Tag (2015) Isn't The Movie You Think it is.

The vilification of women, the punishable aggression inflicted upon them, the voyeuristic lens that peeks at their panties every time a gale sweeps up schoolgirls' skirts- Tag (2015) should have been made in poor taste, considering Japanese auteur Sion Sono's vita of films dedicated to the sexploitation of women (Love Exposure, The Virgin Psychics).

But it wasn't. Instead, Tag became a vision of modern cinema and a compelling study in gender roles. All in its scant 90 minutes of surrealistic dream sequences that'd leave you bewildered, yet, strangely, wanting for more.

Set in small town Japan, the film's unusual happenings unravels with a thriller when two school buses (packed with laughing high schoolgirls looking as sunburst as an ad from Sovil Titus) gets sliced into half by a mysterious gust of wind. Saved by coincidence, the timid lone survivor, Mitsuko (played charmingly by Austrian-Japanese actress Reina Triendl), begins a race for her life from a series of attackers.

Part of Sono's third release of six films he scheduled for 2015,  Tag trails behind the teen-survival genre he's been made famous by. But where the plot thickens, as it veers away from the campy destruction of entire high school of females, is at the vein of the movie: an element of gender oppression.

As Mitsuko jumps from one paranormal encounter with bazuka-wielding teachers to another with a bovine bride, her idenity travels inter-dimensionally with her. From the ingenue she is, to the conflicted bride Keiko (Mariko Shinoda), to the marathoner Izumi (Erina Mano), the all-female cast prevalent in two-thirds of the movie- until we fall into the rabbit hole of a male-dominated dystopia toward the end- pounds at a tough fact of life often overlooked: its characters are running away from a rite of passage society has prescribed, from adolescence to adulthood.

That said, Tag subverts as it delights. The movie, adapted from Yusuke Yamada's 2001 novel, was initially premised upon the tag-you're-it idea, that anyone who shares a similar surname dies. But Sono was resolute to render his movie different from other adaptations. Cinematically, the movie pans across beautiful landscapes all shot by drones. The scenes are a vision as it softens the gore and breaks away from the offbeat pace Sono's built into the surrealistic movie he'd already paved from start. Despite the violence, the scenes still feel as soft as the film's recurring goose-down pillow.

Orchestrating the movie to sublime effect is also its film score. It matches the revealing scene when Mitsuko confronts the true enemy of her fictitious drama: men; particularly, men who fetishizes the Japanese schoolgirl culture enough to create the insufferable reality we find ourselves trapped in. And by the film's close, the music falls away into post-rock group Mono's beautiful soundtrack, a tireless melody of downtempo guitar and bass.

Perhaps, what's even stranger than fiction- a cinematic experience I reserve for astounding films- was the lump I swallowed at the back of my throat after a movie as cerebral, as violent, and as offsetting as Tag. While modern day directors strike the iron of feminism while it's hot topic to avert the male gaze, Sion Sono's awe-inspiring work brings it back in the most visceral, most grotesque, and most beautiful way possible. He wasn't turning away from a problem, he was staring right into its dispassionate, ugly face.

Below, its official trailer and (yes!) full movie.

Humanity's Last Straw For Apocalyptic Movies: Attack on Titan

There're apocalyptic movies, and there're post-apocalyptic movies. Remember World War Z? The former's zombie-infested planet Brad Pitt tried to save- adapted from the eponymous novel by Max Brooks? Faintly, I do. Like other viewers who paid money then to be convinced by the end of the world, I was more bored than entertained. That said, in 2015, manga-turned-blockbuster Attack on Titan comes second to snooze.

While you can't fault the apocalyptic genre (2012, anyone?) even after a series of blockbuster flops, directors should know its feature isn't the easiest to make or adapt. On literature, readers lucidly dream up all the fantasy, the action and the pandemonium. Though, onscreen, only the filmmaker controls what viewers see.

Similarly, there isn't much to digest here, apart from the artfully created monsters known as "Titans". Released in August with a sequel following the world-saving manga-adapted movie this month, Attack on Titan centers around humanity's battle against flesh-eating giants. They're nightmarish colossal duds; though, unlike childhood fables, Titans don't break out into nursery rhymes. They groan, shriek, and cackle while masticating human limbs with blood splayed to great CGI-effect. But those were just the best bits.

