Scott Pilgrim, Hester Prynne, Johannes Krauser II and Antoine Doinel

I've recently watched a number of films which featured teenagers or targeted to teenage audiences.

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World starring Michael Cera and Mary Elizabeth Winstead; directed by Edgar Wright; (2010) - Official Website
Detroit Metal City starring Ken'ichi Matsuyama and Rosa Katô; Japanese with subtitles; (2008) - Official Website
Easy A starring Emma Stone; with Thomas Haden Church, Lisa Kudrow, Stanley Tucci, Patricia Clarkson and Malcolm McDowell; directed by Will Gluck; (2010) - Official Website
The 400 Blows starring Jean-Pierre Léaud; directed by François Truffaut; French with subtitles; (1959)

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Scott Pilgrim vs. The World has been well reviewed so I won't say too much about it. Michael Cera and Mary Elizabeth Winstead were both very good in their roles but the supporting actors raised the level of the film. Standouts include Alison Pill as the dyspeptic drummer and ex-girlfriend of Michael Cera's Scott Pilgrim, Brandon Routh as Winstead's ex-boyfriend who gains his evil powers from his vegan diet, Jason Schwartzman the evilest and most powerful of Winstead's exes and Ellen Wong as Knives Chau, Pilgrim's Chinese girlfriend who has an axe to grind with Winstead.

The film was funny; I was probably too old to catch all the references although I did appreciate Pilgrim using Pacman trivia as a pickup line. Knives gets off the best line when she say to Pilgrim, "I'm too cool for you anyway."

I enjoyed Easy A much more than Scott Pilgrim. Scott Pilgrim was too cartoonish for me to really enjoy it. Easy A is implausible as well with star Emma Stone's Olive being too independent for a high school girl. Still, the film captured the spirit of being a teenager which apparently hasn't changed much since I was in high school. Best line - Aly Michalka as Olive's best friend telling her to show some "lady balls." For added cinephilia, the film makes numerous references to the 1926 version of The Scarlet Letter starring Lilian Gish and John Hughes films of the 1980's although the most prominent reenactment is of the John Cusack's raised boombox scene in Cameron Crowe's Say Anything (1989).

Emma Stone, who I was unfamliar with before watching Easy A (I didn't see Zombieland and don't recall her from Superbad), turned in a starmaking comedic performance as the headstrong Olive. Amanda Bynes as the uptight, judgmental, devout Christian also caught my attention. Stanley Tucci and Patricia Clarkson as Olive's understanding parents make the most of their limited screen time.

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I first saw previews of Detroit Metal City in July at the Viz Cinema portion of Another Hole in the Head. It took 3 months for the film to arrive but I can't say the wait was worth it. Detroit Metal City is one of those films where the best parts are in the trailers.

The story centers on Soichi Negishi (Ken'ichi Matsuyama), a singer who wants to write and sing "serious" pop songs. His personal motto is "No Music, No Dream." Towards that goal, he sings his songs and plays acoustic guitar on a street corner. The problem is that his songs are banal and people think he is creepy with his perma-smile and "dickhead haircut."

Negishi pays the bills with his sideband - DMC (Detroit Metal City), a death metal band. Negishi puts on face paint, wears a wig, gets into a KISS inspired costume and growls out his songs under the stage name Johannes Krauser II. His bandmates are bassist Alexander Jagi and drummer Camus. As Jagi says later in the film, if they weren't in DMC, Jagi would be a DJ in a karaoke bar and Camus would be in prison for some sexual perversion. Leading the group is their record label boss, a perpetually shrieking, foul-mouthed harpy with a penchant for short skirts, large dogs and violence.

Negishi is embarrassed by the music DMC plays and his involvement with the band although he certainly has a stage presence as Johannes Krauser II. He has a crisis of conscience when his former college classmate and secret admiree Yuri Aikawa bumps into him at the record store. She hates DMC and Negishi hides his alter ego from her. Unfortunately for Negishi, DMC is rising on the record charts so he is pressed by his boss to tour Japan on a sort of Death Metal Challenge Tour where DMC goes up against the hardest rocking bands in Japan which includes a rapper and a post-modern grrrl punk band. DMC dispatches them with ease but the greatest death rocker in the world, Jack II Dark (Gene Simmons) is coming to Japan to challenge DMC.

The pressure becomes too much for Negishi so he hangs up his platform shoes and goes back to the small farming town he came from. To his horror, he discovers that his younger brother who worshipped him when he left for Tokyo a few years prior now is an obnoxious brat and a huge Johannes Krauser fan to boot. Negishi dons the Krauser costume again to teach his younger brother some manners and lessons in life. This is where he has his epiphany - death metal can be used for the good of mankind. Krauser rushes back to Tokyo and arrives just in time for DMC's faceoff against Jack II Dark.

