Review: Sing Sing

Posted on April 11, 2025 by philipbrasor

Certainly the most daring thing that director Greg Kwedar did in adapting an old magazine article about the titular prison’s Rehabilitation Through the Arts (RTA) program, which allows inmates to stage plays, is the way he disregards the crimes of his characters. Though we eventually learn that one of the protagonists, John “Divine G” Whitfield (Colman Domingo), is in for a murder his didn’t commit, it’s because he goes before a cynical parole board that seems to have already decided to refuse his bid. The other protagonist, Clarence “Divine Eye” Maclin, is in the slammer for dealing drugs and the kinds of mischief that comes with that occupation, but we know that mainly because in an early scene we watch him intimidate a fellow prisoner using methods he obviously cultivated in his business career. Maclin, like all the other RTA inmates depicted except Whitfield, plays himself, and is obviously much older than the figure described in the article, which was published in 2005; and because Kwedar wants us to understand these men’s situations primarily from the inside, he downplays that aspect of their lives that’s usually uppermost in the viewer’s mind when it comes to characters in a prison drama—what are they in for?

This decision is admirable since it helps remove stigma that would likely affect our appreciation of other qualities, but except for the two Divines, Kwedar doesn’t get as deeply into these characters as he should, so all we see is their attempts to make something of whatever thespian skills they’ve acquired. Whitfield, we also learn, is the only inmate with experience in theater and the literary arts in his background, and he relishes the chance to show off those skills every chance he gets in service to the program, which he practically runs. Maclin, an unabashed gangsta who happens to know lines from King Lear, eventually joins the troupe and challenges Whitfield’s prima donna status by auditioning for the lead in the next production, a science fiction musical written by the troupe’s outside director, Brent Buell (Paul Raci), at Maclin’s urging, since Maclin thinks the troupe should do a comedy for a change, thus subtly commandeering the RTA from under Whitfield’s nose. He even lands the part with the Hamlet soliloquy, which Whitfield has been rehearsing for ages in the hope that Shakespeare’s most famous tragedy would cycle in to the troupe’s repertoire (apparently, they just did A Midsummer Night’s Dream). Most of the film focuses on Whitfield swallowing his pride and helping Maclin with his role in Buell’s production and, along the way, coaching Maclin in preparation for his own parole hearing, which Whitfield rightly describes as being a performance. That Whitfield is using his own recollections of failure in this regard to help a fellow incarcerated individual gain his freedom is another admirable aspect that feels slightly off. Both Divines are men whose sentences have much to do with the fact that they are Black, even if one is innocent and the other self-admittedly guilty of the crimes they were sent up for, a salient matter that Kwedar doesn’t seem to want to address.

But the movie’s authenticity of spirit is quite moving and never short-changes the viewer’s intelligence. It’s often difficult to make sense of the two Divines’ motivations, not to mention the shambolic script of the play-within-the-movie. It’s enough that we can guess at what makes these men act, as well as “act,” the way they do through interactions whose main purpose is to expose their vulnerabilities. It’s often said that art will set you free, a platitude that has a starker meaning when applied to people in prison, and if Kwedar’s smart, frustrating movie proves anything, it’s that the impulse to be creative is foundationally human. 

Now playing in Tokyo at Toho Cinemas Chanter Hibiya (050-6868-5001), Shibuya Cine Quinto (03-3477-5905), Toho Cinemas Roppongi Hills (050-6868-5024), Kino Cinema Shinjuku (03-5315-0978), Toho Cinemas Nihonbashi (050-6868-5060).

Sing Sing home page in Japanese

photo (c) 2023 Divine Film, LLC

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Review: Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy

Posted on April 10, 2025 by philipbrasor

Though not my cup of tea, the first three installments of the Bridget Jones series made for pleasantly unforced entertainment, probably because the British have developed a better understanding than Hollywood has of what’s charming about romantic comedies, namely a playfully cynical approach to the sentiments involved. This attitude is compromised by the newest installment’s descent into sentiment for sentiment’s sake. I hope it’s not a spoiler to say that Mark Darcy (Colin Firth), who married our Bridget (Renee Zellweger) in the last movie, has died in the meantime, thus casting an undispellable pall over the proceedings, even when Hugh Grant, who himself returns from the dead as Darcy’s one-time rival for Bridget’s affections, does his insufferable but irresistible stupid cad thing to general hilarity in his brief scenes. Grant’s built-in cynicism is counteracted by the purport of his opening reintroduction, when his playboy character, Daniel Cleaver, breaks a date with a hot model so that he can babysit Bridget’s two young children, thus allowing her to enjoy a rare night out with her friends.

