Violent Cop
Only a couple weeks ago we linked to an international poster for the movie, Brothers Grimm. Now, we have what appears to be a domestic poster thanks in part to the keen eyes of mediamelt at FilmRot.com.
It’s official. Well for now anyways. Robert Rodriguez confirmed in his interview with About.com that the plan is to shoot only ONE Sin City sequel right now. Or is it prequel? Sorry, I’m feigning confusion here because A Dame to Kill for, the Frank Miller novel that the second movie is based on, its story happens earlier in the story line before Sin City. So of course everyone that was dead by the end of Sin City will still be alive.
But for now who cares? Sin City ruled like lords and more Sin City goodness is always welcome. Shooting is planned for January and of course we’ll keep on top of casting news and the like as it happens.
The best line in the interview - Q: Will you stick with The Weinstein Company? A: Yeah, what’s the alternate? Go Disney? Those clowns don’t make movies.
tee hee. Clowns.
thanks Cinematical for the heads up.
It seems like the Dobermann, Vincent Cassel, is rignt on track to deliver yet another controversial film. Le Sheitan, set to debut in early 2006, is directed by Kim Chapiron and tells the story of a group of youngsters bound to experience the dark side. Exiting a night club they encounter an old shepherd preparing to give his soul to the devil. Considering the fact that this dark thriller will also be produced by Vincent Cassel I will very much be looking forward to 2006.
The official site for the film will soon be here:
www.le-sheitan.com
A bit of explanation here ... beyond being a mighty fine web designer, and responsible for all you see on your screen right now, our friend Opus is also a very, very good film reviewer, which is why I made his covering the Toronto Film Festival a condition of his camping out at my place for the fest last year. Well, he’s just given me the green light to plund ... er ... reprint reviews from his site and with the Dardennes taking home the gold from this year’s Cannes festival I figured the time was right to run Opus’ review for their previous flick, The Son. Enjoy.
Watching The Son, the critically-acclaimed film from the Dardenne brothers (La Promesse, Rosetta), I was struck, first and foremost, by what I didn’t see in the film. No soaring musical climaxes (actually, I don’t seem to recall any music in the film whatsoever), no heartwrenching speeches, no tearful monologues, no overwrought finales. And this in a film that deals with some very weighty moral choices and themes - revenge, forgiveness, and grace.
Ignore that ‘Posted By Todd’ thing down there, this one’s actually from our good friend - and Twitch’s web designer - Opus.
My coworkers and I have had many interesting, involved, and impassioned debates concerning the conflict in Iraq, a lot of them revolving around the wisdom of our government getting involved (or lack thereof). We all have our own take on the issue, and we throw out facts and figures that we glean from the newspaper, from CNN and Fox News, etc.
One of the more sobering conversations I had about the war took place over lunch one day, when one of my co-workers, whose husband is serving in Iraq, revealed that he spent part of his leave buying supplies for his unit - supplies that were perfectly ordinary and necessary to do their job - from Radio Shack… with his own money.
Another fine Cannes review from CC, who is still roaming about the French Riviera and drinking absinthe. I had a Sprite today. It’s just not the same.
At this year’s Cannes Film Festival director David Cronenberg revealed his latest offering, A History of Violence. Like other films this year, such as Sin City, many people will find this undesirable and simply reject it as senseless violence.
This inability to approach the topic of violence is exactly what the film is attempting to address. Specifically, how American society has fooled itself by masking our daily lives with white picket fences and station wagons, easily ignoring the problems around us.
To place this idea into our consciousness, Cronenberg presents one man’s tale of violence and the after effects on his family, town, and ultimately John Stall, the film’s main protagonist, who is played by Viggo Mortensen.
Since Dreamworks never got it together enough to, a) put decent english subtitles on the USA disc, b) make them a reasonable size (i.e not HUGE), or c) correctly and effectively manage the replacement program. So, Japan is getting it together on their behalf - and issuing a disc for 3,200 yen (roughly £15 / $30 at amazon.co.jp - 3,990 yen recommended retail price) that has Japanese, English, Taiwanese, Korean and French subtitles on it.
Expect a decent job on this, as Japan isn’t in the habit of cocking things up and doing them again. It seems quite happy to provide the alternative choice it’s able to when another country does though. Theres a 25,000 yen limited edition (1000 copies) available too, with a model of some kind. Here is the WatchImpress page that was amongst the information posted at the DVDTalk.com forum, the first mention of this I have seen.
Really. Is anyone surprised? Turns out that Chris Tucker doesn’t like the script that was penned for Rush Hour 3 and has not signed off on the offered $20 million contract. Clearly this one should be put down and laid to rest, okay guys? Jackie Chan is clearly not interested in continuing the series. Brett Ratner may have other things he could be doing right now. Why is this movie hanging in the balance based on Tucker’s involvement?
via Dark Horizons.
Glory! It’s not an official film company announcement, but considering it comes straight from one of the group’s members I consider it pretty damn solid. Those of us worrying about whether The League of Gentlemen’s Apocalypse will cross to these shores may worry no more: even if it doesn’t it’s not going to be much of a wait before we’ll be able to import the DVD. Here’s what Steve Pemberton says over on their official site:
“We recorded the commentary for the DVD this week which was very strange as the film isn’t out yet - but apparantly we had to do it now as the DVD release date is in October and they have to translate the commentary into numerous languages. Good luck with the phrase “That giraffe spunk wasn’t gloopy enough.” ”
Hurray!
