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Sweeeeeet ... the teaser trailer for Fatih Akin's Crossing the Bridge is now available online in MPG format here and it looks amazing. With his previous film - the searing Head On - Akin took a fictional, and pretty grim, look at the cultural collision of east and west using his own Turkish roots as a basic. With Crossing the Bridge Akin is working in similar territory, this time from a documentary approach using the music of Istanbul as his reference. The teaser's mighty slick - stylish and loaded with humor - and I hereby consider myself teased. You can check the full website here.

Sweet! I went out searching for some images from this flick myself a little while ago without any success, but Ion Cinema has just turned up a series of shots from Broken Flowers, the latest film from Jim Jarmusch starring Bill Murray. I love the look of this thing and I'm hugely looking forward to seeing these things move ...

Would I care about this if I didn't have a kid? Honestly, probably not, but the boy had a major Spy Kids phase a while back and I've become a bit of a fan thanks to him. Rodriguez just makes solid kids films - inventive, full of action and remarkably unsanitary for kid's fare. The man's got kids himself and his approach to telling them stories is a hell of a lot more interesting than the mass produced focus group approach employed by Disney and their ilk. Anyway, check out the trailer for his latest here. It's in AOL's crappy proprietary streaming video format but looks passable nonetheless.

Lions Gate has released a new internet only trailer for High Tension that basically boils down to a kill reel ... mighty bloody and spoiler heavy stuff. Sadly, streaming Windows Media only. Hit the high res version here.

Via Bloody-Disgusting.

Just spotted this over in the KFC Forums ... the latest from Tsai Ming-liang, the director of Goodbye Dragon Inn, raised a bit of controversy in his native Taiwan where he fully expected a fight with film censors over the film's sexual content. The fight never came, but a Silver Bear at this year's Berlinale did. The film is due for a Hong Kong release soon and the HK trailer has turned up online here in streaming Windows Media. The trailer doesn't show a whole lot but the film is supposed to be one of Tsai's best ...

Following on the from the superb 2003 book 'Agitator : The Cinema Of Takashi Miike', also from FabPress, Mr.Mes' new book is on Tsukamoto. Good year for fans of this particular director.

Amazon.com have it listed as July 10th, Fab Press' own site has it down as June 2005. Again, it seems as though there is both (potentially limited) hardback and paperback editions of this to come.

Amazon listing is here. You can also order direct from the publishers site (in the near future) which is here.

To begin on TV in Japan on July 2nd 2005, a new 38 part show of ULTRAMAN - and it's the responsibility of the production team behind the recent movie 'Ultraman : The Next'.

Those hired to direct episodes include : Shusuke Kaneko, the man behind many recent Gamera movies, the Godzilla movie before 'Final Wars' and the recent 'Azumi 2' amongst others. Akio Jissogi, who is currently making 'Ranpo Jigoku' with Tadanobu Asano, and has helmed more than a few Ultraman movies in recent years. Finally, Takashi Miike is still putting the finishing touches to 'Yokai Daisenso'.

Via Fangoria.

DVDTimes have had a press release with upcoming Premier Asia and HKL releases listed. At the bottom, hidden away is the announcement of the first (as far as I know) official Subtitled DVD for Ong-Bak. By the time October comes around, there's a good chance the USA disc will also have been announced, and it could be out sooner. For now, my radar is partly fixed on this one.

Others announced for UK releases are : (HKL) > Project A Box Set (13th June 2005), Dragons Forever (27 th June 2005), Hand of Death (15th August 2005), Fist of Fury: Platinum Edition (12th September 2005), Wheels on Meals (26th September 2005), Chinese Ghost Story (24th October 2005), (Premier Aisa) > My Wife Is A Gangster (11th July 2005), Once Upon A Time In High School (22nd August 2005), Taegukgi (5th September 2005).

Via DVDTimes.

A few days ago, the PIA Film Festival (PFF) official website updated its "PFF nyûsen kantoku saishinsaku jôei jôhô" page, which provides info on current/upcoming movies by Japanese directors who, in the past, have had movies selected for PFF. The page currently provides info on 14 movies and 1 movie series; they are as follows: Naoko Ogigami's Koi wa go-shichi-go!; Isshin Inudô, Shinsuke Satô et al.'s omnibus movie Inu no eiga; Yuki Iwata et al.'s omnibus movie Hairstyle (Heasutairu); Tetsuo Shinohara, Shin'ya Tsukamoto et al.'s omnibus movie Female (Fîmeiru) [see Twitch articles here and there]; Shion Sono's Into a Dream (Yume no naka e) [see Twitch articles here and there]; Akira Ogata's Itsuka dokusho suru hi; Izuru Narushima's Fly, Daddy, Fly (Furai, dadi, furai) [see Twitch article here]; Kiyoshi Kurosawa et al.'s horror movie series Umezu Kazuo: kyôfu gekijô [see Twitch article here]; Sang-il Lee's Scrap Heaven (Sukurappu hebun); Naoto Kumazawa's Niraikanai kara no tegami; Takahiko Akiyama's Hinokio; Isshin Inudô's Touch (Tacchi); Kentarô Ôtani's Nana; Shun'ichi Nagasaki's Christmas in August (8-gatsu no Kurisumasu); and Isshin Inudô's Maison de Himiko (Mezon do Himiko) [see Twitch article here].

Just a reminder that we're down to two weeks left on our Layer Cake Giveaway ... get cracking on your best bad Madonna / Guy Ritchie movie ideas and send 'em in for your chance to win posters, books and hats. My personal favorite image so far involves a certain former Andy of Mayberry cohort cast as Cthulu ... Check all the details here and get to it.

That the film's being made isn't really news at this point, but Grady at Kaiju Shakedown just had a wee chat with Tony Leung about his upcoming flick for Wong Kar Wai in which he'll play Bruce Lee's master. Check it out here.

Title says it all, really ... new behind the scenes videos on the official Tideland website. Go, now.

Wow ... too much good stuff to recap it here, suffice it to say that Stauffen's turned up a bunch of new films from Japan that I'd not heard of yet ... Check 'em out here.

Here's a little something to console all of us Canadian folk still distraught over last year's collapse of the sequel to Strange Brew ... the long rumored feature film from The Trailer Park Boys is a go with Ivan "Mr. Ghostbusters" Reitman's Montecito Pictures at the controls ... Nice ... Hit the Screendaily story here and the official TPB website here.

What better way to celebrate the release of Todd Solondz Palindromes than by posting an interview of the man hissef. Todd Solondz isn't a house hold name but his iconoclastic output ranks as some of the most interesting American cinema in recent years. His new film Palindromes is drawing the usual hate love responses from audience and critics alike but in conversation he proves himself to be anything but a hater. Ever get the feeling a movie was watching you? That's exactly where Solondz wants his audience.

Continue reading "INTERVIEW WITH PALINDROMES' DIRECTOR TODD SOLONDZ"

Well, this is an interesting development ... the future of film distribution is going to be a whole lot different than the way things work now and it looks as though Mark Cuban and Steven Soderbergh have just given things a big ol' kick forward ...

Soderbergh has just signed a six picture deal with Mark Cuban's 2929 Productions / Magnolia Films, which is good news in and of itself, but here's where it gets interesting. All six films will be produced in HD video so that they can be simultaneously released in theaters, on DVD and on pay TV simultaneously. Id' brush this off as a pipe dream but not only is Cuban a billionaire, but he's a billionaire who happens to own his own film production company, chain of theaters and HDTV pay movie network. If he wants this to go, it'll go. The first film of the six will be the now-in-production Bubble, a muder mystery set in a doll factory.

Check out the full article in The Hollywood Reporter.

Place yourself for a moment in the Japan of the early seventies. Sick of government corruption and fearful that rising capitalism will destroy their way of life the student protest movement has turned radical and violent. The Japanese film studio system, slow to adapt to the cultural changes, has failed with some studios going bankrupt and others surviving by making a wholesale switch to producing 'pinku' films - a wholly Japanese form of soft porn and exploitation film. While this time largely devastated the film industry in Japan it also allowed a small handful of performers and producers to launch the first significant independent film movement in the country's history. One such man was Shintaru Katsu.

Best known for his very long running role as Zatoichi - the hugely popular Blind Swordsman featured in a long running television series and a lengthy run of feature films, with Katsu's signature role recently being reprised by art house auteur Takeshi Kitano - Katsu was left adrift when Daiei Studios closed their doors. Perhaps seeing an opportunity in his new found freedom Katsu launched his own Katsu Productions, a production shingle soon to be responsible for a pair of now legendary cult film series.

Continue reading "Hanzo The Razor Box Set Review: Sword of Justice, The Snare, Who's Got the Gold?"

Not rocket science to figure out that since it's the first of many books, it could be the first of many films. Disney is apparently considering the option to do more. Theres a piece which embelishes this here. I would suggest that since there's no talk of anyone having signed to do any more (at this point) that the speculation is only founded on the amount of material available, and that the original contract to produce the film would more than likely have contained the option for more films on other books in an automatic attempt to cover the possibility that the first film does really well. As time goes on, and more countries show the film, we will see if any more develops from this.

Not wanting Goms hard work to go to waste, as I emailed him after spotting theres a listing for a recently made Kekko Kamen movie turning up on R1 soon. I have see a couple of trailers for the distincly B-grade looking but still very tempting stuff. Recently there has been a resuregence in interest in making new films based on the work of Go Nagai, with 'Cutey Honey' being the one I am primarily looking out for a subtitled (official) disc of, plus "Devilman" and so on.

Here's the details Gom dug up. Hoping we can get someone (maybe Media Blasters) to confirm what they're releasing exactly. He says :

My understanding is that Media Blasters will be releasing all four of the movies in Art Port's Mask of Kekkou (Kekkô Kamen) tetralogy. The four movies in Art Port's Mask of Kekkou (Kekkô Kamen) tetralogy are Mask of Kekkou (Kekkô Kamen), Mask of Kekkou: The MGF Strikes Back (Kekkô Kamen : Mangurifon no gyakushû), Mask of Kekkou : Returns (Kekkô Kamen: ritânzu), and Mask of Kekkou :Surprise (Kekkô Kamen: surprise). Note that the English titles are the ones used in Japan; the "ou" at the end of "Kekkou" represents a long vowel (chôboin) 'o', as in "Toukyou" ("Tôkyô"). All four movies were directed by Takafumi Nagamine, and premièred in Japan in 2004.

Mask of Kekkou (Kekkô Kamen) tetralogy official website : Mask of Kekkou (Kekkô Kamen) subsite.

Mask of Kekkou (Kekkô Kamen) tetralogy official website : Mask of Kekkou : The MGF Strikes Back subsite.

Mask of Kekkou (Kekkô Kamen) tetralogy official website : Mask of Kekkou: Returns (Kekkô Kamen: ritânzu) subsite.

Mask of Kekkou (Kekkô Kamen) tetralogy official website : Mask of Kekkou: Surprise (Kekkô Kamen : surprise) subsite.

Japan Home Video K.K. (Japan Hômu Bideo K.K.) : Kekkô Kamen trilogy DVD.

Came across this in Movies.com. Clive Owen has signed on to star in an adaptation of a P. D. James novel about a futuristic society in which the men are sterile. Owen plays a man who protects the first pregnant woman in 20 years.

In the near future, all human males are sterile and England has fallen into anarchic chaos. The arrival of warden Xan Lyppiatt, who puts the country under martial law, changes that, until the unexpected pregnancy of a woman (with the first child in 27 years) inspires a group of revolutionaries. Movies.com

The film will be helmed by Alfonso Cuarón, director of Y tu mamá también and Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. His films look great to begin with and he is sharing some of the writing responsibilities for the movie. Should be good. We'll keep an eye on this one for you.

In a show of support for the troops, Asian cross-over star and bonafide hottie, Bai Ling, visited 'The Lineup' for Star Wars Revenge of the Sith outside The Chinese Theatre yesterday. It was part of a promotional stunt by NetFlix which has been doing some hardcore promotion on the line itself providing movies and subscriptions for the faithful.

Mrs. Mack... ahem... I mean Miss Ling has a small role in Revenge of the Sith.

Strangely though, none of the male fans stood up to shake her hand and pose for photos.

First Volume, May 24th. That's three months wait between volumes. Or potentially three months to work out the plot. Yes, It's difficult to follow. Far less explicit artwork for America too, just a green eyeball, no exposed brain or anything so obviously on display.

All of the series is already out in the UK, but the discs may not be upto much in comparison (picture wise, and eventually in the extras) to these American discs.

Notriously nasty Spanish horror, recently announced as "August / September" by Unearthed Films, now has a firm date and artwork as show here. Unearthed haven't announced that themselves, I've dug it up - now, this isn't a challenge (and I've said that before about their releases) but if you interested in horror, aren't at work, have the stomach or prior knowledge to take a nose, go see the trailer at their site by using the link above.

'Aftermath' synopsis : " woman dies tragically in an automobile accident but the true horror awaits her after death. What happens to the body after the spirit has moved on and the corpse is at the mercy of those who manhandle the dead? What manner of creature is it that tears our bodies apart only to put them back together again? Whether we like it or not, we are all at the mercy of the coroners knife and the abuse and indignities we suffer are strictly up to him."

'Genesis' synopsis : "A sculptor is traumatized by the death of his wife in a car accident. He builds a sculpture in her memory. As the lifelike sculpture begins to bleed through the cracks of clay, the sculptor's flesh mutates and crumbles away."

Again, assuming they're created as a press release and used as standard practice within listings. I have been looking forwards to this one for a year or so. Can't wait.

Recently discovered this was coming along as Patrick Macias mentioned he was working on the liner notes for an upcoming Adness DVD of the film. It's retitled 'Swords Of Vengeance'.

So, now i have found the artwork and specifications I can post this, and you can add it to your preorders (if you want). Surprising that this isn't one those Homevision releases, or any other label, and glad the artwork isn't as generic as all those Sonny Chiba discs from Adness.

It seems according to the listing I am looking at the film is full frame (let the debate begin), and that the disc only includes a Surround 2.0 sound mix, and only seems to have a trailer as an extra.

The synopsis, which must have been written by Adness and will be widely seen reads, "When Asano, the young master of Ako Castle, draws his sword on his elder, Lord Kira, he is ordered to dissolve his clan and commit hara-kiri. With the help of the now-masterless Ako warriors, Asano's devoted chamberlain Oishi (Kinnosuke Yorozuya, Shogun's Samurai – The Yagyu Clan Conspiracy) begins to plot an elaborate revenge, two years in the making. As the lines of loyalty and betrayal are drawn, the stage is set for an explosive battle with swordplay expertly choreographed by Chiba himself."

Only just realised what i had been looking at when i saw these on the Kino site a few days back. Tatsumi Kumashiro is regarded as one of the best Japanese Directors of the 1970s - he was the man responsible for the 1979 'Jigoku', but these two films look a whole lot saucier than that.

'Woman With Red Hair' is a Nikkatsu Roman Porno which stars Junko Miyashita from 'A Woman Called Sada Abe', and is getting a new lease of life here now that Kino is its' new home, as is 'World Of Geisha'.

Hopefully I will be able to look into the genre more (as I have previously tried to) and see 'Wife To Be Sacrificed' amongst others soon. Any other Pinku R1 DVD suggestions welcomed.

Well, the good news is that Japanese actor Yosuke Kubozuka of Ping Pong and GO fame is finally back in action following the fall he took off of his apartment's balconey. The bad news is that the film is directed by Kenta Fukasaku, the man responsible for the horrible Battle Royale sequel. No trailer yet, but the website is here.

Via Stauffen.

If you didn't buy the original Korean, the reissued and remastered (final) Korean, the special edition Korean, the nice R2 UK 2-disc, or any other edition so far - you can get this one. It will be a 2-disc set too, so it should match the specifications of the R2 one.

In WIndows Media / Quicktime & Various Sizes. Just watch, see if you're smiling in a few minutes time. Here.

Via AICN.

I was going to go to bed and the medication will soon be through my blood stream so I'll make it quick before I melt down because this is freakin' brilliant.

Empire has posted an hour-long transbribed conversation between Simon Pegg and Edgar Wright, creators of Shaun of the Dead and Spaced, and Jersey's favorite son and indie film god [small g], Kevin Smith. The topic of their conversation? Star Wars.

::: Insert silly stupid grin on face :::

Start here and let the Star Wars geekdom overflow you.

Now. I don't care, if you saved up all your 50ps. Take your pocket money, and GET OUT!

Oh, sweet mother ... here's a little something I would've missed entirely if not for something Crazybee posted over at the KFC Forums (and yes, bee, I did pilfer your screen capture) ... tucked away on disc two of Media Blaster's Sky High DVD is a five minute promo reel for something called Death Trance. And what is Death Trance? A new film starring Tak Sakaguchi of Versus and Battlefield Baseball fame directed by the action director from Versus. And it looks INCREDIBLE. Now, this thing isn't available online anywhere yet, so I've opted to rip it from the DVD, post it here, and hope that Media Blasters appreciate the free publicity rather than getting angry and having me take it down.

A couple notes on the video file ... yeah, the image is small and a little bit grainy. It's really, really long so I had to scale it down a bit to (hopefully) avoid killing my bandwidth before my webhost gets my note asking them to up my limit. And, for some reason the ripper that I used seems to have slightly compressed the image in the horizontal, so the aspect ratio isn't quite right. Basically if something seems wrong with the file blame it on me. All the good stuff is pure Tak ...

*** UPDATE ***

Okay, this thing ate better than two gigs of bandwidth over four hours in the middle of the night, the quietest traffic time here, and that's just not sustainable on our server so I've pulled it down. Anybody have access to a bit-torrent tracker they'd like to share?

Stephen Fung's House of Fury is now available for pre-order! Hit it here for trailer links and here to order.

That's the word according to JoBlo ... Apparently Robert Rodriguez will start rolling on two sequels to Sin City, shooting both back to back, starting in February of next year.

Good news for fans of smart comedy on this side of the ocean ... word is that HBO has picked up rights to Extras, the new show from Ricky Gervais best know for his work on The Office. The Emmy he won for that probably didn't hurt and neither does the guest list for the new show, a list that includes names like Samuel L Jackson and Ben Stiller. Check the full article here.

A Korean edition of Hirokazu Kore-Eda's debut film Maborosi has been announced for a May 10th release and will include English subtitles. Kore-eda, of course, is the acclaimed director of multi-award winning Nobody Knows, a film that is also coming to Korean DVD on May 10th. We'll add an ordering link just as soon as YesAsia gets these added into their system ...

I love it. It harkens back to the days of the brush and tempra paint. Before the days of the digital artist. It has that classic old school horror film feel to it. I love it.

Click here to see a full sized image of the new poster.

The Hollywood News also has three still shots you can see here.

Just a couple days left until I can stop avoiding all reviews of this film for fear of spoilers ... and yet I am not afraid of watching footage. Strange. Voila.

We're Gonna Die
Vogsphere Slaps
Whale Scene
Thanks for the Fish Song
Zaphod's Election Video

Everybody stand back while Triflic fills his shorts ...

The Japanese DVD of Shinya Tsukamoto's Vital has got itself a release date of June 24th and is now available for pre-order! There are two releases, both of which include English subtitles. The single disc edition appears to be pretty much the film only, with an anamorphic transfer and DTS sound. The double disc edition comes in specialized packaging - sadly no pictures available that I've seen yet - and features a second disc of almost certainly un-subbed special features. Check the trailer here and hit the links above to pre-order now.

Thanks to Aaron for the heads up ...

Well, sort of. Maybe. But not so much. Here's Rex's response to the furor over his comments on Oldboy:

"Finally, a word about Korea. A few weeks ago, in my broadside against the gory Korean movie schlockfest Oldboy, I apparently raised the hackles of several readers who objected to the way I mentioned the Korean film industry and the fermented Korean national dish called kimchi in the same sentence. I’m not an admirer of political correctness in first-person byline opinion writing, but that doesn’t make me a racist, so if I inadvertently offended anyone who misinterpreted my humor, I apologize. I like Koreans. In truth, I have probably spent more time in Korea than any of the irate letter-writers currently bombarding me. I even lived there for several months while making a movie called Inchon! with Laurence Olivier, Jacqueline Bisset, Ben Gazzara, Richard Roundtree and Toshiro Mifune. We had many happy times, admired the lush landscape and liked the friendly people. We all hated the kimchi."

Way to take the opportunity to name drop, Rex. Nothing like patting yourself on the back to take the stink off of insulting the culture of an entire nation ...

Thanks to Alison for pointing that out ...

Hurray for Papa Luc! This hasn't been officially announced anywhere yet - not that I'm aware of, anyway - so you're going to have to take my word on this one and trust me when I say the person that told me is in a position to know. Word on the street is that Citizen Dog - the sophomore film from the director of Tears of the Black Tiger, which I adore - has had its international rights purchased by Luc Besson's Europa Corp. So if you, like me, are lamenting the lack of English subs on the Thai DVD, buck up! Quality western editions are in the future! Huzzah!

Huzzah! A fourth Batman Begins trailer is online and it kicks serious whoopee cushion hiney! It rules like lords! Don't believe me, look for yourself. Gosh it's going to be fun!

Click here to the fourth Batman Begins trailer.

via AICN.

The RikiTakeuchi.com subsites for Masahiro Asao's Deserted Dogs (Suteinu) and Takeshi Miyasaka's Hallucination (Genkaku) are now online. As was previously reported here on Twitch, the movies will have limited-tariff theatrical releases in Japan in the next two months. Both were executive produced by Riki Takeuchi. Deserted Dogs stars Takeuchi, Eugene Nomura (a.k.a. Yûjin Nomura), Yûto Nakano, Takamitsu Ôkubo, Akio Kinjô, Masaki Nishimori, Ken'ichi Endô, and Banshô Shinra (a.k.a. Manzô Shinra). It's scheduled for late-show screenings at Theatre Ikebukuro in Tokyo starting May 28. Hallucination stars Yoshiyuki Yamaguchi, Kimika Yoshino, Hitomi Miwa, Yoshimi Tachi, Tomohiro Katô, Sayumi Yanawa, Shinra, and Takeuchi. It's scheduled for late-show screenings at Theatre Ikebukuro starting June 11.