The dilemma posed by the movie is how Bridget can still act like the horny, frustrated, wise-cracking diarist everyone loves from Helen Fielding’s books when she’s a widowed mom with more “important” things to do, and the makers of this very careful franchise product seem to think they can have their cake and shag it, too. The movie’s through line is Bridget going back to work as a TV producer after a period of mourning and seeing her children grow to school age. Naturally, once the work angle is settled—she slides naturally back into her old bumblingly effective methods—love is next on the rebound menu, and the requisite meet-cute moment takes place in a London park when a hunky park attendant (Leo Woodall), who’s much younger than Bridget, rescues her and her two kids from a tree. The age gap is fodder for the bulk of the jokes in the middle part of the movie while Bridget’s guilt over whether she can afford a lively fling with this kid, who is definitely crazy about her, at the expense of any attention she should be directing toward her children. The title seems purposely ambiguous, since the “boy” could either refer to her son, Billy (Casper Knopf), who still misses his father terribly, and her new beau, who eventually “ghosts” her out of a sense of being inadequate to her needs. In the meantime, a more traditional rom-com relationship is forming between Bridget and one of Billy’s teachers, the flustered and over-serious Mr. Wallaker (Chiwetel Ejiofor), who in principle objects to Bridget’s parenting decisions, thus causing much comic friction between them.

In addition to Grant, other familiar faces make return trips to the series—Emma Thompson, Shirley Henderson, Sally Phillips, Gemma Jones, Jim Broadbent—to guarantee that the sentimental hogwash has a foundation in a community, which is not necessarily a blessing. It’s always been difficult to accept Bridget’s lack of self-esteem when she’s surrounded by so many people who love her deeply, including the men she sleeps with. I don’t have half as many friends as Bridget does and you don’t see me bitching to my diary about how inadequate my social life is.

Opens April 11 in Tokyo at Toho Cinemas Nihonbashi (050-6868-5060), Toho Cinemas Hibiya (050-6868-5068), Toho Cinemas Shinjuku (050-6868-5063), Toho Cinemas Roppongi Hills (050-6868-5024).

Bridget Jones: Mad About the Boy home page in Japanese

photo (c) 2024 Universal Studios, Studiocanal and Miramax/Jay Maidment

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Review: I, the Executioner and In the Land of Saints and Sinners

Posted on April 9, 2025 by philipbrasor

Though I see a lot of Korean movies, I don’t know much about the situation surrounding Korean cinema outside of South Korea or Japan, but I think I understand why this successful sequel to the 2015 cop-action comedy Veteran did not retain its Korean title, Veteran 2, for overseas distribution, opting instead for I, the Executioner. Non-Korean audiences, even those who saw the original Veteran 10 years ago, may not be drawn to the idea of a sequel, though they may be attracted by the name of the director of both, Ryoo Seung-wan, one of Korea’s most reliable action filmmakers; so I, the Executioner could possibly entice a few people who have a passing interest in Korean action and are intrigued by the awkward title. But that’s not the only nationally contextual aspect of the movie that foreign audiences could miss. Like Veteran, the sequel features a popular Korean heartthrob cast counter-intuitively as the heavy, thus guaranteeting the huge box office that Veteran 2 achieved easily, sitting at the top of the Korean money-making list for 5 weeks last year. Besides those points, the movie offers little that’s distinctive.

Including lead actor Hwang Jung-min, who returns as detective Seo Do-cheol, a hotheaded old school cop with a core of moral fortitude, meaning, in the Korean sense, that he isn’t averse to beating up bad guys for information but it’s all in the service of saving innocent people. That core is challenged by a vigilante killer dubbed Haechi, who is dispatching criminals, usually murderers, who’ve been released from prison early due to lax judiciary standards or loopholes. As with many recent Korean genre blockbusters, internet culture is heavily represented in I, the Executioner by hordes of social media users cheering on Haechi’s fatal exploits while Seo and his crack team of goofballs, including new MMA-savvy recruit Sun-woo (Jung Hae-in), hunt him down. Much of the initial tension is derived from Seo being charged with preventing a particularly nasty parolee from getting lynched by the public or eliminated by Haechi, and you can pretty much predict the outcome of that assignment. Ryoo injects the requisite measure of social commentary regarding irresponsible social influencers and Korea’s notoriously cruel bullying culture into the mix, but his main concern is navigating a script that shifts drastically from one dangerous scenario to another without derailing the viewer’s train of comprehension.

