Let it not be said that today’s nerds are indifferent to history. For the second year in a row, Fantastic Fest has set aside a portion of its program to pay tribute to classic pink films. Think of these unclassifiable softcore B movies as Japan’s answer to Roger Corman: some are schlocky fun, some are unwatchable, others are subversive works of art. And as Corman’s assembly line gave way to the 1970s American new wave, pinku has given many of Japan’s major mainstream filmmakers their start. The most notorious graduate of the pink school, at least in the States circa now, is Yojiro Takita, whose schmaltzy Departures won the Oscar earlier this year for Best Foreign Language film. The Oscar winning filmmaker is responsible for at least a dozen of the hundreds of pink films in the loose Groper Train franchise. What’s the distinguishing characteristic of a Groper Train film? According to Nadav Streett of the pink film distributor Pink Eiga, who along with Ayumu Oda and was on hand for a Fantastic Fest screening on Sunday of Takita’s 1984 Groper Train: Wedding Capriccio, “You have to have a train. And a preferably there is a pervert, who is hanging out groping women.”
…Read more
I don’t know how many conversations I’ve had since February in which someone trashed the Academy for giving last year’s Best Foreign Language Oscar to the milquetoast Japanese dramedy Departures over edgier festival favorites like The Class and Waltz with Bashir. Now, finally, someone is doing something to restore director Yojiro Takita’s reputation.
The New York Asian Film Festival has just announced that they plan to show two pink films (ie: short softcore features) by the Departures director during their program this summer. Both films are part of the “Molester Train” series, which, according to an IGN review, “explores the unfortunate practice of perverts taking advantage of crowded trains and subways in Japan to abuse female passengers … here fictionally played up for the cameras by AV starlets.” The two Yojiro Takita contributions include Molester Train: Search For the Black Pearl (which the NYAFF press release calls “ridiculous”), and Molester Train: Wedding Capricio. Dates for the screenings haven’t been set yet, but we’re marking our calendars to mark our calendars.
As summer cools down, the movies heat up. In this episode we take a look at what’s coming down the pipe this fall. Sure, some of the season’s movies will be blatant Oscar bait, but we still can’t wait to see what Hollywood has in store.
Yesterday marked the beginning of a week of mutant pigs, autistic kung-fu masters, and Japanese nudity. I’m referring of course to Fantastic Fest, Austin’s genre film destination. We talk to festival programmer Zack Carlson about what to look forward to.
Burn After Reading, the latest offering from the Coen Brothers, won the top box office spot last weekend, but did it win our hearts? We shall discuss.
(Subscribe to FilmCouch–Spout’s weekly movie podcast–in the iTunes store or to our RSS feed and an episode will download each Friday)
0:00 - Intro, listener feedback about The Fall and what we missed at the Toronto Film Festival
4:46 - Fall movie preview
21:27 - Interview with Zack Carlson of Fantastic Fest
31:27 - Burn After Reading
filmcouch-88
