One of the obvious benefits of running a site like this is that I am often exposed to excellent films that I would otherwise miss entirely.  Such is the case with Head On (Gegen Die Wand), a brilliant, searing film that has received little notice on these shores despite winning major awards around the world.  I guess there’s just not much of a market for Turko-German social critique ...

Head On revolves around Cahit and Sibel, a pair of Turks living in Germany.  When we first meet Cahit - a forty-something man who makes a living cleaning up empties at a goth-punk bar - he is about as unappealing as is humanly possible.  Unwashed and unshaven Cahit is in the midst of a massive drunk, so degraded and desperate for alcohol that he finishes the last stagnant dregs found in abandoned glasses at his cleaning job.  He staggers from bar to bar becoming more abrasive, more abusive at each stop.  The binge comes to an abrupt end when Cahit drives his car head on, at full speed, into a brick wall.  This is ruled an attempted suicide and Cahit is forced into a psychiatric hospital.

Continue Reading "Head On (Gegen Die Wand) Review"...

Mmm.  Good.  Got a note today inviting me to take a quick look at a pair of short films from Simon Burrill, a young film maker out of the UK and they are good stuff.  Horseplay is an odd little three minute absurdist piece chock full of fantastic cinematography while Mr. Theobald is ... well ... hard to describe, but pretty fantastic if you’re of the Lynch / Maddin appreciation set.  Which I am.  The player size is frustratingly small but definitely give those two a look ...

The host site is well worth kicking around in as well ... it’s a short film site hosted by the BBC to showcase new talent ... in Burrill’s words “there’s less crap than the usual overflooded shorts sites” which, after a quick perusal, I am quite happy to confirm.  Check it out.

Gah!  Just went to finish up my order for SARS Wars (see below) and saw that also out today is the Thai VCD of Godzilla Final Wars!  This hasn’t even been announced anywhere else yet, as far as I know, so go ahead and ask me:  do I care that it’s dubbed into Thai and doesn’t include subtitles?  Not a bit.  Hell, it’s a Kitamura film so it’s not like the dialogue’s going to matter at all ...

Thai DVDs generally follow the VCD releases by about a week ... I’ll drop a note and see what I can find out.  In the meantime the VCD is here.  And deep inside I just know you want this one, too.  How could you say no to Dolph and Jerry?

I have no idea why I’m looking forward to this one so much ... there’s just something about the premise that’s so incredibly ridiculous that I can’t help but smile when thinking of it ... anyway, the Thai DVD for SARS Wars is out now, and English subs are included.  A-shopping I will go ...

It’s the rumor that won’t die ... despite the assertions of director Tsui Hark that the film will not be through the editing process on time to screen there CRI Online is again reporting that the film - along with Jackie Chan’s The Myth and Chen Kaige’s The Promise - will be premiering at the Cannes Film Festival.  They don’t cite a source for the information and CRI is not always the most reliable of sources, so take it with a grain of salt ...

Thanks to Chelle for the pointer.

This has got to be just about the biggest piece of news to hit horror circles in a good while ... By now most fans of the genre should be aware of the Masters of Horror, an informal circle of film makers who meet bi-monthly for dinner to shoot the breeze about their chosen genre.  Well, Showtime has just commissioned a thirteen part series from the group with the shows made up of single hour films from many of the key directors.  You want new Argento?  It’ll be here.  Same with Romero, Tobe Hooper, John Carpenter and a slew of others.  The most exciting news for me was that Don Coscarelli’s entry will be based on a short story by Joe Lansdale, the author of Bubba Ho Tep.  Sweet!  Here are the relevant bits from the Variety report:

“Spurred by the recent string of box-office horror hits, Showtime has nabbed rights to “Masters of Horror,” a series of 13 hourlong films to be helmed and/or written by the genre’s top names.
IDT Entertainment’s New Arc unit, Industry Entertainment and Nice Guy Prods. are producing “Masters,” the idea for which sprung from a bimonthly dinner attended by several of the participating directors ... Dario Argento, John Carpenter, Larry Cohen, Roger Corman, Don Coscarelli, Joe Dante, Mick Garris, Stuart Gordon, John Landis, Tobe Hooper and George Romero are slated to direct installments ... Showtime will shell out more money than some of the B-movie auteurs are used to getting, according to Greenblatt. He says the budget per film will be comparable to the per-episode cost of a first-season scripted drama --typically $1 million-$2 million ... As for the individual films, helmers will produce new projects and adaptations as well as retellings of classics. Among them are “Deer Woman,” which Landis co-wrote with his son Max; “Jenifer,” to be directed by Argento based on the comicbook by Bruce Jones and Bernie Wrightson and adapted by and starring Steven Weber; “Incident on and off a Mountain Road,” adapted and directed by Coscarelli and Stephen Romano from Joe Lansdale’s short story; and “Chocolate,” which Garris will direct based on his own short story.”

From Comingsoon.net, Hollywood Reporter too: ‘Stars’ or ‘Actors’ are Kristen Bell of UPN’s “Veronica Mars” and newcomer Steve Talley. Release is by Bob and Harvey Weinstein’s Walt Disney-free Dimension Films label. Commercial director Jim Sonzero is making his feature debut on the film.

And just listen to how they describe it and get worried now, “The story revolves around a Web site that turns out to be run by a sinister force. As more people go to the site, the supernatural force begins to dominate the lives of those that log on. Bell and Talley’s characters team up to unravel the mystery.” Blimey, I am slowly losing all hope to live. If I remember correctly, as it has been a couple of years since I watched Pulse, it’s a computer emulation that represents the relationship between people - am I right? They seem to have shifted elements of the story around “a little”. It’s not about technology as much as its about people and human nature.

