Neil Gaiman has a resume to die for.  As if he hadn’t already cemented his place in geek-culture history as the writer of the classic Sandman graphic novels he has also built a loyal following of readers for his fantasy novels and, more recently, children’s fiction.  And now there is a simply massive buzz building around MirrorMask, the feature film scripted by Gaiman and director by Sandman artist Dave McKean. 

Gaiman is riding hard on the PR trail for MirrorMask and we were fortunate enough to land a twenty minute interview slot with him earlier today.  Read on for a complete history of MirrorMask and a whole lot more.

Continue Reading "Twitch Interviews Neil Gaiman"...

It never rains but it pours ... it seems like just a few days ago we were posting those pictures for Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s loft and now here comes news of ANOTHER new project from the Japanese master.  This from Tommie, currently attending the Rotterdam film festival:

“Today I attended the International Film Festival Rotterdam and picked up a daily festival paper. In it was a small article about the cinemart.This is where filmmakers can pitch new projects to investors and do some networking. Anyway,the article mentioned a new film project by Kurosawa Kiyoshi!!!

Hope you find this interesting.”

Interesting?  You bet!  Particularly so because this thing’s already 20% of the way to having it’s budget in place!  Sweet!

Before I commence with the review let me drop this little bit of advice:  If you happen to live in the LA area plan on spending some time at Golden Apple Comics on Wednesday.  Ray Harryhausen will be there signing copies of this new DVD release from 4-6 pm.  All the details are at that link above.

Commercial over, on we go.  Ray Harryhausen is one of a handful of men who can justly be termed a living legend.  His best known works - Jason and The Argonauts, Clash of the Titans - has pretty much always been available in some form or another but the man also had a vast catalog of older, lesser known material that has slowly gathered dust.  No more.  Sparkhill’s Early Years Collection is, quite simply, the definitive edition of the man’s early work, immensely valuable both as a cultural document and a work of art.

Continue Reading "Ray Harryhausen Early Years Collection Review"...

How does Uwe Boll keep making films?  It’s a mystery of the universe.  Maybe it has something to do with karmic balance.  To quote Nick at CHUD :  ”Of course, I’m biased. I’ve never seen a Uwe Boll film.  I’ve also never covered my genitals in peanut butter and straddled the face of a lion.”

Couldn’t possibly sum things up better than that ... click here for the pain.  Ben!  Michael!  Never do anything like this again!

They’re not citing a source for the news, so I have no way of commenting on its accuracy, but Comic Book Resources are reporting that Edgar Wright - he of Spaced and Shaun of the Dead fame - has signed on to helm an adaptation of the Scott Pilgrim comic book.  Enquiries are being made and I’ll let you know what I find out, but I know all the principal Shaun people are hard at work prepping Hot Fuzz, so even if this turns out to be true it won’t be happening for a little while yet ...

A quick note (courtesy of Ecranlarge) that Arsen Lupin is to be released this May 19. The film will be presented in two versions: a single disc and a double collectors set. Specs for the single disc are the same without the extras ... No info whether or not English subs will be provided.

DVD 1
Le film en version DD 2.0 ou 5.1 et DTS
Commentaires audio de Jean-Paul Salomé et Laurent Vachaud

DVD 2
Making of (31 min)
Essais maquillages commentés par Jean-Paul Salomé (40 min)
Essais maquillages commentés par Jean-Paul Salomé (17 min)
Casting de Romain Duris commenté par Jean-Paul Salomé (10 min)
Comparatif film/ storyboards commentéspar Jean-Paul Salomé (20 min)
Documentaire exclusif sur Arsène Lupin (40 min)

[an update from Todd]

You can hit the official website here and check the trailer here.  If this thing’s got subs I am so there ... looks amazing ...

This pretty much speaks for itself:

(01-30-2005) The Who’s ‘Tommy’ to Become Most Expensive Animation

--contactmusic

Evidently by “right” Stigwood means “insanely bloated and expensive”.  Four hundred million dollars!?!  Forget most expensive piece of animation ever, that’s got to be the most expensive FILM ever.  What on earth are they going to spend all that money on?  Gold plated toilet paper at the production house?  Zowie.

Thanks to Reneedo, who spotted this at U2interference.com because she’s an obsessive fan.  Bono’s already married, Reneedo.  Let it go.

Some new details trickled out yesterday that confirmed preview discs of the show had fallen into some peoples hands (not mine, so that label doesn’t read this site!). Then Al_Sex_Gore, main man at SexGoreMutants posted info today that says all the episodes have indeed been passed uncut by the BBFC for release in the UK.

For those wondering why this might be an issue, well there are two odd things about the show and the Japanese discs. Firstly, as on a couple of occasions in the past, but this time more predominantly, Miike used intentional optical fogging / pixelation and other self-censorship techniques for style. Secondly, the uncensored scenes were included as extras on those discs, and they could have been contentious for the BBFC.

