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Gregg Araki's latest film is receiving lots of attention in art-houses around France. In what seems to be another controversial effort from the director of the now notorious DOOM GENERATION Araki has created a plot that to say the least sounds quite "interesting"- a teenage hustler and a young man create a friendship based on their obsession with alien abductions. See the official site and trailer here.

Regards,
Svet

Marin Karmitz's empire MK2 will release two Bresson sets as what appears to be a Pan-Euro release (multiple sub options). Street date is May 18.

Complete line-up

Un condamné à mort s'est échappé
Lancelot du Lac
Le Diable probablement
Le Procès de Jeanne d'Arc
L'Argent
Pickpocket

***
MK2 is easily France's best production house so this clearly will be the definitive Bresson set.

Regards,
Pro-B

From the day that Shinya Tsukamoto’s Tetsuo: The Iron Man hit these shores he has had a rock solid global reputation as a cinematographer and experimentalist, known for shooting bizarre, visceral sequences of images obsessed with the interaction of humanity and technology. His reputation on that front is well deserved as Tetsuo is a true masterpiece of experimental film making and it has been justly hailed as a masterpiece of cyberpunk art. What people miss with all the hype around Tetsuo, however, is Tsukamoto’s growing desire, and ability, to wed his more surreal urges to living, breathing human characters, creating some stunning character studies in the process. He first got the mixture right with Bullet Ballet and, after a brief foray into commercial film making with Gemini, Tsukamoto returned to his distinctive vision with 2002’s A Snake of June, a film that I truly believe stands as Tsukamoto’s masterpiece.

Continue reading "A Snake of June Review"

Whoever's hosting this thing is probably getting slammed right now, so don't expect it to come in real fast, but the first proper trailer for the Wallace and Gromit feature film is now available here. In another ten minutes or so I'll even be able to watch it.

Spotted by Logboy over at AICN.

Tony Hawks won't be a name familiar with that many within the UK, let alone elsewhere, but his face will be familiar and you will have seen he on any number of television shows over many years. His brand of unusual and very accessible comedy is something I, as a Brit who watches more comedy than I have hot dinners, highly recommend.

Apprently his first (very sucessful) book "Round Ireland With A Fridge" is being touted as a movie (Brendan Fraser suggested as the lead), and it's about a stand-up comedian trying to hitchhike around Ireland, with a refridgerator, in a month. Hawks also has another book out there called "One Hit Wonderland" where he tries to have a hit single somewhere in the world, and travels writing songs to achieve that aim.

Worth sticking in your next Amazon order, or getting from play.com if you live in the UK. Great Stuff.

Via DarkHorizons.com.

Firstly, theres 3 new movies and 2 new OVAs in production in Japan based on the original manga for "Fist of The North Star"... starting in Spring next year with the first movie and spreading out over the following couple of years til the end of 2008. Blimey.

Secondly, the Initial D live action movie website is open... there's and english version too. Spotted at KFC forums. Ahem.

Thirdly, Hiroyuki Nasu, the director of last years Devilman live action movie has died of cancer at the age of 53, in Tokyo Hospital on the 27th of February. Not trying to turn the site into a specialist in film obituaries, but we have had a few lately.

These are appearing at all kinds of places, so no particular source for these...

After I posted information about The Wretched - the UK produced zombie western slated to star Chow Yun Fat as a bounty hunter - a while back and the news began to circulate around the web I saw a lot of talk on different message boards questioning whether this was for real or just a lot of talk. Apparently I wasn't the only one to think it was a strange piece of casting.

Well, Chow's wife was quoted in Monkey Peaches saying that he was doing it and I've just gotten word from the film's UK production company that the director is currently in Mexico scouting locations. So this one is definitely for real. My guess is that thanks to the sheer amount of work left to do to prepare for the Pirates of the Caribbean sequels that Chow will have time to get this one, which will be a fairly short shoot, in first and then move on to play with Depp and co.

After seeing all the strong reactions to Calvaire - a film I still haven't seen myself - I've gone off searching the web for trailers a few times with no success. People who have seen the film either really love it or really hate it and I just really wanted to see what all the noise was about ... well, now I can. A reader in France just sent me the links to the official trailer and four clips (one, two, three, four) from the film. Don't know what I'll end up thinking of the finished film - releasing here as The Ordeal sometime later this year - but I like the look of the clips ...

Thanks to Fred.

So, Canfield called me in the middle of last week to say he'd gotten the official word on a pair of new Kiyoshi Kurosawa discs coming from HVE. But did he post the info? Nope. Did he email them to me as promised? Nope. So we went out and cribbed them from the KFC Cinema message board. Kurosawa's Seance and Charisma will both be hitting DVD in North America on May 17th and both are pretty much essential purchases. Now if only someone would pick up Barren Illusions and The Adventures of the Do Re Mi Girl ...

I'll have to forgive Canfield this time, though, since he is interviewing Danny Boyle for us right about now ...

Sorry. I was off having a semblance of a social life - with a person of the opposite gender, even - and didn't watch the awards. I haven't even checked who won, though I did see a headline that a local boy won for best animated short. Anything interesting happen?

Go see M. Ward if he happens to be in your town. Nummy.

Well it should come as no surprise to anyone. It's official, Catwoman is the worst picture of the year. Catwoman took home four Razzies last night [Worst picture, actress, director and screenplay]. Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 also took home four [Actor, Supporting Actor, Supporting Actress and Screen Couple]. The only other film to take home a Razzie for the year was Scooby Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed [Remake or Sequel].

Other awards were given out last night to mark the 25th anniversary of the awards.

Continue reading "Catwoman and 9/11 get a bad case of the Razzies"

A couple weeks back Aint It Cool ran a review of some mystery film coming out of Thailand ... the reviewer wasn't sure of the title, didn't know anything about the director, but was so enthusiastic that they ran the review anyway.

Well, the film in question is P, by former British child actor Paul Spurrier, who believes that this is the first ever Thai film shot by a westerner. Spurrier sunk years into learning Thai language and culture to make this thing and it shows. It tells the story of a girl raised in a remote Thai village by her grandmother who is forced to go to Bangkok and work in a go-go bar to support her family when her grandmother becomes ill. But here's the thing: grandma is a witch and has taught the girl the magic arts, arts she uses to her advantage in drawing 'clients' to herself in the bar. Things, of course, get out of hand ...

No stills yet, but we do have the trailer and it looks fantastic. Check it out.

Yeah, this one made me squirm ... a cheery tale of a serial killer / cannibal who preys upon small children in Thailand. Production design looks fantastic and there are some shots in the trailer that made me just about as uncomfortable as anything in Fruit Chan's Dumplings and for similar reasons. The full website exists in both Thai and English versions and includes a good batch of video files, plus an extensive gallery, on top of the official trailer.

Though I won't actually be watching the Oscars this year - got tickets to see M. Ward who I love and have never seen perform live before - I do try and keep a running tab of who's winning what leading up to them and the Independent Spirit awards are the last major set handed out before the little golden men. Those happened tonight and Alexander Payne's Sideways made a clean sweep, taking all six awards it was nominated for. The other major Oscar contender in play was The Sea Inside and you may as well just go ahead and give it the best foreign film award already, because it just won another one of them. I've lost count how many "Best Foreign / Best International" awards this thing has won already ... Check the full list out at Variety.

Where to even begin with something like this? Fusing elements of the teen sex comedy, martial arts epic, police thriller and the musical, Bangkok Loco is one of those massively genre hopping efforts that tend to fail miserably when attempted in North America but succeed occasionally overseas. The only film I can think of that comes even close to the mix of elements on display here is the woefully underappreciated Six String Samurai but Bangkok Loco’s lurid color scheme and caffeine driven pacing break that comparison down as well. Here’s all you really need to know: it’s very odd, very good and very funny.

Continue reading "Bangkok Loco Review"

Had no complaints about doing it this way last time, so here's another early Artsmagic review. This time it's the first four episodes of the twenty episode anime series "Salaryman Kintaro" which dates from 2001, released at four episodes per volume, five volumes in total, starting in May this year.

Also a live-action series with four seasons under its' belt, and a popular manga, the anime series thankfully stands alone effectively, and gives all the background to Kintaro's circumstances woven into the first show, then slowly reveals further details as things progress. It's a great little fun show that traces Kintaro from gang member to business man.

Continue reading "Salaryman Kintaro.The Anime Series. Early DVD Review : Volume One."

Our big Constantine contest has come to a close and someone is now the proud new owner of a stack of Constantine related merch ... a shirt, hat, screech beetles and a poster to be precise. To enter the contest we asked you to name the actor who played the irritating sidekick in the first of the three major Garth Ennis penned comic titles to get the big screen treatment. Well, Ennis' big three are Judge Dredd, The Punisher and Hellblazer. Dredd was the first to get the big screen treatment and that makes the answer to our triva question Mr. Rob Schneider, who I'll not mock here for fear that he take out a full page ad in Variety threatening to give me noogies. Which actually wouldn't be bad press for the site, come to think of it ...

And the winner is ... Christine Fidance. Congratulations Christine!

The official Sony Classics poster for the North American release of Kung Fu Hustle has just been released. It's nothing at all like I was expecting but I like it quite a lot. We got a larger version here.

Here's one courtesy of Kurt Halfyard, aka the ever present Triflic. The UK DVD of Hungary's Kontroll is slated for a March 21st release. If the DVD Times specs are correct it's not such a hot release - especially when compared to the loaded, and subtitled, Hungarian releases - with a non-anamorphic widescreen transfer, forced subs, 2.0 audio and only a 16 minute making of feature - give us the excellent music video, at least - but my guess is that this will be the only DVD release to come from the English speaking world and I have yet to find a site carrying the Hungarian release that you can navigate without being fluent in Hungarian. Which I'm not.

I'm kind of torn on this one ... there are SO MANY things that the film does incredibly well that I just really, really want to love it but I ultimately felt let down by the ending. We've got multiple reviews in our archives and Kurt's got one of his own here. Trailer here and music vid here.

Just a curiosity thing on my part, call it an informal survey. I give Colin Farrell the tag in the Miami Vice post below, and given their incredible willingness to coast on reputations earned in their past work I'd have to include John Travolta and Robert DeNiro on my list as well, but I'm curious who you people feel are the most over rated actors working today. Fire away.

Here's a little something that Logboy sent my way whilst I was preparing to file my income taxes last night - Yeah, there's a good idea, do your own taxes at one AM. Any bets on how long it takes me to get audited? - some set pics from the film adaptation of Miami Vice.

Now, I'm actually pretty curious to see what they do with this despite the presence Colin Farrell, who I consider pretty much the most over rated actor of this generation. It was quite possibly the best show of its era, certainly the best cop show, and the presence of Michael Mann and Jamie Foxx gives me great hope. Check the shots out here, but be warned that it's a Farrell fan site, so he's all you're getting.

Via Coming Soon.

I don't know that I'd be so interested in this one if not for the production company involved but I've read some good reviews online and the trailer holds promise. I have a certain fascination with seeing what people do to follow up on success and Turkish Gambit - a historical war / adventure film - is the latest film from the Russian production house responsible for The Night Watch. The Russian industry is in an interesting place right now ... after decades of neglect a new crop of film makers are injecting some fresh blood and audiences are turning out in record numbers, so much so that Russia is now the third largest film market in mainland Europe, behind only France and Italy. If they can build on their past success we could be seeing the birth of a major new power in the film world ...

Anyway, enough of that. The film's website is here and you can check the trailer out here. Hard to say for sure because you don't get a very good look at his face but I'm pretty sure I spotted the lead actor from Night Watch getting blown through the air ...

The Guide speaks! Marvin speaks! The whale falls from the sky! It's only available as a streaming Windows Media file at the moment, but there's a new Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy trailer here.

It's a very brief [5 questions via E-mail] and not wholly satisfying interview but it gives just a taste of what should be a film of true Kitano style and brutality.

- First generation Korean-Japanese Kim Jun-pyeong, the man you played in the film, is a man who rules his kingdom through money and violence. What do you think made him that way?

"On the 31st day of shooting, I separated my right shoulder, and it was like hell afterwards. Moreover, I had to deliver lines in the Osaka and Jeju dialects, so it was quite difficult."

Click here to read the full article with Takeshi Kitano about Blood and Bones.

via Chosun.

Well this is just plain fun. As if I needed another excuse to go to Korea other than Kim Chi and the ladies.

Say hello to the Cine i-Studio theme park in Seoul, S Korea. There's not much to tell from the official web site because my Korean is limited to polite phrases and pick up lines [okay. just polite phrases] and Babelfish wouldn't translate it for me. But the jist of it is that the theme park recreates sets and props from well known Korean movies and television shows and visitors can interact with them. For Korean film buffs this should be tops on your list of things to see if you're ever over there.

Where's my plane ticket!

"Visitors can enter a North Korean observation post just like the one in the movie "JSA," which tells the story of two South Korean and two North Korean soldiers becoming friends, and then becoming involved in a murder mystery.

Or, meet Oh Dae-su, the main character in Park Chan-wook's film "Old Boy," the story of an average man who gets kidnapped and imprisoned in a hotel room for 15 years due to an old classmate's revenge he never knew about. The set even offers the famous fried dumplings from the movie".

via Chosun and HanCinema.

ADV Films are issuing the legendary anime series "Gatchaman", bastardised and edited into oblivion and released (here in the UK, probably elsewhere too) as "Battle of The Planets" and "G Force". It's one of those series i watched as a kid, and have fond(ish) memories of, so it could be a tempter...

The first two volumes ($15 each - 250 minutes each volume) and a special package containing both of those and an extras disc ($45 rrp) will be June 14th, and they seem to be going to town on it - see the lovely artwork shown here which must have cost them a few bob. Has anyone here abouts seen the original version of Gatchaman? All I want now is Go Nagais' "X-Bomber" aka "Star Fleet" and perhaps a few other shows that I remember too.

Just a reminder that today is the last day to enter our Constantine giveaway contest. Click here for all the details.

Oooh ... Cinema Blend has some new pics from the Tim Burton / Johnny Depp remake of Charlie and the Choclate Factory and they look, ahem, sweet. I'm just itching to see Burton pull out all the visual stops on this ...

Now go watch the trailer again and get that song locked deep into you subconscious.

Wow. The full trailer for the Amityville Horror remake has turned up online and it looks to have a shot at being one of the best American horror films of the past decade or so. Seriously. There is some legitimately creepy stuff in there and the cast looks fantastic. Don't know why it is but there's just something about Mr. Alanis Morisette that I find immensely watchable and now that he's decided to actually put some effort into his work - he's talked openly about changing his approach in the local press - he's turning out to be a pretty solid actor. Nice.

Oooh ... Salon is streaming five Oscar nominated short films here until midnight tonight. They make you watch an ad to get into the site, which is irritating, but the ad is for Be Cool which softens the blow somewhat.

via Greencine.

Here's something that started popping up all over the place yesterday and came as a bit of a surprise to me ... Dino Di Laurentis has apparently told the Italian press that not only is there a fourth Hannibal Lecter film in the works but that Gong Li has been cast for the film. Between this, 2046 and Memoirs of a Geisha that means Li should be making a pretty strong impression on North American audiences over the next year ...

The new film is a prequel revolving around Hannibal's early years and is titled The Lecter Variation. Word is that Anthony Hopkins may have a cameo or narration role but they are currently at work casting the character at various ages.

Not really news, here, but a week or so back Svet posted a note singing the praises of a German / Turkish co-production titled Head On (Gegen Die Wand), a film that has won stacks of major international awards but is only available with English subtitles in a hard to find Korean DVD release. I emailed YesAsia about it at the time and they've just added the film to their catalog so if you've been looking it can be had here. I'd also recommend checking out the official website here.

Here's one for Crazybee, just because I know how much he loves his Danish film ...

Wellspring has just picked up all North American rights to Dear Wendy, the anti-gun collaboration from Dogme 95 co-founders Thomas Vinterberg and Lars Von Trier. Directed by Vinterberg and scripted by Von Trier (in English, by the way) Dear Wendy raised more than a few eyebrows at this year's Sundance Festival with people once again challenging Von Trier's right and ability to criticize US culture considering that he has never once set foot on American soil and never will given his extreme phobia of flying.

You can check the official website here and read on for the full press release.

Continue reading "Wellspring Picks Up Vinterberg's Dear Wendy."

Here's one more reason to subscribe to all those "Focus is the new Miramax" comments ... Screendaily is reporting that Focus has just bought all non-Italian rights to Roberto Benigni's The Tiger and the Snow. I have a bit of a mixed reaction to the man myself - I find him simultaneously immensely talented and immensely irritating - but there's no denying his influence in world cinema. From the enclosed synopsis it sounds as though he's been somewhat humbled by the immense critical and commercial flop that was his version of Pinnochio and he's returning to more commercially viable waters:

"The film, written and directed by and starring two-time Academy Award-winner Benigni, is in post-production and will be released first in Italy on Oct 14. Benigni plays a poet desperately wooing the woman of his dreams until they suddenly find themselves suddenly in Iraq on the eve of war."

