Nikaido, Miho

Henry Fool

Acclaimed writer/director Hal Harley's (Amateur Flirt) HENRY FOOL is a Faustian black comedy that will leave you screaming with laughter at its wild mix of vulgarity antic humor and deeply-felt emotion. Intense nerdy young garbageman Simon Grim (James Urbaniak) sulks through a sexless humiliating lower-class existence. He shares a house in Queens NY with his clinically depressed mother Mary (Maria Porter) and sarcastic promiscuous sister Fay (Parker Posey). Into their mundane existence comes Henry Fool (Thomas Jay Ryan) a freewheeling depraved faux intellectual and writer who inspires the repressed Simon to come out of his shell by writing a book-length poem. He also begins an affair with Fay the two making love at the most awkwardly inappropriate moments. At Henry's goading Simon timidly peddles his manuscript to an unscrupulous publisher setting in motion an unforseen chain of events both tragic and hilarious.System Requirements:Running Time: 137 Min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: COMEDY Rating: R UPC: 043396009837 Manufacturer No: 00983

Simon (James Urbaniak), a shy garbage man, lives with his sister (Parker Posey of Party Girl and Waiting for Guffman, among dozens of other movies) and mother, who both treat him with minimal respect. Into Simon's life comes Henry Fool (Thomas Jay Ryan), a heavy-drinking self-proclaimed great writer who goads Simon into writing an enormous poem. The poem becomes the source of great controversy, proclaimed by some as a great work of art, denounced by others as perverse trash. As Simon's star rises, he tries to draw attention to Henry's work as well, to little avail. Though the premise seems simple, Henry Fool takes on something of an epic sweep as it follows the effects of fame on Simon's and Henry's lives. This rumination on art and inspiration was hailed by some critics as the best film yet by writer-director Hal Hartley (Trust, Simple Men, Amateur), while others felt it brought out his worst self-indulgences. All of Hartley's movies defy easy interpretation, and Henry Fool is no exception. Still, it's a rare film that even tries to tackle such subjects, let alone does so with a combination of intelligence and humor (ranging from verbal quirkiness to scatological embarrassment). Hartley's films, surprisingly enough, feel warmer and more accessible on video; perhaps watching them in one's home makes them seem more intimate and less abstract. --Bret Fetzer

The Book of Life

Tokyo Decadence

A young babyfaced prostitute drifts through the sharp-edged world of kinky sex. An older callgirl in the agency schools her on the trade. Numbed by drugs she encounters a string of wealthy johns with bizarre fantasies. Her own fantasy about love leads Ai away from the skin trade and on the trail of a married artist.System Requirements:Running Time: 112 minutes Language: Japanese Subtitles: EnglishFormat: DVD MOVIE Genre: LATIN/ACTION/ADVENTURE Rating: NC-17 UPC: 891514001658 Manufacturer No: EPO-DV1658

Tokyo Decadence (Subtitled)

The fourth feature film written and directed by the Japanese novelist Ryu Murakami (Coin Locker Babies) revels in S&M episodes that seem to owe less to the Japanese tradition of the "pink film" than to such Euro art-bondage movies as Maitresse and A Woman in Flames. Visually, the sequences stop well short of hard core, and emotionally they are amorphous, too, even less unsettling than standard porno fare. What ultimately saps the movie's strength is its schematic approach to character. The loosely structured picture tags along after a timid young woman named Ai (Miho Nikaido), a recent college graduate who has found work in the big city as a hooker specializing in low-impact bondage. Ai seems less a character than a convenient object for Murakami's flip sense of high-tech alienation. (She claims to have learned only one thing in life: "That I have no talent of any kind.") The nonstick surfaces of her daily life, like her personality, are almost completely without distinguishing features; the only gestures she makes toward taking control are some superstitious rituals prescribed by a sidewalk fortuneteller. Ai herself is such a hazy presence that nothing that happens to her stays with us. --David Chute

Tokyo Decadence [Region 2]

The fourth feature film written and directed by the Japanese novelist Ryu Murakami (Coin Locker Babies) revels in S&M episodes that seem to owe less to the Japanese tradition of the "pink film" than to such Euro art-bondage movies as Maitresse and A Woman in Flames. Visually, the sequences stop well short of hard core, and emotionally they are amorphous, too, even less unsettling than standard porno fare. What ultimately saps the movie's strength is its schematic approach to character. The loosely structured picture tags along after a timid young woman named Ai (Miho Nikaido), a recent college graduate who has found work in the big city as a hooker specializing in low-impact bondage. Ai seems less a character than a convenient object for Murakami's flip sense of high-tech alienation. (She claims to have learned only one thing in life: "That I have no talent of any kind.") The nonstick surfaces of her daily life, like her personality, are almost completely without distinguishing features; the only gestures she makes toward taking control are some superstitious rituals prescribed by a sidewalk fortuneteller. Ai herself is such a hazy presence that nothing that happens to her stays with us. --David Chute

Tokyo Decadence

The fourth feature film written and directed by the Japanese novelist Ryu Murakami (Coin Locker Babies) revels in S&M episodes that seem to owe less to the Japanese tradition of the "pink film" than to such Euro art-bondage movies as Maitresse and A Woman in Flames. Visually, the sequences stop well short of hard core, and emotionally they are amorphous, too, even less unsettling than standard porno fare. What ultimately saps the movie's strength is its schematic approach to character. The loosely structured picture tags along after a timid young woman named Ai (Miho Nikaido), a recent college graduate who has found work in the big city as a hooker specializing in low-impact bondage. Ai seems less a character than a convenient object for Murakami's flip sense of high-tech alienation. (She claims to have learned only one thing in life: "That I have no talent of any kind.") The nonstick surfaces of her daily life, like her personality, are almost completely without distinguishing features; the only gestures she makes toward taking control are some superstitious rituals prescribed by a sidewalk fortuneteller. Ai herself is such a hazy presence that nothing that happens to her stays with us. --David Chute

Erotic sex or dangerous fantasy? You decide! In the most lavish penthouses, visible only through the keyholes, there exists a dangerous and erotic world. High-paid prostitutes who specialize in high-stakes games make the rounds. The richer the client, the wilder the ride. When fantasy gets too rough for one young call-girl, escaping becomes her reality.