past and sometimes the present. (She has those special ESP powers that do whatever needs to be done at the moment.) When she finds her sister’s brooch, she flashes back to the night of the attack and sees the faces of the men who attacked her sister. Using her newfound power, Janna sets out to get revenge.

But even as she tracks down the thugs who killed her sister, Janna still does not know the identity of the person who ordered the hit. She just knows that he’s known as “The Man.” Could he have something to do with the arrogant cop killer (Brad Dourif!) for whom Janna is serving as an expert defense witness? Or could The Man by the publisher (Kurt McKinny) with whom Janna is having a steamy affair? (This was a late night Cinemax film, after all.) Or could it be the detective (Tony Lo Bianco) who is supposed to be investigating her sister’s death?

As far as Cynthia Rothrock martial arts films are concerned, Sworn to Justice is pretty good. Rothrock was not only a force to be reckoned with in fight scenes but, as this film shows, she was a likable actress, too. For the most part, she’s able to hold her own even when acting opposite seasoned scene stealers like Brad Dourif, Tony Lo Bianco, Mako, and even Walter Koenig, who plays Janna’s mentor with an outrageous German accent. While the film’s fight scenes are just as good as you would expect from a Cynthia Rothrock fick, the ESP twist adds just the right amount of weirdness to keep Sworn to Justice from coming across as just another low-budget martial arts film. The film doesn’t take itself too seriously. Even while she’s getting revenge for their deaths, Janna never seems to be that broken up over the deaths of her sister and her nephew. At worse, she’s seems to be annoyed by the inconvenience of it all. It’s just something else that she has to find the time to deal with.

There are a few scenes that are so darkly lit that it’s almost impossible to see what’s happening but then there are other scenes, like the one where Janna shows off her favorite martial arts moves to her new boyfriend, that work surprisingly well. This is a 90s production all the way, which means a saxophone-scored sex scenes and synthesizer-scored action scenes. Sworn to Justice is a good Cynthia Rothrock film, even if most audiences will end up figuring out the identity of The Man long before she does.

18 Days of Paranoia #7: Cuban Rebel Girls (dir by Barry Mahon)

Posted on March 20, 2020 by Lisa Marie Bowman

In the 1959 film, Cuban Rebel Girls, Errol Flynn (playing himself) flies down to Cuba. The time is shortly before the Cuban Revolution. (From a cinematic point of view, Flynn is in Havana at the same time as Hyman Roth and Michael and Fredo Corleone in The Godfather, Part II.) Flynn has been hired by the Hearst newspaper syndicate to go down to Cuba and do a report on Fidel Castro. Flynn narrates the film and tells us that he was very sympathetic to Castro and his cause….

OH MY GOD, ERROL FLYNN WAS A COMMUNIST!

Well, maybe not. If you actually go back and read contemporary reports about the Cuban Revolution, you’ll see that a lot of Americans had a romanticized view of Fidel Castro and his revolutionaries. Everyone seemed to agree that the president of Cuba, Batista, was a dictator and he needed to be forced out of power. Castro, himself, didn’t fully and openly declare himself to be a hardline communist until after he had already taken over Cuba. In Cuban Rebel Girls, someone mentions that Fidel was “always looking out for the little guy” and that’s the attitude that this film takes. At the time the film was made, it can legitimately be said that Flynn had no way of knowing that Fidel Castro would eventually reveal himself to be despotic dictator. (For more infuriating, to me, are the people who have continued to defend the Castros up until this day.)

Fidel Castro, himself, doesn’t actually appear until the very end of Cuban Rebel Girls and, even then, it’s just newsreel footage of him riding a tank through Havana. (Che Guevara does not show up at all. He may have been busy shopping for berets, I don’t know.) That said, the film was actually shot in Cuba and it does feature footage of Errol Flynn meeting actual Cuban rebels. This was also Errol Flynn’s last film and, for the most part, he looks terrible. Though the film’s poster may feature a suave-looking Errol Flynn holding a gun, the film actually features a noticeably overweight and often out-of-breath Errol Flynn who really doesn’t do much other than sit around and listen to other people talk.

