Cinema Gadfly – Episode 24 – The Happiness of the Katakuris

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 Rankin\Bass 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