We went to see Isle of Dogs tonight, but the idea was more just to go see something at the outdoor cinema, which is a very cool thing to do, both in the literal and metaphorical senses of the word. The fact that it was Isle of Dogs, a movie I’ve wanted to see ever since it came out, kind of sealed the deal.
It’s literally cool, of course, because even after a baking hot day, it is reasonably pleasant outdoors after dark, when the great source of heat is absent from the sky, and the air temperature begins to devolve, and become somewhat closer to the temperature of outer space, which it fortunately never reaches, because we are still under the blanket of the atmosphere, even if it is invisible and we can see the stars.
It’s cool in the metaphorical sense because you can sometimes see very good movies at a greatly reduced price, and sometimes you can see bad movies too, and you don’t feel too guilty about it, because it is a greatly reduced price. It is a cool thing to do because it’s a thing in our neighborhood, something we can walk to, a cultural event we try to tick off at least once or twice in a summer.
Anyway, Isle of Dogs. All four of us liked it, which is pretty rare, because we can never agree on which TV programs to watch, half the time the kids just walk out of the room if I’m watching something in English.
It was kind of a weird film. Animated, but not Disney style, that’s for sure. Much more Japanese than I thought it was going to be. Not just because it was set in Japan, and the people were speaking Japanese a lot (it was in English when it needed to be, which they accomplished by the plot expedient of having all dogs speak English), but Japanese as far as the story telling and animation style goes.
So, worth watching just stylistically.
I’d give it a an 8 on a scale of 10.
Half the time, not have.
Thanks. Corrected.