Film Comment Critics' Top Ten 2006
Film Comment Vol.43 No.1, January-February, New York, 2007

In alphabetical order:

ASSPLOITATIONS 4 (2005, dr. Aurora Snow)
(Self-directed/produced DP DVD porn by Aurora Snow.)

CROMARTIE HIGH (2005, TV series dr. Hiroaki Sakurai)
(Anti-anime JD-parody from the manga by Eiji Nonaka.)

FUNKY FOREST (2005, dr. Katsuhiro Ishii with Hajime Sihimine & Shunichiro Miki)

IS THIS THE WAY TO ARMADILLO? (2005, dr. The Munganator aka Sgt. Roger Parr)
(UK Ministry of Defense-posted amateur lip-synch video by The Royal Dragoon Guards in Al Faw, Iraq, to the song "Is This The Way To Amarillo?" by Tony Christie.)

LINDA LINDA LINDA (2005, dr. Nobuhiro Yamashita)

MIND GAME (2004, dr. Masaaki Yuasa)
(Based on the Osaka manga by Robin Nishi.)

ROCK STAR SUPER NOVA (2006, cable TV)
(Second CBS series based around band formed by Jason Newstead, Gilby Clarke and Tommy Lee.)

THE SUN (2005, dr. Alexander Sokurov)

TAKESHIS (2005, dr. Takeshi Kitano)

THREE TIMES (2005, dr. Hsiao-hsien Hou)

---

Terra Incognito - MIND GAME

Robbe-Grillet's dissolution of objective inscripture and Beckett's resolution to the void float like vapours across MIND GAME's multi-planar interpolation of Osaka yakuza parody and fucked-up twenty-something schisms. Most of the action takes place in the belly of a Japanese whale after Nishi has been shot in the arse but rages against the gods to return to earth to live life to the fullest. Again, the phantasmagoria of anime represents both the zenith of narrative malleability and - for western cineaste intelligentsia - an imperceptible terrain. Maybe MIND GAME is so 'not' cinema. But maybe it is what 'crisis-ridden' cinema cannot perceive of itself.