I'm looking for an existentialist Japanese western performed in mime by Mr. Potatohead figures.

Miike is not obscure.

I am totally psyched for this movie.

I saw this at the New York Asian Film Fest, got the shirt, the free beer and the Japanese snacks. And I'm gonna see it again in the theaters next week. While I loved The Dark Knight and Wall-E, Sukiyaki was the only movie this year that inspired me to go out and make something of my own.

And by the way, The Audition is unwatchable? Were you the guy in the audience in Washington, DC, way back in 2001, who fainted during the finale? And did you even see Visitor Q? Or Imprint? Both brilliant, but both jaw dropping.

Also, the lead is smokin' hot.

Hardly. And while some may lament that his films garner more international attention than, say, Kore-Eda's, I think it's quite deserved.

"Audition", far from unwatchable, is essentially a feminist revenge parable that's much more sympathetic to its protagonist/antogonist (which is she?) than such Western tripe as "I spit on your grave". Certainly, one is sympathetic to her victim, but if the film was by Breillat I think we'd be discussing his tacit acceptance of Japanese paternalism and bringing a much more negative critique to his misogynistic charade. That film was in fact reworked into a later season episode of "Buffy, the Vampire Slayer".

At any rate, "kirri kirri kirri..." (and if you've seen the film, you'll never forget the purring delivery of that line).

But I prefer many of his earliest works. "Ley Lines" may well be my favorite. "Rainy Dog" is up there, as well. And though it sometimes becomes a tad overly sentimental for my taste, I'll always have a place in my heart for "The Bird People in China".

But the Miike film that slapped my melon silly wasn't "Audition" or the underrated "Gozu" or the overrated "Ichi, the Killer"... it was the episodic satire of the modern media, classic Japanese family melodrama, and, well, uh... sex? incest? necrophilia? lactophilia? ... that is "Visitor Q".

It's relatively tame. After I watched it I had to do some research online to make sure I wasn't seeing the edited version because it was not nearly as severe as I had been lead to believe.

I can see someone having problems with Imprint though.

But it couldn't top El Topo.