Fridays are more fun with puns.

Screen Time – Dogs and a RomCom

Sometimes, you just sometimes want to chill in front of the television and do approximately not much, so that is exactly what we did the other weekend. We’d run out of energy by Friday, so sadly (in retrospect) we decided to watch the romcom, Rich Crazy Asians. 

I had little idea about the plot of the movie apart from that it was a romcom, so my expectations weren’t skyhigh – which was lucky as the movie was such predictable crud. Yes, there are lovely-to-look-at people and yes, it’s your basic Cinderella story, but honestly, that’s all it was. 

So, I rather regret using my time to watch this, as almost any other romcom would have done the job with this rather trite plot. Just now, I was just trying to work out who the target market would be for this film, and the most obvious audience would be teenagers and college students who, perhaps, haven’t seen a thousand romcoms with the same plot. And also, they still might believe in the fairy tale for real life. I’m not sure. 

I sound really grumpy, and I wasn’t really. It wasn’t until the next day that I realized my annoyance at wasting my time with this, but then I’m not really the target market so no surprise that it didn’t tick my boxes. Aah well. 

In contrast with that sad excuse of a movie, we also watched Wes Anderson’s Isle of Dogs (2018), a wonderful stop-motion (sci fi/spec fiction?) film set in Japan about a city mayor (or prefect) who puts the kibosh on dogs. After an outbreak of doggie flu, he believes that there are too many canines and so he starts in motion a campaign to move the dogs to an island for a permanent quarantine and then poison the rest. The plot follows the journey of a young boy who tries to find and then rescue his own dog. 

I’d briefly seen a trailer for Isle of Dogs at the cinema the other day, but the impression that it gave me was that it wasn’t a pleasant happy film, so I entered this movie with a bit of trepidation. (It was the SuperHero’s movie choice time.) In the end, it was really a good piece of work. I was really impressed. 

I have rather a hit-or-miss relationship with Wes Anderson since there are some of his movies with which I just haven’t clicked (e.g. The Royal Tanenbaums, The Grand Budapest Hotel), which was also another reason I was a little concerned about watching his latest. 

But, you know. I was so wrong about that. I just ended loving this film. It’s not a kids’ animation movie, for sure; instead, it’s a mature story with a stellar voice cast and an interesting plot line which was not predictable. (As you probably can see, I get annoyed by “boringly predictable” in movies sometimes.) And it was very fun trying to figure out who each of the characters were voiced by… (Such luminaries included Scarlett Johanssen, Edward Norton, Brian Cranston, Francis McDormand, Yoko Ono (!) etc.) 

What also intrigued me about this film was that it’s also based in Japan, and Anderson has the human characters only speaking in Japanese while the animals (mostly dogs) all speak in English. 

It’s been criticized by some as using cultural appropriation and being insensitive, but it’s also been supported by others who view it as an homage to Japan and Japanese culture, so it’s been a mixed bag. I think it really depends on your own individual interpretation as to which side of the fence the film falls on… There is, admittedly, some stereotypical cultural representation (such as taiko drummers, cherry blossom, a nuclear explosion, sumo wrestlers) but again, they were presented with grace as opposed to snark (at least to me). 

I can sympathize though because when I see an American (usually) film set in England, I can almost guarantee that it will have references to the soldiers who guard Buckingham Palace, the Queen/royalty, a cup of tea, and rain). However, I can usually see that the intention is not mockery most of the time, but rather a way to show admiration for England/UK/GB etc. I know that my home country is much more than these stereotypes, but in most of the cases, the actual intention is not malicious. 

I do admit that it gets a bit thorny when the racial aspect steps into the picture, but the Isle of Dogs didn’t focus on that. I’m not sure. It’s quite provocative when you think about it, and I’m really interested in how both Asian-Americans and people from Japan view the film’s portrayal of their country and culture. 

(Point to ponder: all the dogs (who end up saving the day) have obviously white people features and English/American accents. This doesn’t help the criticism that’s been offered that this movie relies on the idea of the “white savior” to save the world… Link with above note about the role role of race in the movie. Interesting to note though, isn’t it?)

Anyway, this was a really good film that assumed its viewers were intelligent enough to get its subtle humor and non-predictable narrative arc. I really enjoyed it. 

(One curious-cat question though: why does the young boy go around with a large metal screw sticking out of his head? And then why is there another screw added in his head towards the end? There’s no mention of it in the plot. Any ideas?)

Fridays are more fun with puns…

🙂