Back once more today with another WSFF program preview and it is the second program that our lord and master has created for the festival. Creepy will have a little something for everyone: blood, nudity, violence, shotguns, chainsaws, babies, ghosts and a whole lot of scares. It is going to be a good night. Buy your tickets now for Midnight: Creepy happening on June 19th at the ROM here in Toronto. Now, if you’ll excuse me I need to go outside and pet a puppy or something just to get these images out of my head. Find my blood soaked thoughts after the break…
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If I get to preview this festival for the rest of my days I will always make a point of requesting this program. And as long as Andrew David Long keeps programming the Sci-Fi: Out There program I will make numerous threats to loved ones and family members of those responsible for getting me these programs in advance until I have copy of Andrew’s program in my hands. Yes, it is that good. Make a point of buying tickets for this one because it is a collection of wonderfully weird and wacky sci-fi goodness. Monkeys from space. Synchronized swimmers aiming for the stars. The Canadian space program. It’s all in there. Catch it Friday, June 19th at the ROM. Read up on my thoughts after the break.
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It’s almost time once again for the Worlwide Short Film Festival and our lord and master Todd has once again gathered together a fine collection of the freaky, the wacky and what the hell was that? shorts for one of the two Midnight programs at this year’s festival. Freaky will screen on Saturday, June 20th at the ROM. It’s as much grossness, sexiness, vulgarity, humor and weirdness you can take in 95 minutes. Read on after the break for my thoughts on the program. Sometimes I wonder why I am friends with this man…
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So I’m a little late with this, mostly to do with me being in Berlin when these two items hit and some of it because I forgot. Nakatomi recently released its second print in the Godfather inspired series of posters. Tim Doyle is the man behind these and the new one is called “Full Of Grace” and depicts the scene where Fredo goes fishing for the last time. The bad news is that Nakatomi itself have sold out of the paper edition but the good news is that you can get them soon over at PandorasPrints.com when they open up for business. You can still get the limited edition wood print at Nakatomi Plaza if you have a 100 bucks burning a hole in your pocket. This print measures 12x36, is 4 colors, signed and numbered by the artist.
The second print they have is by none other than comic book legend Paul Pope who created a wonderful print in honor of Toshiro Mifune and the film Yojimbo. The print is called “The Bell Tower” and comes in both paper and wood. Measuring 16x36, this is a 5 color print with 2 split fountains. Pope also created a T-shirt which is completely different from his print and features a cool looking robot. The regular print is 40 dollars and the wood is a hundred. The T is 20 bucks but if you buy both it will only cost 50. Sweet deal.
Head on over to Nakatomi to pick these up and you can see large pics of these items after the break.
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A brand new festival has popped up the Twitchfilm radar this weekend. The inaugural Shinsedai [New Generation] Festival has just announced the first wave of titles playing this year here in Toronto. Co-programmed by Midnight Eye’s Jasper Sharp and Toronto’s greatest Jfan Chris Magee from JFilm Pow Wow their purpose and goal with Shinsedai is to turn the spotlight on some of Japan’s great independent filmmakers that have emerged this past decade.
Kurosawa, Ozu, Mizoguchi, Oshima, Kitano - around the world these names immediately bring to mind the best that Japanese cinema has to offer, but now that we’re at the beginning of a new century many film fans are wondering who the next generation of great filmmakers from Japan will be. Toronto’s first Shinsedai Cinema Festival tries to answer that question by bringing some of the best work by independent Japanese filmmakers to Toronto, many for the very first time.
For three days between August 21st and 23rd the Japanese Canadian Cultural Centre will be hosting a program which will have everything from insightful dramas, quirky comedies, hard-hitting documentaries, experimental shorts, and beyond. Along with the festival announcement they just announced their first wave of titles for this year’s festival.
Bunny in Hovel - Mayumi Yabe (2009
Csikspost - Yumiko Beppu (2009)
Electric Button (Moon & Cherry) -Yuki Tanada (2004)
emerger - Aki Sato (2008)
Freeter’s Distress - Hiroki Iwabuchi (2007)
Hottentot Apron: A Sketch - Kei Shirichi (2006)
Naked of Defenses - Masahide Ichii (2008)
Now, I… - Ysautomo Chikuma (2007)
Suzuki & Co. - Kazuo Kono (2008)
The New God - Yutaka Tsuchiya (1999)
Vortex & Others: 5 Short Films by Yoshihiro Ito (2001-2008)
We’re just so proud of him we could spit.
13th Puchon International Fantastic Film Festival (13th PiFan), which runs from July 16 to 26, announced the members of the Puchon Choice Shorts Jury. PiFan has invited YANG Ik-Joon, an actor-director of the film Breathless, the top Tiger awardee of the 38th International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR), LEE Hanna, the producer of the film Secret Sunshine played in the Palme d’Or competition section at the 60th Cannes International Film Festival, and Todd BROWN, the founder and the editor of Twitch, the leading website for international and independent film, as the Puchon Choice Short jury.
This year, short films in the Puchon Choice Short section including an animated film Dust Kid, directed by JUNG Yu Mi, which screened in the prestigious Director’s Fortnight program at the 62nd Cannes International Film Festival, will compete for the Best Short Film, Jury’s Choice for Short Film, Citizen’s Choice for Short Film, and the Best Korean Short Film awards and cash prizes totaling KW13m.
