watching the ace attorney movie and i totally forgot the hard swerve it takes

one moment, you're in the most infamously silly moments of the series, cross-examining a parrot

and then you go right into the gut-wrenching tragedy of yanni yogi

at first i was like "oh wow i forgot this was directed by the same guy who did ichi the killer" but not anymore

miike's fingerprints are all over this movie, if you're looking for them

like, for all the colorful costumes and characters, the palette is really muted

but it really does play well with how phoenix defends by the seat of his pants

always on the back foot, just throwing everything out there until something sticks

and i love how they play the judge, as just incredibly soft-spoken while also constantly pushing the edge of his patience

also larry still having his own metal detector makes a lot more sense than the anime's solution, where maya was just randomly carrying it around for the entire case

the judge is a messy bitch who lives for drama, and that's the only reason he allows phoenix to conduct this search against von karma's wishes

other things i really liked are how incredibly different the small, cramped courtroom for the first trial was

it really underlines how far out of his depth phoenix was for the second trial

also, they just had a janitor lady throw confetti at larry

and then at the end more janitor ladies had to sweep up all the confetti

i actually watched this for the first time recently and i was surprised how much i really enjoyed it

it's a good movie