Cinematic Distractions...

Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings (2021):
Tony Chiu-Wai Leung and Michelle Yeoh and Benedict Wong...Oh my!
Tony Chiu-Wai Leung and Michelle Yeoh and Benedict Wong...Oh my!
Tony Chiu-Wai Leung and Michelle Yeoh and Benedict Wong...Oh my!
Three of my favorite actors in one movie...Oh my!
Simu Liu, Awkwafina, and Meng'er Zhang are great too.
It's new, so I don't want to spoil it. It's funny. It's wholesome. The action and effects are dazzling. The dragon armor is sexy. It's terrific!

The Red Turtle (La tortue rouge - 2016):
Visual storytelling done in the international language of no dialogue whatsoever. I didn't mind that. I found it engrossing and peaceful if not a bit sad.
It begins with a man struggling to tread water in a stormy sea. We don't know who he is or how he got there. He gets washed ashore on a deserted island. Adorable little crabs seem to be the main inhabitants.
The man soon sets about constructing a raft. As he departs the island, something strikes his raft from below and destroys it. He tries again, and again, and again until he is exhausted. When he encounters the creature that destroyed his rafts, he is forever changed.
I like the way the crabs punctuate the action. They are always scuttling nearby, observing, and sometimes participating.

The Pornographers (Erogotoshi-tachi yori: Jinruigaku nyûmon - 1966):
Content warning: This movie depicts incest both implied and explicit.
Shōhei Imamura's Pigs and Battleships appeared on the last list. This is the first movie I saw from that director. This was my second viewing of it. The first time around, I rated it higher than Pigs and Battleships. I've since changed my mind. I think I rated it higher solely because I was so impressed by its novelty compared to other movies I had seen up to that point.
It's sordid. The subject matter is pretty twisted and depressing, but it's brilliantly shot. Imamura uses windows, and even an aquarium to frame many of the scenes, which gives a sense of being removed from the characters. We're pruriently gazing at them from the outside.
Haru(Sumiko Sakamoto) is a hairdresser and mother of two teenagers who rents out a room of the family home after her husband dies. She gets romantically involved with one of her tenants in spite of having sworn to her husband on his death bed that she would never be with another man. Her son is spoiled, overly needy, clingy, and manipulative. Their relationship is inappropriately touchy-feely. Her daughter is more aloof, lacking in academic ambition, and in danger of becoming a juvenile delinquent. As far as Haru knows, her tenant turned fiancé is a medical products salesman. In truth, he is a pornographer. Rounding out this unconventional, dysfunctional family is a fish. That's right. A fish. Not just any fish, a carp that Haru believes is the reincarnation of her late husband.
Ogata(Subu)(Shôichi Ozawa) is one of the titular pornographers. He and his work, and his struggle to keep it secret from his family are the focus of the story. He, the director, and another man are basically the entire crew, production staff, and marketing team. They make a few low budget skin flicks per day. They encounter numerous problems and setbacks. There are difficulties with the actors, problems finding filming locations, technical difficulties, cheapskate clients, plus the risk of being arrested. They spend money as fast or faster than they can make it, especially Ogata(Subu). Every time he turns around, there is a coworker, business contact, or family member asking him for money.
Back at home with Haru, they decide to get married, and they want to have a baby. Her son and daughter are less than thrilled by the news. The carp doesn't like it either. Their disapproval puts a lot of strain on Haru. She sinks into depression, and her doctor diagnoses her with a weak heart. Friction between family members brings about a shocking revelation, and the situation takes a turn for the worse.
Technical note: More of a technical prop note...
I was fascinated and perplexed by the cameras used in the porn shoot scenes. I did some searching, and they appear to be Nikkorex-8 cameras. The perplexing part is that they are using four of them held together in a bundle. It looks really cool, but I'm not an AV person, so I'm at a loss as to why.