Ryoo’s skills as an action director make all the difference. The first Veteran was famous for its elaborate fight scenes, especially the climax where Seo and his nemesis battle it out in the middle of a Seoul intersection after a spirited and extremely violent car chase. Here there are several set pieces that defy description, but the result is less satisfying because they seem divorced from the story. The initially interesting vigilante theme is replaced by a standard psycho-killer setup that seems designed to justify the mayhem for its own sake. Moreover, the very bankable Hwang, who has recently ventured outside his comfort zone into more challenging, complicated roles, falls back on his usual comic everyman persona with mixed results. The real veterans of I, the Executioner, Ryoo and Hwang, merely cruise on their reputations. 

Liam Neeson’s fruitful second-wind career as an action star would seem to be the reverse of Hwang’s, since Neeson made his name initially as a “serious” actor in “serious” movies. Since then he’s been defined by the overdrawn Taken series (and its replicas), in which he played a former American intelligence maven using extreme methods to protect his family from evil internationalists. In the Land of Saints and Sinners carries this image back to Neeson’s native Ireland. He plays Finbar Murphy, a part-time executioner for a Donegal mobster (Colm Meany) in the early 70s. The story takes place as Murphy contemplates getting out of the whacking business to become a simple farmer (His cover is that of a second-hand book dealer, a conceit director Robert Lorenz plays for comic effect), plans that are put on hold by the Troubles going on in neighboring Northern Ireland, which spill over into Murphy’s bailiwick when IRA fugitives from a Belfast bombing-gone-wrong hide out on the property of a friend. 

The cast is a who’s who of Irish character actor royalty—Kerry Condon as the vicious leader of the IRA crew, Ciaran Hands as the clueless local Garda and Murphy’s best friend, Niamh Cusack as the middle aged neighbor on whom Murphy is sweet, and Jack Gleeson as Murphy’s over-enthusiastic wannabe replacement—and Lorenz gives them plenty to do within the rather narrow scope of the movie’s purview. In the end, he settles for standard action movie stuff, with shootouts in crowded places and ridiculously contrived standoffs. Since Neeson doesn’t have to contend with an American accent, he seems more relaxed than usual, but Murphy is pretty bland porridge compared to the more anxious characters he portrayed in previous action movies, which, granted, were often terrible, but not because of him. 

I, the Executioner, in Korean, opens April 11 in Tokyo at Kadokawa Cinemas Yurakucho (03-6268-0015), Shinjuku Piccadilly (050-6861-3011), Shibuya Cine Quinto (03-3477-5905).

In the Land of Saints and Sinners opens April 11 in Tokyo at Toho Cinemas Hibiya (050-6868-5068), Toho Cinemas Shinjuku (050-6868-5063), Toho Cinemas Nihonbashi (050-6868-5060).

I, the Executioner home page in Japanese

In the Land of Saints and Sinners home page in Japanese

I, the Executioner photo (c) 2024 CJ ENM Co., Ltd., Filmmakers R&K 

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Media watch: Inmate testimony describes execution day horror show

Posted on April 7, 2025 by philipbrasor
Osaka Detention Center

Given the air of secrecy that has always surrounded Japan’s system of capital punishment, it’s still likely that many Japanese people are not aware of the methodology used to carry out an execution, even though it’s been revealed time and again by the media. The Asahi Shimbun reiterated the cold cruelty of the procedure with an exceptionally disturbing piece that appeared March 29, in which an inmate of the Osaka Detention Center described in detail what he saw and heard when guards came to collect a death row prisoner for his hanging. For those who are unaware, inmates awaiting capital punishment are not made aware of the date and time of their execution until the exact moment when detention center personnel open their cell doors to take them to the gallows. The kind of terror these prisoners live with on a day-to-day basis is difficult to imagine, and the testimony of this 36-year-old inmate, Takahiro Imanishi, whose cell was across the corridor from that of a condemned man, puts it into perspective without making it any less horrifying.