The official website for Shion Sono's Into a Dream (Yume no naka e) is now online, although there's no trailer for the movie on the site yet. As was previously reported here on Twitch, the movie's principal cast is as follows: Tetsushi Tanaka, Yûna Natsuo, Jun Murakami, Jô Odagiri (a.k.a. Joe Odagiri), Miwako Ichikawa, Ryô Iwamatsu, Akaji Maro, Yôichi Nukumizu, Tôru Tezuka, Rena Komine, Asami Usuda, and Nahana.

Sono is perhaps best known as the director of Suicide Circle (Jisatsu sâkuru), a.k.a. "Suicide Club".

A fifth 'making of' (mekingu) short has been added here to the official website for Jun'ya Satô's Yamato (Otoko-tachi no Yamato). Not to be confused with Shinpei Hayashiya's monster movie (kaijû eiga) Reigo vs. Yamato (Reigô tai Yamato), Yamato is a World War II blockbuster based on Jun Henmi's non-fiction books Ketteiban otoko-tachi no Yamato (ue) and Ketteiban otoko-tachi no Yamato (shita). Starring in it are Takashi Sorimachi, Shidô Nakamura (Nakamura Shidou), Jundai Yamada, Ken'ichi Matsuyama, Dai Watanabe, Hiromi Sakimoto, Kenta Uchino, Ryô Hashizume (Hashidume Ryou), Kyôka Suzuki (Suzuki Kyouka), and Tatsuya Nakadai.

For more info on Yamato, see Twitch's third, second, and first articles on it.

AnimeNewsNetwork is reporting the arrival of a site which represents both the upcoming 'XXXHolic' (Director - Tsutomu Mizushima) and 'Tsubasa Chronicle' (Director - Itsuro Kawasaki) movies.

Both are in being made by Production I.G and are based on Clamp projects, so it's interesting to see these two recent and highly-loved series as the become movies from such a high-class animation studio and the amazing creative team at Clamp. They seem to be due this August.

Recently I.G have ramped their production of TV series somewhat, now they may be expanding further to cope with more regular movie work too. Speculation : but I wonder if the production values in these films will match those Directed by Mamoru Oshii.

The dual site is here. Official Clamp site is here.

via AnimeNewsNetwork.

Got money to burn and a lust for all things Pixar? A limited edition - only 5000 copies - Japan-only box set for The Incredibles is slated for a June 15th release. It looks as though the DVD content is the same as on the North American release but the box includes an Art of the Incredibles book, a numbered art print and a watch. With what this'll retail for I'm guessing that you probably won't want your kids playing with the extras ...

Link by Logboy®

I received an updated release schedule from Artsmagic today - a good number of date changes contained within - and what jumped out was the inclusion of a couple Shinji Aoyama titles that I don't recall seeing on the list at all before. The current list calls for Aoyama's Wild Life in August and An Obsession in November. Read on for the current complete release schedule ...

Continue reading "More Shinji Aoyama Films Coming Via Artsmagic!"

Just surfaced from my Hanzo the Razor boxset - two down, one to go - to check my email and found a note from Logboy directing me here: the official Eureka Project website, a new giant robot anime from Bones - the studio behind Wolf's Rain among other things. Gotta say the character and mech designs are sweet and the trailer looks mighty nice as well. You can find more clips here.

The show starts hitting DVD in Japan in July and will also be one of the first titles available on the PSPs new UMD format ...

An Insider’s Review. In the summer of 2003, I worked as a set dresser on the 1950 period soccer film, “The Game of Their Lives”. Directed by David Anspaugh and written by Angelo Pizzo, the duo who brought us “Hoosiers” and “Rudy”, “Game” had an air of legitimacy not often found on the sets of other movies shot here in my hometown of St. Louis, MO. Of course, not being any kind of sports movie buff, I’ve never actually seen the former two films. But hey, their reputations were good, and despite the prospect of hauling large amounts of furniture around in 100+ degree heat for two and a half months, the notion of working on a halfway decent movie for a change was appealing. (“Game” was my sixth feature as a crew member, give or take a few smallish local ones. The most well known prior to it was “The Big Brass Ring” with William Hurt. Remember that classic? Didn’t think so.) And then I read the screenplay…

Continue reading "The Game of Their Lives"

No, no. We're not that fortunate here to have interviewed one of Koreas hottest directorial exports. But ComingSoon.net did and you should give it a read. And then you should pay very close attention to theatre listings over the next couple weeks as 3-Iron starts to open this weekend.

Read the ComingSoon.net interview with 3-Iron director Kim Ki-duk here.

Wu-jing picked up another article with photos from the set of Jet Li's next film Legend of a Fighter, helmed by Ronny Yu.

I could not make much from my bleak translation of the original article but what I could piece together is that these may have been taken the day of shooting the final part of the movie in which Li's character Huo Yuan Jia competes in the ring against foreign challengers in Shanghai. The competitors include that behemoth in the Rex-Kwon-Do shorts.

Click here for a bigger image of Jet Li and a Big Bald Man in tight shorts.

Hey, screw the upcoming American remake of The Eye, we're going to Bollywood! I just spotted a link to Naina over on the KFC Forums and it looks to be a note for note remake of the Pang Brothers' original. Yes, Dave it even has the 'what are you doing in my chair?' scene ... hit the site at the link above and the full trailer here.

Oooh ... Grady over at Kaiju Shakedown has scored himself a wee interview with Wu Jing, mostly about his role in upcoming Hong Kong actioner Sha Po Lang. That's two people I know now who have seen the film and both swear that it absolutely rules. The interview's short but sweet. Check it here.

According to the J-Horror Theater (J horâ shiatâ) official website, Takashi Shimizu's Rinne - the third movie in the hexalogy - began filming (crank in / kuranku in) last Saturday (April 23). The screenplay for the movie was written by Shimizu and Masaki Adachi (given name may be "Masanori", etc.) - who directed the story "Seven Rooms" in the omnibus movie Zoo. Starring in Rinne are Yûka, Karina, and Kippei Shiina. It's scheduled to be released theatrically in Japan by Tôhô on January 7th of next year.

Let me state my general bias right up front: ever since Ryuhei Kitamura burst onto the scene with the exhilarating Versus he has proven to be something of a polarizing director. Some absolutely adore him and everything he’s done. Others tend to find him incredibly frustrating. I belong in the second group. Here’s why. I think the man’s got a masterpiece in him but he keeps finding ways not to make it.

Kitamura is very obviously an enormously gifted visual director with style to spare. With Versus Kitamura made a film that was openly about nothing more than that style – cramming as many ridiculous shots and extended fight scenes into his film as he possibly could on his restrictive budget. It worked because it didn’t take itself too seriously and because it had a star with major charisma in former street fighter Tak Sakaguchi, who has strangely been limited to only cameo appearances in Kitamura’s work since. With every successive film Kitamura’s budgets have gotten bigger and he has taken his stories more seriously and the dissenters have gotten increasingly more vocal insisting that the man needs a script editor in a big way. There are as many impressive shots as ever but his films tend to be over long and the characters a little bit thin, and he has this disturbing habit of casting fight oriented films with actors who make for some mighty appealing eye candy but very unconvincing fighters. Sky High falls neatly into this mold. If you’re already a fan you’re going to love it, if the weaknesses of his earlier films drive you nuts then this will likely do the same.

Continue reading "Sky High Review"

This is shaping up to be a fantastic year for fans of Shinya Tsukamoto. Not only are his cyber-punk masterworks getting the special edition treatment but by year’s end virtually his entire catalog will be easily available to North American fans for the very first time.

The latest Tsukamoto title to hit these shores is Hiruko The Goblin released by Fangoria via Media Blasters. Those who know Tsukamoto only through the thoroughly bizarre Tetsuo: The Iron Man or the recently released and starkly beautiful A Snake of June or Bullet Ballet are in for an enormous surprise here. Tsukamoto has a sense of humor! And he’s not afraid to use it! Hiruko the Goblin is a throwback to the cheaply made serialized science fiction of Tsukamoto’s youth and comes complete with all the camp humor and odd characters that you’d expect from that genre along with a healthy dose of blood, gore and genuine suspense.

Continue reading "Hiruko The Goblin Review"

Todd asked me to review a film that many consider a classic of pan-Asian horror, the South Korean Memento Mori. Set in an all girls high school this latest release from Tartan's Asia Extreme label explores ideas of acceptance and human community set agianst a backdrop of gossip, suicide and ghostly visitation.

Continue reading "MEMENTO MORI DVD REVIEW "

Oooh ... there have been rumblings about this for a while, but it looks as though it's official now. Logboy just sent me the listing for Kino's upcoming Maiku Hama trilogy boxset, made up of the first three films in the Maiku Hama series - The Most Terrible Time In My Life, Stairway To the Distant Past, and The Trap. The box releases July fifth and, yes, those of you who picked up the first film on it's original release can pick up the second two individually. Check the details here.

Between this and Facets' upcoming Forest With No Name release it's a good time to be a Hama fan ...

Okay ... a little help here? I stumbled across this review of the latest from the director of Candyman over at Screendaily and it caught my attention but it doesn't seem to have any sort of presence online at all. As near as I can tell this is the same film as Man With a Movie Camera but both titles are utterly useless as far as Google is concerned - go ahead, you do a search for Snuff and wade through all the crap that comes up - and the production company info isn't any better ... can anybody help out with still shots or a trailer?

We posted a link to the trailer of The Empire of the Wolves - the latest actioner from Jean Reno and the director of Kiss of the Dragon - a while back and, lo, it has now hit screens in its native France and Screendaily's got a detailed review here. They're a bit mixed on it but they can be a bit wobbly on genre stuff there ... here's that trailer again if you missed it first time around ...

Nope, we haven't got it, but with a bit of help we can and we'd even share it with all of you ... just got a note from Canfield saying that the trailer for The Woods - which has strangely still not turned up anywhere online that I can find - is included on disc one of the recently released box set of the original three Amityville Horror films. If someone out there has the box and is able to rip the trailer we'd happily host it here ... I want my Bruce ...

Oooh ... just went hunting for information on this and - surprisingly - wasn't able to turn up even a single in depth review. Visions of Europe if a compendium film commissioned to mark the expansion of the European Union to twenty five member states. Each member nation is represented by a single film maker and each film maker was given an identical budget and a five minute limit to shoot a short film reflecting how the EU affects their life. Sounds like it could be a bit dry, but check out the contributing film makers: Reconstruction's Christoffer Boe, Head On's Fatih Akin, slain Dutch film maker Theo Van Gogh, and the UK's Peter Greenaway are among the more prominent, but the whole line is impressive. No word on a DVD release for this yet - though it's pretty much inevitable - and no trailer - which would generally be pretty pointless for this type of project - but a detailed website is here.

I'm feeling rather Danish these days, but this time here's a link to something you've actually got a shot at seeing ... the latest from Susanne Bier is in limited release through the US right now and is a family drama set against a UN mission in Afghanistan and features one of my very favorite combos in actor Nicholaj Lie Kaas and screenwriter Anders Thomas Jensen ... here's Trust Film's synopsis:

"Michael (Ulrich Thomsen) has everything under control: a successful military career, a beautiful wife (Connie Nielsen) and two daughters. His younger brother Jannik (Nikolaj Lie Kaas) is a drifter, living on the edge of the law. When Michael is sent to Afghanistan on a UN mission the balance between the two brothers changes forever. Michael is missing in action - presumed dead - and Sarah is comforted by Jannik, who against all odds shows himself capable of taking responsibility for both himself and the family. It soon becomes clear that their feelings have developed beyond mutual sympathy. When Michael comes home, traumatized by being held prisoner in the mountains of Afghanistan, nothing is the same..."

Trailer here.

Trust Film has just added a subtitled trailer for Dagur Kari's Dark Horse to their website here. I spotted the title while looking up the films playing Cannes this year but what I missed was that this is the new film from the director of the excellent Noi Albinoi. This on follows another slacker lead character but is shot in striking high contrast black and white ... looks sweet ... the film's official website is here. There are additional - unsubbed - trailers here and here.

The trailer is there in the site if you didn't manage to download it a few days back after i posted the links here that had appeared at AICN. Don't know what else is there yet, about to go over and take a look after i post this... go now.

Via AnimeNewsNetwork / Nausicaa.net.

CRIENGLISH reported that China has become the worlds third largest film making country behind United States and India.

Now, before everyone goes around giving the other guy the coorporate slap on the butt with a 'Good job' punctuating it China is still a long ways off. It's a third. But it is a very distant third.

China made 212 films in 2004. The domestic box office income was around $180 million, the size of some hollywood movie budgets on their own. But their international box office numbers combined with the movie channel of China Central Television yielded $433 million.

Furthering the reality check just three movies accounted for %60 of that box office total income; House of Flying Daggers, Kung Fu Hustle and World Without Thieves. Only 3!

Part of the problem has been a steady decline in the quality of the product over the years. Zhang Pimin, vice director of the film bureau of State Administration of Radio, Film and Television, "But problems still exist in China's film industry. We have very few good films, for example."

China also lacks appropriate cinema infrastructure and needs to capitalize on these missed opportunites. Zhang said, "China's 1.3 billion people share only 1,200 cinemas, or 2,500 screens. The United States, however, has 36,000 screens for its 200 million people. Modern cinema complexes built in Beijing and Shanghai in recent years are all making good profits." Multi screen complexes take in around %80 of the domestic box office. The good news is that Warners has made arrangements to build 8 new multi=screen venues this year.

We wish China a speedy recovery. Your Get Well Soon card is in the mail.

A full-length trailer (2:58) and promo video (9:10) have been added (in ZIP files) to the official website for Jira Maligool's The Tin Mine (Maha'lai muang rae).

As was previously reported here on Twitch, The Tin Mine is based on a collection of short stories by Ajin Panjapan (b. October 11, 1927). It stars Pijaya Vachajitpan as Ajin Panjapan (at age 22), and Donlaya Mudcha as La-iad. The principal cast also includes Sonthaya Chitmanee, Jumpol Thongtan, Niran Sattar, and Anthony Howard Gould. The film was produced by Dedicate Ltd. and GMM Tai Hub (GTH) Co. Ltd.. It's scheduled to be released theatrically in Thailand by GTH on May 26.

It's a cam job that just screams studio plant - it was apparently shot at a film maker only screening and goes out of focus on the closing money shot - but Aint It Cool has the trailer for The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe available here and what you can see looks niiiiiiiiice ... the final test will be to see how closely the finished product matches the books, but they've certainly nailed the look ...

Oooh, spiffy ... the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Guide has just had a wee update and now includes entries for eight of the film's main characters, including the John Malkovich role Douglas Adams created specifically for the film. Check it here.

Optimum Releasing will be bringing Michael Winterbottom's anatomically correct 9 Songs to DVD in the UK in June and, while I doubt anyone would care all that much about the film without all the skin, they're including some features that could make it a mighty worthwhile pick up. For one thing the film is being introduced by the author of a book on film censorship, a contentious issue if ever there was one. Check a much larger version of the cover art and a full list of specs at DVD Times.

Link by Logboy®

Logboy spotted this over at Gorezone - the cover art for the upcoming Tartan remastered special edition of Tetsuo The Iron Man. It's still slated for a June 28th release and should kick the crap out of the bare bones release currently floating around out there ...

The Criterion site hasn't yet been updated with their latest batch of titles but the good folks at DVDBeaver have gotten word that Seijun Suzuki's Story of A Prostitute and Gate of Flesh are both slated for a late July release. I've read about both of these in the Midnight Eye book but haven't had the chance to see either so this is good news indeed ...

This one spotted by Logboy ...

Oooh ... regular Twitch reader and total Guy Maddin fanatic Triflic just dropped me a note directing me here for some happy news ... Two new flicks from Guy Maddin, quite likely the most distinctive film maker ever to spring from my cold northern homeland. The one he's written himself is most likely the previously announced The Brand Upon the Brain! but if anyone had heard talk of the Isabella Rosellini penned script before now they've kept it to themselves ...

There's no official website (yet) for Kei Nakata's Muhito: The Matchless Man (Muhito); however, there are a few stills from it here on Hisao Maki's official website. Maki wrote the eponymous novel on which the movie is based, and adapted it for the screen. In addition, he executive produced the movie, and appears in it. The cast also includes Sanae Kikuta (who's in Nakata's Tsurugi: The Future Swordsman (Tsurugi)), Wataru Shihôdô, Saki Kurihara, Yumika Hayashi (who played the mother in Tamakichi Anaru's Mother and Daughter: Spit-Swapping Seduction (Hahako (boshi) no daeki (shizuku)), and is in Shinpei Hayashiya's monster movie (kaijû eiga) Reigo vs. Yamato (Reigô tai Yamato)), Yôko Satomi (who was in Daisuke Yamanouchi's Kyoko vs. Yuki (Saikyô joshi Kôsê densetsu: Kyôko vs Yuki), and starred in his Girl Hell 1999 (Shôjo jigoku ichi kyû kyû kyû)), Hitoshi Ozawa (who stars in Atsushi Muroga's Yûsha no hihô), Yoshiaki Fujiwara, Masakatsu Funaki, Hajime Kazumi, Tatsuya Iwasaki, Katsuo Tokashiki, Ryûta Noji, Enson Inoue (Ensen Inoue), Tiger Mask (Taigâ Masuku), and The Great Sasuke (Za Gurêto Sasuke - who's in Nakata's Ecstasy Express (Shiberia Chôtokkyû: yokubô ressha)).

Finally, the hydroplane racing sports flick that the world has been waiting for. “Madison” tells the by-the-numbers tale of a team of middle-American small town motorboat racers who, in their effort to prove that they can go the distance, end up with the fate of their town hanging in the balance. Positively oozing with the type of overly familiar sentimentality and underdog woe usually reserved for the small screen, there are no surprises to be found in this waterlogged heart-warmer. “Madison’s” only saving grace is that it is based on the true story of the 1971 Madison Regatta Race, so we know that, at least to some degree, this isn’t completely a case of the Hollywood Plot Recycling Machine churning out another clone for the whole family to enjoy. Nonetheless, the film is one heartwarming cliché after another, right down to the deadly experimental fuel that the team concocts for when their boat needs that extra boost. “It’s too risky! You can’t endanger your family’s future!” “But if I don’t do this, I’m nothing!” (Not actual dialog, but not far off.)

Continue reading "Madison Review"

Either bored out of their skulls or it was a slow news day at the Telegraph office. The folks put together at Top Twenty list of the greatest film openings ever. You would have to register to see the complete list, but I'll save you the trouble...

Take a gander at their Top Twenty. I've left the descriptions of the more familiar ones. What do you think of the list? Are there any glaring omissions? What about the order? Seriously, I thought Star Wars might have been up a little higher than seventh.

Continue reading "The twenty best film openings ever?"

Toshiharu Ikeda is the Director of 'Evil Dead Trap' and 'Angel Guts : Red Porno'. I know both those split people, so feel free to wrangle that out in the comments - but if you noticed in the extras of the Angel Guts Boxset recently, Ikeda is very well respected by some important American Directors as having a great skill (if not always a great result?).

The IMDB entry for Ikeda shows no obvious mention of this film, and the title when searched for over there doesn't yeild anything either, but it was somehow clearly picked up on by TheGLine in his regular trawl at Amazon for interesting releases (if anyone knows how to effectively traverse their listings to do the same, let me know).

It's a Ventura Distribution release and their page for the film is here.

In case you're looking for a R1 disc of this film, it has been long in the works. Hopefully not too long, as there are still those who at least wanted to see this in the not too distant past. Anyhow, Subversive have finally managed to get it done, and have posted at DVDManiacs a long list of all the extras (7 Hours worth), plus specifications for the quality of the discs. I've seen this listed for $20, about £10 - so it's good value.

Norm Hill from Subversive says it contains :

A brand new 5.1 mix only on the Subversive release, A new 16x9 widescreen (1:85.1) grain reduced transfer only on the Subversive release. All of the following extras are fully subtitled only on Subversive release. Full length commentary track with cast and crew. 2 Making of documentaries. Deleted scenes and outtakes. Karaoke Video. Two short KUBRICK figure versions of the film. Short film, Ramen. Battlefield Baseball Premier in Japan. 3 Battlefield Baseball trailers. Trailers for upcoming Subversive Cinema releases.

The Subversive site has been updated and give details of some other upcoming projects and releases. Can't see any sign of Shinya Tsukamoto film 'Gemini' yet though...

The issue of piracy in a different form. This time, as the sales of DVD make more money for the studios than the cinema releases do (last year DVD ($27bn) taking were three times those of Cinemas ($9bn)) they seem to be considering quicker or potentially simultaneous releases for films to disc. Of course there are dozens of reasons why people both love and hate the cinema, and the same goes for those shiny little discs we buy and the Home Cinema experience too.

Barry Myer of Warner Brothers spoke to the Hollywood Reporter and suggested that the current situation of the cinema being the primary market for films could switch and become the "added value" film experience instead. This would mean buying a DVD and going to the cinema if you wanted to experience it that way, rather than the DVD as a reminder or alternative to that.

Additionally, this would be an attempt to combat pirates selling camcordered VCD / DVD copies of films on the streets outside a theatre - a phenomena not so predominantly Eastern as it may have been in past years.

Michael Lynton, CEO of Sony Pictures and Peter Chernin of the Fox Group also believe this to be the situation and a possible solution. But : "Where piracy tends to thrive is where the consumer perceives that goods and services are not convenient and price is out of whack," added Mr Chernin. People do already seem think prices on DVDs are too high all too often, plus they vary so dramatically from country to country, and although the price would potentially be different if Home Cinema was the primary market (and a DVD purchase is permanent), there's a whole host of arguments against this switch of focus too. For one thing, would it change the kind of films people make?, those films that are popular? (many films rely on the Big Screen to drive the experience for example), or indeed the focus on domestic product and its' market could be lost to some extent?

