Recalibrating for "John Wick: Chapter 4" and "Fast X"

I wasn't going to write anything about "John Wick: Chapter 4," having said more or less everything I had to say about the entire series back when "Parabellum" came out.  It's an admirable franchise that has contributed a lot to action cinema, but I don't count myself a fan.  "John Wick: Chapter 4" has plenty of good things in it, but like "Parabellum," I found it too long and too tedious.  Then "Fast X" came out, and I enjoyed it very much, despite my having no real interest in this popular action franchise either, which has never been to my tastes from the beginning.  And I guess that's somewhere to start.

Action cinema, like the "Mission: Impossible" and the James Bond movies, function by their own set of rules.  Horror movies are built around scares, comedies around laughs, and action cinema around chase and fight sequences.  You can have plot-driven action films, of course, but you can also have good action films where there's almost no plot, no dialogue, and very minimal characters.  In some of the best action films, like "Oldboy" or "Kill Bill," a good amount of the storytelling happens through the action.  This has been absolutely true of the "John Wick" and "Fast" franchises, to varying degrees.

I preferred the "John Wick" franchise to "Fast" franchise at the outset, because it offered some elements that I enjoyed in addition to the action - fun worldbuilding, wry humor, a few neat pop culture references, and a variety of interesting actors making appearances.  "John Wick: Chapter 4" offered some great action, but I felt it was pretty disappointing on every other front.  The humor was almost totally gone.  Worldbuilding elements from the previous films were simplified down to a few basics, and it felt like the scope had narrowed down again.  Donnie Yen appearing as the new blind antagonist, Caine, is great, but Keanu Reeves as John Wick just looks exhausted the whole way through the film, and ready to be done.  It doesn't help that "Chapter 4" is nearly three hours long and feels interminable.  

The biggest problem here is that after three films, we expect John Wick to be invincible, and the stakes of the story have become less and less compelling.   "Chapter 4" is designed to be a possible ending for the franchise, but it's not a climax.  It feels more like a denouement, inevitably running out of steam by the time we come to a predictable, drawn-out final showdown.  The action scenes are great, but we don't learn anything new about John Wick, his survival no longer feels particularly necessary, and Caine is actually a more interesting protagonist. I'll happily watch the spinoffs like "Ballerina" and "The Continental" that have been announced, but the story of John Wick himself feels well and truly played out. 

As for the "Fast" films, I don't think I've written a proper review for any of the "Fast and the Furious" movies on this blog.  I can't tell one from the other, never cared enough to track down the first four movies, and keep watching the new ones because they make for good palate cleansers between arthouse films.  I think they're extremely entertaining and dumb as rocks, the very definition of disposable.  And I'd watch any of the "Fast" films again before I'd watch "John Wick: Chapter 4."  I went into "Fast X" expecting a disaster after director Justin Lin walked off the production.  Instead "Fast X" is just like the previous entries: there's a minimal story with a lot of crazy action sequences, too many characters to keep straight, and even more cameos on top of that.  However, "Fast X" is perfectly coherent, moves along at a brisk clip, and is executed very well.

There are at least four different sets of characters operating separately, but all of their goals are so simple that confusion is unlikely.  Jason Momoa plays a wonderfully over-the-top and overpowered villain, who fits perfectly into this universe, and seems to be having a ball.  Brie Larson and Alan Ritchson are the newbies this time out, playing a new antagonist and a new baddie (does it matter which is which?)  I've seen enough of these films that I don't even bother asking why former villains played by John Cena and Charlize Theron are still hanging around.  What's more important is that "Fast X" offers a smorgasbord of car chases, gun fights, hand-to-hand fights, disaster sequences, and death-defying escapes.  There's a scene where a giant mine bounces around Rome like a pinball.  There's a scene where our hero, Dom Toretto (Vin Diesel), escapes a fireball by driving down an aqueduct.  It makes no sense, but it's undeniably a great time.    

