CINEMISSES! Isle of Dogs

In this episode of Cinemisses, hosts Matt and Tug get animated about the film "Isle of Dogs" directed by Wes Anderson. They discuss their love for monster movies and special effects, the unique storytelling style of Anderson, and, of course, the exacting detail Anderson and team display in their incredible stop motion animation. The wide ranging conversation delves into key themes such as loyalty, sacrifice, and the powerful relationships between humans and their dogs. (And cats, too.) Finally, Tug and Matt implore you get out there and check out some kinds/types/styles of films that you don't normally like. But be careful, you just might find that you do. 

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Transcript

Tug McTighe (00:00)
You're listening to Cinemisses, a podcast about movies that one or the other of your two hosts just never got around to seeing. I'm Tug reminding you that anybody can make a podcast about movies they have seen. We are here because we haven't. Thank you for joining us on Cinemisses and action.

Matt Loehrer (00:07)
I am Matt.

Nice. All right. So are you a monster movie fan? Because my son is huge. He loves the kaiju.

Tug McTighe (00:18)
Yeah, very good.

I am.

Well, when we were growing up, do you remember these orange and black library books that you could check out that were about that thick? Guys that are listening, I'm putting my fingers about a half an inch together. And they were basically picture books there was one called Dracula, one called Superman, one called King Kong, one called Godzilla. If you look them up, you'll see these orange and black books.

They were in my library in my grade school and my junior high and bro I just went in there and looked at him all day So yes, I have a lifetime love for the Universal Monster movies but then to your point about Kaiju the Godzilla and the King Kongs and all of that stuff

Matt Loehrer (01:02)
Right.

I know I've seen the original, the kind stop motion animation one, which was great. And that's 33. And then there was one in 76.

Tug McTighe (01:08)
Con, yep, 1933.

Matt Loehrer (01:13)
I kind of remember that one and I remember a giant cinemat, ⁓ animatronic hand, right? Okay.

Tug McTighe (01:19)
Yes, there were animatronic hands. At

one point, there's a horrible, however tall Kong is, 30 feet, 40 feet, 50 feet, it was in the cage when they brought him back to New York and he's in the cage. And it's an animatronic and it just really looks dumb. And the face just goes, you know, like, and the eyes move. It's just, they didn't, they should have just stuck with the closeups.

Matt Loehrer (01:31)
Right.

Tug McTighe (01:42)
Because the closeups, the gorilla suit, was not only sculpted by and puppeteered by, but at some points it was actually Rick Baker inside the suit performing the King Kong. The legendary Rick Baker. So the reason we're talking about this is that we had this, in as much as 1976's technologically advanced special effects,

Matt Loehrer (01:51)
No kidding. The legendary Rick Baker. Got a star on the Hollywood Hawker family.

Tug McTighe (02:04)
But 43 years earlier in 1933,

You moved a puppet, you took a picture, you moved a puppet, you took a picture, you moved a puppet, you took a picture. And then when you ran them all together, it made the puppet move. And that Kong was only like 12 inches tall. And I'm here to submit that there's better performance in that 1933 version of King Kong than in even 76 and then even the Peter

Jackson one, just there's just a lot you can do with when you when you're like again, we talked about this about creativity when you're limited you find ways to solve the problem and why why Matt are we talking about the stop-motion animation of 1933 King Kong? I'll tell you why because today We are going to be talking about a film that has wonderful stop-motion animation in it called Isle of Dogs

Matt Loehrer (02:37)
Get creative.

Tug McTighe (02:57)
by the one and only Wes Anderson. Now, this is a movie neither one of us had seen, which after we've seen it, we were talking. It's ridiculous that we didn't see this. There's no reason we didn't see it. We should have seen it. We love Wes Anderson. We love what he does. We love Mr. Fox. So I don't know why we didn't see this, but now we have rectified that. So I'm going to ask you, Matt, what did you think you knew about Isle of Dogs before?

Matt Loehrer (03:09)
dark skits.

Tug McTighe (03:21)
before you watched it.

Matt Loehrer (03:22)
Almost nothing. ⁓ I think there might have been a trailer when it came out. I might have thought, I should see that. And then I didn't see it, which is stupid because loving animation and having kids at that age that want to, you know, they're not going to want to sit down and watch, you know, the towering inferno or something. They're going to want to watch a cartoon. I don't know where that came from. Kids love it.

Tug McTighe (03:37)
I'm glad you grabbed the Towering Inferno out as a film your kids don't want to see, but carry on.

Matt Loehrer (03:43)
And then more recently, I'd seen the wonderful story of Henry Sugar on Netflix. Have you seen any of those? It's like a four part story.

Tug McTighe (03:48)
I know

of it, I'm gonna watch it after this pod, Yeah.

Matt Loehrer (03:53)
And if it's very, very Wes Anderson, like even more

Wes Anderson than the usual Wes Anderson. So I didn't know a whole lot. I assumed it would have his usual troupe of actors that he likes to work with and that there'd be dogs in it. What did you think you knew?

Tug McTighe (04:06)
Yeah, I knew there were I hoped anyway, I hope I hope it wasn't a misdirect on the dogs I figured there were dogs in it. I knew it was stop-motion. I knew it was Wes Anderson to your point. I Figured Bill Murray would be in it Jason Schwartzman, know Ben Stiller some of the one of the one or two were both of the Owen brothers Angelica Houston, right? He's got He's got the usual suspects. I believe I thought it was set in Japan because they kept showing Japanese writing

parentheses in the trailer. And again, I knew it featured dogs or again I hoped it did and I was pretty sure it was an aisle of dogs. That's really it.

Matt Loehrer (04:39)
Well,

you were right.

So before we get too far into this, let me be clear, there are no spoiler alerts with this podcast, because every episode of this podcast is in itself a spoiler alert. So if you want to watch this before we spoil it, and we're gonna, and you should watch it because it's awesome. ⁓ It streaming on Hulu and Disney+. If you don't have those, you can rent it on Amazon or Apple for four bucks, well worth it.

Tug McTighe (04:54)
You should go do it. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, this sort of feels like you and I have talked about this too about how, know, there's always removing shit from streaming services that's not coming back. So you and I both have a fairly sizable DVD, Blu-ray collection of important movies. This could be a purchase. Yeah. So go watch it if you haven't seen it. And if you have seen it, here it comes.

Matt Loehrer (05:20)
for sure.

Tug McTighe (05:26)
So the movie is Isle of Dogs, the log line reads, the future an outbreak of canine flu leads the mayor of a Japanese city to banish all dogs to an island used as a garbage dump. The outcasts must soon embark on an epic journey when a 12-year-old boy arrives on the island to find his beloved pet. So that's kind of all you need to know. And boy, the rabbit hole or the dog hole is going to go deeper here pretty soon.

Matt Loehrer (05:49)
Isle of Dogs is a 2018 adult stop motion animated science fiction comedy drama written, produced and directed by Wes Anderson. I hope people aren't turned off by the fact that it's animation because it's really a great story and fantastic, fascinating to watch.

Tug McTighe (06:06)
And that is,

know, funny you bring that up. That is things that people say that thing. I don't like animated stuff. I don't like cartoons. And I'm like, man, why? Why is it any different than an animated dinosaur?

My favorite podcast, Imaginary Worlds by Eric Molinsky, the tagline is a show about why we create them, and why we're willing to suspend our disbelief. Just believe there's an aisle of dogs, believe it's real. And then watch how neat it is. And yeah, I said neat, because it's fucking neat. All the shit they do is neat. So.

Matt Loehrer (06:38)
Yes, for sure. We have

talked about directors trademark styles before on different with Edgar Wright. ⁓ It's just something we keep going back to. And Wes Anderson probably has more trademark flourishes than most directors. ⁓ So I'm going to. Yeah, for sure. It's not two or three things, it's nine or ten things. So.

Tug McTighe (06:52)
man than anybody really right

It's all of it, right?

It's all of it. Every frame. It's not, he does a couple things. It's every frame.

Matt Loehrer (07:02)
for sure. No, I feel like

you can do a drinking game or bingo with his directors and you'd be you'll be drunk in five minutes into the And he does it in live action movies, but he also does it in this completely different format of movie, which is crazy to me.