(That said, Flynn’s voice over narration does have the occasional moment of charm. When he meets one of the rebel girls of the title and he kisses her hand, he jokes that he was relieved to see that he hadn’t totally lost “the Flynn touch.” Flynn delivers the line with just enough self-depreciation that it’s charming rather than creepy.)

The majority of the film doesn’t actually involve Flynn. Instead, it involves two girls from New York — Beverly (Beverly Aadland) and Jacqueline Dominguez (Jackie Jackler) — who want to help out the revolution. Jacqueline is from Cuba, went to high school with Fidel, and her brother is currently a part of the revolution. Beverly, meanwhile, is convinced that she’ll find the man that she loves in jungles of Cuba. Beverly explains that she doesn’t know much about Castro or Batista. That’s for others to worry about! Jacqueline assures her that, even in high school, “the big jerk” was always looking out for people.

Anyway, Beverly and Jacqueline raise some money from their friends and then decide to smuggle it into Cuba so that the guerrillas can use it to buy weapons. What follows is a lot of intrigue and sneaking around as Beverly and Jackie try to avoid Batista’s secret police and help out the guerrillas. And, of course, when I say “a lot,” what I actually mean is “next to none.” For two people who don’t really come across as being particularly smart, Jacqueline and Beverly certainly don’t have much trouble sneaking around Cuba.

(That said, there are enough references to Batista’s secret police to justify reviewing the film as a part of the 18 Days of Paranoia. Take my word for it. Or watch the movie on YouTube, where it’s available under the name Assault of the Rebel Girls.)

Anyway, this is a weird movie, along with also being a really cheap movie. Beverly Aadland was apparently Errol Flynn’s protegee. She also wasn’t a very good actress. (Jackie Jackler does a little bit better in the acting department, though not by much.) That said, as a film partially shot in Cuba during the days leading up to the revolution, this is an interesting historical document. And, for some people, just the fact that it’s a pro-Castro film from Errol Flynn (!) will be enough to justify sitting through it.

(Seriously, a celebrity defending a communist? That’s like a major news outlet or a bunch of basketball players going out of their way to defend the Chinese government. It just doesn’t make sense….)

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What Lisa Watched Last Night #209: Revenge For Daddy (dir by Tom Shell)

Posted on March 20, 2020 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Last night, I watched the latest Lifetime premiere, Revenge for Daddy!

Why Was I Watching It?

Well, first off, you may not have heard but the entire world is kind of shut down right now so basically, watching TV is about as wild as my Thursday night is going to get….

Then again, I would have watched it even if we weren’t on lockdown. It’s a new Lifetime movie and you know that I love those! I especially love Lifetime movies that have words like “Fatal,” “Wrong,” or “Revenge” in the title. Those are usually the best.

What Was It About?

It’s been a tough year for Lisa (Sarah Butler). Her father died under mysterious circumstances. Her boyfriend, Bobby (Charlie Gorilla), got drunk and slept with one her co-workers, Bethany (Eva Hamilton), leaving Lisa suddenly single. Her mother (Joely Fisher) keeps pressuring her to start dating again. Finally, just to keep her mom happy, Lisa photoshops herself into a picture with a handsome man on a dating site. All she wants to do is send it to her mom so her mom will get off her back. Instead, it leads to the man in the picture, Michael (Clayton James), tracking her down. Soon, Lisa and Michael are dating for real!

But can Michael be trusted? It turns out that Michael has a somewhat shady past which includes at least one mysterious death. Michael says he’s innocent but when one of Lisa’s co-workers shows up dead (and, even worse, when it appears that someone is trying to frame Lisa for the murder), Lisa starts to have her doubts….

What Worked?

This one was fun. I mean, let’s be honest. When it comes to most Lifetime melodramas, you’re not exactly looking for a realistic examination of all the world’s troubles. You’re looking for twists and turns and melodrama, preferably taking place in a nice house where everyone is either handsome or pretty and everyone wears nice clothes. Revenge For Daddy delivered all of that with the style.