In the end, the primary concern for any film fan is the film, not the format.

Via BBC. To some extent.

This compelling and sometimes stylish documentary is intended to be your one-stop guide to the most notorious act of corporate fraud ever committed in the United States. For all intents and purposes, and admittedly without having researched this subject to any depth beyond viewing this, I’m inclined to say the filmmakers succeeded with that goal. Directed by Alex Gibney and adapted from the acclaimed book “The Smartest Guys in the Room” by Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind, “Enron” perhaps surprisingly manages to avoid becoming muddled in the numeric ins and outs of the mechanics of the scandal, instead wisely focusing on the corrupt executives themselves (Kenneth Lay and Jeffery Skilling), and how they brought down their once-great company.

Continue reading "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room Review"

Sweet! Logboy just dropped me a note pointing out that Facets Video - the people responsible for the recent release of The American Astronaut - will be releasing Shinji Aoyama's A Forest With No Name in North America on May 24th! For those who don't know, Forest is Aoyama's entry into the long running series of Mike Hama detective films and is apparently one of the stronger titles in the series which began with The Most Terrible Time In My Life. As far as I know this is the first time this has been available with English subs ... nice ...

Niiiice ... this is the third of these behind the scenes packs, this one focusing on the sets and locations ... check it here.

Turns out I wasn;t the only Twitch type at the just concluded Philadelphia Film Festival ... turns out regular reader and sometimes contributor Collin Armstrong was there as well and he's chimed in with a trio of excellent reviews ... et voila:

I took in the last few days of the Philadelphia Film Festival, and it turns out Todd and I ended up seeing a lot of the same pics while there (not sure whether or not we were at the same screenings). Since he’s gone into detail on THE PROMISE, SOUNDLESS, SURVIVE STYLE 5+, QUIET AS A MOUSE, CUTIE HONEY, KONTROLL, STRATOSPHERE GIRL, and KARAOKE TERROR, I’ll offer up the bulk of my thoughts on the pics I caught that he didn’t – the new Alex de la Iglesia offering FERPECT CRIME, blaxploitation documentary MACKED, HAMMERED, SLAUGHTERED, AND SHAFTED, and the Spanish comedy ONLY HUMAN.

Continue reading "Philly Fest Report: Ferpect Crime, Only Human, Macked Hammered Slaughtered and Shafted"

Just in case people missed the note in today's big Cannes post, Celluloid Dreams has posted a quartet of very high res still shots from Johnnie To's Election. As I'd expect from a To film they look fantastic ... check 'em out here, here, here and here.

There's no official website for Norihisa Yoshimura's Killer Bee (Satsujinbachi - kirâ bî); however, there's a trailer for it on the goo (NTT Resonant) webpage for it. The movie stars Saki Kagami, Miku Ueno (who also stars in the story "Zesshoku" in the Umezu Kazuo: kyôfu gekijô horror movie series), Hazuki Suzuki (Suzuki Haduki), Ayano Yoshikawa, Natsume Sano, Yuriko Sakuma, and Nana Kasai.

Three new 'making of' (mekingu) shorts have been added to the official website for Jun'ya Satô's Yamato (Otoko-tachi no Yamato). The first one is simply comprised of production footage, the second is comprised of an interview with actor Takashi Sorimachi that's primarily set to production footage, and the third is comprised of an interview with actor Shidô Nakamura that's largely set to production footage.

Principal photography for Yamato began on March 26. The budget for the film reportedly is ¥1.5 billion (approx. $14 million U.S.) - the same as the official production cost of Masaaki Tezuka's upcoming Civil War Self-Defense Forces 1549 (Sengoku jieitai 1549).

For more info on Yamato, see Twitch's previous articles on it here and there.

Okay ... here we go with the Cannes stuff ... these are in no particular order beyond the order the films appear on the Cannes site ... I'm just working my way through the list ...

Continue reading "Cannes Stuff O' Plenty"

EMPIRE caught up with Nick Frost [Shaun of the Dead & Spaced] at last nights Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy premiere and managed to get a few words out of him about Simon Pegg and Edgar Wrights next project, Hot Fuzz.

...we were certainly all ears when it came to Hot Fuzz. "Simon and Ed have finished the first pass… they've taken their time, and written a great draft, and it's gonna be good. I hope."

There are few things in heaven and hell that could stop that being a foregone conclusion, but the Spaced boys will be needing more time to nurture the project. Exactly how long is still unclear, but Frost hinted at a start date. "Well it's in good shape, so I think next year, beginning of next year we can go into production, and we'll start. Perfect!"

Excellent news. The sooner they begin filming this the sooner I can dust off my British passport and come back home to crash the set.

Now that OldBoy opened last weekend we can look at some of the critical response to OldBoy, which has largely been favorable, with exception to Rex Reeds assualt on the nation of Korea. And it seems the critics just cannot let go of the scene with the squid. I would have thought perhaps some of the dentistry or hammer or dentistry with hammer scenes would do it. Nope. Squids.

DigitalChosun ran a quick article earlier this week about the response to the if-not-now-it-will-soon-be infamous scene where Oh [Choi Min-sik] gives a slight nibble to a live squid. It's a perfectly normal delicasy in Korea, except usually they slice and dice the poor buggers before feeding them to their customers, not whole as in the movie.

"Let's just say the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Octopoids will be picketing most screenings" [Washington Post]

"By the time the hero sits down in a sushi bar to eat a live, wriggling squid, you'll have probably figured out whether "Oldboy" is or isn't for you". [Boston Globe]

"And there's an already notorious scene in a restaurant that begins when he announces, 'I want to eat something live...'" [San Francisco Chronicle]

The "money scene" must be a cute young sushi chef falling hard for the rather dilapidated Oh after seeing him swallow a sizable and writhing octopus. It doesn't go down easy. [San Diego Union-Tribune]

For the record I have eaten quite-dead squid. Not the easiest thing to take down even quite-dead. Rather rubbery with a fine silt-like finish to it.

'Hallyu' is set to blow up big in Japan. The Korean Wave keeps rolling strong. Box Office numbers for A Bittersweet Life dropped in its second week of play in Korea dropping from 2nd spot to fourth. But now Japan is heading into what is called 'Golden Week' where some Japanese have up to nine days off starting next Thursday. Lucky bastards. So what do you do with all that time off? Other than go to the coast I imagine a lot of people will go and see A Bittersweet Life which opens this Saturday.

To give you an idea how much this movie is anticipated in the land of the rising sun peep this.

- The film rights to A Bittersweet Life were sold for $3.2 million, up until mid-February that was the highest amount paid for a Korean export film. [Korea Times]

- Pre-orders for the Making Of A Bittersweet Life DVD are bound to skyrocket as well. "...the movie's 'making of the film' DVD, due out across Japan on April 23, are exploding already as well. Some 30,000 copies of the 'making of' DVD have been sold since April 20, which is quite unprecedented in Japan". [KBS Global]

We'll keep an eye on this.

Bought the R2 Japanese DVD back in March? Well, the Korean is quickly headed our way, from Spectrum, and yes it has English Subtitles. Woo! Will be buying this one then. I see the special feature are listed as : Theatrical trailer(s), TV spot(s), Making-of featurette, Interview, Photo gallery, Yagira Yuya's Visit Scenes To Korea.

It was No.4 in the readers' poll for 2004, and No.3 in Tom Mes' selection at MidnightEye. You should be able to find some nice reviews around for it too, and there's one of the Japanese DVD here. The DVDAsian.com listing is here, and that has a nice overview and some pictures in it.

AnimEigo has a small news update that has just turned up on their site. Here are some of the previously announced titles and their status, planned release dates and so on.

'Samurai Banners'. by Hiroshi Inagaki (1969), stars Toshiro Mifune (IMDB for the film) is planned for R1 release on July 12th 2005.

'Demon Spies'. Can't find the IMDB entry for this, but it's announced for "August 2005". Film transfer and restoration finished.

'Red Lion'. aka 'Akage' by Kihachi Okamoto (1969) is "September 2005". IMDB entry for the film is here.

'Shadow Hunters' and 'Shadow Hunters 2 : Echo of Destiny' are both "October 2005". Again, can't fint the IMDB entry.

If anyone has opinions and more information about these, please post it in the comments below. Thanks. Hopefully these will all be film negative / digital transfers.

The Premier for Hitchhikers was in Londons' Leicester Square last night.

Caught a brief live interview with Martin Freeman whilst it was happening on SKY News. I can't find exact quotes to attribute to him, but it was clear he wanted to clarify some of the misgivings about the truncation and alterations of the story. He mentioned that it was Douglas Adams script and that in now way had they been "foot loose and fancy free" with that script or the original story - that infact Adams had, as on many occasions, been altering and fiddling with the story to fit into the film format, in the same way the story will have changed from book to radio / radio to TV.

I have seen at least one piece in a Newspaper that took what should have been a film review, and shifted it to the front then altered its' slant to "attack" what had been done and what the result was as a form of "story". It seems that because it has been a while since Adams passed away there are assumptions of external forces fiddling with the whole project. In the end, worth checking it out and making up your own mind.

Some BBC coverage and interview clippings can be seen online this morning, here. The BBCs' review is also here.

Them Sony folks are swell. I arrived home from the Philadelphia Film Festival today to find a large FedEx box from the lovely people at Sony awaiting my return. Inside? A healthy stack of Layer Cake sway ... we're talking posters, the novel by JJ Connolly and a batch of Layer Cake wool hats from FCUK. Nice. So now I'm going to give them all away.

Here's how we're going to do it: Layer Cake director Matthew Vaughn rose to prominence as a producer on Guy Ritchie's films, yes? And the pair had - apparently - a fairly siginificant falling out after Ritchie became Mr. Ciccone and evidentally lost his mind and went off to make vanity projects with his wife. We're all aware by now that Swept Away was fantastically bad - potentially even career endingly bad. But was it as bad as it could have been? I'm sure you lot can come up with much worse films for Guy and Madge to make together, so that's the contest. Pitch me a film, the worst film you can possibly imagine, for Guy Ritchie to direct with Madonna in a lead role. The worse your film is, the more stuff you win.

Entries must be received here by May 13th - the film's local release date, natch - and this one's open to all comers, so fire away! And do show Layer Cake a bit of love by checking out the official site here.

Now, I do tend to prefer Nonzee Nimibutr as a producer - a role he filled for Tears of the Black Tiger and Bangkok Dangerous - rather than a director but there is no denying that the man is one of the most important and influential figures in Thai film today, so I was pretty excited when Logboy dropped me a not pointing out that his sexual awakening film Jan Dara and his ghost story Nang Nak were both slated for R1 release - through Kino - on May 10th.

Logboy also dug up release dates for Vietnamese ghost story Spirits - May 20th - and Korean actioner Another Public Enemy, on R3 DVD on May 18th.

I'm really not sure how long this has been floating around, but it rules hard ... click here to check out Worst Case Scenario. Thanks to Perfect Blue Illusion for the link ...

Oooh ... big thanks are due to Tracy for this one ... she just passed on the link for the new and improved WETA website - okay, I don't know how new this actually is since I haven't been there in ages - and a healthy gallery of production designs for the proposed live action adaptation of Neon Genesis Evangelion. There are a bunch here that I've never seen before, and they look fantastic ... sadly, the website notes that the film is currently on hold which is not really a surprise given how long and complex the story is, but if it ever gets made it's obvious that WETA will have things looking fantastic ... check out the full gallery here.

Like the title says ... Paul Spurrier's Thai language ghost story has won the audience award at the Erlangen Weekend of Fear ... read on for the full press release ...

Continue reading "Paul Spurrier's P Wins Audience Award At Erlangen Festival!"

It's pretty obvious that there is still more to come, but Twitch regular Tracy dropped me a note recently pointing out that the official Narnia website has hade a serious makeover and it looks mighty sweet. A lot of design work is on display and nostalgia prone people like myself who were weaned on the books should be pleased to find that the site offers a good amount of background on both the series and its creator. Be warned though: this thing is as heavily flash animated a site as I've ever seen. If you don't have a high speed connection it's probably not worth the effort ...

I'm sure these have been everywhere in the world by now, but they haven't been here yet, so voila ... a trio of Star Wars TV spots are now available on the official Star Wars website. I don't like these ones nearly as much as the proper trailer: some of the CG looks unfinished and untextured and they appear to have been cut to appeal to as young an audience as possible - strange consider Lucas has been making a big deal about how dark the film is. And I can't believe I'm saying this but where's Mr. Movie Voice when you need him? Anyway, enough obsessive griping ... spots one, two and three.

Thanks to David for the links.

I'm just sorting through the huge mound of email that built up while I was away in Philadelphia and Scott from horror-movies.ca dropped me a note pointing the way to his gallery of Silent Hill set shots. Now the history fo video game adaptations ... well ... frankly, it sucks. There's been a guilty pleasure or two, but nothing that I'd be willing to call 'good' has yet come from a video game film, but I'm actually feeling quite optimistic about this one thanks to the presence of writer Roger Avary and director Christophe 'Brotherhood of the Wolf' Gans. This is actually shooting locally so I've been working on arranging an official set visit and - hopefully - an interview or two, but in the meantime these shots will have to do ...

Why, yes, I did just find a Danish trailer site ...

I've just come across the trailer for Nicolas Winding Refn's sequel to his violent look at Danish drug culture and it looks pretty amazing. The original Pusher is a film that I've nearly picked up several times but have always held back for some reason and this might have just put me over the edge. I know we've got readers in that part of the world, so someone must have seen this as well as the original ... thoughts?

Mads Mikkelson stars in this as the titular Pusher and considering that he has only been seen in North America in comic roles such as Wilbur Wants to Kill Himself or The Green Butchers so this is a huge change for what we typically see from him and his performance looks mighty impressive ... check it here.

I haven't even started digging through the Cannes list yet, but I just came across the trailer for Lars Von Trier's Manderlay, the quasi-sequel to Dogville and it looks fantastic in a very Lars-y sort of way. If the trailer's any indication the people that got all worked up over Von Trier criticizing America in Dogville are going to be positively incensed by this one. And no, no sign of the donkey. Check it out here.

Yeah, yeah, yeah ... I gush about this guy every time any Scandanavian films enter the conversation. I'm a fan. Sue me. I just found the trailer for Jensen's latest - Adam's Apples - online and it looks to mine the same dark comedy mine that he hit with The Green Butchers. And, yep, both Mads Mikkelson and Nicholaj Lie Kaas from that film also appear in this one. Hit the trailer here.

Whee. A 2nd Unleashed trailer in now online over at YahooMovies and it kicks some serious ass. We have heard that the film is more dramatic then action filled so I hope we haven't been shown everything. But in that same regard, who cares?!!? It looks awesome. Definitely on my must-see list.

Find both North American trailers and a Jet Li/Massive Attack music video here.

via MonkeyPeaches.

AICN has posted these today, the American trailer for Hayao Miyazakis' 'Howls Moving Castle'. Right Click and Save if you want...

Quicktime (Small / 3.9Mb).
Quicktime (Medium / 8.4Mb).
Quicktime (Large / 19.1Mb).
Quicktime (Massive / 36.9Mb).

If you want Realplayer or Windows Media Player you can go to their page. Its' a preference to see it in Quicktime because of the quality. See here.

Via AICN.

Although we've had a little information on the 12th Kim Ki-Duk film in the past few weeks, HanCinema have put some new stuff online about the film.

The film has recently been certified by the Korea Media Rating Board as 'R-15' and will get a general cinema release on May 12th, and as reported here yesterday / late last night it will also be shown at Cannes, but in a non-competative capacity. Kim Ki-Duk will make his first appearance at the festival too.

HanCinema also give an additional explanation of some of the themes and plot points, "The main backdrop of the film is an unmapped island and a boat floating near the island. Living together in this boat are a young girl just showing signs of budding breasts and a hale 60-year old man who is fit and healthy for his age. "The bow" is a weapon that the old man uses to protect the girl from younger men on the island. The film portrays the love between the old man and the girl".

Via HanCinema.

This shift in release dates make the Australian the first with English Subtitles to appear.

Firstly, went to CD-WOW.com and spotted the date for what I thought was the UK disc being bumped until 27th of June. Wrong : That's a new announcement of the Australian DVD, both R2 and R4 simultaneously. Their price at CD-WOW is £12.99 including delivery.

Australian Specifications : English - Dolby Digital 5.1 / Italian - Dolby Digital 5.1 / Japanese - Dolby Digital 5.1 / Spanish - Dolby Digital 5.1. Subtitles: English, Dutch, Danish, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Swedish, Finnish, Norwegian. 2.35 : 1 Anamorphic Widescreen. Superbit encoded. Theatrical trailer. 5-part making-of documentary, including a look at the film's journey to the screen, revoicing the film for it's US release and an in-depth interview with Katsuhiro Otomo. Production drawings. Previsualisation footage. No. of Discs: 2.

This does look like it could be as good as the more expensive Special Edition R2 UK disc, now bumped back until the 29th of August, from June 7th 2005. Special Features for that are unconfirmed as far as I can see, but at £12.99 for the Australian versus £25 for the R2 UK I can't see what additional extras can be offered to make it worth paying twice the price.

The CD-WOW listing for the Australian DVD is here. The Play.com R2 UK listing is here.

*EDIT* Play.com have shifted their date again for the UK disc. it is now show as the end of July 2005, not the end of August. The price hasn't changed, so effectively it's outdone by the R4 Australian Disc in all departments. If the date shifts again, i will make a fresh post.

Well, you know what they say about good things and ending and this one has. Today was the final day of the Philadelphia Film Festival and, just as soon as I'm done writing this, I need to pack my stuff up so I can hit the road bright and early in the morning. Today was another three film day and, once again, all three were excellent. On the slate: the live action adaptation of Cutie Honey, German hitman film Soundless and the well nigh unclassifiable Survive Style 5+.

Continue reading "Philly Fest Report: Cutie Honey, Soundless, Survive Style 5+"

Four stills have just been added to Albatros' subsite for the omnibus horror movie Ranpo jigoku. The movie is comprised of four stories, all of which are based on short stories by Tarô Hirai (1894-1965) - better known by the pen name "Edogawa Ranpo". The four stories are...

"Kasei no unga": directed by Suguru Takeuchi; screenplay by Suguru Takeuchi; starring Tadanobu Asano, Kaiji Moriyama, and shan.

"Kagami jigoku": directed by Akio Jissôji; screenplay by Akio Satsukawa; starring Hiroki Narimiya, Tadanobu Asano, Mikako Ichikawa, Tomoya Nakamura, and Minori Terada.

"Imomushi": directed by Hisayasu Satô; screenplay by Shirô Yumeno; starring Ryûhei Matsuda, Yukiko Okamoto, Hanae Kan, Tadanobu Asano, and Nao Ômori.

"Mushi": directed by Atsushi Kaneko; screenplay by Atsushi Kaneko; starring Tadanobu Asano, Tamaki Ogawa, and Hiromasa Taguchi.

Incidentally, Akio Jissôji also directed the upcoming horror movie Ubume no natsu - which there's a trailer for here. Based on the eponymous novel by Natsuhiko Kyôgoku, Ubume no natsu stars Shin'ichi Tsutsumi, Masatoshi Nagase, Hiroshi Abe, Hiroyuki Miyasako [left entry on the page linked to], Tomoyo Harada, Rena Tanaka, and Ayumi Ishida.

Lord of the Rings did a special one day marathon of all three films when Return of the King opened over a year ago but that was only three movies. Pansies I say! How about viewing all six Star Wars films on May 16th? Mercy.

BBC NEWS reported today that there will be a special screening of all six Star Wars movies in Londons Leicester Square, the hub of the UK cinema industry.

For £50 [117 Canadian dollars or 94 US dollars] you can watch the first five films and be one of the first to see the final installment of the prequel trilogy. You will also get a performance from the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra performing Star Wars music as well.

"Revenge of the Sith is a remarkable movie, and this extraordinary celebration reflects the fun and excitement that are the hallmarks of Star Wars," said the movie's producer, Rick McCallum. "The Star Wars movies have a strong connection to the United Kingdom, so it's very fitting to hold this one-of-a-kind event here in London."

Hayden Christensen, Anthony Daniels, and Peter Mayhew will be in attendance at the premier.

More power to them. I've tried to watch the original trilogy straight through at the Wonder Twins' house. We slept. Our problem was familiarity with the movies was so much that we could fall asleep, wake up and know exactly where in the movie we were. My gosh, we'd been watching them since we were toddlers.

Now. Will they show the original Star Wars movies from 77, 80 and 83, or, will they be watching the up to date, updated versions?

Star Wars Math: Not knowing how long Revenge of the Sith was I guess-timated how much total running time a full six film marathon would be compared to the Lord of the Rings marathon. It was close but Star Wars is up by three hours. My pansies comment stands.

The Cannes Film Festival, one of the more prestigious and well known festivals in the world, announced its lineup today. The festival will take place the latter half of May.

Films in competition this year include works from Canadians Atom Egoyan and David Cronenberg. Other standouts include Lars Von Trier, Gus Van Sant, Robert Rodriguez and Johnny To [Johnny makes it noteworthy on the What the Hell? scale].

And the films out of competition are not so shabby, including Revenge of the Sith, A Bittersweet Life, and The Bow.

Emir Kusturica will be this years President of the Jury, practicing a little more restraint that the excitable Tarantino.

By now you very well know I am not a fan of contributions that Rob Cohen and his producer monkey, Neal Moritz, have offered to contemporary western cinema.

So get this. It seems that Moritz is still intent on bringing another Fast and the Furious to the silver screen. Tainting it if you will. It gets better. But first some good news from an interview with Moritz by About.coms Fred Topel...

