As part of its “Maker’s Dozen” program of animated shorts at the 2nd Annual San Francisco International Animation Festival, the San Francisco Film Society screened the award-winning Madame Tutli-Putli by Canadian filmmakers Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski.  Since mid-Summer the Twitch team has been championing the film.  Todd writes: ”Madame Tutli-Putli is flat out one of the greatest pieces of stop motion animation I have ever seen and should have creators Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski treated as equals of the Brothers Quay for the rest of their days.  It really is that good.  …An absolutely stunning piece of stop motion animation rendered all the more unsettling by the creators superimposing actual eyes into the faces of their models.  Dark, surreal, richly detailed and flawlessly executed.”

Kurt Halfyard, in turn, describes Madame Tutli-Putli as “jaw dropping” and claims, “If Salvadore Dali was giving David Lynch a shiatsu massage during an overnight train ride between Calgary and Vancouver, then this might be the film that takes place just behind the caffeinated ones eyes or the cloud of cigarette smoke in front of him.  Stop Motion animation has never looked this good….”

On May 28, 2007, the film won the Canal + Grand Prize for best short film along with the Petit Rail d’Or, chosen by a “group of 100 cinephile railwaymen,” at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival.  In June 2007, Madame Tutli-Putli won best animated short at the Worldwide Short Film Festival in Toronto, qualifying it for Academy Award consideration.

The film’s official website is a fount of information with some keen videoclips of interviews with Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski, as well as the film’s producer Marcy Page.  Further, collaborator Jason Walker’s website fascinatingly details the process of grafting human countenance onto puppet models.

I met Lavis and Szczerbowski for lunch in their Japantown hotel and was completely charmed by their enthusiasm and their intelligence.  Despite being jetlagged from a whirlwind publicity tour, the two offered their all.

Continue Reading "MADAME TUTLI-PUTLI—Interview With Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski"...

Hey, a guy can’t just shoot stuff all the time, can he?

While he’s best known for his high concept action films such as Exiled, prolific Hong Kong director Johnnie To is actually far more diverse than many are aware.  While his latest cop thriller Mad Detective is raking in the coin at the Hong Kong box office - opening head to head against 30 Days Of Night it not only won the week but doubled the Hollywood giant’s take - he’s gearing up to release his new romance, Linger, in January.  Here’s a synopsis from an early sales flyer:

Busy Life.  Empty hearts.  Unforgettable lovers.

The reappearance of a lost lover brings back a faint feeling of love.  Yet is is so untouchable.  Is it real or is it just a piece of memory?

A life in the river of time is irreversible.  But we can choose our memory.

It reveals an unbearable truth, while true perfection always comes from bits and pieces of regrets.

The trailer has just arrived online, hit the link below to find it.

Okay, Fight Club fans, listen up.  Author Chuck Palahniuk has long had a number of his other books optioned - all of them at some point or another, actually - but none of the film versions have to come to pass as of yet for one reason or another.  This has finally changed with Clark Gregg’s adaptation of Choke, the story of a sex addicted con man who makes his living by staging his own choking episodes in expensive restaurant and playing upon the sympathies of those who ‘save’ him.  It’s just been announced that Gregg’s film will be premiering at the Sundance Festival and I couldn’t be more excited.  As much as I love Fight Club it’s Choke and Survivor that are constantly duking it out for top spot in the Palahniuk canon in my mind and done right Choke should be absolutely stunning on the big screen.  Helping convince me that Gregg’s doing it right is the casting of Sam Rockwell in the lead since Rockwell can seemingly do no wrong.

Anyway, all that to say this.  We’ve just laid hands upon the first still of the film to be released anywhere and we share it here with you.  Hit the link below for a much larger version.

Yes, the new year will start as always with anticipation for what’s in store at the upcoming IFFR. Expect loads of updates as we near the 37th edition which starts the 23rd of January.

The final list of films and showings will be released only a few weeks in advance but their website already lifts a corner of the veil.

Artist in focus this year is Cameron Jamie. Filmmakers in focus will this year be Robert Breer (known for his experimental animated shorts) and Svetlana Proskoerina who will grant rotterdam the first public showing of her newest film ”The Best time of the Year” outside of its home country Russia.