The narrative, as written down in Imanishi’s diary, gets very specific. At 7:30 am on Dec. 21, 2021, the wake-up chime sounded in the detention center. Imanishi dutifully got up, folded his futon, tidied his cell, washed his face, and waited for breakfast to be delivered. However, he noticed that the corridor outside his cell was “quieter than it usually was” at this hour of the morning. The silence was suddenly and violently shattered by the sound of the doors to the exercise yard being opened. Several guards entered, their footsteps echoing down the corridor. Looking out the small window of his cell, Imanishi fixed his gaze on a small plaque on the wall next to the door of a cell saying, “Do not open door while unaccompanied.” This plaque was next to all the cells that housed death row inmates, which numbered 7 or 8 at the time. 

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Media watch: Nobody takes the evacuation plans for Sakishima seriously

Posted on April 4, 2025 by philipbrasor

Last week, the government released a plan to evacuate the residents of the Sakishima archipelago, which comprises the outlying islands of Okinawa Prefecture, in the event of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. Since the U.S. has pledged to defend Taiwan against any such attack, Japan would be drawn into the conflict in accordance with the U.S.-Japan security agreement. Those Japanese islands geographically closest to Taiwan would likely be affected, so the government came up with a plan to move civilians from the region to mainland Japan.

Japanese media have reported these plans with an air of skepticism. Tokyo Shimbun‘s explanation, which appeared in its March 29 edition, included a comment that the scheme does not take into consideration the real situation surrounding the islands targeted for evacuation. 

The entire operation would endeavor to move about 120,000 people from the islands, including any tourists who happened to be present at the time, to 32 municipalities in 8 prefectures, 7 of which are on the island of Kyushu. The 55,000 residents of Miyako Island would be moved to 4 prefectures. Ishigaki’s 49,000 residents would go to 3 prefectures, including Yamaguchi on Honshu. The 4,000 people of Taketomi would be taken to Nakasaki; Yonaguni’s 1,600 people to Saga; and so on. All the evacuees would be flown to two airports, Kagoshima and Fukuoka, and from there bussed to the various municipalities that have been assigned to accept them. Some, such as those going to Yamaguchi, would use the Shinkansen part of the way. 

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Review: Tuesday

Posted on April 3, 2025 by philipbrasor

The debut feature by Croatian director Daina O. Pusić seems purposely designed to throw the viewer off-guard. A ratty CG parrot with wolf-like attributes encounters humans in various states of distress, after which the action cuts to an American woman named Zora (Julia Louis-Dreyfus) sitting impatiently in her nice London home waiting for someone—a young nurse (Leah Harvey), as it turns out. There’s another quick cut to a taxidermist’s shop where Zora tries to sell the proprietor a set of stuffed rats done up as Catholic bishops. What is going on here? Eventually, the action returns to the house and Zora’s bedridden teenage daughter Tuesday (Lola Petticrew), who we quickly learn is dying from some wasting disease after the parrot shows up and she realizes his purpose. “Please don’t kill me,” she pleads. “I must,” he replies in a guttural voice. 

Cinematic fantasies about confronting death are not uncommon, but Pusić’s approach feels almost improvisational. Louis-Dreyfus’s characteristically anxious comic effect masks Zora’s underlying despair, and Tuesday’s negotiations with Death the bird (voiced by Arinzé Kene) involve the cleaning of centuries of soot and grime from his feathers, the playing of Ice Cube’s “It Was a Good Day” (a song Death admits he has always liked), and the sharing of medical THC via vape cartridge. “I love sarcasm,” the bird says at one point after Tuesday makes a joke, and he grants her a brief delay from her descent into eternal nothingness, but only so that she can prepare her mother for it. By this point, the viewer has realized that Zora’s actions are all in the service of her full-on denial of Tuesday’s fate, and the movie becomes a kind of battle of wills regarding what it means to “let go.” Pusić maintains the surreal tone with magical bits showing an apocalypse taking place out in the real world, characters changing size for no discernible reason, and Zora herself becoming an angel of death upon acquiring the bird’s powers through literal ingestion. The random quality of these story details turns them into non sequiturs, making it difficult to grasp the director’s intentions, even when, in the end, Zora comes to terms with her own fears after Death tells her that the only afterlife for Tuesday is “in your memory.”

