Talking Shit About Movies - Death Note
Lately I’ve been talking a lot about movies. I’ve been making a concerted effort to head to the theater for anything that looks interesting or even remotely watchable. And so far it’s been pretty rewarding. I enjoy watching movies, and apparently I love to talk shit about them even more. Today’s movie review is going to look at not just the movie I saw, Death Note, but also the circumstances around the watching of this movie, and the strange cult of dorks that pop big boners over anything Japanese.
For those of you who don’t know, I live in a town called Hagerstown, Maryland. Hagerstown is characterized by its overall dearth of anything worthwhile, cultural or otherwise. Every time I go out and deal with the public here I feel like a refugee in a zombie movie. The natives here frighten me. For every good one there are ten bad ones with poor hygiene, big trucks, and a general disdain of anything not country. The town is consumed by racism, homophobia, xenophobia, and anything good-ophobia. This also includes the movie theater. Apparently there are two, but the one never has movie listings on Moviefone, so as far as I’m concerned there’s only one. It’s a big ass multiplex not unlike one you would find at any mall or shopping center in any suburban town. Sixteen screens of whatever Hollywood has to offer. No surprises, just the big studio stuff. I’ve come to accept this. There’s nothing I can do about it, and it’s not too bad. I have Netflix if I want to watch something a bit more challenging. Or I can make my way to Baltimore or DC if there’s something really independent that’s out that I want to see.
Regal Cinemas, the movie theater conglomerate that owns my particular multiplex, offers a number of “special features” from time to time that are limited runs of anything from old movies to operas. Prior to Baby Mama they showed two such previews, one for First Blood, which I’m really fucking bummed that I missed because I was watching THE BLACK KEYS, BITCH!, and Death Note, a Japanese film that I’d never heard of and promptly forgot about. When I checked the movie listings I saw that it was playing that night, and I said eff it, I want to go see it. Why? I didn’t know if this movie was going to be good or awful, but it was something different. If my movie bucks could encourage them to keep bringing back different fare from off the beaten path then it’s worth the investment. I talked wifey into it, so off we headed to the movies on a completely unknown movie adventure.
Something didn’t feel right in the parking lot. It was a Tuesday night and spots were really hard to come by. We got our tickets at the Fandango kiosk thingie ($10, a dollar more than usual) and partook of some food court dinner. The clientele around the mall was a bit different than normal. Lots of pale guys and girls. Some glasses. Guys in jorts. Multiple packs of three awkward looking people rolling together. Cutesie purses. Silly Crocs. The wife and I exchanged glances, we communicated with our eyes what we couldn’t say aloud, we were in the midst of serious dorkdom. She went to the theater to scope out seats and said “it sounds packed in there.”
I thought this was kind of odd. Considering my previous mention of the paucity of culture in Hagerstown I did not expect a theater full of Japanimaniacs. But sure enough as we strolled into the theater, there was hardly a seat to be found. The Nerd Tsunami washed up in Hagerstown for a two night only screening of a Japanese movie based on a Manga (which is Japanese for comic, as far as I know).
Before I talk about the movie, let me clarify some points. Anyone who knows me knows my love of Asian cuisine. They have probably watched an Asian movie with me at some point, and not just a karate movie. But I draw the line at anime, and the odd Japan obsession that seems to come along with a love for anime. I dabbled in the big eyed cartoon arts at one point, probably because it featured dirty cartoon fucking and I thought that was kind of cool. Not that tentacle raping hentai anime, just regular Japanese cartoon people fucking. But I quickly got out of it, probably when I realized that watching cartoon people fucking is kind of creepy. The whole thing just wasn’t my thing, and I let it at that.
Then I went to work with some anime zealots at the Nerd Factory (game testing and tech support company) while I was in college. I learned a lot about anime and Japanese culture from these Japanophiles, and I liked it even less. I loved how I could say “you know, those are just cartoons,” and get sweet and innocent looking girls to call me motherfucker as if I called their mothers whores. You know the best part about zealots, don’t you? Fucking with them.
In the years since I left there, and my subsequent job with the douchebag that rocked a fanny pack and brought his Magic the Gathering cards with him to work, I haven’t had regular contact with Japan addicts, and it allowed me to appreciate their culture a lot more. Who can’t get behind the people that invented such wonderful things as Nintendo, Playstation, katana swords, sushi, Wii, and Yan Yan snacks? I even dabbled a little bit in Japanese cinema, and found my forays to be quite rewarding, if not disturbing (I’m looking at you, Audition). But as much as I may be into different things, I define my tastes, I don’t let my tastes define me. That’s why I never saw fit to rock a Hello Kitty lunchbox, dress up like the dudes in Dragonball Z, or wack it to Japanese porno. Okay, two out of three isn’t bad,
With all this in mind we made the leap into the theater. I expected a mostly empty auditorium with a few scattered nerds here and there. What I didn’t bargain for was falling into a grand Japan nerd happening. The movie was interrupted with cheers and hoots and even random yellings of things (such as the pack of girls that yelled “POCKY!” when they saw the delicious snack food on the shelf in a convenience store). No, Dorothy, we were not in Kansas anymore.