Tug McTighe (07:12)
100 %

Yeah, this

is the second animated feature and they are distinctly Wes Anderson movies. He just uses animation and then he shoots it the same way. He maps out the scenes the same way, again uses the same actors, the same kind of dialogue, the same kind of delivery. It just happens to be animated.

Matt Loehrer (07:27)
You just know.

Yeah, so as we go through the story, I'll kind of call those out as they happen. ⁓ But first off is the cast and we're going to go through. Anderson and I call him Wes Anderson. I can't just call him like Wes or in Miss or Anderson. Yeah, so he does have favorite actors he works with again and again and again, including Jason Schwartzman, who was not in this movie, but ⁓ helped write the story. Did you know that? Yeah, he did. He contributed the story.

Tug McTighe (07:45)
And when you call it out, I'll say, Wes!

Yeah, yeah, he's one of those two namers, yeah.

Yeah. I did not know that. The more you know.

Matt Loehrer (08:05)
Luke Owen Wilson. Owen was his roommate in college in, yeah, University of Texas, Austin.

Tug McTighe (08:09)
They got stuck together at UT in the dorm. you, everybody,

everybody sit down. You, you're sitting on your dorm room as a freshman at University of Texas and you're going, man, I my roommate's not a weirdo. And in walks Owen Wilson who's going, man, I my roommate's not a weirdo. Two giant stars. It's unbelievable.

Matt Loehrer (08:27)
Yeah, it's amazing.

Unbelievable. ⁓ So they're not in this movie either. others are Bill Murray, Jeff Goldblum, Harvey Keitel, Ed Norton, Tilda Swinton, F. Murray Abraham are all here and have appeared in other Wes Anderson movies. And as we go through the list, I'll like tell you how many they've been in and good actors like acclaimed actors. Except for Luke Wilson, but he even did OK. Yeah.

Tug McTighe (08:43)
gigantic stars yeah but they're friends

All right, so Wesley Anderson was, oh sorry, Wesley Wales Anderson was born May 1st, 1969 in Houston, Texas. He's the second of three boys. His older brother Mel is a physician. His younger brother, Eric Chase Anderson is a writer and artist whose paintings and designs have appeared in several of his films, including the Royal Tenenbaums, one of my personal favorites. He went to school in Houston, which he later used this place called St. John's. That was a location that he shot for Rushmore.

Matt Loehrer (09:06)
I do.

Tug McTighe (09:14)
And again, this is like our third director. His dad had a Super 8 camera and he grew up making movies which starred as brothers and friends. Although his first ambition was to be a writer, a little bit like Edgar Wright and some of the other directors we featured. Right.

Matt Loehrer (09:29)
to Biedelberg? Sure.

I love Rushmore. I think my brother might have introduced me to the movie. But that was my first introduction to his unique filmmaking style. And he already had it down. Like he he really locked it down in Royal Tenenbaums in terms of the wardrobe and the color palette and the framing, all these things.

Tug McTighe (09:46)
and the direction, the

performance, the performances he wanted, that deadpan. Everybody's super deadpan for the most part.

Matt Loehrer (09:52)
Yeah,

but that was his third movie. I mean, it was bottle rocket, Rushmore and Rushmore, he was almost perfect. And then Royal Tenenbaum, he just had it all figured.

Tug McTighe (09:59)
Yeah, I saw a bottle rocket

and was blown away. And then I saw tenon bombs and then I went back and saw Rushmore.

Matt Loehrer (10:05)
This reminded me of a guy that you know who I've never met but I hate him because he's so good and that's Weger over at Whiskey Design. Like I feel like what like him like and maybe I'm presuming but Wes Anderson I think knows what he wants. He sees it in his head and he makes it happen. I mean, it's one thing to have an idea and not be able to get it out, but I think

Tug McTighe (10:12)
Yep, Matt Weger.

which is

on the nose. A lot of us have ideas and visions in our brains that we have trouble executing the way we want them. And I think it's, and Weger is really exacting and really detail oriented and really is like, no, it's not right. Let's go fix it again. and I know Wes is that way.

Matt Loehrer (10:40)
Yeah, they just got a

Tug McTighe (10:41)
⁓ Okay, so he was a part-time cinema projectionist at his local theater. He met his roommate, as we said, Owen Wilson in 89. He graduated with a major in philosophy

Matt Loehrer (10:52)
a stage where my parents and other people I know are freaking out about my kids' majors in school. know, are they going to be able to, you know, is AI going to take their jobs? Will they be able to do anything? Can they do anything with that major? And this just goes to prove it. I don't know if it even matters what your major is. I don't know if it ever did.

Tug McTighe (11:02)
they gonna be able to feed themselves?

Not if you've

got some talent, got some perseverance, got some want to. You can make it work. So we've discussed this a little bit. 96, Bottle Rocket. 98, Rushmore. 2001, Royal Tenenbaums. I mean, that's a frickin' grand slalami right out of the gate. 2004, Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, which I don't love, but I like because it's Wes. Darjeeling.

Matt Loehrer (11:31)
Yeah, I didn't love it either, but

I think I'll go back and rewatch. I'll watch all this stuff.

Tug McTighe (11:36)
I know I've seen pieces of the Darjeeling limited, is that Adrian Brody, they're on a train, Schwartzman. don't know. Yeah. ⁓ fantastic. Mr. Fox, which is fantastic. Mr. Moonrise kingdom, which is fantastic. Great. Grand Budapest hotel, which I was, out of town and I had the DVD for Grand Budapest hotel is working. And we went out and just had an, had just enough drinks with the client. I came back and I put it my laptop and I was going to watch it. And I got about,

Matt Loehrer (11:41)
Right.

Tug McTighe (12:02)
I was just drunk enough where I got about 20 minutes in the movie and it was so beautiful and striking. I stopped. couldn't, I like when they just pull wide and have the tiny person in the frame and the giant hotel and it's all window, window symmetrical. I'm like, I, the big bright red color of the, I'm like, I need to calm down. I can't, I can't, I can't process all this right now. Yeah.

Matt Loehrer (12:23)
Overwhelmed. Right.

Tug McTighe (12:26)
Then 8, 2018, Isle of Dogs, 2021, French Dispatch of the Liberty Kansas Evening Sun. Even the title is quirky. ⁓ Asteroid City in 23. You mentioned Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar in three more in 24. And then Just Out, either Just Out Now or Coming Out is the Venetian scheme. ⁓

Matt Loehrer (12:33)
Yep.

I think

it's in, yeah, I saw a preview when we went to see the dressing.

Tug McTighe (12:49)
So there you go, so it's on its way. ⁓

Matt Loehrer (12:51)
which

seems like a weird pairing for Jurassic Park. If you like Jurassic Park, you're gonna love the Phoenician ski.

Tug McTighe (12:53)
We are right.

So I've seen one, two, three, four, five, six of these, seven now. I will watch the rest. Because every time I see a trailer, I'm like, god damn, that looks amazing. Like, the trailers for Asp, just for the art direction, exactly right. OK, so he started developing the film in October of 2015, again, inexplicably using stop motion animation with Ed Norton, Bryan Cranston, Bob Balaban, and others.

Matt Loehrer (13:06)
Just for the spectacle, just for the artistry of it. Right.

Tug McTighe (13:21)
It draws inspiration from Akira Kurosawa, Hayao Mizuzaki, again, as well as stop motion animated specials made by Rankin and Bass. I have a lot of heart for those. I guess there was an 82 animated film called The Plague Dogs, 101. Like he's drawing from a wide well of stuff. Yeah.

Matt Loehrer (13:39)
But really mainstream stuff, like things that

you and I, you know, how many times have you watched Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer? At Christmas or, yeah. Yeah, and that's, that inspired him too. Just, you know, it's not highfalutin, out of touch, snotty stuff. It's regular stuff. You know, Disney. It's amazing.

Tug McTighe (13:44)
⁓ Every year, yeah, every 50 times.

No. No.

He

won the Silver Bear for best director for this film in the 68th Berlin International Film Festival. Came out in the US March 23, 2018. 64 million worldwide, a critical acclaim. He always gets the critics. Right again, animation, praises, praise the animation, story, music, deadpan humor. Criticism for its portrayal of Japanese people and culture.

Matt Loehrer (14:17)
Okay, so I kind of followed, I fell down that rabbit hole a little bit and read some of the criticism. And it's hard to tell how harsh or sustained it really was, but let's just assume it is. Somebody says, I found this offensive. My first instinct is to say, no, you didn't. It's to say, okay, even if I kind of think that. So Angie Han writing in Mashable, which I guess that's a website, cites the American exchange student character Tracy.

