MidnightEye Updates with Tom Mes & His 'Sukiyaki Western' Review, plus Miike at Venice.

I don't often mention MidnightEye these days, then again I don't mention a lot of things I would have once mentioned regularly these days. Still, one thing remains, despite the ravenous appetite and interest for Miike over the last five years in particular, the man still suffers from what could ultimately be a similar situation to a lot of directors who were once popular - it's hard to be certain they're getting a solid, fare and fully-considered crack of the whip, and it's certainly hard to be sure who'll stick by him over the years to come, because the discussions (which remain relatively cursory for the most part) tend to run in certain directions as though we can't see beyond the ruts in the road and steer out of them.

We've been lucky and he's potentially cursed because of it, but probablyt Miike is better represented in terms of how available his work is beyond his borders than most working in Japan now, and certainly better represented than any prolific director of decades gone by, but he certainly suffers from this double-edged sword by how familiar many feel they are with what he does. There's a myriad of varying opinions on what he does, what he does well and what he does badly, what the elements are in his work and what's hard to be certain of - some labels and descriptions are true, but they only run so far, some labels aren't used nearly enough and they're hard to make heard. One thing remains, I trust Tom Mes every inch of the way to be confident, complete and objective in his take on any Miike project... this man wrote the book on Miike, literally.

MidnightEye's Miike at Venice Coverage & Sukiyaki Western Review by Tom Mes.
MidnightEye contributor Jason Gray's Review at his Blogspot Is also worth a nose.