So now that I’ve let that out, let me get to the movie. Death Note is a movie based on a manga of the same name in which a law student named Light (played by some Japanese guy with funny hair that is apparently gay, according to a shouting audience member at one point of the movie) becomes disaffected with the state of the legal system that he reveres and is studying so hard to become a part of. After witnessing a particularly unrepentant gangster brag about how he wouldn’t ever be punished, Light storms out of a bar, tosses his law text and finds a peculiar notebook that says “Death Note” on it in the middle of the street. He snatches the book and takes it home to investigate it. Written in plain English (and thank God for that) are the instructions on how to use the book. Whoever’s name you write in the book while picturing their face (so that in my case some other poor schmuck named Matthew Lillard doesn’t get killed) will die within forty seconds of a heart attack. While watching the news and hearing about a particularly nasty criminal, Light decides to give the book a whirl and, lo and behold, it works, kicking off an unprecedented cleansing of criminality around the world. If the system cannot bring them to justice, Light will.
Not too long after he starts taking names, and therefore kicking ass, an apparition named Ryuk approaches him about the Death Note book. Ryuk is a spirit that determines who dies, kind of like a Japanese Grim Reaper, but with a cool name that I’m sure one of my audience mates would be glad to tell me after making me feel dumb for not knowing it (it’s a shinigami, I decided to do some “research”). The two form a strange partnership in which Light gives Ryuk apples in exchange for Ryuk looking creepy and occasionally giving him tips. Oh yeah, Ryuk is CGI, and fucking scary looking. Imagine if Pennywise the clown from Stephen King’s It fucked Jack Nicholson’s Joker from Batman and had a baby that could fly. Yeah, that’s about right. It’s a miracle I fell asleep last night. And you can’t see him unless you’ve touched the Death Note, which may play an important part at some point in the film. Just throwing it out there.
As the criminal body count goes up crime goes down, but the cops are not happy. It seems as though they quickly figure out that all of these criminals dying of heart attacks is not some great coincidence. It must be the work of someone, who they dub Kira. They don’t know how they’re doing it, since these criminals are all over the world, but it must be someone. So they call in the greatest detective of all time, L, who we don’t see or hear other than a weird distorted voice and a big L on a laptop. Yeah, pretty weird.
The movie quickly turns into a battle of wits between Kira and L, who always seem to be one step ahead of each other. L analyzes the pattern of killings and determines that it must be a student, so Light figures out how to manipulate the book to determine when the victims will die to prearrange his killings ahead of time to break his own pattern. Then he sees that he can do more than just kill people with heart attacks by being brilliant enough to read the instructions. When he figures out he’s being followed, he finds a way to not only find out who is following him, but everyone else working on the case and kills them all.
The task force finally hooks up with L in person, who’s a punk kid like Light that has a really weird affinity for junk food. Thanks to all of the FBI people on the Kira case being killed, he narrows it down to either someone on the Kira Task Force or one of their relatives, and that’s when Light comes under suspicion. See, Light’s dad is the head of the task force. And oh yeah, Light’s dad is the fucking Chairman from Iron Chef. No shit, the dude that chomps the big yellow pepper at the beginning of o.g. Iron Chef. I guess things have cooled off at Kitchen Stadium, so he’s found time to act. Good for him.
The cat and mouse game continues through the end up to the gripping cliffhanger ending, which apparently sets the stage for part two which has already been made (Death Note is a 2006 movie) and they may have even showed it afterwards, but it was too much nerdery for us, so we rolled out at the credits.
The movie poses a great moral question: who’s worse, the criminal, or the person that kills them? You could look at it as an indictment on the criminal justice system, the death penalty, or even on vigilante justice. But I ask you this, without vigilante justice, there would be no Death Wish, or Tango & Cash, or just about any other great movie ever made, so what’s the beef with vigilante justice? I’m sorry I even posited that question, vigilante justice. I love you.
Where was I? Yeah, the movie was pretty good. There were parts where everyone was laughing and the wife and I just looked at each other thinking “I don’t get it,” so it must have been explained in Manga Nerd issue 703, but the story is a good one. From reviews I’ve read they say the mannerisms of the characters are spot on with the manga, so I’ll take their word for that. The whole Kira vs. L thing was very interesting. I liken it to two supercomputers playing chess against each other, each one thinking infinite moves ahead of each action they take. I imagine everything unfurls rather neatly in the second half.
I definitely recommend this movie, but you probably want to rent it at home. Go down to the Asian market, get yourself some consommé flavored potato chips and some Pocky, and Jap yourself to pieces. I’ll be looking forward to part 2, wherever it may be. Domo arigato, Mr. Roboto.