MOVIE REVIEW OF ANOMALISA: An Edward Hopper Painting Come to Life

It is 1971.  A movie ticket costs $1.50.  Apollo 14 lands on the Moon.  Jim Morrison of The Doors is found dead in a bathtub in Paris.  But none of that matters much to the Shimizu brothers.

Marty Shimizu is six and his brother Tom Shimizu is nine.  They are at an age where they look very much alike.  They both are Japanese American boys with short hair, though Tom's is curly and Marty's is straight.  Both of them have glasses with gray plastic frames.  They are almost the same height too.  Their Asian eyes are smaller than their classmates, but that doesn't keep them from seeing more than most.

They are in the basement where it's cool.  The windows are shut because Mr. Rosenstein is mowing the lawn next door.  Marty and Tom are watching a cowboy movie on the black and white Zenith.  There has been a stagecoach robbery but the robbers have been put behind bars.  The cowboys tie up their horses to a wooden post as their thirsty horses drink from a wooden trough filled with water.

"Which one is the good guy and which is the bad guy?" Marty asks, watching the horse drink the cool water.
Tom says nothing.  Like he’s talking to the air.  Tom doesn't have to answer questions right away because Marty is his little brother.
"Tom, which one is the good guy?" he repeats.
"The one in the white hat is always the good guy.  What planet are you from?" he says, his eyes still on the screen.

Marty looks at the guy in the white hat.  He is drinking his beer so fast, the beer is spilling onto his shirt.
"But he stole that bottle of beer from the saloon."
"No one cares about that."
"I do. That's against the law."
"He saved the stagecoach, dum-dum.  Stagecoaches are more important than bottles of beer."

Marty looks back at the screen. "I like the guy in the black hat better," says Marty.  No reply from know-it-all Tom who rolls his eyes.  Little brother is getting on his nerves.  "Don't you think the guy in the black hat is better because at least he didn't steal any beer from the saloon and he has a cool mustache?"
"You're weird.  Don’t bother me or I'll have to hit you," Tom says.
"If you hit me, then you're a bad guy too.  You might as well wear a black hat."

Tom stops talking to him.  He goes deeper into the television screen with its black and white dots and free bottles of beer and hats that tell you how to feel about people even before you know who they are inside.

*

The next time Tom sees his little brother Marty, he is walking around the house wearing a black hat their father has bought him from Walgreen's.  Marty has a black crayon mustache drawn on his upper lip.  He has already joined the long line of outlaws that have come before him.  When Tom and he trade glances, Tom looks at Marty as if he is wearing no disguise at all, and keeps a perfectly straight face.  He could win an Oscar for such a face.  But then a smile slowly spreads across Tom's face and he can’t help it.  He just has to laugh out loud.

This is one of the few happy sibling memories that Marty can recall.