Think they're gonna play up the connection to Life is Beautiful with this one? Naaaah ...

Marc Evans' Trauma was a casualty of Toronto Film Festival programming for me last year ... I really wanted to see it but the day previous had been a five film day and I was suffering from a major case of burnout and ended up sleeping right through the early screening. DEJ Productions - nope, I haven't heard of them either but apparently they're an offshoot of Blockbuster - have picked up all North American rights for the film and are planning a DVD release for June 14th. Check out the official - and very creepy - website here.

Via Screendaily

What better day was there in grade school when your teacher wheeled in that old Bell & Howell Super 8 projector on those cold war era mobile stands and you got to watch public service announcements about acne, feudal farming systems and wankel rotary engines. Now you can re-live those golden years thanks in part to the creative minds behind Look Around You, the educational school film spoofs by Peter Serafinowicz [Spaced and Shaun of the Dead and also the voice of Darth Maul] and Robert Popper.

Where is Toronto on the Periodic Table of Elements? Up and to the right of Music.
Where do germs originate from? Germany.
What is the boiling point of water? 1,000 degrees.

Nothing is right in these shorts so that even calling them educational is a misdemeanor. But then that’s not the point. But not only are the falsities laughable but they ram so many sight gags into each episode that second and third viewings are required to catch most of them. Coming in just shy of 10 minutes each of the 8 educational shorts [Maths, Water, Germs, Ghosts, Sulphur, Music, Iron and Brain] is chock full of titters and laugh out loud bits.

Continue reading "R2 DVD: Look Around You review"

Hurray! Another solid North American source of Asian films! Fangoria has got the scoop on Panik House, a new DVD imprint focusing on Asian horror fare. Coming in July from Panik House will be Bangkok Haunted and The Omen, a pair of Pang Brothers related titles, but the big 2005 release comes later in the year with The Uninvited, a film that I absolutely love. Sweet. Check out the Panik House website here.

Logboy just dropped a note to point out that Bloody Disgusting is hosting the trailer for the Paul Schrader version of the Exorcist prequel and it looks like fairly nice stuff. It's been zipped, so it's download only.

Now, I've not actually seen the Renny Harlin version of this but I have no problems whatsoever saying that this one will be better purely because a) the Schrader trailer looks quite good and b) Harlin makes Very Bad Films and his continuing employment classes as a Mystery of the Universe.

Though I didn't find it up to par with his earlier work I'm still quite happy about this wee bit of Life Aquatic news ... speculation started to circulate that Criterion would handle the DVD release for Wes Anderson's latest even before the film hit theaters and that speculation has proven correct. The DVD Times has the full specs for the May 10th release here. It'll be coming in both single and double disc editions with a healthy stack of bonus features on the two disc set. The one major disappointment is that the commentary offering is scene specific only - there is no feature length commentary. Too bad, because Anderson's an interesting guy ...

It's been up to varying degrees for a while but the full and complete version of the North American website for Stephen Chow's Kung Fu Hustle is now alive and well at KungFuHustleMovie.com ... even if you don't feel like playing one of the games you really should go and watch the trailer twenty or thirty times. Just because.

Glory! It's only one theater in New York so far, but Koren genre hopping madhouse of a film Save The Green Planet has itself a theatrical release date for its domestic run. It'll hit New York City's Film Forum on April 20th and hopefully expand somewhat from there. I love this film - and am still a little surprised that a company the size of Koch Lorber was willing to take a chance on it - and I've got to say that even if you've seen it on DVD you really should see it on the big screen if you have the chance. It definitely shines in the larger format ...

Read on for the full press release:

Continue reading "Save The Green Planet Theatrical Release Date!"

Another fine review courtesy of Twitch regular Kurt Halfyard aka Triflic, this one of Olivier Assayas' Clean, starring Maggie Cheung.

French director Olivier Assayas is an interesting filmmaker. He makes his films to look real first and cinematic second. He loves open endings (and this film is no exception). And he can always make his actors feel like they are their characters. With Clean, he tells the story of Emily, a actress/singer mother who is addicted to drugs and loses her boyfriend (and father of their child) to heroin she purchased.

Continue reading "Clean Review"

Here's one courtesy of Stauffen's Japanese Film Blog ... Migakagami is an independent short film that features some of the same people responsible for Gusher No Binds Me (AKA Hellevator) and, though the trailer is streaming only and had some buffering problems, it looks to have a similar lo-fi sci-fi aesthetic ... check it out. There are a few other good links over at Stauffen's at the moment, so be sure to click around ...

Ah, Kurt, you're a good man ... obviously aware that I'm a huge fan of Darren Aronofsky Kurt just sent me a link to this detailed review of Flicker, the novel that will apparently be the basis for Aronofsky's next film once he wraps up The Fountain. I'm still a little bummed that Aronofsky had the Watchmen film taken away from him but the sting of that is eased somewhat by the fact that he has rights to some fascinating properties - including Lone Wolf And Cub - and, if this re-issue of the novel is any indication, is actually all set to go with at least one of them. I think I've got me some reading to do ...

Short notice before it begins issuing, but here it is - a recent Production I.G piece, still airing (and will be when the first volume arrives i believe) in Japan. Cromartie has 26 episodes, at 12 minutes each, over 4 discs when it arrives here. First volume can be bought in a box with the original manga thrown in (i think...), and is pretty cheap too even though the RRPs at $30 and $45 respectively i can see them listed for $17 and $25 instead.

The series is about a bunch of delinquent teenagers, and Freddy Mercury too it seems. The english-dubbed trailer is online, Production I.G.s japanese-language |episode guide and other info is too. Then there's the Japanese official site for the series, and finally there's the Anime News Network info / ratings (ahem), and the animenfo ones too.

The visual style is heavy line drawings, reminding me of "Fist of The North Star" - not cutesy anime, so - anyone seen it? 'Cos i haven't, but I am tempted.

We love our executive transvestites. Love 'em to death. So it brings me great joy to announce that THINKFilm has bought the North American rights to the untitled doco of British comedian Eddie Izzard.

But wait. There's more. THINKFilm hopes to unveil the picture at the Toronto International Film Festival in September accompanied by a live Izzard show! To the rest of the world I say - HA!

Can you say Huzzah? I knew you could.

via ScreenDaily.

Not familiar with your executive transvestites? Experience Eddie at his web-site.

Sometimes a film review tells me more about myself than about the film itself. I think I finally get anime' but it still doesn't mean the form isn't light years behind what it could be- especially for it's size. But one of the better recent examples is Sky Blue. More emotionally resonant than most anime despite it's overblown sci-fi premise, and character dwarfing visuals. Then again maybe it's we anime fans who are the characters. Movie, video game or something in between? You decide.

Continue reading "SKY BLUE AND ANIME IN REVIEW"

I noticed a Katsucon post at AnimeNewsNetwork in the last couple of days that said in the title it was about specific Media Blasters licenses, and not expecting anything new after the recent slew of announcements I didn't check it out. Well, I discovered today that it happened to mention MB have the rights for the USA release of Takashi Miikes "Izo".

I have the CK disc from eBay but didn't get to watch it last night - it's a tough one to call, as it should be from the R2 Japan disc, and Miike films often have what appear to be visual faults which are actually visual styles... that and many won't have seen the Japanese disc and the CK one. Personally, being in the UK the disc cost me £11 including shipping, so it's cheap enough to double-dip and get the official release if i decide to when it gets issued - no telling when that will be.

MB will also be releasing Miikes "One Missed Call" which is perfectly good on the R3 HK disc, and its' sequel which is by another director, and recently opened pretty well in Japan at cinemas.

Good chance i will pick this up : this time on 4 discs at an RRP of $90 instead of 7 discs at $30 each. The highly rated anime series gets a nice little boxset, which i would love to see more evidence of from other companies - still.

The Animenfo ratings and votes system says the animation, story etc are all highly regarded and there's always thread with recommendation of the show around - plus it's by Gonzo who always seem to do a nice job. You can load a trailer into a window at the ADV site here.

ADV have now also put up a dedicated GANTZ site with trailers on.

Spotted at AnimatedBliss.

We'll stop talking about it once everybody's seen it. The US trailer for OldBoy is online here. Via Opus.

Zowie. A Bittersweet Life was already high on my 'to-see' list but this just bumped it up a notch or two: a minute and a half of behind the scenes footage aired on Korean television. The measured pace of director Kim Jee Woon's A Tale of Two Sisters? Yeah, that looks to be out the window. Very long takes of some pretty intense fight scenes ... I've got to see how the final footage of that tight alley fight comes out ...

Via Filmacco.

Olivier Assayas' Clean - which won his ex-wife Maggie Cheung the best actress award at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival - has just been announced on Korean DVD and, yes, the Korean release will feature English subtitles! I've not caught this one yet, but you can bet I will come March 17th. The DVD is now available for pre-order at YesAsia.

A pair of other interesting titles over there ... Kung Fu Hustle is now in stock and shipping, as is the Thai horror flick Shutter. Nummy.

Oooh ... Logboy just sent me a link to a quartet of clips from the dubbed version of Steamboy over at Yahoo and, shockingly, I like the dub quite a lot. Normally I loathe voice over dubs, but this one is helped quite a lot both by the solid voice cast and the fact that the film is set in an alternate version of Victorian England. That last bit helps the English voices fit in rather a lot better than is normally the case with anime dubs. You can check my full review of the film in the archive.

A new behind the scenes featurette for The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe has popped up online. This one is a bit of a puff piece of director Andrew Adamson so don't expect a lot in terms of in depth reporting, but it features a stack of fantastic shots of sets and locations. Between this piece and the earlier footage focusing on the work WETA has been doing on the film I'm absolutely convinced that this will look absolutely stunning ... I probably read this books ten or fifteen times before I was twelve so I'm pretty excited to see them being done and done well. Check the footage out here.

Thanks to Tracy for the heads up.

Man, it has been a bad few days for news like this ...

Veteran actor Miao Tien has died of cancer in a Taipei hospital. Miao was a popular figure in 1970's kung fu films and was a recent favorite of Taiwanese art-house director director Tsai Ming-liang, last appearing in Tsai's Goodbye Dragon Inn as an elderly man watching a screening of King Hu's Dragon Inn which featured a much younger version of himself. He was 80. A full obituary can be found in the Taipei Times.

Thanks to Juan for the link.

Only days after we posted the news about John Woo's return to his homeland this is just in from CityonFire and IMDB. Jackie Chan is going home!

"The Hong Kong native, 50, is selling his five-bedroom Beverly Hills mansion for $6.7 million, after realizing he only spends four to six weeks a year in the city"

May I be the first one to volunteer to help you pack and send you on your way? I don't mean for that to sound malicious but really now, Hollywood hasn't been kind to Mr. Chan for a few years now. We have said it before: Asian fim stars like Chan should go back to their roots and we would get a much finer product from them. Case in point, the awesome New Police Story vs. the laughable Around the World in 80 Days? Exactly.

It may take the general viewing public longer to see a finished product from the likes of Chan and John Woo but you can better it will be worth the wait. They do so much better back home.

What do you do to follow up an amazing year where you will likely win cinemas highest honor for your acting skills? Apparently, if you're Jamie Foxx, you make a movie with the master of the Bigger, Louder and Dumber philosophy of moviemaking, Rob Cohen.

Remember him? You probably don't since you didn't need to have your brain turned on when you watched his movies, The Fast & The Furious and xXx, two movies I never thought I would find myself mentioning on this site. To the 12 to 14 male demographic - Your savior has returned.

Click here to see Jamie Foxx in the trailer for the next Rob Cohen movie - Stealth.

How's this for a plot? Deeply ensconced in a top-secret military program, three pilots struggle to bring an artificial intelligence program under control ... before it initiates the next world war. YahooMovies

This could be great summer popcorn fluff, it's just that I have found Cohens most recent movies too stupid to enjoy and there are other things that bother me about this movie.

1. Chicks flying military aircraft?!!? Yeah. Right.
2. FilmRot says, Think Top Gun (but more vapid) meets Short Circuit (but less cute) meets Starship Troopers (check out those helmets) meets Independence Day (but less entertaining). Bingo!
3. Jamie! Bookums! What's one of the first rules of any action movie?
Dude! The Black man always dies! You deserve better than Hollywood action movie cliches.
4. Are we ready to watch Jessic Biel in another action movie after the failed Blade: Trinity? Right. Stupid Question.

Look. I understand that Jamie Foxx is entitled to pick which projects he wishes. He's earned that right. I just hope there's something else beyond Stealth and that this doesn't sink his career when he's done so well. I guess we'll find out with Jarhead and Miami Vice.

via YahooMovies.

Read this over at the DVDTalk.com forum, but apparently it's also posted somewhere at KFC forums. Eun-ju Lee, who played Young-shin in "Tae Guk Gi" or "Brotherhood" has been found hanged at the very yound age of 25 by her brother. The unfortunate and untimely end comes not long after her final role in "The Scarlet Letter", and is reported in English by a Korean site here. Her (as yet not updated) IMDB entry is here.

Got here to my machine to find an email from Japan courtesy of Teppodama, whom i must have emailed when we were looking into Shimizus' "Marebito" a long time back. Teppodama has pointed to an April 2nd DVD release for the film which stars Shinya Tsukamoto, but i haven't looked into the issue of Subtitles yet, so expect a slight edit or update on this post at some point.

Anyhow here's the details specifically for Marebito : Publisher: GENEON Entartainment. Release No: GNBD-7171. Price: 3,420Yen（with Tax 3,591Yen). You can view a streaming trailer still (realplayer or windows thingy) here. There's also a site i havent seen before (as far as I remember) for the EigaBancho series, of which the films is part, here.

There's also news in that last site of a simultaneous release of a boxset containing the whole EigaBancho series, plus individual releases for all of the films within.

Oooh ... Chelle from DonnieYen.us just dropped me a note to say that the official website for Tsui Hark's Seven Swords is now online here. It doesn't look to be finished yet, but if you click around a bit there are some mighty pretty pictures to look at. Hopefully a trailer will pop up soon. She also floats word that Sha Po Lang is currently in the editing phase and that, yes, the director is apparently putting together a trailer. It's going to be a good year for martial arts fans with Donnie Yen finally moving back in front of the camera ...

The name Hunter S Thompson may not have been at your mind's forefront when you woke up this morning, but a few hours ago (Sunday night) he was found in his Colorado Home dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.

Hunter penned the book behind Terry Gilliam's "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" - and has also penned the novel-turned-screenplay "The Rum Diary" currently in the works with, again, Johnny Depp and Benicio del Toro.

Thompson joins the already-too-long list of celebrities that have shuffled off this mortal coil in the last year. The "Remembering...." segment of this year's Oscar's will be very long... Christopher Reeve, Rodney Dangerfield, Janet Leigh, Johnny Ramone (okay, not an actor), Fay Wray, Jerry Goldsmith, Marlon Brando, Ray Charles, Ronald Reagan, Peter Ustinov, Ossie Davis, Johnny Carson Man oh man....it keeps going...

- The Denver Post's article via AICN

Whee. I found a preview article for the movie Crying Fist in The Seoul Times. The 'fourth' effort from the director of the wildly successful Arahan, Ryoo Seung-Wan, is due to hit theatres in Korea in April.

What we didn't know until now is that Crying Fist is really based on two real-life stories, Director Ryoo's perceptions of both... men striving to overcome the desperate situation they are in without losing their positive outlook and hope. What if the two men, each with their uniquely remarkable stories, were to go up against each other in one film!

Some excerpts from the director and his two stars; his brother, Ryoo Seung-Bum [Arahan], and Choi Min-Sik [Oldboy]

Choi Min-Sik This project was meaningful and quite satisfying for me. The movie may seem rather crude at first but it is a deep penetrating look at human nature and the way a man is made or ruined under pressure. I believe that the inspirational message of this movie is needed in today's society of indifference.

Ryoo Seung-Bum Of course it was tough physically but the mental difficulty far surpassed the physical side of it. I was also quite hesitant to throw punches at such a respected and mature actor as Mr. Choi.

Ryoo Seung-Wan Working with my younger brother and an accomplished actor such as Mr. Choi was a great experience. I noticed that Mr. Choi is always joking, eating snacks, and generally not paying much attention to filming but when the camera light turns on and I shout 'action!', he suddenly snaps right into character and becomes a different man. This was something I wasn't used to as my brother Seung-Bum is always in character when filming a movie. Even when the camera is not rolling, he stays in character lest he lose the 'feel.

via HanCinema and TheSeoulTimes.