And I have to remind myself that it's okay to like this film in spite of its total disregard of so many elements that I assume a good film is supposed to have.  It doesn't matter that there's only a very basic revenge plot holding this together.  It doesn't matter that the main McGuffin is Dom's son, Little B (Leo Perry), who is there to look cute and elicit a basic emotional response from the audience.  It doesn't matter that after five films, I still don't know the name of Ludacris's character.  And heaven help me, I'm actually starting to find him and Tyrese funny, because they're the most self-aware characters in this franchise. The action scenes aren't as technically strong as the ones in "John Wick: Chapter 4," but they're deployed with great skill and a sense of gleeful anarchy that I cannot resist.

I continue to hold the first two "John Wick" films in pretty high regard, but "Fast" has won this round over a too self-serious final "Wick" entry.  It easily could have gone the other way, (and it very well might when the inevitable rematch happens), but today the "Fast" family has come out ahead.   

---

"Reality" and "Blackberry"

I didn't know the story of Reality Winner, the NSA translator who leaked Russia's 2016 election interference to the media, until I saw this movie.  Because of the highly charged political atmosphere and the misinformation surrounding the election, the film's title seems especially pointed, while also being a lucky coincidence.  Director Tina Satter adapts her own play, which began as a piece of verbatim theater.  Every word of dialogue is taken directly from transcripts of Winner's recorded arrest and interrogation, and it's fascinating to see them play out.

Winner (Sydney Sweeney) is arrested at her home and questioned by FBI agents Garick (Josh Hamilton) and Taylor (Marchant Davis) in 2017.  The process is not violent, and for nearly the first hour it's almost humdrum on its surface, as Winner makes arrangements for her pets, gets her groceries put away, and makes small talk with the eerily patient FBI agents.  They keep asking her if she knows how she may have mishandled sensitive information at her translation job, but don't start questioning her in earnest until halfway through the film.  This results in a terrific buildup in tension that is unlike any other thriller I could name.  The filmmakers strive to do right by Reality (and reality), doing their best to recreate the arrest and interrogation without sensationalizing them.  The actors do a lot of wonderful, subtle work, especially Sydney Sweeney, who maintains Winner's rock-solid composure throughout.  

"Reality" is low budget and not especially ambitious when it comes to the filmmaking, but there's one bit of screencraft that I found very effective.  Whenever the film reaches a part of the transcript that is redacted, not only do the characters become muted, but they disappear from the frame entirely, accompanied by an oppressive buzzing sound.  It's jarring and disturbing every time that it happens.  Despite offering no opinion about Reality Winner's guilt, "Reality" nonetheless does an excellent job of humanizing her through this brief encounter, and prompting the viewer to seek out the rest of her story.  That's certainly what I did, the moment the film was over.            

Now, on to "Blackberry."  If this recent wave of films about products and business deals has brought us nothing else, it's brought us a legitimately good piece of cinema in "BlackBerry," about the rise and fall of Ontario-based Research In Motion ("RIM"), the company behind the BlackBerry mobile phone.  Written and directed by Matt Johnson, and co-written by Matthew Miller, "BlackBerry" is a profile of two men - engineer Mike Lazaridis (Jay Baruchel), and executive Jim Balsillie (Glenn Howerton) - who create the dominant smartphone of the early 2000s.  The first half of the film is an underdog story, where the odd couple pairing of a mumbly perfectionist and a rage-prone bully recognize each other's strengths and form a lucrative partnership.  The second half shows how that same partnership, facing subsequent crises, comes to disaster. 

"BlackBerry" absolutely takes its cues from "The Social Network," but rather than just charting the dawn of the digital age, it presents a whole history of the Silicon Valley startup era in miniature.  Lazaridis and his partner Doug Fregin (Johnson) initially lead a group of brilliant, but stereotypically nerdy engineers, who have the knowhow to create the BlackBerry, but not the business acumen to sell it.  A bad pitch puts them in contact with Balsillie, who recognizes the potential of the device, and tries to buy the company outright.  He settles for being co-CEO with Lazaridis, after contributing a major investment, and proceeds to transform RIM into a corporate giant, with a far more aggressive, institutional culture to match.   

