A boy asks his dad to squish a spider and gets a folk song about the sanctity of life instead.
Tag Archives: Musical
64*: CITIZEN DOG (2004)
Mah nakorn
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DIRECTED BY: Wisit Sasanatieng
FEATURING: Mahasamut Boonyaruk, Saengthong Gate-Uthong, Sawatwong Palakawong Na Autthaya, Raenkum Saninn, Nattha Wattanapaiboon
PLOT: Pod leaves his remote homestead for the bright lights of Bangkok, ignoring his grandmother’s warning that he will grow a tail in the big city. There, he loses a finger working in a sardine factory, then falls head over heels for cleaning lady Jin, who is intensely focused on a book that she found after it fell out of a crashing passenger jet. Her curiosity leads her to monomaniacal environmental activism, leaving no attention for Pod, who tries to remain close to her through a series of odd jobs that bring him into contact with some of the city’s more unusual residents, including a man who licks everything, an undead motorcyclist, and a child-like woman in a passive-aggressive relationship with her teddy bear.
BACKGROUND:
- Based on a novel by the director’s wife, Koynuch, which Sasanatieng illustrated. The novel was, in turn, based on Sasanatieng’s unpublished screenplay.
- The title is a pun on the city’s name, “Bangkok, Great City.” By changing one letter in the Thai translation—Krung Thep Maha Nakorn to Krung Thep Mah Nakorn–-the name becomes “Bangkok, City of Dogs.”
- Narrated by director Pen-Ek Ratanaruang, whose films include Last Life in the Universe.
- Boonyaruk is a musician (some of his music appears in the movie) making his film debut here. Gate-Uthong is also a film novice, having worked previously as a fashion model.
- The foreigner handing out protest leaflets who Jin dubs “Peter” is played by Chuck Stephens, an expatriate film critic for the San Francisco Bay Guardian and Thai cinema expert, who also worked on the movie’s subtitles.
INDELIBLE IMAGE: Sasanatieng’s candy-colored Bangkok is rife with visual pleasures, but none as dramatic as the literal mountain comprised of plastic bottles that Jin recovers and carefully cleans, a peak which Pod and Jin separately ascend in a desperate search for meaning and jointly summit in celebration of love. Just as Bangkok itself is portrayed as an urban nightmare made beautiful by the people who live and love there, this mountain of trash is transformed into a wonder by the community.
TWO WEIRD THINGS: A chain-smoking woman-child’s love-hate relationship with her teddy bear; Grandma’s gecko rap
WHAT MAKES IT WEIRD: The one thing that’s guaranteed to come up in any discussion of Citizen Dog is a reference to that milestone of quirky romance, Amélie. The comparison is not without merit: the two films share a bemused enjoyment of life’s pleasures. Sanasatieng looks to do the French hit one better, though, marshaling all his resources to highlight the strangeness of his characters, be they main, supporting, or background. No one in Citizen Dog zigs when they could zag, and strangeness and silliness are very much the norm. The opening scene in which everyone sings along with the soundtrack would be a musical number in most contexts, but here it feels diegetic, the voice of a community singing as one.
Original Thai trailer for Citizen Dog
COMMENTS: Life in the big city is hard. Say you get a nice job slicing Continue reading 64*: CITIZEN DOG (2004)
IT CAME FROM THE READER-SUGGESTED QUEUE: WAVE TWISTERS (2001)
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AKA DJ Qbert’s Wave Twisters
DIRECTED BY: Syd Garon, Eric Henry
FEATURING: DJ Qbert, Yoga Frog, D-Styles, Flare, Buckethead
PLOT: When the dastardly Lord Ook deprives Arrow Town of the Four Lost Arts of Hip Hop — rhyming, scratching, breaking, and graffiti — it’s up to an intergalactic crew of dentists to liberate the town through the power of sick beats.
