230) Black Girl (1966), 231) The Crawlers (1993), 232) The Guardian (1990) and 233) Charisma (1999)

230) Black Girl (1966) Dir: Ousmane Sembene Date Released: January 12, 1969 Date Seen: June 3, 2011 Rating: 3.5/5

231) The Crawlers (1993) Dir: Joe D'Amato and Fabrizio Laurenti Date Released: December 29, 1993 Date Seen: June 4, 2011 Rating: 0.5/5

232) The Guardian (1990) Dir: William Friedkin Date Released: April 27, 1990 Date Seen: June 4, 2011 Rating: 2.25/5

233) Charisma (1999) Dir: Kiyoshi Kurosawa Date Released: ??? Date Seen: June 4, 2011 Rating: 2.25/5

A really fruitful, ateehee, podcast. In fact this is my favorite Bad Idea Podcast yet. Also: How fucking weird is it that somebody out there thought that Troll 3 would make for a good film to open two days before New Year's Eve? How weird, I ask you?!

240) Sweet Home (1989)

240) Sweet Home (1989) Dir: Kiyoshi Kurosawa Not Yet Released Date Seen: July 31, 2010 Rating: 3.5/5

I wish this movie left more of an impression on it. I remember it going on for a lot longer than it should have but I enjoyed the cheesy special effects for the monsters and the set pieces, too. Otherwise, a blip on my radar, unfortunately.

61) Survival of the Dead (2009), 62) The Revenge: A Visit from Fate (1997), 63) The Revenge: A Scar That Never Fades (1997) and 66) Morphia (2009)

61) Survival of the Dead (2009) Dir: George Romero Not Yet Released Date Seen: February 20, 2010 Rating: 2.5/5

62) The Revenge: A Visit from Fate (1997) Dir: Kiyoshi Kurosawa Not Yet Released Date Seen: February 21, 2010 Rating: 3.75/5

63) The Revenge: A Scar That Never Fades (1997) Dir: Kiyoshi Kurosawa Not Yet Released Date Seen: February 21, 2010 Rating: 3.5/5

66) Morphia (2009) Dir: Aleksey Balabanov Not Yet Released Date Seen: February 23, 2010 Rating: 4/5

Really confusing, very thoughtful and fun genre exercises and a surprisingly nuanced political cartoon. See me review all these things in my third dispatch for the New York Press on FSLC's "Film Comment Selects" 2010.

348) Seance (2000)

348) Seance (2000) Dir: Kiyoshi Kurosawa Date Released (DVD): May 2005 Date Seen: October 18, 2009 Rating: 3.75/5

Domestic tranquility is a foreign concept in Kiyoshi Kurosawa's films, one which is constantly undermined by some kind of scabrous psychic discontent that eventually pops so persistently that it simply can't be ignored anymore. Seance shows us the depressing malaise that clings to the ailing relationship of Sato, a sound recording specialist, and Junko, a psychic, (Koji Yakusho and Jun Fubuki) in the film's first half through distant, mid-range photography with a fairly shallow depth-of-focus. Their sheepish grins of encouragement aren't much to write home about until events surrounding a missing girl require them to reassure each other in less discreet ways. Being a Kurosawa film, we're never told about a specific incident or even given a concrete hint as to why they're at their end of their respective ropes trying to keep their marriage together. They just are. Now, unfortunately, that's no longer enough.

Similarly, the elements of the supernatural in the film are not meant to frighten the viewer but rather be seen as hiccups in the characters' daily routines that have almost become naturalized by association. Though the film's ironic series of events cast serious doubts on Junko's supposed supernatural abilities, the banal ghosts that cruelly coincidental sequence of events conjure up are as much a part of the film's murky, ink-smudge landscape as any of the film's extras. An arm lopes over a character's shoulders, a lady in a red dress with no feet drifts slowly out the door of a diner bar, a light pulses on and off in an empty room. These events evoke uneasy titters of laughter* because both Junko and Sato want so badly to dismiss these apparition as part of their everyday surroundings. It's impossible to miss the one time in Seance where a ghost is supposed to be frightening as it's accompanied by mounting Kubrickian silence and the slow creaking of stiff joints. By that point however, the couple both know that their relationship is over, leaving all the other unanswered questions about how or why these spirits manifested themselves through the material objects they did--a hair tie, a napkin--unresolved. Genuinely unsettling.

*Kurosawa encourages this at times in the film--all I'll say is: bagpipes, doppelgangers and kerosene, oh my!--but nearly as much as in, say, Doppelganger, a quirky, messy film that I really need to revisit.