Comingsoon also note : The script was written by Wes Craven and rewritten by Vince Gilligan. Craven was once attached to direct.

I’ll freely admit that I am a fan of M. Night Shyamalan.  Yes, the man has a mildly embarrassing over-reliance on big Surprise Twists but he also shoots some gorgeous film and tends to layer some interesting subtext into his scripts.  That said for some reason I just couldn’t muster a lot of enthusiasm for the news a couple days back that he was setting up a new film - The Lady in the Water - over at Warner Brothers.  That is, until now.

Variety has just announced that Paul Giamatti and Bryce Howard will be playing the lead roles.  Howard was by far the best thing going in The Village and Giamatti is simply an outright genius who has been jobbed by the Oscars two years in a row now ... I’d go see this on the basis of cast alone pretty much regardless of who the director is but put those two with a guy who writes intelligent scripts and who I still believe will land at least a few major technical awards before he’s done and I’m there with bells on.  Tinkle, tinkle. 

Now hopefully someone at Warners will convince him that he’s a good enough writer to drop the whole twist ending angle ... and I have no idea what this film means for his long rumored adaptation of The Life Of Pi, which had been widely touted as his next film ...

I suspect the notion of whether or not to see Queen Latifah’s new movie “Beauty Shop” is either a solid “yes” or a solid “no”, with very little room for “maybe”.  I admit that I would’ve ordinarily came down on the side of “no”, but I had nothing else going on the night of the screening, and hey, it was free.  That said, I haven’t seen either of the “Barber Shop” movies, which this was spun off from.  I hear they’re both pretty funny, succeeding in transcending the obvious racial barriers inherent in such urban-entrenched subject matter.  As far as Latifah herself goes, I’ve always perceived her as more of a personality than an actress.  (I mindlessly thought this even after she did so great as Mama in “Chicago”.  But those ads for “Bringing Down the House” and “Taxi” did little to make me reconsider.) With that in mind I figured why not see what all the hoopla’s about (with both the “Shop” franchise and Latifah’s career as a leading lady.) So how did a suburban white geek like myself enjoy the movie?  All in all, it wasn’t great, but I admit it was a lot more watchable than I though it would be.

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If you’re any kind of fan of documentaries or artists that defy classification, you won’t to miss “In the Realms of the Unreal”, filmmaker Jessica Yu’s affectionate exploration of the work of Henry Darger.  If you’re asking who Henry Darger is, and why he’s deserving of your attention, well, that’s the central issue Yu attempts to unravel.

Darger died in 1973, just another quiet and reclusive old man, as far as anyone else knew.  He lived very much alone and in poverty for most of his life in Chicago.  But inside his small apartment, Darger had meticulously constructed a vivid fantasy world replete with characters and places echoing some of the more traumatic parts of his life.  This whimsical but also dangerous world was depicted in hundreds of original breathtaking paintings, as well as a monumentally epic 15,000 page, single-spaced typed novel, “In the Realms of the Unreal”.

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Do I honestly need an excuse to post a picutre of Zhang Ziyi? In case I do, both MonkeyPeaches and CRIENGLISH briefly covered todays press screening of Ziyis first Japanese film Tanuki Goten [Raccoon Dog Palace].

Zhang Ziyi says the genre of the film is new for her. She had to memorize a lot of Japanese songs and took singing and dancing classes in Japan to prepare for the part.

Director Seijun Suzuki says he has no complaints about working with Zhang Ziyi saying she is a multi-talented international star. CRIENGLISH

There are other pictures of todays events at Sina.com.

Has A Bittersweet Life become the new Oldboy for the Twitch gang? Admittedly, we’re taking a huge risk here ranting and raving about a film that we haven’t seen yet. But, we have placed our faith in what we have seen and read about the film and will not stop giving you more info about it. Either you’re as excited about this film as we are or you’re sick of it. Meh. We like what we see.

Here’s another short article in Chosun.com giving director, Kim Ji-woon, and lead actor, Lee Byeong-huns thoughts on different aspects of the movie.

Okay, I lied ... still not sleeping - and I must say that this sort of running commentary would work much better if the site didn’t put the newest articles at the top, thus making the commentary run in reverse - but only because this is far too cool.  Yep, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (the book) expounding on matters relavent to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (the movie), all in the soothing, dulcet tones of Mr. Stephen Fry.  You know you want to try it. 

Oh ... and if you’re one of those Winamp-y sorts of people, you can get a HHGG skin for that here.

Could be ...

I’m not going to sit here and re-iterate what someone else has already done a fantastic job of saying, so I’ll just say that I agree with everything Moriarty says here and redirect you to the article at AICN ...

And now I go to bed.

I have to get up at five tomorrow to go to work so I really should be in bed right now, but ... but ... Paul Thomas Anderson is making another movie!!!

Why yes, I am a fan.  Magnolia is as near to a perfect film as has ever been made.  Thus any PTA news is good news for me.  Unless, of course, the news is that he’s dead.  Which this news is not.

Word is he has written an adaptation of Upton Sinclair’s novel Oil and the early money says that Daniel Day Lewis will star.  As of right now everything’s apparently ready to go but the financing.  Someone give the man some money!

Originally via PTAnderson.com but I spotted it at AICN.