A woman is on a whimsical, quirky and cute journey of self-discovery. I was prepared to give this a solid 3 niqueheads for being adequately entertaining but then in the last ten minutes Instant Swamp earned a 4th niquehead for being so fantastically over the top and hilarious. I don’t think I’ve ever laughed so hard at a movie. In fact, I actually covered my mouth I was so embarrassed by the loudness of my cackles. Oh. My. God. Pure win. Well done, Japan, once again. Well done indeed.

[rating:40]

So yeah. I’m not really sure what to say. I know I want to give this 4 niqueheads. One for each hour. This is an epic story that takes its time getting to where its going but is never slow or dull. It concerns religion, sin, perversion, abuse, exploitation and trickery and is at its core, a rather unconventional love story.

All of the characters are sympathetic, even at their most perverse, and this applies to the villain as much as the hero. In fact, I wouldn’t have minded an extra few minutes added to the story to explore her character further.

This is a Japanese movie so there’s lots of weirdness but it is never unbelievable and always remains entirely linear and coherant. There is a lot of sadness and moments of truly disturbing violence but also a few amusing fight scenes and other sources of hilarity. At a certain point I could tell the film was winding down, or rather winding UP (it is Japanese after all and employs the classic escalation of insanity ending) but I never had any idea of how it would end. It always kept me guessing and while I’m not sure I was always pleasantly surprised I don’t really have any complaints. Love Exposure made me laugh, made me feel and made me think. I commented yesterday that Infestation would not enrich your life but I think Love Exposure actually could. Its not perfect, but it is worthwhile.

[rating:40]

Last night I went to a dinner party and my nuna-tube using friend told a story about being on holiday with her boyfriend in the Dominican Republic. They’d set the table out on the balcony and were about to enjoy a romantic dinner when they were ATTACKED BY A GIANT BUG! It was a fist sized flying beetle, described as big, buzzing and ugly. Naturally, as one can imagine, my friend freaked the hell out. She ran inside, locked the door and wouldn’t allow her boyfriend to come in until he had killed the beast. He of course, was too afraid to go near the thing and had no idea how to even approach killing something of that size. Apparently the horror continued as the insect seemed to be attracted to humans and tried to get in under the door and eat them or something.

Obviously, if this happened to you it would be hella scary but hearing about it happening to someone else is of course, hilarious. This is the same logic employed in Infestation. The world is suddenly taken over by giant insects and a few plucky survivors must fight their way through. I suspect a few moments are meant to be scary or at least surprising but the filmmakers are well aware that this concept is comedy gold.

Just like all films of this type, the main character is a going-nowhere white dude who rises to the occasion and falls in like with the feisty female lead. Fortunately he is played by that cute kid from Joan of Arcadia so I was predisposed to like him. The other characters are fine as well, I have no complaints on that front. Yeah there are some clichés at play and maybe even a borderline offensive stereotype here or there but nothing to prompt a rant. There were enough little plot twists in Infestation to keep me engaged throughout and the laughs were consistent without ever delving into the land of parody or slapstick. It’s a fun little flic that won’t enrich your life but it’ll keep you entertained from beginning to end so yay for that.

3 niqueheads [rating:30]

To the guy sitting next to me: You do NOT answer your cell phone during a movie you goddamn fucknut!