Is John Woo done with Hollywood? He's still got a couple films to finish up here but it looks like that may be it for him. Crienglish is reporting that Woo has bought a luxury villa in the outskirts of Beijing and plans to relocate his family there with the stated aim of refocusing himself on the Asian film industry. Ah, John ... we hardly knew ye ...

And in the unsubstantiated rumor of the day Jennifer Garner is currently heading the list of possible actresses to play She-Ra in Woo's coming He-Man film, a move which should promptly end the Hollywood careers of all involved. The move to Beijing makes more sense now ...

It's just a place holder at the moment but the official website for the League of Gentlemen's Apocalypse has gone online. And though the Universal UK website still lists April 22nd as the UK release date I'm hearing rumblings that the release has been pushed back to June 3rd.

Right-o. Got a couple of interesting trailers dug up from the BIFF lineup posted yesterday and I've got a stack more today ... here we go ...

Vanity Serum. Italian serial killer flick takes a good rip at what's got to be the most banal tv industry in the world. Trailer starts off slow, but the musical selection at the mid-point brought a big ol' smile to my face ...

Vaterland. Surreal Czech dark comedy ... reads like a social satire of post-communist Czech culture. A little hard to get a feel for but it looks pretty good. Teaser here and trailer here. Both in Windows Media format.

Riding the Bullet. Never been a fan of Stephen King based films and this one doesn't look to make a believer of me.

Les Revenants. I missed this one at last year's Toronto Film Festival and I'm kicking myself for it now ... the dead return, but not in typical zombie fashion. They just want to come back and live with us. How do you handle the logistics of a wholesale rising of the dead? How do you handle the actual return of a lost loved one? A totally revisionist existential take on the zombie genre played totally straight ... I really need to look this one up.

Dead and Breakfast. Comic zombie splatter. I find it very strange to think that some people will automatically file this in the same genre as Les Revenants, but there you have it. Looks very low budget but a lot of fun.

Rojo Sangre. Out of work actor employed as a doorman at a theater recreates classic murders. Very stylish and very, very bloody. I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure Fangoria's bringing this one out on DVD. Trailer the first and trailer the second.

Hypnos. Uber stylish Spanish supernatural thriller from the good folks at Filmax. This one gets my vote as the best trailer of the lot ... teaser one, teaser two, full trailer. Filmax seems to have added some new trailers to their site since the last time I was there, by the way, so dig around a bit. Their stuff is always quality.

Hotel. Sigh. They spent a lot of money on a solid Flash-designed site for this one just to have the trailers - apparently - refuse to load. And since it's Flash I can't even pull out the direct links. Maybe it'll work better for you than it did for me ... minimalist horror film revolving around a series of disappearences in a hotel. Was part of the Un Certain Regard lineup at the 2004 Cannes Festival ...

Shallow Ground. Another very low budget one here ... naked teenaged boy completely covered in blood arrives in a small town and commences with the slasher action.

Jacqueline Hyde. This one makes Shallow Ground look like major Hollywood studio product ... ridiculous spin on the Jeckyll and Hyde thing looks to be mostly an excuse to get naked a lot and kill people in an over the top sexual manner.

Shinya Tsukamoto is always and forever going to be known primarily as the director of the intense and intensely strange Tetsuo: The Iron Man. It is a situation that must be both a blessing and a curse for the man. On the one hand he has instant name recognition and instant credibility, but on the other he has progressed so far from the days of his metallic creation that he must feel somewhat restricted by his reputation. Case in point: 1998’s Bullet Ballet. That this film has lain neglected for so long is simply shocking. It is, without question, a masterpiece that would have jetted any other director to immediate international acclaim on the art house circuit but it played just far enough against type for Tsukamoto that it was allowed to slide into obscurity.

Continue reading "Bullet Ballet Review"

Yeh, two things in one post - not strictly film, but heavily related and fun to watch. Firstly, I love the old videogames still, and I've seen clips of the upcoming (April) game based in the Star Wars universe but made entirely out of LEGO. See the trailer (which you can also download) here, and official site (not fully operational but kind of there) here. The game looks quite tongue-in-cheek and could be a complete pile of tripe in the end, but this trailer is FUN.

Also, some in the UK may have seen this next one, which may be playing in other countries... It's the Golf GTI advert which features remixed / rejigged footage from "Singing In The Rain" featuring Gene Kelly. It's so cool - probably better than that recent "Transformers" type car advert. Watch him breakdance his way down the street, boddy-popping and all. Download by right clicking and saving this, or just click that to open a window with it in.

Wow ... I first heard word of Anders Klarlund's Strings a while back and I've been itching to see something of it ever since. The film is a historical epic told with marrionettes, and at roughly the same time that the Team America boys were doing a piss-take on the art form Klarlund was putting together a film that, by all accounts, is well nigh a masterpiece. I've just stumbled across the French website for the film and the trailer certainly lives up to my expectations ... and english release sometime please? Hello? Anyone out there?

What the ...

How have I not heard of this before now? The Wretched is director Andrew Goth's (Everybody Loves Sunshine) horrific spin on the spaghetti western with - wait for it - Chow Yun Fat cast in the lead role as a bounty hunter. This thing's still in early pre-production but the official site does include a gallery of pre-production art and story boards that leaves no doubt that Goth is going for the full on zombie effect.

Chow Yun Fat in a UK shot western zombie flick ... that's just wacky ...

Just browsing the program for the Brussels Fantastic Film Festival - scroll on down for news of that - to see what I can find and I came across Cold and Dark, a bloody hybrid police thriller / horror film. The official site - complete with trailer - is here and there's some compelling stuff there though I've got to say that I find the presence of Little Britain's Matt Lucas totally jarring ...

Glory! The trailer for Richard Linklater's A Scanner Darkly has turned up online here! I caught this on the big screen in front of Constantine on Friday and my immediate reaction was that Linklater may just be the first person since Ridley Scott to do justice to a Philip K Dick film. Just brilliant stuff ...

Yes, yes ... I cocked it up last time I posted this, but this time I actually took the time to download and view the file to make sure it was what I claimed it was. And it is. The new Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy trailer in glorious, high resolution Quicktime. Yummy.

I know a lot of people aren't looking kindly on this one, but I love the original film and I honestly quite like the trailer for the remake. Which is a rather long winded way of leading into a post saying simply that there's a new poster for the US remake of Dark Water. Here's a bigger version of it.

Perhaps one of the best films to come out of Europe last year the Turkish/German production Head-On is still widely unknown in the US. The German born Turkish director Fatih Akin (In July) has pretty much won every major award there is to win in Europe: the FIPRESCI Award (Berlin International Film Festival), Golden Bear for Best Director, The German Camera Award, The Spanish Goya Award (Best European Film), The Best Director/Best Film Award from the Italian Syndicate of Film Journalists, the list goes on and on.

For those of you willing to test my words take a chance and track down the only English friendly DVD version- the official South Korean DVD. Last September when I first had a chance to see and promote this production there was no English version available now there is one- look for it, SEE IT.

Svet

From the creator of the highly acclaimed Fucking Amal and Lilya 4-Ever comes the latest production A Hole in My Heart. Set for a May 16 release in the UK A Hole in My Heart has already generated an enormous amount of buzz between critics and casual filmgoers.

It appears that Moodysson has gone even further after the controversial Lilya 4-Ever this time focusing on the subject of amateur pornography. Needless to say I hope for a quality package from the Brits that will hopefully include all of the extras currently announced for the Swedish official DVD which is set for a March release.

There are people out there dedicated to a single cause. They wake up each morning and know what they have to do and they do so willingly, knowing that the work they do makes the world a better place. They are a largely neglected group. No one knows them by name. No one says hello to them when they walk down the street. It is a lonely existance. I'm talking about stuntmen and women people. And for just pennies a day you and your family can support a stunt professional of your own... erm.

I don't watch a lot of fluff. Though I make room for it the type of movies I LOVE to watch usually involve destruction of a biblical scale. And someone usually gets hurt - very badly. Someone's gotta take the fall, right? Someone has to make you believe that the fall you just witnessed hurt like the dickens, right? That person is the the stunt professional. And they're feeling sadly neglected right now people. Aw. Somebody wants attention.

Four groups [Stunts Unlimited, the Stuntmen's Association of Motion Pictures, the International Stunt Association and Brand X] representing film stuntmen plan to lobby the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to include a new Academy Award category next year acknowledging the dangerous work that so many modern movies rely on to sell tickets. What they are lobbying for would be a category that acknowledges the work of the Stunt Coordinator - the person[s] responsible for the development and execution of said stunts.

Conrad Palmisano, president of the Stuntmen's Association, "For what we do, why shouldn't we be acknowledged for the work". If it were not for stunt work, most of today's movies would suck nuts. They rely too much on big special effects [which is a category] and big action scenes [which is not] instead of solid scripts and good acting. And lets face it. Jackie Chan movies [the good ones I mean] would not be the same if we didn't get our blooper reel at the end of the movie.

Further in the Yahoo! article, Jon Pavlik, a spokesman for the Motion Picture Academy, acknowledged the work done by the stunt groups, but said the group's Board of Governors is reluctant to add new categories for several reasons, including that each new honor might diminish the importance of the current awards. Hollow-wood's biggest coorporate butt-slap is concerned about the importance of current awards? Ahem. "Who are you wearing?" Riiiiiight.

I guess what also may scare them could be the acceptance speeches. "Wow! Who'da ever think I'd end up on this here stage. I only just re-learned to walk after that horrific car crash in that movie with Will Smith. Hey Will! Remember when I crashed that articulated lorry and caught on fire in your place? How you like me now, Beotch!"

Oh dear.

What do you think? Should stunt professionals be given a category? IF such a category existed which movie would win this year's Oscar. My vote would probably go to Born to Fight b/c some many of those guys and gals should be dead after what they did for the sake of action cinema.

via Yahoo! and thank you CityonFire for the lead.

Yes, yes. No pictures on this batch of posts. I'm off being familial in the hinterlands of Ontario, in the land where you're pretty damn lucky to have the internet at all, so don't even bother asking for a high speed connection or decent image processing software. I'll try and add pictures when I get back home ...

The reviews are just flying in this week ... one that I meant to write myself a while back but never quite got around to - I hang my head in shame - was for Jan Kounen's beautifully shot psychadelic narco-western Blueberry. Far too strange for mainstream Hollywood the film nonetheless has an awful lot to offer from the cast lifted from the A-list of B-actors to the incredible cinematography and it's odd ode-to-Native-America-by-way-of-France storyline. Anyway, Twitch regular Kurt Halfyard (AKA Triflic) has just sent his two cents in on the film and they're two quality cents.

Continue reading "Blueberry (aka Renegade) Review"

After catching our eye with news of the upcoming Genius Party anime anthology - featuring new work from Shinichiro Watanabe of Cowboy Bebop, Samurai Champloo and Animatrix fame - last week, Patrick Macias has posted all the director and title details over on his blog as lifted from the official flyer for the project. Voila.

“10 leading Japanese Animation creators of today come together to offer a stunning visual feast of cutting edge imagery and artistry. 10 geniuses, 10 completely new works. In production NOW!”

Dimension Bomb
Dir: Koji Morimoto

Twilight World
Dir: Shinichiro Watanabe

Nayorani
Dir: Mahiro Maeda

Space-Time Wars
Dir: Shoji Kawamori

Dream Machine
Dir: Masaaki Yuasa

Genius Party
Dir: Atsuko Fukushima

Moondrive
Dir: Kazuto Nakazawa

Touni
Dir: Tadashi Hiramatsu

Limitcycle
Dir: Hideki Futamura

“Wanwa” the Puppy
Dir: Shinosuke Harada

*Information contained herein, including titles and content are subject to change.

Wow ... someone at Fox Searchlight really likes Russia's Night Watch. I mean, they REALLY like it. Screen Daily has run a story detailing Fox's plans for the film, which they label one of the largest global roll-outs for a non-Hollywood film ever. How big? A simultaneous June release across all of Europe ... 200 screens in the UK, 200 in Germany, 150 in Italy and at least 250 in France. Fox has got an equity stake in the two planned sequels to this so it's not surprising to see them push, but this level of support is a bit of a surprise. As is their explanation.

'"We want to pursue this aggressively," [Christian] Grass [Fox International VP] said. He pointed to the success of films like Zhang Yimou's Hero in both the US and UK as evidence that "foreign language is much more accepted now than it was a few years ago. The markets have changed and we hope to ride on this wave."'

Uh ... Christian? I like the film and all, and I'm glad you do too, but that's no reason to go off on the crazy talk. "Foreign language is much more accepted"? Uh ... Christian? In all those territories but the UK ALL of your product is foreign language. Whether it's English dialogue or Russian being subtitled makes no difference to someone who speaks Italian. And comparing this to Hero? Are you mad? The ONLY connection is that neither film is in english. A bit of a tenuous point to plan a marketing campaign on there ... it's nice that you're looking outside your own borders, really it is, but it'd be helpful if you'd stop being so caught up in yourself while doing so ...

Oooh ... Logboy just spotted a note over at Gorezone saying that Tartan US - who have been doing a mighty fine job on their releases thus far - have new Region One releases of Shinya Tsukamoto's Tetsuo and Tetsuo 2: Body Hammer in the works. These sets will feature new transfers and interview segments along with other special features lifted from the UK issues of both films. That same article also states that the Tsukamoto starring / Shimizu directed Marebito will hit R1 DVD this summer with Tsukamoto's Vital coming in the fall. With Bullet Ballet and Snake of June both slated to hit next month and both Gemini and Hiroku the Goblin planned for later in the year that makes for one mighty fine catalog of Tsukamoto releases by the end of the year ... sweet ...

I'm really cursing the fact that I'm on dial-up right now because there is just so much fantastic stuff coming to the Brussels International Festival of Fantastic Film (say that three times fast) that I'm going nuts waiting for all of the pages to load ... the full program for this year's festival just went online today and there's a fantastic mix of familiar and new titles. On the familiar front: Takashi Miike's IZO, Shinya Tsukamoto's Vital, Nimrod Antall's Kontroll, Three Extremes, Hellevator (AKA Gusher No Binds Me), Arahan and a whole lot more ... on the new front there are a half dozen films out of Thailand (P and Pisaj look particularly interesting) and a bunch of stuff from continental Europe ... basically if you're a cult film fan, this is the place to be. Someone with a better connection than I have right now check out the complete program here and let us know what looks good ...

Thanks to The Gomorrahizer for the link ...

Before I went all gah-gah for Z there was one woman who captured my heart and made me fear for my life at the same time. Michelle Yeoh was that woman [though at the time it wasn't a subtly pronounced Yeoh but a rather emphatic YO!]. Wing Chun, Heroic Trio, Magnificant Warriors and Supercop 2 quickly joined the wall of DVDs. And then there was Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon. Yeoh and Zhang on the screen. Myself trying ever so hard to not yell out, "Saucer of milk for table two!!!" It was a Kung Fu threesome!

Which is why I am glad to see Michelle involved in Memoirs of a Geisha. And while controversy looms about non-Japanese actors filling the roles I am overjoyed that I get to see not only Yeoh and Z on screen but also the classy Gong Li too. Dang! I need a moment alone, with my thoughts, and a prayer.

Oh. I almost forgot why this post is here. MonkeyPeaches posted a link to an interview with Michelle Yeoh and director Rob Marshall about Memoirs. You may find it intersting.

While Logboy wasn't completely jazzed about the Japanese original this news may have him spitting venom, given his admiration for Takeshi Miike. From the newsboards of CityonFire, Intermedia and Kadakowa USA will produce the English-language remake of the Japanese horror film One Missed Call. I didn't see any news on casting or who was helming the picture.

A reminder for those who don't know about the movie: The story centers on a college student receiving a cell phone message from herself three days in the future as she is being killed.

Logboy also noted in a recent post that the sequel is currently playing in Japan. It hasn't done terrible. It has made more than $6 million over two weeks.

Part of film festival action is that studios clamor to purchase rights to films. What a relief it was to be at TIFF last september and not hear the words, "Miramax has bought the rights to..."

Word from the Berlin Film Festival is, Toshiba Entertainment has purchased the rights to Park Chan-wook's Sympathy for Lady Vengeance for a sizable $3 million. Toshiba has handled Park material before. Both JSA and Old Boy were Toshiba properties in Japan. Given the success of Park's films on the domestic and international stage and the already present relationship between Toshiba and the Korean distributor CJ Entertainment you trust that the Japanese release will be given a suitable release.

A person concerned of Toshiba Entertainment is said to have commented that we are proud of putting director Park Chan-wook's latest film on our line-up once again, saying this film will be the best film of director Park. HanCinema

Korean films are enjoying enormous success in Japan in the last year. Windstruck, starring My Sassy Girl's Jeon Ji-hyeon, is the latest of a string of Korean films to ride the Korean Wave and have box office success in Japan.

via HanCinema and KoreaTimes.

