Coming at your faster than a bolt of lightning, the Wachowski Brothers Speed Racer kicks cinema into the 5th dimension and is 10,000 volts of gooey fun at breakneck racing speeds of visual excitement that the entire family can enjoy. This is an explosion of eye-popping Busby Berkeley meets Stanley Kubrick meets anime styled techno delirium that will leave your eyes and brain feeling like it has just been hit by a tornadic sugar high (view image gallery). In some respects it should have been easy to see the Wachowski Brothers were heading in this direction with very anime influenced scenes from their previous movies and importantly of note here is they pick up their original Matrix magic wand, leaving their Reloaded and Revolutions hats behind.
From retro futuristic designs and its symphonic techno color overdrive, the anime universe of Speed Racer gets translated perfectly to the big screen. Make no mistake the Wachowski Brothers have turned anime into live action visual opera that promises to be the benchmark and standard all other type of adaptations will be judged against for the foreseeable future. Live action anime cinema has been born with this visual feast that rivals anything that has ever come before it in history. I didn’t like the upcoming trailers (absolutely hated them) or anything I had seen for it walking into it, so believe me I was very surprised at how well this movie turned out. Cue your inner disco monkey, it’s time to have some summer movie time fun!
Continue Reading "Speed Racer Review - Live Action Anime Bliss"...
The city of Marfa, Texas, is always the kid in the back of class that wildly raises its hand when anyone states Texas is one long flat state. Sitting at an elevation of 4,685 feet, its picturesque mountain ranges and sparse signs of modern human fixtures make it an oasis and retreat from everyday life. Where else can you revel in such land that would make any Spaghetti Western fan drool with awe at the surrounding landscapes that encompass them from all sides as if they had just stepped back into time. Years ago when Paul Thomas Anderson was at his wits end trying to find a place in California to film There Will Be Blood, his location scouts came across the nearly 60,000 acre plus McGuire Ranch that sits several miles south of Marfa. It not only provided a perfect backdrop with its horizon-to-horizon views void of any modern signs of life, but it also had an unused railroad track that ran through its property. It wasn’t California yet it certainly could evoke the Bakersfield, California circa the early 1910’s that Paul Thomas Anderson envisioned for his film (view Twitch exclusive pictures from the set and day one of the Marfa Film Festival here).
Production Designer Jack Frisk and Paul Thomas Anderson scoured the McGuire Ranch dreaming up ideas for where to plant Little Boston, only to return to a location close by an old water tank that ran by the railroad track. It was at this location that Little Boston sprang to life. The current set while still standing is looking like it’s feeling the effects of the very dusty and cross heavy winds that rake across the plains. Electrical wires you would expect to see dotting around the set are nowhere to be found. When it came to building the set they found ropes looked much better onscreen.
Continued after the link bump >
Continue Reading "Marfa Film Festival 2008 – There Will Be Blood on the set of Little Boston"...
Tony Starks is a hell bent man obsessed with power and adrenaline in Tony Starks who suddenly gets a does of reality on a trip to Kunar Province in Afghanistan to debut a new missile system dubbed Jericho that can seemingly blow up the horizon. He lives a dashing life of little care as a dominant world weapons dealer. Girls, hard drinks, fast cars and even faster girls, he blazes through them all in one long blur with no real sense of purpose. Whatever good qualities he possesses have been lost in his blinding vision of greedy capitalism and self-centered universe. It takes this one life-changing event in Afghanistan to propel forward the central plot of the movie of how a man rises from his past and inner demons to take on the injustices of the world.
Iron Man heralds in the summer with a giant boom of thundering robot rock that will surely cause audiences to immediately flock to see it again once the end credits start. It features a sensational performance by Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark, whom might initially seem like an odd choice, but once you see him own this role as a super hero and adrenaline junkie bad boy, you can’t wait to see him in future adventures. A hard drinking socialite with little to no redeeming qualities has rarely been this much fun on the silver screen, well outside of Vince Vaughn in Swingers. His transformation from his vices and illicit past to a robot fist-pounding machine of fury seeking out justice should more than keep fans of the original satisfied. Downey Jr. becomes Tony Stark to the degree it seems he threw out the entire script and ad-libs a performance like Hendrix would Purple Haze in past summers of love. I haven’t seen this wildly of a quirky performance by an actor work so damn well since Bill Pullman in Jennifer Lynch’s Surveillance.
View pictures from the fun Fantastic Fest screening at the Alamo Drafthouse South Lamar
Real flying men in jet packs and more ensue!
Continue Reading "Iron Man Review & Fantastic Fest Fun Pictures"...
It’s the Twitch Grindhouse double bill action! First up is this exclusive interview with Death Proof star Sydney Tamiia Poitier aka Jungle Julia. Followed up by Ardvark’s review of the mega spectacular Japanese DVD boxset (read here).
Now-a-days you can find Mrs. Poitier on the new Knight Rider TV show as Carrie. Previous to this she became an instant cult icon in Quentin Tarantino’s Death Proof where she played the kickass and most badass of recent movie characters - Jungle Julia! Mrs. Poitier is a sparkling actress of the Classic Hollywood mold with the badass chops of a Linda Hamilton. She inhabits roles with a deeply immersive acting style that she parlays into smooth performances marked by her hard to miss ever present charm.
