My guest for this month is Christa Mrgan, and she’s joined me to discuss the film she chose for me, the 2001 surreal horror-comedy film The Happiness of the Katakuris. You can follow the show on Twitter @cinemagadfly.
Show notes:
- Takashi Miike has made an astonishing 90 films in his career, but none quite like this one
- Thematically it would be hard to have two films as different as this one and our last episode on Ozu’s An Autumn Afternoon
- Arcadia, California was home to at least one video store, in 2004
- It really is quite hilarious that both An Autumn Afternoon and this were released by Shochiku, how the world changes
- Shochiku were, of course, also the sometime home to films by Nagisa Oshima, and Mikio Naruse
- As well as the phenomenally goofy films of their horror period, so brilliantly captures by Criterion in the When Horror Came to Shochiku Eclipse set
- Those films were inspired by the likes of Godzilla, and Jigoku
- House, by Nobuhiko Obayashi, is a much watch film if you even kind of enjoy this one
- The RankinBass production of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer has undoubtedly caused its share of nightmares
- The Big Lebowski is one of my all-time favorite films. I can quote it endlessly
- I’d really like to see The Quiet Family someday, just to see how far this adaptation strayed
- Sadly you won’t find this film on Netflix
- As of this writing, you can still watch the film on Fandor though
- The film is also coming to iTunes, as of the end of August, 2016
- It was also released on Blu-ray by Arrow in a Region A and B edition
- If you can find a copy of Nowhere you’re in for a treat, there has never been a Region 1 DVD
- If you’re ever in Portland you should absolutely check out Movie Madness, it’s an incredible store
- And, yes, they have the knife from Psycho
- I love Letterboxd
- Civil Comments is amazing. You should all check it out!
Buy the film from Amazon
Buy or rent the film from iTunes