Somewhere in my area of personal protest against home decor, my room, is a Toronto Blue Jays game day press package signed by Canadian directing legend David Cronenberg. I'm just sayin...

We've received good news today that Cronenberg's next film Painkillers just got studio backing from international producer Andras Hamori and his H20 Motion Pictures.

Painkillers is Cronenberg's first original script since eXistenZ... It is set in the world of radical performance artists and looks at "plastic surgery as performance art" according to Hamori.

Cronenberg is a god [small g] in Canadian cinema and has hailed international acclaim for films such as The Fly, Crash, Naked Lunch, and Spider. He is in post-production for A History Of Violence starring Viggo Mortensen and his next project is London Fields.

via ScreenDaily.

I was looking for a suitable image to put to this. Namely the one Todd and our web monkey Dave managed to get from Alex Proyas' personal assistant, giving him the finger. It was classic. Maybe they'll be able to dig it up?

Moving on. Another thing Todd told me about ths morning was that Alexander the Great has been set to helm production of a super-natural thriller entitled Knowing.

"Knowing" is the story of a man who unearths a 1950s time capsule with children's drawings predicting the future. One set of drawings depicts horrible events that already have come true, but one of the events has not occurred, and the man sets out to prevent it from happening.

Now this sounds like it is right up Proyas' alley. For those not familiar with his work if you have seen The Crow, Dark City or I Robot then you have seen a Proyas movie. The man is an artiste. And given the nature of Crow and City in their twisted little ways this could be a really really good movie.

For the record I also think Garage Days is tip top as well.

via HollywodReporter.

A special thanks to Todd for ignoring his civic duties and protecting the city of Toronto from the tender licks of hot flame. How's that five-alarm fire in the beaches doing Todd?

Anyhoo. He called me up this morning so that you may know that Constantine has been banned in Brunei because of its depiction of demon possessions, visions of hell and a renegade angel...Brunei has some of Southeast Asia's strictest censorship guidelines for movies and songs, especially involving material that might be considered offensive to Islam, according to an Associated Press report.

The report does go on to say that an edited version of the film was released in Malaysia, another strong Islamic country, with slight editing for language, but did not find the religious content unsuitable.

via SciFiWire.

Yoji Yamadas latest film, following on from "The Twilight Samurai" which is just about making it to other regions, makes its' own home-territories DVD debut on April 28th. Following what seems to be a failrly regular occurance in recent times, the film was only in Cinemas late last year.

Both the Standard Edition and the Special Edition are at Yesasia.com for preorder now, the cheaper one at just shy of $40 and the more expensive at just over $60. You can still visit the Official Site, and read the Japan Times review also.

Spotted at the AsianDVDGuide.com forum.

Okay, it wasn't my find, but it's definitely the find of the day ... Filmrot has just posted a link to twenty eight (!?!) black and white photos taken by Jeff Bridges on the set of Tideland. Check 'em all out here. Sweet!

Remember how we posted to the best website ever a while back? Well, check this out. Fake? Oh, yes. Funny? Check. I don't think I've ever seen any other film maker generate this sort of response ... so maybe you can say that good ol' Uwe actually is good at something.

Via Filmrot.

Title says it all, really. Check it out here. Hi Jessica.

Via Filmrot.

Fresh on the heels of his excellent take on Guerilla: The Taking of Patty Hearst, Jim Tudor has just sent in his thoughts on Constantine ... we just might have to keep this guy around ...

Keanu Reeves returns to the realm of action-packed spiritual mumbo jumbo with his latest effort, “Constantine”. Adapted from the long-running DC/Vertigo comic book “Hellblazer”, Reeves’ character, John Constantine, is a world-weary, cynical demon hunter trying to work his way into God’s good graces. His eternal soul has been condemned to Hell as the result of a teenage suicide attempt. Although it was Constantine’s own “gift” to see the world in a creepy spiritual light that ultimately drove him to his premature but temporary death, he’s always considered his lot in life to be more of a curse. If all that sounds good and heady, then you’ll be happy to know that that’s just the starting point. Like any good adaptation of a comic book that’s been running monthly for almost twenty years, “Constantine” has its fair share of interesting concepts and oddball supporting characters hurdled our way. Considering this film’s roots in the world of “alternative” comics written for college aged readers, the dark tone and barrage of info and ideas should not be surprising.

Continue reading "Constantine Review"

No word yet on whether the film has been altered for its US release, but someone just sent me the link for the North American website for The Nightwatch, aka Nochnoz Dozor, the major Russian fantasy blockbuster. It's not without its flaws, but the film's a fun ride - my full review is in the archive - and word is it'll hit North American screens in July.

Thanks to David for the link.

Got a pair of interesting Constantine notes yesterday ...

First up: I got word from Warner Brothers that they have already done the drawing for their Constantine Prize Packs and Twitch's name came up a winner. What does that mean? Well, check out our Constantine Giveaway contest ... we could originally only say that our winner would have a shot at some extra swag, now that's definite. We didn't take home the biggest prize pack, but whoever wins our giveaway contest will be taking home an official poster, a scarf, a ball cap, a beanie, a long sleeved tee shirt and two beetle pins in a collector box. Nice.

Also Jeffrey just sent me this link. The film's major cast and crew just sat down with some religious press to talk about the film who are a fair bit more open to what they're doing than you might think ... it's an interesting read ...

A new trailer for The Fantastic Four has just hit the UK ... I'm still not hugely impressed but this one does look a little better than the original. Your best shot at seeing this one is actually the Flash version, but there are avi and quicktime versions out there as well. Just be prepared to wait a good while for those.

Thanks to Roraz for the links.

Michael Haneke does not draw casual reactions from viewers or critics. But his unwavering examination of what people do when faced with the worst has thus far electrified me. Those joining Heneke's are as liable to discover the hope in tragedy as they are to see evil laid bare in all it's banality.

Continue reading "REVIEW OF TIME OF THE WOLF DVD"

Taking home a Last Life in the Universe DVD are Eddie Kaay and Todd Bowman while Mike Kerce and Aaron Fowler both score themselves a copy of Purple Butterfly. Congratulations!

A pair of radically different trailers that you'd have seen by now if you were one of those wise people who participate in our forum:

First up is Blackball, the new National Lampoon comedy starring James Cromwell and Vince Vaughan. The Lampoon boys are taking aim at the classic sports film here, with the sport in question being lawn bowling.

Second is Nouvelle France, a Canada-France co-production with a cast loaded with international stars. Historical fiction here, dealing with the early days of frontier Quebec and the production values look to be fantastic ... I'd try to translate, but it's been fifteen years or so since I sat in a French class.

Thanks to Loonatik for the links.

Oooh ... I know where I'll be Friday afternoon: parked in a matinee screening of Constantine. I'm really starting to look forward to this one - have I mentioned recently that we've got free Constantine swag to give away? - and my interest has been raised even more by these. Yep, it's a great big stack of high-res images from the film. Nice.

Thanks to JAson for the link.

Looking for a special extended edition of Heaven's Gate? Out takes from your favorite Scorsese film? A few extra mintures of The Pink Panther? It aint gonna happen ... at a recent screening of Final Cut: The Making and Unmaking Of Heaven's Gate at the Berlinale Film Festival MGM/UA archivist John Kirk confrmed that sometime in the early 1990's MGM simply discarded entire reels of cut film to save a few bucks on storage space.

Says Kirk: "What I found out was that MGM had thrown out all of their out-takes. It was not just Heaven's Gate, but Raging Bull, Pink Panther, all the Woody Allen out-takes, all the Scorsese out-takes...every trim was dumped to save about $20,000 in storage costs. It was absolutely criminal."

So, if you've ever wondered why MGM special editions aren't quite so special, now you know ...

The full article appears in Screendaily here. Thanks to Mary for the pointer.

Don't let that 'Posted By Todd' tag at the bottom of this fool you ... this one's actually from Jim Tudor. Jim has sent us some film reviews in the past and we're looking forward to seeing more of him ...

Sure, we all know that the late 1960s and early seventies were a time of epic civil and political unrest in the United States, but the torrid aftermath shortly following that era is something considerably less well documented. As the country slowly shifted from the likes of student demonstrations and the Vietnam War to disco dancing and the energy crisis, one over-zealous bunch of radicals arrived at the party a little too late. They were the now-infamous Symbionese Liberation Army, a vigilante paramilitary organization devoted to halting social injustices based upon race and class, and ultimately, overthrowing the U.S. government.

Continue reading "Guerilla: The Taking of Patty Hearst Review"

They've made us wait for a while but as of midnight PST tonight we'll be able to see Ford, Arthur, Marvin and Trillian in motion. The full Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy trailer will bow at midnight on the west coast over at Amazon.com ...

EDIT: Some of you seem to want a direct Amazon.com link.. that takes you over to, well, to Amazon.com. So in the time it has taken you to read this, you could've typed a-m-a-z-o-n-.-c-o-m by now, I guess some you are still confused so click this: Amazon.com
Next week, we'll be offering our services of holding your wees while you pee.

Early January we linked to the making of trailer on IFilm. I've just seen word on FilmRot that the official is up and it has the same trailer in glorious Quicktime and those two other formats of the devil. It's a start.

The official Wallace & Gromit web site is here.

First it was March, then April, and now May 17th for "Team America" to get its USA disc release.

The best additional news so far is that there will now in fact be an "Unrated and Uncensored" edition in the USA, something which wasn't originally announced or expected to happen immediately or simultaneously, so now I can look forward to that one. No news yet on the differences in the cut of the film or the extras on the disc(s), but remember many alternative versions of scenes were submitted to the MPAA for certification before it made the cinemas, so some of the scenes we know about (golden shower for example) should make it into this cut.

Not much of a story, but something worth pointing out and making clear: there are 3 different R1 editions on May 10th 2005 for Appleseed (the CGI "remake"). It has now been confirmed that the mid-range and high-end editions (the one with the toy figure) are both in metal tins, and that the cheapest option is in a normal DVD snap case thingy.

So, unless you want a free toy or a rubbish plastic case, it's the mid-priced option for you (like me). I am now just waiting for pictures of all three options to appear so I can at least point them out to everyone hanging around here.

Been checking back at homevision.com every day since the listing for this boxset appeared at the site, because they didn't put out pictures of the box or individual discs. Now they have, and the box is there to the left. The individual artworks for the discs are just as bad, trust me. You can still head over to their site and check them all out in small and large versions for yourself by clicking on the small previews with the main listing shown here.

Overall running time of all three films is 296 minutes, with each in anamorphic widescreen, and remastered digitally too. And at a price this good (just over £20 to me in the UK), it's going to remain on my preorders without any trouble. It's out April 19th 2005.

It's still in its infancy with only a synopsis but the site for EROS in now online.

Todd, Howitt and I saw this at TIFF last september and the reaction was pretty much the same. Wong Kar Wai's The Hand is vintage WKW. Steven Soderbergh's Equilibrium is stylish and very funny. Michelangelo Antonioni's The Dangerous Thread of Things has a special place reserved for it in the deepest bowels of hell. I'm sure Todd and Howitt would agree with me, watch WKW and Soderbergh's bits then run for the effing hills! The third film ruins the entire experience. The degration to blue movie/soft porn was not a welcome one. It induced much swearing and gnashing of teeth. It wasn't even good soft porn! ... erm... ahem.

EROS is set for limited release on April 8th.

via CityonFire.

BoxOfficeMojo said Focus Features' genre division Rogue Pictures pushed Unleashed back from April 8 to May 13. It will go up against Lions Gate's drama Crash and Universal's Will Ferrell comedy Kicking and Screaming.

CHUD says Kung Fu Hustle's release date has just been bumped from March back to April 8th in NY/LA and April 22nd for a wider release. No word on Canadian dates but since Toronto is A-list we should see it early April me thinks. Moving it to the new date sets it up against the Nicole Kidman/Sean Penn political thriller The Interpreter and Anthony Anderson's King’s Ransom which will somehow defy the laws of the universe and make decent coin at the box office.

via CityonFire.

I just popped over to the Fortissimo Films website to see if they had any new materials on Seven Swords or Invisible Waves and, what do you know, they did ...

Nothing new on Swords, but they are now listing the principal cast for Pen Ek Ratanaruang's Invisible Waves - the follow up to Last Life in the Universe. We already knew Christopher Doyle was back on board, but now it appears that Tadanobu Asano will once again be in the lead role with Gang Hye Jung starring opposite. Nice.

Here's one that's making the rounds mighty quickly. Someone sent me the link last night and I've already spotted it on a pair of other sites ... Shinobi is a Japanese period martial arts piece from Ten Shimoyama that reminds me of Ryuhei Kitamura's Azumi in a lot of ways except, hopefully, better. If nothing else this one's got an impressive sense of style and scope, they've obviously sunk some money into the design and it's got a cast that can actually act. At least Joe Odagiri can. He's the only one I recognized. Here's hoping that they actually took the time to teach their fighters to fight before rolling the cameras. It seems like a fairly obvious step, but somehow Kitamura keeps forgetting to do it ... You can hit the trailer here.

Today's issue of Screendaily has got news on a stack of interesting film purchases for North America ... here we go ...

Sony Classics have picked up Zhang Yimou's Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles, Erik Van Looy's The Alzheimer Case, Phil Morrison's Junebug and Sally Potter's Yes. Thousands of Miles is Yimou's post-House of Flying Daggers art house drama starring Ken Takakura, Yes is a Joan Allen starring drama, Junebug was one of the buzz films at this year's Sundance Festival and Alzheimer was Belgium's entry for this year's foreign film Oscar race and has already had remake rights picked up by Focus.

Yoji Yamada's Hidden Blade - the follow up to Twilight Samurai - has been picked up in a stack of territories, with Tartan scooping the North American rights. Tartan also picked up UK rights to The Devil and Daniel Johnston, Another Public Enemy and - most notably - the North American rights to Chan Wook Park's Sympathy For Lady Vengeance.

And, finally, Palm Pictures has picked up the rights to City of Men the TV series follow up to the acclaimed City of God.

No dates for any of these yet, but all will likely hit sometime this year ...

Okay, I need to stress right off the top that this is not coming from any official source but if it turns out to be true, it's pretty major stuff.

When Kino Video recently released their Wong Kar Wai box set the one film conspicuous in its absence was Ashes of Time. Ashes is WKW's take on the martial arts genre and stars an all star cast: both Tony Leung's, Brigitte Lin, Leslie Cheung, Carina Lau, Charlie Yeung and Jacky Cheung. It was his second collaboration with cinematographer Christopher Doyle, following Chungking Express, and featured action choreography from Sammo Hung. And it has never received an even remotely passable release on DVD anywhere in the world. If ever a film was primed for a re-issue, this was the one and yet it didn't make it into the Kino set. Apparently the rights for the film have been trapped in legal limbo for years.

And here's where things get interesting ... a pair of posters on the DVD Talk forums, neither of whom I can verify but both of whom seem to know what they're talking about, are saying that the film has finally been freed of its legal troubles and that Wong Kar Wai himself is overseeing a new cut and a new remastering of the film with an eye not only to finally releasing a decent DVD but also a possible theatrical re-release. No idea if this will pan out but it's big news if true ...

So, I was making my way through the special features on my Last Life in the Universe DVD yesterday and I just about filled my shorts when I came across this: the trailer for Christoffer Boe's Reconstruction.

Why? Well, not only does Boe spell his name even more strangely than my mother did when mis-spelling it on my brith certificate (my version has only one 'f' and it is my belief that my parents have called me by my middle name ever since to avoid having people point the error out) but that is one fine looking trailer on all fronts. But, honestly, I freaked out well before I got far enough into it to see whether it was any good. Why? The guy front and center: Nikolaj Lie Kaas. I think pretty much anyone with an interest in Scandanavian film will back me up when I say that, along with his Green Butchers co-star Mads Mikkelson, Kaas is pretty much the man when it comes to Danish film. The presence of either Kaas or Mikkelson in a film is very nearly enough to guarantee its quality. Anders Tomas Jensen has written parts for him in virtually every film he's written over the past five years. He's played key parts in international art house hits like Open Hearts, The Green Butchers (with a dual role) In China They Eat Dogs and it's sequel Old Men In New Cars (both of which are due on region one DVD in the spring), and absolutely stole Lars Von Trier's The Idiots with his performance as Jeppe. I am a huge, huge fan of Kaas' work so any chance to see more of it is a very good thing in my books. Plus everything I've managed to read about this film says it's very, very good. Palm doesn't have a DVD release listed on their site yet, but Amazon's got it down for April 12th.

And just because I'm in a Kaas kind of mood, the official website (complete with trailer) for Solkongen his latest starring turn in a Jensen script, is online here. This looks like a much more conventional comedy than I've come to expect from Jensen but I've already watched the trailer a handful of times just to marvel at Kass' hair.