As someone who doesn’t believe in the afterlife, I found this pronouncement to be weak tea, especially after sitting through such fantastical audio-visual exertions. Perhaps the movie requires more than a single viewing to appreciate the odd allegorical richness of Pusić’s ideas, but they felt undercooked to me; which isn’t to say Tuesday isn’t moving. Louis-Dreyfus ably embodies the heartbreaking reality of Zora’s refusal to accept that her daughter is going to die very soon. “What am I without you?” she asks, and all the otherworldly stylistic inventions constructed by Pusić fall to the wayside in the light of Zora’s incomprehension. Louis-Dreyfus alone carries the terror and conviction that the movie struggles so hard to convey. 

Opens April 4 in Tokyo at Toho Cinemas Nihonbashi (050-6868-5060), Human Trust Cinema Yurakucho (03-6259-8608), Human Trust Cinema Shibuya (03-5468-5551).

Tuesday home page in Japanese

photo (c) Death on a Tuesday LLC/The British Film Institute/British Broadcasting Corporation 2024

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Review: Here

Posted on April 2, 2025 by philipbrasor

Robert Zemeckis’s career has been built on gimmicks, usually of the technical kind but also conceptual ones. Though most of the attention focused on his latest has to do with the extensive use of de-ageing/ageing AI software and the curious deployment of picture-within-picture devices for the purpose of scene changes, the main gimmick is promotional: Reassembling the cast and crew responsible for Zemeckis’s most famous project, Forrest Gump, on the occasion of its 30th anniversary, to once again celebrate American boomer exceptionalism as a historical given. The entire movie is set up to depict a certain space in the universe over the course of millennia, though the vast bulk of the film’s running time covers mid-20th century Pennsylvania, specifically the living room of a suburban house built in 1900 that is across the street from the original home of Benjamin Franklin’s illegitimate son, which has become a memorial. From this vantage point we sample the lives of the various families who occupied the living room over the course of a hundred years, including a budding aviator and his nervous wife, the randy couple who invented the La-Z-Boy recliner, a post-millennial Black couple and their son, and, most extensively, three generations of the Youngs: a WWII veteran, his frustrated artist son and put-upon wife, and the son’s own children, all living in the same house.

This last subplot stars Tom Hanks and Robin Wright as the second generation scions, Richard and Margaret, who are stuck in the house their entire married life with Richard’s parents, the alcoholic Al (Paul Bettany) and passive Rose (Kelly Reilly), due to post-60s economic stagnation. Though I haven’t read the graphic novel upon which Here was based, I would say Zemeckis missed a major opportunity to say something interestng and pointed about how Boomers were given all the resources and advantages to outperform the Greatest Generation and blew it by embracing capitalist consumerism in a death grip. Mostly what’s offered up are cliches—Richard abandons his draftsmanship talents for a career in insurance, Margaret crawls toward spiritual despair on having missed out on life (exemplified by “never seeing Paris”) because of her obligations as wife and mother—presented in a garishly theatrical way, complete with over-extended declamatory dialogue that is meant to carry all the way to the audience sitting up there in the top balcony. And because this main plot is punctuated with time-slipping asides to the other family stories over the century there’s no dramatic buildup. The hackneyed humdrum nature of the storytelling exacerbates the lack of flow, leaving only the technical flash to engage interest.

How much more engaging the movie might have been if the details, like the aviator wife’s involvement in the nascent sufragette movement, or the Black couple’s concern for their son’s welfare in a decidedly white environment, were elaborated upon, thus giving us more to chew on than the usual parade of pop music nostalgia and stumblings toward sexual awakening. I’m not necessarily one of those moviegoers whose memory of Forrest Gump is overwhelmed by revulsion, but Here makes the same miscalculations for the same tired reasons, and I wonder who still cares for this kind of showy but empty demonstration of cinematic wherewithal.

Opens April 4 in Tokyo at Toho Cinemas Nihonbashi (050-6868-5060), Toho Cinemas Hibiya (050-6868-5068), Toho Cinemas Shinjuku (050-6868-5063), Kino Cinema Shinjuku (03-5315-0978), Toho Cinemas Roppongi Hills (050-6868-5024).

Here home page in Japanese

photo (c) 2024 Miramax Distribution Services, LLC

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Media watch: Tokyo ward reminds citizens that they aren’t members of the royal family

Posted on March 30, 2025 by philipbrasor
We’re number one!

One of the peculiarites of Japan’s family registration (koseki) system is that a citizen can designate any address in the country as their main domicile, or honseki, regardless of where they actually live. A person’s residential address must be registered as such with the proper local government and indicated on the residence certificate, or juminhyo, but the koseki, which delineates one’s family relationships, isn’t so strict. Consequently, a significant number of Japanese people have designated Tokyo, Chiyoda Ward, Ichi-ban (number 1) as their honseki, because that is the address of the imperial palace. Of course, registering as such does not make one a member of the royal family, but, apparently, a lot of people like to dream, as it were.

