Oh, look! Another festival down, another audience voted prize as best picture for Chile’s Mirage Man. The festival was Brazil’s RIOFAN and the complete list of winners has just been announced with a good selection of Twitch favorites in the winner’s circle. What won? Pakistani splatter picture Hell’s Ground took the jury award, Mirage Man got the aforementioned audience award along with a special jury prize for Marko Zaror’s performance, Bruce LaBruce’s gay zombie picture Otto took the Visions award, Sebastian Silva’s La Vida Me Mata took a special jury award for achievement in editing and cinematography, Richard Gale’s Criticized took best international short and Gustavo Brandau’s Gravidade Zero took best Brazilian short.
Mirage Man has now taken home major prizes at pretty much every festival it has played - and expect more major festival announcements for the film soon - and yet, strangely, has only released in its native Chile with the United States being the only other territory to pick the film up. All you international sorts may want to take not that the film is screening in the Marche Du Film on May 15th. Get it while you can.
Well, its now week 2 in the Summer 2008 box office and the next film is “Speed Racer”
Continue Reading "Movie Review: Speed Racer"...
The web monkey has been keeping tabs on upcoming comedy Hank And Mike for a good while now. The film is something of a local product, a feature length expansion of a short film by a pair of young Canadian film makers, and the premise is just stellar. Easter bunnies, unemployed and unhappy. The first official teaser has just arrived and it lives up to the premise. You’ll find it in the Twitch Player below the break.
Continue Reading "Bad Bunnies! The HANK AND MIKE Teaser Arrives!"...
While the final lineups won’t be announced until May 21st the box office for the 2008 edition for the Worldwide Short Film Festival here in Toronto is now open for business, with tickets available at a reduced rate until the selections are announced. And while I’m not allowed to say what’s what until the official press release goes out I can say that I was directly responsible for both Midnight programs of horror and cult shorts and also had a hand in a special program of Japanese animation that local readers will not want to miss plus a special program of shorts from South East Asia that features a prominent name or two. It’s going to be a very good year ...
I suppose with Singaporean films like Royston Tan’s 15 and Kelvin Tong’s Eating Air, you’d probably know by now we’re not all that squeaky clean. Of course at this point in time I’m speculating that it’s Young and Dangerous-ish, but from the key poster art, stills and the likes, this is one upcoming Singapore movie on my radar that I can’t wait to watch when it makes its screening here in the later half of this year.
Here’s the synopsis:
Based on a true story – “THE DAYS” tells a cautionary tale between two brothers, set between 1989 and 1990. In a misguided effort to teach BABY (IVAN LIM) independence, and to make him feel protected, ZI LONG (JUSTIN CHAN) brings him into his own gang of delinquents. Unknowingly, his decision has thrown them both into a tumultuous and violent world that will, in different ways, imprison them both.
The Days will be at this year’s Marché du Film, Festival de Cannes, so to lucky folks heading there, let us know what you think. The rest of us mortals can hit those links below to learn more about the film!
Whenever I come up against a genre I’m not too familiar with—especially from an Asian director—I need research no further than Twitch. With the Pacific Film Archives poised to launch their Johnnie To retrospective “Hong Kong Nocturne” May 29 through June 27, 2008, I’ve decided to focus on what my colleagues at Twitch have to say about Hong Kong’s favorite son and—though they comment on only five of the nine films in the PFA retrospective—they cover the most recent. Hopefully, the Twitch readership will comment on the rest. I’ve never seen a To film. I’m not exactly sure why I’ve resisted other than general comments I’ve heard about the limitations of the genre. I’m hoping to decide one way or the other what I think about To’s films come July. Help me out. Of the nine films listed, which five should I not miss? Of those five, which two should I not miss?
Continue Reading "PFA: HONG KONG NOCTURNE—Twitch on To"...
This is wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. Screen International has announced that sales company Velvet Octopus will be launching international pre-sales on S. Darko at the upcoming Cannes Film Festival. And, yes, this is what you think - a sequel to Richard Kelly’s Donnie Darko with Daviegh Chase reprising her role as the younger Darko sister. Richard Kelly has no official involvement whatsoever. Darko needs a sequel about as badly as the original Highlander did, which is to say not at all, and I fully expect the results of this to be about the same, which is to say horribly bad. I’m bothered that they’re doing a sequel at all, that they’re doing it without Kelly boggles the mind as Darko was Kelly’s baby ... my guess is Kelly has too much love for his creation to bastardize it this way himself and not enough financial control over the property to stop other people from doing it for him ... Icky.
