YouTubing-To-Obscure-Shameless-Self-Promotion Wednesdays: Finally! An Imamura Retro

This Friday sees the opening weekend/film in BAM Cinématek's month-long retro on Shohei Imamura, the great Japanese director who died last May. (As far as I can tell, it's complete, though I didn't spot his blessfully odd contribution to the otherwise seriously spotty omnibus film, September 11 -- in fact, the last thing he completed.) Back when I memorialized Imamura, I had only seen a couple of his films. I'm now better caught up, but there's only so much you can find on video, with everything he made before 1979's brilliant serial killer study Vengeance is Mine a blank spot on video shelves. Everything, that is, except 1966's The Pornographers, which Criterion put out a couple years back. Here's one of that film's more out-there sections. For the uninitiated, it shouldn't give away too much, while giving you an idea of Imamura's singularly whack style.

This Weekly!! I interviewed Hustle & Flow director Craig Brewer, whose Black Snake Moan I reviewed; on the same page, you'll find me going off on Maria Maggenti's omnisexual, misleadingly titled neo-farce Puccini For Beginners. Also, Rep, the highlight of which is a longish blurb on Austrian artist Valie Export's brilliantly cluttered Invisible Adversaries (playing up in Gotham, too, I see).