Well, the extras or rather the uncensored footage wasn’t supplied for the UK release licensees, so you get the show only, as Miike intended it to be seen and in a way that can’t be taken as anything other than visual style or technique in operation. Unfortunately, the BBFC haven’t updated their listing to put the show on there, but play.com have it listed in stock and someone else from SGM has managed to buy the disc at MVC, so i have reordered it from play.com myself for £11.99. For 2 hours or more off Miike, it’s great value.

Whilst gushing about the goodness that is Analife yesterday I commented on how unusual it was to find a Japanese film website that included a fully translated version of the entire site, not to mention an English language trailer.  Well, here’s the reason why ...

I sent an email to the site’s contact address, fully expecting that it would vanish off into the ether not to be heard from again.  Shockingly enough this morning I received a response straight from the director.  Seems Goda’s got his eye on the international market with this film and is currently hard at work prepping an English language version which he will then start promoting in the global market.  He doesn’t specify what’s entailed in his English version, so it could range from a simple subtitle job up to some large scale reworking, but we are definitely going to be seeing this film hit the international stage in some English language format in the near future.  Todd is a happy boy.

You should have watched the trailer twenty or thirty times by now.  Get to it.

Dreams, the unofficial but so thorough it may as well be official Terry Gilliam fan site, has scored themselves a mitt full of images from Gilliam’s Tideland.  The new shots are a mix of film stills and behind the scenes stuff and they all look pretty sweet ... check ‘em here.

Via AICN

Glory!  I’ve been champing impatiently waiting for season two of Little Britain to hit DVD but it looks as though I won’t have to wait quite so long for new stuff from the twisted minds of DavidWalliams and Matt Lucas.  It seems the duo have a Comic Relief DVD slated to release in mid-February.  I question whether it’ll stand up nearly as well as the proper episodes as the general point of the Comic Relief stuff is to jam as many celebrity appearances in as possible rather than write something cohesive but I have to admit that I giggle a little at the thought of George Michael visiting Lou and Andy, Robbie Williams cross dressing with Emily and Elton John paying a visit to Daffyd. 

The DVD is due for a February 14th release but is not yet available at any of the major online retailers.  We’ll keep our eyes open.

Via Digital Spy

*** UPDATE ***

Just found some more info about this over at davidwalliams.com - which is also floating a film rumor!  Apparently the BBC is willing to fund a feature - the Comic Relief thing is a new twenty minute episode produced as part of Comic Relief’s Red Nose Day.  Details are here.

So, I’m still making my way through that massive Eiga list of Japanese film links that I posted yesterday and, if today’s big update over there is any indication, Stauffen is doing the same thing.  They’ve found some good stuff - including the next film from the young star of Nobody Knows - but two stand out ...

First is Zoo.  Logboy actually sent me a heads up on this a couple days ago, but I never quite got around to it.  A guy’s got to sleep sometime, right?  This is one brilliant looking horror project that looks to be made up of at least three smaller segments and includes some anime.  If someone who reads Japanese wants to read the website and fill in some details, we’d appreciate it.  But regardless of what the thing says the film looks fantastic.  Six trailers, and every one of them’s a keeper.  Vampirism, rotting corpses, forced imprisonment, very long falls ... all sorts of happy things shot with a fantastic sense of style.  Definitely one to watch for.

Second is Analife.  I may have entirely missed this if not for the link at Stauffen and that would have been just a huge loss ... where to even begin with this?  This looks as though it will fall into that elusive magical-realism category of films - 3 Iron, Last Life in the Universe and Lost in Translation are all recent examples of the type - but more extreme than most in both directions.  The entire website has been translated into English, which is incredibly rare,and the trailer ... man, be prepared to just fall right into this thing.  Absolutely one of the best thing I have seen in ages.  No joke.  No exaggeration.  Stunning, pure and simple.  If I’m reading things correctly this is only the second feature film from writer / director Kenji Goda and I’ll say right now that we’re about to witness the emergence of a very major talent in the international film world.  Run, don’t walk.

**** UPDATE ****

We just had a reader send in a translation of the Zoo site.  Click below to check it out.

Continue Reading "More Good Things From Japan:  Zoo and Analife *UPDATE*"...

Here’s a bit of a viewing heads up to everyone with access to BBC America.  Watch out for Green Wing.  Apparently BBC America picked up rights to it a week or two back so it should be coming along shortly, though they’ve not yet listed it on their website.

Continue Reading "In Praise of Green Wing"...

There are four of ‘em and they are beautiful ... click away for all four all big and purty.

Poster One
Poster Two
Poster Three
Poster Four

Number two is definitely my favorite of the lot.  Got a bit of the ol’ BVM action going there ...

I got ‘em via Filmacco, who apparently found them on the KFC forum.

Here’s some happy news Logboy stumbled across in the KFC Cinema Forums ...

If you missed out on that big eight disc Infernal Affairs box set that came out of Hong Kong late last year and you’ve been kicking yourself ever since, well, it’s time to give those shins a rest.  Korea’s Enterone is doing a similar release with one exception:  the packaging here might actually be even better.  No word yet on price but it’s due for a March release, so more details should be coming soon.  Click here to see a larger version of the image above and click below for the full specs.

Continue Reading "Miss Out on That Big Infernal Affairs Box Set?  You’re Getting Another Chance …"...