Tug McTighe (14:32)
Sure, sure.

Sure.

Tracy,

yep.

Matt Loehrer (14:43)
who

we'll talk about later, as a classic example of the white savior archetype, the well-meaning white hero who arrives in a foreign land and saves its people from themselves. And she goes on to say a lot more, why did this need to be set in Japan in the first place? And isn't it bad form for an American filmmaker to warn against the dangers of interment camps for undesirables and that sort of thing. And maybe that's fair to a degree, but maybe it's set in Japan because it wouldn't make sense if it was set in Kansas City or Oklahoma or New Hampshire or...

Germany. The idea of a fantastic mythical centuries old feud between cats and dogs doesn't make sense here. Nothing over 100, nothing over 200 years old makes sense here. And maybe she, Tracy speaks English because Wes Anderson thought it's going to be tough to communicate all the stuff I need to communicate without someone speaking some English.

Tug McTighe (15:21)
Yeah, it doesn't

Yeah, yeah.

Matt Loehrer (15:36)
because as we'll talk about, the dogs all speak English, the Japanese humans speak Japanese. ⁓ So he's a Western director, he's an American director. I think it's at least possible the mindset he was coming in with is that's what he's got, that's the story he wants to tell. And I think he was probably pretty respectful of Japanese culture. He definitely wasn't trashing it. He seemed to honor it in a way that was-

Tug McTighe (15:41)
Japanese speak Japanese right

⁓

I didn't pick up any of that subtext. The White Savior. It could have been a Japanese girl. I don't know. It doesn't much matter to me.

Matt Loehrer (16:09)
Also, sometimes.

No, and sometimes a person has just their job is to write a piece and maybe they're not really that mad about it, but if it lets them write, you know, write, you know, 2000 words and get paid, maybe they'll do it.

Tug McTighe (16:17)
That's correct.

Yep, yep. And again,

I'm not mad at Angie Hahn. Everybody's entitled to their opinion. let's go ahead and move on. 368 reviews on the tomato meter, 90%. And the popcorn meter, 87 % have 5,000 ratings. So universally liked. And again, as I said, $36 million budget. Once again, that feels right.

Matt Loehrer (16:31)
I'm mad for other reasons. She won't return my calls.

Nice.

Tug McTighe (16:50)
Um, and then it earned about 73 or 4 million worldwide. Feels pretty good. I bet not. Yep.

Matt Loehrer (16:50)
Yeah, for sure.

That sounds pretty good. And they probably didn't have crazy marketing budget. And

I bet the actors didn't demand a ton. You know, I thinking about his other actors. They're all superstars. ⁓ The. The Asteroid City had Tom Hanks, who's venerable at this point. ⁓ Henry Sugar had Benedict Cumberbatch. Right. Ray. Ray Fiennes, Ben Kingsley. You're getting top notch people. So.

Tug McTighe (17:11)
They all wanna be in these movies. Yeah, they all wanna be in these movies.

Yeah, for sure.

Matt Loehrer (17:19)
Yeah, so for a stop motion animation, animated picture, that's pretty good. And one fun fact, they had the animators for, I don't know how long this went on, but it was 12 hour days, six days a week.

Tug McTighe (17:30)
boy. So do I. Okay, we're gonna rattle through this because there's a shit ton of people in this movie. Brian Cranston as Chief. Koyu Rankin as Atari Kobayashi. Edward Norton as Rex, a German Shepherd. How many movies? You say it.

Matt Loehrer (17:30)
And I believe it.

three for him, three for Cranston.

Tug McTighe (17:46)
There you go. Bob Balaban ⁓ as King. ⁓ All time legend that guy. Bob Balaban is in all of Christopher Guest's movies, I think, in some role or another. He also played the NBC executive who fell in love with Elaine, ultimately sandbagging the Jerry show on NBC's. So the show inside the show, he was the NBC exec they were trying to work with. his daughter in one of the episodes with

Matt Loehrer (17:49)
Bob Balvin for 4FRIEND.

Tug McTighe (18:15)
in that arc was a very young Denise Richards and she's the one that he caught George staring at her boobs. He's like, get a good look, Costanza.

Matt Loehrer (18:20)
Yes.

Did he end up going on like a whaling ship or something? Did join Greenpeace?

Tug McTighe (18:25)
Yeah, because

he wanted to prove to Elaine that he had a job that meant something. Yeah. He did. We'll remember you! Jeff Goldblum as Duke, a Siberian husky. Bill Murray as boss. Who was the mascot of the Megasaki Dragons high school baseball team? Undefeated.

Matt Loehrer (18:30)
And then he I think he died on the ship or something. Yeah.

Four. He did four.

Undefeated high school baseball

team. Seven Wes Anderson movies.

Tug McTighe (18:46)
Right.

And then we got Konichi Nomura as Mayor Kobayashi, Akira Takayama as Major Domo. That guy's horrifying. We'll talk about him later. Greta Gerwig, the director, was Tracy Walker. Francis McDormand is interpreter Miranda Nelson. She's amazing. I love her and everything. Yeah.

Matt Loehrer (18:54)
is scary.

She is amazing. She makes everything better.

So everybody obviously know I felt stupid. Everybody knows she's in a million Coen Brothers movies. Do know why that is? Or Joel? Is she married to you? Not you? Joel. Yeah, I just was like, wow, she's in a lot of their movies. And then I'm like, oh, wait. Right. Crazy.

Tug McTighe (19:10)
I do, she's married to Ethan Cohen. She's married to Joel, I think. Yes, they've been married since before Fargo.

⁓ Then we're gonna go down Scarlett Johansson as Nutmeg, Liev Schreiber as Spots, F. Marie Abraham as Jupiter in Newfoundland, Tilda Swinton as Oracle LePug,

Matt Loehrer (19:28)
He's been in two.

She was great. She's been in four.

Tug McTighe (19:33)
Yoko Ono as Yoko Ono the Yoko Ono ⁓ She's professor want to She's professor want to Nabe's assistant assistant scientists. They call him caller a Harvey Keitel is Gondo A Ken ⁓ Yep, Ken Ken Ken one one one of tabi is head surgeon and fishers Yeah, he was in last samurai. Yep

Matt Loehrer (19:34)
As Yoko Ono. Right. I think everybody's forgiven her by now, don't you think?

⁓ he was in three, sorry, three movies.

Yeah, if you saw him, you'd know who he is. You'd be like, Ken Watanabe. Yeah.

Tug McTighe (19:57)
Fisher Stevens everyone as scrap I Recognize his voice. I'm like son of a bitch. He hasn't been in a movie since a short circuit. Boy and then Angelica Houston is mute mute poodle And a lot more a lot more people

Matt Loehrer (20:05)
I was adding rewards.

movies.

So, yeah, big impressive cast, which is his trademark. lot of the same actress, as we mentioned over and over in terms of animation. Twenty thousand faces and eleven hundred and five animatable puppets were crafted by twelve sculptors working six days a week for the film. So maybe it wasn't twelve hour days, but I bet it was. ⁓ They use some CGI. They made two thousand more puppets just for background, so they weren't quite as detailed.

Tug McTighe (20:32)
Maybe more.

Matt Loehrer (20:38)
And then they did some CGI for backgrounds, but really minimally. He wanted to do a lot of this stuff practically and he did. And there's so much texture and details and it's not necessarily even beautiful. You know what I mean? It's real and scruffy and it's kind of scary sometimes.

Tug McTighe (20:50)
Yeah

The dogs,

the hair is scraggly. They're on a trash island. They're dirty. Yeah, it's really well done. Yeah, and I've said this for many years.

Matt Loehrer (21:01)
Yeah, so anyway, let's.

Tug McTighe (21:05)
I know how they do this. They make a puppet, they make a set, they move the puppet, take a picture, move the puppet, take a picture. I know how they do it. I just don't know how they do it. Like you're all freaking day, you're like moving the dog's face for a two second shot, like a 12 hour day for a two second shot. Don't bump, don't bump the thing. You know, you go home.

Matt Loehrer (21:15)
Yeah, watching this? ⁓

You're right, and to know how

long it's gonna take to get this into a film. You know what I mean?