Set in an imagined agricultural society in close-to-extinct Japan, the film departs from the manga's German heritage. Which isn't the only difference, nor is it a problem to anyone who hasn't read the manga. While its people are walled up in a fortress to protect themselves from the Titans, the real problem began when the entire town was wrecked to rubble. Onward, upended lives didn't matter in the face of terror. Only the action did to take down the obvious enemy.

Of course, Attack on Titan is a different movie from the tropes of zombie attacks and natural disasters; it's a monster blockbuster, like Godzilla. Hefty with actions sequences between Titan-killing scouts (formed by the film's main trio Eren, Armin, and Mikasa, who's played by model/actress Kiko Mizuhara) and the monsters, the gory action should have made up for the lack of emotional responses from its characters. However, apart from the repeated saying, "I want to kill Titans", nobody really knows why their saving their world.

By the end, humanity's shared values didn't really matter anyway because the takeaway message was clear: we're only as vulnerable as the cattle bred. Okay. And the "true enemy is the fence [that's keeping us in]". That those lives who lost families, houses, and entire villages didn't cost its own unique story arc as much as they were lunch to the Titans, this movie has also served up a sequel aimed to unravel all its plot holes. Perhaps, humanity's apocalyptic blockbuster should really be canned.

You're Not Too Smart For Your Own Good. You're Just Not Persuasive.

If Dale Carneige were still alive, he'd have been 127 years old. And the writer, lecturer, and self-help guru would still want you to know that you're not communicating unless you're doing it with empathy.

Don't get it confused with honesty, or a concern with your co-worker's affairs- that's gossip. Empathy is loftier than you think. Empathy is, according to Carnegie, a people skill that helps you level with others, put yourself in their shoes, and walk a mile in their Nike Fly Knit's, even.

"[It] is so simple, so obvious, that anyone ought to see the truth of it at a glance; yet 90 percent of the people on this earth ignore it 90 percent of the time," says the writer. Which is why, reading his book, How to Win Friends And Influence People, might actually benefit you its working title. You know, to actually have some friends and get people to your thinking.

First published in 1936, HTWFAIP is trawled with comprehensive tips and painstakingly detailed with insightful anecdotes. For a book that has survived reprints since, selling 15 million copies, in 31 languages worldwide, it is a determined, digestible guide. (Yes, that is a part of empathy. On the reader.) His job, a career that has helped Man self-actualize his potential, with tips from "getting people to like you" to winning them over to your ideas, is simple: It's not what you say, but how you say it. 

Today, his ideas has founded a namesake institute that carries itself onward with training programs, to say the least about inspiring top managements and populist tastes alike. Warren Buffet has a copy, shelved on his desk. Simon Pegg starred in the 2008 movie, titled How to Lose Friends And Alienate People, adapted from the parody memoir by Toby Young. The currency of Carnegie's 291 page-long book is a read so powerful it didn't so much endure history than to have future generations enjoy its core ideas enough to spread the word like gospel.

In a chapter where Carnegie analyzes a business letter from an ad-man flawed with self-importance, he offers this in return:

Who cares what your company desires? I am worried about my own problems. The bank is foreclosing the mortgage on my house, the bugs are destroying the hollyhocks, the stock market tumbled yesterday. I missed the eight-fifteen this morning, I wasn't invited to the Jones's dance last night, the doctor tells me I have high blood pressure and neuritis and dandruff. And then what happens? I come down to the office this morning worried, open my mail and here is some whippersnapper off in New York yapping about what his company wants. Bah! If he only realized what sort of impression his letter makes, he would get out of advertising business and start manufacturing sheep dip.

They don't say, but that's exactly how people feel every time you sit on their faces with the highfalutin "I"-mentality. It may be hard not to be an asshole, but people management is one topical interest that'd never pass up from judgement. You don't want to be that guy. 

And neither does Dale Carnegie. He doesn't want you to be "honest to a fault". No, he doesn't want you confusing pompous, condescending honesty with empathy. He wants you to get fixed up with the right manners, instantly. Your job then, reader, is to grab a copy.