Fool's Views (12/17 - 12/23)

‘Twas the Week Before Christmas
With a Film Every Night
Trading off Civilian Flicks
With Those Designed for Fright

Howdy folks,

This week’s Views were brought to you by HH101, OCP, CPL, and good ol’ JC.

(That would be HIDDEN HORROR 101, my Obsessive Compulsive Personality i.e. needing to watch films by certain directors in order to increase 2012’s tally, the Chicago Public Library, and He Who Was Born in a Manger, Thus Spawning a Million Christmas-themed Movies.)

As always, feel free to toss in your two cents worth – we’ll make sure you get some change back.

Enjoy!

COLD FISH (2010) movie review

Cold Fish (2010) (1st viewing) d. Sono, Shion

From the writer/director of Suicide Club, Hair Extensions and Himizu comes this wicked black comedy about milquetoast husband Mitsuru Fukikoshi drawn in by charismatic rival fish shop owner Denden, only to have him and wife Asuka Kurosawa instantly exert authority over the milder man’s personal life. And when we say personal, we mean it: child appropriation, spouse molesting, and that’s all before the multitude of murder to which Fukikoshi finds himself an unwitting accomplice.

Sono miraculously balances the increasingly desperate scenarios with an exuberance that buoys the disturbing subject matter, Denden and Kurosawa’s joyous high-wire psychotic enthusiasm driving the breakneck narrative so fast that we, like our hapless protagonist, can barely make sense of it all. Brought to you by the good folks at Sushi Typhoon, this is closer in tone to Takashi Miike’s Visitor Q than, say, the splatterfests of Battlefield Baseball or Machine Girl.