Well, this one’s a little bit light on details but I’m doing what I can to dig some more up.
One of my very favorite young directors right now is Toshiaki Toyoda of Blue Spring and Nine Souls fame. Last week I stumbled across what appeared to be an email address for the man so I fired off a quick message asking about the possibilities of his latest - The Hanging Garden - playing the international festival rounds and also about what he’s got on his plate next. I didn’t even remotely expect to get an answer, but looky looky ... his English is limited so it’s not perfectly clear, but you get the point:
“Hello, I’m Toyoda.
Thank you for your e-mail.
My another film is shooting in this November, showing next year. I have other plans. I will play live performance with music and movie. This performance is going to be DVD. If you invite me,I can play in the states. Thanks. Toyoda Toshiaki”
Now I know I’ve read about this film before - I believe in an article in the SF Indie Blog which now appears to be down - and if memory serves it’s about biker gangs. This music / film live performance vehicle is entirely new news to me, though ... I’ve already offered to find him a live performance venue here in Toronto if he comes with The Hanging Garden for the big film festival in September ... More info as I get it ... that link above will take you to The Hanging Garden trailer, incidentally. The Gomorrahizer dug it up a while back and it’s worth another look. A huge departure from his past work, by the look of things, but still pretty compelling ...
Now before I even begin I need to point out that the key word in that title is ‘tentative’. There is no set date attached to this yet and the Korean DVD industry is notorious for shifting release dates around at the last minute. A good rule of thumb in dealing with Korean DVD releases is to consider nothing firm until the discs are actually on shelves.
That said ... I wrote one of the Korean based DVD stores to ask about a release date for A Bittersweet Life and this is what they said: “I heard that this DVD will be released in end of June or July , but exact release date is not decided yet… “
That time line certainly makes sense, what with Crying Fist getting a June release after the two films hit theaters on the same day. Whether June or July we shouldn’t have to wait much longer ... here’s the trailer to tide you over.
...with English Subtitles, and English Audio track also.
Anyhow, Stivaletti last Directed ‘MDC’ in 1997 (aka ‘Maschera Di Cera’ or ‘Wax Mask’ which was written by Dario Argento and Lucio Fulci - I think Argento was Producer on it, and Fulci was to have Directed but passed away before filming started). Stivaletti is best known as a special effects man, and has worked on more recent Argento movies, and also Dellamorte Dellamore back in 1994 amongst many famous European Horror pieces.
The DVD can be ordered as a bog-stadard disc for 14 euros, or a 3-Disc set for just 22 euros - at places in Italy like DVD.it by putting the title into the search engine there. Shipping prices I don’t know, should be reasonable.
The Official Site for the film (which includes trailers) is still online here. I saw the trailer a long time ago, surprised to find this disc mentioned just now as ‘coming soon’ over at HorrorHQ.
The other day CJ Entertainment announced the official release date for the final installment in Park Chan-wook’s vengeance trilogy, Sympathy for Lady Vengeance. It will hit theatres in Korea on July 29th.
No word yet on if there will be theatres showing the film with subtitles for any expats over on the peninsula. Obviously we’ll keep our eyes open for the DVD release in Japan or Korea in the Fall.
via Leeyongae.net.
It is hard to measure such things conclusively but you can make a pretty good argument that Thailand’s Apichatpong Weerasethakul is one of the most under-appreciated film makers on the planet. Despite having a pair of his films - Tropical Malady and Blissfully Yours - pick up major awards at Cannes and festivals around the world Weerasethakul is virtually unknown outside of critical circles.
After coming across the website for his independent production company Kick the Machine last week I dropped the man a note and he quickly agreed to an interview via email. Read on for his thoughts on the Thai film industry, his film making process, and some hints on what he’s got coming next ...
We picked up on this film only a couple weeks ago. The Duelist [Hyeongsa] director, Lee Myung-se, and the stars of his film, Ha Ji-won, Kang Dong-won and Ahn Sung-ki held a press conference this past friday. KoreaTimes picked up the coverage.
The story of the period piece revolves around a female detective named Nam-sun [Ha Ji-won] who investigates the forgery of coins and chases an assassin [Kang Dong-won] involved in the crime.
As the director emphasizes the importance of motion in his film rather than the story and characters, the main actors usually had to perform their own stunts, including in the more dangerous scenes, requiring intensive pre-filming preparation. They had to learn various skills before the film was shot. I haven’t seen Lee’s first film, Nowhere to Hide, but I had read that it was mostly style over substance. Not that this is a bad thing but it does appear to be the same route that Lee will take with this film as well.
Sidenote: According to a post on LeeYoungAe.net Screen International in a special Cannes edition reported that Lee is a Korean director to keep an eye on in coming years. “As far as visually concerned, Lee Myung-Se may be regarded the Korean equivalent of Wong Kar-Wai. One of the most renowned Korean directors in 1990’s, his return with the 19th century-set thriller ‘Duelist’ will be a bang,” wrote the magazine. The Korean equivalent of WKW? Uh… okay then. Pretty big shoes to fill there.
Ha commented on the training for the action sequences, “We had to go through tough physical training. We learned the tango and martial arts at the same time to present rhythmical movements in action scenes, and the director asked us to become like professional tango dancers or martial arts practitioners”. This is cool. So can we hope for fluid motions and tightly coreographed action sequences? With the emphasis on motion on behalf of the director the action sequences may be very sweet.
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