Is it true you’re doing a Fast and the Furious 3 with neither Vin Diesel nor Paul Walker? Yes, it is.

Can I hear an Amen? So that's good news to start the interview but then it all goes pear-shaped from there. Read on...

At what point did you realize you had to reinvent that franchise? Well, we really loved making those two movies and we were looking for a fresh take on how to go into that world again, we came to this idea of going to Japan.

How is racing different in Japan? It’s where a lot of this stuff started, so it’s about the new level of racing there.

Japan? JAPAN?!? You know what happened? Some wise ass intern cruises our site and reads about the Initial D anime and upcoming movie, slaps a DVD of the anime in Moritz' mailbox, Moritz in turn makes another intern watch it, the intern says its pretty cool and Moritz has a brilliant indea about making a third Fast and the Furious in Japan claiming, 'I've got this great idea for a movie. It just came to me in a dream'.

And it will be yet another Hollywood movie that creates a bad picture of Asians and it will be Japan vs. America 60 Years Later. Except this time 'Da Bomb' won't mean you're seconds away from getting obliterated by an A-Bomb. The Japanese are a lovely people. They don't deserve to be an enemy and typecasted as such in American tripe.

And we don't deserve another Fast and the Furious. Put it to rest. please.

Full interview at About.com.

Via DarkHorizons.

The Japanese sale DVDs of Ryûichi Honda's Watermelon (Wôtâmeron) and My Wife's Shell (Dappi waifu - peau de mon épouse) are scheduled to be released on May 27th (FMDS-5002) and June 24th (FMDS-5008), respectively. It doesn't appear that either DVD will have English subtitles; however, these upcoming releases provide a good excuse to post links for the downloadable trailers for the movies. The trailer for Watermelon is here (viewer discretion is advised), and the one for My Wife's Shell is there (viewer discretion is advised).

The cast of Watermelon includes Runa Akatsuki, Ai Kurosawa, Kou Kamitsuma, Akira Katô, Sayaka Fukasawa, Akira Fujino, Kiyoshi Kimura, Shin'ya Matsumura, Hiromi Nakata, Kô Yoshii, Debi Kobayashi, Shinsuke Itô, Kenji Hoashi, Akira Asai, Kazuyo Imamura, Ayumi Takami, Kazuyoshi Ozawa, and Hiroshi Yamamoto.

The cast of My Wife's Shell includes Kazuyoshi Ozawa, miko (she was the subject of Urara 1: miko), Tomoyuki Mashiko, Ayumu Tokitô (she starred in Daisuke Yamanouchi's Sisters of Blood (Senketsu no kizuna: kichiku reipuhan o shinkan saseta shimai)), Aya Shiraishi, and Takeshi Yamamoto.

There's still no trailer for Kei Nakata's Ecstasy Express (Shiberia Chôtokkyû: yokubô ressha) on the official website for the movie, but hopefully there will be one at some point in the future. The movie is a spin-off from the Siberian Express (Shiberia Chôtokkyû) series. Its cast apparently includes Miku Matsumoto, Maria Yumeno (she starred in Daisuke Yamanouchi's Yumeno Maria: chô-inran onna no shiseikatsu), Tsubo Genjin, Ricky Fuji (Rikkî Fuji), Macho Pump (Maccho Panpu), Shigeru Saiki, Yûji Nakamura, Pal Hazuki (Paru Haduki), Ran Monbu, Hitomi Hayasaka, Naho Ozawa, Shôko Nakahara, Natsuyo Kanahama (she starred in Kenji Ônishi's experimental horror Squareworld (Sukueawârudo)), Torata Nanbu, Esper Itô (Esupâ Itô; esupâ = ESPer), Raper Satô (Reipâ Satô), Chimurin (Chie Norisue and Namie Sugimoto), The Great Sasuke (Za Gurêto Sasuke), Chocoball Mukai (Chokobôru Mukai), DIAMOND☆YUKAI (Daiamondo☆Yukai), Motoji Takasu, Ofune, DJ Nira, Kazuaki Nishida [second entry on the page linked to], and Haruo Mizuno (a.k.a. Mike Mizuno).

In a related story, Yasuhiko Yanagisawa has directed a movie in the Siberian Express series, Shiberia Chôtokkyû 6 1/2: haigo ni semaru satsujinsha. It stars Mizuno, Nishida, Dai Misumi, Hideki Toku, and Dankichi Nakano.

Just trickeld out today. News that Steve Coogan, who had retired the character of Alan Partridge from anything but special one-off shows, has a possible film in the pipeline. Partridge himself seems to have been around forever but has only grown in popularity, and seems to be following a relatively recent trend of series that have remained popular even though they essentially seem to be over that are turning up as film projects.

If this turns out to be as popular as it has been in the UK when it shows elsewhere is yet to be seen. 'Shaun of The Dead' is relatively grounded in American culture and succeeds because of it. 'The Leagure of Gentlemen' may get by in the States on its' "incredibly weird" factor.

via BBC. The dedicated Partridge zone of the BBC site is here.

Got an email from Nat this morning, reminded me that the series is due soon on R1 USA DVD. I am sure i've mentioned it before, or at least i think it is well know that Adness is doing the show in America and that I had already mentioned the date. Searching through the archives gives no direct mention, so this is a reminder more than anything.

Also there's a chance the say the discs are as bare-bones as the now completed UK issues : i.e nothing but a trailer on at least the first disc. No signed of the uncensored segments included as extras on the Japanese discs a few years back. They are cheaper than the UK ones, but only slightly from my point of view. About $12 plus postage each is the price i've seen them listed with.

Here as the picture in the post is the front cover (the slightly different image of the eye ball) for the first volume, and its' back (used as a cover in the UK).

"*EDIT* Nat just emailed me again to mention the magazine advert says the third disc in the series for the american edition will be "packed with extras". I can't see that Adness has a site, or that anyone else has been able to specifically say what those extras are yet.

The trailer at Apple Japan was linked to from here at Twitch back in Mid-March 2005, but now i've spotted that the full 61 minute version gets its own DVD release in Japan soon.

So, you can go back and look at the trailer I just mentioned again if you wish, and decide if you are still interested. I know it caught some peoples' imagination around here. No English Subtitles.

Originally a 2001 Gonzo series, Hellsing is an anime rarity. It's a decent horror show, and one that's popular with anime fans who normally seem to shy away from gore unless it's heavily balanced with more familiar elements.

Now AnimeOnDVD.com have exclusively revealed that Geneon, who originally licensed and released the show in the USA, are behind the comissioning / financing of a new series of Hellsing based directly on the original Manga source material. The running time of 35 minutes per epsiode does suggest a relatively short series though, and we will find out more details in time.

Although Gonzo are often said to almost automatically go for violence in there shows, Hellsing remains a firm classic, perhaps as it comes from a time where fans weren't so used to their approach. Worth checking out if you're into good solid stories, nice animation and are tempted by a little blood and guts.

Via Animeondvd.com.

Well, only one day left to my time in Philadelphia. Today was the second last day of screenings and I caught three very different films: an Italian period drama set shortly after the fall of Rome, an meditative Icelandic fable, and the latest directorial effort from indie icon Steve Buscemi - a dark absurdist comedy. The first was solid viewing, the latter two both excellent. Having Buscemi present to introduce his film and follow it up with a Q&A certainly didn't hurt things, either ...

Continue reading "Philly Fest Report: The Voyage Home, Niceland, Lonesome Jim"

Lots of the stuff even nominated for the BAFTA television awards 2005 won't even ring a bell, so here's the best bits. 'Best Comedy Performance', not surprisingly went to Matt Lucas and David Walliams for 'Little Britain', which also won the 'Comedy Program or Series Award'. 'Green Wing' won the 'Audience Award', beating the very popular comedy drama 'Shameless' which has just begun a second series on Channel 4. 'Black Books' won the Situation Comedy Award.

Rhys Ifans gets a highly deserved BAFTA for his portrayal of Peter Cook in 'Not Only But Always', the TV film of Cook and Dudley Moores' relationship; and trust me, check out the DVD - you should grab it soon as Ifans proves himself to be ten times the actor many would ever have thought him to be.

Quite a lot of comedy involved here for an award ceremony that covers documentaries, news, and the olypic games for example.

via Bafta.org.

Continue reading "BAFTA 2005 Television Awards Highlights and Full Listing."

The first mention I heard of Funland was in Todds interview with Gatiss, which is still here in the archives.

Today the BBC have give a few little details about the show, co-written by 'The League Of Gentlemen' colleague Jeremy Dyson.

"It's a big sprawling piece, not a sitcom with just four main characters." Says Keith Allen, BBC Manchesters' Comedy Unit Editor, ""Funland is the bastard son of The League of Gentleman and EastEnders after a really heavy night on the town with Twin Peaks."

The first is an hour-long episode, with ten more half-hour scripts in the pipeline, and was due to go into production in March 2005.

Oh, poor Malcolm McDowell ... how did he ever get roped into making this? Today was a bit of a down day here: with little jumping off the schedule shouting "Watch me! Watch me!" Canfield and I spent the day poking around Philadelphia a bit with our host and meeting up with a friend who had recently moved into the city before catching our sole screening of the day. David Grieco's Evilenko is based on the true story of a Russian serial killer who hypnotized, raped, killed and ate more than fifty children over a nearly twenty year span. The premise is certainly there for a gripping film as well as a strong lead actor in McDowell but first time writer-director Grieco turns in a film that provoked more than a few unintended laughs thanks to a film filled with ludicrous dialogue and a seemingly endless array of staggeringly flat performaces.

Continue reading "Philly Fest Report: Evilenko"

So the count now stands at three days, eleven films. Thus far I'm having a ridiculously high success rate with ten solid films against only one dog. Not bad. Rounding up today's viewing after this morning's viewing of Off Beat was Chan Wook Park's Oldboy - first time seeing it projected and with an audience - plus a pair of German films in Stratosphere Girl and Quiet as a Mouse.

Continue reading "Philly Fest Report: Oldboy, Stratosphere Girl, Quiet As A Mouse"

The official website for the Umezu Kazuo: kyôfu gekijô horror movie series is now online. The series is (to be) comprised of six stories based on manga by Kazuo Umezu...

"Mushi-tachi no ie": screenplay by Sadayuki Murai; directed by Kiyoshi Kurosawa; starring Hidetoshi Nishijima, Tamaki Ogawa, Asahi Uchida, and Hisako Shirata.

"Zesshoku": screenplay by Hiroshi Takahashi; directed by Tadashi Itô (given name may be "Masashi", etc.); starring Miku Ueno, Shôko Nakagawa, and Kanji Tsuda.

"Madara no shôjo": screenplay by Chiaki Konaka; directed by Noboru Iguchi; starring Riko Narumi, Arisa Nakamura, Minako Tanaka, and Kyûsaku Shimada.

"Negai": screenplay by Sadayuki Murai; directed by Atsushi Shimizu; starring Orito Kasahara, Kyôko Tôyama (Tooyama Kyooko), Toshinori Omi, and Natsumi Okumura.

"Purezento" (or "Present", if you prefer back-transliterations): screenplay by Tamio Hayashi; directed by Yûdai Yamaguchi; starring Mai Takahashi, Takamasa Suga, Yôko Mitsuya, and Hitomi Kurihara.

"Death Make": screenplay by Chiaki Konaka; directed by Taichi (name may be "Taiichi", etc.); starring Alice, Hitomi Miwa, Anna Nakagawa, and Tomorowo Taguchi.

I had originally hoped to be screening Woman is the Future of Man right now but the festival's tight schedule and the fact that Woman plays on the opposite end of town as Off Beat - which I just saw - and Oldboy - which I'll be seeing next - pretty much ruled that out, so I'm taking advantage of the bit of time off to jump online in the library next to the lovely Bridge Theater where I've been for most of my screenings ... this place is absolutely one of the best movie theaters I've ever been in. Reclining leather seats, stadium seating, fantastic screens and audio, wood panelled throughout and a swanky bar upstairs ... what more do you need, really?

Now, when I first was digging up trailers for films at the festival Off Beat was a marginal choice for viewing. The German flick from a first time director tells the story of a young paramedic named Paul who is haunted by recurrent nightmares of the car accident that killed his parents when he was still just a boy. The trailer had style, yeah, but something left me with the feeling that this was one of those cases where the trailer would be better than the actual film. Wrong. Absolutely completely wrong. I've seen two debut films so far and writer-director Hendrick Holzemann is every bit as impressive as UNO's Aksel Hennie. If these two young talents are any indication of what's out there then the future of European film is in very, very good hands ...

Continue reading "Philly Fest Report: Off Beat"

Just stumbled up this whilst checking if theres any new details on a DVD release in Japan for 'Howls Moving Castle' by Hayao Miyazaki. Do you remember a while back there was a mention via Nausicaa.net of a stage show sequel to the film? No?

Well I found the shows Official Site and some details.

The show is on from Wednesday, April 27th 2005 - Sunday, August 21st 2005. Tickets seem to be 500, 800 and 1000 yen a piece. Could be on at three different locations for a time during this run, with slightly different audience capacities at each one. Seems to be performed 4 times a day : 10am, 12noon, 2pm and 4pm opening with the show at half an hour after that time.

The Lawson site that I am trying to read info from is here. The Official Site for the show is here.

Fangoria is reporting the Extras for the Extended Edition of 'The Grudge', still due out May 17th 2005, and originally thought to be a bare-bones release. Now it's a Special Edition with some nice stuff for the fans of the Director.

The say it will include the following :

Audio commentary by director Takashi Shimizu, producer Taka Ichise, actress Takako Fuji.
15 deleted scenes with optional commentary.
Shimizus' short films'4444444444' and 'IN A CORNER'.
The GRUDGE House: An Insider’s Tour featurette.
Production Designer’s Notebook: The Sketches of Iwao Saito featurette.
Sarah Michelle Gellar’s video diary.
KaDee Strickland’s video diary.
Storyboards.

...I don't know about anyone else, but the commentary and the short films has me interested.

Via Fangoria.

David Tennant.

As suggested recently by the talks that have been ongoing between the actor and the BBC - now it's confirmed by the BBC themselves this morning that Tennant has signed for the role. He will be the 10th in the shows' long history and follows Christopher Eccleston.

According to his IMDB entry, Tennant played a Janitor in a radio play for the show a couple of years back. To my memory this makes him only the second Doctor to have first appeared in the show as another character before taking the lead role. You can also see him in the next Harry Potter movie later this year.

So, two days and seven films in the books thus far. Today started well with The Far Side of the Moon and two of the three later screenings were similarly strong but, alas, my string of quality film experiences here ended at five ... here we go ...

Continue reading "Philly Fest Report: La Promesa, The Soup One Morning, Arahan"

Shion Sono's Into a Dream (Yume no naka e) is scheduled to have a limited-tariff theatrical release at the Theatre Shinjuku next month; the movie's distributor is Argo Pictures. There's no official website (yet) for the movie, but there is this page for it on Sono's site. The movie's principal cast is as follows: Tetsushi Tanaka, Yûna Natsuo, Jun Murakami, Jô Odagiri (a.k.a. Joe Odagiri), Miwako Ichikawa, Ryô Iwamatsu, Akaji Maro, Yôichi Nukumizu, Tôru Tezuka, Rena Komine, Asami Usuda, and Nahana.

Yahoo!Movies is hosting 10 clips from the Ridley Scott production of epic proportions, Kingdom of Heaven.

Let us know what you think of what you've seen.

via Movies.com.

To think I am going to watch this movie as a precursor to spending a weekend away with 80 hormonal raging teenagers.

Moviefone has the first clip online for this movie adaptation of the famed Douglas Adams books.

via Movies.com.

This didn't take long at all. Only days ago we rejoiced that the trailer for the genre mashing movie Save the Green Planet was avaialbe in WindowsMedia format. The Save the Green Planet trailer is now available in glorious Quicktime over at Apple.com.

The official site also hosts the trailer in Quicktime with more sizes.

Got a little bit of time to fill here between screenings so I figured I'd hop online and throw down a couple words about this morning's screening, Robert Lepage's The Dark Side of the Moon. I'm tempted to go off on a rant about the irony of someone from Toronto needing to go to Philadelphia to see a Canadian film but suffice it to say that the Canadian film industry is mighty screwed up when a film this good has virtually no chance of ever being widely screened outside of Quebec ...

Continue reading "Philly Fest Report: The Dark Side of the Moon"

I think (and I stress think) the title translates as 'Demon Pond / Yasha Ga Ike' and is a stage play Directed by Takashi Miike which was put on late last year. It seems that it is also a play based on the same source or literally on an old Shochiku movie. So, someone at the time the play was announced said that the company staging it often put out DVDs of their work, and here it is : No English Subtitles though (as far as I can initially tell), but that won't stop some doint their own and pressing discs. Hopefully.

The product code for this is DMSM-6150, and just to stress I stumbled across this by seeing a listing in Japanese so this should be an early mention of this coming onto the market.

Heard that this is one of the more successful anime series, in terms of story, from the past year. It's based upon Akira Kurosawas 'Seven Samurai', though it does seem it has been more of a basis than i would like (i.e Giant Robots Syndrome effects the whole thing) but maintains a certain amount of historical setting too. The entire series lasts a fairly typical 26 episodes in all.

The Official Japanese Site is still online, and you can find the usual background information and opinions here at AnimeNfo.

Although no R1 boxset or DVD releases of any kind have so far been announced, the show is going to air in Canada, so if you're a fan look out for that. After recently announcing the initial volume of the first 4 episodes, the subsequent discs are now announced and the line-up sits tentatively as :

Volume 1 : 6 May 2005: Rose, End of the World, Unquiet Dead.
Volume 2: June 2005: Aliens of London, World War 3, Dalek, Long Game.
Volume 3: August 2005: Father's Day, Empty Child, Doctor Dances.
Volume 4: September 2005: Boom Town, t.b.a., Parting of the Ways.

The boxset (picture left) will be out at the same time as the final volume I assume : the BBC have announced this in a rather unclear fashion unfortunately. There are no plans to include the 30-minute series of behind the scenes shorts called 'Doctor Who Confidential' (narrated by Simon Pegg) on the Discs.

Other bits that have appeared in the news recently are as follows. Firstly the BBC managed to apparently break their agreement with Christopher Eccleston over the announcement he was only to do one series of the show. The had agreed to consult him over the timing, but managed to avoid this.

Finally, last weeks episode ('The Unquiet Dead' by Mark Gatiss) revolved around the heavy use of ghosts, looking very similar to the spirits seen in Ghostbusters, and it escalated the fear that the show was too scary for children. Although the show traditionally has been intentionally scary, the BBC is more careful not to offend the license-payers in recent times as the charter that allows the license fee is under reasonably regular review if I remember correctly.

The BBC also managed to subsequently remove an online warning that the show was unsuitable for those under 8 years of age, and appears to have been a way to deny the show as being unsuitable for such young children. Speculation mostly, but it's how it has been seen by many.

Via BBC.

Kiyoshi Kurosawas amazing 'Pulse' is then back in the works, as mentioned before. Ian Somerhalder is in talks to play a role or star : he was in the TV Series 'Lost', and also 'The Rules Of Attraction' too. Script is by Ray Wright, who has one writing credit to his name at IMDB, and its something I can't even remember the title of already. Director is Jim Sonzero, Writer and Director of a 1999 film called 'War of The Angels' which means nothing to me either.

Still torn as to wether 'unknowns' or people who haven't apparently proven their skill on a frequent basis is a good idea of a bad one when this should be a difficult project to judge correctly. The use of little-knowns withing Japan is a different story all together, and I suspect America could go astray with this one. Worth checking out the original on HK DVD whilst you can see it without your perceptions of it 'untainted'.

Via Fangoria.com / Hollywood Reporter.

Below the post at Anime News Network about the Initial D website changes, as posted here also, is a brief report mentioning John Woo is the Producer on Shinji Arakamis' second CGI movie for Appleseed.

Also worth noting there is a 26-episode TV series in the works, though little information is kicking around about this one. Would take a guess it could also be a CGI affair, if not totally then at least a blend thats pretty heavily CGI-lead.

Via Anime News Network.

Well, here I am in Philadelphia. I rolled up to my friend Scott's place last night around eleven then hit the city proper early this morning to track down my press badge and catch a couple flicks before heading to the train station to pick up Canfield who's here covering the festival for another site. A bit of dinner, a bit of time exploring the city then another film before heading to bed. Three very different films today and all of them were excellent ... if these three are an indicator of the quality of stuff I'll be seeing here then I'm in for a very good trip ... read on for details.

And, incidentally, if you're in the market for a bit of new music Scott - the guy I'm staying with here - runs an excellent little record label and mail order shop here. The shop stocks a LOT more than just his own releases, too ... check it out ...

Continue reading "Philly Fest Report: Dias De Santiago, UNO, Karaoke Terror"

Here is a downloadable Japanese trailer for Yonfan's Colour Blossoms (Toh sik - "Momoiro" in Japanese), which is scheduled for theatrical release in Japan on May 14; the Japanese official website for the film is here (if you remove the hyphen in the URL...). The film was released theatrically in Hong Kong on October 28 of last year; the Hong Kong official website for it (which is in both Chinese and English) is here, and a downloadable Hong Kong trailer for it is here. An English-subtitled DVD of the film has been released in Hong Kong by Panorama Distributions.

One of the stars of Colour Blossoms is Japanese actress Keiko Matsuzaka, who played the main character, Noriko Yamada, in Takashi Miike's Part-Time Detective (Pâto-taimu tantei) and Part-Time Detective 2 (Pâto-taimu tantei 2) - the latter of which parodied the "House of Blue Leaves" sequence in Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill: Vol. 1.

I'm likely the only one here at Twitch that's looking forward to the Initial D movie. No, no. It's okay. I can accept that. To quote Rob Lowe in Waynes World, "What can I say? I'm a fan". But for anyone else out there who is excited about it then you'll like this.

