A couple of off-beat films:
Nine Days-an arbiter interviews candidate souls for a singular position of becoming a living human being that has opened up. They must make it through nine days of questioning and be the final one chosen. Meanwhile, they learn about humans by watching an array of TV screens featuring the life POV of previous candidates that the arbiter had chosen.
More than a whiff of "The Good Place" permeates this film complete with a constant flow of profound moral questions of "what would you do?" under circumstances such as "do you sacrifice one person's life to save many?" But where TGP was much lighter, this film is more serious and frankly, the choice the candidates have to make is rather harsh. Original and thought provoking. First feature by director Edson Oda with a fairly unknown cast.
Dean Spanley-set in Edwardian England when seances, reincarnation and the Theosophical Society were all the rage. Peter O'Toole stars in one of his final films as a wealthy curmudgeon Fisk, Jeremy Northam as his ever-suffering son Young Fisk and Sam Neill as the Dean. Essentially a shaggy-dog comedy (literally) where Dean, despite being a clergyman, is very much interested in the transmigration of souls. Indeed, he reveals to his new friend Young Fisk, after being plied with a rare and expensive Hungarian Tokay wine, that he remembers his life as a dog.
Interesting and funny film although O'Toole is looking painfully cadaverous through the eyes. I felt it ended a bit too treacly Dickensian but perhaps that's just how it struck me.
Found on Prime via a trial period with STARZ.
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