Boy I let this one slide under the radar. A while back we wrote about a controversy with the organizing committee of the Puchon International Fantastic Film Festival (PiFan).

They were receiving pressure from the mayor of Bucheon to relieve the Festival Director from his position and they did so at the end of December. Since then the assigned replacement handed in his resignation three weeks later. Only four days after that the committee fired the festival programmers and related staff. The committee plans to continue the festival without a festival director. Understandably, the public reaction to such moves has not been favorable. New programmers and staff will be hired in the coming weeks. PiFan plans to run its 9th edition in July.

Resumes can be sent to hopetogodthemayorlikesyou@screwedbyPiFan.co.ko!

via KoreanFilm.

I own ‘a lot’ of movies. While it isn’t what I would call a ‘plethora’ of movies, in comparison to say Harry Knowles [3,500 last count in his ’02 biography] or a chap at my church, Dave, who celebrated his 1000th DVD with a bottle of champagne, it is to some of my circles ‘a lot’ of movies. Whether it was self proclaimed, or aptly put by another, I cannot remember, my ‘Wall of DVDs’ is something to behold to many who enter my humble abode. I’m a bit behind on updating my lists but it’s somewhere around 500+ titles between DVD and VHS. But none of us can compare to Japanese film collector Abe Yoshishige and the near 50,000 titles he left behind after his death. And though death for most really sucks nuts Yoshishige’s death has the nation of Korea up in quite a tizzy.

Via HanCinema, Chosun and KoreanFilm.

Continue reading "Arirang: I once was lost but now I am found?"

Oooh ... Aint It Cool is running a report that says that thanks to the success of The Grudge and Boogeyman Sam Raimi's Ghosthouse Productions has gotten the green light to put 30 Days of Night on to the production fast track. For those not familiar with it, 30 Days of Night is a graphic novel telling the story of a northern Alaska town attacked by a group of vampires during one of their extended night cycles. The plot of the book is a bit slim so it'll need a good bit of beefing up to work as a film but the basic premise is fantastic and last I heard they had Collateral's screenwriter working on it. This will be by far Ghosthouse's most expensive production which made the thumbs up from studio higher ups a necessity ... word is that 30 Days will begin production immediately following Scarecrow, the english language debut from the Pang Brothers.

Read the whole article here.

Now, there seems to be a little bit of confusion about these films ... I've seen them referred to as sequels to the cult hit Suicide Club, but I've also heard it said that the films have no relationship to each other. My own gut feeling says that they're knock offs but, regardless, they're building up a following of their own and will doubtless appeal to fans of the Club ... Check out the Suicide Manual and Suicide Manual 2 websites, both complete with trailer action ...

Thanks to Caul for the links. Go buy his music.

The DVD releases on Monday, so I promise we'll shut up about this thing sometime soon, but Logboy has just turned up a teaser for the upcoming Little Britain Comic Relief benefit DVD ... I'm not sure how well the humor will translate for those who aren't familiar with the show, but it certainly made me laugh ... check it out here.

Just catching up on some back log here ... Logboy sent me a link to what appears to be the North American poster for Old Boy yesterday. He likes it a lot, I'm a little less convinced. Check it out here.

via the KFC Forums.

Perhaps one of the most anticipated releases to hit the European cinemas this summer Chris Nahon's L'Empire des Loups (Empire of the Wolves) is starting to receive some major attention. Many French sites have provided information, pictures, and the pilot teaser that was just released in France. You can download the trailer here and view images from the film here.

Regards,
Svet (Pro-B)

Tadanobu Asano is Japan's answer to Johnny Depp. Like Depp, Asano is blessed (cursed?) with pop star good looks and could have easily lived out the teen idol fantasy doing pin-up spreads in Japan's equivalent to Seventeen and Tiger Beat magazine. But like Depp, Asano has chosen to turn his back on mainstream pop culture, instead starring in a series of cult films that has made him Japan's reigning king of quirk cinema. And again, like Depp, thanks to his continual reinvention of himself as a performer, Asano has become one of the most sought after Japanese stars, appearing in films from the likes of Takashi Miike, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, and Takeshi Kitano. Asano's presence in a film is a nearly surefire mark of quality and it was purely on the basis of his presence that I sought out the just-released Thai film "Last Life In The Universe"

Continue reading "Last Life in the Universe Review"

Lou Ye’s Purple Butterfly drew instant comparisons to the work of Wong Kar Wai when it began touring the festival circuit in 2003, and for good reason. Though the film never reaches the same heights as WKW’s better work it shares quite a lot in common beyond the international star power of Zhang Ziyi.

Continue reading "Purple Butterfly Review"

Okay, I gotta run, so I don't have time to pretty this one up, but IGN's got some new high res shots of the Vogons from the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy here. Nummy.

Ah ... I've been waiting for this day to come and it finally has. Though I had already seen Ong Bak upwards of about fifteen times today was my first opportunity to witness it on the big screen and, despite one major concern which I'll come to late, I was one very happy boy.

The ad campaign openly invites comparison to Jet Li, Jackie Chan and Bruce Lee and for those not already exposed to the goodness that is Tony Jaa: yes, he really is that good. I've said it before and I'll say it again, this man will be the next major international action star. If you are even remotely a fan of martial arts films this is absolutely required viewing.

Continue reading "Ong Bak Review"

Oooh ... it's just a rumor at this point, but it's a good one ...

Patrick Macias - who earns at least part of his living putting English subtitles onto Japanese films and thus is privy to all sorts of info on the Japanese biz - is currently attending the Tokyo Anime Fair in Hollywood and has posting some potentially huge rumblings on his personal blog ...

At the very top of the list: Hollywood uber-producer Joel Silver has apparently been chatting up the Studio Gonzo suits about producing a live action version of Last Exile, the ciritcally acclaimed anime show that I'm sure Opus will be along to sing praises for soon. It's all rumor at this point, but Silver certainly knows all the people involved, having worked with the studio previously on The Animatrix, and if someone's got the combination of knowledge and money to bring something like this to life in Hollywood - this would absolutely have to be a big budget project - it's Silver.

Also of note: Samuel L. Jackson will be voicing the lead character in Gonzo's Afro Samurai series (glory!) and Studio4°C - fresh off the brilliant Mind Game - are currently working up a new anthology project with a bunch of the Animatrix directors, including brilliant Cowboy Bebop creator Shinichiro Watanabe as well as a feature film titled Sachiko from Koji Morimoto, who directed The Animatrix's Beyond. No word yet on potential release dates for either project.

This one via Logboy ...

This one's actually being run by the overlords at Touchstone and not by us, and it seems rather light in the prize department, but we're fans who are greatly looking forward to the film, so here it is:

On Day 42, We're Looking For 6 (That's 4 + 2, Because 42 is Too Many)
The Search For The Biggest Hitchhiker's Fans in the Galaxy Begins

Are you a "hoopy frood" who really knows where your towel is? Have you ever made your own Sub-Etha Sens-O-Matic out of cardboard in an attempt to hitchhike to another planet? Do you have the answer to Life, The Universe, and Everything tattooed on your body? Do you ever pretend your car is powered by the Infinite Improbability Drive? Have you ever shoved a goldfish in your ear in an attempt to understand French?

If you answered yes to these questions then we are looking for you!

Today marks the 42nd day of the year, a day to reflect on "The Answer" provided by Deep Thought and to celebrate just how much of a Hitchhiker's fan you really are. We are looking for a few (6 actually - again 4 + 2) of the BIGGEST HITCHHIKER'S FANS IN THE GALAXY. Tell us why you became a fan and how you live your life in accordance with the most remarkable book ever to come out of the great publishing houses of Ursa Minor. Entries must be 250 words or less and can be accompanied by a photo documenting the degree of your "hoopiness."

Right now you are asking yourself, "Isn't being a Hitchhiker's fan a reward in itself? Why enter such a contest?" As Zaphod Beeblebrox once explained, "It's partly the curiosity, partly a sense of adventure, but mostly I think it's the fame . . ." That's right - be the envy of every Hitchhiker's fan when your detailed fan profile appears on the official site for The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy movie.

So enter to win now - all entries must be in by February 25th. For official rules, visit the display department at your local planning office (and bring a flashlight). Email all entries to 42Fans@gmail.com. Entries must also include your:

Name
Age
City
Email Address

Thanks for entering!

Sirius Cybernetics Corporation, Marketing Division

It's a Sony kind of day today, so let's get things rolling ...

First, and probably of greatest interest is that Sony Classics has changed the release date for Kung Fu Hustle. The film will now debut in New York and LA on April 8th with the nation wide roll out to follow April 22nd.

Also getting a date change is Dan "I Write A Lot of Superhero Films" Harris' domestic drama Imaginary Heros, which is now slated for a February 18th release.

On the trailer front, they've just released new trailers for the Samuel L Jackson / Juliette Binoche starring South African political / racial drama In My Country as well as the Czech baby-stealing comedy Up And Down. There's an unfortunate Mr. Movie Voice sighting (hearing? appearance?) in that second one but the film itself was the Czech Republic's entry into the Best Foreign Film Oscar race this year and it looks to be both very funny and not nearly as Raising Arizona derived as you might think ... Check it out ...

Major thanks to Tracy for calling this one to my attention ...

Indie film fans need to go take a look at Nobody Wants Your Film. Why? It's a pseudo-documentary about the process of making a low budget, independent film in LA and then trying to convince the powers that be to actually give a damn. You're thinking, "acting doc, that's been done, blah blah blah ... " yes? Well, how many times has it been done with a cast made up of Sam Rockwell, Peter Stormare, Steve Buscemi, Peter Dinklage and the like? That, people, is one impressive collection of talent ... Check it out at the link above ...

Now this is an interesting turn of events ... last I heard the North American rights to Wong Kar Wai's 2046 were held by Fox Searchlight but a reader just dropped a note to point out that pointing your browser to www.2046themovie.com redirects you to the Sony Pictures Classics website. And though they've yet to announce the film as part of their stable a WHOIS search on that site says that Sony registered the domain on January 25th so it would appear - to me at least - that they've just recently made the aquisition and are getting their stuff lined up before making any sort of official announcement ... nothing against Fox, but if this pans out it makes me a happy boy. Given the universally high quality treatment Asian properties receive at Sony's hands they are definitely the studio that this should be going through ...

Thanks to Mary.

A note to all aspiring film makers: if you would like to give your work a lengthy lifespan regardless of public and critical reception then take a lesson from Vincent Gallo and include Actual Human Genitalia.

A reader just forwarded along this article from Screendaily pointing out that Sony Pictures, in various guises, have just bought up DVD and television rights for the Ebert-bashed indie drama for most of the known world. Columbia Tristar (a Sony company) now have DVD rights for North America while SPRI (Sony Pictures Releasing International) are now the proud owners of rights for the UK, Italy, Scandinavia, Australia, New Zealand, India, Lebanon, Israel, Turkey, and Asia, excluding Japan and Thailand.

So, if you're a lover of Buffalo 66 or are just curious to see what the fuss is all about you should have your chance on DVD soon ...

Thanks to Mary

The second of two upcoming Artsmagic releases of Mochizuki movies; an early review of another unusual Yakuza movie

Mochizukis' slightly newer work "Onibi" is a more filmic experience than "Another Lonely Hitman" which I also watched recently. There is still a heavy flavour of placing unusual characters in a very real everyday environments, and in often real emotional situations, with a slice of the truly unusual and unfamiliar too.

Continue reading "Onibi : The Fire Within. by Rokuro Mochizuki (1997). Early Artsmagic DVD Review."

What's better than a good chuckle? Nothing, I say. Okay, well, maybe that.. and that... okay.. so a chuckle comes in 5th. Anyhow....

Mr. Twitch and I intend on seeing Ong-Bak on the big screen tomorrow, as should you. So, what better to do at work than to call Movie Phone and find out when it's playing, right? And, as you can hear, not everybody in North America has heard of this movie -- or even heard the title spoken by anyone. Ever.

Give a listen to our Movie Phone Experience and get ready to experience "Oing-guh - Bach"!!
Or you can call 'em yourself for your own private chortle. (416) 444-FILM

Not all of us are the sharpest crack o the whip, lemme tell ya...

Hayao Miyazaki fans take note, the man has an amazing three feature films in the planning stages. No, he probably will not release all three in one go, so expect to wait a couple of years between each (at least), but at least he hasn't suddenly announced his retirement again, as he initially did after "Sprited Away" was released in 2001.

The Venice International Film Festival will also honour Miyazaki with a Lifetime Achievement award on September the 9th this year, during a day of showings for much of his previous work. Personally, I am still waiting to see "Howls Moving Castle", for now I will have to keep thumbing through the "Art Of" book i got through from Japan yesterday : stunning stuff.

Via AnimeNewsNetwork.

It's a Tony Jaa kind of day ...

The official website for Tom Yum Goong, the newest film from the director and star of Ong Bak has launched here and it includes a trailer quite similar to the demo reel that aired on Thai TV a little while back.

In other Jaa news, Rope of Silicon is floating the possibility that Jaa may be cast as the villain in the upcoming Die Hard 4. Seem unlikely? Well, he does mention in this interview on CHUD that he'd like to do some work in American action films ...

Some of this via the KFC forums, the rest via the obvious sources.

Reports are out that Mel Gibson will re-release last year's The Passion of the Christ for the Easter season. Word is though, Mel has edited about 5 to 6 minutes from the film in response to religious community's concern about the violence. The Passion Recut, will go out on 500-750 screens by Newmarket Films beginning March 11. There are hints that this may become a perrenial release.

"There has been quite a demand by the religious community to bring [the film] back for Easter," blabbed Gibson's producing partner Bruce Davey. "There has been a lot of discussion about the violence. Mel wanted to try and accommodate those people by making a version that is softer and gentler." BBC

"There are no new scenes, and the cuts are limited to the more violent aspects of the film, if that's the right term," said Bruce Davey, Gibson's partner in Icon Productions. "The scourging scene in particular has been substantially adjusted." ComingSoon

Despite this effort to soften up Jesus however, the movie will still retain its R rating in the U.S.

via BBC and ComingSoon.

Has Martin Scorsese run out of original material? Okay. One can always make a case that anyone's films are rehashed from older films but this news has me on the ever-so-slightly irked side of things.

While we're still mulling over The Departed [The Scorsese remake of the HK crime/drama film Infernal Affairs], more news came out today that Scorsese, his boy-toy Leonardo DiCaprio, and Aviator screenwriter John Logan are negotiating for the rights to remake Akira Kurosawa's post-war classic Drunken Angel.

Movie Synopsis: Kurosawa's original film centred on the relationship between a small-time criminal and an alcoholic doctor who treats his tuberculosis in post-war Japan.

The purist in me battles with the Scorsese fan. I have always been a big fan of both Kurosawa and Scorsese. But will this follow suit with The Departed and nowhere near resemble the original work? Guess we'll find out soon enough. The Departed may give us a pretty clear idea what to expect of the Drunken Angel remake.

via BBC.

This might not be news to many, but it slipped under my radar and it's one of the shows i've been looking forward to a DVD release of for a while. So, i am not risking other people missing it too by quickly pointing it out.

There's 21 episodes in total for this very recent series, and the first volume has 125 minutes worth / 5 episodes on it. Of course there is a special edition of the first volume which comes with the obligatory empty box to store subsequent releases in, as well as the bog-standard edition.

Each volume seems to come out every couple of months, so it's a relatively slow release from Media Blasters... but at least there's a fair few episodes on each disc and relatively few discs in total. Check the English overview at Production I.Gs' site here, and the official Japanese TV broadcast site here.

And yes, I know there are other great animation companies : this is my favourite!

I've just come across the website and trailer for the third Eye film from the Pang Brothers, titled The Eye 10. The title is a reference to ten different ways people can see a ghost and tracks a group of friends who set out to try them all. While the first two Eye films were both aiming at some serious subtext it looks as though this one is purely an excuse to make people jump around a lot ...

The very irritating, far too Flash oriented website is here and the trailer page here. Click on the picture on the wall .. it's in Flash format unfortunately, but played pretty clean for me.

A reader just sent this in and it rules ... I'll let him speak for himself:

"Apparently during the recent elections in Denmark Lars Von Trier voiced his disgust with the Prime Minister Anders Fogh by placing this ad of himself covered in blood in the biggest daily newspapers. Fogh, an anti-immagration conservative, was unfortunately re-elected yesterday. Guess the ad didn’t work! L Still, great ad Lars – if only our celebs were so daring."

You can check out a larger version of the ad by clicking here.

