Kotoba no Renkinjutsushi ~ 言葉の錬金術師 ~

Just finished watching Happiness of the Katakuris, also known as Katakurike no Kofuku.
That was the best crackfilm I've ever seen. That was the best film I've ever seen, period. It's like The Sound of Music, but with zombies. And, as we all know, everything's better with zombies.
The premise is pretty simple. The Katakuri family starts a quaint little guest house in the middle of the countryside. Mama, Papa, delinquent son, slightly trampy daughter, slightly trampy daughter's little daughter, the loveable grandpa, and let's not forget Pochi. Unfortunately for the Katakuri's, all their guests end up dying. And to protect the family business, what can the Katakuri's do but bury the stiffs in the backyard and sing nutty songs about their plight?
The songs are great, the dance numbers are better, and the whole film is filled with little bits of stop-motion animation that are absolutely fantastic. It's a morbid crackfest with the only legitimate feel-good ending I've seen in a movie in years.
Do yourself a favor and pick this up. Or pirate the bittorrent. You will fall in love with this film. How can you not love a film that was plugged as "The Von-Trapp family wanders into Dawn of the Dead??"

Recently watched Last Life in the Universe a.k.a. Chikyû de saigo no futari, directed by Pan-Ek Ratanaruang. Excellent film. I mean really good. Cryptic ending, but really excellent.
It features superstar Tadanobu Asano as Kenji, a Japanese native in Thailand, whose occupations include working as an assistant librarian, obsessively organizing everything from his shoes to the beer in his fridge, and trying to come up with new and innovative ways to kill himself. He is a lonely social recluse (and not because no one wants to befriend him, he just politely shuns all company) who is obsessed with the idea of suicide as a sort of transcendental journey into bliss. During one of his unsuccessful suicide attempts he meets Noi (Sinitta Boonyasak). Their meeting happens during some very tragic circumstances, which I will not reveal here. The stunning Thai native has a rather shady occupation and habits that (when compared to the obsessively fastidious Kenji) are so beyond slovenly that you think the two will end up killing each other when they arrive at her decrepit, filthy home. But instead the two spend several days growing on each other, conversing in a mix of Thai, Japanese and English, and floating towards friendship and a romantic something. That and they do cleaning. A LOT of cleaning. The film gains it's lazy sense of urgency (I know that sounds like a contradicion, but in the context of the film it makes sense) from the fact that, at the end of their weekend together, Noi will be leaving the country for Kenji's native Japan. The film is definitely not fast paced, but unlike other reviewers, I would not call it slow either. Rather it sort of floats along at a natural pace, coming to a strange-but-fitting conclusion that involves a couple dead bodies, some Yakuza and a gun pointed at a toilet.

Some things to watch for:
- The children's story "The Last Lizard." A metaphor for Kenji and Noi's relationship that explains perfectly how two dysfunctional polar opposites can come together and form a relationship that is both simple and beautiful.
- Christopher Doyle's excellent cinematography
- Japanese director Takahashi Miike's cameo as the Yakuza boss
- Kenji's monologue in the beginning of the film. It probably has more words than you hear him say in the whole rest of the film. Compare his stated reason for killing himself to the story of the lizard. Does he want to kill himself because (as he says) he wants to experience the peace and bliss of suicide, or because he is simply lonely?

This film is available on DVD, subtitled, from Amazon.com for $22.99, and can also be found (for free) by searching isohunt.com for "last life in the universe" and DLing the bittorrent file.