Something Cult, Foreign-Language or Indie #253: Isle of Dogs (2018).

 

In the fictional Japanese city of Megasaki, a canine influenza outbreak has occurred. Mayor Kenji Kobayashi (Kunichi Nomura) therefore decrees that all dogs are to be deported to nearby Trash Island, despite the mayor's political rival Professor Watanabe's (Akira Ito) insistence that he is about to find a cure. The first pooch dumped there is Spots (Liev Schreiber), whose owner is none other than Mayor Kobayashi's ten-year-old nephew and ward, Atari (Koyu Rankin). A quiet but adventurous boy, missing his pet, Atari now wastes no time in going away to find and rescue Spots, hijacking an aircraft to Trash Island, now known as "Isle of Dogs," where he meets and acquires the help of stray Chief (Bryan Cranston) and his pack.

This is a genuinely oddball film, but that's precisely what to expect from writer-director Wes Anderson. Nominated for the 2018 Best Animated Feature and Best Original Score Oscars, it's a stop-motion science fiction comedy and I don't quite know how I feel about it, if I'm completely honest, but it's undoubtedly original and unmistakable. I do know I don't think it's nearly as enjoyable as his live-action films Rushmore (1998) and The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014), but it's totally different to both those narratively, aesthetically and technically anyway. There's a real exactness and precision to how Anderson directs this tale and the humour in his screenplay is almost exclusively deadpan and very dry (another trademark of his work), with the visuals flowing very consistently from scene to scene with thorough attention to detail. And the voice cast (which also includes Harvey Keitel, Frances McDormand, Jeff Goldblum, Scarlett Johansson, Ken Watanabe, Greta Gerwig, F. Murray Abraham and even Yoko Ono) all provide fun and natural vocal turns. Alexandre Desplat's score also warranted its Oscar nod.

But as I said before, all things considered, I don't quite know what I think of Isle of Dogs, mainly because I'm still trying to identify exactly what its overall objectives are. However, I certainly do not hate it. I don't even dislike it.

Something Cult, Foreign-Language or Indie #252: Growing Up Smith (2017).

 

In the present day, Indian-American Smith reflects on his adolescent experiences as a young immigrant (Roni Akurati) after his family moved to America in 1979. There, his parents' (Poorna Jagannathan and Shoba Narayan) traditional Indian values conflicted with his growing affection for American trends of the time like KFC (even though his family are all vegetarians), Star Wars, and especially disco and Saturday Night Fever. The girl who catches his eye and heart is Amy (Brighton Sharbino) and even while the times change, she never quite leaves his thoughts. To complete Smith's education in all things American, Amy's outdoorsman father Butch (Jason Lee) introduces him to hunting.

Growing Up Smith begins charmingly with its loving homages to aforementioned '70s pop culture hallmarks and its effort to establish a fish-out-of-water coming-of-age narrative. But then it insists on changing course into such familiar and wholesome territory that it becomes bogged down in tired cliches. It really did feel to me exactly like a feature-length episode of The Wonder Years (a show I adore, by the way) except with an immigrant family. It has the voice-over narration from adult Smith and everything! Working from the screenplay by Anjul Nigam, Paul Quinn and Gregory Scott Houghton, Australian director Frank Lotito's approach here just shows no zest or empathy for me. Aesthetically it also lacks any fitting cultural touches like mystical visuals or sitar music; I realise those are both stereotypically Indian themselves but I think they could've been employed to literally clash with the Western ones that were included, to emphasise Smith's of-two-worlds situation more pointedly. Instead, the approach here taken struck me as uninspired and hackneyed, with bland jokes to boot. Oh, and the soundtrack consists of covers of Bee Gees hits. That was probably because the small budget limited which versions they could afford the rights to, but I suspect the band would be happy the originals couldn't be used.

Overall, this was a harmless and lightweight but fatally cliched and unfunny return to very familiar territory. 5/10.

Something Cult, Foreign-Language or Indie #251: Be Kind Rewind (2008).