AnimeNewsNetwork posted today that the official site for Initial D was up, and even better - the previous trailers and clips also have English dialogue so Gweilos like me can finally understand what's going on.

And then CRIENGLISH had images from a press junket in Shanghai this past Sunday. Nothing fancy. Just cast shots including the way cool Anthony Wong.

You can find the official site for the Initial D movie here. It is a little light on content but it'll come around the corner like Takumis Panda Trueno.

Just for the record. I loathe streaming and buffering but only because my computer is crap and it doesn't like the streaming video on the site or any site for that matter. Curses man!

Haruki Kadokawa Office (Kadokawa Haruki Jimusho) has posted 28 production stills from Jun'ya Satô's Yamato (Otoko-tachi no Yamato) on its website here. Raku Film (Rakueisha) has also posted a few stills on its website - three here (scroll 3/4 way down the page), and two there (again, scroll 3/4 way down the page). There are also several stills accompanying the official blog for the film. Finally, there's a short 'making of' doc here, although principal photography for the film only began on March 26 - which is why there's no footage from the film in the promo trailer. Incidentally, the budget for the film reportedly is ¥1.5 billion (approx. $14 million U.S.) - the same as the official production cost of Masaaki Tezuka's upcoming Civil War Self-Defense Forces 1549 (Sengoku jieitai 1549).

For more info on Yamato, see Twitch's first article on it here, and the Internet Movie Database (IMDb) entry for it here.

AICN got the heads up today that the 2nd Tom Yum Goong trailer is online through the official site.

New Tom Yum Goong trailer right here - right now! The link is in Windows Media format and you can find Quicktime on the official site, though I found the sound to be better with WMVA.

What can you expect? Lots of fire. Lots and lots of slow motion ass-kicking. Lots of it. The whole trailer is in slow motion it seems. But the money shot has to be the reverse spin kick to the head. Wait for it!

Logboy mentioned this a couple times before. MonkeyPeaches linked to an authors page yesterday with images from the famed childrens book that Studio Ghibli and the legendary animator Hayao Miyazaki will adapt to film. You can link to I LOST MY LITTLE BOY by 21 year-old author Yi Zhu here.

The story is about a young boy named Mimi, who was born with heart defect. One day he walks into a restaurant called The Orchid, where he meets the the Grandpa who owns the restaurant and a fairy girl.

As a fan of Hayao Miyazaki, Yi Zhu admitted that his story was somewhat influenced by the master directors works and while writing the story he even fantasized what it would be [like] if it was a Hayao Miyazaki movie. Yi Zhu said he was contacted by Hayao Miyazakis Studio Ghibli last October and the pre-production would take a year to complete.

Man, 21 years old and already a Miyazaki film? Where's my pen and paper?

Waves of shock and disbelief rolled through the Korean movie industry around the new year when the director of the Puchon International Fantastic Film Festival [PiFan], and subsequently the festvial staff members, were fired. Since then movie personalities such as Park Chan-wook and Choi Min-sik [OldBoy] have vowed to boycott PiFan. Well, they may have found another festival to go in place of PiFan.

Seven PiFan exiles, including former director Kim Hong-joon, in what could be interpretted as a giant 'Eff You' to PiFan, are creating their own festival, titled "The Real Fantastic Film Festival." It will take place at the Hollywood Theater in Seoul on July 14-23, the same time as PiFan, and will show about 50 films.

"We just wanted to maintain and share the personality and achievement of PiFan with moviegoers through this new film festival," Kim Hong-joon said. "We are not trying to make moviegoers boycott PiFan, but the new festival is a symbolic gesture to let people know about problems that the festival has and should resolve."

"The number of films we will screen is about 50, which is one-fourth of PiFan, and we expect to attract only one-twentieth of the budget of PiFan," said Kim Young-duk, former programmer of PiFan. "But we will maintain the essence of the character of the previous PiFan."

The organizers will run the new film festival with the financial aid of private companies and the support of volunteers. It will be interesting to see if the number of big Korean stars like Park and Choi, who vowed to boycott PiFan, will also offer their support for RF3 [which I just made up and will now patent accordingly].

"If we can’t attract a minimal budget and support from moviegoers, though neither of which seems impossible now, we can’t hold the festival. But if we can make it successful, we will think about a better festival in the future", Kim said.

We'll be keeping a close eye on both festival lineups once they are announced. Comparisons will be unavoidable now and time will only tell who will offer the better festival - PiFan or RF3?

via TheKoreaTimes.

Todd was excited to hear of this release when I mentioned it to him as having appeared in pre-order listings at DVDAsian.com, and vowed to post it when he found the listing at YesAsia.com as we both thought this edition was a Korean Disc. Nope : It's confusingly a R1 USA Disc from AD Vision that has been listed with the Korean poster artwork, as I've now seen it listed on USA online retailers really cheaply.

Personally I only know what I've recently read about the film, but if Todd says it's of note then I can only say it looks like a great hard-boiled youth / gang / fighting movie. Some of you may have seen it on a Korean disc a few years back, so here is the DVDBeaver.com visual review and the KFC one too (high marks all round) from way back then.

Expecting to see a flood of Korean Dramas getting retrospectively released stateside after recent successes.

For those that usually bypass Japanese-issued DVDs, like I mostly do, in the hope of a decent and cheaper version elsewhere.

Vibrator was hailed on its release in 2003 as one of the best Japanese Dramas in many years, but also gets heavily criticised as many Japanese films do for its slow-pace and subtlety that apparently almost goes into the 'no-plot' territory.

The is a MidnightEye review here, so worth reading and checking around if you haven't got an image of it in your mind. It made no.9 of the top 10 for the Readers Poll at MidnightEye and no.1 in Tom Mes' list.

You should find this for around $20 in a 2-Disc set which is listed as having a Soundtrack CD included; wether that's the second disc or not, I don't know.

Well, I'm off to the Philadelphia Film Festival for the next week, so things will be a little quiet on the news front from me while I'm gone. I plan on cramming in four, sometimes five, screenings a day so while I'll be passing back word on what's good and what's not I'm not going to have much time to go digging things up - or answering email for that matter, I will be checking but expect delays - while I'm out east. I do, however, leave you in the more than capable hands of Logboy, Gom and Mack ...

Not a big fan of the voice over, but the full trailer for The League of Gentlemen's Apocalypse has turned up online and it looks fantastic! They've had to trim some characters to make the film work but it looks to me like they've chosen the right ones to focus on, plus we get a few fantastic effects shots, including on of the stop motion monsters! Hit it here to check things out in Quicktime of Windows Media!

The official website for Shinpei Hayashiya's monster movie (kaijû eiga) Reigo vs. Yamato (Reigô tai Yamato) is online, although at present, there's just a home page. As is the case with Jun'ya Satô's Yamato (Otoko-tachi no Yamato) - now filming - the titular Yamato is the World War II battleship that was sunk on April 7, 1945. The film's working title was "A-140F6: shinkaijû Reigô sakusen" - not "A-140F6: shinkaijû zero-gô sakusen", as has been reported elsewhere. It was shot, in part, in Chuuk (a.k.a. Truk), Federated States of Micronesia (FSM). Its principal cast apparently is as follows: Taiyô Sugiura, Mai Nanami, Yukijirô Hotaru, Yôko Kanda, Yui Nirehara, Isamu Ago, Mubu Nakayama, Masayoshi Okada, Representative Kôki Kobayashi (LDP - Tokyo 10th District), Mickey Curtis, Yumika Hayashi (who played the mother in Tamakichi Anaru's Hahako (boshi) no daeki (shizuku)), Yûma Kusakawa, Yôji Tanaka, Susumu Kurobe, and Ukon Ichikawa. It seems that former Prime Minister Yoshirô Mori, who at around this time last year was considering playing an admiral in the film (see here), decided not to be in it.

There's considerable confusion regarding which film Media Blasters will be releasing on DVD in America, on May 31, under the title "Flower and Snake". Many websites have reported that the film in question is Masayuki Asao's Hana to hebi: kyûkyoku nawa chôkyô (1987), which Japan Shock released on DVD in the Netherlands in 2001, under the title "Flower and Snake 4: Rope Magic". (Incidentally, the importation of that film into Canada was prohibited by Canada Customs late last year - see here.) Media Blasters, however, has officially confirmed for Twitch the info from certain of its sources (who are familiar with the American Film Market) that the film in question is Takashi Ishii's Hana to hebi (2004), starring Aya Sugimoto (who also stars in Ishii's upcoming film Flower and Snake 2: Paris/Shizuko (Hana to hebi 2: Pari/Shizuko)). The question now is whether Media Blasters will be releasing the integral version of that film, or the Japanese theatrical one, which was cut for Eirin approval. (Eirin = Eirin Kanri Iinkai, a.k.a. the Administration Commission of Motion Picture Code of Ethics. "Eirin" is an acronym for "Eiga Rinri Kitei".)

Not that I have a fetish for tins and packets etc., but it makes something that you're waiting for because of other reasons a bit more tangible.

The final volume for the First Season of Stand Alone Complex will be available in a Limited Edition as usual, but this time its a tin large enough to hold all seven volumes - great for hiding that mediocre americanised artwork we got lumbered with.

As reported before, the Second Season (or 'Second Gig') of Stand Alone Complex begins on R1 in late September 2005.

Via DVDTalk.com / Rightstuf.com.

I made a big deal last month about Rob Cohen and Keanu Reeves teaming up together to make a new Sinbad movie. Yeah. SIN and BAD make the title of a movie. A sure indicator that things are already going pear-shaped. And then Dark Horizons breaks the news about special effects and potential casting rumours.

This news made me raise my eyebows. Yeah, it has peaked my interest. But only buy a little bit though, Cohen looked up famed effects genius Ray Harryhausen... "I met with him and said, 'I really would be honored if you would be with me on this, since none of us would be here without you.' So he's coming out of retirement to be our creative consultant, our godfather...Ray thinks Keanu [could be] the greatest Sinbad ever." Greatest ever?!? Seriously?!?

But then the casting rumours made me raise my arms in protest with much wailing and gnashing of teeth, Cohen thinks Ziyi Zhang is the one for the job of the empress, and he's already talked with the likes of Jet Li, Djimon Hounsou and Hayden Christensen for roles as members of the crew. No one likes Hayden that much really so that doesn't bother me so much. And Hounsou can do better and is very capable of doing so. But how dare you try to bring down the talents of Zhang and Li to your level. I implore those two to ignore the messages Cohen is leaving on their voicemails. Please please please don't do this movie. Say it ain't so.

The film is aiming for a January start of shooting date and is aiming for a PG rating with the MPAA.

Came upon a couple of interviews over at Henshin!Online with Godzilla Final Wars director Ryuhei Kitamura [Versus, Azumi, Alive].

Kitamura talks about such things at giving Godzilla an overhaul and making him not such a pansy anymore, using Keith Emerson from Emerson, Lake and Plamer to do the score and working with the monster creator team to enable Godzilla to kick more Kaiju ass.

Head over to Henshin!Online and read the Ryuhei Kitamura interviews about Godzilla Final Wars right now!

via CityonFire.

Trying to make this release a little more obvious than the brief mention I gave it before, so here is the artwork and the full specifications for the upcoming Chambara from 1990 (incorreclty dated 1992 on IMDB apparently).

Specifications : 1992 (see above). Color. Drama. Samurai. Runtime: 121 min. 1.78:1 aspect. stereo. In Japanese with optional English subtitles.

Summary from Homevision Page :

Kazuo Kuroki’s international award-winning period drama was produced in commemoration of the 60th anniversary of the death of Shozo Makino, “the father of Japanese films.” Set in the 1830s near the end of the age of the samurai, Ronin Gai is populated by an ensemble of colorful characters, social outcasts who patronize a restaurant and brothel on the outskirts of Edo. Among them are prostitutes and masterless samurai reduced to drunkenness and debauchery. The disgraced and disillusioned former warriors get a chance at redemption when renegade samurai invade the area to murder the prostitutes.

Wanted to post about these before the weekend, but no obviously complete specifications and final artwork were available. Now someone at MHVF has posted a link to DVDDriveIn which has a page specifically for the two Sergio Martino movies 'The Case Of The Scorpions Tale' and 'The Strange Vice Of Mrs.Wardh' which are due out on R1 USA DVD on May 31st 2005.

For those not aware, NoShame are an Italian label originally and now a USA business too. They issue classic genre movies from many of the masters of Italian Cinema.

Giallos (which means 'Yellow' - the colour predominantly used for the genre in its' paperback origins) like these Martino movies have been made since the 1950s and continue occassionally to be made today.

The height of the genre was the late 1960s to mid-1970s, and the most noteable examples are from Directors like Mario Bava and Dario Argento. Many others who occasionally turned their hand to such films (which frequently mixes murder mystery, bizarre behaviour, sexy women and vibrantly coloured scenes) managed to create classics too.

The 'NoShame' Site will be here, but isn't live yet. Specifications here in brief below.

Via MHVF / DVDDriveIN (Visit there for a complete synopsis for both).

Continue reading "'NoShame' Announce Specifications & Artwork For Sergio Martinos' Giallo Classics."

Despite the obvious limitations of a microscopic budget first time director Hiroki Yamaguchi has marked himself as a talent to look out for with Gusher No Binds Me, just released on these shores by Media Blasters as Hellevator: The Bottled Fools. With a visual style that borrows liberally from Terry Gilliam's Brazil and Jean-Pierre Jeunet's City of Lost Children Yamaguchi tells a wholly original story of life in a nightmarish, underground dystopia.

The story of Hellevator plays out in a near future police state, one in which humanity has been forced underground, presumably by some major catastrophe. The human settlement is built in layers of underground tunnels stacked on top of each other and linked by a system of transport elevators. Living in this world is Luchino, a seventeen year old girl with a tragic past and hidden telepathic abilities. Forced to flee security forces for her possession of contraband cigarettes - a felony in this world - Luchino takes refuge in a nearby elevator, her escape eventually spoiled when security forces comandeer her elevator to transport a pair of violent criminals and the elevator is disabled by an underground explosion.

Continue reading "Hellevator: The Bottled Fools (AKA Gusher No Binds Me) Review"

What a strange little find this is ... best known for dipping into the current crop of extreme cult titles coming out of Japan Media Blasters' Tokyo Shock label is now dipping into the vaults of Japan's venerable Toho studios and pulling out a selection of forgotten b-movie classics. One of the first is Matango: Attack of the Mushroom People, directed by Ishiro Honda of Godzilla fame.

Originally released in 1963 when Toho was cranking out kaiju - giant monster - pictures en masse Matango, despite its title, features very little in the way of attacking mushroom people. Oh, they're there, but the film has other things on its mind for most of the running time.

Continue reading "Matango: Attack of the Mushroom People Review"

Pilfered this shamelessly from the Ultra8 mailing list ... they won't mind ...

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS
The 9TH TORONTO REEL ASIAN INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL (NOV 23 - 27, 2005)

We are looking for features, short films, videos, documentaries, comedies, animations . . . obscure experimental films with or without sound, complex political rants, ironic chop-socky kung-fu flicks, deconstructivist mockumentaries, minimalist Generasian X slacker dramas, and anything else that is brilliant, creative, weird, or just plain entertaining.

All films must be independently produced with an East/Southeast Asian/Asian North American in a key creative role. We encourage submissions from first-time and emerging directors. Student films are welcome.

DEADLINE for 2005 submissions is June 1, 2005.
Early deadline: May 1,2005

ENTRY FEE: $10 (U.S. dollars outside Canada).
Entry fee waived if postmarked before May 1, 2005.

For more information contact the festival office at 416.703.9333 or email programming@reelasian.com

Toronto Reel Asian International Film Festival
401 Richmond Street West, Suite 309
Toronto, Ontario
M5V 3A8
CANADA

416-703-9333 TEL
416-703-9986 FAX
www.reelasian.com
programming@reelasian.com

Wow ... I just got an email from first time director Alex Ferrari steering me to the website for his film Broken. It's a little action / thriller shot for only eight grand - pocket change by film standards - and though some of the dialogue sounds a little bit forced this thing looks fantastic. Do I see a bit of a Fincher influence in there? Trailer - in Quicktime - here.

Although it had already been all but signed, now it's confirmed that Takashi Shimizu will do another Grudge movie for the USA - specifically Sony. The company has also managed to sign up the Pang Brothers first American Production 'Scarecrow' which was also talked about a while back.

As far as I can see Shimizus' position is firm if he wants to do more American films - but i would speculate the Pang Brothers 'lack of form' in HK of late could only net them this one chance at a breakthrough to the mainstream. Personally I would prefer to see all three of them stay at home as I feel they're at risk of negatively altering the percieved breakthrough of Asian Film, not necessarily through the quality of their work but external Hollywood forces.

Remember, the Extended Edition of the first USA film of 'The Grudge' is out May 17th 2005.

Via Bloody Disgusting / Hollywood Reporter.

Here is a downloadable trailer for the Japanese omnibus film female (fîmeiru). As was previously reported on Twitch, female is comprised of five shorts. "Momo", based on a story by Kaoruko Himeno, was directed by Tetsuo Shinohara and stars Kyôko Hasegawa (Hasegawa Kyouko). "Taiyô no mieru basho made", based on a story by Yuzuki Muroi (Muroi Yuduki), was directed by Ryûichi Hiroki (Hiroki Ryuuichi) and stars Chihiro Ôtsuka (Ootsuka Chihiro). "Yoru no shitasaki", based on a story by Kei Yuikawa, was directed by Suzuki Matsuo and stars Saki Takaoka. "Megami no kakato", based on a story by Asa Nonami, was directed by Miwa Nishikawa and stars Nene Ôtsuka (Ootsuka Nene). "Tamamushi", based on a story by Mariko Koike, was directed by Shin'ya Tsukamoto and stars Eri Ishida.

Yep. The mid-range and collectors editions both come with the 2-discs in a nice tin. Could have been like the of Akira one, but this one is exactly the same as the collectors edition of last weeks X-Box release of Doom 3 : a tin with a nicely molded inside and the discs stacking over one another (but not completely).

Anyway, a very nice lengthy review at AnimeOnDVD with high marks all round can be see here.

I wonder if the Weinsteins are paying any attention to this one ... Following up Miramax's massive mishandling of Stephen Chow's Shaolin Soccer Sony has just proven that a) North American audiences can appreciate Chow's genius if given half a chance, and b) you don't need to hack his films to bits to do it.

On the first weekend of its limited release Chow's Kung Fu Hustle absolutely crushed the competition on a per screen basis, averaging over forty one thousand dollars per screen. How good is that? Sahara - the number one film over all - did less than six grand per screen. Zowie. If it can sustain even a fraction of that performance as it rolls out onto more screens Hustle could easily be the sleeper hit of the year ...

Dark Horizons has managed to get their hands on the US poster for Howl's Moving Catle and it's a good one! Click here for a much larger version ... Mmm, bring on the Miyazaki ...

Spotted this has popped up in discussion about awaiting the reissue / remaster for the USA of Takashi Miikes astonishing 'Audition'. Far from being a superbly written piece, the direction of the suspense and shock elements are so well pieced together. Preaching to the converted though, I think.

Heres the specification / special features from Lions Gate Films site :

Theatrical trailers. Director Interview. Director commentary. Director introduction. Director Biography/filmography. Photo gallery. Liner notes. Bravo’s 100 Scariest Movie Moments segment. Ryu Murakama Interview. Widescreen (1.85:1). New transfer with removable English subtitles. Japanese 5.1 Dolby Digital surround.

...And yes, I personally love the artwork. Glad I am not going to see another variation on that image in its' original colour scheme. By this stage, hopefully it isn't considered a spoiler.

Lions Gate Films page for the film is here.

Caught this is in the BuzzBin at Movies.com. Based on the book of the same title, Another Bullshit Night in Suck City, by author Nick Flynn, has been picked up by Columbia Pictures and given to Paul Weitz [American Pie & About a Boy] to helm. But not before they give the film another more suitable name. The FCC and MPAA are going to have a field day.

The story is about Flynn's relationship with his father after he encounters him while working as a case worker in a Boston homeless shelter. I came across this excerpt from the book somewhere online, "Sometimes I'd see my father, walking past my building on his way to another nowhere. I could have given him a key, offered a piece of my floor. But if I let him inside the line between us would blur, my own slow-motion car wreck would speed up."

No word on cast yet but you can bet the name will undergo a change. Can you imagine the number of people who will be offended by the word SUCK?

The teaser trailer for Jackie Chans next movie, The Myth, is available here. Caught wind of this over at MonkeyPeaches and Todd was kind enough to isolate it a bit further and save us all the trouble of running it through EMGs media player setup. The image to the left is the teaser poster.

The trailer starts with a nice crane shot of the Terra Cotta warriors in Pit 1 at the Museum of Qin [I only know that because I recognize it from the last season of The Amazing Race] and then a few cast shots and then your obligatory collection of kicks and punches and swords.

If you have not heard what the movie is about, Jackie Chan plays Jack [yes - a bit of a stretch there], an archeologist who repeatedly dreams about a white dress lady played by Kim Hee-Seon. Leung Ka-Fai plays William, a scientist who is searching for some mysterious stone. I don't want to spoil the rest of the story for you but if you must, MonkeyPeaches has an extensive collection of reports about The Myth on their website here.

Earlier today Triflic posted a link to this article on the recent surge of Russian film over on our forum and it's worth a read. If the massive success of the Night Watch wasn't enough to convince you that Russia is poised to become a player in world film some of the figures cited in there will. Most projections say Russia will be the third or fourth largest film producer in continental Europe within the next couple years, topped only by France, Germany and possibly Italy. This is a big, big country just coming into its own ...