I know Howerton and Baruchel primarily as comedic actors, but they're both very strong here in dramatic roles - or roles that are so darkly satirical that  it's hard to tell the difference.  Howerton exudes intensity and self-loathing in a way that's hard to look away from.  In the last act he's primarily concerned with a deal to purchase a hockey team, a deal that has nothing to do with the Blackberry, but everything to do with Balsille's downfall.  Baruchel is saddled with a crummy wig, but his Laziridis never feels like a caricature.  There's something bitterly sad about him choosing the money over his principles, and realizing the true cost of his ambitions.  

The production is very Canadian, very nerd-literate, and very nostalgic - but only up to a point.  Where "Air" reveled in its '80s milieu, Matt Johnson keeps the classic media clip montage contained to the opening titles, and all the subsequent references are either narratively or thematically relevant - sometimes in surprising ways.  The whole film was a pleasant surprise, and at the time of writing might be my favorite film of 2023 so far.

---

"Polite Society" and "The Artifice Girl"

Let's look at some recent, lower budget genre films today.

"Polite Society" is this year's "The Paper Dragons," as both films are about protagonists from Asian immigrant communities, and exploring identity and family ties through the lens of a kickass martial arts film.  Ria Khan (Priya Kansara) is a British-Pakistani teenager who wants to become a stuntwoman, but her traditional parents (Shobu Kapoor, Jeff Mirza) aren't so keen on the idea.  Her older sister Lena (Ritu Arya) has recently left art school, and is now being pressured to marry and settle down - specifically with Salim (Akshay Khanna), the son of a family friend, Raheela (Nimra Bucha).

As wedding plans roll ahead and Ria's relationship with Lena becomes strained, Ria becomes desperate to stop the wedding.  She's just sure that Lena's future husband and mother in-law have nefarious motives for the match, and starts seeing the world like it's a grandiose martial arts film, where she must engage in one-on-one matches with opponents like the bully Kovacs (Shona Babayemi), and ultimately the rich and domineering Raheela.  Everything builds to a fantastic climax at the elaborate wedding, where Ria and her friends infiltrate the event and have a truly epic showdown.       

What I appreciate the most about "Polite Society" is that it's a ton of fun to watch.  Yes, it's enthusiastically a girl power film.  Yes, it was created by Nida Manzoor to showcase the British-Pakistani immigrant community.  However, it is a martial arts movie first, from Ria spending the whole film trying to perfect a special move, to the super-exaggerated stylization of the fight scenes.  Kansara showing off her moves while garbed in gorgeous wedding attire makes for some of the best visuals in the film.  It also doesn't skimp in the comedy department, with good natured, culturally specific ribbing of the Khans and their friends.  It's a slicker, sillier film than I was expecting, but definitely a nice surprise.

And now for something completely different.  "The Artifice Girl" is one of those microbudget science fiction films that is heavy on ideas and fairly minimalist in its filmmaking.  It reminds me of "Marjorie Prime," which explored these heady ideas about AI through a series of unhurried conversations between its characters.  "The Artifice Girl" gives us marginally more, but really boils down to three scenes of people talking in rooms, or over a screen.  One of them is an AI designed to look and behave like a eleven year-old girl, named Cherry (Tatum Matthews).   She was created to lure and identify sexual predators, but as Cherry grows and changes over the years, troubling ethical questions arise.

Written and directed by Franklin Ritch, who also plays the younger version of Cherry's creator Gareth, "The Artifice Girl" asks some probing questions about AI and its implications.  What makes it so effective is that the story takes its time humanizing Cherry.  The opening scene has Gareth being interrogated by a pair of law enforcement agents, Deena (Sinda Nichols) and Amos (David Girard), who have to be convinced that Cherry isn't a real girl.  Gareth demonstrates that Cherry can imitate a child, but behaves like a machine, talking in terms of objectives and protocols, coldly explaining her logical processes.  Tatum Matthews does an excellent job of conveying how Cherry fundamentally doesn't think the way a human being does.  But even after learning she's artificial, doubts remain.  Cherry may not be human, but she's self-aware and becomes moreso.