 

In Passaic, New Jersey, Mike (Mos Def) holds the fort at the struggling video rental store "Be Kind Rewind," while his employer Mr. Fletcher (Danny Glover) is on leave. Fletcher has given Mike a message to not let the clumsy and unhinged Jerry (Jack Black) into the store, but Mike misinterpreted that message. After then trying to deactivate a nearby power substation because he thinks it's melting his brain, Jerry receives an electrical shock which renders him magnetised before he enters the store and inadvertently erases all its tapes. Now, of course, the customers (including Mia Farrow as one) start to complain about the tapes they've hired, so Mike and Jerry hatch a plan: with no budget or additional help, they will reshoot every single movie in the store and hope nobody notices. Well, the customers do notice, but these homemade remakes prove unexpectedly popular, if not exactly legal.

After making the Oscar-winning Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and music videos for everybody from Paul McCartney to Kraftwerk, Michel Gondry definitely has a reputation for nonconformity and variety and both those qualities are overflowing in the delightful Be Kind Rewind. Perhaps unsurprisingly, as the store houses literally hundreds of titles, the films referenced and recreated here go from everything to Driving Miss Daisy to RoboCop to The Lion King and, in my favourite recreation (or "swedes" as they're called in the film), 2001: A Space Odyssey. But there's more to enjoy than just the laughs from those re-shoots. Be Kind Rewind also makes a lucid statement on film industry changes that remain unfolding now, and on where and how creativity and inspiration start.

This was evidently Gondry's attempt to salute cinema and some of its most iconic and influential modern entries while also turning them all on their heads. His enthusiastic, indeed almost anarchic insistence on doing that proved contagious for me, and he realised it with a fabulous dadaist vibe and appropriately easy-going performances. Above all, though, it's a celebration of filmmaking itself. Be Kind Rewind is (almost) too good to return.

Something Cult, Foreign-Language or Indie #250: Mean Creek (2004).

Teenage Sam (Rory Culkin) tells his older brother Rocky (Trevor Morgan) that he's having trouble at school with the resident bully, the overweight and privately troubled George (Josh Peck). After Rocky then tells his friends Clyde (Ryan Kelley) and Marty (Scott Mechlowicz), they hatch a plan to stage a party for Sam's (fictional) birthday and to invite George, take him on a boating trip and then make him strip in a game of truth or dare, dump him in the river and then leave him to run home naked. George very gullibly accepts the invitation and then once the trip gets underway, some of the guys, as well as Sam's friend Millie (Carly Schroeder), who's reluctantly joined them, develop second thoughts upon realising George is just very lonely and eager for acceptance. However, the others, especially Marty, maintain their original feelings about George and insist on pressing on with the plan.

Writer-director Jacob Aaron Estes' feature debut Mean Creek is a mature, realistic and haunting cautionary tale about adolescent bullying, how it begins and, particularly, how not to combat it. Estes here demonstrates a rich but delicate cinematographic exposition of the natural locations the characters trek through and more importantly a lucid tracking of the group's dynamics and how they all remain distinctive yet intertwined. What's especially interesting is how two of them trade one narrative role, although for spoiler reasons I won't specify who.

Estes also gets very effective and natural turns out of his young cast, particularly Peck and Schroeder, and wisely resists using pop hits on the soundtrack, for a more timeless feel. Musical duo Tomandandy's score, by the way, matches the wilderness setting and mounting suspense in every scene, and the film is also edited very evenly. Mean Creek is rather like the anti-Stand by Me (although that movie has its own dark moments), but in treading its territory very confrontationally, it becomes a coming-of-age film that's admirably honest and not preachy. Exceptional stuff. 

Something Cult, Foreign-Language or Indie #249: 20 Feet from Stardom (2013).

 

They're the artists who've provided the backdrop for some of the most beloved and acclaimed songs in pop music history. But most of them have remained merely names inside album liner notes, not household names. Morgan Neville's 20 Feet from Stardom, which won the 2013 Best Documentary Feature Oscar, finally reveals a few of their stories, to give these gifted but overshadowed performers their due at last.

