Review: Pom Wonderful Presents: The Greatest Movie Ever Sold

Reviews

The Cats of Mirikitani

The self-appointed co-star needs to be cut

By RICHARD BECK | August 15, 2007

1.5 Stars

Mother and Baby Cat, by Jimmy Mirikitani

Jimmy Mirikitani is a homeless Japanese-American artist living on the streets of New York’s Lower West Side, and in the opening scene of Linda Hattendorf’s documentary, you hear a series of voiceovers talking about him. The first couple are clearly spontaneous responses to a question, but the last is much more serious: “He gave me a picture of a cat. And he only asked for one thing in return. That I take a picture of it.” This is the voice of Mirikitani’s self-appointed co-star, Hattendorf herself, who goes from bringing him tea and blankets to moving him into her apartment for months. Mirikitani, who was put in an internment camp during WW2, is a fascinating, angry, witty guy, and he’s ultimately too big for Hattendorf’s film, which wants him to symbolize both American guilt and American redemption.

| More

ARTICLES BY RICHARD BECK

PLUCK AND DETERMINATION | March 09, 2010
People have always thought that Joanna Newsom was indulgent. At first, it was about her voice — the kind of nasal yelp that usually keeps a performer from getting on stage at all. Then, on her second album, it was about her vocabulary and her instrumentation.

SONG OF HERSELF | August 05, 2009
"Listen, I will go on record saying I love Feist, I love Neko Case. I love that music. But that shit's easy listening for the twentysomethings. It fucking is. It's not hard to listen to any of that stuff."

DJ QUIK AND KURUPT | BLAQKOUT | June 15, 2009
LA hip-hop has two threads, and DJ Quik pulls both of them. The first is g-funk, a production style that relies on deep, open grooves and an endless parade of funk samples.

FLIPPER | LOVE | May 26, 2009
Flipper formed in San Francisco in 1979, and they're remembered three decades later because of a song called "Sex Bomb" that's one of the funniest pieces of music I've ever heard.

ST. VINCENT'S ACTOR GETS A RUN-THROUGH | May 26, 2009
There were not one but two clarinets on stage at the Somerville Theatre on Tuesday night, and that gives you some idea of how intricate Annie Clark's chamber-pop compositions can be.