The final conversation of the film takes place between Cherry and an aged Gareth, now played by Lance Henrikson, who once also portrayed one of cinema's most famous artificial life forms.  It's here that the film's central themes really come into focus, and "The Artifice Girl" is revealed to be a parent/child story, and ultimately a hopeful one in spite of the dark subject matter.  The movie's production is very limited - it originated as a pandemic project, no surprise - but with clever editing and some discreet special effects, it doesn't feel low budget.  Because it's so unlike most studio produced science-fiction films, it feels more like television, and that's not a bad thing.  The melodrama is occasionally laid on pretty thick, but I strongly recommend this one for lovers of hard sci-fi and speculative fiction.     

---

My Favorite Claire Denis Film

I've struggled with Claire Denis films, to the point where I was pretty sure the title of this post was going to be "The Claire Denis Film I Dislike the Least."  However, while I was catching up on the films of hers I hadn't seen, I did find some that I genuinely enjoyed.  I find Denis' work difficult to connect to because her characters are very raw and driven more by instinct and appetite than logic.  I would often find the intensely subjective narratives difficult to penetrate.  Her films require strict attention, because she'll hint at important information without ever stating it outright, and seems to prefer very open endings.  She's also extremely frank about sexuality, violence, and racial experiences in ways that often catch me off guard.

I don't think it's any surprise that my favorite Denis film is one of her most conventional, "Nenette and Boni."  Alice Houri and Gregoire Colin play a brother and sister pair, as they did in "US Go Home."  The two are estranged until the teenage sister, Nenette, shows up one day pregnant, and the older brother, Boni, reluctantly lets her live with him.  Boni is a familiar type of character, the directionless young man who seems content drifting through life, occasionally working or pulling off petty crimes.  He spends an amusing amount of time fantasizing about a woman who works at a bakery who doesn't know he exists.  His horndog ramblings and the long, lingering shots of pummeled dough and cream swirls, reflect his one-track mind.  Nenette, on the other hand, is clearly in crisis.  She doesn't want the baby, and after learning she can't get an abortion, seems resigned to going through with the birth and an adoption.  She goes through the film becoming more and more depressed, expressing less and less emotion.  By the end of the film, Boni has changed too, but he's unexpectedly developed an attachment to the baby that is so strong, he's compelled to take extreme measures to keep it.    

Denis' imagery in other films is so blunt and so stark, especially with regard to bodily fluids and functions, that they make me queasy.  Here, the unromanticized treatment of pregnant bodies felt refreshing, and Nenette's anxious  experiences with various parts of the medical establishment felt very honest and necessary.  Nenette doesn't care about the baby she's carrying and engages in risky behavior, including smoking.  But while her behavior is alarming, villainizing her is not the point.  Denis is far more interested in her state of mind, in her emotional reality in the moment.  Little background is offered for how Nenette became pregnant, and why she chose to run away and only seek care when it was far too late for an abortion.  We're only offered a piece of her story, and it's one where she's barely active - with no real control over the events that occur.  It's only at the very end, when the pregnancy is over, that Nenette seems to be able to breathe again, and is poised to move on.     

The alienation expressed by Nenette is matched by a deep, unnameable passion in Boni for life, for sex, and eventually for fatherhood.  The ending of the film unfolds so quickly, that if you look away from the screen for more than a few seconds, you'll completely miss what happens.  What's important, though, is recognizing that Boni's fixation on sexual gratification transforms, through caring for his sister, into a deeper drive to hang on to a piece of his lost family.  He sees an opportunity for a real connection at last, and takes it.  Initially, Boni is a charismatic, but careless creature, who skates by with minimal effort.  But when his fantasies are dispelled and he's given the chance to do something meaningful, he becomes focused, driven, and committed.  And watching this happen is wonderfully life-affirming.  

Trying to parse what made me so resistant to Denis' work, I think it comes down to me thinking about films too much in terms of plots and themes and messages, while Denis is very experiential, very sensual, and not afraid to arouse and/or disgust the viewer.  It literally took me years to get on the same wavelength she's been on, but I'm glad I finally did.  Denis is by far the most celebrated and prolific female director of the past two decades, and well worth giving a second look.

