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With this film, Takashi Miike has made his most accessible movie to date. I’d argue it is his best because it is tighter and less obsessed with shock than any of his previous work. Some might say this ode to the samurai genre, especially the work of Akira Kurasawa, is his least daring, but his daring sometimes doesn’t make for a compelling story. This is an actioner done the right way.

Set in 1844 when the reign of the samurai was coming to an end, a samurai commits seppuku in protest of the political advancement of Lord Naritsugu (Goro Inagaki, SAIMIN), the son of the former shogun and the brother of the current one. He is a ruthless sadist, who enjoys murder, torture and rape as a form of control over the peasants. Top official Sir Doi (Mikijiro Hira, SWORD OF THE BEAST) makes the decision to have Naritsugu assassinated and calls on veteran samurai Shinzaemon (Koji Takusho, SHALL WE DANCE?), who when found is fishing on a ladder in the ocean. Shinzaemon is eager to take the job. He shakes at the thought of having a noble death.

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When Steven Russell meets Phillip Morris in prison he catches a terminal cancer called love. He is consumed with giving Phillip the world. To do so he pays off guards, poses as a lawyer to get Phillip released early and scams millions out of a health care company in order to fund their lavish lifestyle. Oh what a guy won’t do for love.

Jim Carrey plays Steve Russell, who at the start of the film is a married cop who plays the organ at church every week, which he attends with his June Cleaver wife Debbie (Leslie Mann, KNOCKED UP). As a child, he was adopted through some not so legal means. He uses his access at work to locate his real mother to find out why she sold him. After that doesn’t work out too well, he moves his family away. Following a car accident, he declares that he has been living a lie and boldly comes out as gay.

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ROLLER BOOGIE is from the long Hollywood tradition of trying to cash in on youth trends. This little confection tried to capture the roller skating culture of Venice Beach. It casts a 20-year-old Linda Blair in the lead and a roller skating champion with no acting experience as her love interest. They’re just kids having fun, but it’s the stuffy adults that always have to come and ruin their vibe.

Blair (THE EXORCIST) plays Terry Barkley, a rich girl from Bel-Air whose parents want her to be a concert flutist. She wants to be a roller skating champion. As an adult myself, it’s hard to 100% root for her life decisions there. Bobby James (Jim Bray) is an amateur roller skating champ, who works at a skate rental stand on the boardwalk. They met up at the local roller rink where his friends bet him that he can’t get her to skate with him, because there is no way a girl driving a million dollar car would ever skate with a beach bum. As you can guess, she not only skates with him, but also asks him to teach her to skate like him.

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