Official Site: Silent Movie Theatre Beginning this weekend, the Silent Movie Theatre in West Hollywood is hosting seven consecutive Sundays of movies by director Takashi Miike. Ticket prices are $10.00 per film. The Silent Movie Theatre is located at 611 North Fairfax Ave, Los Angeles, CA 90036. The theater phone number is (323) 655-2520.

TAKASHI MIIKE: AUTEUR FOR HIRE Sundays in January/February at 9:30pm Takashi Miike is one of the most insanely prolific directors ever to pick up a camera. With almost 70 films to his credit, in just 15 years, this chameleonic filmmaker— a movie world rockstar— has worked in numerous genres, making everything from art house faves to low budget exploitation fare. Miike got his start as an assistant director to Shohei Imamura, working on the Palm d`Or winning film BLACK RAIN and later honed his skill in the Japanese straight-to-video boom of the early ‘90s. There he learned to shoot quickly and economically, and adapt himself to any project. He brags that he rarely turns down a gig. But no matter what the assignment, each film bears his stamp. Miike is most notorious for pushing the boundaries of taste with extreme violence and sexual deviancy, while simultaneously experimenting with both narrative and filmic style. His films, while made at an astonishing pace, are rarely slapdash, and usually carry his trademark gestures of absurd comedy and transgressive imagery. SUNDAY, JANUARY 6 AUDITION (Odishon, 1999) The film that introduced Miike to Western audiences, AUDITION is notable as much for its steely control and slow-building tension as for its jarring tonal shifts, and infamous third act. Lonely widower Aoyama (Ryo Ishibashi) holds fake TV auditions, in an effort to find a new mate. Among the aspiring starlets, he falls for withdrawn, beautiful ex-ballerina Asami (Eihi Shiina), and begins a gentle courtship. But the mysterious Asami is carrying some baggage from her last relationship—literally. (What or whom is she keeping in that lumpy laundry bag on her bedroom floor?) As he falls in love, Aoyama finds himself in a waking nightmare of obsessive love and erotic terror. Whether you take AUDITION as a cautionary tale, horror film or sadomasochistic love story, it will be hard to erase the film’s audacious and shocking images from your mind. (35mm, 115 min.)

SUNDAY, JANUARY 13 ONE MISSED CALL (Chakushin Ari, 2004) If your biggest cellphone nightmare is accidentally dialing an ex or racking up roaming charges, count your blessings. ONE MISSED CALL shows that it can get much worse. After the successes of the cursed videotape in THE RING and the cursed web site in PULSE, the J-Horror phenomenon exploded, and a cursed cellphone wasn’t long in coming. Luckily, the project was given to Miike, who cranked up the Grand Guignol ultraviolence while still delivering the familiar, long-haired, vengeful female ghost that post-GRUDGE audiences expected. In his biggest domestic hit, Miike follows a group of high school friends as they’re slowly picked off in grotesque accidents, after each of them receives a voice mail foretelling their own demise. And, of course, since all of its precursors have been remade, Hollywood has also tapped this one. Catch Miike’s original before seeing its PG-13 doppelganger starring Ed Burns and Margaret Cho. (35mm, 111 min.) SUNDAY, JANUARY 20 BIG BANG LOVE, JUVENILE A (46-Okunen no Koi, 2006) Inside a juvenile detention center, two young prisoners from vastly different backgrounds experience a bond that transcends their tormented past. As they open their hearts to each other, life around them dissolves between a real world murder mystery and a surreal journey filled with images of a primitive past and an ambiguous future. (85 min.) SUNDAY, JANUARY 27 GOZU (Gokudo Kyofu Dai-gekijo: Gozu, 2003) A shocking horror film set in the villainous, decadent society of the Japanese mafia! Minami, a young yakuza, respects his mentor Ozaki who once saved his life. But tragedy strikes when his boss orders Minami to kill Ozaki, who is in the midst of a nervous breakdown. Minami embarks on a journey of bizarre and unexplained phenomenon. (130 min.)

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 3 HAPPINESS OF THE KATAKURIS (Katakuri-ke no Kofuku, 2001) The Katakuri family has just opened their guesthouse in the mountains. Unfortunately their first guest commits suicide and in order to avoid trouble they decide to bury him in the backyard. Things get way more complicated when their second guest, a famous sumo wrestler, dies while having sex with his underage girlfriend and the grave behind the house starts to fill up more and more. (113 min.) VISITOR Q (Bijita Q, 2001) A father, who is a failed former television reporter tries to mount a documentary about violence and sex among youths. He proceeds to have sex with his daughter who is now a prostitute and films his son being humiliated and hit by classmates. "Q", a perfect stranger somehow gets involved and enter the bizarre family who`s son beats his mom, who in turn is also a prostitute and a heroin addict. (84 min.) SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 10 ICHI THE KILLER (Koroshiya 1, 2001) Yakuza boss Anjo disappears with three hundred million yen. His second in command, the brutal Kakihara, leads Anjo’s loyal gang members in the search, but their violent methods worry the other yakuza gangs run by Fujiwara and Jijii. A tension mounts; Jijii uses the mysterious Ichi, a psychopathic killer with a dark childhood secret, to pick off members of the other gangs. (123 min.) FUDOH: THE NEW GENERATION (Gokudo Sengokushi: Fudo, 1996) Riki Fudoh is a highly cultured model high school student on the surface, but underneath lies a deep and Vengeful rage. He witnessed his brother`s grisly murder at the hands of his own father. His father is a powerful Yakuza crime lord, so Riki recruits his own criminal organization. His goal is to assassinate the old generation of Yakuza bosses. (100 min.)

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 17 THE GREAT YOKAI WAR (Yokai Daisenso, 2005) While attending a festival at an ancient shrine, a timid young boy named Tadashi is suddenly chosen to be the next Kirin Rider, a warrior of peace who must defend the world in times of darkness. According to legend, the Kirin Rider must scale a nearby mountain and claim the legendary Goblin Sword guarded by the Great Goblin. When his grandfather is abducted and children from all over Japan begin to disappear, Tadashi decides he must fulfill his destiny. As he heads towards the mountain he encounters all kinds of yokai… strange mystical beings that come in a variety of bizarre forms— some hideous, some cute— and have incredible supernatural powers. The disappearances are the work of the evil Lord Yasunori Kato and his henchwoman Agi the Bird-Catching Sprite. The pair have been capturing yokai and merging them with discarded items to make an army of mechanical monsters called Kikai. Tadashi must unite the good yokai to oppose Lord Kato, with the fate of the world hanging in the balance. (124 min.) ZEBRAMAN (Zeburaman, 2004) In 2010, bizarre incidents begin to occur near Yachiyo Ward in Yokohama, rumored to be the site of a UFO crash. The town is also the home of Shinichi Ichikawa, a down on his luck elementary school teacher. Ichikawa’s life is a mess; his wife is having an affair, his teenager daughter has become a prostitute, and his son is bullied each day at school. The only thing that makes life worth living is ZEBRAMAN, a TV show from Ichikawa’s childhood that was cancelled after 7 episodes due to low ratings. The teacher makes his own Zebraman costume and begins to prowl the streets at night. He regularly encounters a number of strange individuals and soon realizes they are the vanguard of an alien invasion. Can Ichikawa live up to the mantle of Zebraman and save the world? (115 min.)