Page 2 March 29 , 2018
Check It Out Film Review
See You in the Cosmos Delivers
Candor and Wonder
Reviewed by Tommy Vinh Bui,
MLIS, Associate Librarian,
Inglewood Public Library
With the recent passing of the prodigiously
perspicacious Stephen Hawking, it seems only
fitting to review a Young Adult book that tackles
the same age-old questions that Mr. Hawking
wrested with throughout his illustrious career
dedicated to the study of time and space: Why?
And that’s just what Jack Cheng’s See You
in the Cosmos does. With vim and vigor.
This was a charming little tale of coming
of age and acceptance and of the challenges
and confusion of growing up. Eleven-year-old
Alex Petrovki is a nut for outer space and
pretty much every aspect of his life revolves
around it somehow. He builds amateur rockets
and has a dog named after his inimitable hero,
Carl Sagan. Together, they take to the road to
compete in a rocket competition in the deserts
of New Mexico. And he acquires some colorful
acquaintances, experiences and hard-earned
insights along the way.
Told through a series of audio recordings
that he intends to send into outer space for
posterity, Alex is meticulous in preserving
his excitement and anxieties throughout his
misadventures. It provides the audience candid
and unfettered access into the thoughts of this
likeable and precocious protagonist.
Equal parts October Sky, Rain Man and The
Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time,
we’re offered a window into the outlook of a
Entertainment
math whiz maven who, for all his intellectual
acuity, is still very much isolated from the rest
of his peers and society at large and still must
grapple with the everyday quotidian of just
being a kid. Alex is a fine protagonist. He is
stubbornly tenacious, but also tenderly naïve.
He is also flawed and undergoes a considerable
transformation throughout the course of
the narrative. But he’s better for it by the end
of the story and we’re rooting for him every
step of the way.
What really vivifies this yarn are the subtle
brushes with a harsh reality that Alex struggles
to understand. Very adult problems such as
domestic abuse, mental illness and familial grief
come to the forefront. These serious issues are
broached and approached with a certain degree
of tact and understanding and oftentimes only
the audience is aware of the severity of these
subjects. We, along with Alex, come to terms
with these morsels of turbulence and walk
away with a bounty of profound life lessons.
The literary strengths are also worthy of
note. Cheng conveys a carousel of emotions
in his well-wrought characters. They’re well
and convincingly communicated. The eccentric
motley crew of characters lace the plot with
a fully-realized velocity. The story went by
in a blink.
All in all, this is a story that will have mass
appeal with a wide demographic. It checks
all the right boxes in terms of character development,
plot momentum and well-timed
narrative beats that keep the audience engaged
and thrilled throughout. It’s a burst of writerly
propulsion that breaks the surly bonds of earth
and ensures hours of ageless entertainment.
So spacewalk on over to the oxygen-rich
environment of the Inglewood Library and
pluck on up this meteoric page-turner. Your
mind will rapidly, like the universe itself, find
itself expanding infinitely outward. •
Isle of Dogs Is a Lovingly Crafted
Doggy Tale of Pure Delight
By Ryan Rojas for www.cinemacy.com
Is there anyone who could transition
from live-action filmmaking to stop-motion
animation as gloriously as the wonderful
Wes Anderson? No. Unsurprisingly, the
attention that Anderson gives to the tiniest
of aesthetic details, as seen in nowmodern
classics such as The Royal
Tenenbaums and Moonrise Kingdom, makes
his natural tinkerer sensibilities only logical
for the stop-motion medium. In his latest
feature film, Isle of Dogs (in theaters today),
we see the director at his best – crafting a
storybook adventure that distills the essence
of delight into a small-scale canine and
kiddie-friendly epic.
Set in a fictional near-future Japan, Isle of
Dogs (say it fast for an added treat) tells the
story of a Japanese nation under siege by a
dog epidemic known as “snout fever.” This
brings about the rise of fear-mongering Mayor
Kobayashi (voiced by Kunichi Nomura), who
sets out to banish all dogs and force them to
live out the rest of their numbered days in
exile on Trash Island. Of course, this premise
is a not-so-veiled political commentary
about demagoguery -- but with Anderson’s
trademark wry and winking humor at play,
the whole thing is hilariously satirized and
maintains a sentimental heart.
Against this backdrop, the young Akira
(Koyu Rankin) sets out to find his lost dog
on Trash Island. This leads him to the rest
of the heroes in the story: the famished and
sickly Rex (Edward Norton), Duke (Jeff
Goldblum), Boss (Bill Murray) and King (Bob
Balaban) who all agree to help the young
boy find his dog, Spots (Liev Schreiber).
However, it’s the pack’s leader and single
stray of the group, Chief (Bryan Cranston),
who is hesitant to help Akira because of his
“obey no man” attitude. Ultimately outvoted
(the dogs always put group decisions up to
a democratic vote), Chief reluctantly accompanies
the fool-hearty dogs and human
on their odyssey.
It’s a magical thing to watch these animated
dogs come to life on the big screen.
Anderson’s skilled animators and voice cast
breathe a magical humor and humanness
all their own into these dogs, making you
remember that every movement was made
with the faintest of touches. Through a
long journey that sees Akira and the dogs
evade military forces in the form of robotic
dog hunters, it all leads to a climactic end.
With the help of pro-dog resistance fighters
(including an outspoken American foreign
exchange student voiced by Greta Gerwig),
the dogs must fight for survival -- lest man’s
best friend be eradicated from civilization.
The story and staging are all very refined and
tight, which makes sense since this isn’t Anderson’s
first foray into stop-motion animation.
His 2009 outing,Fantastic Mr. Fox, saw the
auteur first explore the stop-motion medium by
bringing the seminal children’s book to the big
screen. While it was acclaimed for all of the
right reasons, it also felt like a director doing
a one-off homage to beloved source material
(P.T. Anderson’s under-appreciated Inherent
Vice feels like a similarly executed auteurist
exercise). But with Isle of Dogs, we get an
original story from Anderson and collaborators
Roman Coppola, Jason Schwartzman and
Kunichi Nomura. It feels like an even tighter,
more coherent story that paces fantastically
all its own.
And while Anderson has literally shrunken
down the size of the production for Isle of
Dogs, it should be noted that he expands in
his exploration of a new cultural landscape
and continent, bringing every bit of Japanese
culture and detail to life in his storybook
world. And no matter the size, whether as
grand as The Grand Budapest Hotel, or as
intimate as Isle of Dogs, one thing always
remains the same: Anderson’s films are about
a spirit of adolescence that stands out, or
up, to a larger and more absurd adult world.
Anderson’s youthfully defiant films speak to
our innermost selves.
So, where does Isle of Dogs rank next to the
rest of Anderson’s other brilliant works? To put
the finest point on it, Isle of Dogs is his most delightful
work. I loved every minute and moment
of this film, and it’s not hard to do exactly that.
How Anderson and company are able to make a
movie so funny with the most minute gestures,
glances and moments is something that will
have audiences wagging their tails over in
pure joy.
101 min. Isle of Dogs is rated PG-13 for
thematic elements and some violent images.
Now playing in select theaters. •
Isle of Dogs. Courtesy of Fox Searchlight.
Ryan Rojas.
See You in the Cosmos by Jack Cheng.
Tommy Vinh Bui.
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