While others are preparing for their holiday joy by stringing lights, setting up sweet-smelling trees, and sharing photos of loved ones, I'm feasting on Takashi Miike films.

If you've talked with me for any extended period of time over the last two years or so, you've heard me talk about this gonzo film maker. To paraphrase one reviewer: The USA has David Lynch, Canada has David Cronenberg, and Japan has Takashi Miike (pronounced, for the record, as "mee-eee-kay," not "mike").

My addiction started with what must be considered (for a deeply fringe artist) his big mainstream hit: 1991's Audition. I was told this film was a horror movie, but almost the first HOUR is played like a Japanese pop romantic comedy. But when the shift happens ... it's like Miike holds us the filmic contract with the audience and rips it to pieces. Even now after seeing it countless times on DVD, it's hard for me to breath during the last 45 minutes. And it's hard to keep your eyes open for the last ten. Believe it.

For my bachelor party this past summer, I gathered my lot of male friends and went to the U.S. premier of Miike's Gozu. It has, for my money, the most amazing ending I have ever seen committed to film. When the screen went black, my heart racing like it was being chased, I stood and cheered.

This all leads me to the fact that after last week, when I saw the U.S. premier of an old Miike film from 1998 called Andromedia (which featured the most starling traffic death I've ever seen -- I felt like I was the one hit with the truck), I was convinced that I had to watch as many of his films as I could get my hands on.

Which will not be easy, since he's directed -- wait for it -- over 60 films since 1991.

Yeah. Six-zero.

Today I watched Fudoh; tomorrow, the perverse Visitor Q.

Oh, and happy holidays.