I was going to wait to publish this until I came up with something to say about Backrooms, the best movie inspired by a 4chan post. But now I’ve waited so long that we’re in July, so I’ll just move ahead without a review for it. As you’ll see by the score, I loved it. I also enjoyed going out of my way this month to watch a number of anime films and OVAs, a project I have dubbed “AniMay 2026.”
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
United States of America, United Kingdom | 1977 | 137m | English, French, Spanish, Hindi
My first time seeing this. I think the first 20 minutes and last 20 minutes were great. In between that it was a bit slow and often had me thinking, “Who are these people? What’s happening? Where is this leading?” The effect of the overlapping dialogue was enhanced by some theatregoer contributions lol. But I was along for the mystery for the most part. Not sure how I feel about the father abandoning his family and being rewarded for it. Ladies, when your man wants to throw bricks and plants through the kitchen window and construct a dirt sculpture in your home, you just gotta let him cook. The scene where they take off their masks and go, “There’s nothing wrong with the air here!” reminded me of myself during covid fr. Close Encounters is not peak sci-fi nor peak Spielberg for me but I’m glad I can cross it off my list of 70s classics I still hadn’t seen.
Jurassic Park
United States of America | 1993 | 137m | English, Spanish
This is the first time I’ve seen it all the way through, though I definitely remember some of those scenes at the end. I was big into dinosaurs as a young boy in the late 90s, so I think this movie must have indirectly influenced me because of its sizeable cultural impact. Dinosaurs were really having a moment in the 90s, between this, Land Before Time, the U.S. Godzilla, and that weird Dinosaurs sitcom.
Jurassic Park has a great sense of movie magic wonder but it really shines in all of those well-directed, tense and horrifying action scenes. When I was young, I remember this movie being hyped up as super scary. But I appreciate how a lot of the danger faced by the characters comes from things other than the dinosaurs, from electric wires to falling cars. It’s undeniably a great popcorn kind of movie although I was surprised by how much time is spent on exposition.
8 Mile
United States of America, Germany | 2002 | 111m | English
Seen on the big screen at TIFF as part of their “Loved It” series, this time with a post-screening Q&A featuring comedian Robby Hoffman.
8 Mile is one of those movies that I’ve known about since it was first released, but that felt like an “adult” movie that I wouldn’t be able to see for a long time. “Lose Yourself” on the Grammy nominees CD of that year was probably my introduction to Eminem. I didn’t realize 8 Mile had actually premiered at TIFF all those years ago. I thought it was a solid drama with a great lead performance by Eminem. The Detroit setting is felt on every frame and line of dialogue. I’m surprised by how many insider Michigan references I got, just from my years living in East Lansing. You know I sang along in the theater to the “mom’s spaghetti” line once those end credits hit.
AniMay 2026
Whisper of the Heart
Japan | 1995 | 111m | Japanese
Whisper of the Heart is one of the least fantastical of Studio Ghibli’s films, but it’s still a gorgeously animated and scored coming-of-age tale that fits right along with the studio’s better known titles. I missed the chance to see this at the theater during its recent 4K rerelease, but I figured it was finally time to watch one of the few Ghibli films I hadn’t yet seen.
I think that if I had seen Whisper of the Heart when I was much younger, it would have struck me as mostly uneventful. What appealed to me most, watching it now, was the beautiful depiction of its setting—it reminded me so much of where I lived and what I saw when I resided in Japan. That stirred up certain emotions in myself personally but most people watching this will probably feel something different. As someone with creative interests and ambitions, the dreams and efforts of the young protagonists also spoke to me. The grandpa’s monologue about creative pursuits as akin to the work of finding and polishing jewels hidden within stone rang true to me. It may even become the thing that stays with me most about this movie.
Whisper of the Heart might not grab everyone who wants more of the surreal fantasy that Ghibli usually delivers, but you can’t deny the beauty of what they’ve put together here.
Hunter x Hunter: Phantom Rouge
Japan | 2013 | 97m | Japanese
I recently started re-reading Hunter x Hunter after giving up on it years ago. Now I’m locked in to the story enough that I decided to use this month’s “AniMay” theme to check out one of the two movies based on the series. I hadn’t heard much positive about this film going in… and now that I’m on the other side of it, I can see why. The plot feels like a flimsy excuse to bring all these characters together, just for their few seconds of onscreen aura farming.
Hunter x Hunter in general is pretty weird… its real appeal—I think—lies in the eclectic, anything-goes collection of settings, characters, and bizarre tonal shifts that act more than anything as a vehicle for creator Yoshihiro Togashi to indulge in whatever his particular interests are at the time. Sometimes he wants to write a typical shonen tournament arc, sometimes he wants to write a gritty, violent mob crime drama, other times he wants to exhaustively explore the world of antiques auctions and every which way they can be exploited, and yet other times he clearly is bored of writing manga and wishes he could be designing the mechanics of an MMORPG instead. His series is a peek into his restlessly creative brain, for better or worse.
None of that eccentricity is present in Phantom Rouge. It’s very by-the-numbers—just look at these action scenes. Characters behave in ways that don’t always feel authentic to how they are in the series (Killua, what are you doing in front of that train!?). I enjoyed it enough to watch it through to the end, but it really is nothing special.