Now, of the films listed there we've linked to Turkish Gambit and The Night Watch before (a quick search of the site will turn up trailers for both)but I've come up with trailers for both of the other films mentioned: the spy/sports hybrid Shadow Boxing, and Pobeg, a Russian take on The Fugitive. Neither of those look strong enough to make much of an impression on these shores, but here's one that most certainly will: The Day Watch. Yep. The trailer for the follow up film to The Night Watch has hit online ... don't let the opening sequence of shots from the first film fool you, there's a LOT of footage from the new flick in there and it looks gooooood. Unfinished - it is still in post-production, after all - but goooooood. Click here to download a big ol' trailer for The Day Watch in avi format!

**** UPDATE ****

Looks like we maxed out the bandwidth of the Russian site that was hosting this trailer, because they've taken it down ... luckily Harry over at Aint It Cool is a big fan of The Night Watch and has been hosting a version of the trailer that he converted to MPG format for Mac users here.

Oooh ... just got an email directing me to the trailer for A Wicked Tale and I'm mighty glad I did. The film is a forty five minute short based on the Little Red Riding Hood story and looks to be a mighty compelling blend of live action and puppet work ... check it out ...

Alex De La Iglesia's 800 Bullets is a strange beast. Part family drama, part cinematic metaphor, part nostalgic longing and a very large part barn-burning western 800 Bullets attempts to fuse a good number of disparate elements and, while successful in bursts, it demonstrates why these genre crossing efforts are so rare: it is almost impossible to bring the different parts into a consistent whole.

The film begins with Carlos, a young boy of ten or so who lives with his emotionally distant, career driven mother and over-wrought grandmother. Carlos' father died years before but all his mother will tell him is that his father died in an accident, beyond that Carlos knows nothing. What his mother is hiding is that Carlos' father died working as a stuntman on a spaghetti western and when Carlos learns that his grandfather is still alive and well, living and working in Texas-Hollywood - an actual town in the west of Spain built as a standing western set and used in hundreds of films - Carlos runs away to meet him and learn what he can of his dead father.

Continue reading "800 Bullets Review"

Somewhere between the bottle of wine, a night out seeing the Kills, throwin’ down on the dance floor at Shack Up and finishing a case of Lucky I realized I would never be able to keep up with Anton Newcombe of the band “The Brian Jonestown Massacre”, nor would I really attempt to. A mad genius of sorts, Newcombe’s self destructive behavior and borderline mental illness - which I’m sure isn’t really all that borderline - are the only reasons that you don’t own a Brian Jonestown Massacre album right now or see his videos on TV. DIG! describes itself as a documentary about the story of the friendship and falling out between The Dandy Warhols and The Brian Jonestown Massacre - which is a story it does tell - but it actually “digs” deeper into the lives of the artists, Newcombe in particular. It gives an inside look into how music as a lifestyle with all its accompanying parts can bring you many different paths and outcomes, overtaking everything and everyone around you.

Continue reading "DIG! Review"

Yes, the Official Site for the TV Series based on 'Blood : The Last Vampire' is now open as they promised. A lot of the sections within it are greyed out or dead at the moment, but there's some content in there (no trailer yet) worth a quick shufty at if you're so inclined.

Go here.

Maybe anime is getting more and more visually advanced in the last few years, or maybe I am starting to just turn to it again, but I have seen some stunningly sophisticated shows previewed on some Anime Blogs recently. Sometimes you just bump into them whilst skipping around Japanese sites : one of those that really stands out is Gankutsuou, a reinterpretation or retelling of the 'Count Of Monte-Cristo.

Sure, that stories been done a million times, but with reason. This time the animators at Gonzo have used textures pasted within the drawn outlines for a very unusual and vibrant look.

Gankutsuous' Official Site is here. Anime News Networks synopsis and other information lies here. Moviewalkers' page about the show still sits here, and has a great picture to illustrate its' style at the top of the page).

For previews at the Official Site, click 'Movies and Accessories" - all the menus there are in English.

Yes, I know we aren't a music site : but this is for a film about a band so it crosses a couple of my interests and is relevant to those that like to mix it up a little. So : I've directly known more people interested in music in my life than I have those interested in film. Still, I've know relatively few people interested in music - full stop.

When my brother wrote for around four years in his own fanzine during the 1990s we were tapped-into small record labels and getting some great bands to see live, interview, and listen to. Some have gone onto be hugely well known, others are still plugging away making great sounds. One of those bands is Low.

Surprisingly, since Todd invited me here to Twitch, I've discovered that he and some other regulars are also fans. I've seen them live a few times over the years : small pub, small venue, and most recently at Londons' Royal Festival Hall. Now I can experience that astonishingly confident minimalism that they manage to portray best when playing live whenever I want.

Read on for the press release, go here for a small-windowed QT trailer and get a taste.

Continue reading "Low In Europe. R2 UK DVD. May 16th 2005."

Well, it wasn't a decision I was really happy to make but as traffic continues to build here bandwidth demand goes up as well so I've opted to add some Google ads in the right column to try and make the site self supporting ... I have an active dislike for advertising so you can rest assured that this is as obtrusive as the advertising will be here. No interstitials, no pop ups, no streaming audio or video and certainly none of those nasty hyperlink ads. I hate those. If it interferes with the primary function of the site in any way it won't appear here, but I gotta pay the bills somehow ...

Oooh ... IGN's got the North American trailer for Undead and it's pretty fantastic. I've almost bought this film blind a couple of times but for some reason I've never actually gone out and looked at a trailer before ... looks to have some great characters and it's beautifully shot ... downloadable Windows Media here.

Via AICN.

Read. Drool. Repeat.

Via Greencine.

Okay ... the Korean Human Rights Commission is far, far cooler than the equivalent body here in Canada. Here they just sue people. In Korea they fund film projects like If You Were Me. The first If You Were Me was an omnibus film with entries from a batch of quality Korean film makers - most notably Chan Wook Park - examining different human rights issues. That was successful enough that they've now funded a second entry, this time featuring short films from the directors of A Smile, Arahan / Crying Fist, Happy End, Someone Special and Repatriation. Nice ... the series will be premiering at this year's Jeonju Film Festival. More details are here.

Frequent Takeshi Kitano collaborator Joe Hisaishi has signed on to score Welcome to Dongmakgol, a big budget Korean War picture. This marks the first time Hisaishi has worked on a Korean production, a fact the Korean producers are saying is an early sign of the film's quality ... it sounds as though this one occurs on an even larger scale than Tae-Guk-Gi and the premise is certainly strong. "The film, based on a story by director/playwright JANG Jin, is set in a remote mountain village, where soldiers from the South Korean, North Korean, and US armies all end up staying together." (Darcy Paquet)

It's hard to say for certain not having spent time there but this sudden recent surge in war films coming out of Korea strikes me as being similar to the sudden burst of Vietnam themed films that hit the US with Platoon, Full Metal Jacket, Hamburger Hill etc. When that trio - as well as at least two prominent Vietnam themed tv shows - hit much was made in the local media about how the US had finally gained enough distance from the events to start dealing with them directly. Is the same now true of Korea?

Check out the whole story at Han Cinema.

Here's a quality find from Logboy ... after viewing Song Il-Gon's festival hit Spider Forest and seeing Darcy at Koreanfilm.org rave about Git, Song's latest effort, I'd been looking forward to picking it up when it became available on DVD. Well, unbeknownst to me some wise soul decided to retitle the thing as Feathers in the Wind, which meant that I completely overlooked the DVD announcement. Logboy caught it, though. The DVD comes out April 25th and it does include English subtitles. YesAsia's got it here. If you so desire you can hit the official site for a trailer.

And just because it's been a while since we did one of these posts here are some other noteworthy recent and coming releases:

Aoi Kuruma: A Blue Automobile. Sweet! This one was in Mark Schilling's Top Ten list for 2004, it stars ARATA from Ping Pong and is apprently very, very good. Must've just been announced in the last couple days because it wasn't listed last time I checked ... doesn't come till June 24th, but it's getting pre-ordered today. Official site here.

Slim Till Dead. Wong Jing's comedy starring Anthony Wong has been getting a lot of buzz ... Wong is apparently a love or hate sort of director but I've heard enough about this one to be intrigued ... a trailer full of bosoms loads slowly here.

Korean horror on a train flick Red Eye. Official site here.

This Charming Girl. Linked to this one a week or so back when going over the Philadelphia film fest line up ... hoping to catch it while I'm there.

Bunshinsaba: Ouija Board. The latest from the director of Phone has gotten mixed reviews ... apparently beautifully shot but apparently runs from shock scene to shock scene, which sounds bad if you're a fan of plot but rather good if you're down with the gore. Official site here.

Rikidozan. Korean flick about the rise of professional wrestling ... no, really. Looks to be of the big, glossy, feel good sports movie variety. Official site here.

The Face of Jizo. Family drama set in just-post-bomb Hiroshima ... don't have a site or trailer for this one, but The Japan Times speaks very highly of it.

Center Stage. A remastered director's cut ... it stars Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung. What else do you need?

And then there are all the Japanese titles announced ages ago that we talked about back in the day but are just coming up for release now ... University of Laughs, Koi No Mon, The Hidden Blade ...

The official website for Mitsuo Kurotsuchi's Semishigure is online, and there's a teaser trailer for it here. The film's principal cast is as follows: Somegorô Ichikawa, Yoshino Kimura, Kôji Imada, Ryô Fukawa, Takuya Ishida, Aimi Satsukawa, Mieko Harada, and Ken Ogata.

Tôhô is scheduled to release Semishigure theatrically in Japan on October 1.

A few news bits all plopped online from Nausicaa.net in one go : firstly, Hayao Miyazaki has confirmed in an interview that the project based on the Chinese book "Wo Diushile Wode Xiaonanhai (I Lost My Little Boy)" will be his last Directorial output. Well deserved retirement to follow that it seems.

Secondly, trailers are being shown in the USA for 'Nausicaa' - so you should all be lucky enought to see that on the large silver screen sometime soon : when exactly, we don't know. Summer is the vague answer.

Thirdly, 'My Neighbours The Yamadas', actually one of the first Ghibli DVDs to come out in Japan and a truly stunning piece of work, has been given a PG rating by the MPAA in the USA. Fine, this could mean a DVD release this year (another wave of DVDs still expected in 2005) and it could mean a theatrical release - the former is most likely.

Via Nausicaa.net.

Yes, I know it's half a year away. Yes, I know you (like I) want it right now. But, at least you know when it's coming, how long you have to spend crying yourself to sleep at night for, and how long before you need to find the spare weekend to repeatedly watch it until the laser burns away the plastic and scrapes at the metal inside the DVD.

This should (repeat, should) be a great edition of the film, but just incase, let's all just hang on to see what exactly we would get and what the other options are that are announced between now and then. Until then the Thai disc is out there, without English Subtitles.

Nice aren't they. Bright, colourful and collectable. Primed and ready for framing.

Via AICN.

As it turns out the man behind Auto Destruct is a local boy so us Toronto folk are lucky enough to see this thing projected. Alas I'll be in my car loaded up on drugs to stave off the pain of my shiny new teeth whilst driving to Philadelphia to gorge on films at the Philly Film Festival so I won't be able to attend myself but you can bet at least a couple of us Twitch-ers will be there. Check out our original post about the film here and the official Auto Destruct site here. And you can check out that promo flyer in full size by clicking here.

Denmark's Nikolaj Lie Kaas has led a cinematically charmed life. Bursting onto the scene with a key role in Lars Von Trier's The Idiots, Lie Kass has gone on to star in seemingly every major Scandanavian film since. Like Johnny Depp or Tadanobu Asano, Lie Kaas turns up in the occassional mainstream film to pay the bills but spends the bulk of his time jumping between art house projects helmed by a who's who of directing talents and between his immense skills as an actor and his seemingly unerring nose for quality scripts Lie Kaas' presence in a film is a virtual guarantee of quality.

Which brings us to Reconstruction. Lie Kaas takes the lead role in Christoffer Boe's beautifully surreal head trip of a debut feature, a film that deservedly earned Boe the Camera D'Or at Cannes and the Fipresci Best Director award, among others. In Boe Lie Kaas has met a talent that easily matches his own. There is no shortage of film making talent in this part of the world and this film instantly marks Boe as its most prominsing young talent.

Continue reading "Reconstruction Review"

The official website for Izuru Narushima's Fly, Daddy, Fly (Furai, dadi, furai) is online; however, there won't be a trailer for the film on it until next Saturday (April 16th), at the earliest. The film is based on the eponymous novel by Kazuki Kaneshiro, who also wrote the adapted screenplay for it. Its theme song, "Ranningu hai" (back-transliteration: "Running High"), was composed/performed by Mr.Children. Its principal cast is as follows: Jun'ichi Okada, Shin'ichi Tsutsumi, Genki Sudô, Nanase Hoshii, Mire Aika, Asuka Shibuya, Toshinobu Matsuo, Moro Morooka, Sansei Shiomi, Hiroshi Kanbe, Yû Tokui, Yôichi Nukumizu, Kazuyuki Asano, and Shôji Kôkami.

Tôei is scheduled to release Fly, Daddy, Fly theatrically in Japan on July 9.

Atsushi Muroga has directed another Japanese action movie in the Philippines, Yûsha no hihô. The movie stars Hitoshi Ozawa, Mikio Ôsawa, Saori Amakawa, Shû Ehara, and - as is to be expected - Susumu Terajima. G.P. Museum Soft apparently is scheduled to release it on DVD in Japan in August.

Riki Takeuchi has executive produced two movies that will have limited-tariff theatrical releases in Japan in the next two months. Masahiro Asao's Deserted Dogs (Suteinu) stars Takeuchi, Eugene Nomura (a.k.a. Yûjin Nomura), Yûto Nakano, Takamitsu Ôkubo, Akio Kinjô, Masaki Nishimori, Ken'ichi Endô, and Banshô Shinra (a.k.a. Manzô Shinra). It's scheduled for late-show screenings at Theatre Ikebukuro in Tokyo starting May 28. Takeshi Miyasaka's Hallucination (Genkaku) stars Yoshiyuki Yamaguchi, Kimika Yoshino, Hitomi Miwa, Yoshimi Tachi, Tomohiro Katô, Sayumi Yanawa, Shinra, and Takeuchi. It's scheduled for late-show screenings at Theatre Ikebukuro starting June 11.

Not seen this talked about anywhere else, it's 'Kakurenbo' from a new company called Yamato Works. Admitedly it's only a 25 minute short film, but it is getting a theatrical release soon in Japan, and it does look like a beautiful piece of work.

Yamato Works Official Site, which happens be dual language (see it here) explains the title effectively means "hide and seek" and explores folk tales from Japans' history. If you click on "Trailer" at that site you download the 15meg Quicktime trailer (or right click and save this) and see some pictures too.

There is also a large(ish) version of the poster to see here. Visit the distributors' site too. Finally, if I am right, it is associated with Manga Zoo who seem to do a lot of high quality short movies such as "Voices of A Distant Star" for example.

DVDTimes.co.uk has a long running list of upcoming Tartan UK releases, some interesting stuff stands out for me, but maybe there's something here I don't know too much about, so here goes :

27th June 2005 : Monster Man. Mayor of The Sunset Strip. The Duel Project : Aragami/2LDK (Asia Extreme). Ozu Box Set 2 : Record of a Tenement Gentleman (1947), Flavour of Green Tea Over Rice (1952). Bergman Collection : Eva (1947) and Waiting Women (1952).

4th July 2005 : The Woodsman.

25th July 2005 : Infernal Affairs 3 (Asia Extreme). Tell Me Something (Asia Extreme). Sick (by Kirby Dick). Paul Morrissey Box Set : Flesh (1968), Trash (1970), and Heat (1972).

1st August 2005 : The Machinist.

22nd August 2005 : Palindromes. Battle Royale II : Special Edition (2-disc boxset). Ozu Box Set 3 : Tokyo Twilight (1957); Equinox Flower (1958); and Good Morning (1959) . Twenty Palms. Tiresia. Who Killed Bambi?

26th September 2005 : Mysterious Skin (by Gregg Araki). Mean Creek. Torremolinos 73. Les Clefs de Bagnole. Novo.

Another highly anticipated and very recent anime show gets a firm start date for its R1 discs, and this time it's one of those that has an almost obsessive following - not unusual amongst shows that stand out amongst all the stuff still ongoing or recent in Japan.

Anyway, this was announced as 'coming soon' within the last couple of weeks or so, and now AnimeOnDVD have put up the first date.

To find out a little more, here's the Official Japanese Site which has lots of previews in various formats. The the Animenfo page with an overview (25 episodes at 24 minutes each by the way), and finally the AnimeNewsNetwork page which is full of all the stuff you can use to get a sense of the show without downloading movies.

As a big dopey action flick that is entertaining, but wouldn’t quite cut it in the fierce competition of the summer movie season, “Sahara” makes a decent adventure outing for those looking to get a jump on that sort of thing. Nowhere else will you get the excitement of Mathew McConaughey and Steve Zahn punching, kicking, shooting, and outrunning various thugs at every turn while chasing a long lost U.S. Civil War treasure in the middle of the Sahara Desert (don’t ask). It’s all set to a rousing action score as well as several shoehorned-in overly familiar classic rock tunes. (Come on, who doesn’t long to hear the opening twangs of “Sweet Home Alabama” while watching Hollywood pretty boys duke it out in the middle of nowhere in Africa? Anyone?)

Okay, so maybe this isn’t the greatest or most original movie in the world. It’s certainly true that this film doesn’t offer us anything particularly new in the long run. But here’s the deal – it never really claims to be anything more than what it is, and on that level – and ONLY on that level – it succeeds, absolutely.

Continue reading "Sahara Review"

Not quite the Bee Gees biopic I was hoping for but this is so darn silly I just have to share it with you. A lot of people are calling this an effort to break free of his goody two-shoes Malcolm in the Middle persona [a show I quite enjoy mind you]. Frankie Muniz has signed on to co-star in an upcoming horror/thriller Stay Alive. He will play, get this, a nerd, named Swink Sylvania who gets drawn into horrific circumstances and blood-letting by a video game.

Movies.com - Three video game–loving kids in New Orleans rediscover their friendship at the funeral of one of their friends, who died while playing a game called Stay Alive. It turns out that the ghost of a local video game champ may have come to life through the game and be on a killing spree. I kid you not. That's a helluva lot of effort to ensure you keep your initials at the top of the Top Score screen. BBC.co.uk calls it "basically The Ring with a joystick".

I miss Shocker. Your mother always said video games were bad for you. You should have listened.

Just in case you've got nothing else going on right now. Mostly the same footage from other trailers with a couple newer shots. Less sobbing Dakota though. And we get to see more of Miranda Otto too.

Check out another Japanese War of the Worlds trailer here.

via Movies.com.

Well, according to IMDB the full title is "Hana to hebi: kyukyoku nawa chokyo" and is not the first or the last in the series of 'Flower And Snake' movies, as the second of the recently revived franchise is coming soon. The first came back in 1974, and including the two recent entries there six of them in total, several of which were in the 1980s. Anyone interested in Pinku movies, which are beginning to get slightly higher-profile USA releases, would want to look into this release more and the few titles in the genre (and its many guises) littered out there already.

MondoErotico has posted a list of upcoming Media Blasters releases and announcements, this one most fitting my taste, which also includes Joe D'Amatos "Porno Holocaust" (1980, no R1 date set), "Images Of A Convent" (1979, on R1 June 14th 2005) for all the nunsploitation fans, the full-length Italian cut of Bruno Matteis' "S S Girls" (1976, on R1 May 31st 2005), and the delayed (and politically incorrectly titled) "Yellow Emanuelle" (1977, no R1 date set), then finally another 1950's Japanese oddity in the shape of "Varan The Unbelievable" (1958, on R1 May 10th 2005).

Fox Searchlight's trailer for Russian fantasy / horror flick Night Watch has turned up online and it's a good one. I wouldn't say that this is a great film but it is a very good one - my full review is here - and it should do well if presented properly and thus far Fox seems to have a good grip on what they've got. Using music from M83 in the trailer was a welcome surprise ... check it out here.

More rumblings saying Seven Swords will appear at the Cannes Films Festival, playing out of competition. In a recent article commenting on the death of director Tsui Hark's father the Hangzhou Daily commented that the "post-production, which is near completion, would not be affected. Editing has finished and they are now dubbing and scoring the film while Tsui Hark is returning for work in a few days. In May, Seven Swords will make its grand premiere at Cannes Film Festival as an out-of-competition film." That via Wu-Jing.

On a related note: are there any Twitch readers out there who will be attending Cannes? If so, we'd love to hear from you ... we'd love an inside voice or two to feed information back to us here. Drop me a note via the contact page if you're willing and able.

Apparently we're not the only ones looking forward to this ... A Bittersweet Life doesn't open in Japan until April 23rd but it has already set advance sales records in at least one Japanese theater. With the director and star just starting their Japanese press tour now anticipation is only going to continue to rise ... details here.

Variety is reporting that Dreamworks has picked up North American rights to Tom Tykwer's Perfume, a thriller still in pre-production slated to star Dustin Hoffman and Alan Rickman.

Yeah, Tykwer's been a bit spotty since Run Lola Run but I think that has more to do with him resisting the 'hot youth director' box people tried to push him into after that one and I still believe he's one of the more talented people working in the world today ... this is definitely a film to watch out for ...

Glory! Some of you may recall my fawning praise for Green Wing a few months back ... I love this show. You're aware of how much I love Little Britain, yes? It's a bit of apples and oranges, but I think I actually like Green Wing even better. Fantastic writing, a brilliant cast and dead solid direction. Not sure if this air date applies in Canada as well - BBC America and BBC Canada are related somewhat, but are run seperately - but all you folk south of the border can catch the goodness starting on May 19th. And you should. Really.

The scriptwriters for House of Flying Daggers have been called in to make revisions of the script for the Jet Li film, Legend of Fighter, which has already begun filming.

One of the writers, Wang Bin says, "It's a very tough job for we have merely over 10 days to give a complete overhaul to nearly every major part of the script. However, the original characters and locations will be retained.

