Tekkon Kinkreet

When I interview people they rarely get away without recommending some movies, and whether or not those rec's are of any use to the general public, they've certainly kept MY attention. The latest example is Cliff Chiang, a comic book artist who I interviewed a while back about his favorite animated films. His mention of the anime film Tekkon Kinkreet aroused my curiosity, and so the other day when I saw a copy for ten bucks, I figured what the hell.

What the hell, indeed. This movie broke my heart and blew my mind about every five minutes, and I haven't been able to stop thinking about it for days now. It's basically a Peter Pan story about street-orphans fighting a real turf war against gangsters and developers over their magical little scrap of neighborhood. In doing a little post-viewing research, I realized why I never got around to seeing it when it played (briefly) in NYC: Julia Wallace's dismissive review in the Village Voice ("It's both too cute and too rambling"). Why do I ever listen to these people? Alright, sometimes they really have good points about why this or that harmless entertainment should be dangled at arm's length over the wood-chipper. But every now and then I get a little too trusting and wind up missing out on seeing a glorious film on the big screen just because some cranky reviewer started writing before their morning coffee.

Anyhow, here's the trailer for Tekkon Kinkreet. The music in it is sort of tonally misleading, but if you're even a little intrigued by what you see then add this to your queue pronto.