A few of the other confirmed movies are:
”Flower in the Pocket” by Liew Seng Tat (Malaysia)
”Fujian Blue” by Weng Shou Ming (China)
”Wonderfull Town” by Aditya Assarat (Thailand)
”Waltz in Starlight” by Shingo Wakagi (Japan)

World premieres this year include Jeff Picket’s ”The Skyjacker” about a 1970 plane hijacking gone haywire, Mirjam van Veelen’s documentary ”Megumi” about a disappeared 13-year old Japanese girl, who was probably kidnapped by North Korean secret service in 1977 to teach spies how to behave as Japanese, and ”Lucky 7” by 7 Singaporean directors, led by Sun Koh.

Can’t wait to see the full list!

No doubt about it, we’ve got big time man-crushes on Versus star Tak Sakaguchi around here.  The man’s not a great actor but he’s just got some crazy charisma to him that makes him eminently watchable in anything he does and when you combine that with the fact that he’s increasingly letting his bizarre - and hysterical - sense of humor shine through in his roles and you’ve got something pretty potent.  The guy’s an entertainer through and through and we’ve been pulling for his first directorial effort - which he also scripted - to be a good one.  Well, the trailers have just hit and it looks like we’re in good hands.  Be A Man!  Samurai School! is the title, it’s based on a popular manga, and it features Tak in full on ass kicking mode.  Short and long versions of the trailer appear in the Twitch player below the break.

Continue Reading "Tak Takes The Controls!  Two Trailers For BE A MAN! SAMURAI SCHOOL!"...

Director/screenwriter Tamara Jenkins and actress Laura Linney accompanied The Savages when the film screened as the opening night feature for the 30th Mill Valley Film Festival.  I welcomed the opportunity to spend time with one of my favorite actresses, and likewise with one of my favorite film writers Omar Moore of PopcornReel.Com.  I’m not a great fan of roundtables; but, when it’s just me and Omar and visiting talent, I’m not only enthusiastic but at ease.  I was immediately struck by just how beautiful Laura Linney is in person, in contrast to some of her less-than-attractive screen personages.  I was smitten!  A bit flustered, I let Omar start off.

Continue Reading "THE SAVAGES—Interview With Laura Linney"...

We linked to the first teaser for Im Pil-Sung’s gorgeous Hansel and Gretel, his first since the greatly under rated Antarctic Journal, just a few days back and now the full theatrical trailer has arrived.  This looks even more impressive than the teaser, loaded with some truly beautiful and unsettling imagery, and it’s safe to say that turnabout is fair play in this spin on the Brothers Grimm tale.  The full trailer is embedded in the Twitch player following the break.  Hit the link below to get the teaser.

Continue Reading "More HANSEL AND GRETEL!"...

There are certain actors in this world that I will happily follow just about anywhere, their skill level and impeccable taste combining to make their presence in a film a sure mark of quality.  Tadanobu Asano is one.  Mads Mikkelsen another.  And Korea’s Shin Ha-Kyun is very definitely one.  The man first came to attention thanks to the one-two punch of Sympathy For Mister Vengeance and Save the Green Planet and since then he has steadily built a resume loaded with quirkily impressive work.  Things have been quiet for Shin since playing a speech-impaired assassin in No Mercy For The Rude but he’s back, starring opposite The Host‘s Byun Hee-Bong in The Devil’s Game in which the pair swap bodies through the use of some sort of insidious cellphone technology.  Yes, the body swap thing has been done many times but it’s still got some mileage in it when done well and this one looks to be far more Face/Off than Freaky Friday.  The cast is stellar and the trailer impressive.  You’ll find that embedded in the Twitch player after the break.

Continue Reading "Shin Ha-Kyun Goes Body Swapping In THE DEVIL’S GAME"...

Another thirty something titles added to the Twitch Video Player today which pushes our total to over twelve hundred trailers, clips and videos.  Highlights today?  The trailer for Brian Yuzna’s directorial debut, Society.  A German dubbed clip from Galaxy Quest because, you know, things are just funnier in German.  The trailer for Satoshi Kon’s Perfect Blue.  The trailer for Ian Curtis bio-pic Control.  And, finally, the trailer for gorgeous Russian period piece Taras Bulba, which was already highlighted once today but I’m doing it again because it looks that good.