Jet Li is practically behind the entire structure of the script, and through this collaboration, I learn that Jet Li hopes to fulfill a very big wish of his, having gained, apparently, a higher perspective on life and humanity. He resides within the character, he is the persona.

I am given a chance to dig out my full potential, and to prove myself. I am grateful to Jet Li, to Bill Kong, for given me such a challenge. This is a kungfu biopic that is out of ordinary, it takes on a new interpretation on the folk hero Huo Yuan Jia and also bears insights on humanity.

Not only does it have many fights, but also lots of dramas, and the characters and storyline are not related to the ATV TV series Legendary Fok [in which Yuen Cheung Yan was the choreographer]. Huo Yuan Jia's friendship, romance, and kinship are shown not only through the dialogues, we are creating a Huo Yuan Jia that is not just a hero but also an ordinary human.

Jet Li is very sensitive to the script, he would be able to detect immediately if there is any line or behaviour in the script that does not befit that of Huo Yuan Jia, his exacting meticulousness is very shocking."

Jet Li visited the set the other day complete with shaven head and pony tail. He met breifly with martial arts choreographer and legend, Yuen Woo Ping, and went over a couples moves before leaving.

According to the report Yuen Woo Ping has created new sequences for the film. New sequences that have not been seen before. The man keeps reinventing martial arts. In each new film I watch that he has been involved in there is always something new and surprising in the choreogrpahy. I cannot wait to see what he and Ronnie Yu have devised for this one. And given that Jet is a more than competent martial artist I now need a drool towel handy.

You can read the full report over at Wu-Jing.org.

You can see pictures from the set at SINA.

Sad news screamed across the Star Wars universe like a wayward Tie Fighter the other day when it was announced that the third and final installment of the Star Wars prequel trilogy, Revenge of the Sith, would not be showing at the famous Grouman’s Chinese Theater in Hollywood, California. And it all boils down to the Dark Side of Hollywood politics.

Here's the deal. The Chinese Theater is partially owned by Paramount Pictures and they are opening The Longest Yard [Adam Sandler & Chris Rock] a week after Revenge of the Sith. Understandably, They want to fill their theaters with their own film so Star Wars has to move venues. 20th Century Fox has moved their space saga to the next available venue: The Hollywood ArcLight Cinema.

But wait it gets better. The Hollywood "Invitation Only" premiere will still be held at the Chinese Theater and then opening night will go back to the ArcLight. But here's the thing about the ArcLight. The theater takes reserved seating only. They have promised to take care of line patrons and even hinted at offering special promotions. But line patrons should be ready to make reservations just in case.

Despite the news, many of the faithful are saying that they aren’t really in line for the movie. They are there for the line experience. To them, the Chinese Theater is where the whole Star Wars experience started.

Alyse Pozzo, LiningUp.net’s webmaster, said "We have no immediate plans to move our line. We are talking to other theatres as a back up. But we are not moving. Why? Because Grauman’s is where the first Star Wars film premiered and it’s where the last Star Wars film should premiere." She continues, "We have not lost hope that it still might play at Grauman’s but if it doesn’t, we will have a great time with our line event and raise money and awareness for the Starlight Starbright Children’s Foundation."

via iFMagazine.

Follow the Hollywood lineup at LiningUp.net.

This could be good news or in my opinion this is just plain horrible-kick-you-in-the-jewels-awful.

Dark Horizons reported on a link through iFMagazine about Queen Latifahs involvement in a remake of the Korean comedy My Wife is a Gangster.

The actress is also attached to a remake of the 2001 Korean comedy MY WIFE IS A GANGSTER. "This project is on hold," says Latifah. "It needs a mean rewrite, and it needs a good director."

Okay. You're asking yourselves "How could this possibly be good news?" Well, the only glimmer of hope I have is that if they're rewriting it, perhaps they'll rewrite her right out of the movie. Wishful thinking? Perhaps the producers of the film have noticed that she was already involved in the bastardization of one foreign property with TAXI and that tanked. Trick me once shame on you. Trick me twice?

Continue reading "Queen Latifah on My Wife is a Gangster remake"

Don't know how much worth yet another edition of a particularly familiar film from a fairly well followed director actually makes, but lately Tartan has been a little more successful in giving us a decent transfer and interesting extras. So, giving you all the chance to way up this new disc of 'The Isle' to see if this now becomes to option of choice. To be honest, I've lost track of certain films and which editions are even out there.

Anyhow, this time you get an Anamorphic Widescreen (1.85 to 1) transfer, Dolby Digital and DTS 5.1 sound, six "cast, crew and critic" interviews, music featurette, behind the scenes featurette, a featurette about the director, and (wait four it!) a four page booklet. That's about as worth pointing out as an extra as "Animated Menus" for me.

And the changes to the usual cover artwork, particularly the logo, make me wince : trust me, when you seen the movie (if you haven't, why not?) then you too will avoid checking out the larger version at DVDAnswers.com here where there's the back cover too.

*EDIT* Thanks to Lourdes who just pointed out in the comments what i should have remembered : the BBFC cut 1 minute 50 seconds out of this. Shame.

Yep, the time has come. Another contest has closed and we're giving stuff away, in this case two copies of The Corporation on DVD. Congratulations (?) go out to Peter Hawkinson and Brian Houlihan for their tales of superior economic exploitation. Read on for what won them the DVDs ... and don't forget to get in on our Dig and Reconstruction DVD giveaway and our Kung Fu Hustle trading card giveaway ...

Continue reading "Corporation DVD Giveaway Winners!"

The news is a couple days old but I want to know who you think should be running the show when filming begins on the anticipated live-action Transformers movie.

Right now the lead runner for the project is the master of mass destruction Michael Bay [The Rock, Bad Boys II and the upcoming The Island]. But according to Moriarty over at AICN Roland Emmerich [ID4, Godzilla and Day After Tomorrow] is very interested in the project as well. Michael has an enormous leg up on Roland however. Transformers will be a DreamWorks production and Michael is wrapping up The Island with them. Bay would also get to work again with writers Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci. They rewrote The Island and wrote Transformers. The there is already a familiarity and past working relationship there.

So it looks like the decision weighs heavily in Bays favor. And I for one wouldn't mind so much. I want a Rock'em Sock'em Transformers movie. I want to see shit blow up and Bay can blow shit up pretty darn well. He can deliver a full no holds barred ass kicking robot movie. Emmerich? I would be scared that he might pause in the film to wax philosophical, or even worse, switch genders of one of the robots on us and make it pregnant.

You tell me. What do you think of all this? Is Bay the right man for the job? Or should Emmerich get his wish granted? Or is there someone else that no one is considering but should? Sound off people!!!

via HollywoodReporter.

Simon Pegg was an absolute delight to be around when we joined him and Edgar and Nick after a screening of Shaun of the Dead last summer. And I am becoming a bigger fan of his after watching some of his earlier work on shows like Big Train and Is It Bill Bailey? [which Edgar also directed].

So it is a great surprise to see AICN report that he is joining Woody Harrelson and Brendan Fraser in the film Three Bad Men. The story is about "a trio of hit men who relocate to the edges of suburbia to try to start a new life as model citizens". The picture will be helmed by Paul Weiland. Yeah he did City Slickers II, but he's also done Mr. Bean and Black Adder.

Both Woody and Brendan are proven comedic actors, when working with good material. The only thing that concerns me is the number of producers on this picture. Five producers and 6 executive producers. That's a lot of people making decisions. Too many if you ask me.

So it will be interesting to see what Simon does with someone else's material and with the freedom to just be an actor. I can only assume that he will either take a break from his Hard Fuzz writing sessions in the countryside with Edgar or will work on the film after that is done. The film is set for January 2006.

Not news so much, but a comment on an interesting little phenomenon I've been seeing building steam ...

As I'm sure anyone who opens a paper or watches the news is aware there is a certain very large segment of the film industry that views the internet with a healthy degree of suspicion. It is the land of piracy, yes? And thus it is to be kept at a distance. It's an issue I've run into a few times when dealing - or trying to - with distributors and major studios here in Canada. It doesn't matter what kind of numbers you pull, how focused or how large your audience is, a good number of studios simply will not deal with you if you are an online media outlet.

This strikes me as remarkably wrong headed. The net is not only a tool for piracy, it is an incredibly democratic - and cheap - way of connecting with people that presents massive potential to build a direct connection with your audience, to allow them to participate and invest in what you're doing, but until recently very few people seemed to grasp that positive potential. Not even the massive, largely web driven, success of the Blair Witch Project seemed to make much of a dent in the studio mindset. But it looks as though that's beginning to change ...

First Shaun of the Dead nicked the concept of the street team - theirs was called the Shaun Squad - from the independent music community, where guerrilla marketing has long been a staple. Then Lion's Gate launched their online officially sanctioned Lion's Gate Horror blog site which strikes me a fairly major development that made a good number of people sit up and take note. Even the rather stodgy Fox Searchlight has an official fan forum on their site. So, rather than shutting us out - or trying to plant information on established sites - some people are starting to speak directly to us and listen to what we have to say. This is a good thing.

But here's where things get interesting. Interactivity. Exploiting the capabilities of the internet. Tiny start up Tartan USA is the gold standard here with The Hand - their official fan community where, among other things, you can assemble your own trailer for OldBoy using materials they provide online. Sweet. And now one of the big kids is coming to play. Warner Brothers - and does anybody else remember how they were the favored whipping boy of the fan community after botching a few major titles? Is there a major with a better line up of genre fare in the works right now? I certainly don't think so - has launched a sub site for House of Wax where fans can build their own poster art and rate each other's work. True, I'll only drop coin to see the film if someone at WB swears a solemn oath that I'll be treated to the sight of Paris Hilton meeting a painful and painfully graphic demise - though the trailer really does look far better than it has any right to - but I find it hugely encouraging that a company that old, entrenched and simply large is finally coming to understand that us lot are actually an asset rather than a potential enemy.

So, what do you all think? This increase in fan involvement - a good thing, a bad thing? Does it all just boil down to a form of viral marketing and, if so, does that really matter in the end?

I love me some Gilliam so I'm happy beyond words that we've got two new films from the man due to hit screens this year ... Making me happier are these set shots from The Brothers Grimm.. This thing's been in the can for ages which makes me thinks that if these are just turning up now they've probably been leaked straight from the studio (oooh ... viral marketing ...) but I'm happy for a look however I get it ...

This one is primarily of interest to local - i.e. Toronto area - folk, but here it is:

Tickets for the 2005 edition of the Worldwide Short Film Festival went on sale yesterday. Canada gets its own program, as does India and there will be others devoted to sci-fi, horror, international music videos, celebrity driven shorts, and - ahem - one program titled 'Slap and Tickle'. Should be a good time ... hit the official site here for details.

The good people at Sony actually sent this to me last night but between a) needing to sleep at least a few hours a day and b) an afternoon spent in the dentist's chair today (ow) I'm just getting to it now ... it's the official one sheet for Kim Ki Duk's 3-Iron. Click here to see it all big-like.

And, just in case you were wondering, yes the trailer is still bloody fantastic. Go watch.

We posted information on the upcoming Red Doors a couple days back and though they're still working away on a trailer - so no footage available just yet - they have made a good chunk of the soundtrack available for download. Nice. Check it here.

I don't follow anime as closely as some, so this is a show that I know nothing about, but apparently there are a good number of you out there who do, because I've had this information sent to me three times today ...

New Line has apparently bought rights to make a live action adaptation of Monster based on the manga and anime by Urasawa Naoki. David pointed me to this story at Akadot while Logboy pointed the way to a show synopsis here.

No word yet on possible directors or cast ... so, to those who know the show, what's the word on this? Good stuff? Potential for a good film? Or no?

There's still no trailer for Kei Nakata's Tsurugi: The Future Swordsman (Tsurugi) on the official website for the movie, but there are a few stills from it. The movie's principal cast is as follows: Yasuhisa Katô, Natsuyo Kanahama, Kenji Matsuda, Asuka Shimizu, Takayuki Katô, Kôichirô Takami, Sanae Kikuta, Masaki Sawatari, Tatsuya Horiguchi (who was also the movie's stunt coordinator), Kazuo Misaki, Masayuki Yamamoto, and Kazuhiro Nakahara. Kentarô Nojima scored the movie, and DIAMOND☆YUKAI composed/performed the theme song for it.

Continue reading "Kei Nakata's TSURUGI: THE FUTURE SWORDSMAN (TSURUGI)"

Here is the official website for Kame wa igai to hayaku oyogu, another film by Satoshi Miki that's scheduled for theatrical release in Japan some time in the next few months. (As was mentioned here, Miki also directed the upcoming comedy In the Pool (In za pûru).) The film's principal cast is as follows: Juri Ueno, Yû Aoi, Ryô Iwamatsu, Eri Fuse, Yutaka Matsushige, Toshifumi Muramatsu, Yasuto Hida (a.k.a. Yasuhito Hida), Jun Kaname, Yoshiyuki Morishita, Shunsuke Matsuoka, Kenji Mizuhashi, Yôichi Nukumizu, Nobuto Okamoto, Kyûsaku Shimada, and Masatô Ibu (a.k.a. Masatoh Eve).

A couple of reports have emerged via Nausicaa.net most noteably. Firstly, there's a specific source material named as one of the three (yes, three!) movies they have on the go, and it is "Wo diushile wode xiaonanhai (I Lost my Little Boy)" from Chinese writer Yishu, recently released and selling like hot-cakes apparently. It's about a boy called Mimi (who suffers from heart desease) and his journeys. Worth noting that the reports are not from Japan in this films case, but from China (The Nanjing Morning Post), so things could change.

Then, from an interview on NTV, Mr.Suzuki from Studio Ghibli says the three films are effectively one from Miyazaki, one from Takahata (whos last film is the little seen and underrated "My Neighbours The Yamadas" which is just a stunning piece of work) and one based on a Western book. Now, this could refer to China and the book "I Lost My Little Boy" or it could be something else - we would be more inclined to see a Western book as something like 'Howls Moving Castle'. Time will tell.

I wish I could thank the kind soul who sent Todd this information but he neglected to tell who sent him this juicy tidbit of info when he dumped in on my lap before crashing for the night thus delaying my nocternal bliss. Whoever you are, thank you. CineClickAsia posted this article some time ago about Kim Ki-duks next film, The Bow.

The film tells the story of an elderly man who falls in love with a teenage girl and plans to marry her when she turns seventeen.

Although he is using CGI for the first time, Kim expects to be able to deliver the picture in time for the Cannes festival.

The Bow is partially set at sea. Stylistically the film is closest to Kims Spring Summer Autumn Winter Spring and The Isle. Like Three Iron (Bin Jip) there is no dialogue between the two main protagonists. That is just awesome.

The film features Jeon Seong-hwan and Seo Min-jeong, both whom appeared in Kim's Samaritan Girl.

Found this through the CityonFire news pages. On the official Jet Li website he answered readers questions about Unleashed and his upcoming film with Ronny Yu, Legend of a Fighter.

There are only two questions about Legend of a Fighter and Jet is pretty tight lipped about it, waxing philosophical rather than giving a direct answer. With obvious reason too.

When talking about Unleashed he does go into more detail. He talks about the controversy regarding Chinese offense to the movie posters, critical responses to his film in regards to his performance and the violence in the film, and his motivations for being a part of this project.

:::UPDATE::: Here you go. Thanks to MonkeyPeaches for providing a direct link to the Q & A page on Jet Lis site.

Not only do we get a TV spot for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory but we also get a new poster as well.

Click here for a bigger version.

via Movies.com.

Ask and thou shalt receive, blah blah blah ...

When I posted a link to the Save the Green Planet website yesterday I lamented the lack of any sort of trailer for the film online anywhere. Well, lament no more, because it has arrived and it rules like lords! Apparently a Quicktime version may be turning up on the film's site sometime in the next few days but in the meantime you can find it in Windows Media format here.

Grady at Kaiju Shakedown had a hand in cutting this bad boy together and it says here that that man is a GENIUS! Absolutely fantastic trailer ... get over there and show the man some love ...

We've been tracking the progress of Paul Spurrier's P - the first Thai language film ever shot by a westerner - since word began to circulate on it a few weeks back. Early word was fantastic and after it was booked to play the Brussels film festival I managed to track down the director and scoop some early info. A couple inquiries later he also agreed to an interview, something we've just wrapped up via email.

Now I normally aim to do my interviewing by voice - I just find that email can be a bit of a crap shoot with some people over-editing themselves and just generally not presenting themselves nearly as well in text as they would in conversation. Very definitely not the case here. Spurrier is an intelligent, thoughtful man and, from time to time, laugh out loud funny. Read on for the goodness and check out the trailer for P here.

Continue reading "Paul Spurrier Talks Thailand, Ghosts and P."

Hoo boy ... Nat from the Lake County Film Festival gave me the heads up on this and I'm glad he did ...

Is 5-25-77 (c'mon ... you know what happened then ... admit it ...) a fan film or a professional production? It looks like a bit of both ... the cast is made up largely of amateurs but it does also feature Christopher Lloyd, has original music by Alan Parsons (!), and sports Gary Kurtz as a producer. You know Gary. Trust me. Produced a little film called Star Wars back in '77. Ah. That'd explain the title, yes?

So what's it about? It's a loving little ode to growing up in the seventies with the explosion of big budget sci-fi and wishing you could be making these fantastic films rather than just watching them. It's fertile ground for a film, really, and I'm more than a little surprised nobody's gone there before ... the official trailer hasn't turned up on the website yet, but writer/director Patrick Read Johnston (Spaced Invaders) just gave me the all clear to send you here to check out a rough teaser cut together for cast and crew ... Nice ...

Although this release from Homevision has slipped from someones mouth a while back, complete with release date, todays update for June 2005 releases give the confirmation, artwork and specifications for 1972 Kinji Fukusaku anti-war movie. Lead by Sachiro Hidaki, the film shows the efforts made by an executed soldiers' widow to clear his name with the help of his ex-colleagues.

As usual you can expect a 16:9 (2.35 to 1) digital transfer, the usual solid but scant extras : commentary with subtitler Linda Hoaglund, interview with Fukusaku schollar Yamane Sadao, a Tom Mes (Midnight Eye) essay and the original trailer.

See the page for the release which has just appeared at Homevision.com here, and click their small preview of the artwork for a larger version as usual.

June 7th also sees Ronin Gai, the 1992 Chambara from Kazuo Kuroki. See the page for that here. Nothing else stands out for me that month from Homevision, but check out the months complete listings here.

Just spotted this while double checking some details on the Dead Man's Shoes review below ...

Sweet Maria, the horror comedy Shane Meadows was just weeks away from rolling film on as his follow up to Dead Man's Shoes, has been scrapped. No reasons given, but there's got to be something fairly siginificant to kill a film this far into the prep work ...

Meadows has, however, already announced a new project. Titled Oi! This Is England! Meadows' next flick will now be an eighties set piece revolving around the UK skinhead movement ...

Details here.

If ever a film has had a more ominous opening line than Shane Meadows’ Dead Man’s Shoes I certainly have never come across it. “God will forgive them. He will forgive them and allow them into heaven,” comes the flat, emotionless voice of Paddy Considine’s Richard. “I can’t live with that.” Clearly something bad has happened. Something very bad. Equally clearly something far, far worse lies in the immediate future.

Dead Man’s Shoes revolves around Anthony (Toby Kebell) and Richard (Paddy Considine), brothers born and raised in the British midlands. Younger brother Anthony is an utter innocent, a man-child with some sort of developmental problem that has left him “simple” – sweet, trusting and open to abuse. Elder brother Richard has just returned from a stint in the military and, on learning that his younger brother has been badly mistreated by the local gang of drug dealers and petty thugs Richard sets out on a bloody rampage, carving his way through the gang aiming to terrorize and punish those who abused his brother.

Continue reading "Dead Man's Shoes Review"

The poster for Johnnie To's Election has turned up online and it's a good one ...

I know, I know ... I said I wouldn't get worked up over Johnnie To films any more after being let down one (or three, or five) times too many, but ... but ... it's a TRIAD film! And it stars a stack of good actors! Simon Yam, Tony Leung Kar-fai, Wong Tin-lam, and Lam Suet amongst others. I'm so easily led ... Check out a larger version of the poster image here.

This one comes courtesy of Kaiju Shakedown, the new Variety-sponsored Asian film blog being written by Grady from Subway Cinema. I'd be bitter about him being paid by Variety to do what I do here for free except he's a great guy, he knows his stuff cold, and he's doing a fantastic job. Thus, rather than bitching, I have bookmarked his site so that I may pilfer shamelessly from it in the future. I suggest you do the same.

Whee! The new TV spot for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory has turned up online at The Movie Box! It's a screen capture, so the video quality isn't pristine and the audio played slightly out of synch but there's plenty of new stuff in there ... check it here. Nice ...

Everybody's favorite stop motion guy is spilling details on a pair of his upcoming projects - he's also got adaptations of The Fantastic Mr. Fox and Coraline coming down the pipe - and why he's working more with CG technology on them here ... Personally I'd like to see him doing nothing but stop motion but any Selick is good Selick and his reasoning seems pretty solid ...

A solid interview with Darren Aronfsky dipping into just about everything you'd care to know on The Fountain has turned up on Suicide Girls. Yeah, that's right ... goin' to Suicide Girls for the articles ...

Via Scifi.com

The official website for Isshin Inudô's Maison de Himiko (Mezon do Himiko) is online, and there's a trailer for the film here. In the film, Min Tanaka plays Himiko, a terminally ill gay man, and the founder of the titular gay seniors home Maison de Himiko. (According to producer Osamu Kubota - quoted here - the inspiration for the film's story came from his having read an Asahi newspaper article - see the December 21, 2000 entry here - on the Home for Golden Gays, a gay seniors home founded in Manila by Justo C. Justo.) Kou Shibasaki (a.k.a. Kô Shibasaki) plays Himiko's estranged daughter Saori, and Jô Odagiri (a.k.a. Joe Odagiri) plays his lover Haruhiko.