What I've Seen - Claire Denis

Chocolat (1988)

I Can't Sleep (1994)

US Go Home (1994)

Nenette and Boni (1996)

Beau Travail (1999)

Trouble Every Day (2001)

35 Shots of Rum (2008)

White Material (2009)

Bastards (2013)

Let the Sunshine In (2017)

High Life (2018)

Stars at Noon (2022)

---

My Top Ten Films of 1945

This is part of my continuing series looking back on films from the years before I began this blog. The ten films below are unranked and listed in no particular order. Enjoy.

"Brief Encounter" - Before David Lean made his epics, he was known for his intimate domestic dramas.  "Brief Encounter" is considered one of the best British romances ever made, a gentle film about ordinary people with ordinary lives.  It's also a lovely time capsule of the era, where Celia Johnson and Trevor Howard's have their chance meetings at a railway station, and bond over Donald Duck cartoons.  The bittersweet ending is one for the ages. 

"The Clock" - Judy Garland and Robert Walker star as a young couple trying to get married before Walker's 48 hour leave from the army is over.  The film proved Garland's bona fides as a dramatic actress, but the real romance was going on behind the scenes, between Garland and her director, Vincent Minelli.  Like "Brief Encounter," the power of the story is in its simplicity and realism - the rushed wedding leaves Garland in tears, but love wins in the end.

"The Men Who Tread on the Tiger's Tail" - One of Akira Kurosawa's earliest films as a director, made at the tail end of WWII.  It depicts the famous twelfth century story of Yoshitsune and the six loyal samurai, using Noh elements and a new comic character to enliven the familiar events.  Many of its elements would echo Kurosawa's later, more famous films.  Due to censorship concerns, it was dubbed an illegal production and not released until 1952.  

"Spellbound" - I include this Alfred HItchcock thriller mostly for its production design, where Salvador Dali was hired to provide Surrealist imagery for the film's dream sequences.  The depiction of psychoanalysis here is woefully out of date, but the film remains very watchable thanks to the efforts of its stars, Ingrid Bergman and Gregory Peck.  And special kudos should also go to Miklós Rózsa for his wonderfully evocative, Oscar nominated score.  

"The Bells of St. Mary's" - A sequel to "Going My Way," where Bing Crosby's Father O'Malley is paired with Ingrid Bergman's formidable Sister Benedict to save a school and a passel of adorable inner city kids.  It's a very sweet, uplifting picture about the power of faith, and was a box office smash.  Crosby gets to sing a few numbers, but it's Bergman who steals the show.  Sister Benedict is so earnest in her belief in the impossible, you can't help being won over.  

"Anchors Aweigh" - Who could resist the pairing of Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire as sailors on shore leave in Hollywood?  This is famously the movie where Kelly danced  with Jerry the Mouse from the "Tom and Jerry" cartoons.  It also features Sinatra singing at the Hollywood Bowl, Dean Stockwell as an annoying kid, and glimpses of MGM and other Hollywood studios they way they existed in the 40s.  Kelly and Astaire would team up again in other films, but never so well.

"Christmas in Connecticut" - A Barbara Stanwyck screwball comedy that functions as an anti-Hallmark Christmas movie.  The main character can't cook, has to scramble to create the illusion of cozy farmhouse bliss, and in the end gets both the man and her job as a magazine writer.  Some seem to think the film champions the women's place being in the home, but I think it exposes this attitude as a hilarious sham.  S. Z. Sakall as Stanwyck's handy Uncle Felix steals the show.  

"The Southerner" - A moving chronicle of the difficulties of a family of Texas sharecroppers.  This was one of Jean Renoir's handful of American films, which raised a storm of controversy because it showed the poverty and harshness of the sharecroppers' lives, and Southerners didn't want to be associated with this image.  The film itself, however, is beautifully made - full of stirring human drama, capped off with a breathtaking flood and survival sequence. 