Tug McTighe (21:30)
So

it's an affair of the heart. You have to love this to do this. So all right, let's get into the plot. A thousand years ago, dogs were free to roam as they pleased. However, the cat-loving Kobayashi dynasty declared war on dogs, seeking to eradicate them. A child warrior, sympathetic towards the threatened dogs, decapitated the head of the Kobayashi clan, ending the war, and was immortalized as the boy samurai.

Matt Loehrer (21:37)
for sure. It's crazy.

Tug McTighe (21:57)
of legend.

Matt Loehrer (21:58)
Yeah, so how this was introduced was really interesting because you see kind of an exterior of maybe a theater. It's very Japanese and it's very kind of old school. And there's an old man who's walking around on his wooden clogged Japanese shoes and comes around the side and opens this curtain. And then you go in straight through the door and you see this big mural. I mean, a lot of times. So that's that's a Wes Anderson standard is it's a book that you're reading from, right? Or it's a novel. ⁓

Tug McTighe (22:23)
These

feel like parables or fairy tales or books or strike stories. there is a lot of, there's usually narration. There's usually exposition in the narration or always, but he, is another trademark of his, Wes. And you're willing to accept it because this is what he does. He tells you the setting, he tells you the basic bare bones of the story.

Matt Loehrer (22:43)
Yeah, it's...

Tug McTighe (22:46)
and then you're immersed in the story.

Matt Loehrer (22:48)
Yeah, the start of Royal Tenenbaum. He starts reading from a book that talks about Royal Tenenbaum and what he was doing and how he got to this point. So I thought that was amazing and a nice way to set it up. So we get the backstory. It's millennia in the past and then we start to move.

Tug McTighe (22:54)
Yeah. Yeah.

First of all, the cat loving Kobayashi's suck. ⁓ Cats don't suck, but they do. And again, I mentioned this for a minute, a minute ago, but every time I watch a Wes Anderson movie, I'm struck by the symmetry and the symmetrical compositions. It's like I said, it's so striking. Sometimes it's hard. Sometimes you're watching so intently. You're like, what happened? I got to rewind that shit. Jesus.

Matt Loehrer (23:10)
Yep.

that

happened to me, tried 20 times in this movie. I'm like, I got distracted.

Tug McTighe (23:30)
Yeah, and they're coming

at you fast and they're coming at you beautiful. I just think that's just, again, a singular vision being brought to life. Okay, so now it's 2038. An outbreak of canine flu, no, spreads to the Japanese city of Megasaki. The city's authoritarian mayor, Kenji Kobayashi, of the cat-loving Kobayashis, ratifies an official decree banishing all dogs to Trash Island.

despite the insistence of Professor Watanabe, the mayor's political opponent, that he is very close to creating a cure.

Matt Loehrer (24:02)
And already there's more Wes Anderson standards, which he does a ton in this movie and it's central framing. ⁓

Tug McTighe (24:09)
Everything

your photography class 101 says not to do, does.

Matt Loehrer (24:13)
Right. So his subject is right in the middle of the screen and usually in the frame and usually there's not a lot on the right or left. It's just focused right on him in center. A lot of time there's symmetrical details that will build out.

Tug McTighe (24:16)
Literally, yeah.

Yeah, like a bush, a bush. Or a scientist, another scientist, then another scientist. Yeah.

Matt Loehrer (24:27)
Yeah, for.

Exactly.

So not not no Dutch angles in this one. And there were so many just funny small details. Like I'll watch this again. He showed that the professor Watanabe is showing that he's close to creating a cure. And he has a slide that has a drawing of a test tube with blue stuff in it. And it says artist rendering because it's that's what it is.

Tug McTighe (24:50)
artist rendering. yeah, it's like when they cut to the

tooth, military issue. So he's he's a little bit like Mel Brooks in that way, which is my highest comparison. Mel Brooks is always putting a sign in a you know, he'll put a sign that has a joke. Because he just he wrote the joke. And he's like, I don't have a way to get this. I'll just make it a sign. And I'll write

Matt Loehrer (24:55)
I thought that was great.

Yeah, it's like you get

a reward you get for paying attention. I loved it. So there are a lot of funny things in this.

Tug McTighe (25:12)
Yeah, so ⁓ really

exciting. And again, I love the cuts, the fast cuts of the mayor, the professor, the executive orders like bang, bang, right? It's like all this, it's all happening fast, yeah. So the mayor says, I believe in this so much. The first deported dog who I'm exiling to Trash Island.

Matt Loehrer (25:25)
stamping it.

Tug McTighe (25:36)
is my own dog, Spot Kobayashi, who was the body, served as the bodyguard of his nephew, 12 year old Atari Kobayashi, who is the mayor's distant nephew and ward.

Matt Loehrer (25:47)
Yeah, and this part was so sad. ⁓ But funny, I it was I was laughing, but it was really sad. They load spots into a crate, and they set the crate into this gondola full of trash. So they just set him on top of the garbage. And then they zip him out of town. They've got all these wires that go to trash.

Tug McTighe (25:49)
See you, right, right.

Yeah. Yeah.

And then it gets...

Yeah, because it's like, it's all we didn't mention. It's, you know, I don't know, a mile, two miles or something off the coast of Japan. And it's just, they've got a gondola and it just... And it goes on, the scene goes on for a minute where it's... And the dog is looking right at the lens like this, just staring.

Matt Loehrer (26:17)
Go with S.

Yeah, center frame. And then you see him from this side. So that's another Wes Anderson trademark. is and a lot if I mean, many if not most, if not almost all of the scenes in this are either straight on or perpendicular from the side. So you get this broad view of the city. He does these tracking shots. So you get this broad view of the city. And here's this wire. And then in from the left of the frame.

Tug McTighe (26:22)
And it's tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, yeah. Tick, tick, tick.

Yes!

Matt Loehrer (26:48)
comes this little card on the wire and it scoots all the way across to the right. And then we go to split screen and then spots is on the right. And on the left is yet another Wes Anderson trademark, which is maps. He uses maps like crazy. So here we see a map of Megasaki city. That's what it's called. And then there's a little, yeah, there's a little dot like a traveling dot, you know, like Indiana Jones when he's going down.

Tug McTighe (27:00)
Wes, dip.

Yep, Bing, Bing, and it's...

that should yeah like it shows where yeah.

Matt Loehrer (27:13)
So we see Spots' progress to trash highland.

Tug McTighe (27:17)
Yeah, so.

So there's a shit ton to unpack and we're only like 10 minutes in. And whenever we say that about a movie, there's a lot to unpack and it's only been 10 minutes. That's usually a good sign.

So six months, cut to six months later. by the way, spots just it's on the ground and they have a again center framed. He's just staring at the camera in the cage. The dog just.

Matt Loehrer (27:36)
So did you think

what I thought, like, were you afraid they didn't have plans for him to be able to get out of there? Right. ⁓ Like it starts to, there's some kind of time passage elements, like it starts to rain, a rat comes by, he's just looking at you.

Tug McTighe (27:40)
⁓ 100 % they didn't. Yeah, didn't care. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, wind, snow, right, right. And he's just in the cage. then

Matt Loehrer (27:53)
cool.

Tug McTighe (27:53)
So now we're on the island. We've set the stage and now we meet somebody. It's six months later. A lot of dogs have been moved to the island and now we get to see what their life is like. So we see four or five dogs here. This is when we meet King, Duke, Boss, Rex and Chief and they're talking to each other and it's just they're talking in the way that they talk in Wes Anderson films. So do you think it'll rain later? I don't know.

I haven't seen a weather forecast. then this bag of trash drops and it's a bag. And then here's another one of these where you see kings in the middle and then rex, duke, or sorry chiefs in the middle, rex, they come in in a symmetrical way. There's five of them, right? And then they go, ⁓ look alive boys. And we look up the hill and we see

Matt Loehrer (28:35)
They kind of fan out.

Tug McTighe (28:40)
one dog, kind of hear him growling. He's in the far distance and you hear him growling. And then what do you see him? Another dog, another dog, another dog, another dog. So five versus five, same. Then they cut tight to them and you see all five of them growling. Then you cut back to our heroes and then they come up and they're growling and growling and looking at the bag and they're looking at it. And then I think the first line is Edward Norton goes, Hey, before we rip each other to pieces,

Can we maybe open the bag and see if it's even worth doing? And then they're like, hmm, yeah. And the other dogs, you know, the rival dogs look at each other. The friend dogs are like, yeah, let's do that. They open it up. He's like, okay. Rotten apple core, an old bag of rice, some bones that are covered by maggots. It's like, yeah, it's worth it. And then cut to my favorite thing. They're in a 10 dog fight.