Oooh ... one of the films that most caught my attention coming out of Sundance was Mike Mills' Thumbsucker, a film Screendaily happily compared to works by Spike Jonez and Sofia Coppola. Well, word came out today that Sony Pictures Classics has picked up the rights and is aiming for a fall release, so it's just a matter of time before we get to see this one ...

via IFC

Here's some good news for classic samurai film fans: AnimEigo have announced the aquisition of three new titles: Demon Spies, Shadow Hunters and Shadow Hunters II: Echo of Destiny. Those Shadow Hunters films apparently released in Japan as Kage Gari and Kage Gari 2, I'm not sure what the original title on Demon Spies was.

I present to you this summary of Shadow Hunters courtesy of a bootleggers website:

"Ultra-violent tale of 3 former Samurai retainers who band together to hunt down Ninja spies. The three expert swordsmen were all from clans that had been abolished because of the Ninja, and they become bounty hunters who kill Ninja exclusively.

Similar to the Lone Wolf and Cub films, this story came from Japanese Manga (comics), and was written by the creator of GOLGO 13. Ishihara Yujiro was one of the most popular Japanese film stars, and plays Jubei, the trio’s leader. Great supporting roles are supplied by Narita Mikio, and Uchida Ryohei."

For those not in the know AnimEigo is essentially the Criterion Collection for Samurai films. If they do a release - and they don't do many - you can be absolutely certain that theirs will be the definitive release worldwide. In the past they've gone as far as to strike new 35 mm prints of their titles just so that they can have a clean source to master their transfers from. The job they did on their Lone Wolf and Cub and Lady Snowblood releases was absolutely stellar and you can be certain that these will be absolutely pristine releases.

via the AsianDVDGuide forums.

It's pretty much naked, but it's here. Damn straight I registered for updates.

Oooh ... this just made me a happy boy ... Maxim (yeah, go figure) has just posted a complete scene from Constantine and it looks pretty sweet. I've been looking forward to this based on the trailers but pretty much everybody should be aware that it's easy enough to bluff your way through one of those and make things look better than they really are. Complete scenes are a different story. They either work or they don't. This one's an exorcism from start to finish and, yeah, it works. Check it out here.

Via CHUD.

With DVD labels working over the Shinya Tsukamoto back catalog like there's no tomorrow - Snake of June, Bullet Ballet and Gemini are all due in the coming months - I figured it was just a matter of time before Hiroku the Goblin made an appearance. I figured correctly, as Fangoria has just announced that they will be releasing the film May 10th.

For those not familiar with it Hiroku is a pretty major departure for Tsukamoto. It was a director for hire job and plays out like a delirious b grade monster flick complete with a high school built on a gateway to hell, spider demons decapitating teenagers to use the student's heads themselves, and Tsukamoto himself as a timid, demon hunting archeologist kitted out with home made gear that, well, it's home made. It's fluff, but it's quality fluff and I'm happy to see it find a home ...

Remember the name Paddy Considine, because I absolutely guarantee that you will be hearing it a lot more often. Considine has been turning up in smaller roles for a little while now but I didn't particularly notice him until catching My Summer of Love at the 2004 Toronto Film Festival and being utterly blown away by his performance. I was obviously not the only one as he picked up a supporting role in Ron Howard's Cinderella Man immediately after.

Word on the street is that his performance in Shane Meadows' Dead Man's Shoes - which Considine also co-wrote - is even better and based on the trailer I can definitely say it's a good load more frightening. You want intensity? The man's got intensity ... you can hit the official site and trailer here. And you should. Right now.

This is one of those odd little films that has met with immense acclaim in its home country - the film is up for a stack of BAFTAs including best picture and best actor for Considine - but been completely ignored everywhere else. Well those of us outside of England, at least those of us with multi-region equipment, are finally getting our chance to check it out as the UK DVD has been announced for March 21st. Check out the trailer at the link above, then you can find the DVD here.

A pair of interesting reviews in the Japan Times today. In a two for one job Mark Schilling looks both at Tony Takitani, a film we've been talking about here for a while, and Pacchigi, a film that had slipped under the radar but has now got my full and complete attention.

As far as Takitani goes Schilling re-iterates what I've seen elsewhere: Haruki Murakami fans (of which I am one) will lap it up as an incredibly close adaptation of the man's work. For everyone else the heavy use of voice over narration will likely be a make or break issue.

As for Pacchigi, the trailer isn't really doing it for me but I'm intrigued both by Schilling's decription of it as a violent 1960's, Kyoto set, Japanese vs Korean take on the Romeo and Juliet story as well as the presence of director Kazuyuki Izutsu, best known for his work on Kishiwada Shone Gurentai, a series later continued / remade / radically redesigned by Takashi Miike. A better trailer will put me over the edge on this one ...

A big thank you to Kurt for pointing this one out ...

Chicago's Facets Video - who run one mighty fine DVD imprint as well as a theater and video store, check 'em out at the link above - will be releasing the cult classic sci-fi western musical flick The American Astronaut on DVD for February 22nd. You need links to convince you this is worthwhile? We got 'em:

Filmfreak's DVD review

The official site with brilliant, though far too small, trailer

The Billy Nayer Show - performance art band that spawned - and scored - the film

A brief documentary on Cory McAbee: writer, director and all around swell guy.

Convinced now? You can get the DVD here. You're welcome.

Oh I am a sad sad man. But first...

Happy New Year to all of our Chinese readers. May the year of the Rooster bring you good fortune and health.

Thank you MonkeyPeaches for reminding us that today is also Zhang Ziyis birthday. I have been saving up for her present for months and when she sees it? Hoo boy. I should really apologize in advance to all other guys out there when I steal her away from you. Huzzah!!!

How jealous am I right now? Oooooh, just a wee little bit. Just a wee finger clenching, tooth grinding bit ... one of the regulars over in our forum just posted a review of Hayao Miyazaki's Howl's Moving Castle and it's a good one. He ranks it slightly lower than Miyazaki's latest work, but considering just how strong his other stuff is, that's no mean feat.

Our thanks to the kind and generous Kurt - aka Triflic - who runs a very fine film blog of his own here for letting us run his review here. Read on for the goodness!

Continue reading "Howl's Moving Castle Review"

One of the hang ups about loving international cinema with such fervor is that you may overlook your own home grown talent and what they can do with a camera and a couple rolls of film. And while it's easy to dismiss this to the reality that the only time we ever hear about Canadians in the film industry is when they make it big in America you feel somewhat obliged, even responsible, to make a little fuss when something happens in the industry.

Today, the nominees for Canada's 'Academy Awards', The Genies, were announced.

NOTE: that this may be the only time that you will EVER see a Resident Evil movie get nominated for a major film award. Twice. I kid you not.

The 25th Annual Genies awards cermony will happen on March 21st.

via Canadian Academy of Cinema & Television.

Continue reading "The best in Canadian film. Genie nominees announced."

I really wish I could find some way to sneak on to this set while they're still in Montreal, but I don't think that's gonna happen ... it doesn't show much but I don't believe that it has shown up anywhere else yet and any news from Aronofsky is good news. Here's a much larger version.

Francois Ozon's 5 x 2 has been officially set for a March 16 release in France. The film won the Best Actress Award for Valeria Bruni Tedeschi at the Venice Film Festival.

While Ozon's films are always inspired by originality and usually deal with subjects that are not often seen on the big screen this new production follows a rather conventional story. Needless to say however the subtle use of strong yet individualistic characters should appeal to those familiar with some of Ozon's earlier works: Sous Le Sable (Under the Sand); Les Amants Criminels (Criminal Lovers); 8 Femmes (8 Women), Gouttes d'eau sur pierres brûlantes (Water Drops On Burning Rocks).

Francois Ozon's official website can be found at http://www.francois-ozon.com/

Ah, Thailand, the emerging film culture in Asia. The Thai industry is still fairly small but it has already produced some major art house hits and now is becoming recognized as one of the key sources of genre fare world wide ... The Gomorrahizer - a regular reader around these parts just sent me links to a batch of Thai film sites worth noting, some with trailers some without, and I've dug up a couple more on my own for good measure ...

Lizard Woman. The site isn't fully functional yet and there isn't a trailer, but you can turn up some production stills over on the production company's site if you click around a bit - sorry, it's flash based, so no direct links - and it looks as though it should be some trashy genre fun.

Hit Man File. Nice site, too bad about the trash quality Flash formatted trailer ... stop doing that people, the reason it saves you so much bandwidth is that it looks like ass. Again, the production stills look very nice and I'll be keeping my eyes open for a decent format trailer.

Ghost of Mae Nak. Hey! That girl's got a big ol' hole in her head! Nothing on the site yet, but there's a stack of production stills here. Note the amusing 'Not For Release' watermark on those ... who puts 30+ still shots of their film on a website if they don't want them to be seen?

Necromancer. I'd heard some talk about this film elsewhere but never bothered to look it up until I was sent the link ... DEFINITELY the cream of The Gomorrahizer's crop. Definitely low budget but legitimately creepy, disturbing stuff and there are things in this trailer that they probably wouldn't be allowed to include in the finished film anywhere else. If the film lives up to the trailer this one could well end up being a cult classic. The link above gives you the english site, this one gives you the Thai.

Andaman Girl. A mistaken identity gangster porn comedy. It's about a once acclaimed, now disgraced film maker forced to shoot a porn flick to pay the bills who hires a girl for the lead who he believes was coming to audition for the role but was actually on the run from the marriage being forced upon her by her gangster father. Don't know that it'll live up to the premise, but the trailer did make me laugh out loud a couple times ...

Bangkok Loco. I spotted the just-released DVD of this over at Ethai a couple days ago and just came across the site now. The story's about an aspiring drummer prepping for a major contest when framed for a bloody murder and pursued by inept police agents. It's loud, garish, got style to burn and the trailer made me laugh very, very hard. This one better live up to the trailer, 'cause I've got it on order now ... Trailer here and four music videos here, here, here, and here. Check out the uvula-cam in trailer two ...

SARS War. Yeah, we've linked to it before. It just makes me laugh. How zombies and men with swords have anything to do with respiratory disease is beyond me but I really want to see this. Trash, yes, but it looks like fun trash. And it's apparently pretty good ... it was the closing film at the just wrapped Bangkok International Film Festival and they had a lot of good stuff there to choose from ...

Tired of bad Asian Horror retreads of Ringu? Here's a movie that borrows a trick or two from it's cinematic cousin but has the common sense to weave those elements through a a story that, while nothing original, is still enough to hang a first class horror film on. Full of energetic style and just the right amount of self awareness Phone doesn't wink at the audience or blink when you want a full on ghostly stare. A difficult film to review without spoilers but here's my try.

Continue reading "REVIEW OF PHONE"

I am so incredibly conflicted about this film ... it's not enough that I find Ridley Scott a maddeningly inconsistent director at the best of times but the man's got to go and a) make a remarkably wrong-headed film given the current political climate and b) make it look so good .... I'm not sure when this particular trailer came out, but I've just stumbled across the international trailer for Scott's Kingdom of Heaven here. It's shorter and not in nearly as pretty a format as the the first trailer was but based on the visuals in these two trailers Kingdom could be the best looking thing Scott has ever done ... I just hope he stays away from pro-western rah-rah in the midst of all the crusading ...

What with all of Quentin's talk of shooting a straight up martial arts film next I had thought that Inglorious Bastards - his Dirty Dozen styled war flick - was in danger of getting bumped aside. Apparently not. The Hollywood Stock Exchange is reporting that Tarantino is eyeing up Bruce Willis and Sylvester Stallone for parts ... Willis makes perfect sense and, given their history together, I'm surprised it's taken this long for his name to come up. Stallone is a bit more surprising, but think about it ... aging 70's icon who has completely fallen out of favor with the industry ... Tarantino never likes to work with people like that, now does he? Apparently Adam Sandler has a part if he wants it as well, which means this will pretty much have one of the strangest casts ever ...

Draw your own conclusions. 20th Century Fox has announced that they have moved their 'summer tentpole' movie Fantastic Four back one week from July 1st to July 8th. This takes it from a head-to-head box office battle with Cruise & Speilberg's War of the Worlds and sets it up against Bewitched with Kidman and Ferrell.

"We are not running from 'War of the Worlds,' " Fox president of distribution Bruce Snyder said. "This (new) date just works better for us."

Given the reaction to both of these movies since their early development you couldn't blame Fox for making this move. Reaction to anything FF has certainly been lackluster, if not hostile at times. And while War of the Worlds isn't creating raves the public reaction to it is certainly of a better ilk. Me thinks the Superbowl trailer just sealed the deal.

via AICN and HollywoodReporter.

20th Century Fox Spain has just released Miguel Bardem's latest effort INCAUTOS. Better known for his 1999 film The Ugliest Woman in the World Bardem's latest boasts an excellent cast including Victoria Abril (101 Reykjavik, Between Your Legs,), Arnesto Alterio (The Other Side of the Bed), etc.

Nominated for Best Director (Miguel Bardem) at the Malaga Spanish Film Festival.

The DVD release includes optional English subtitles.

Regards,
Pro-B

That Logboy, he's a giver ... the wooden one knows I have a weakness for Aardman Animation so he just sent me the specs for an upcoming Aardman short film collection coming from, of all places, Korea. I'd heard about this release but given that this was coming from Korea as opposed to, say, the UK I'd assumed that this would be a rehash of previously available material. Wrong. As far as I can tell none of this material has been available on DVD in North America before and the disc even includes four shorts that - as far as I can tell - are currently unavailable in the UK. I'm sure someone will correct me on that last bit if I'm wrong ... anyway, here's the list:

Pib & Pog (Standard 4:3)
Going Equipped (Standard 4:3)
Down and Out (Anamorphic widescreen 1.85:1)
Ident (Standard 4:3)
Confession of a Foyer Girl (Anamorphic widescreen 1.85:1)
Sin Sosten (Standard 4:3)
Next (Standard 4:3)
Stage Fright (Anamorphic widescreen 1.85:1)
Humdrum (Anamorphic widescreen 1.85:1)
Owzat! (Standard 4:3)
Barefootin (Anamorphic widescreen 1.85:1)

The disc even includes commentary tracks on Down and Out, Pib and Pog, and Going Equipped. Nice. YesAsia doesn't currently have it listed - and I've noticed that they often don't stock foreign releases of western titles - but you can pick it up at DVDFromKorea.

DVD Answers has turned up cover art and DVD specs for a pair of interesting coming releases ...

First up is Sony's North American release of House of Flying Daggers, due April 19th. Other than the cover artist air brushing Andy Lau so much that he looks like he's made of plastic - seriously, the muscle suit he wore in Running On Karma had better skin tone - this looks like a good one. Full specs aren't out yet, but it will include a commentary track, making of feature, and a music video.

Next is the Premiere Asia UK release of Bang Rajan. This one's a historical epic, apparently very good and very bloody. To the best of my knowledge this will be the first English subbed release of the film anywhere in the world It's getting the double disc treatment and considering that Premiere Asia is a new branch of Hong Kong Legends it should be top quality all the way. The set looks to be pretty much loaded to the gills ... commentary, historical features, interviews with the principal cast members, DTS audio ... Magnolia's got rights to the film in the US but I'm pretty confident this will prove to be the definitive release worldwide. Premiere Asia's got a trailer for the film here.

I have no idea how they got hold of these - I've already seen posts on international DVD forums from people desperate to find someone physically in Taiwan who will go shop to shop to try and find one since the run has already sold out - but YesAsia has managed to score some copies of the Taiwanese super limited edition release of Wong Kar Wai's 2046. Only 2046 of these were ever made and there won't be any more ... the full feature set is below and you can click here for the YesAsia listing ... act fast if you want one, though, because I'll be surprised if these last more than a day ...

Continue reading "2046 Deluxe Gift Set"

If you're a regular reader of this site then you already know that we're fairly smitten by After the Apocalypse, the debut film from Yasuaki Nakajima - a young Japanese director currently living in New York City. It's a starkly beautiful film and we were lucky enough to have a lengthy conversation via email with Nakajime about its creation ...

Continue reading "Twitch Interviews After The Apocalypse Director Yasuaki Nakajima"

I honestly can't think of a lot of reasons why we would run Rob Schneider stories here, but this is just far too good to pass up ...

A couple days back the LA Times rans a cover story speculating that the reason the big studios aren't generating Oscar noms is that rather than focussing on serious films they're spending their money on sequels, specifically on sequels to films like Deuce Bigalow. Well, Bigalow himself spotted the article and took offence. He then promptly took out a full page ad attacking the article's author in Variety, which the folks at Defamer have been so kind as to reproduce here. A brief sample of said ad:

"Patrick, I can honestly say that if I sat with your colleagues at a luncheon, afterwards, they’d say “You know, that Rob Schneider is a pretty intelligent guy, I hope we can do that again.” Whereas, if you sat with my colleagues, after lunch, you would just be beaten beyond recognition."