Bat Without Wings (Wu yi bian fu - 1980):
A noble lady stops for a cup of tea with her security detail and her maid. She is led astray into danger after someone hands her a written invitation ostensibly from a renowned heroic fighter. She leaves her people at the tea house and goes to meet with him at a nearby temple. She realizes too late that it's a trap set by an imposter. She is an accomplished fighter in her own right, but in the end, she is no match for the notorious Bat Without Wings. Her maid returns home to report the terrible turn of events to her father, and her fiancé. They then set out to search for her. Meanwhile, her ghost drops by to deliver her severed head. That sets the stage for the story.
Her family seeks help from the very same heroic fighter whose name was used to lure her to her demise. His name is Xiao Qi, but he is often referred to by the description White Gown and Jewelry Sword. As they prepare to set out, a renowned badass fighter lady approaches him and asks him to help her find her even more famous and badass father. Her dad earned his fame by being one of the twenty-eight heroic fighters who killed Bat Without Wings five years earlier. Out of twenty-eight fighters, only he and another man they call "The Scholar" survived. They all agree to work together, but before they depart, a pair of assassins show up. They have a fancy title for themselves, but I'll just call them The Poison Brothers.
FYI: This is one convoluted as hell Shaw Brothers production.
Who is Bat Without Wings?
Bat Without Wings is a serial rapist, murderer, thief, and all around bloodthirsty bad guy who paints his face and styles his hair like Gene Simmons of Kiss.
Is he dead, alive, or undead?
Not exactly, yes, and not exactly.
To find out the truth the heroes must find their way inside an improvised prison loaded with deadly traps and surrounded by a moving and occasionally exploding bamboo forest.
Making things even more convoluted, there may or may not be martial arts manuscripts containing all of Bat Without Wings' fighting secrets. There may or may not be a vast treasure trove hidden in his secret lair.
Something that's definitely in his lair is a collection of grotesque statues of his victims. They are quite badly done and really bizarre looking. There are some deer statues outside the lair that are even worse like creepy villain lawn ornaments.
The lair is built into a cave, so he is a bat without wings who wears a cape in a bat cave, and he has bat blades. More accurately, he had bat blades. They were taken from him and hidden five years earlier right after he got his bat ass kicked. He wants his bat blades. The heroes want justice, the bad blades, the martial arts manuscripts, and maybe treasure. The Poison Brothers want all of those things except for justice.
It's convoluted and cheesy, but it's fun.

From here down, it's a fight for last place.

N*tflix's Cowboy Bebop (2021):
I'm glad I waited until the cancellation announcement was made, but I'm not glad it was cancelled. I wanted a second season. I wanted them to have a chance to do better. It's not terrible. I didn't hate it, but I didn't like it.
The good:
--John Cho as Spike Spiegel
--Mustafa Shakir as Jet Black
--Daniella Pineda as Faye Valentine
--Mason Alexander Park as Gren
--Ein
--the vehicles
--the music
The bad:
--Alex Hassell as Vicious
--Elena Satine as Julia
Making the story so heavily dependent on those two was a poor choice.
The ugly:
--Radical Edward, not the actor but the portrayal. It needs to be reined in to put it mildly. My husband described it as "Pee Wee Herman on crack". I agree, but Pee Wee Herman on crack meets steampunk young Carrot Top also on crack.
--that sacrilege the writers committed in front of the rose window

As a live action true to the original, it's a disaster. As a live action fan fiction based on the original, it's not bad. It had a lot more gore than I expected. At times, I felt more like I was watching Gotham than Cowboy Bebop.
There were some crucial elements it lacked from the anime. Detachment, in general but in particular with Spike, especially his fall from the rose window. That event unfolds very differently in the anime. It's Spike's calm detachment that gives that scene its power and magnificence. That final "Fuck you!" grenade he drops is also an important part of it. The other element is subtlety. The way Ed is portrayed is the most glaring example of what I mean. There is no subtlety with Vicious either, but my complaints about him go well beyond that.
In short, they kept the jazz, but lost the zen.
It sits at the top of the fight for last place on this list. I'd like them to do more and do better, but it's not my decision to make. I recommend it, especially to the social media trolls claiming that Edward isn't in it at all. Yes, it's only one little scene right at the very end. Presumably, there would have been many more scenes with Ed in season two. I guess we will never know.
Whatever happens, happens.

