R100 (Hitoshi Matsumoto)

[Thirdmango]

IMDB

[Thirdmango]

I saw this at Sundance and absolutely adored it. It's the ultimate comical movie about S&M.

[Stay Puft]

Ha. I'll be surprised if this actually gets released over here. I'm surprised Warner Bros. even got behind this. It was billed as a sex comedy when it screened at TIFF but that's way off the mark.

Here's what I wrote when I saw it last year:

It wasn't until close to the end that I realized what Matsumoto was doing here. He has made his own version of Takeshi Kitano's Glory to the Filmmaker!: a celebration of an artist's freedom of expression. It's proof that Matsumoto still has a ways to go before he can get on Kitano's level, but it's also impressive that Matsumoto has established such a rich and singular cinematic voice in only four films. This is by far the strangest thing he has done, but as a comedy of escalation it's outrageously funny, a slow burn to insanity (even the screening reminded me of seeing the Kitano here a few years back: at both screenings, there was a guy sitting next to me who was quiet for the first half of the film, seemingly not reacting to it at all, and then at one point was finally defeated and just lost it and started laughing uncontrollably).

[Stay Puft]

Ha. I'll be surprised if this actually gets released over here.

Well, I'll be damned! Drafthouse picked it up. Released it a couple weeks ago. Will be available on Blu in March.

Can a mod bump this to 2015, plz? I dunno how many Match Cutters would actually venture out to see this but the visibility wouldn't hurt...

[dreamdead]

I've been tracking this one for a few years, and noticed that it's starting getting midnight release dates in Chicago. Nothing here in OK, sadly, so I'll be waiting for a DVD or InstantView addition.

[Stay Puft]

Here's the new red band trailer (approved for 100 year-old humans):

I've been tracking this one for a few years, and noticed that it's starting getting midnight release dates in Chicago. Nothing here in OK, sadly, so I'll be waiting for a DVD or InstantView addition.

There are plenty of On Demand options at the moment:
http://gowatchit.com/movies/r100-268215

And thanks for bringing this thread over, dreamdead. But did we destroy the poll in the process? That and the thread ratings seem to have vanished. Can Thirdmango add a poll back in or?

edit - and fixed, thanks to all involved

[dreamdead]

So this has been on Amazon Prime's instant watch for awhile now. The first hour is the strongest for me, balancing absurd details and transgressions with actual pathos and empathy for the wife lost in a coma. There's a real sense of history in the husband's interactions with her, which help enable Matsumoto to then go for broke in the first hour without losing or overwhelming central loss.

The last twenty minutes, sadly, are where the film loses me. I'm utterly fine with the meta-excursions about "what's it all mean," but when our hero battles back rows of anonymous ninjas and then does battle with the CEO, the film's unable to build to anything other than an empty release. So rather than my empathizing with the culmination, it just felt... limp. The tone switches from a balance of form--comic absurdity within drama--to one that is without any ultimate stakes.

That first hour, though, is quite fun.