Seen and not seen's, recommendations and queries on top films in general.

[Kaaoskultti]

Last seen:

- Naked, by Mike Leigh (1993)

- Come and See, by Elem Klimov (1985)

- Threads, by Mick Jackson (1984)

- 8 1/2, by Fellini (1963)

- Perfect Days, by Wim Wenders (2023)

- Heaven Knows What, by Benny & John Safdie (2014).

[SSRI]

Had a Takashi Miike miniature marathon and watched Gozu, One Missed Call and Lumberjack The Monster.

I hadn't seen Gozu before and I'm sure it would've made a bigger impact if I'd watched it when it came out. Supposedly Miike's tribute to David Lynch, I think it doesn't quite succeed but I think I get what he's trying to do. Prime weirdness and perversion, just not a very good film.

One Missed Call I saw back in the day and watching it again now, I figured I must've got the Gelsomina track title "Severed Hand Dialing" here. This is more of a standard Japanese horror film from the change of the millennium. Entertaining and silly, although the story is tragic I guess. Should be good Halloween viewing.

Lumberjack is only a couple of years old. Decent serial killer thriller with loads of armchair pop psychology. Cheesy enough to be an effortless and fun watch.

Got more Miike lined up, but maybe something else next.

[Manhog_84]

As Arrow is releasing Audition on UHD this June, hopefully other Miike's heyday films are not far behind! Radiance's Underworld Chronicles box looks like a great set, as those 90s V-Cinema and early 2000s productions are arguably the most interesting periods. His output became very uninteresting around the time Gozu was released, 2004 and 2005. Same thing happened to Kitano and Tsukamoto. I'm not sure what was going on at the time, but it's as if they all ran out of steam and good ideas. I tried some later day Miikes, Shield of Straw and Blade of the Immortal, but they felt like a waste of time. Maybe I should give a change to Over Your Dead Body.

This doesn't include Miike, but V-Cinema Essentials box I can recommend. Many entertaining crime and action films that were buried to obscurity outside Japan, until now. And how about Gaira's Guts trilogy on Blu-ray, fucking amazing that they were finally released! Other gory direct-to-video productions are also finding their ways to Blu-ray. Jōji Iida's Cyclops (1987) for example. The mutation effects are on par with the Cronenberg stuff of that era.

[BlackCavendish]

Well, after "Gozu" he still had something to say (Zebraman, Yatterman, Izo, and his remake of Django all came afterwards), but I think he lost the spirit that made his earlier work so distinctive, especially films like Visitor q, The happiness of the Katakuris, Dead or Alive series, or Ichi that came out around the turn of the millennium..

As for Tsukamoto, I think he suffered from the transition to digital, but up until "Vital" he was still making great stuff. On the other hand, I found Kotoko terribly irritating, both in terms of story photography.
Although "Killing" was good and pretty solid.


I'm currently going through Ben Wheatley's movies. I don't think he's ever made something truly great, but I like his anarchic spirit, especially when he works with medium/low budget productions. Some of his films are far from perfect (In the Earth, just to mention one), but at least you can say he has a vision.
On the other hand, his more mainstream work is pretty boring. Meg 2 was terrible, while Rebecca (the Alfred Hitchcock remake he directed for Netflix) had a few good ideas, but it could have been shot by a random director. Stilistically is pretty anonymous .