Aiight. The trailer for Unleashed has been out a couple days. Sue me, I’ve been in Vancouver for the weekend.

Yes, it has a different title for its North American release. Yes, we’re not particularily thrilled about that either. Nothing wrong with Danny the Dog. But then again some ignorant parent may take their child into the theatre mistaking it for a Clifford the Big Red Dog spin-off or something.

But if there is one Jet Li movie outside China/Hong Kong that I will enjoy I bet it’s gonna be this one. Why? Because none of this movie is tainted by Hollywood. Action powerhouse Luc Besson has written and produced it [this guy is really close to achieving god-like status in my books]. Louis Leterrier learned some things under Besson’s tutelage and we hope to god he learned from his mistakes in Transporter.

So let’s pray for well framed action sequences, the absence of MTV editing practices and the sheer utter delight of listening to a movie soundtrack without a smidgen of hip-hop. Pray hard.

Release date set for April 8th, 2005.

OK, so I like to see what artwork Homevision come up with: they’re pretty much as good as any of their Criterion releases. Over at the site now, you can see large versions of All About Lilly Chou Chou, as well as the specs (anamorphic 16:9 digital transfer in 1.85:1, Shunji Iwai essay, making of documentary, pop video) and then Fukusaku’s “Sympathy for The Underdog” (starring LW&C main main Tomisabaru Wakayama) which has another short interview with Fukusaku biographer Yamane Sadao, then finally (from my point of view) there’s Fukusaku’s “Fall Guy”.

Click on the small artwork at each page i have linked into to get a larger version of each cover. The “Lilly Chou Chou” shown here to the left is lovely…

In his brief career Wes Anderson has proven himself to be very much a love-him or hate-him director.  There are those who find his highly stylized work off-putting but those who get him tend to get him pretty hard and amongst that crowd he’s had something of a charmed life with fans generally agreeing that he’s gotten better every time out.  Thus, there was a huge amount of anticipation for his fourth film – The Life Aquatic With Steve Zissou – as fans tried to figure out how he’d top his past efforts.  The cast was in place with Anderson stalwarts Bill Murray and Owen Wilson in the leads and the trailers were enough to show that his unique visual sense was in full effect.  But would that be enough?  Sadly, no.  There’s an awful lot to like about The Life Aquatic but not enough to love and it certainly goes down as the weakest Anderson film thus far.

Continue Reading "The Life Aquatic Review"...

So, while purchasing my copy of Born To Fight yesterday I stumbled across this listing at EthaiCD.  Check it out.  C’mon.  Go.  Yes folks, The Adventure of Iron Pussy: an all singing, all dancing musical extravaganza following the adventures of The Iron Pussy who is, of course, a balding middle aged transvestite who works at a 7-11 by day and fights crime on behalf of the Thai government by night.  As if that’s not strange enough the film is directed by Apichatpong Weerasethakul, a major critical favorite whose films Tropical Malady and Blissfully Yours have both won major awards at Cannes.  I haven’t been able to turn up a trailer on this one yet but the good people at Ethai tell me the DVD should be out in a week or so and that it is supposed to include English subtitles ... Thai stuff is so cheap that I’ll be buying this based on the synopsis alone.

But here’s one that DOES include a trailer.  Yes, folks, it’s everybody’s favorite respiratory disease.  It’s SARS Wars, a fairly big budget action comedy.  Funny thing:  I was in Toronto for the entire SARS outbreak and I don’t remember it turning anybody into zombies.  And I really don’t remember hot chicks running around with swords, axes and guns.  I wish I did, though.  The trailer is painfully small and grainy, but there’s some great stuff in the gallery page ...

Not sure how I missed this but I did ... thanks to a reader for calling it to my attention.

Documentary film maker Roy Frumkes - director of Document of the Dead - has been hired to do a new behind the scenes doc on the filming of Romero’s Land of the Dead and has posted a detailed blog about his first day on set here.  It’s a good read ...

The same reader included this tantalizing little bit of news:

“Tom Savini plays the same character he played in DAWN
OF THE DEAD. He is a zombie version of the biker.
Photos verifying this will be coming out soon.”

Photos?  Yes, please.

The official website for Hideo Nakata’s The Ring 2 has gotten a full overhaul with some very cool interactive image galleries added ... it’s not gonna tell you anything about the film you don’t already know but it’s a very cool, very moody piece of work ...