COMMENTS: Faced with a video album based on the musical stylings of a national and world champion DJ known as the Jimi Hendrix of the turntable, the last thing I would have expected was a coherent narrative. Yet that is what we get in Wave Twisters, a hip-hop sci-fi musical in which rapid-fire scratching and carefully chosen radio drama samples combine to tell a story that would have been at home in the days of Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon. From the outset, the movie’s strongest claim to weirdness is that it’s so unexpectedly linear and focused.
Don’t mistake that for any pretensions of depth. The story would not be out of place alongside the cheap sci-fi serials shot in Bronson Canyon in the 40s and 50s; strange aliens attack, and a group of square-jawed heroes save the day, complete with cliff-hanging chapters that slowly advance the conflict. It remains first and foremost a platform for the real star, DJ Qbert’s scratching wizardry. Qbert’s album came first, and it was up to directors Garon and Henry and co-writer/art director Doug Cunningham to transform the soundscape into a visual tale, while leaving Qbert’s original work intact. Considering the challenge, the result is impressive, with a charming comic book feel that takes advantage of limited animation. The images lend a broader sense of humor to Qbert’s sardonic wit; the DJ may have enjoyed finding a snippet of a classic serial villain declaring, “I am the Red Worm!,” but it’s the filmmakers who add lascivious gloss by putting that dialogue in the mouth of a symbiotic parasite residing in the navel of a baby in a luchador mask.
Perversely, it’s the beats that inadvertently drag down the story. With all the tunes working at roughly the same BPM, there’s not much variety in the energy, and you can feel the story slowing down to keep pace with the score. For example, a side trip wherein graffiti expert Honey is captured by the enemy is intriguing, especially as she is transformed into an ostrich. It looks cool, but it’s a dead end for the plot, and overlong as an eye-catching visual. Similarly, set pieces like an assassin stalking the crew down a hallway are tense for the first few seconds, but in short order the repetition becomes tiring. The visuals are in sync with the soundscape, but they never quite harmonize.
If nothing else, Wave Twisters is worth the watch to see Qbert and his colleagues in action. Amusingly, they are deployed in live action as agents of the bad guys, using their rapid-fire scratches and sonic tweaks as weapons against enemies of the state, but it’s remarkable watching them do their thing at breakneck speed. If it takes a wacky tale from the Golden Age of Science Fiction to show off the awesome instrumental power of the turntable, then by all means, get those dentists to space on the double.
WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:
(This movie was nominated for review by Katie. Suggest a weird movie of your own here.)
FANTASIA 2025: APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: THE DEVIL’S BRIDE (1974)
Velnio nuotaka
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DIRECTED BY: Arunas Zebriunas
FEATURING: Gediminas Girdvainis, Vasyl Symchych, Regina Varnaite, Vaiva Mainelyte, Regimantas Adomaitis
PLOT: Cast down from Heaven, minor demon Pinchiukas tricks an Earthly miller into signing away his daughter.
WHY IT MIGHT JOIN THE APOCRYPHA: Featuring a bumbling God, a prancy little devil, and non-stop rock and roll and orchestra, this Cold War relic bubbles over with breezy “what the Hell?” charm.
COMMENTS: I don’t always watch devil-summoned naiads pursue a hunky suitor, but when I do, I prefer them on horseback. At a slightly too-long seventy-five minutes, The Devil’s Bride catches the eye and raises the eyebrow from the start, commencing its cavalcade of song and dance with a gilded frame bounding the Lord and a host of singing cherubim. God dozes on and off, with the angels discovering the temptations of feasting, drinking, and smooching during their brief moments without supervision. Cue the music transition from the classic big blast hymnal choir. At one point, God’s thronal bell loses its clapper, and chaos ensues for just too long while he attempts to fix it. By the time he rings it to restore order, several of the Heavenly host are ripe for a fall: lady angels losing grace in go-go dance outfits, fellow angels done up in full 19th-century foppery. And we meet our anti-hero, Pinchiukas, fallen into a pond, depressed and ready to begin scheming.