We’ve given this film a lot of press on Twitch cuz we like it and think you will too. It’s more than just another quirky movie rding on the coattails of napoleon Dynamite, or Eagle vs Shark. It’s even more than a riff on that quaint British style of heartfelt kiddie comedy you might associate with War of the Buttons. Son of Rambow is a brave attempt to grapple with film as more than an art form, and it succeeds I think, despite some noticeable faults that would doom a less bold effort. Kids are cute but movies are dangerous and Son of Rambow offers two very dangerous kids that have something to teach us about friendship, filmmaking and how important it is to make sure the two collide whenever possible.
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Graham Leggat introduced Graydon Carter, one of the producers of the closing night film Gonzo: The Life and Work Of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, and the editor of Vanity Fair magazine since 1992. Not only was this the West Coast premiere of Gonzo, but the Vanity Fair Reel Relief benefit, which Carter proudly announced had raised $100,000 for the Natural Resources Defense Council. He, in turn, introduced Alex Gibney.
Gibney credited Carter as being the individual responsible for phoning him with the idea of doing a film on Hunter Thompson, some of whose writing Vanity Fair had published. Gibney further acknowledged two other producers in the audience: Alison Ellwood and Eva Orner. He stressed the importance of showing Gonzo to a San Franciscan audience since the city was so much a part of Thompson’s life. To preface the film, he offered a quote by Thompson on show business: “Show business is a cruel and shallow money trench; a long, plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free and good men die like dogs. But there’s also a negative side.” Gibney added that Thompson also had a saying: “Buy the ticket, take the ride.” “You bought the ticket,” Gibney shouted out to his cheering audience, “take the ride!”
And what a ride! Equally hortatory and hagiographic, Gonzo frames a larger-than-life personality, the likes of which is nowhere to be found elsewhere even if crucially needed in such desperate times.
Continue Reading "SFIFF51: GONZO—Q&A With Director Alex Gibney"...
In the near future...The Tokyo Police force has been privatized and incorporated. The new force has their hands full with a new type of genetically engineered mutant stalking the streets and brutally taking human lives. Luca, the top level officer at Tokyo Police has special law enforcement skills but her dark past makes her vulnerable. She is determined to hunt the mutant known as “Engineer” until the day she can find and destroy the mysterious “Key-Man”.
We debuted the first footage from upcoming cult flick Tokyo Gore Police here at Twitch a while back, a four minute reel of footage cut together for use at Japan’s Yubari Fantastic Film Festival. True to it’s name it was nasty, gorey stuff, with Audition star Eihi Shiina hacking and slashing her way through a series of bizarre mutants. Only down side to that promo was that it was cut together early enough in the film’s life that it wasn’t entirely through post production yet and was still a little rough around the edges. Well, no more! The official trailer has just been released and the blood has been buffed and polished to a high sheen. There’s not really anything in the way of new footage in this one but things have been tightened up considerably with some of the more bizarre moments - hello, crocodile girl! - moved up front and center ... You’ll find both trailers in the Twitch Player below the break.
Continue Reading "Second TOKYO GORE POLICE Trailer"...
For many years, Hollywood had been threatening to unleash a big-budget live-action adaptation of the iconic 1960s cartoon “Speed Racer”. Everyone from Johnny Depp to Nicolas Cage was rumored to be involved at one point or another. Now, at long last, the film has arrived, touting the unmistakable star power of… John Goodman?? Okay, to be fair, the cast of this film does a remarkable job of bring out the heart and vital family dynamic of the Racer clan. But the fact that the cast may lack marquee value doesn’t matter, as the true stars of this film are its makers, Larry and Andy Wachowski (of the Matrix trilogy fame). And in accordance to the visual whirligig that is this film, not once do they let you forget it. Dare I say it; they’ve opened door into some kind of new live action visual experience.
Already semi-controversial for its manic, color-crazed visual style, “Speed Racer” is a film that’s not going to appeal to everyone. I suspect that it will, however, appeal to far more people than some negative box office predictors are indicating. The spark is such in the fabric of this film that it could very well catch on with the kids in that slow burning “National Treasure” sort of way. But don’t take that as a judgment on the quality of the movie itself (although it was a compliment) (but I haven’t seen “National Treasure”). While it’s interesting that the heretofore R-rated Wachowskis have seen fit to make what they dub “a family movie”, it’s even more interesting to process “Speed Racer” in the context of their other work.
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