The cast was uniformly good and the film actually did a pretty good job of keeping you guessing as to whether or not Michael was who he said he was. The film even managed to work in a few moments of intentional humor in the middle of all the drama and the mystery. All in all, this was one an enjoyable and entertaining Lifetime film.

I really liked the office where Lisa and her friends worked. It was nicely designed and, even more importantly, it didn’t seem like anyone really had to do much work. It seems like it would be a fun place from which to collect a paycheck.

What Didn’t Work?

It all worked! To repeat, this was an enjoyable and entertaining Lifetime film.

“Oh my God! Just like me!” Moments

The main character was named Lisa! You don’t get much more like me than that.

Lessons Learned

There were definitely lessons learned but I can’t really share them without spoiling the film’s ending. So, you’ll have to watch and learn for yourself!

4 Shots From 4 Spike Lee Films: Summer of Sam, 25th Hour, Oldboy, Da Sweet Blood of Jesus

Posted on March 20, 2020 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Today is Spike Lee’s 63rd birthday and you know what the means. It’s time that we honor one of American cinema’s greatest provocateurs with….

4 Shots From 4 Films

Summer of Sam (1999, dir by Spike Lee)

25th Hour (2002, dir by Spike Lee)

Oldboy (2013, dir by Spike Lee)

Da Sweet Blood of Jesus (2014, dir by Spike Lee)

Citizen Cohn (1992, directed by Frank Pierson)

Posted on March 19, 2020 by Jedadiah Leland

The year is 1986 and the powerful attorney Roy Cohn (James Woods) is dying. The official story is that Cohn has liver cancer but the truth is that he’s dying of AIDS. As he lies in his hospital bed, he thinks about his past and the events the led to him becoming one of the most feared and powerful men in America. He is haunted by the ghosts of his many enemies, people like communist spy Ethel Rosenberg (Karen Ludwig) and his former colleague, Bobby Kennedy (David Marshall Grant).

Not surprisingly, a good deal of Cohn’s memories center around his association with Sen. Joseph McCarthy (Joe Don Baker), a charismatic alcoholic who, in the 50s, charged that he had a list with the names of communist spies deep within the government. Cohn and Kennedy served as the counsels on McCarthy’s committees. Cohn is with McCarthy from the beginning and he’s with him until the end of the senator’s career. In fact, it’s Cohn’s own shadowy relationship with an army private that ultimately leads to McCarthy’s downfall.

Except for one aspect of the film, Citizen Cohn is one of the best films to ever be produced by HBO. The film covers a lot of history in a little less than 2 hours and it does so in a way that is always interesting and easy to follow. By including incidents from every phase of Cohn’s life, as opposed to just focusing on his time as McCarthy’, the film also shows how someone like Roy Cohn can become a behind-the-scenes power player despite the majority of the country having no idea who he is. James Woods gives one of his best performances as the hyperactive and unapologetically corrupt Cohn while Joe Don Baker is perfect as the self-pitying Joseph McCarthy.

The problem with the film, and your mileage may vary on how big an issue this is, is that it almost presents Cohn’s final days — dying of AIDS in a lonely New York hospital room — as being some sort of deserved fate for everything that he did wrong in life. For me, even in the case of someone like Roy Cohn, that’s a step too far and it comes very close to presenting AIDS as some sort of divine punishment (which, itself, comes dangerously close to mirroring the homophobic statements that were made — and still are being made — by anti-gay activists). That may not have been the film’s intention but, with the flashback structure and all of his dead enemies materializing to taunt Cohn as he lies dying, it’s still a very valid interpretation.

Some of that is perhaps unavoidable. Cohn, in both real life and the film, died largely unrepentant for anything he did during his life. As the central character of a biopic, Cohn never has the type of big moment that you would hope for, where he would realize that it was wrong for him to destroy so many lives and show at least a hint of contrition for his past behaviors. That Roy Cohn is even a compelling character is a testament to the talent of James Woods because it’s certainly not due to any sort of hidden goodness lurking underneath the surface of Cohn’s snarling personality. The lack of apologies and regrets that made Cohn a powerhouse in real life also makes him an ultimately unsatisfying subject for a movie.