On the whole it's one of the funniest things Schneider's done in ages and he manages to get through the whole thing without once saying "You can do it!" Good for him!

Via IFC.

A German site has posted a series of new still shots from the upcoming Ring 2 ... most are things that we've seen before in the trailer, but there are a couple of new ones and two in particular are pretty fantastic ... check 'em out here ...

via Bloody Disgusting

Well, the event that lots of people for some funny reason give lots of craps about is nearly finished and a lot of the TV Spots are popping up on the net as we speak.

AICN has just posted this one:
Batman Begins - Big Size.
Batman Begins - Massive FullScreen Superbowl Ego Size.

And the War of the Worlds Superbowl Spot that Paramount took a dump about leaking to the net a couple of days ago, is now back online.

Oh look, it's the Constantine SuperBowl Spot that whats-his-face mentioned.

We'll update this as they come, or as you care. - Whichever comes first. or last.

There's been a place holder and teaser for a while now, but the full website for Stephen Fung's House of Fury has now launched and includes a full length trailer and a pair of making of videos. Go! Now!

Teaser! Trailer! Making One! Making Two!

Found in our very own forum, which you should join. Right now.

The Crying Fist website has gone live here and it's purty. This one, A Bittersweet Life and Sympathy For Lady Vengeance make up my big three in anticipated Korean films this year and I'm more than happy with what I've seen from all three. Website's got all the goodies you'd expect ... if you don't have the inclination to click around, however, here are direct links to the juicy bits: teaser, trailer, making of 1, making of 2.

For those not in the know, Crying Fist is the latest film from the director and star of the excellent Arahan - my review is in the archive - and also stars Old Boy's Choi Min Sik as an aging boxer.

via Hitman at the KFC Forums

The boys over at Filmacco must be even more excited than we are to see A Bittersweet Life, because they just keep on turning up good stuff from the film ... they've found a solid making of video for the film here - and if anyone knows how to find a direct link to that so you can download the file rather than streaming it, I'd like to know ... I dug through the source code with no luck - and they've also got links to the Korean teaser as well as an English translation of the same. Nice.

Oooh ... here's a nice find over at Stauffen ... after reading Mack's post about the upcoming Shinya Tsukamoto / Song Il-gon / Apichatpong Weerasthakul digital short film anthology commissioned by the Jeonjeu film festival Stauffen did some digging and found a website and trailer for last year's entry in the series. The directors? Korean short film and documentary film maker Yu Lik Wai, Memories of Murder director Bong Joon-Ho, and Japanese cult film icon Sogo Ishii. I like this year's line up better, but man that aint bad ... the anthology also played at the Torino film festival and their summary page can be found here. It's a bit of a good news / bad news scenario for those hoping to see these ... there is a Japanese DVD due to release in late March but it will not include English subtitles. Given that two of the three directors are Korean perhaps we'll get lucky with a subsequent Korean release ...

MonkeyPeaches announced a revision to the the nominee list for the 10th annual Hong Kong Film Critics Associated awards, The Golden Bauhinina Awards. It seems with last months announcement of nominees they forgot Johnnie To in the directors category, and his work on Breaking News. I don't go out of my way to support the man, as I would others. I think of it like giving a nomination to Tony Scott. Hey, thanks for showing up.

Kung Fu Hustle once again leads the list of nominees with 6 and One Night in Mongkok [which has shot up my list of must-sees now] gets 5. WKW's 2046 got 4.

The HKFCA also announced that they will give a Lifetime Achievement Award to Chia-Lian Liu, or as he may be better known, Lau Kar-Leung. If you are looking for a god [small g] in the martial arts film circle you might as well bow down to this man. Check out his resume here and here and you'll see why. With Tsui Hark's Seven Swords [please don't suck] being released this year and a forty year career in kicking ass the man deserves serious props. Drunken Master II stills stands as one of my all-time favorite martial art films.

Winners will be announced next month.

Another interesting tid-bit from Wu-Jing. Wong Kar Wai requested Tony Leung [pictured here with Maggie Chueng] train in the martial art Wing Chun to prepare for his role in The Great Master.

The story is about the life of Bruce Lee's master, Yip Man. The script calls for authentic fighting. On a recent promotion junket Tony said that WKW wanted to begin production at the end of the year [last year?]. Tony asked WKW to push filming to the Spring so he could spend half a year learning and training in Wing Chun. Both men are committed to delivering excellence and I am glad that they can make the arrangements needed so that Leung will deliver a believable performance. Looking forward to this one.

Promotional images for the next Stephen Fung movie, House of Fury, have sprung up. Head over to Sina to check out House of Fury cast shots: Stephen, Daniel Wu, Anthony Wong and The Twins [sigh].

House of Fury opens March 24th in China.

via Wu-Jing.org.

Shall I be the only dissenting voice? I wish I could say I love this film. But I think like is a better descriptor. Writer/Director Anders Thomas Jensen is a fine writer but like many writers I wonder if he approached this screenplay with equal parts heart and head. Full of great performances and deft touches The Green Butchers still feels more like chuck roast than prime rib.

Continue reading "REVIEW OF THE GREEN BUTCHERS"

Here is something I bumped into this morning, a story published in Japanese online at the end of January this year... Takashi Miike Directed a Concert Video for an Pop Star whos' name translates (for me, and my computer) as Osamu Akira Yoshikawa - a 39 year old who seems to be celebrating 20 years in the business.

It is also suggested that this is their second meeting, and the singer may have done some music for a Miike film back in 2000, which may well be 'Shangri-La' (it translates as "Drifting Town"). This will be the first time Miike has done something like this, but it does seem to vaguely relate to the stage play Miike was directing not so long back, which i also incidentally heard was infact broadcast on Japanese TV at the start of 2005.

So, If anyone who read Japanese fluenty is around, check the details and report any changes in the comments please! Here's the original piece.

*EDIT* : Gom' says it is infact Koji Kikawa, who was in 'Guys From Paradise" by Miike. Thanks.

Whoops ... a reader sent this link in to me a couple days ago and it somehow got buried with all of the DVD links while I was putting together the release calendar ...

A trailer for the Eiga Bancho series of horror films that include Marebito and Sodom No Ichi has turned up here. The footage from those two films looks to all be stuff included in other trailers we've linked to in the past, but this one does give us footage from the other horror entries in the series ... you can check out the series website here.

Thanks to Umit for the heads-up.

Just on the horn with Todd tonight while he saves the T-Dot from fires and he mentioned this juicy bit of news that I am just picking up bits and bytes on now.

Question: Has Uwe Boll done the unthinkable and ruined video game adaptations for us until the sun burns out and we all freeze to death? While it seems so, and our trust these adpatations is waning, Microsoft has done something about it.

Microsoft has hired Alex Garland, the man responsible for The Beach [Novel-Danny Boyle movie], 28 Days Later [Danny Boyle movie], and The Tesseract [Novel-Pang Bros movie]to adapt the script. The screenplay will be shopped to studios as an all-in-one package: script & rights.

Well, I might as well say it too. Given that the man has already filmed two of Garland's works wouldn't it be simple just to let Danny Boyle direct it? Just spit-ballin' here.

via Empire.

Hey look. Another Luc Besson related project. He's certainly... um... gosh, what is the word I'm looking for? Oh yeah. Prolific. Boy, he's sure prolific these days.

MonkeyPeaches found a second poster for Jet Li's Unleashed. And according to the site's quick byte of information, A lot of Chinese fans of Jet Li got very upset after seeing their big hero being collared and stepped under someone's foot in the first poster.

Um. Okay. Hello? China? Don't want to alarm you. Don't want to frighten you. You may want to send your child to bed early tonight. Oh, how to I put this gently so you won't be offended.

DUUUUUUUUH! That's the point people! He's used, he's abused, and he's putting his hand up cause he ain't gonna take it [spelt with the silent 'sh'] no more. You're a pretty snappy people, China, but you're getting upset about nothing. He's gonna kick ass. We can see it coming. It'll be okay. Take a deep breath China.

FilmRot had this up a couple days ago until everything went FUBAR. Have truer words ever been spoken? Ok, other than Jesus, have truer words ever been spoken?

Click here for the best web site ever?

Only a couple days ago four versions of a potential poster for the final installment of Park Chan-wook's vengeance trilogy, Sympathy for Lady Vengeance, appeared on the web. At the time we hopped on board and shared the visual delight with you, our faithful readership, I don't believe that we knew why they had appeared. Just that they did and gosh were they purdy.

According to KBS Global, The online leak of four mock teaser-posters for the movie “Sympathy for Lady Vengeance” ahead of their official release has created quite a stir. Apparently, the leak occurred while the movie’s production company was conducting an internet poll in a bid to determine the best design... The design that was voted best by internet users was selected for the teaser-poster, said a person from the production company.

And there you go. Design number two, with its Blessed Virgin Mary slant, was the favorite and is now the teaser poster for the movie.

via HanCinema and KBSGlobal.

Via MSNBC article

Well, it's the rough news of the day: Ossie Davis was found dead just a few hours ago in his hotel room - his temporary living quarters while shooting his newest film "Retirement".

I won't claim to know everything there is to know about him, though his resume was extensive, and the role he played among black entertainers soars very high, dating back to his start in 1939. Personally, I most recently saw him in Badasssss! - and of course, his coupling up with Bruce Campbell in Bubba Ho-Tep.

He was 87.

Here's what I love about Lars Von Trier: whether his films succeed or not the man is never satisfied. He's always looking for something new, always looking to push both the boundaries of his medium and his fellow artists. What's he up to now? Well, Von Trier has recruited three film makers - Andrea Arnold, Morag McKinnon and Mikkel Norgaard - to take part in The Advance Party. Each film maker will make their own film using the same cast, playing the same characters and using the same sets with the three films shooting conurrently in Glasgow over a six week span.

I love this idea. Absolutely love it. It's ahuge challenge both to directors and actors and should give us some pretty fascinating takes and differing perspectives on the cast of characters. And though you may not have heard of these three film makers it's not like they're rookies ... McKinnon's been nominated for a BAFTA and Arnold's most recent short - Wasp - has won a stack of awards and is currently nominated for an Oscar.

Now if only someone would spill the beans on Von Trier's Antichrist project ...

From the Guardian, via Greencine.

Artsmagic sent me a couple of upcoming releases to look over. Firstly, 'Another Lonely Hitman' - then soon 'Onibi' - both from Rokuro Mochizuki...

Here's a man born almost 50 years ago and, like many in the Japanese film industry, a lot of his credits that could be listed on IMDB probably arent going to make it there. Why? Well, he's one of the numerouse ex-Pinku Directors. Another master of the minimalist budget leading to heavily deep and contemplative films. It's a real toughie to land on the doorstep of the more inexperienced film fan - I can't help feeling this would sit so much better within the minds of the obsessive Yakuza Eiga watcher. Its depths are so hefty they're not entirely obvious, and I was left constantly and desperately scratching away, in order to avoid (or at least attempting to avoid) taking it as standard Yakuza fare. In the end, it certainly isn't standard - instead it's remarkably subtley judged.

Continue reading "Another Lonely Hitman. by Rokuro Mochizuki (1995). Artsmagic DVD Review."

Glory! Evil Dead 4 is a go! More Bruce-y, Ash-y goodness! The script is being written now! Huzzah!

Here it is, the Twitch DVD release calendar in which we will try and keep track of global DVD releases that we feel are of interest both to ourselves and to our readers. To be included here the DVD must include either english audio or subtitles, and all entries are labelled as far as region code and country of origin.

For this to be a useful resource we're going to need some serious help keeping track of coming releases - there's just too much out there for us to catch it all. If you know of something that should be included - at the moment the list is pretty much entirely devoid of anime titles and we need to correct that - drop us a note here.

Continue reading "DVD Release Calendar."

It's good to have a friend in Japan, even better if he is English and has a Japanese wife (and kids), and knows his stuff. So, i am putting up this Editorial Advertisement, because Citaya Collectables is truly a stunningly good place to head if you like anything Japanese and are having trouble dealing with sites that bar non-Japanese customers through force, or simply through language. Many of you will know Citaya already, though it is worth noting not all serives are shown on their site.

Here's a breakdown of the services and items on offer :

Items in stock :

Japanese Movie Flyers
- currently over 3000 online. Probable number of flyers is around 5000. The vast majority of flyers / chirashi are B5 which is 176 × 250 mm or approx 7" x 10".
Japanese Cinema Programs
- I stock programs for most current movies (300 older programs not online).
Japanese Movie Magazines
- Movie Star, Roadshow, Screen, Cut + others both old and new.

All of the above can be ordered through my website and there are discount rates for multiple purchases.

Services we provide :

Proxy bidding on Yahoo Auctions Japan
: Our fee for this is 15% of the winning bid if under ¥10,000, 10% if over, minimum ¥200. In addition to this there is always a payment fee (bank transfer, COD, Yahoo payment) which is almost always ¥130 (Celga will tell you it's $5) + domestic delivery which varies of course depending on weight. I provide a full range of International shipping options. Advance payment isn't required but I may ask for a deposit which is fully refundable if an auction is not won. I can provide Yahoo search links in Japanese.

Ordering items from Japanese only websites or mail order companies where a language barrier or refusal to deal with non-Japanese is an issue
. Our fee for this is 10% of the item price (minimum ¥200) + expenses as applicable.

Any hard to find Japanese movie memorabilia items can be requested - OOP dvd/video, posters etc. Requests can be made by email to citaya@mac.com or on my forum http://citaya-forum.webhop.org/

Continue reading "Purple Butterfly and Last Life in the Universe DVD Giveaway!"

Here are a couple things I stumbled across while perusing the Sci Fi London website ...

Slipstream is a time travel bank heist film starring Vinnie Jones and Sean Astin. Will everyone's favorite pudgy hobbit be able to sustain a career in the post-Lord of the Rings world? I'm guessing probably not - not in front of the camera, anyway ... he's shown himself to be quite good behind it - but he's giving it the good old college try here as a scientist who turns to theft when his research funding is cut. Surprisingly enough Vinnie Jones plays a goon. I know Jones can't act, but there's just something about him that's far too much fun on screen. Nobody slams a head in a door like Vinnie Jones. The official website - with trailer - is here.

Find number two is Able Edwards - a film that has apparently been doing the festival rounds and has made a big enough fan of Steven Soderbergh that he has come on board as an executive producer to help the thing find distribution. Made for what amounts to Hollywood pocket change Able Edwards plays out like an ode to old 1930's sci-fi b-flicks, only this one's made with the benefit of digital technology. Shot entirely on green screen Able Edwards is the story of a corporation that clones their fatally ill and cryogenically frozen CEO to help them out of crisis. The fantastic website is here.

This film raises the somewhat obvious question of why on earth - with this, Casshern and Mirrormask all being made for pocket change and looking fantastic while Sky Captain ran grossly over budget and over schedule - is Kerry Conran the 'chosen one' of the current crop of green screen directors picked to move on to big studio films? I just don't get it ...

For those who weren't keeping track of things at Sundance, here's the story on Wolf Creek. It's a low budget horro flick from Australia loosely based on an actual serial killer who preyed upon hitch hikers in the outback. Miramax wanted this film badly enough that they threw a stack of cash at the producers before the film even arrived at Sundance to make sure that they would get the rights before anyone else saw it and drove the price up.

Well, Fangoria is now pointing the way to the film's official website and trailer. The trailer's more of a teaser and doesn't really give you anything in terms of money shots but it establishes the atmosphere quite well. If the early buzz is any indicator this one's going to be huge later this year ...

This is another film that I'm just not sure how to respond to ... Martin Scorsese's remake of Infernal Affairs continues to attract interesting talent but the deeper into the process this goes the more certain I am that the finished product will have little to no resemblance to the original film. Which may actually be a good thing, because the original is pretty much flawless and any close remake would suffer by comparison. But I digress ...

Word came out last week that Mark Wahlberg was joing Matt Damon and Leonardo DiCaprio in the cast and now Variety is reporting that Jack Nicholson has signed on. Nicholson in a Scorsese film makes me a happy boy as a matter of principal but there's something about this cast that just feels off to me somehow ... talented actors, all - yes, yes, DiCaprio's a pretty boy, blah blah blah ... he also happens to be a very talented pretty boy - but I can't get my head around how they're going to work onscreen together, particularly in this story. Honestly, I can't even remember the last time Nicholson took on a really serious hard-edged role ... I wish I could get excited about this, but the jury's still out ...

Screendaily is reporting that Palm Pictures has picked up North American rights to Fabrice du Welz's bloody shocker film Calvaire AKA The Ordeal. Now, Nick caught this at last year's Toronto Film Festival and was of the general opinion that having to sit through it was ordeal enough - his review is in our archive - but there are a good number of people who disagree with him. If this thing's got a website or trailer out there, I certainly can't find it ...