Matt Loehrer (29:22)
for it.

Tug McTighe (29:29)
And it's visualized in a very Looney Tunes, Road Runner versus Coyote kind of way, where it's just a cloud of dust going, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,

Matt Loehrer (29:52)
They win that bag of ransom food.

It is, and I actually have that clip, so we'll play it here. ⁓ so it's pretty cool because in a short amount of time you get introduced to these characters, you get a sense for what they're like. They, you know, go on to describe their lives and what it was like for them. You get that that chief is a stray, like he mentions that.

Tug McTighe (29:59)
Perfect.

He says it. Yep. They're like, we never had a master, right? That's a big thing. He never had a master.

Matt Loehrer (30:15)
So you learn quite a bit. Sure. So it all comes out.

And then it's not long before you see this sputtering plane that is in the distance and they use that tracking shot where it comes across and then it goes up and then it just falls down and there's a big cloud that comes up. I think Rex or Bill Murray's character goes, wow. So that's Atari. He's hijacked the plane. He flew to Trash Island.

Tug McTighe (30:32)
Clank, yeah.

Matt Loehrer (30:41)
now called Isle of Dogs, which sounds like I love dogs. ⁓ And he came to search for his dog spots and they decide, they take a vote. They all, except for chief, they all decided.

Tug McTighe (30:45)
I did.

They keep

voting. Yeah, they keep voting. They're like, why don't you tell us what to You're the leader. like, I'm not the leader. Let's take a vote. And it's always four versus one. It's like, all right, nay, nay.

Matt Loehrer (31:00)
Yeah, and he always loses. yeah, so they decide

to go. They decide to go do a rescue mission.

⁓ So.

Tug McTighe (31:06)
So, yeah.

now there's something that we don't need to vote on, is how much we love our sponsor. So let's have our first break to talk about Little Bear Graphics. If Wes Anderson ever needed a design firm, he'd probably call Little Bear Graphics. Why? Because like Isle of Dogs, Little Bear's work is meticulous, surprising, and totally unforgettable.

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Matt Loehrer (31:49)
Beautiful. Thank you. Well done.

Tug McTighe (31:51)
You're welcome.

So, okay, so I do want to talk about this introduction of the dogs because something else struck me as I was, ⁓ I had finished the movie. I was writing some notes, sitting on my, my couch with my laptop and we have this big Ottoman that my dog Hudson sits on. And I looked over my laptop and he was like this.

just frozen staring at me, not moving. And there is so much stuff in this film where they're doggy. They're looking at you, and then you'll just see the ear. He'll hear something. won't move his head. Sheep won't move his head. But his ear will twitch like he's hearing something. Or you'll see his nose because they're dogs. And I just.

It was really funny when he was looking at me like, they do that a lot in this movie. They're quiet. They don't talk a lot because they're Staring right into the lens, no blinking. I just thought it was really funny and charming.

Matt Loehrer (32:42)
Yeah, there are a of ⁓ quiet moments like that. And moments too where the dog will turn and look at camera, so like he's looking at us.

Tug McTighe (32:48)
So much, yeah,

so much looking at the camera. All right, so with the dog's help, Atari finds a lock cage that sadly contains Spot's skeleton, heartbreaking. And I think it's Jeff Colburn goes, we didn't have the key, right? That was just, oh, it's a key. And then we boss,

Matt Loehrer (32:59)
That was heartbreaking.

⁓ it's a key.

Tug McTighe (33:12)
Bill Murray takes the tag, you see it says SPO and it's covered and then he's wearing it later and my God, it says sport, not spots.

Matt Loehrer (33:21)
Greg says, where'd you get that? He said, I always had this. I stole it. I stole it from this guy.

Tug McTighe (33:23)
I always had this. I

stole it from the skeleton. So we see that it's sport, not spots. Again, Atari only speaks Japanese. They seem to understand him. And also he has a piece of metal sticking out of his head the whole time, some shrapnel from the plane crash. So there's that. Then of course the mayor wants to rescue Atari. So he sends over this.

Remember, it's 2038. This very futuristic, well, not very futuristic, but like 20 years in the future, these robot dogs and this drone with these guys, these dog catchers that are going to capture Atari back and all this. And so they all fend that the dogs now help Atari because they want to help him find spots.

Matt Loehrer (34:07)
Right. I know you're maybe not as big a nerd as me, but probably close. I didn't know if you were a Doctor Who fan.

Tug McTighe (34:13)
I am not gotten into the Doctor Who world.

Matt Loehrer (34:15)
OK, the dogs look very similar to a robot dog from Doctor Who verse called K9 K-9. He's a robot. ⁓ So that was that was a fun kind of an Easter egg. So yeah, the mayor sends in the soldiers in this drone shoots something at him, which I assume is like a paralytic or he's trying to trying to shoot him with something. The drone is and this is another West. Classic Wes Anderson can see these overhead shots and he does this all the time.

Tug McTighe (34:20)
Of course I do. got the chorus. That makes perfect sense. Yeah.

Yes!

Yeah,

super high looking down at the action.

Matt Loehrer (34:44)
in all his movies looking down

so your actors are staring up at the camera. He does it a lot of times in this movie. And yeah, this is where we are introduced to the robotic dogs. They've been developed to replace the real dogs and they're very cute and they do.

Tug McTighe (34:58)
Because they

don't have snout fever.

Matt Loehrer (35:00)
Yeah, they do little tricks, but they're also like a canine murder bot. And I think this is a real thing. Do you remember this? There was a robot dog that was introduced in, like...

Tug McTighe (35:04)
They're also like murder. Yeah, murder.

Yeah, Boston,

yeah, boss AI, it's AI, Boston mechanics or whatever. Yeah, they have that dog robot that's.

Matt Loehrer (35:17)
Well, those are

the scary ones, but I mean, years ago, I remember when the cute ones came out. The idea was like, you can have a pet. It's this, it's a learning robot and it looks like a dog. I'm going to find out anyway. So yeah, Chief initially declines to continue helping Atari because he doesn't. But then he meets Nutmeg. So that's Scar-Jo.

Tug McTighe (35:25)
I don't have the faintest idea what you're talking about, but I believe you.

Yeah, I don't want to help this kid. I'm a loner, right? I'm a stray. yep, who is Scar

Joe and Nutmeg. They're like, they're like, man, she's pretty. How does she keep the trash off of her? How does she keep her hair looking? Because she looks beautiful. ⁓ Right. So he's smitten, Chief is smitten with Nutmeg. And it's a really good scene and a really great line.

Matt Loehrer (35:49)
Amen.

Where'd she get shampoo? There's no shampoo here.

Tug McTighe (36:01)
where he says, why should I help the boy? And she goes, because he's a 12-year-old boy. And dogs love those. Which, my god, nothing could be truer than that.

Matt Loehrer (36:10)
Exactly. And that's where it of shifted because I thought Rex was, you know, Ed Norton as Rex was kind of the star. Like he was the lead. He did talk the most, and he kind of I felt like, you know, was trying to be the alpha a little bit. But but at this point, it's kind of shifting to where Chief is kind of more the main character of the show.

Tug McTighe (36:15)
Right, right.

it were. He talked the most,

Right.

Well,

and then Chief is hitting on Nutmeg. And he says, you know any tricks? And she goes, yeah, I know a ton of tricks. Would you show me one? She goes, maybe one I get to know you better. And it's just a little bit of that sexual tension She goes, imagine I'm juggling these. She gets up on her hind legs and she goes, you know, goes like she's batting her hands. And she goes, imagine I'm juggling three flaming volleyballs. And then they cut to Chief straight on. And it goes through his head. And he sees, he goes, I can imagine it. Right?

Matt Loehrer (36:50)
Right.

Let's see it.

Tug McTighe (36:56)
I can see it. So really, really cute. They decide they're going to seek advice from these sage dogs, Jupiter and Oracle, who they go on a journey and they meet Jupiter and Oracle, who believe that spots may be being held captive by an isolated tribe of dogs that are rumored to be cannibals. So they...

