(The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T, Ghost In The Shell 2: Innocence)
Props to those adventurous parents who brought their kids to the Saturday matinee screening of Roy Rowland’s wonderful 1953 Dr. Seuss fantasy The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T where others might have lazily opted for creatively bankrupt multiplex fare like Madagascar. It’s a highly imaginative dream – or nightmare, to be more precise – that’s at its most deliriously fun when navigating the viewer through the secret passageways, unfinished structures and false directions of its striking Technicolor-burnished Expressionist sets.

Elements of brainwashing, Orwellian oppression and Atomic age paranoia lend the film an allegorical heft, while the surreal characters, wild costumes and hammy perfs – the borderline cloying, wide-eyed, gee-whiz enthusiasm of lead kid actor Tommy Rettig, and the theatrical, tyrannical relish of Hans Conried as his nemesis Dr. Terwilliker – secure its reputation as a cult item. The musical numbers, penned by Seuss, do tend to grind the action to a halt, but it’s impossible to be bored by their bizarreness. A fantastic treat, and the print looked fab too.

Similarly hallucinatory and mind-bending, Mamoru Oshii’s Ghost In The Shell 2: Innocence, the sequel to his 1995 anime classic, mixes a musty detective procedural (complete with gruesome serial murders and buddy movie banter), and a hypothetical discourse on the slippery nature of memories, existence and artificial intelligence into a heady, at times operatic, cyberpunk meltdown. From its vertiginous Blade Runner-times-ten cityscapes to its vintage wheels rolled straight out from a ‘40s noir, the anachronistic design is as seamless as its blended cel and 3D computer animation. I lost the plot about two-thirds into the film, but I doubt Oshii was expecting even the heartiest anime geek to digest all his philosophical musings in one sitting. Visually mind-blowing.—AY