kichigaisatori

I was lucky enough to have seen this on a whim during a film festival and was smacked so hard with what I saw I returned the next night for its second of three screenings. A funny, savage and sharp-toothed attack on every aspect of mainstream entertainment passively swallowed without tasting by the lowest-common-denominator target audience waged by a lone-avenger journalist who slowly takes in members for his guerilla-war on predictability is what the movie's all about, and is executed in such an unpredictable and refreshing way that you're left after the credits roll with hope renewed, and excited that original films can still be made. Anyone frustrated with unfulfilled expectations for something to light up their imaginations would do well to hunt (and I do mean hunt) this scarcely-seen item down. For fans of Fight Club and any Charlie Kaufman film, and required viewing for anyone who avoids multiplexes like a rabid dog.

Every actor in this was given a brief overview of the first film and then told to make up their own lines as they rolled camera, and all the blocking, camera angles and special effects were hashed out early one morning while waiting for the coffee to brew. Some of the set designs were nice but so are several items located in my kitchen cupboards and staring at those for 2 hours would have been a more uplifting and challenging experience. The music is taken from the last K-Tel goth-cash-in compilation (excepting the Iggy and PJ Harvey tracks, brief and demolished as they were), the dialogue trite and non-stimulating, and just because you've been handed a dumptruck full of cash and told to "sort of re-make" the first movie doesn't mean you can't strive for little more than your next music video elongated and dragged across the senses of anyone fooled into paying to see the thing, the glimmer of hope in their eyes snuffed out within the first ten minutes. As it garnered four occasions of laughter at the film's expense I wouldn't say this would be the in-flight film playing on the trip to hell but I also wouldn't mind being refunded the minutes of my life back that were wasted in reaching the end of this unpleasant situation.

Okay, the first time I watched this thing on videotape at a friend's house, I was annoyed beyond words. I didn't even finish it. A few years later it was playing at a repertory theater nearby & for some twisted reason I decided to give it another go, this time on the big screen. And I absolutely love the film now. Maybe my tolerance for the absolutely bizarre grew by leaps or my mind opened up much more than it really should, but this blacker-than-Satan's-heart-on-a-bad-day comedy had me in awe at the absurdity present and nearly in a fetal-position in the aisle laughing my guts out. Crispin Glover may not appear in it, but fans of his MUST see this. Mainstream definitely does not apply in any way, shape, or form here. Oh, and prepare to be offended. Many times.