Okay, I've got to say that I've got mixed feelings on this one. On the one hand I'm a huge David Lynch fan and any Lynch release is something worth noting. On the other hand Lynch was in way over his head with Dune, a fact that he has admitted himself, and ended up with a theatrical release that was a muddled mess handled as an Alan Smithee film. Yeah, I know, there are people who disagree with me and really love Lynch's Dune, but I'm just not one of them.

That said the DVD Times is reporting that Universal will be releasing a two disc special edition of the film on May 10th with the theatrical cut on one disc and a 190 minute extended cut on the second. A bit of digging on some Lynch sites says that this extended cut is the longer TV version which has been available in the UK for a good little while with the running time difference acounted for by the NTSC-PAL time speed-up. Since Lynch has washed his hands of the film entirely - thus rendering any possible release of his rumored five hour original cut an impossibility - this will likely be the definitive version for collectors.

We're always looking for ways to improve the site here and one possibility that's been floated a couple times is to add a global upcoming DVD release calendar. I mean, we talk about these things all the time so it'd be nice to have a simple, centralized list of what's coming out when and where, yes? Well, the reason it hasn't happened yet is because the initial version is going to be a beast to set up ... there's an awful lot of information to sort through, and I can pretty much guarantee that there will be large holes in whatever we come up with. Which is where you come in.

I'm currently laid up at home with back problems so I'm going to try and put all this down time to use today by getting the first version of the release calendar up and running - and yes, I realize that sitting in front of a computer all day while complaining of back problems is not the wisest course of action.

What I need from you is this: if you're the sort of person that maintains a shopping list of weird films, has a bunch of stuff on pre-order, or is just generally keeping your eye on a few things, I need you to click on our handy contact link to the right and send me your list so that I can include those titles. And genre, any source - as long as it's a legitimate release - is fair game here. If you think Twitch readers would be interested, let me know.

The Longest Yard including what very well may be the only four words that Rob Schneider will say in his life again. Admittedly, it makes me chuckle.

Will Sahara be the adventure blockbuster that we've been waiting for? Penelope Cruz makes me think YES! And Steve Zahn is a funny bastard.

via Movie-List.

Sweet merciful crap! Say what you will about what you think War of the Worlds is going to be. Crap. Popcorn. Fluff. Masterpiece. But the Superbowl Teaser has appeared online and... DAMN!!!

Even if it's mindless senseless fun it will be purdy mindless senseless fun. What do you think now that you've seen this?

Click here to see the War of the Worlds Superbowl Trailer.

via Movie-List.

That's the "Motion Picture Producers of Japan" Figures, showing all in its' glorious detail just how much money was taken by Japanese Productions during the past year, for their stay at the Cinema. AnimeNewsService posted these translations, and also linked into the original Japanese Version which also has the takings for foreign films in Japan : "The Last Samurai" being the highest earner. The takings are of course in Yen, and as far as "billion" goes, well : how many zeroes in the "billion" they are refering to i don't know : anyone?

Howl's Moving Castle (20 billion Yen). Sekai No Chuushin De Ai Wosakebu (8.5 billion). Ima Ai Niyukimasu (4.8 billion). Pokemon Advance Generation (4.3 billion). Doraemon Nobi Ta No Wannyan Jikuu Den (3 billion). Meitantei Conan Gin Tsubasa No Kijutsushi (2.8 billion). Cel (2.2 billion). Swing Girls (2.1 billion). NINxNIN Ninja Hattori THE MOVIE (1.9 billion). Han Ochi (1.9 billion). One Piece The Movie Norowa Reta Seiken (1.8 billion). Umi Saru (1.9 billion). Casshern (1.5 billion). Chakushin Ari (1.5 billion). Gekijouban Naruto Dai Katsugeki! (1.3 billion). Gojira x Mosura x Mekagojira (1.3 billion). Arashi Wo Yobu! (1.2 billion). Steamboy (1.1 billion). Kai Nats (1.0 billion). Innocence (1.0 billion).

In an unprecedented manner Aleandro Amenabar's latest effort Mar Adentro (The Sea Inside) swept the Spanish Oscars (the Goya Awards) winning in 14 different categories.

The Sea Inside won in nearly every category worth mentioning- Best Actor (Javier Bardem), Best Director (Aleandro Amenabar), Best Actress (Lola Duenas), Best Make-Up, Best Production Supervision, Best Sound, Best Supporting Actor (Celso Bugallo), Best Supporting Actress (Mabel Rivera), and perhaps the most surprising award Best Original Score which the director Amenabar won as well.
In other categories the Turkish, living in Germany, director Fatih Akin (In July) won the Best European Production Award for his latest effort Head On.

Needless to say I am very much looking forward to the rumored R1 April release of The Sea Inside. You can find the Spanish website for the film - complete with trailers and an image gallery - here.

Regards,
Svet

via Zinema

So now tonigh I am going to go back to Tom Mes book on Takashi Miike to read up on them, as although i know the films by name I can't remember specific details of them.

On the 18th July 2005, both of the 'Family" films from 2001 (both apparently cinema releases before they were issued on video) will be released simultaneously. Then just over a month later on the 22nd of August, we get 'Bodyguard Kiba' from 1993 - a V-cinema work. Each disc has just been listed at play.com for £11.99 each, so they're nice and cheap and will make my list for purchases straight away what ever Tom Mes book has to say about them.

I've stuck small VHS covers below for those interested to look at, taken from my little "collection".

Spotted at the KFCcinema.com forum.

Continue reading "Three More Takashi Miike DVD Releases. R2 UK Only For Now. Both 'Family' & 'Bodyguard Kiba'."

A couple weeks ago we reported some exciting news about a digital movie project hosted at the Jeonju International Film Festival. We have managed to dig up a bit more information on each director's project.

Il-gon Song's [Spider Forest, GIT] project, Magician(s), is about a guy proposing to a girl on a day his former band member killed herself. "If compared to color," said Il-gon Song, "my film would be orange." Further, "Playing guitar in a band is like a magic that happens only in your youth. But the magic disappears quickly, and you hope to possess the power of magic again. I want for audience my film to be a moment to experience such a magic again." It seems Song will take two days to film his short, February 17 to 18, 2005 and post-production will follow February 19, 2005 to March 18, 2005.

Jury Prize winner of Cannes 2004 for his film Tropical Malady, Thai director Apichatpong Weerasethakul's film title is called Worldly Desires. The story is about a group of people who went into the jungle. There they conquered and ruled unidentified spirits. After the people are gone, the unidentified objects gain a strong desire to be human beings. Apichatpong said, "My idea of this film came from the imagination that jungle might be a thing full of desires. I felt monkeys watching me. It may be possible the monkeys follow my behavior in somewhere we don't know." He also said his film would feel the color orange. Filming was completed the end of January and post-production is scheduled to end March 15.

And last but certainly not least, Shinya Tsukamoto's [Vital, Bullet Ballet] short will tell a story of a man waking up in a room without any idea of who he is. As time goes by, he feels huge pain and sees the mutilated bodies of a man and a woman. The woman is still alive and she tells him to get out of the room. But to get out of the place, they should go into a pond full of dead bodies. If that doesn't sound like a Tsukamoto film I don't know what does.

The message Tsukamoto tries to deliver is the uncertainty of human recognition and the continuous attempts to find out certain things. He described his film to be gray, if compared to color. Filming should already be completed and post-production is scheduled to end March 13, 2005.

This is the fifth year of the Digital Short Films project and while recent years' projects were distributed only within the festival circuit the JIFF organizing committee is promoting ambitiously to distribute the short films for commercial purposes as well. This may or may not have to do with the success of Three Extremes. Just a guess though. But this still makes me a very happy boy. Very happy indeed.

via HanCinema and TheSeoulTimes.

Kung Fu Hustle leads the pack in this year's Hong Kong Film Awards with 16 nominations in 15 categories. Also leading the pack with multiple nominations are:
Wong Kar-Wai's 2046 - 12 nominations
Yee Tung-Shing's One Nite in Mongkok - 11 nominations in 10 categories
Jackie Chan's New Police Story - 8 nominations.

The five films nominated for Best Picture are Kung Fu Hustle, 2046, One Night in Mongkok, New Police Story and Johnnie To's Breaking News.

The five films nominated for Best Asian Picture are House of Flying Daggers [mainland China], A World Without Thieves [mainland China], Zatoichi [Japan], Old Boy [South Korea] and Quill [Japan].

For a full list of all the categories and nominees click here.

via MonkeyPeaches.

Right! Of the big studio films coming down the pipe one that I'm very much looking forward to is Constantine. I originally had some questions when I heard Keanu Reeves was in the lead but the more I've seen of this the more I like it. Thus, I was pretty happy when Warner Brothers offered us some Constantine swag to give away. This one's a little complicated, so listen up.

Warner's has offered posters to a number of sites to give away, so in stage one this is a poster giveaway. Some Twitch reader will very definitely be the proud owner of that poster to the left when all is said and done. But here's where things get interesting: once the poster giveaways have wrapped up Warner Brothers will be dumping all of the poster winners' names into a hat and doing a draw for some much larger prize packages. How much bigger? Well, there are a few different prize packs to try for, but I'm opting for the big one. Might as well go for the gusto. What's in there? A jacket, a scarf, a baseball hat, a beanie, a long sleeved tee and two beetle pins in a lovely wee box, along with the already won poster.

So, you got that? Win our contest and it's a poster for sure with a shot at a big bucket of other stuff. You want it you've got to answer me this question: Not counting one-offs Constantine marks the third major Garth Ennis penned title to hit the big screen. Name the actor who played the irritating sidekick in the first one.

Send your entries, clearly labelled as part of the Constantine Giveaway, to me here by February 25th. In the meanwhile you can peruse the official site here. Sorry, this one's North America only.

A three stage post on that Little Britain Comic Relief DVD here ...

Stage One: Logboy just sent me a link to this page which sketches out some of the details about the upcoming limited edition Little Britain DVD being put together to benefit Comic Relief. Yep. It's new material, about an episode's worth. Hurray!

Stage Two: That link above led me to Comic Relief's Red Nose Day page, wherein I found this happy little summary:

"Exclusively for Red Nose Day 2005, and for a limited period only, this Little Britain DVD includes all the specially recorded sketches from Red Nose Night with celebrity guest stars, Sir Elton John, George Michael, Robbie Williams, Simon Callow and Trisha. The DVD also includes an exclusive interview with Matt Lucas and David Walliams by Jamie Theakston as well as hilarious out-takes. The Little Britain DVD is available at HMV, BBC shops and www.rednoseday.com and retails at just £4.99 with at least £3.40 being donated directly to Comic Relief."

So, we now know the DVD is dirt cheap with the bulk of the funds going straight to Comic Relief regardless of where purchased. Both good things, yes? And finally, on to ...

Stage Three: HMV UK is accepting pre-orders now. Buy! Buy! Buy!

I have the sneaking feeling that I've seen this before, but I can't seem to turn it up, so why not ... a reader just emailed in this brief plot summary of Chan Wook Park's Sympathy For Lady Vengeance:

"A high school student (Lee) goes to jail in order to save the teacher (Choi) she loves. When she leaves prison 13 years later, she finds she has been betrayed and prepares to take her revenge."

People have known that it would run along this general line for a little while but I find it interesting because it nails down Choi Min-Sik's role ... all that I'd heard so far is that the Old Boy star would have a small part in the film. From the sounds of things it may be small in terms of screen time, but certainly not in terms of importance ...

Thanks to Aaron.

It's definitely a teaser as opposed to a full trailer, but it's nice to see some of these images moving ... A Bittersweet Life is the latest from the director of A Tale of Two Sisters with the star of JSA. The trailer is here in Real Video and here in Windows Media.

Just spotted this one. Anyhow, Animeondvd.com have published the official date for the USA DVD for the 2004 CGI Appleseed remake as May 10th 2005.

Not only do they seem to have confirmed there's an English Dub in there for those that like that kind of thing, but they've published details saying there's three different edition : bog standard ($20), special edition ($30), and special edition with limited figure ($50). And of course they're the RRP prices, not what you will pay online for example. When i find artwork and further details i will put another post up.

Just a note to point out that we've dropped our affiliate search box with Amazon UK in favor of one with CD WOW. A couple reasons for this ... first, CD WOW gives you everything that you'll get from Amazon UK with the added benefit of free worldwide shipping. Second, on top of the UK releases CD WOW stocks a LOT of global DVD releases, both from Asia and from mainland Europe. In the last week they beat all other online retailers to the HK edition of Casshern as well as being the first retailer - and one of the best priced - to start taking pre-orders on the Kung Fu Hustle sets. Plus I just generally prefer to support smaller shops rather than corporate behemoths if I've got the option. Search box is over in the right column, feel free to make use of it ...

And someone send me a masseuse. Back spasms are not what I'd call fun. Ow.

I just spotted a post in the Asian DVD Guide forum pointing out that Cafe Lumiere will hit DVD in Japan on March 29th. I caught this at the Toronto Film Festival - my review is in the archive - and while it didn't blow me away it is certainly a very good film and one that I plan on picking up. This edition features English subs, more than half an hour of deleted scenes and some documentary features. Nice. It can be pre-ordered now at YesAsia.

Those Weinstein's, they're wacky. For the heads of a major film studio, ol' Bob and Harv certainly seem to have a hard time making decisions and sticking with 'em. In this case, however, the change of mind looks to be a good thing.

The film in question is Terry Gilliam's Brothers Grimm. The film was originally slated for a late 2004 release and was well into the test screening process when, for no reason that they cared to share, Dimension pushed the release date back a solid year. Not a good sign. Nope. But now it appears that they've come to their senses, realized that they've got a much anticipated film by one of the finest film makers in the world and shifted the release date to July 29, 2005. Terry in the summer, baby! With a slot like that we've got to be looking at a decently wide release, too. Making things even sweeter Gilliam fans should be expecting to see Tideland a few months later ... Huzzah!

Mediamelt at FilmRot drew my attention to the U.S. site re-launch for Ong Bak: The Thai Warrior yesterday. So I went poking about. Not bad. Lots of purdy stuff to look at. After you have watched the trailer you MUST watch Halftime Show through the link on the right upper corner. You can link to the U.S. website here.

As well, KungFuCinema has linked to a TIME.com article about Ong Bak star Tony Jaa giving some insight into the movie and its star that is worth a read even for anyone, even those who have been following this movie for the past couple years.

However...

Continue reading "Ong Bak: U.S. site and Time article."

Very very tempting releases featuring Koji Yakusho. Who he? He's the guy in a lot of the Kiyoshi Kurosawa films. So, what's so special? Well, out of all the actors i've seen over many years watching Japanese movies, he stands out as just plain stunning. If you ever wanted proof that the best talent simply doesn't live and work in America then just watch him. Simply unbelievably talented man.

Firstly is the romantic thingy recently remade in America with J-Lo and Richard Gere... unsucessfully i might add called "Shall We Dance?" out April 7th 2005. It was a huge hit in Japan some years back, and for some reason we now get a Subtitled release. Tempting. Very Tempting. Yesasia.com page is here.

Secondly is 'Univeristy of Laughs' on May 27th 2005, a comedy (though played in the straight-looking Manzai style) released at the cinema only last October 2004. The official site is still up, and the trailer is pretty non-descript at best. Mark Shillings' review at Japan Times is still up (4 out of 5 stars) : go read. Standard Edition here, Deluxe Edition here.

Pimmiks' little-known Koji Yakusho website is also worth a look, as is his official site in Japanese.

Still battling through the Yakuza Papers Boxset from Homevision which came out in December (amongst other things I've got to find the time to watch), and now we have a couple more Fukasaku films this month. Firstly, there's 'Fall Guy' which isn't on my list, but secondly is my first purchase, 'Sympathy For The Underdog' (on the 1st) which stars Tomisabaru Wakayama of 'Lone Wolf and Cub' fame.

The first 'undecided' of the month is 'Ebola Syndrome' in a new HK edition, 'cos it may just be better than the old and now relatively rare 'Japan Shock' edition from a few years back.

Then AnimEigo release "Samurai Assasin' soon after (8th), swiftly followed by some beautifully done stuff in the shape of 'Last Life In The Universe' and 'All About Lilly Chou-Chou' (on the 15th). I am sure there's something else on that day, but it escapes me...

Heading towards the end of the month we get two Shinya Tsukamoto films on the same day (22nd), from different companies : 'Snake of June' from Tartan, and 'Bullet Ballet' from Artsmagic. Then right at the end, the second volume of Takashi Miikes' 'MPD Psycho' hits the UK (28th), and that's the only R2 UK disc I will buy this month.

The second 'undecided' is 'Kung Fu Hustle' (28th in HK), simply because I don't know (even though i've seen the trailer) if I like the dance routines / action mix, though the odd special effects look cool. Anyone else got suggestions for this relatively quiet month?