Matt Loehrer (37:15)
Right? And that's

you get a lot of exposition from Jeff Goldblum's character because he hears all the rumors. You heard the rumor about this, right? They're cannibal.

Tug McTighe (37:20)
Yes, he goes, about the kid

about these cannibals. Yeah, he goes, you hear you hear about these guys? No. They were left here first. And they went over to cross the causeway. And they're like, later on the movie, they go, how do you hear this? What do you do? Dog talk? I listen. He goes, I love gossip. So so the Oracle

Matt Loehrer (37:34)
He's like, dogs tell me, I listen. Dogs talk, I listen. It was very much a Jeff Goldblum-y line.

Tug McTighe (37:44)
is only the oracle because she can watch, there's a TV in this abandoned way station. And they go, no, she just understands TV. So that's really funny. So there's again, ⁓

Matt Loehrer (37:52)
they think she can see the future, but she just really is seeing it.

Tug McTighe (37:58)
lot of stuff here, setting up a lot of fun, fun relationships, a lot of characters, again, a lot of dogs coming in and out. so meanwhile, the scientist Dr. Watanabe, he develops the serum, because remember, he said I'm close. And Kobayashi is like, don't care. He's like, he develops the serum, it works. He shows it to Kobayashi who just dismisses him.

And then by order of the mayor's hatchet man, Major Domo, whom I hate, and I finally figured out halfway through the movie, he looks like Lon Chaney's Phantom of the Opera. Speaking of movie monsters, this terrible face and teeth and, he's awful. ⁓ So he's got the serum and they're like, you're under house arrest. I don't know why.

Matt Loehrer (38:24)
Right? You're supposed to.

I agree.

He's really gross.

Tug McTighe (38:44)
whatever the trumped up charges are. But then he is summarily murdered by the Kobayashi's with poisoned sushi.

Matt Loehrer (38:50)
That was an amazing scene. I'm going to put that on our Instagram because just that clip where it's so that's Wes Anderson where you see hand placed objects and what happens to him. So it's you it's a top down view of the sushi chef's hands taking a live fish and you know he's bad because they're alive and continue to be alive as he's killing them. So yeah, and you see like he takes the crab and just starts

Tug McTighe (38:52)
Yeah, please.

Preparing sushi, yep.

Will you see the fish's mouth still moving?

Matt Loehrer (39:19)
taking it apart as it's still alive. But it's really amazing. It's a microcosm of design and detail.

Tug McTighe (39:19)
Yeah, eviscerating it. Yeah, this is great. We'll, we'll show it here.

⁓ Okay, moving on. the professor or the scientist has been assassinated. Now we meet Tracy Walker, the exchange student, American exchange student. She's a member of a pro dog activist group and nutmegs owner, which seems a little weird, but we'll talk about that later. She suspects conspiracy. She works for the newspaper, the, you know, her junior high man, it's called the manifesto or whatever. And they're all there. And he's like, the editor is like,

She's like, I'm telling you, here's what's happening. And he goes, can you prove it? She goes, not yet. So she's on the case. ⁓ Right. So she believes that Kobayashi and his political party are actually responsible for the dog flu outbreak and just want to finally do the job of exterminating dogs that Kobayashi's ancestors, ancestors, the cat lovers couldn't do. ⁓ she's got a crush on her.

Matt Loehrer (39:56)
Not sure.

And she's got a crush on Atari.

Tug McTighe (40:15)
⁓ So I love this character, she's fantastic. I love her giant weird hair. I love her freckles. Later in the movie, we just see a shadow of her going in a room and we know it's her because she's got a giant head hair. Again, a little bit convenient than not Megasaur dog. I don't know what the rules are, but I don't know that you bring a dog from Cincinnati to Japan, but I'll let it go.

Matt Loehrer (40:19)
yeah.

I love that she was from Cincinnati of all the places we could be from.

Tug McTighe (40:35)
Yeah, right, right, yep.

Okay, so during the dogs and Atari's journey to try to rescue Spots, ⁓ Chief and Atari are in this, another one of these gondolas, and theirs breaks apart and goes down, and the other one's going to the, it looks like it's the ⁓ death machine, like the slaughterhouse.

Matt Loehrer (40:48)
Mm-hmm.

yeah, it's like a crazy

Rube Goldberg torture machine. They were about to take a vote on what they should do and then they go in this building.

Tug McTighe (41:00)
Right, right, right,

right. And Chief and Atari are separated. And again, we're starting to get some development of Chief's character where Atari, they start to connect and he picks up a stick and Chief goes, if you think I'm going to, if you think I'm going to chase, fetch that stick, you're wrong.

and then it's a piece of rubber hose actually.

Matt Loehrer (41:22)
He says, I'll fetch

it, but only because I feel sorry for you. That's great.

Tug McTighe (41:24)
only because I feel sorry for you. And then

in a gigantic reveal that I did not see coming, Atari ⁓ brings out his ⁓ dog grooming kit that he's brought and he gives Chef Chief a bath revealing that not only is Chief not black, he was just filthy, he's actually white and brown spotted like spots. So he looks like spots.

Matt Loehrer (41:30)
Me neither.

grooming kit.

Yeah,

he was, but he's like Cole Black the whole movie up to this point. Like I did not see that coming at all.

Tug McTighe (41:52)
He's black, yeah, he's just filthy. No, really,

yeah, I really loved it. was great. So they're now bonding. Chief is protecting him, Chief is walking out for him. They rejoined the rest of the dogs, the rest of the pack, because we then see that we go back in time and we see them when they went through the murder house, it was all malfunctioning. So they just went right through it and there were the knives that would have cut him were gone and the...

Matt Loehrer (41:59)
That just, yeah, that was great.

Right.

Tug McTighe (42:17)
And then think one of them goes, think Bob Balaban goes, well, if that, if that place had been functioning, we would not be here. So they rejoined the pack and then they get all the way to the causeway and you see these dogs standing up there and chief goes, yep, those are, those are real dogs. You see his nose moving. And then it is revealed that spots himself.

Also known as Dog Zero.

is the leader of that group of dogs. And we see a flashback where those dogs rescued him and took him ⁓ to their home. Turns out they were also being ⁓ experimented on. So some of them have metal legs and metal eyes and all this stuff. So he becomes their leader. And then, my God, we realize because Spot says to Chief, hey, where were you born? He goes, I'm not telling you nothing.

Matt Loehrer (42:51)
experimented on, right? Yeah.

Tug McTighe (43:05)
So, ⁓ so we also learned that spots as their leader, he made it with peppermint. He's about, she's going to go into labor, with his, with their first litter, then spots.

because he has a different life. He asks Atari, he says, I swore an oath to protect you, but I can no longer fulfill those duties. He asks if chief will replace him as Atari's bodyguard in a very, I think touching scene when they're down in a sewer, the whole time they're talking, they're in the water in a sewer.

Matt Loehrer (43:40)
Yes, they're flying.

So clarify for me, Atari's got the headset and...

Tug McTighe (43:46)
Yeah,

there's a little earpiece that Atari's wearing that Spots was wearing that they could understand, they could talk to each other. then somewhere in the movie they say, do you think the communicator is still working? And only has a range of like 75 feet. So you saw it, Atari, was red. And then the closer we got to Spots, it turned green. Yeah.

Matt Loehrer (44:04)
Right. OK.

Tug McTighe (44:05)
Yeah, so.

Okay.

Now word reaches the dog tribe that Kobayashi, now he's really pissed, Kobayashi, he's going to euthanize all these dogs by sending this poison gas over ⁓ to ⁓ Isle of Dogs. Atari and the, okay, I'm just going to tell you what happens. Atari and the dogs built boats to return to Megasaki. Meanwhile, Tracy confronts Professor Wontanabe's colleague Yoko Ono, the actual Yoko Ono.

confirms Tracy's conspiracy theories and gives her the single last remaining vial of the serum.

Matt Loehrer (44:37)
Yes, which looks exactly like the artist's rendering.

Tug McTighe (44:40)
Yes, it's just in a test tube. Yeah.

Matt Loehrer (44:42)
This scene

was really funny and there are just like things you can do with animation. They're in a bar and she says chocolate milk and this and out of frame this glass comes sliding down the bar and she grabs it and chugs it and throws it back the other way.

Tug McTighe (44:54)
throws

it and then she's like again and then another one comes in.