Read on for the Twitch Jungle Julia Interview...Miike’s Django, Death Proof, Alamo Drafthouse stories, exclusive Twitch image gallery and more after the link jump!
Continue Reading "THE TWITCH INTERVIEW - JUNGLE JULIA"...
Gather around the fireplace and dust off your hat, the location for the 2008 Rolling Roadshow Tour - Sergio Leone Edition has just announced the location for its Fistful of Dollars screening and a special treat for after the movie! I know there have been some incredible screenings of the Man With No Name Leone films before, but you would be hard pressed to find screenings as immersive as these are shaping up to be!
A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS opens with a scene of “the man with no name” (Clint Eastwood) riding into frame and stopping for well water outside an adobe farmouse. On June 6, The Rolling Roadshow and a select group of Leone fans will be gathered around the very same well in front of that very same farmhouse to watch that very same movie. The farmhouse, pictured today to the left, is now the Cortijo el Sotillo, a charming boutique hotel. We have partnered with the Cortijo el Sotillo to present this free screening of A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS, the opening film of the 2008 Rolling Roadshow Tour: the Leone Edition. Following the screening, attendees will gather at the same fireplace where Clint Eastwood so quickly “handles” Rojas men later in the film. The small hotel has only 20 rooms, so if you would like the rare treat of actually staying at the same lodging where Marisol was held captive, we recommend booking soon. Mention the Rolling Roadshow Tour and receive the promotional rate of 85€/night for a single room, 104€/night for a double room. Breakfast and taxes are included in that rate.
More at Rolling Roadshow Blog
Ladies and gentlemen, start your horses, harmonicas and watch chimes now...
For cinephiles, Sergio Leone or Spaghetti Western fans, it gets no better than this once in a lifetime cinema loving experience! See and experience the original Man With No Name trilogy at their actual film locations. The Alamo Drafthouse’s Rolling Roadshow is offering up its The Sergio Leone Edition this summer in June in Spain! They will be offering a VIP package that includes: 3 hand-silkscreened poster set (see amazing posters for other events here) and a limited edition Sergio Leone directors chair with your name on the back. VIP’s will get priority seating at each of the screenings. So whether you want to take the Spaghetti Western trip of a lifetime or just get what promises to be 3 amazing Spaghetti Western posters, this series is going to be the hippest 2008 summer movie series on the block.
June 6: Fistful of Dollars (more info)
Cortijo Sotillo, San Jose Spain
The Cortijo Sotillo was used for the opening sequence as well as the interiors of Ramon’s house.
June 7: For a Few Dollars More (more info)
Los Albarocoques, Spain
The whitewashed buildings and stone circle in Los Albarocoques were used for the climactic ending of For a Few Dollars More.
June 8: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly (more info)
Cortijo del Fraile, Cabo de Gata, Spain
The Cortijo del Fraile was used both as Angel Eye’s hideout and Father Ramirez’s mission.
More details, travel tips and full press release after the link bump.
Continue Reading "The Ultimate Sergio Leone Experience - Rolling Roadshow Style!"...
I think it goes without saying we have a wicked bag of tricks ready for Fantastic Fest 2008. The first announced details for this year include announcing its retrospective sections of Japanese Pinku and Australian Exploitation films. Other highlights this year will include: a boat ton of badass Danish genre cinema and a amped-up, recreation of the classic William Castle Tingler gimmick! And yes there will be karaoke mayhem and Fantastic Feud craziness will once again spread throughout the festival. Todd alone has so much up his sleeve to delight, dazzle and thrill at this years fest that some will think he is a long lost relative of Merlin. Fantastic Fest 2008 will be pulling out all the stops to top 2007. Also be on the look out for a special June screening of Iguchi’s Machine Girl in Austin. More details after the link bump.
Continue Reading "First Details Emerge for Fantastic Fest 2008 - Japanese Pinku & Aussie Exploitation Retrospectives!!"...
Summer-Summ-eeeerr TIMEEEEE! Ohhhhhh Summertime! It seems strange that we are now at the point where a movie set in the 90’s is considered in small part a period piece, but such is the case with The Wackness, Jonathan Levine’s follow up film to All the Boys Love Mandy Lane. The setting is New York City during the summer of 1994 with all the hip hop and rap that filled the airwaves as we follow Luke Shapiro come to grips with love and finding acceptance in an often over complicated world, while selling pot and watching his therapist Ben Kingsley make out with Mary-Kate Olsen. While the similar boy meets girl ensue and we get take through a wonderful nostalgic world of the 90’s, Levine pumps in some of the most brimming with life cinema you will see in movie theaters this year. Also note with this film the absolute break out performance by Olivia Thirlby, whom you may know as Ellen Page’s best friend in Juno. According to actor Paul Dano she is apparently along with him a part of a vibrant theater acting scene in New York. It’s amazing to think in New York now we have young actors so passionate about acting they rush to work in the theater in any down time away from making films, but such is the case with Olivia and Paul, and their performances in films as such shine leaps and bounds even more than normal. I originally saw The Wackness as part of the European Film Market in Berlin, where despite not a single seat being available I stood on the wall and was transfixed during its entire running time. Anders Morgenthaler’s Echo and Levine’s The Wackness so far are my two favorite movies of 2008 hands down.