BTW, Odagiri plays Tetsuya Taguchi in Satoshi Miki's upcoming film In the Pool (In za pûru), which also stars Suzuki Matsuo as psychiatrist Ichirô Irabu, Maiko as nurse Mayumi-chan, Seiichi Tanabe as Kazuo Ômori, and Miwako Ichikawa as Suzumi Iwamura. For more info on In the Pool, see Pony Canyon's English-language webpage for it here; to view a trailer for it, click here.

I absolutely adore this film and the title up above pretty much says it all.

Website here. Trailer - brilliant, pretty much flawless trailer in downloadable Quicktime, no less - here.

The unfamiliar should read on for the full synopsis ... we've got multiple glowing reviews in our review archive, as well ...

Continue reading "North American Website and Trailer for Kim Ki Duk's 3-Iron!"

Nothing particularly major here but a) I love the show and b) this makes me feel the need to bring it up from time to time.

Season Two of Greenwing - the brilliant hospital Britcom with the insanely large cast and rather surreal script writing - is in production now with rehearsals and last minute writing sessions in full swing. Writer James Henry has posted a few teasers on his personal blog but, alas, will reveal no dazzling pieces of insider information for fear of violent retribution. He does, however, tell me that October is looking to be the likely month of a Season One DVD release.

Also on Henry's blog are an unproduced Greenwing / Dr. Who crossover piece he proposed to Comic Relief for Red Nose Day that will likely make no sense to anyone not familiar with the series but which made me giggle a good bit as well as a pair of photo-comics that I can only hope will be the first of a long running series ...

Logboy's just turned up the proper DVD art and specs for the May DVD release of the new Dr. Who over at DVD Answers, where you may go to check out a much larger version of that picture to the left.

Word is that these early releases are going to be pretty much nekkid with nothing in the way of special features. If you want the full Who experience the thing to do will be to wait until November or so when a full season box set loaded up with goodies is expected to arrive ...

Well, I was hoping for a little bit more but the North American website for Korean genre-buster Save the Green Planet is now live and I suppose I should really just be thankful that someone's bringing this gem to our shores. Seriously, this film could change your life. Well, probably not, but it will at the very least make the day you see it far more enjoyable.

No english language trailer yet and the original Korean one seems to have vanished, but there is still this music video available online ...

Someone over on our forum - a lovely little place I encourage you all to check out - just pointed the way to this solid interview with Nimrod Antal, the director of Kontroll, and it's good stuff.

Kontroll was one of my most anticipated films of the 2004 Toronto Film Festival and though I had a bit of a mixed reaction to it then it has grown on me quite a lot since and I absolutely believe that Antal is a director to watch - someone who could be a major force in international film for a long, long time. Follow that link above to the interview, then go hit the trailer and music video.

I still have incredibly mixed feelings about this one ... the politics behind making a Crusades film just at the moment are questionable at best - my money says it'll take about five minutes after the film releases before someone uses it to justify blowing someone else up - and hugely distasteful at worst but that said I'll probably be lining up for it ...

Yahoo has posted a new, extended four and a half minute trailer for Ridley Scott's Kingdom of Heaven. Not surprisingly the visuals look stunning but the dialogue ... not so much. Neeson and Irons are perfectly cast and Bloom looks servicable. Am I surprised that all the advertising thus far has completely ignored the Muslim side of the battle? Not a bit ...

Well, it took the massive failure of Swept Away and distributors world wide flat out refusing to touch Revolver - a film Ritchie sunk a lot of his own money into making - but Guy Ritchie has finally realized that casting Madonna in his films is the kiss of death. Thus, no more Madonna in Revolver. Now will somebody just go ahead and put this out, please? Statham and Liotta on screen together is far too good to pass up ...

Yep. Justin Timberlake is rumored to be up for the role of John McClane Jr in Die Hard 4 ... why am I posting this crap? Because Tony Jaa is up for a villain part and if both casting rumors pan out then we just might get to see Jaa busting out a bit of muay thai action on Timberlake's face. Yes, please.

For all of my buzzing about what a great year this is going to be for martial arts films and all my excited ravings about Tom Yum Goong, Unleashed, Sha Po Lang and Seven Swords I keep forgetting about the other major title coming down the line: the Ronnie Yu helmed, Jet Li starring Legend of a Fighter.

Mmmm ... Jet Li playing the master of his character from Fist of Legend. What's not to like about that? Wu Jing is reporting that filming has just gotten under way and it sounds like a fairly lavish production ... Li's already gone on record saying that he wants the martial arts in the film to be true to life and avoid any sort of studio trickery and considering he's both the star and producer what he says pretty much goes ...

Now, I don't normally put a lot of stock in box office numbers but I've been looking forward to seeing this weekend's take in Korea. Why? A Bittersweet Life - the latest from the director of A Tale of Two Sisters - and Crying Fist - the latest from the director of Arahan - both released and advance buzz on both was very strong. Making things a little more interesting is the fact that A Bittersweet Life drew an 18+ rating thanks to the violent content while Crying Fist pulled a much more audience friendly 15.

Well, the numbers are in and it's A Bittersweet Life by a hair ... now hurry up and release them both on DVD ...

Stauffen's gone out and found himself a trio of pictures from Tokyo Zombie, the new flick directed from the writer of Ichi the Killer and Gozu starring Tadanobu Asano and Sho Aikawa ... these look like they were scanned out of a magazine and they don't show a ton, but they're definitely worth a look ... Check the main Stauffen site out here or go straight to the pictures here.

I emailed some bits to Todd last night but he must have gone out, or to bed like I did just after I sent them... so now I am awake I am trying to put together some updated bits on Yajikita now whilst I have the chance.

OK, it's based on a book it seems, and that's the first thing I discovered.

Secondly, there's a making-of DVD out there, as from April 1st in Japan.

Thirdly the title confusion: some Japanese sites actually refer to it as 'Yaji X Kita' and the full Japanese title is 「真夜中の弥次さん喜多さん」. That seems to translate as 'Midnight with Yaji and Kita' according to a comment in the previous post below.

There's also this page with a 7 minute press conference with some more pictures too on here. Can't read the interview there, so would be interested to know what it says.

That's the official poster to the left it seems.

Finally, spotted a trailer hidden away. Broadband and Narrowband streams from some odd Japanese film site.

A while back we expressed our glee about the upcoming Eddie Izzard biopic Diva 51 and the off-chance that their plans to debut the film at TIFF with a live performance from everyones favorite executive transvestite may come to fruition.

Then Poolboy sent us a link to Scotsman.com where there is more detail about the movie.

The film will explore the subject of his transvestism – he once famously described himself as “a lesbian trapped in a man’s body“.

“There’s an element of my wild and large, rollicking ego about doing it, but I want the film to dig deep,” he told Variety magazine.

I couldn't turn up a trailer on the website but what is there is compellingly odd stuff ... Samurai in drag? Samurai on motorcycles? A killer soundtrack, popped production design and a cast that includes Susumu Terajima and Riki Takeushi ... there are still a couple dead links on the site, so I'm sure the trailer will be turning up soon enough, but in the meanwhile check things out here.

Wow, that didn't take long ...

I just stumbled across a post on the Mobius Home Video Forums pointing out that the new series of Dr. Who will begin to hit DVD in May. Two DVDs with three episodes each are slated for release May 16th which means episode six will be available for purchase within a week or so of airing.

Could this be the BBC's response to increased downloading of their shows? Recent reports say that the UK has the highest level of television downloading in the world - even higher than the US, which is pretty surprising - and this sort of rapid release schedule strikes me as an attempt to cut down on that.

I believe Episode Three - The Unquiet Dead - is the one penned by Mark Gatiss of The League of Gentlemen, incidentally ...

Well, now, this is interesting ... the Shaolin Temple - yes, the real Shaolin Temple - involved in am upcoming China / Hollywood film production titled New Shaolin Temple: Monks in Army. The film is budgeted at fifteen million, will be partially filmed at the ancienct Shaolin Temple and will feature performances from many actual Shaolin monks demonstrating a range of martial arts with no wire work or 'tricks' of any kind.

"Based on a true historical account, New Shaolin Temple: Monks in Army depicts a group of 30 monks of Ming Dynasty's Jiaqing Reign who forms a special imperial legion to fight against pirates and defend the nation. While the cast are not known at this moment, they will come from Mainland, Japan and Korea."

If this ends up being successful it'll be the first in a trilogy ... the film's producer is currently pursuing Ang Lee, Yuen Woo Ping, Tsui Hark and Stanley Tong as possible directors ...

via Wu-Jing.

Korean film site Cine21 has added a stack of new Sympathy for Lady Vengeance shots to their image gallery. They are mostly production shots - director Chan Wook Park appears in many - but there are some that look to be pretty close to finished product. Check out the complete gallery here.

Via Filmacco.

Here's some news sure to make Opus happy ... Logboy just dropped me a note pointing out that ADV has licensed Makoto Shinkai's A Place Promised In Our Early Days ... No word on specs or a release date yet. ADV's page for the film is here.

Oooh ... here's a little something I stumbled on in the KFC Forums ... a 2+ minute reel of fights from Stephen Fung's House of Fury. It doesn't look as though these pull from any really major sequences in the film but the choreography is tight and has a fantastic sense of humor ... I've heard some mixed things about the film but I'm still really looking forward to seeing it ...

Searching for information after spotting this at I.Gs Japanese site, where i gather theres 26 episodes at 30 minutes each, i see there has been a short series of 5 minute episodes produced and shown already - in 2003. Yesterday however the new series was announced as a collaboration between I.G and Bandai with the participation of the Cartoon Network (aka Toonami).

Essentially it's a western story produced by Japanese companies, to involve 'major Hollywood voice talent' it seems, and the music of British record label Ninja Tune. Would this be the first time for such a mix of east and west in terms of anime production?

'IGPX' means "Immortal Grand Prix' and seems to be based in the year 2048, and involves high-speed racing - kind of reminds me of 'F-Zero' which has also been an anime show in recent times, and an episode from the anime-shorts 'Neo Tokyo' too. Looking forward to this.

AnimeNewsNetworks press release is here.

Thanks to CityonFire for directing me to the ProductionI.G. forums, where it appears that John Woo has added yet another project, or two, to and already pretty hefty schedule.

Babelfish couldn't translate the two articles linked to in the forum post but the jist of it according to the author is...

1. that Woo will produce an animation titled "POSEIDON" with Aramaki and relese in the summer of next year.

2. "John Woo sent the love call to [singer/actress?] Kimura Yoshino" and that John Woo plans a new brand to produce and distribute CG animation and live-action film. The press conference about it was held on the 31st. It also says the new brand will release APPLESEED evolution version in the summer of next year.

Yeah, it's kind of inconclusive but this may just be the live action APPLESEED that has been rumoured about. So we'll just have to wait and see, won't we. Woo already has enough on his plate to get through including directing He-Man, Spy Hunter and The War of the Red Cliff amongst others, and his producing gigs such as Rainbow Six and Metroid. A lot of these projects go into 2006 as well.

There has been some reaction to this film here so I kept an eye on the comments in the last couple of posts on the film. Here is the Official Site for Chris Cunninghams 'Rubber Johnny' short film. For some reason the site for Aphex Twin album from 2001 'Drukqs' from which the film has spawned is still online and contains an alternative short clips too. See that here.

The DVD Times has just posted cover art and specs for the Tartan release of JSA and it looks good. They're apparently treating Chan Wook Park right thus far so there are high hopes for this one ...

More good stuff from Jiangtou, who just keeps on rolling around Asia ...

Jiangtou here, reporting from Phutek, Thailand. Yes, Phuket of recent
tsunami infamy.

If you want to find ghosts, come here. Getting off in the Phuket aeroport, you can feel something in the air. I can just imagine ghosts of tourists waiting for the stand-by flights that they can never board...

You really can't tell anything happened here. the chilling reminder was in the hotel where I was stay, in the dining room for breakfast I saw French army personnel with "VICTIM IDENTIFICATION UNIT" jackets. There are some toursits, but not too many. Honestly, the best thing to help this island is tourism cash. To stay away will only hurt the economy and social life even more.

Having a day visit to the set of Pen-ek's INVISIBLE WAVES starring Gang Hye Jung from OLD BOY, Asano Tadanobu (ICHI, ZATOICHI and the upcoming TOKYO ZOMBIES) and the DOP is Chris Doyle. Right now we are shooting in Patong, in the gay bar district. It is 10am, so things are still quiet, but lots of lady boys and neon signs advertising "Bar for Men". When the extras stripped down to their underwear, you could tell you were on a Pen-ek film!

While Asano was taking a break we were talking film and the subject of the great Rock and Roll zombie film, WILD ZERO came up as it was also shot in Thailand (with Thai military and their familes playing the gut munchers). Asano just informed me that two days ago, the bassist for Guitar Wolf passed away of a heart attack! Wah? They only played Toronto two weeks ago! A very sad day for Zombie and Rock fans alike. My time at this internet cafe is short, but once I get some time I will drop more details like the upcoming project of the directors of SHUTTER, MAID, the new film by the director of
IRON LADIES and more.

your man in southeast asia,
Jiangtou

The official website for Yûdai Yamaguchi's live-action Sakigake!! Cromartie High School - The Movie (Sakigake!! Kuromati Kôkô - The Movie) is online. At present, there's just a home page; however, for info on the characters in the movie, you can visit A.D. Vision's subsite (in English) for the anime TV series. Both the movie and TV series are based on a manga serial by Eiji Nonaka. The movie apparently stars Takamasa Suga as Takashi Kamiyama, Mitsuki Koga as Shinjirô Hayashida, Hiroshi Yamamoto as Akira Maeda and Akira's mother, Yoshihiro Takayama as Yutaka Takenouchi, Itsuji Itao as Masked Takenouchi, Hiroyuki Watanabe as Freddy, Noboru Kaneko as Takeshi Hokuto, Shôichirô Masumoto (who wrote the screenplay for the movie) as Noboru Yamaguchi and Gorilla, Ken'ichi Endô as Pootan, and Shinji Takeda as the voice of Shin'ichi Mechazawa. The cast also includes Noboru Takachi, Kai Atô, and Tak Sakaguchi.

Because of licensing issues apparently. The 8-Disc set due in Korea at the beginning of this month was cancelled or altered at the last minute to exclude the 2-Disc amalgamated cut of the trilogy. So you end up with something that is essentially the same as the 6-Disc set released in HK not so long ago, which was also based on the remastered 8-Disc set that came in an engraved plastic box (also a HK release and included the amalgamated cut).

Confused? Put it this way : not seen the films? Two choices are the most noteable, either the HK or the Korean 6-Disc sets. The Korean is now due on the 20th of April 2005 and now looks like the small pic here. It's also limited to 2000 pieces. It's about $60, slightly cheaper (about $10) than the HK one.

For the specifications, continue reading below. For a picture of the boxset contents in a pop-up window click this.

Continue reading "Revised 'Infernal Affairs' Korean Release Artwork & Specifications. Released April 20th 2005."

Vince Vaughan will be working with I Heart Huckabees and Three Kings director David O. Russell on a yet to be named project. He will play a host of a radio call-in show and things go pear-shaped when he starts taking on the qualities of his wack-job callers.

Russell initially took on the project as merely a script rewrite but then decided to direct the picture as well. While he admits this next project won't be as 'heady' at I Heart Huckabees was he does insist that the movie is designed to be a big, commercial comedy with his "sensibilities".

I am intrigued by this. While I understand that this is a comedy aimed for commercial success, knowing that Russell is at the helm and is having a hand in writing and producing the movie I feel it is in good hands. And I trust Vince Vaughan when he is given good material to work with. Good comedy in his hands is a glorious thing.

via HollywoodReporter.

Okay, this burns me up a wee bit ... The MPAA has just had the subtitle resource website Kloofy's shut down for supposed copyright violations.

I'll say right up front that I'm all for shutting down piracy. Go after the bootleggers. Go after the people ripping and distributing films. Go ahead. They're clearly in violation of the law and are taking money out of the pockets of the people who invest in films and need to see a profit if they are to continue the industry. But here's the thing: Kloofy's wasn't a download site. They weren't a bootlegger. They didn't host ANY video files whatsoever and the site was NOT designed to encourage bootlegging. What it DID do was provide subtitle scripts - the bulk of which were fan translations - for a variety of films around the world, mostly asian, for international film fans who wanted to see films that did not exist in subtitled versions. Here's how it worked: DVD A turns up in Hong Kong without subtitles. Consumer B buys a LEGAL COPY of said DVD then goes to Kloofy's to find the english language subtitle script so they can understand the film. Then, using DVD Subber or some equivalent software, Consumer B plays the film with the english subtitles overlayed on top. THERE IS NO THEFT OCCURRING HERE! A legally purchased DVD is being played with a non commercial translation, that is all. How is this the MPAA's business!?!

Answer: it shouldn't be, but under the guise of fighting piracy they have shut down a valuable service to attempt to stop people from importing the generally far superior Asian DVD releases and force them to buy - when the discs are even available - the sub standard North American releases. Here's a clue, boys: importing is a hassle, and often an expensive one. If you would produce decent quality, timely DVDs there would be NO IMPORT MARKET WHATSOEVER!

This blows.

Hey look! It's my kid's birthday, which is known in other houses as April Fool's Day. And I've been fooled, evidently. But I leave this here to raise blood pressures as people read down to this ...

Produced by Junji Ito, writer of some of the classic horror manga to be made into films such as 'Long Dream', 'Uzumaki' and 'Tomie' comes 'Marronnier'. Announced a while back, but i've spotted specifications and the artwork for the upcoming USA Disc, which for some reason gets delayed in Canada until June 28th.

Specifications : Widescreen Format (16x9). 30 and 60 second Trailers. Doll Galleries. Deleted Scenes. Interview with Puppet Designer & Supervising Producer Junji Ito.

Overview from EliteDisc.com : From producer JUNJI ITO (UZUMAKI,TOMIE) and writer/director HIDEYUKI KOBAYASHI comes a new kind of horror. Marino loves her Marronnier doll that was unfortunately made by a demented genius who uses a diabolical machine to turn human beings into wax dolls. His assistant, Numai, is even more insane an takes a fancy to Marino. He begins to stalk her, and when that isn't enough, he takes Marino and her friends prisoner, plunging them into a dreamworld of living dolls and satin wedding gowns, hacked body parts and bondage! In his underground lair, Numai’s girldolls come to life and start killing everyone. It's a nightmare!

I'm off to work in a couple minutes so I only have time to post this picture. Pictured is director Park Chan-wook and his leading actress Lee Young-ae in the upcoming film Symapthy for Lady Vengeance. SFLV will complete Parks Vengeance Trilogy with Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance and Oldboy, both of which you should have seen by now.

If I had more time I would find out details shared during the on set press conference held earlier today in Korea. If no one else does I will do what I can when I am a freed from the confines of employment.

Click here for a larger image.

Today. That's right : just gone online. At the Official Site. A Streaming trailer, could be the teaser, suspect it is. The new Takashi Miike Movie. Oh. My. God. I am happy.

Go into the site and see the little windows stream icon, top one says 'Narrow Band' and the lower 'Broadband'. Thing is, i've just upgraded to 2meg Broadband and it has gone live today, but i still cant get that thing going well, so it's small window time for me... anyone record the larger stream and email it to me?

Go now.

*UPDATE*

Thanks to Stauffen for providing the info to allow you all to right click and download by clicking this.

Just a couple of days, if that, since Todd spotted it's out on VCD, the Japanese disc of Ryuhei Kitamuras landmark final Godzilla movie is here. It's listed at cdjapan.co.jp, but no news there of subtitles on the disc, so again can anyone find out for sure about this easily? Busy day here... thanks.

*UPDATE*

Official sites annoucement here. Someone at the DVDTalk.com forum has taken the step of saying there will not be English Subtitles on the disc. Oh well.

DVDAnswers.com have the specifications for the different editions. See them here.

Not an 'April Fools' - there's only one things (on DVD) on my mind this month that's a new release. 'Hanzo The Razor' Boxset from Homevision, which is due on the 19th in the USA. Mine has shipped in the last 24 hours so in a week or so I should have it. Forget the crappy artwork, think of the hacking and slashing in store... anyhow, apart from that I have to catch up on a few things that are on my list.

Firstly, in a Shohei Imamura kind of mood. So, going to buy the 'Dr.Akagi' disc from the USA that was pointed out to me recently here in the comments, and then 'Unagi' (aka 'The Eel') on R3 Korean disc. Hopefully then going to finally pin down 'FLCL' which i can now only seem to find either on eBat on in an Australian boxset. Wonder if there's and American boxset due? More anime in the form of the later volumes of 'Last Exile' which i for one at least like the production values on this. Then it's a series that's very visually interesting as well as being a relatively rare example (here at least) of Horror - it's the anime show 'Requiem From The Darkness' which is short and cheap too.

Finally, a Koji Yakusho treat - 'Kamikaze Taxi'. Yes I know i could buy a couple of nice Japanese discs this month, but to be honest 'Nobody Knows' and 'Shall We Dance?' don't get me as excited right now. Maybe the 'Infernal Affairs' 6-Disc set from Korea will head my way, or Japan Shocks (awaiting repressing) 'Star of David' which has been on my list for a couple of years would you believe?!

Actually only called simply 'Blood' but it is based on, or a continuation of the 2001 short film I.G did which was all very nice but ended up feeling a little too brief for my tastes. Glad to hear then that a site has appeared for the series, which at the moment only really says that all the details for the show will be revealed on April 10th 2005, and that the show begins airing in Japan on May 9th 2005.

Thing is with announcements like these, all I am hoping for now is a nice trailer (not streaming, but quicktime and damn large at that) and primarily a quick USA DVD announcement. Hurry up...!

This story is starting to appear everywhere, so simply best to say look at the official site and bookmark it. Will try to post on April 10th with some more.