"The Strange Affair of Uncle Harry" - One of my favorite film noir, in spite of a neutered ending to placate the Production Code.  George Sanders  has never been more sympathetic onscreen, playing a desperate man who accidentally murders the wrong person.  Lots of twists and turns result, leading to an ending that is mostly emotionally satisfying, even if it's a clear cop-out.  Lose the very last "it was all a dream" scene, and this is just about perfect.  

"Conflict" - A cleverly executed suspense film that features Humphrey Bogart committing what appears to be a foolproof murder.  This is one of several films where Bogart plays a criminal that involves narrative trickery and different levels of reality.  This one feels like it plays fair, however, because the psychological elements are handled so well.  Director Curtis Bernhardt includes some excellent symbolic imagery, and a gorgeous final shot. 

---

About the Impact of the WGA and SAG-AFTRA Strikes

At the time of writing, the WGA and SAG-AFTRA members are still on strike.  I've been purposefully avoiding writing about the strikes, because frankly I have no real understanding of any of the issues involved to the degree that I would be comfortable providing any opinions or commentary, and I don't want to contribute to the noise.  I am absolutely pro-labor, however, and the fair compensation of artists and writers in the streaming era feels long overdue.  

However, I think writing about the impact of the strike on average consumers at this point should be pretty safe territory.  We're getting to the point where the effects of the strikes are impossible to ignore, especially when you're a media junkie already bracing for the impending media drought.  It's not just that the late night shows have been off the air since the beginning of May, or that movie stars haven't been able to promote any shows or movies since mid-July, but we're seeing studios making or considering more drastic moves as their supply of new media starts to run dry.  "Dune 2" was just delayed to next spring, and it won't be the last tentpole to move.

Even if the strike is resolved immediately, the pause has been long enough that we're going to be feeling the effects of this for years.  The last major writers strike of 2007-2008 changed the television landscape permanently, and the current strike has already lasted longer and been compounded by two guilds striking simultaneously.  Because of how long it takes to actually create movies and shows, there's still a cushion of media that's finished or in post-production being steadily released.  You might not even have noticed that actors have been scarce for interviews, since some promo material is often shot months in advance, but it's getting harder and harder to pretend that everything is business as usual.

If you're an awards season buff, you'll probably have heard that the Emmys have been moved to next January, right in the middle of what's traditionally been Oscar season.  Since the awards shows are considered promotional activities, and FOX understandably doesn't want to air a ceremony where none of the stars show up, the big night has been delayed, even though the nominations have already been announced.  If the strike doesn't get resolved soon, Oscar season may also be forced to move.  The smaller prestige films are way more reliant on promotional campaigns featuring their talent, and several titles like "Challengers" and "Poor Things" have already seen their releases postponed.  The film festivals are expected to be sparsely attended.  And can you imagine an Oscar season without any FYC campaigning by the actors?    

All work has halted on most studio produced shows and movies, including all of 2024's MCU movies, "Wicked," the "Ghostbusters: Afterlife" sequel, "The Last of Us," "Euphoria," "Sandman," and more.  A couple of productions like "House of the Dragon," are still filming because most of their cast members are British and not SAG-AFTRA members.  A very narrow category of independent productions have waivers to move forward.  As a result, nothing announced to be coming out in 2024 may actually be coming out in 2024.  You may have noticed that San Diego Comic-Con was very quiet this year, since nearly all the bigger companies canceled their panels.  This is where we usually get a lot of announcements, sneak peeks, and interviews about upcoming projects, but with so much up in the air, hype for anything has been scarce.  

On broadcast television, the fall schedules are being filled with game shows, reality shows, and reruns.  A couple of streaming shows are being transplanted to broadcast, like edited "Yellowstone" episodes on CBS this fall.  ABC just ran all of "Ms. Marvel" to set up for the November release of "The Marvels."  With no new episodes of "Ghosts," the original UK "Ghosts" will be filling in.  Streaming has been the most protected from the effects of the strike so far, with services like Netflix pushing more foreign-made content and older shows like summer hit "Suits."  However, the whole ecosystem has been going through a significant contraction this year.  Prices are skyrocketing, the flow of new content has been dropping, and there's been a push toward ad-based services - that'll be the topic of its own separate post later.  