Matt Loehrer (44:57)
Then

she throws it against the wall because Yoko Ara is not being helpful. So it's just really good dialogue. I love that.

Tug McTighe (44:59)
She just smashes it, yeah. So there's...

Yeah, again, understated, funny, not ha ha, just again, in service of the story. So now we're at Kobayashi's gotten reelected 98 to two. He prepares to give the extermination order. He's going to push a big red button. When Tracy and the activist group interrupt presenting evidence of his corruption, Kobayashi deports Tracy. He revokes her student visa. But before he can do so, Atari and the dogs arrive. They come into this.

into the auditorium. They confirm this one of my favorite parts coming up. They confirm that the serum works by testing it on Chief. They give him a shot. And then they do an x-ray of his body. So it's Chief sitting, gets the shot, cut to an x-ray. We see this blue serum going through his body. he goes, whoa. And then everything turns green again. And then we cut back. And he goes, well, I feel fantastic. So this is

Matt Loehrer (45:51)
Yeah, that's

Tug McTighe (45:52)
This x-ray,

Matt Loehrer (45:52)
syrup. It's great.

Tug McTighe (45:53)
yeah, that serum's great. This x-ray, yeah, yeah, yeah. So this reminded me, Matt, of the pulsar action figure from the 70s. Do you remember pulsar? Yeah, you pumped him and his like blood, his lungs would inflate and deflate and his blood would pump and all this. But it's a really funny effect when they do this.

Matt Loehrer (45:55)
When they've been sneezing, that's another nice thing throughout. The dogs all sneeze. They've got a little dog sneeze. So that's how you know they're sick.

I do you could squeeze him right?

Tug McTighe (46:19)
going inside, so.

Matt Loehrer (46:21)
Sounds

like you remember Slim Goodbody.

Tug McTighe (46:23)
Sure I do. Do you remember Brad and I pulled stretch Armstrong so hard, he was pulling one arm and I was pulling the other, we were like 30 feet away from each other and he just broke and there was that sort of toxic goo inside of him.

Matt Loehrer (46:24)
is kind of the same thing.

Yeah, I cut mine open to see what was in it. And then I blamed it on my brother who couldn't speak. And years later, I think I was 18, I admitted to my mom that I did that and she was furious.

Tug McTighe (46:38)
Yeah.

still for your 18 year grudge.

Matt Loehrer (46:48)
So Atari addresses the crowd. He recites a haiku that he wrote and dedicated to Kobayashi, rekindling the sympathy that once existed between dogs and humans. So it's the second haiku that we get in this movie, which I think they're great because it kind of gets his point out and then it says something like falling cherry blossom. Just to get to those last couple, like how can we get this to five syllables? ⁓ And Kobayashi surprisingly

Tug McTighe (47:01)
We get a couple of haiku, yeah.

Right, following Shari bless him. Right. To the right syllables,

Matt Loehrer (47:16)
to me was touched by this and decides he's going to repeal the decree, the dog banishment and execution decree. But Major Domo is not having it. ⁓ he fights him. They grapple over the red button remote control. And Major Domo ends up pushing the button that's going to ⁓ signal a release of this poison gas that's going to kill all the dogs that are still on the island, right?

Tug McTighe (47:25)
He done care, yep.

Red button.

and then you

see a spark on a wire, it goes down the room from the red button up the wall, out the door onto a wire, you see the spark, tick, tick, tick, tick, goes across the dogeye and it goes back down and it goes into the shack and the door opens and who's in the shack thwarting Major Domo's plans? The hacker!

Matt Loehrer (47:56)
It's the hacker who we haven't

we forgot to mention but until now, but he's like part of the school team. He's part of Tracy's class.

Tug McTighe (48:02)
He's part of the manifesto.

He's Tracy's, one of Tracy's partners in the...

Matt Loehrer (48:06)
Yeah, so these guys

that have the poison gas, it's like somehow now going inside their suits instead of outside.

Tug McTighe (48:11)
Yeah,

so they all get killed.

Matt Loehrer (48:14)
So amidst the chaos, Atari and Spots were wounded ⁓ because Spots was, they had a robot dogs on the stage and he had to use this. He had to use his exploding teeth to do it. So they had more cotton ball cloud of, yeah, it leads to fights. And he is missing, he already was missing a kidney from when he got in a car accident when he was a kid, when his parents were killed. And now ⁓ he lost another kidney, but.

Tug McTighe (48:22)
Yes, it was a big robot dogfight.

Yeah, the Looney Tunes fight.

It happened right. That's right.

Matt Loehrer (48:41)
Fortunately, Kobayashi donated one of his to save his nephew.

Tug McTighe (48:45)
And that's another scene from above where you see the one Kenny coming out going into, yeah, in the operating room. Yeah. Wes!

Matt Loehrer (48:49)
Yeah, no, it's crazy. West. And then

then because of a long standing law in Megasaki City, ⁓ if on the verge of election on election night, ⁓ if any candidate is ⁓ like guilty of high crimes or whatever, then

Tug McTighe (49:13)
Right.

Matt Loehrer (49:16)
the mayorship automatically goes to his heir or next of kin.

Tug McTighe (49:21)
his

Arab next-door kid who happens to be Atari. Now again.

Matt Loehrer (49:23)
So Atari,

12 year old Atari is the new mayor of Megasaki city.

Tug McTighe (49:27)
Yeah, let's hope his new kidney works. Now, now listen.

Matt Loehrer (49:29)
She said that's

a line from ⁓ that was a line from Marge Gunderson from. Let's that new kitty works and then she turns the camera and says boy, what a night.

Tug McTighe (49:34)
Let's help the new kidney works. Yeah, that's

the interpreter. Yeah.

Okay, so again, I don't know much about Japanese politics, but I it's not how they I don't think they do these things in Japan this way. Yeah, carry on.

Matt Loehrer (49:45)
I don't think that's what works.

there were so many good lines. There was a great line where they said ⁓ they thought Atari was dead. And they said, This this is a distant uncle's worst nightmare. Just so just really subtle. So then we go to a month later.

Tug McTighe (49:58)
this is the worst thing yeah this is the worst for for for this is a distant uncle's worst nightmare ⁓ perfect beautiful line

Matt Loehrer (50:10)
All the dogs have been reintegrated into society. They're all cured at the dog.

Tug McTighe (50:12)
Yep, because we have

mass manufactured the serum.

Matt Loehrer (50:16)
Yeah. And Kobayashi, even though he had a change of heart, he still went to jail and major domos in jail. And I thought it was really funny. They show them in prison and they've got their orange food trays that are compartmentalized like my kids had when they were little. ⁓ And there's a new addition to it. They put cat food along with their fish sticks and other stuff, because ⁓ all these people have cats that are in prison because they're terrible.

Tug McTighe (50:41)
I'll have the catcher with him, yeah. I'll have the catcher with

him.

Matt Loehrer (50:44)
Okay, so we hadn't seen, and I thought this was noteworthy, like Boss and Rex, you know, all those other four dogs. You don't see them for a long time after.

Tug McTighe (50:52)
Yeah.

No,

yeah, you don't see them almost a whole third act where all this is happening

Matt Loehrer (50:58)
Yeah.

So now we see they're back with their owners boss is with the baseball team. So, you know, we assume he's the coach's dog. You know, King is back with the dog food people.

Tug McTighe (51:01)
We

with the dog

food, because he was in the dog food commercials.

Matt Loehrer (51:11)
Yeah.

Duke is with a big family. ⁓ So that's Jeff Goldblum's character and Rex is in a library. So they're all back where they're supposed to be.

Tug McTighe (51:20)
So as all the dogs have been reunited with their families, we then see our heroes, Atari and Tracy are now a couple with Chief and Nutmeg as their bodyguard dogs.

Chief shows us his military issue, projectile tooth. And then we cut to this sort of

Pastoral location, it's like a temple and we see a priest and we see peppermint and she's all of her little litter is nursing and we're like, ⁓ no Where spots did he die in the fight? No, he shows up He's he's overcoming his injuries and he's with this little family. There's a little moment where a little runt the runt dog is has lost The milk the has lost his mother's teat

and they push him and put him back where he belongs. That's an homage to Chief. And then again, you think he's dead, but he's not. And that was really, really satisfying that he wasn't dead.

