Uzumaki - anybody else really interested in this.

[Chadzilla]

Surreal Japanese horror movie about an obssession with spirals that literally spins out of control.  Based on a manga and getting good buzz.  I really want to see this one, I was pleasently surprised to see that Teleport City did a review, but I only skimmed it as I wanted to avoid as many spoilers about this as possible.

Here's the link

http://www.teleport-city.com/movies/reviews/horror/uzumaki/.html

here's the distributors page

http://www.jpopcinema.com/uzumaki

anybody out see it, or really interested in seeing it?  Squishy have you heard of it?  This just looks delightfully creepy and weird.

[Mofo Rising]

I think it looks pretty interesting.  I enjoyed the manga when it was being serialized in PULP.  The same magazine also had quite an in-depth review of the film.  PULP has since folded, but the same company is releasing them in graphic novel format here in the States.

Anyway, currently coming to a theater nowhere near me.

[Squishy]

I haven't seen the film, but I did enjoy the manga in PULP, as Mofo mentioned. The manga involves a curse on a town that regularly subjects its residents to uzumaki (spiral)-related horrors. As is normally the case with Japanese horror-manga, it was stomach-churningly graphic, but not pointlessly so. Brr, spooky.

[Foywonder]

A lot of people really like this movie and others absolutely hate it. I would put myself in the latter. It was so slow moving and boring as hell that I eventually turned it off after 45 minutes and have yet to go back and finish it. I don't get the love for this movie. Even surreal horror has to have some sort of logic to it and this one is just trying to be weird without any semblence of actual plot and, as I said, it moves slow as hell.

[Chadzilla]

He said he hated plot.  "If I want a story I'll read book, movies are about pictures, visuals..." and so on and so forth.  I'm just expecting weird and waiting for a release date.

[Cullen]

The movie is as twisted as hell (pun intended).  I came in maybe halfway through it and was hooked, big time.  Creepy and weird, with images like you wouldn't believe.

Excellent movie.

[Foywonder]

Even a plotless, weird movie shouldn't be slow and boring.

[Mofo Rising]

Foywonder wrote:
>
> Even a plotless, weird movie shouldn't be slow and boring.

Well, it depends on the plotless, weird movie.

Take for example the fact that I'm a huge David Lynch fan.

At face value, a weird movie like LOST HIGHWAY and MULHOLLAND DR. are long and meandering.  A lot of people really don't like David Lynch for that.  But at another value the movies are riddles to be solved.  Or as Lynch likes to put it, they are long jazz numbers, complex and devoted to bringing about esoteric feelings in the viewer.

So slow and boring to some may be fraught with meaning to some, and completely retarded to others..  That's always the way of "weird" movies.  They appeal and speak volumes to a few, and are completely stupid to others.  That's why they're "weird".  This is pretty much why cult movies are cult movies.

I still haven't seen UZUMAKI.  It may interest me like a Lynch film, or I may think it's self indulgent tripe like COMPANY OF WOLVES.

Um, that's kind of off-topic.  Does anybody know when BATTLE ROYALE is getting a release here?

[Brock]

Battle Royale is pretty much officially never gonna be released in the states.

Not that I would ever promote anything illegal, but movies such as "Uzumaki", "Battle Royale", and "Ring" are fairly easily obtained from bootleggers over the internet.  Or so I've heard.

But I do feel there's a difference between flat out bootlegging, and distribution of movies otherwise unavailable in the states.

Also, region free dvd players and eBay can be your friends.

[Mofo Rising]

Yeah, I bought a copy of BATTLE ROYALE off eBay, but it was almost worthless.  The DVD had what looked like waterspots on it, making the second half unwatchable.

Seen the first half, no idea how it ends.

[chris]

I really enjoyed it.  I was renting Japanese horror flicks a lot and this one does stand out becase of it's bizarreness.  Definitly worth seeing.