They include Merry Clayton (the woman who dueted with Mick Jagger on the Rolling Stones' "Gimme Shelter"), Grammy winner Lisa Fischer, Darlene Love (who brought the house down with an a cappella performance during the filmmakers' Oscar acceptance speech), Judith Hill and Sheryl Crow (who sang backing vocals for Michael Jackson); also interviewed are Stevie Wonder, Bette Midler and Bruce Springsteen among others. Every interview is handled and integrated with the right subjective touch, and these ladies' tales will all move you, then make you cheer.

Neville handles all their stories with empathy and a healthy curiosity, but brings very much a director's eye to the visual elements. He intersperses the interviews with original information graphics and archival performance footage, both of which brilliantly infuse it with vibrancy and authenticity. The aesthetics do feel reminiscent of ones from shows like Soul Train or Top of the Pops. The emotional peak arrives with an astonishing choir rendition of "I Say a Little Prayer" at the end. It all adds up to a sizzling, insightful and powerful tribute to some of pop music's unsung (pun intended) heroes.

Something Cult, Foreign-Language or Indie #248: CJ7 (2008).

 

Chow Ti (writer-director Stephen Chow) is a poor, widowed construction worker who inhabits a partially demolished house with his nine-year-old son, Dicky (Xu Jiao). Ti wishes to earn and save money to continue sending Dicky to private school, but there Dicky experiences daily bullying because of his poverty and weathered clothes. Then while shopping one day, Dicky begs Ti to buy him a whiz-bang new toy robot named CJ1, but Ti cannot afford it and this leads to Ti smacking the stubborn Dicky in front of many other shoppers. But then that night, while searching through a junkyard where he has found numerous appliances and clothes for Dicky, Ti finds a strange green orb which he takes home for his son. When it then transforms into a pint-sized green alien, their lives are turned upside down.

A departure from the martial arts slapstick comedies Chow made his name with, 2001's Shaolin Soccer and 2004's Kung Fu Hustle, this Chinese family science fiction comedy tickled me pink. It's a gloriously weird, unashamedly ridiculous and sometimes even touching romp with a wisely subtle message about socio-economic inequality in China mixed in, and very convincing visual effects for its $20 000 000 budget. Chow plots and paces it all with a firm grip and makes an amiable paternal hero but perhaps unsurprisingly the true star here is Xu Jiao, who I was stunned to discover is actually a girl! She cross-dressed for the role and makes Dicky a young hero who's neither too cute nor too mischievous.

Raymond Wong Ying-Wah's musical stylings complement the narrative and visuals effectively also, and the editing and sound design bring more flavour still. CJ7 is a prime slice of Dadaist, Eastern family filmmaking for all ages.

Something Cult, Foreign-Language or Indie #247: Ten Canoes (2006).

 

In Arnhem Land, before Western influence, ten Aboriginal men work together as hunters. Young Dayindi (Jamie Gulpilil, whose father David narrates the movie) is told a story about another young man from even further back in history who coveted one of his sisters-in-law and eventually killed a member of another tried, for which he faced grave penalties. This tale resonates with Dayindi because it echoes his own situation.

Ten Canoes won the 2006 AFI Award for Best Film, and its intentions as the first movie entirely in indigenous Australian language are admirable. Plus, it did initially captivate me as a study of pre-European settlement life among Australia's First Nations peoples. But then, as it consciously goes out of its way to assert its arthouse intentions, for me it proved Rolf de Heer's status as arguably the most pretentious filmmaker in Australia. He co-directed it, to his credit, with the indigenous Peter Djigirr, but Djigirr's instincts to me didn't seem to have prevailed over de Heer's as perhaps they should have. There's lush natural photography and engaging non-professional performances here, but neither of those can counter de Heer's insistence on telling this narrative as alternatively as possible, and the lack of a score doesn't help.

De Heer obviously cared about this story of the first Australians; otherwise he wouldn't have made it. But I came away from it genuinely thinking Warwick Thornton or Rachel Perkins, two acclaimed Aboriginal filmmakers, would have made it into a far more accessible, insightful and moving film. 6/10.