Matt Loehrer (52:13)
I love that last twist like it

it was almost like dessert, you know, it's like, there's here's one more little thing where we're going to tweak you like how you're like, spots died because I think they pan down and it says something like in remembrance of spots, ⁓ you know. So you think he's dead and then he's not dead, he's beat up, but he's not. So everybody really satisfying ending like every everybody you loved is alive and everybody.

Tug McTighe (52:21)
Yeah, just yeah.

And it says in room, yeah, there's a little statue. That's right. Right.

Matt Loehrer (52:39)
that was bad, got their comeuppance. It was great.

Tug McTighe (52:42)
All right, speaking of comeuppance, let's come up to our final break, and give another shout out to our title sponsor, Little Bear Graphics. Most agencies deliver work that's a better fit for mayoral conspiracies and marketing success. Work that blends in versus standing out like Tracy Walker's amazing hairdo. But if you are looking for some great design logos as and more, one firm stands alone, that's Little Bear Graphics. They don't chase trends, they invent their own world.

Matt Loehrer (52:46)
I did.

Tug McTighe (53:04)
Just like Wes Anderson invented an animated dystopia full of moody canines and cat-hating crime families. It's like having a computer hacker on your side. But you know, for marketing. Not computer hacking. Anyway, if your marketing feels stuck on Trash Island, it's time to get adopted by Little Bear. Get a taste of the work at littlebear.graphics just as soon as this podcast ends.

Matt Loehrer (53:23)
Beautiful.

Tug McTighe (53:24)
All right, so what do you think? What's your closing thoughts?

Matt Loehrer (53:27)
OK, ⁓ the movies runtime was 101 minutes, which for me is pretty damn perfect. Like 100 to 105 is just great, right? ⁓ I think, as I said, a lot of people would say, I don't like animated movies or this is frivolous in cartoons or for kids and stop motion is for, you know, once a year for Rudolph. It's too bad. It's in and I know it's offbeat.

It's not like anything else. It's not easy to classify. Like, what is this movie? How would I describe it to people? It was clever. It was funny. It surprised me, which you know I love. Like, there were a lot of things that I did not see coming. ⁓ It was beautiful. It was thoughtfully executed throughout, start to finish, you know. He did this the way he wanted to do it.

Tug McTighe (53:57)
Yeah. Yeah.

Unbelievable. the

labor of love here is evident.

Matt Loehrer (54:18)
for sure, meticulously crafted and overall just extremely satisfying. I could watch it 10 more times and I'd focus on something different every time and I'd want to watch it again.

Otherwise, it's interesting to me how, as I've said, whether it's live action or stop motion or people or puppets, he's still making he makes movies the same way. Yeah.

Tug McTighe (54:38)
Doesn't matter. It's a Wes. It's a Wes Anderson movie. And

I want to get to two things to say that you made me think of here. So one, I really want to urge anybody who says, I don't see cartoons. don't see. Just can you I'm asking you to take a chance. Don't reject a story.

a statement, something beautiful because you're rejecting a form. just, I don't want you to do that. I'm asking you nicely, but I'm imploring you, give it a chance. And two, I agree with this whole idea that you're hearing a lot about, about how Hollywood won't make a movie unless it's a remake, a reboot. It already has IP, it already has an audience. Well, man, you're, this is a, this is, and everybody's like, yeah, fuck Hollywood, screw the man.

Give us some new story. This is a new story. This is a net new story created in a beautiful way. This is what people say they want. They want interesting directors and interesting writers and interesting storytellers plying their craft. Well, I can tell you this is an interesting writer and an interesting director and an interesting storyteller plying his craft. don't reject it because you're rejecting the form. ⁓ I don't think that makes any sense. That's right.

Matt Loehrer (55:53)
Yeah, it's outside your comfort zone. Just

because it's outside your comfort zone. Don't don't dismiss it because it is and it's delightful in a lot of ways. I mean, it was funny. The scene where at the beginning when the dogs are about to square off and it's almost like a like a like a Clint Eastwood shootout like a Western and instead of tumbleweeds floating across, it's trash. It's like balled up trash. That was hilarious. I mean, that was it wasn't hilarious. I don't want to say that. It was just really clever.

Tug McTighe (56:09)
like a Western. Yeah.

It's trash tumbleweeds between the two sets of dogs. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Just a nice bit,

right?

Matt Loehrer (56:24)
And he didn't need to do it. Like that could have not been in there, but it's details like that that really made it worth watching.

Tug McTighe (56:27)
But that's attention to detail. That's exactly right, Matt.

And look, I love this. I'm gonna watch it again and again and again. He is really a visionary. Nothing he does doesn't look like he did it. You know he did it. And this reminds me, I love The Grateful Dead. I'm a gigantic dead head and a jam band guy. This whole movie, this experience of watching this movie reminded me

of a great quote by legendary ⁓ promoter, Bill Graham, who was one of the guys who gave the dead their start. He said, the dead isn't just the best at what they do. They are the only people who do what they do. And I think that's Wes Anderson. He's not just the best. Nobody does this. No one does what he's doing.

Matt Loehrer (57:13)
Right. And so

That's why it's so unmistakably his. He just owns it. Did you know that I have did you know I've seen the Grateful Dead in concert?

Tug McTighe (57:18)
That's right. It's great.

I did know that actually. We need to talk about that more than we have. In Ames, were you in Ames?

Matt Loehrer (57:27)
me weed.

It was at Soldier Field in 95 maybe. It was crazy. So maybe, so before the show, you know, there's kind of a vendor alley.

Tug McTighe (57:29)
Chicago 94 95 there's a gigantic there's a gigantic chance I was there

Matt Loehrer (57:41)
you know, where people are, is it called Shake Down Street? There was a man in his underwear and no shirt and no shoes and feet that were, you know, a centimeter away from this little electric skillet. And he was making grilled cheese sandwiches. And I bet he made, I bet he made $25,000. It was crazy.

Tug McTighe (57:41)
That's called Shake Down Street, but yes. Yeah.

You bet he was.

You bet he was. You bet he was. I could regale

you. That's a whole other podcast, buddy. So this is easy. I'm not even gonna ask you. This is a gigantic center hit for both of us. ⁓ So, I mean, I knew it was gonna be.

Matt Loehrer (58:07)
Yeah, what's up with that?

for sure. was I was so mad. was anything I was mad.

I was just mad that I didn't see it sooner.

Tug McTighe (58:20)
Yeah, that's right. That's

Matt Loehrer (58:22)
Yeah, it's a huge sin to hit for me. I would recommend it to anybody

Tug McTighe (58:25)
sure. All right, well listen, thanks again everyone for listening to Cinema Mrs. If you like what we're doing here, ⁓ for starters, thank you ⁓ for listening and liking, but please, we need your help growing the show by subscribing, sharing, writing a review, it really does help. And even better, tell somebody you think might like it to give us a try.

We want to hear from you as well. Follow and comment on socials. Please drop us a line at cinemisses.gmail.com with ideas to make the show better and recommendations for movies we may want to cover. We take the feedback really seriously and we thank you, those of you who have given it to us. We've incorporated, damn near all of it, Matt, I think. And that's because we want people to help us make it better.

So what is our next episode of Cinemass is gonna feature and what does our Cinemass, which in this case is you, think he knows?

Matt Loehrer (59:11)
Sorry, start over.

Man, I've missed a lot. ⁓ Okay, the next Cinemass's feature is District 9. And what I think I know is it's directed by Peter Jackson. It's ⁓ a science fiction, ostensibly a science fiction movie, but I think it's got its analogous to Apartheid is my guess. ⁓ And

Tug McTighe (59:30)
Okay, carry on.

Yes?

Matt Loehrer (59:46)
I think it's about a guy who is a journalist and contracts some kind of virus or something and is turning into one of these people. But we'll find out. Maybe I know more than I thought.

Tug McTighe (59:55)
All right, well that I tell you is

there's a lot, a lot there that's right and some that isn't right, but that's the joy of this. ⁓ So ⁓ yeah, this has been fun. This was a fun one to do. I'm really glad we watched this. Cause like you said, man, you can watch it 10 times to see 10 different things. that.

Matt Loehrer (1:00:03)
Well, let's find out.

It makes me want to watch

all of his movies.

Tug McTighe (1:00:15)
Yeah, for sure, for sure. All right, another synemesis in the can, buddy. I am Tug, and that is a wrap.

Matt Loehrer (1:00:19)
Yeah, I'm Matt.

See you next time.