By Susan Granger
Special to WestportNow
From the fertile imagination of filmmaker Wes Anderson (“Fantastic Mr. Fox,” “Moonrise Kingdom,” “The Grand Budapest Hotel,” “The Life Aquatic,” “The Darjeeling Limited”) comes “Isle of Dogs,” a unique, stop-motion animated tale of a youngster looking for his lost companion, featuring the distinctive voices of Anderson’s regular repertory company.
Set in the Japanese Archipelago in the near future, this dystopian fable, narrated by Courtney B. Vance, revolves around Atari Kobayashi (Koyu Rankin), whose bodyguard dog, Spots (Liev Schreiber), is banished when Megasaki City’s cat-loving, dog-despising Mayor Kobayashi (Kunichi Nomura) decrees that, following an outbreak of a type of flu known as Snout Fever, all canines must be exiled to an island previously used for trash disposal.
Hijacking a small aircraft, intrepid, 12-year-old Atari, the adopted nephew of corrupt Mayor Kobayashi, crash-lands on Trash Island’s bleak wasteland, determined to rescue his beloved Spots. Instead, he runs into a bickering pack of banished pets.
There’s Boss (Bill Murray), Rex (Edward Norton), Duke (Jeff Goldblum) and King (Bob Balaban), along with Chief (Bryan Cranston), a gruff, battle-hardened stray; a silky former show dog, Nutmeg (Scarlett Johansson); and a TV-loving, psychic pug (Tilda Swinton).
The unconventional, sci-fi screenplay is by Anderson, Roman Coppola, Jason Schwartzman and Kunichi Nomura, who were obviously inspired by the stylistic films of Hayao Miyazaki and Akira Kurosawa.
With the dogs speaking English and the people speaking Japanese, it’s exquisitely depicted in visual detail by the inventive ‘puppet’ artists at Twentieth Century Fox Animation with evocative music by Alexandre Desplat.
Unfortunately, the running joke involving a translator (Frances McDormand) grows tedious, as does a conspiracy subplot, encompassing a feisty foreign exchange student, Tracy (Greta Gerwig), while Yoko Ono’s ‘scientist’ adds nothing and is ultimately distracting.
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 of 10, “Isle of Dogs” is an admirably idiosyncratic 8 — thanks to its timely, politically provocative, fascistic undertones.
First used in 1954, the term “affluenza” refers to an inability to understand the consequences of one’s actions because of financial privilege. That, plus the corrosive arrogance of being a Kennedy in Massachusetts, explains “Chappaquiddick” and why Senator Edward M. Kennedy’s hopes of becoming president of the United States sank on the night of July 18, 1969.
Since most moviegoers under age of 40 are probably unfamiliar with the sordid story, on that night — just as Apollo 11 was heading toward the moon — Ted Kennedy recklessly drove his Oldsmobile off a small, wooden bridge on Chappaquiddick. He managed to escape but left helpless, 28-year-old Mary Jo Kopechne to slowly suffocate/drown in the submerged car.
Basing their pulpy, procedural melodrama on testimony during the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court inquest, first-time screenwriters Taylor Allen and Andrew Logan establish the time, place and characters but never ignite the situation’s emotionality — and John Curran’s methodical, heavy-handed direction details Kennedy’s irresponsible, incredibly selfish passivity during and after the calamity.
Questions like — How much had Kennedy been drinking that night? Was he having an affair with Mary Jo? And why did he wait 8-10 hours before reporting the accident? — are never addressed, although Kennedy and his cousin Joe Gargan, known as his “fixer,” admitted that without Bobby Kennedy’s young, unmarried “boiler room” girls, there would have been no weekend beach party on Martha’s Vineyard.
The resemblance between actor Jason Clarke and Kennedy is striking, while Kate Mara is convincing as demure Mary Jo, as is Ed Helms as Gargan. And Bruce Dern is ferocious as the stroke-stricken, yet still-cunning patriarch Joseph P. Kennedy, whose only advice to his youngest son is one word: “Alibi.”
Speechwriter Ted Sorenson (Taylor Nichols) puts it best: “History has the final word on these things.”
On the Granger Gauge, “Chappaquiddick” is an infuriating 5, revealing how ‘justice’ is very different for the rich and powerful.
Determined to prove that he could make the horror film “Unsane” on an iPhone 7, prolific Steven Soderbergh (“Magic Mike,” “Logan Lucky,” “Traffic,” and the “Oceans” trilogy) took a cast, headed by Claire Foy (“The Crown”), and small crew to a dingy, abandoned hospital north of New York City.
Shooting during the day and editing on his laptop at night, he made this $1.5 million movie in 10 days. Problem is: the all-too-familiar, cat-and-mouse plot by James Greer and Jonathan Bernstein (“Larry the Cable Guy: Health Inspector,” “The Spy Next Door”) is clumsy, cliché-riddled and underwhelming.
The wannabe psychological thriller revolves around a snarky financial analyst Sawyer Valentini (Claire Foy), who has moved from Boston to a town in Pennsylvania as she deals with residual trauma from an obsessed, deluded stalker, David Strine (Joshua Leonard).
“Rationally, I know my neuroses are colluding with my imagination,” she admits. “But I’m not rational.”
After visiting a psychiatric counselor, candidly expressing suicidal ideations and stupidly signing a consent form, Sawyer is involuntarily committed to Highland Creek Behavioral Center, a mental-health facility, ostensibly for 24 hours.
“This is all a terrible mistake,” she maintains.
But then Sawyer’s sanity is called into question after she spies a creepy orderly who looks just like her stalker — which prolongs her incarceration, alongside mentally disturbed, shiv-carrying, tampon-tossing Violet (Juno Temple) and opioid-addicted Nate (SNL’s Jay Pharoah).
Technical details: As cinematographer, Soderbergh used three iPhone 7 Plus phones, shooting in 4K video with an app called FiLMiC Pro controlling the shutter speed, color and focus. He also utilized clip-on Moment lenses and a hand-held DJI Osmo stabilizer, which is, basically, a selfie stick.
FYI: Actually, Sean Baker’s “Tangerine” (2015) was the first notable film shot on an iPhone.
On the Granger Gauge, “Unsane” is an experimental, absurdly contrived 6, evoking a creepy kind of claustrophobic suspense.
(Editor’s Note: Westport resident Susan Granger grew up in Hollywood, studied journalism with Pierre Salinger at Mills College, and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with highest honors in journalism. In addition to writing for newspapers and magazines, she has been on radio/television as an anchorwoman and movie/drama critic for many years. See her reviews at www.susangranger.com.)