Michael Keaton wants to make a sequel to Beetlejuice.  I count nine films in Keaton’s filmography since his very brief, and uncredited, cameo in Out of Sight - the last good film he appeared in.  Six years ago.  His last decent starring role was in Burton’s Batman Returns, all the way back in 1992.  Anyone surprised he’s floating rumors of a return to his most successful role?  Nope, me either.

via Dark Horizons.

Tony Jaa.  Jackie Chan.  Drunken Master 3.  Whee!

Can you say “Passing the torch”?  Word is that Jaa is already at work learning English in preperation for this film in which he’ll play Chan’s pupil in the art of Drunken Boxing.  I have no idea how the writers will get around Jackie’s alcohol induced brain damage from the end of part two, but frankly I really don’t care.  I’ll accept just about anything that gets this made.

By my count this makes three new projects currently in the works for Jaa, not including Tom Yum Goong.  There’s a rumored weapons-based historical epic, the sequel to Ong Bak and now Drunken Master 3.  Nice.

via Rotten Tomatoes.

Jet Li has officially been added to the missing persons list following this weekends massive 8.9 earthquake in south-east asia.  Li was vacationing with his family in the Maldives - a small string of islands - when the quake hit and the region took significant damage.  His manager has been unable to contact him since, which could be due simply to widespread damage to the country’s communications infrastructure.  The confirmed death count for the Maldives is relatively small thus far but the most recent figures I’ve seen put the total human cost for this quake over twenty three thousand and that number is sure to leap as clean up and rescue efforts continue and bodies are unearthed.

via Aint It Cool

No real reason ... I just really like this film and pretty much nobody’s heard about it.  Take a minute and check it out here.  And, yeah, it’s as much fun as it looks ...

Does it have subtitles?  Nope.  Do I care?  Not a bit.  Why not?  Enjoy.

The Thai VCD is available now here which means the DVD - which is also reported to not include subtitles - will turn up in the next little while.

You’re probably bored out of your mind right now with whatever crazy holiday spectacles you were involved in (random Toronto cold, the only open hotel bar in the area and Life Aquatic) and need some mind melting time.  Well, good for you - Twitch is here!!

Here’s a list of the trailers that have recently slipped between the cracks either because they’re going to be nausea inducing - look, Martin Lawerence! - or just a plain oversight a la the new Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson comedy.  So now put down the turkey, ham or canned beef; the brand new gadget that makes you feel better about your life, and view away.

Continue Reading "Trailers, Trailers, Trailers!"...

There’s a post at the dvdtalk.com forum which talks about the subtitles for the newly released USA disc. Apparently, according to the specs on the packaging there was supposed to be a “for the hearing impared” captions / subtitles mixed track, as well as a “for the japanese impared” plain old English Subtitles track. What have they done? Well, they put the captions track on, but missed off the subtitles track : it seems.

I have the disc, but haven’t looked at it myself : i would normally trust things like this not to happen, and would prefer to avoid having to check everything i buy for mistakes before i sit down to watch it. I am trusting the poster at the forum on this one, and saying expect a recall / reissue (hopefully). It’s not been a good time for “ghost in the shell” disc errors this year, with SAC discs also being bodged.

This error apprently puts oversized subtitles with audio guides practically in the middle of the picture, making it “unwatchable"… oh well.

There’s nothing listed over at Pathfinder’s site yet but according to a post on the Asian DVD Guide Forum Takashi Miike’s Agitator will soon be hitting DVD in North America via Pathfinder.  I’ve not yet seen their edition of Gozu but word is they’ve done a good job and - in a move sure to make Miike fans happy - Pathfinder will be releasing this as the full 200 minute version rather than the 150 minute version released in other areas.  As far as I know this will be the first time the full length cut of Miike’s yakuza epic will be available on DVD anywhere in the world ... according to that same post Pathfinder is also looking into rights for Miike’s Man In White, another acclaimed but nearly impossible to find film ...

If you’re at all a fan of Peter Jackson or King Kong you really should be checking out Kong is King on a regular basis.  Beyond simply having a stack of information on the history of Kong and news from the current production they’ve been regularly posting behind the scenes ‘Production Diaries’ courtesy of Peter Jackson himself ... Check the latest edition out here for some behind the scenes set shots and looks at the cast and crew as well as some more candid, down time footage and Christmas wishes from all.