Thursday, March 23, 2006

Breakfast on Pluto

I talked Amber into seeing Breakfast on Pluto last night. I noticed it had been running in San Francisco prior, but it returned for a short run this week in the Haight. It stars two actors from Batman Begins, believe it or not. "Kitten" is played by Cillian Murphy who played the Scarecrow, and Liam Neeson, who played Ra's-Al-Ghul in Batman Begins, is Father Bernard.

BoP is a cute little movie about a boy named Kitten trying to find a few things in life without being so serious. If I had to describe it to someone based on other movies, I'd say it was Transamerica meets Hedwig and the Angry Inch. It wasn't a Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, nor a To Wong Fu, but it definitely had it's own little story to tell. I cried at the end, but to be honest, I cannot give you an exact reason why. I mean, the movie was a little quirky, but it basically showed a transgender boy trying to figure out his/her place in the world. It didn't really show what he was searching for, but just that he was able to move on in certain parts of his life.

I thought the supporting characters and the overall acting was great...from Kitten's childhood friends, to his numerous romantic interests, to the parents he never knew. I also thought the camera work was wonderful on a few scenes. I can't imagine how much it cost to make this movie, but considering it's low distribution, they did quite well with whatever they had to work with. I think a lot of people can be turned off by the possible drag factor, but this seemed quite different from many of the other very campy drag films I've seen (or partially seen) in the past. Another difficult thing for me was the variety of accents since this movie takes place in the UK. Some were easy to understand, but there were a few scenes where I had no idea what was being said. Kitten's falsetto dialog was also a bit difficult to understand in some scenes. Unfortunately, I think any movie made in the UK and distributed in the US should also include subtitles for those of us that are accent-challenged.

Overall, I'd give it a 3 out of 4.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Kara

Not wishing to be overly nationalist or anything but it is an Irish film. It is partly set in England though, so there are Irish and English accents. But we don't ask for subtitling for American films. The dvd will have the option, so you can watch again!

E

Kara said...

Irish...smirish!!!! Everyone needs to learn how to speak from the King Bush Englictionary and codify how to properly speak.

OK, OK, I'm joking about the subtitles...I've just always struggled with a thick English/Irish/Scottish accent...and some movies made abroad. The syllables just seem to run together or there doesn't seem to be that much separation between the actor's voice and the background noise for me. I guess I'm just used to the Hollywood pampering.

Anonymous said...

Youresorightwedoruneverythingtogethernevernoticedbeforeitmustbehardforyou!