According to Asahi Shimbun, this trend is becoming a problem for the bureaucrats of Chiyoda Ward. The number of people who live in the ward is about 68,000, but the number of Japanese people who have registered their honseki there is presently 210,000 and rising. Only about 3,000 people have registered the palace as their honseki, but for some reason Chiyoda Ward is the single most common jurisdiction in terms of honsekis nationwide. A lot of people also register Tokyo Station as their honseki, which is in Chiyoda Ward. 

The reason it’s a problem is that the koseki is needed for many procedures and transactions, which means the local government designated as the honseki of an individual must assist in these procedures and transactions—taking out insurance policies, applying for loans, registering at schools—by providing copies of the koseki and amending its attachment, the fuhyo. One of the basic functions of the koseki is registering one’s marriage, since those who enter into a marriage are, by definition, “leaving” their parents’ koseki and creating a new one with their partners, and that means choosing a honseki. Though most newlyweds use either their current address or their home town, others prefer something more exotic or romantic, and choose a famous place, like the palace or Tokyo Station. Though registrants are not required to give a reason for using a particular address as their honseki, Chiyoda Ward staff told Asahi that a lot of people who call to inquire about registering their honseki in Chiyoda Ward say that “it’s easier to remember.” 

The result has been a huge burden for Chiyoda Ward workers, who now handle on average about 30,000 koseki-related actions a year. These services cost money, which means that actual residents of Chiyoda Ward are paying, through their taxes, for procedures that benefit non-residents. The problem became so severe that last August the ward placed a notice prominently on its home page asking people not to use Chiyoda Ward as their honseki unless they actually lived there. The notice has no legal force. It is merely a desperate plea.

Someone who is new to the discussion will rightly ask: What is the purpose of the honseki if it doesn’t actually indicate the address of the registrant? The Asahi could not come up with a definitive answer. The honseki seems to confirm some sort of attachment to a place, which was more important in the past than it is now. After the juminhyo system was implemented in 1967 to administer public services through one’s local government, the honseki became merely symbolic, since most people only used it as a link to their past or heritage. That’s why Japan’s so-called untouchable class, the burakumin, are difficult to identify today, because the only indication of belonging to the class was one’s address—burakumin tended to be restricted to certain neighborhoods. It was the only aspect of their identity that made them burakumin other than their occupations. Nowadays, it’s almost impossible for someone without specific arcane knowledge to tell who supposedly or historically belongs to the burakumin class.

So why retain the honseki? Asahi doesn’t go that far, but likely the reason is force of habit; or, more precisely, the notion that dismantling any single component of the koseki undermines the rationale for the whole system. Proponents of the koseki see it as the perfect administrative embodiment of what makes Japan unique, and those elements which no longer have any meaning in the current social and cultural environment should nevertheless be kept so as to maintain that uniqueness. It’s why many people can’t countenance separate names for married couples. That would contradict the whole logic of a “family register.” 

We’ve even heard that some older people still list “Manchukuo” (the part of northeastern China that’s commonly referred to as Manchuria) as their honseki, since their families emigrated there before World War II, when it was briefly a colony of Japan, but it may be an urban legend. What we’re sure isn’t an urban legend is the intelligence there are still Japanese people who list the Russian-held “northern islands” off Hokkaido as their honseki, something we assume the government encourages since it keeps the dream that those islands still belong to Japan alive, albeit only in some people’s imaginations.

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Review: Better Man and Piece by Piece

Posted on March 29, 2025 by philipbrasor

The biopic, especially those about musicians, was rendered a cliche when John C. Reilly cosplayed as a Johnny Cash-like character in Walk Hard, but that movie did nothing to slow the continuing onslaught of “based on true” recreations of the lives of pop stars, a parade of mostly mediocre films that all follow the same story arcs. Michael Gracey’s Better Man is, in theory, another attempt to poke fun at the formula, but not with overt humor. Gracey’s subject is the English singer Robbie Williams, who became a superstar as a member of the boy band Take That and was indirectly forced to go out on his own because of his offstage bad behavior. Gracey actually tells Williams’ story in the typical biopic fashion: kid from problem-addled background grows up rough but follows his dream of being an artist to the top before descending into drugs and poor decisions and then rising like a phoenix to even greater adulation and success. Gracey’s peculiar slant on this kind of story is to make Williams into an ape, in accordance with a conversation he once had with the singer who characterized his career as being that of a “dancing monkey.”

