Science On Screen/Music City Mondays: INTERSTELLA 5555: THE 5ECRET 5TAR 5Y5TEM

You don’t have to be a fan of Daft Punk’s sophomore album, the funky, poppy 2001 house opus Discovery, to enjoy Interstella 5555. But it doesn’t hurt. Produced under guidance from master animator and manga artist Leiji Matsumoto for Toei Animation, the venerable Japanese studio behind the Dragon Ball and Sailor Moon anime series, Interstella uses Discovery as a soundtrack to a sci-fi action-adventure film with a prominent thread about the power of art in the face of commercial interests. At the beginning, we meet a cheerful pop quartet whose supreme grooviness earns the adoration of everyone on their Day-Glo home planet. But a sinister, wing-haired amalgam of Leopold Mozart and Kim Fowley covets their funk, and he kidnaps the band, using his machines to mold them into listless rock ’n’ roll automatons called The Crescendolls. Their only hope is a valiant friend in a guitar-shaped spaceship. Can he help them get their groove back? You can stream it on YouTube, but the most fun way to find out will be to show up and see it on the big screen. STEPHEN TRAGESER