Some of my confusion about the plot flow stems certainly from a regrettable lack of knowledge about Lithuanian folklore. (Some, too, doubtless from the punch-drunk mental state I was in after very little sleep the preceding night.) Are gay angels a recognized aspect of Soviet Lithuanian Catholic doctrine? Who is that incessantly aria-ing blonde on the boat who immediately falls for the homely miller? How is it the local swain so swiftly seduces—and is seduced by—the daughter? (Was it his manly-but-romantic chomping of a daisy flower head that clinched the deal)? What is up with that elaborate gold-carved window frame on the mill exterior? How about those disembodied black-elbow-gloved hands at the devil’s beck and call? And why is a devil, but not an angel or God, bound so scrupulously by legal contract verbiage?
This final question is one I have for supernatural folktales more broadly. Suffice to say, the questions raised are as superfluous as any answers that might be furnished by a more illuminated viewer.
Despite stalling out on occasion, and despite the repetitiveness of every one of the songs, The Devil’s Bride is a romp that borders on the madcap, particularly thanks to leading man Gediminas Girdvainis as the little devil. It was pleasant to observe that, confused though I was about the occult mechanics, the portrayal of “evil” was ultimately sympathetic. Ne’er shall I forget his pomp and ridiculousness on the day of his wedding, with fancy chapeau, hunting-red jacket, and his sheer, skin-tight white leggings. Comely daughters and swains the world over, beware the appeal of the devil in tights.
The Devil’s Bride is restored and presented by Deaf Crocodile, available now in a limited edition Blu-ray, with a standard edition scheduled for a mid-September release.
WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:
60*. RAGGEDY ANN & ANDY: A MUSICAL ADVENTURE (1977)
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“This is really weird.”–Raggedy Andy, when a camel asks him to climb on and join him as he chases an invisible caravan in the sky
DIRECTED BY: Richard Williams
FEATURING: Claire Williams, voices of Didi Conn, Mark Baker, Fred Stuthman, Niki Flacks, George S. Irving, Marty Brill, Joe Silver, Alan Sues
PLOT: On her owner’s birthday, Raggedy Ann and her brother Andy meet Babette, a snobbish new doll from France. Babette is quickly abducted by snowglobe pirate Captain Contagious. Ann and Andy venture out into the night, where they encounter a camel, a taffy pit, and an inflatable Loony king, before finally confronting the pirate ship.
BACKGROUND:
- Raggedy Ann began her life as a mass-produced rag doll in 1915. A series of children’s books based on the character followed in the 1920s, continuing until the 1970s. Fleischer Brothers studios made three animated Raggedy Ann and Andy shorts in the 1940s. The dolls are still produced today.
- This feature film was loosely adapted from the 1924 children’s book “Raggedy Ann and Andy and the Camel with the Wrinkled Knees.“
- Director Richard Williams took over for originally-slated director Abe Levitow, who died before production began.
- The adaptation was originally conceived as a Broadway musical, then a TV special, before becoming a feature film. An actual Broadway musical with many of the same characters (but a different plot) followed in 1986.
- The film ended up costing more than double its original budget, and was a box office failure. It was released on VHS, but has never officially been released on DVD or Blu-ray.
- Voted onto the Apocrypha by readers in this poll.
INDELIBLE IMAGE: The Greedy, an inexplicable being who inhabits the Taffy Pit and exists as a sort of candy-themed, eternally mutating Lovecraftian horror-cum-cupcake.
TWO WEIRD THINGS: Ghost camel caravan in the sky; expanding looney king
WHAT MAKES IT WEIRD: Raggedy Ann was a hobo doll, the cheapest and most unassuming children’s toy imaginable. Throwing this plain Jane toy into a backyard “Alice in Wonderland” scenario shouldn’t have produced results as odd as it did. A Musical Adventure is uneven, but in its insaner moments, it genuinely goes for broke.
Original trailer for Raggedy Ann and Andy: A Musical Adventure (1977)
COMMENTS: “Good mescaline comes on slow. The first hour is all Continue reading 60*. RAGGEDY ANN & ANDY: A MUSICAL ADVENTURE (1977)