The range that Ken'ichi Matsuyama shows in the film is amazing. When one also considers his character in the Death Note films, the actor's abilities become obviously apparent. Matsuyama shows some talent for comedy. Everyone else in the film delivered unmemorable performances. Despite Matsuyama's lack of support, Detroit Metal City has some funny moments. My complaint is that I saw those funny moments in the trailers.

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I've heard of François Truffaut's The 400 Blows for as long as I can remember. I had never seen it before. I didn't realize that Truffaut revisited the main character of Antoine Doinel in three additional feature films - Stolen Kisses (1968), Bed and Board (1970) and Love on the Run (1979). In all the films, Doniel is portrayed by Jean-Pierre Léaud.

In The 400 Blows, Doniel is a 12 year old boy who is having behavioral problems at school. As the film unfolds, we see that Doniel's mother is selfish and distant. Eventually, we learn that she is having an affair which his father (technically step-father) suspect. The tension between the couple spills into their relationship with the boy. After being truant from school, nearly burning the apartment down, stealing a typewriter and running away from home, Doniel is sent to a juvenile reform school. This gives rise to the most amazing scene. In semi-documentary style, Truffaut has an offscreen psychiatrist ask Doniel a series of questions which reveal much about his life and actions. We discover Doniel's mother wasn't married when she became pregnant with Doniel. As the scene plays out, we begin to understand the woman's resentment towards her son and the near inevitability of Doniel's misbehavior.

The final scene is also iconic as Doniel runs away from the juvenile facility. He runs until he reaches the sea or English Channel. The film ends with a freeze shot of his face. I interpreted the look on his face as one of sadness but other make much of the water erasing his footprints. The film definitely ended on a melancholy note. The character of Doniel in The 400 Blows was partly based on Truffaut's own youth.

The 400 Blows was very engaging. I'm now interested in seeing the other films in the series.

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I saw Scott Pilgrim vs. The World at the 4-Star, Detroit Metal City at Viz Cinema, Easy A at the Metreon and The 400 Blows at the Red Vic.

Death Notes

At the 2008 San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival, I saw Death Note. I enjoyed the Japanese suspense film which ended with a cliffhanger. I expected SFIAAFF to bring back the 2nd half of the film series at the 2009 festival. However, they did not. I was hoping they would screen part 2 at the 2010 festival. They did not.

However, Viz Cinema has presented Death Note and Death Note: The Last Name since its opening last year. I believe the screenings were part of the release of the DVDs. On September 4, Viz screened both films as part of the BlueRay release. I decided to watch Death Note: The Last Name and rewatch Death Note since I haven't seen it in 2½ years.

I didn't quite enjoy Death Note as much as before. It might have been that knowing the major plot points took away some of the enjoyment. I notice many films do not hold up to multiple viewings. More disappointing was that I didn't enjoy Death Note: The Last Name as much as Death Note.

The plot of Death Note involves a notebook which Light Yagami finds. He's a college student studying to be a lawyer. The notebook states that if a person's name is written in the notebook while the writer imagines the person's face, that person will die. Yagami tests the procedure with a vile criminal and is surprised to find the notebook really works. Yagami, increasingly disenchanted with the real-world application of the laws, becomes an epistolary vigilante. He metes out death to criminals and alleged criminals who have gotten off on technicalities. His work is so prolific that he becomes a media sensation dubbed Kira. He also garners the attention of the Japanese government who form a task force to catch Kira. Coincidentally, the head of the task force is Soichiro Yagami, Light's father (played by Takeshi Kaga who is better known as The Chairman in the Japanese version of Iron Chef).

Soon, Light goes mano y mano with L, the mysterious and unseen super detective who has joined forces with Soichiro Yagami's task force. At this point, the film(s) get a too cute by a half. There are a bunch of twists and turns involing Light's girlfriend, a Japanese FBI agent, a television celebrity who discovers a second Death Note(book) and two shinigami (or death gods).

The final result was a film that had too many plot twists to keep me fully involved. The film could have benefited by giving more time to the cat and mouse game between Light and L who becomes more suspicious of Light with each death. Ken'ichi Matsuyama as L and Tatsuya Fujiwara as Light Yagami give tremendous performances. Fujiwara gives a complex performance as Light loses his moral compass and becomes worse than the criminals he condemns. Matsuyama's L is more flamboyant with his addiction to junk food and rococo mannerisms. The scenes when Light & L verbally spar are the best part of the film. I also thought more could be done with Light's relationship with his father.