Gradiva (C'est Gradiva qui vous appelle - 2006):
If you try to look this up simply as Gradiva, you'll get a movie from 1970 with the same title. Both are based on the novel written by Wilhelm Jensen. The full title of this one in English is It's Gradiva Who Is Calling You. It's directed by Alain Robbe-Grillet who wrote the scenario and dialogue for Last Year at Marienbad (1961).
There is no Gradiva only Leila. Leila is played by Arielle Dombasle. She has this French Michelle Pfeiffer thing going on, but just her looks not her acting skills. She sashays and prances around in a gauzy white gown all through the streets of a Moroccan town. To drive the point home, I suggest looking up "Prancercise".
James Wilby plays John Locke, an art professor specializing in the Orientalism movement who is researching Eugéne Delacroix. He is in Morocco to acquire some sketchbooks purported to be Delacroix's. He pursues Leila after she prances by him in the marketplace one day. He gets waylaid by a fraudulent blind man who introduces him to an art dealing doctor who is also the proprietor of an exclusive S&M club.
Dany Verissimo plays Belkis, John Locke's servant who tries to keep him grounded in reality. She fears it's a dark path he is going down.
One good thing about it is that the more it takes itself seriously the funnier it gets. This is especially true of every scene with Leila/Gradiva in it. Unfortunately, it perpetuates a number of stereotypes. It's not S&M as in consensual and safe like what consenting adults might choose to do. It leans heavily into non-consensual torture porn territory. There is that, plus ableism and racism. The ableist stereotype of the fake blind person up to no good gets around in movies and television shows. The further back in time you go, the greater the frequency with which it occurs. So much so, that it's not even the only movie in this list with a character like that.
This list inadvertently has two elements that repeat:
--Sighted people pretending to be blind for nefarious reasons (Bat Without Wings, Gradiva)
--Ambulatory bamboo forests (Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, Bat Without Wings)

The Night and the Moment (1994):
This one depends on how much you like one or both of the lead actors, Willem Dafoe and Lena Olin. Miranda Richardson also plays a part, but it's relatively minor. It's a talkie, and I don't mean one of the earliest motion pictures to have sound. I mean it's two people having a conversation in a bedroom for pretty much the entire movie.
It's a period piece set in a lavish mansion belonging to a Marquis. Not that Marquis! There is a brief opening scene of after dinner parlor entertainment, which is followed by the guests retiring to their rooms for the night. No sooner do they retire then they all sneak back out to go bedroom hopping.
It's not as exciting as it sounds. If it were, this movie wouldn't be next to last on the list. It tries to be romantic and titillating, and it might be for certain people. It didn't work for me. Two people teasing and slut shaming each other for an hour and a half isn't my idea of a good time. The back and forth gets tedious, and it's easy to guess how it will end.

Diamonds of Kilimandjaro (El tesoro de la diosa blanca - 1983):
It's mighty terrible and mighty white. It's so terrible they misspelled the name of the mountain in the title. It's so terrible that director Jess Franco took his name off of it. Several scenes were cut in an effort to placate the French censors. New replacement footage was shot with another director. It's a mess of bad dubbing and bad stock footage of monkeys and other exotic wildlife. The stock footage is noticeably lower in quality. Still, I'm sure Franco's untouched original would have been just as terrible...and white.
For what I mean by "mighty white", consider its Spanish title El tesoro de la diosa blanca. That's The treasure of the white goddess in English. It's probably euphemistic to describe it as racially insensitive. It's one of those white people get stranded (in this case by a plane crash) in a place where the natives haven't seen white people before stories.
The natives mistake them for divine beings, and soon they are in charge of everything and everyone. The white "goddess" is a homely, gangly, and nearly naked seventeen-year-old, Diana played by Katja Bienert. Diana has a rich but terminally ill mother back where she came from, and she stands to inherit a great deal of wealth if she can be found and returned.
It's not long before a search expedition of mercenaries and opportunistic relatives brings trouble to paradise. Matters are both helped and complicated by Noba(Aline Mess). She is the high priestess of a local tribe, and she isn't having any of that white gods from the sky bullshit.