Aug 4-10  Stoner Comedy Week: I don’t gas reefer anymore, but I love it when people in movies do!

This is a movie with many audiences.

1. People who love Daft Punk and want to hear the songs from Discovery along with visuals, including songs like “One More Time,” “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger” and “Something About Us.”
2. Those who love anime and want to see a new film by Leiji Matsumoto (Space Battleship Yamato, Space Pirate Captain Harlock, Galaxy Express 999) and don’t need dialogue to guide them through the anime archetypes and story.
3. Stoners who are super high.
4. All of the above.

Hi, that’s me, number four.

Keyboardist Octave, guitarist Arpegius, drummer Baryl and bass player Stella have been kidnapped by Earl de Darkwood, a music producer who takes bands from other planets and brings them to Earth as his slaves. Now known as The Crescendolls, three of them are saved by space pilot Shep, who gives his life to free them from their programming.

As The Crescendolls win the Gold Record Award, Stella — still mind-controlled — is saved by the band, who free her and head to Darkwood Manor, where they learn that Darkwood has a plan called the Veridis Quo, which has him getting 5,555 Gold Records and ruling the universe. Their record is the last and Stella is nearly sacrificed before Darkwood and his followers are cast into a pit.

The entire planet of Earth sends the band back home, where Shep is remembered. Or maybe it was all a dream of a child, listening to a Daft Punk album.

Daft Punk said, “The music we have been making must have been influenced at some point by the shows we were watching when we were little kids.” I love that when they started to become famous, they went all in on their influences. I got to see this in a theater at earsplitting volume, and it was perfect; yes, maybe what we had in the parking lot made it even better.