Tamala 2010: A Punk Cat in Space

As we are informed in the film’s prologue, "Cats live in loneliness, then die like falling rain." Sh--, man, whatever. This is so stupid it’s positively genius.

A dark allegory and a dazzling example of Japanese anime.

The images -- including a giant robotic Colonel Sanders with an ax in its head that walks the streets of Tokyo -- reinforce every paranoid fantasy of a controlled future ever concocted.

The kind of tale where even viewers who didn't miss a frame will feel as if they entered in the middle, muddled but amusing account of an adorable yet profanity-prone feline who travels through time and space is fueled by irony and incongruity.

Asks a lot of the viewer, but it gives something back, though I'm not sure exactly what. It's an amusing and exasperating catnip dream about the adventures of a 1-year-old cartoon kitten.

My conception of “punk” must differ from the creators of Tamala 2010. The lead character is feisty enough (she says “f---” a lot), and even skateboards, but she’s owned lock, stock, and oversized eyeballs by the Big Evil Corporation.

If you can make any sense of this you've probably been smoking whatever the animators were when they concocted it.