The New Yorker's Richard Brody tweeted a birthday wish for a US release of Yasujiro Ozu's 1933 gangster movie Dragnet Girl. It's a movie that stands out quite a bit from the rest of Ozu's filmography, as I noted months ago in an installment of Discovering Ozu, a feature I've wrestled with how to better curate and maintain. In terms of US release, I feel like we would most likely see unreleased Ozu features in a third Eclipse set, but what in the hell do I know?
In some sort of tribute to one of my favorite directors, I think I've finally cracked a refreshed angle on this project, a tack I'm also taking with Soderberghopolis. I'm going to continue the big, meaty, and numbered chronological retrospective installments alongside more "tumbloggy" entries of a shorter length, like this one. It's never too late to get into Ozu's staggeringly brilliant films. Most of Ozu's movies, including those which only survive in fragments, are now available on Hulu Plus here in the US thanks to The Criterion Collection.