I am well acquainted with a few of Matsuyama previous works. He has appeared in The Taste of Tea, Linda, Linda, Linda and Detroit Metal City which is currently playing at Viz Cinema. The first two films are among my favorites and I've been anticipating Detroit Metal City for a few months.

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Death Note starring Ken'ichi Matsuyama and Tatsuya Fujiwara; Japanese with subtitles; (2006) - Official Website
Death Note II: The Last Name starring Ken'ichi Matsuyama and Tatsuya Fujiwara; Japanese with subtitles; (2006) - Official Website

Bad Girls and Wild Women, Death Metal and Death Notes

Patrick Macias and TokyoScope return to the Viz Cinema on September 13 with an eye-popping program. In fact, it is being called "TokyoScope Talk Deluxe" - not just a talk but a happy hour and a feature length film screening.

Join host Patrick Macias (Editor, Otaku USA) for a unique look at sexy Stray Cats, Female Prisoners, Delinquent Bosses and other captivating and sexy bad girl roles from Japanese cinema. The evening will be complemented by a theatrical screening of the lurid prison film Female Prisoner #701: Scorpion.

Female Prisoner #701: Scorpion is a 1972 women's prison exploitation/pinky violence film directed by Shunya Itō and starring Meiko Kaji.

If the poster is not enough get you to the Viz on September 13, then maybe the synopsis for Female Prisoner #701: Scorpion will do the trick.

Raped by a gang of yakuza, sacrificed and betrayed by the corrupt cop that she innocently gave her virginity to, Nami Matsushima (played by the stunning Meiko Kaji) finds herself in a women’s prison, watched over by monstrous guards determined to crush her indomitable, vengeful will. Matsu, nicknamed Scorpion by her fellow inmates, seeks not only revenge on the men responsible for her fall from grace, but justice for her tormentors within the prison walls.



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During the week Hole in the Head played at the Viz, they ran trailers for upcoming films at the Viz. The trailer that got the best audience response was Detroit Metal City. The film is playing at the Viz from September 18 to 27.

Based on the #1 death metal comedy manga series by Kiminori Wakasugi. Negishi (Kenichi Matsuyama) is a sweet and shy young man who dreams of becoming a trendy singer songwriter. But for some reason, he is forced into joining the devil worshiping death metal band “Detroit Metal City” (DMC). In full stage make-up and costume, he transforms into Johannes Krauser II (Sir Krauser) the vulgar-mouthed lead vocalist of the band. Against Negishi’s will, DMC rises to stardom. Now the legendary king of death metal Jack Il Dark (Gene Simmons) himself is challenging DMC to a duel. What is the fate of the innocent Negishi as he climbs to the top of the death metal world?.



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In 2008, the San Francisco Internation Asian American Film Festival screened Death Note. Asst. Festival Director Taro Goto wrote the summary that year.

Light Yagami is a brilliant law student who’s disillusioned with Japan’s justice system. One evening, he discovers a mysterious book—dropped by a God of Death—enabling him to kill anyone by writing a name into its pages. Incredulous at first, Light decides to use his newfound gift to execute criminals throughout the world and thereby strike fear into the hearts of evildoers. With crime rates dropping, the public anoints the invisible enforcer a messiah. Police efforts to find the serial killer prove futile, until they’re joined by a cryptic investigator, known only as “L,” who pits his cunning brain against Light’s in a spectacular cat-and-mouse game of one-upmanship.

Death Note is the first of a two-part feature, adapted from the wildly popular manga series of the same title that’s become a phenomenon in Japan and across Asia, even spawning an animated TV series as well as a spin-off movie featuring “L.” Director Shusuke Kaneko, a veteran of the Gamera series and other sci-fi action fare, abridges the byzantine plot of the original without sacrificing any of its mind-bending intricacies, and inserts enough unexpected twists to keep even the most avid fan on their toes. That the film avoids any profound discussion of the ethics of vigilantism is easy to forgive when you’re busy keeping up with a grip­ping battle of wits for the ages.

I recall enjoying the film. It was screened at the Castro to a crowded house. I assumed SFIAAFF would screen the second part in 2009. They did not. Nor did they screen it in 2010. For 2½ years, I've wondered how the story ends. The waiting can end on September 4 with the screening Death Note and Death Note II: The Last Name. In addition to the screening, New People is selling a 3 CD, Blue-ray package including both films plus 2 hours of behind-the-scenes footage and admission to screenings of Death Note and Death Note II: The Last Name. If you don't want the CDs, admission to the films is $10 each or $15 for both.

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[1] Cronin, Sarah (2009-04-01). Electric Sheep Magazine