I feel it's important to emphasize that this isn't going to be like the delays caused by the pandemic.  In the pandemic everyone had to work around constraints, but there were a lot of creative people who were able to still figure out ways to get the job done and entertain us.  The strikes mean a total blackout.  Hollywood has shut down, and it'll take tremendous effort to get it going again.  

---

"Inu Oh" and "One Piece: Red"

Catching up on some recent anime films, I found that two prominent titles both had some surprising elements in common.  

First, there's Masaaski Yuasa and Science SARU's "Inu-Oh," the tale of a blind biwa player named Tomona (Mirai Moriyama) and a deformed Noh dancer named Inu-Oh (Avu-chan), who join forces to essentially form a hair metal band in 14th century Japan.  Very, very loosely based on a few historical incidents and figures from the era, the story imagines that the two outcasts, both negatively affected by the cruel power struggles going at the time, become subversive musical storytellers, spreading the tales of the defeated warriors who still haunt the land.    

The story is a wonderful mix of fantasy, folklore, and historical fiction, with plenty of modern day relevance.  Tomona and Inu-Oh are positioned as the ultimate artistic rebels, breaking away from the established traditional forms of their chosen crafts, and fearlessly speaking truth to power.   A good chunk of the film is taken up by their wild performances, which incorporate everything from American metal band showboating to Cirque du Soleil style acrobatics.  Inu-Oh turns out to be under a curse, which has turned him into a monstrous creature with one gigantic oversized arm and a face so misshapen that he wears a gourd over it as a mask.  His movements are alien and strange, until he finds a way to channel his energies more productively.    

I really enjoy Science SARU's style, which is so much more fluid and raw than most other modern anime, while sacrificing little of the detail.  Yuasa is able to seamlessly mix and match his influences, having his characters use period costuming and other elements to evoke pop stars like David Bowie and Iggy Pop.  He connects old traditions like the drag performances in Noh theater to the subversive genderfluidity of the glam era musicians in some delightful ways.  At the same time, the songs are legitimate bangers and very entertaining.    

The latest "One Piece" film, "One Piece: RED," is also about a pop star.  I count myself as a "One Piece" fan, though I haven't been keeping up with the franchise lately.  It's one of those endless boys' fighting series, this one built around superpowered pirates. I like "One Piece" because it has a good cast of appealing characters and the designs are cheerfully weird, with all kinds of strange body types and visual gags.  Our hero is the goofy pirate kid Luffy (Mayumi Tanaka), who searches for a legendary treasure alongside his intrepid crew of adventurers, following in the footsteps of his mentor, Shanks (Shuichi Ikeda).  In "One Piece: Red," we meet Shanks's daughter Uta (Kaori Nazuka and Ado), a mesmerizing pop idol who can bend reality to her whims.

This movie has done so well financially that I figured it had to be something special.  And for a "One Piece" film, it's certainly very good.  The fight scenes are big and crazy, the songs are pretty solid, and the animation is certainly better than anything I ever saw in the TV show.  The story is also simple enough that I think a newcomer could follow what was going on.  There are good pirates, bad pirates, good cops, bad cops, good musicians, and bad musicians.  There are cameos everywhere, and a lot of new characters I didn't recognize.  However, I never had trouble keeping everyone's allegiances and motivations straight.  It helps that Uta herself is pretty compelling for a one-off character. 

However, I doubt that "One Piece: Red" is going to get much attention from anyone who isn't already a "One Piece" fan.  There's no real story progression, no new character revelations, and Uta's not going to be a regular in the series.  The crazy battle sequences are fun to watch, but they're not any more impressive than what we saw in half a dozen other anime movies over the past year.  The plot is pretty familiar anime business about getting stuck in dream worlds that everything from "Demon Hunter" to "Urursei Yatsura" has done.  We also don't really get much time with any of the colorful cast aside from Luffy and Uta.

It's nice to know that "One Piece" is still doing so well, but the movie mostly just made me want to pick up the series again, and see what my old pirate pals have been up to for the past few years.  

---