Magare! Supûn (2009) Go Find a Psychic!
IMDb meta-data is a runtime of 1h and 46m, rated 6.5 by 610 cinematizens.
Genre: Sy Fy.
DNA: Japan.
Verdict: Amusing.
Tagline: Yes, Virginia.
A television program concerns the paranormal…real or fake! Each week someone claiming paranormal abilities is the guest who demonstrates that ability. Bring on the spoons! Two regulars offer comments, the believer and the skeptic who always prevails.
It sounds as loopy as some of the (un)reality television I have seen here (from the bicycle seat at the gym).
As much fun as it is for the audience to ridicule failed contestants, the ratings are falling and the director is desperate for a boost. Ergo he decides they need to do better than those who volunteer for the show. No, they have to go find some paranormal talent. To that end he dispatches his feckless assistant to get some real abnormals, as he says.
Where to start such a quest? A trip to Wellington (NZ) Paranormal is too expensive so, she settles for reading the National Inquirer, News of the World, Sydney Telegraph, and other credulous tabloids with stories of two-headed cows, UFOs among the garden gnomes in the Imperial Gardens, psychic cooks, miracle cures for stupidity, and the like.
From this research she identifies places where the ley lines must be crossed, and sets out on the train with her roll-abroad kit.
Among the viewers of this terrible television program is a group of genuine but secret paranormals who meet every Monday at showtime in an otherwise closed cafe run by one of their number to watch the latest debunking. Each is sworn to secrecy about their powers and each other. One has X-Ray vision. Another has telekinetic powers. A third can read minds. A fourth, despite appearances, has super strength … There are six of them.
Then by a mischance a seventh appears…and confusion follows, just as the television journalist stumbles into the cafe, exhausted and frustrated from her own recent encounters with individuals who claim such powers but don’t have them. She would be happy for a cup of tea and snack, and she is hard to resist, so the cafe owner obliges.
While the paranormals try not reveal themselves to her for what they are, they would also like to — you know — get closer to her. Hint, hint. That is complicated by the seventh interloper. The original six are so used to concealing their true selves from other people, they just don’t know how to talk to anyone, let alone a good looking young woman with media connections.
There follows a comedy of errors which is good humoured but stretched thin, and it has a denouement that was from a shelved Disney movie. Did I mention it was Christmas eve?