Venus Wars
Japan | 1989 | 102m | Japanese
Venus Wars is a feature-length sci-fi action anime that ticks all the boxes: fluid animation, detailed and cool vehicle designs, and narratively unnecessary fan service moments. Yup *cracks open a Monster Energy Zero Ultra and sips it noisily* they sure don’t make ‘em like they used to…
The story takes a backseat to the aesthetics and artistry. Venus Wars is not on the level of something like Akira, but it will probably appeal to the same people who love that. What I didn’t realize going in was that Joe Hisaishi handled the soundtrack. That must have been why it was so bangin’.
Venus Wars would probably look great on the big screen—but I wouldn’t know, because I watched it on a compressed KissAnime rip casted from my phone to the TV while fighting off unwanted browser tabs whisking me away to Shien every time I had to click the media player to pause or resume. The things we put up with for 80s anime…
The Secret World of Arrietty
Japan | 2010 | 94m | Japanese
I don’t think that counts as borrowing. They’re just straight up stealing.
I figured a one-day-only IMAX rerelease of The Secret World of Arrietty was as good a time as any to cross this off my list of unseen Ghibli films. It’s not quite charming enough to reach upper-tier Ghibli for me, but of course the art is great and the music and sound design is incredible (especially on those gloriously loud IMAX speakers). The story feels a little straightfoward—I’m not sure it’s really saying anything, apart from maybe the typical Ghibli theme of “wouldn’t it be great if people did a better job co-existing with nature?” This time, “nature” is represented by little people who eek out a living inside neglected nooks and crannies of the homes of much larger humans.
The English subtitles repeatedly use the phrase “human bean” whenever the pint-size characters refer to the larger humans, even though in Japanese I heard “ningen”—the standard word for “human being.” After a little research, it seems like the English subtitles derive this wordplay from Mary Norton’s novel The Borrowers, the source material for this movie. The Japanese dialogue doesn’t actually include any kind of pun, so this is a rare case where an English translation adds to the literary depth of the film as opposed to simplifying it. Neat.
Riding Bean
Japan | 1989 | 45m | Japanese
I don’t know why this anime takes place in Chicago, but I love that it does.
Riding Bean packs a lot of fun into its compact runtime. The characters, the action, the music (especially that music)—it’s all fantastic. Ridiculous, of course, but still fantastic. Riding Bean is needlessly edgy at times, but that kind of comes with the territory whenever one discusses anime OVAs from the 80s, so I can’t fault it there.
Black Magic M-66
Japan | 1987 | 47m | Japanese
It seems like a lot of people like Black Magic M-66 but it did little for me. The pacing is way too slow for most of the runtime. It picks up towards the ending, but by then it’s too late. The animation and music didn’t wow me the way that many other 80s OVAs do. The design of the main robot is kind of neat, but most everything else is drab. And what’s with the name “Black Magic M-66”? Ain’t no black magic anywhere to be seen. I hovered between giving this either two stars or one-and-a-half, but I went with the latter when I thought of how bored I was for the majority of the runtime. Just watch The Terminator!
1.5/5
Puparia
Japan | 2020 | 3m | No Spoken Language
It’s physically impossible to fault Puparia for its animation. It looks better than… I mean… anything else. Right? Can anyone actually dispute that? I think everyone yearns for a feature-length film at this level of quality.
The missing half-star is because none of it makes any sense. That’s easy to overlook, though, since it’s only 3 minutes long. Puparia will make your next trip to the toilet absolutely unforgettable.
Megazone 23
Japan | 1985 | 81m | Japanese
Megazone 23 is totally enjoyable, even if it reaches a bit beyond what it’s able to adequately address in 81 minutes. The proto-Matrix tale of a falsified reality with intergalactic implications is cool but it’s too undercooked against, as the trailer for the English dub puts it, a fun setting “where the music was hot and the girls were hotter, and a guy with a cool bike could get laid all summer long.”
There’s no mistaking that Megazone 23 is a product of the 80s, with colorful cel animation, motorcycles-that-are-also-robots, and a dated but endearing pop soundtrack. I loved it for what it was. The fact that it ends so incompletely, on a cliffhanger, practically guarantees that you’ll hunt down the sequel immediately.
Megazone 23 II
Japan | 1986 | 82m | Japanese
Megazone 23 II (that’s “Megazone two-three part two”) is jarring. I can’t think of another animated film I’ve seen where a sequel redesigned all of the characters to the point of unrecognizability. Hopefully you remember their names so you’ll be able to recognize who’s who.
Megazone 23 II builds upon the sci-fi premise of the first movie far more deeply, although in my opinion that’s to the detriment of everything that made the first film so much fun. We still get a bangin’ pop soundtrack, at least. The grittiness and the violence is amped up for the sequel, but I can’t say the same for the quality of animation. Some of these sequences look rough. I don’t think it’s a good sign when I’m reminded more of Cboyardee’s YouTube animations than the colorful big-eyes and big-hair anime stylings of the original film.
I think it’s worth watching if you’re a fan who wants to know how the cliffhanger from part 1 is resolved. And, ugly as it often is, Megazone 23 II still looks unlike most anything else I’ve seen, so it’s worth it for the novelty alone. I hear the third movie is even worse, though, so I might just stop here.
Other Movies I Saw This Month
- Obsession (2025) [2.5/5]
- Backrooms (2026) [4.5/5]
Best Movies I Saw This Month
- Backrooms
- Puparia
- Megazone 23
Worst Movies I Saw This Month
- Black Magic M-66
- Hunter x Hunter: Phantom Rouge
Josh Anderson 