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

Regards,
Svet

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

Complete line-up

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

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

Regards,
Pro-B

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

Continue Reading "A Snake of June Review"...

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

Spotted by Logboy over at AICN.

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

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

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

Via DarkHorizons.com.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thanks to Fred.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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