The best part of this conceit is that it’s played absolutely straight. Through excellently wrought CG, Williams (“acted” by Jonno Davies) looks like a real primate and even moves on occasion like one but never alludes to the fact that he’s different, physiologically or any other way, from all the humans around him. Consequently, the viewer is constantly under the impression that what’s happening on screen is not so much the objective truth as much as it is how the Williams “character,” who narrates the story, sees himself. Thus, during Williams’s childhood in a middle class family in Central England, his difficulties with school bullies and a father who eventually abandons his family to pursue his own dreams of show biz glory take on a special, almost bizarre poignance. Likewise, his own rise as a member of Take That and the cheeky way he asserts his unique talents in a group that is supposed to present a unified front has more power. At the same time, the appeal of the music and the group’s image is never taken for granted, and Gracey, who’s already proven his mettle in musical presentation with The Greatest Showman, knows how to stage a production number for maximum excitement, contrasting them with suitable drama after Williams launches a solo career whose highs are both sartorial and chemical, thus providing the story with ample justification for the requisite precipitous drop into notoriety and dashed romantic possibilities afforded by Williams’ relationship with Nicole Appleton of the girl group All Saints.  

If the movie eventually runs out of steam it’s mainly because the ape gimmick can’t keep the biopic formula freshly engaging for more than two hours. Halfway through I completely forgot I was watching a simian. The ending, where Williams seems to slay all his inner demons and find something approaching genuine satisfaction with life, felt merely cynical. Of course, that very well may have been intended, but for such an outcome to be effective at all it would have required a completely different approach to what I would describe as movie entertainment. 

Another musical superstar named Williams, Pharrell to be exact, wanted to do something similarly different with his biopic and, in a sense, his take is even more radical than Robbie’s. At the very beginning of Piece by Piece, Pharrell is seen chatting with the movie’s director, Morgan Neville, about his ideas for the project and Pharrell says he wants to do it as a Lego movie because his story is about “borrowing from what’s already there,” though the real reason seems to be that Pharrell is just a big Lego fan. The kicker is that he has already been introduced as a Lego figure by the time his idea is proposed.

As with Better Man, nothing changes once the gimmick has been put into action. The difference is that Robbie Williams as a monkey is something the audience has to get used to, but the Lego movie style is already very familiar. Previous Lego movies, which were mostly action-comedy fantasies that made fun of established franchises, have conditioned us to expect outrageous visual jokes about cultural touchstones, like the Batman movies. Pharrell tells his story as it happened and early on it becomes obvious that he isn’t using the Lego style to sharpen the irony or heighten any comic possibilities. As he said in the beginning, he just likes it. 

So the ups-and-downs typical of the musical biopic are played straight with the main difference being that Pharrell himself has always been pretty conventional as both a person and a professional. He indulged his childhood love of music without any adverse complications, having grown up in a loving, supportive family. He didn’t get into trouble or challenge authority. Along with his Neptunes producing partner, Chad Hugo, he realized his ambitions through hard work and talent, did not indulge in drugs or unwholesome behavior, and always treated mentors and collaborators with respect. This isn’t to say that Pharrell’s career is boring, but rather that the Lego style doesn’t really do much to render it in a more interesting way, except maybe to make Pharrell’s occasional spiritual pronouncements visually trippy. To me, the most enlightening element of the story is that Pharrell cemented his reputation by producing beats for the biggest names in hip-hop, including nominal gangstas, all of whom testify (in their own voices) that, as Jay-Z puts it, Pharrell “has absolutely no street” in his persona, even though he grew up in an African-American housing project. True to the name of the pop act he created with Hugo, N.E.R.D., he’s an otaku before he’s anything else. He just happens to be the richest one in the world. In that regard, making a biopic as a Lego movie is the ultimate vanity project.

Better Man now playing in Tokyo at Toho Cinemas Nihonbashi (050-6868-5060), Toho Cinemas Hibiya (050-6868-5068), 109 Cinemas Premium Shinjuku (0570-060-109), Shinjuku Wald 9 (03-5369-4955), Shinjuku Piccadilly (050-6861-3011), Toho Cinemas Shinjuku (050-6868-5063), Toho Cinemas Roppongi Hills (050-6868-5024).