Summer festival season is upon us and here at Twitch we would really like to run as much coverage as possible of both the Fantasia Festival in Montreal and the New York Asian Film Festival in - shockingly enough - New York. But, alas, we’re short on manpower in both of those cities right now and could really use a few extra pairs of eyes and hands willing to file festival coverage for us. Could it be you? If you’re willing to watch a bunch of movies and writer about them, then Yes! Yes it could. Drop me a note via the contact form if you’re interested.
Hey all you Twitcher’s. Sean “The Butcher” Smithson here just letting you know that next week brings the horror con extraordinaire CryptiCon to the Emerald City. It will be going down at Seattle Center June 5, 6, and 7. Yours truly will be heading up a cast reunion panel for John Carpenter’s seminal scare flick THE FOG. We will have Tom Atkins, Adrienne Barbeau, Nancy Loomis, and Charles Cyphers on hand to take a walk down memory lane, and regal us with tales of what was a troubled shoot that begat a modern classic.
We will also be having a PHANTASM reunion panel with Billy Thornbury, Kathy Lester, Reggie “Regman” Bannister, and director Don Coscarelli, all attending to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the little film that could (and did!)
We will also be running a Scream Queen and Scream King panel, as well as others, and a lecture on “Horror Films Every Horror Fan Should See And Probably Hasn’t” again hosted by yours truly. Our guest list is formidable, the prices affordable, and I personally guarantee a good time will be had by all. To help assure that you, the fright fans, get as much bang for your buck as possible in these lean times. I will also be running a film program that will include some very sought after titles this year.
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I don’t know about you but personaly I’ve been waiting to make the switch to Blu-Ray until a player arrived on the scene capable of playing Blu-Ray discs from around the entire globe. Not that I have anything against US discs, but it’s a big world out there, you know? And I want to be able to watch things from around the entire globe and not just my own back yard. Well, that player has arrived. It’s the Momitsu BDP-899, and it can play anything. Any DVD from anywhere in the world, any Blu-Ray disc from anywhere in the world. Just punch the appropriate region code into the remote to set the player and off you go. To my knowledge this is the only true region free deck in the world right now and it’s surprisingly well priced. I’m going shopping.
This is one of the drawbacks of living on this rock in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, I miss these types of events all the time. But for those living in Austin or plan to go there in early June you have a chance to attend a special screening of the director’s cut of my all time favorite film Night Of The Creeps. The screening will take place on June 13th and in attendance will be stars Jason Lively, Jill Whitlow, Steve Marshall and man legend Tom Atkins. Director Fred Dekker will also be there and take part in the festivities. The whole thing will be filmed by DVD producer Michael Felsher for the upcoming DVD release of this classic.
I curse the Gods for placing me in this part of the world and missing this ginourmus event. So if anyone wants to fly me out to Austin I would do things to them I would normally not do to a person. Just sayin.
Tickets are for sale at mondo’s website.
We’ve been tardy and if I didn’t seen the lead to the daily image that Edgar Wright puts up on his Edgar’s Photo A Day 2009 on my facebook this morning who knows how long it would have been until we directed you to more vlogs from the set of Scott Pilgrim VS. The World. What could have been worse is that you may have never known that this awesome image of Ramona Flowers and her massive hammer had ever existed!
To the videos. The first one is the most recent. Yesterday recent. So I don’t feel so bad about that one. Featuring our beloved director Edgar, Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Ramona Flowers, Johnny Simmons as Young Neil and Mark Webber as Stephen Stills. This first video is on the set of another fight scene and you get to see Ramona’s massive hammer! Yay!
Then we’ll go back in time to a time of tardiness. Pilgrim creator Brian Lee O’Malley and Edgar talk about transferring the imagery from the comic book and on set at some of the locations that Brian used as inspiration for his books. Micheal Cera as Scott and Ellen Wong as Knives Chau make and appearance.
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Good news everyone! Mondotees is having a Memorial Day sale over the weekend, starting tomorrow friday and lasting till next monday. That means it’s 20% off off everything, everythings I tells ya! And if you are local or in town stop by their S. Lamar Blvd store and take part in their Rummage Sale and find even better deals on that poster you’ve always wanted or that T-Shirt you think looks hilarious.
All you need to do is type the cupon code DEALZ at checkout to get the 20% off! Weeeee.
Oh Nacho. Why can’t we quit you?
Many thanks for reader Belenchu for pointing us to, and translating, a television ad Spanish director, Academy Award winner and friend of Twitch, Nacho Vigalondo, made for mattress company. Pikolin, who is a part of a campaign called “Awareness Campaign for Acoustic Health”. It is classic Nacho. Enjoy!
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Just a heads up that the web site for the Production I.G. film ‘Musashi: The Dream of the Last Samurai’ is active and contains an interview with the director Mizuho Nishikubo, a look at promotional material available with advance ticket purchases including katana hilts and wall scrolls, and other goodies. Sadly it is all in Japanese and I don’t know a lick of it and I am not about to trust Google Translate with the interview. For those of you with more prowess with the Japanese language I will direct you here.