The second theatrical trailer for the US remake of Hong Kong horror film The Eye - still the high point of the Pang Brothers career - has arrived and is looking surprisingly good.  From the looks of this it seems that the directors - the duo behind recent French hit Ils - have simply, and wisely, opted to recreate many of the original film’s best sequences shot for shot.  The film’s got a solid look to it and Jessica Alba, while not stellar, looks as though she’s comfortably up to the demands of the part.  You’ll find the trailer embedded in the Twitch player below the break.

Continue Reading "Second Trailer For US Remake Of THE EYE"...

The Cannes Festival hit a major birthday in 2007 but unlike ladies of a certain age who like to pretend like their birthday never happened the Cannes folk decided to celebrate in style and called in favors from some of their favorite directors to create the Chacun Son Cinema project, a celebration of film itself made up of short films directed by an international who’s who of talent.  Wong Kar Wai, David Cronenberg, the Coen Brothers, David Lynch, Alejandro Innaritu, Takeshi Kitano and more, more, more all created new short films for the project which has since rolled out on the festival circuit.  While the lady friend caught the program twice at the Toronto International Film Festival and absolutely loved it I managed to miss every possible screening myself.  I did, however, just stumble across a CD loaded with promotional stills from the series and I present them to you here.

Hot off the heals of his last feature, Battle of Wits, director Jacob Cheung Chi Leung has begun preproduction of another wuxia movie Thangka [唐卡]. Thangka refers to a type of Buddhist painting or embroidery that can be rolled up and transported easily. The story of Thangka is as follows. When she’s married off to Tibetan King Songtsän Gampo, Tang Princess Wencheng is concerned about the difficulties of moving Buddha statues across highlands and has them painted instead. A pugilist is arranged as a stand-in for Princess Wencheng by Emperor Li Shimin in order to protect her from assassination as she travels through a foreign land.

On Cheung Chi Leung Christmas wish list for actors he hopes to get Andy Lau and Tang Wei, who only has Lust, Caution to her credit so far, to star. Set-building has already begun and filming is expected to begin in 2008. It is expected to take several months in Tibet. 

Now that all things Razor have come to pass SciFi Channel will focus all its energies on Tin Man, their interpretation of the Wizard of Oz story. The mini-series airs this December. We were sent a number of clips from their ‘making of’ special but they have proven to be too mighty for our video player. Until we get that settled please browse the gallery of character images sent to us. Between you, me and the thousands of other readers who read Twitch every day, I am quite partial to the ones of Zoey Deschanel and Kathleen Robertson.

Man, I only wish I could go ... Sundance announced the competitive part of their lineup for 2008 yesterday and followed that today with the non-competitive titles and it’s a pretty staggeringly good lineup this year.  Top of the list in my particular world is Nacho Vigalondo’s Timecrimes - the Best Picture winner at the 2007 edition of Fantastic Fest and also a film that I’m an associate producer on, proving conclusively that they’ll give those credits to bloody well anyone.  As far as titles I may be a touch more objective with the more intriguing ones are Bruce LaBruce’s gay zombie film Otto, Larry Bishop’s biker revenge flick Hell Ride, Haneke’s Funny Games remake, fantastic French animation Fear[s] of the Dark, and many, many more ...

You betcha, as films about chainsaw weilding giants falling from the sky to do nightly battle with hot, knife wielding school girls go, Nikkatsu’s Negative Happy, Chainsaw Edge is clearly the cream of the crop.  Heh.  Seriously, I’ve actually had the chance to see the film now and it’s a blast.  It requires a bit of an adjustment in that it’s much more a coming of age / relationship drama than it is a full on action picture but it’s exceptionally well shot, has a pair of eminently likable leads and a nice blend of action, comedy and drama.  It also now has a fresh, full length theatrical trailer which has just been loaded in to the Twitch player for your viewing pleasure.  The teaser and full trailer are both below the break.

Continue Reading "Chainsaw Man Versus Hot Schoolgirl Round Two:  Full Trailer For NEGATIVE HAPPY, CHAINSAW EDGE!"...