Piece by Piece opens April 4 in Tokyo at Toho Cinemas Nihonbashi (050-6868-5060), Toho Cinemas Hibiya (050-6868-5068), Toho Cinemas Shinjuku (050-6868-5063), Shibuya Parco White Cine Quinto (03-6712-7225). 

Better Man home page in Japanese

Piece by Piece home page in Japanese

Better Man photo (c) 2024 Better Man AU Pty Ltd.

Piece by Piece photo (c) 2024 Focus Features LLC/The LEGO Group

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Review: Mickey 17

Posted on March 28, 2025 by philipbrasor

Slapstick wasn’t always a feature of Bong Joon-ho’s cinematic style. It was first noticeable in a minor way in his sci-fi thriller, The Host (2006), and then central to his two English language fantasies, Snowpiercer and Okja. However, his comic sensibility was put to its most potent use in the Oscar-winning Parasite (those pizza boxes!), which is probably why Western viewers who weren’t familiar with his work before then now think of him as a satirist. His newest movie willl certainly reinforce this view, as its entertainment value is highly reliant on cruel humor to put across Bong’s acid opinion of where capitalism is taking us. Set in the near future on a private colonization expedition to a distant planet, Mickey 17 presents Chaplin’s hapless tramp in the form of failed franchise owner Mickey Barnes (Robert Pattinson), who is reduced to selling his body and soul for a chance to escape his creditors and achieve redemption—over and over again. Mickey has signed on to a rich religious cult leader’s space adventure as an “expendable,” a crew member offered up for sacrifice whenever there is a need for a disposable human body, and is then “reprinted” afterwards to do the thing all over again with the same memories and personality. He is literally and repeatedly worked to death, and, understandably, he’s sick of it.

As with Parasite, the offensive classisms are in the details. The cult leader, an unsuccessful Trumpian politician named Kenneth Marshall (Mark Ruffalo), is not only a blatant eugenicist but parades his childish arrogance like a peacock by serving his crew and followers the grossest food, treating everyone except his patrician wife, Ylfa (Toni Collette), with devastating condescension, and throwing deadly tantrums when his hare-brained schemes don’t go his way. After his 17th incarnation, Mickey is left for dead by his former business partner and straight man, Timo (Steven Yeun), on the surface of the cult’s new home planet after falling into an icy cavern, but Mickey manages to survive only to discover that in his impatience to get on with the project, Marshall has reprinted him again: Mickey 17 meet Mickey 18, who, for reasons that are not satisfactorily explained, is a psychopath to his predecessors’ meek punching bags. The fact that “multiples” are deemed an “abomination” by Marshall’s dogma means elimination of both Mickeys without the possibility of return, but 18 has already gotten it into his head that he was reincarnated for only one purpose: Payback for all the times he’d died. 

It’s a brilliant premise for which Bong can’t take full credit since the script is adapted from a book, but the director rigorously exercises his funny bone with numerous absurdist subplots involving Mickey’s on-board girlfriend, engineer Nasha (Naomi Ackie), whose libido is doubly stimulated by having access to two Mickeys; Ylfa’s plan to exploit the planet’s native marumushi fauna for her “sauce” fetish; a stowaway agent of Mickey’s and Timo’s loan shark who is on the hunt for the two scofflaws; and countless speculations on the uses of science and technology to profit materially at the gratuitous expense of those at the bottom. A little of this goes a long way and if it weren’t for Pattinson’s inventive and sympathetic portrayal of both Mickeys the breathless intrigues that Bong contrives might have outpaced me, but I was able to maintain my stamina until the end. For what it’s worth, Parasite did much better with basically the same themes and tools, but real imagination backed up by real ambition is never a waste of anybody’s time.

Now playing in Tokyo at Toho Cinemas Nihonbashi (050-6868-5060), Toho Cinemas Hibiya (050-6868-5068), Marunouchi Piccadilly (050-6875-0075), 109 Cinemas Premium Shinjuku (0570-060-109), Shinjuku Wald 9 (03-5369-4955), Shinjuku Piccadilly (050-6861-3011), Toho Cinemas Shinjuku (050-6868-5063), Human Trust Cinema Shibuya (03-5468-5551), Toho Cinemas Roppongi Hills (050-6868-5024). 

Mickey 17 home page in Japanese

photo (c) 2025 Warner Bros. Ent.

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