Don’t take my word for it, go to MTV and watch the trailer and comment below on your favorite times and songs of the early 90’s.
For his next film, Chrysalis director Julien Leclercq will tackle the real terrorist story of Air France Flight 8969 (Wiki). This promises to be an even harder hitting film than Chrysalis, which is really saying something given its many bone crunching and thrilling sequences. I know me and Todd around these parts are huge fans of Mr. Leclercq and you can bet in the coming days ahead we will be all over covering this film for you. I had the chance of catching up with him at 2008 AFI Dallas the day after I had the privilege of introducing the film and doing a Q&A afterwards.
Now here is Julien Leclercq himself to tell the Twitch readership about his next film! And note when I asked him if Alain Figlarz would be a part of it, he said, ”Yes, absolutely! He will be stunt coordinator for the choreography of the fights and as an actor because it’s a SWAT Team!” Mr. Figlarz for those not familiar worked on the action in Brotherhood of the Wolf and lately has grown quite the cult action status having established the action/fighting style that was used in the first Bourne movie and has now been copied around quite a bit. Alain Figlarz and Julien Leclercq‘s collaboration on Chrysalis seemed to be a perfect harmony of cinematic vision, blending in as one voice. That they are buckling up now to make an even more intense ride… I can only say this film can’t get here soon enough!
Julien Leclercq: My next film will be shooting at the end of this year in October, November and December. It’s about a famous terrorist attack and will be told from the point of view of the GIGN (Wiki), which is like a French SWAT Team.
In France we don’t have the mentality to make a film like Batman or Superman. We won’t make a French actor like Vincent Cassel or any famous French actor be in a superhero role with a superhero costume on the tower in Paris. It’s a joke for us and we don’t make that. We really don’t have comic books in Europe or Paris.
For me I want to make a war film with a heroic point of view. I think the guys of GIGN, a French SWAT Team, would be a real hero for the French audiences. It’s cool, famous and it’s an amazing story about 200 Argentinean with 4 terrorists in their flight on the airport of Marseille, which is on the French Riviera. Two days of real terrorist attacks!
We have about 25 action scenes at the end of the movie. It’s going to be very technical and tactical. I think it’s going to be fresh for the French audiences. It’s a French movie because it will be like Chrysalis.
More from Julien Leclercq after the link bump.
Continue Reading "Exclusive: Chrysalis Director Julien Leclercq Talks About His Next Film!"...
One of the most immersive and Japanese cinema rich film festivals in the world, the Nippon Connection has just wrapped once again in Frankfurt, Germany. Winning top honors this year was Yosuke Fujita’s Zenzen Daijobu (Fine, Totally Fine). This offbeat film certainly seems to be getting a lot of good buzz. Mark Schilling proclaimed it, ”totemo, totemo subarashii!” Certainly it’s now more than ever on everyone’s radar to check out. Full press release on this years top winner and conclusion report of the 2008 Nippon Connection follows after the link bump.
Continue Reading "Zenzen Daijobu (Fine, Totally Fine) Wins Top Honors at the 2008 Nippon Connection"...
The 2008 AFI Dallas International Film Festival wraps tonight with Nacho’s brilliant Time Crimes. The Russian film Mermaid has just taken top honors for this years Best Narrative Feature Award. It certainly is a beautifully shot and perversely goofy film that is so awkwardly cute you can’t help but to some degree just relax and go with it as it bobs and weaves from moon women to beer costume sad moments. The rest of this years winners below and full press release after the link bump. I’ll be chiming in more this week with interviews from Sori on Vexille and Ichi and Julien Leclercq on Chrysalis and his exciting next film.
Right now as the film Forgetting Sarah Marshall plays to a packed crowd I have walked out of a standing ovation for Jonathan Levine’s dope feel good drug movie of the year, The Wackness. This type of positive audience response is indicative of how this two year old festival has quickly revitalized and brought film loving Dallas audiences back to the theater in masses. Just the other night for its second screening here the film Chrysalis had nearly two hundred people turned away. I don’t know if anyone would have predicted a French sci-fi/noir with English subtitles would play so well and yet it brought down the house both times it played. Subtitles or no subtitles the audiences were eating up everything the festival was throwing its way this year. A new film community that only cares about great cinema has sprung up that is absent of gallon sized cowboy hats and Cadillacs. Doesn’t get any sweeter when films like Chrysalis and The Wackness get such enthusiastic audiences and ovations. It also marks perhaps the only festival that has ever thrown a Charlize Theron/Dolph Lundgren closing night party with the band The Polyphonic Spree to bring the house down (while playing covers such as Nirvana’s Lithium).
Now onto the full list of this years award winners...
Continue Reading "2008 AFI Dallas Awards Announced - Russian Fantasy Film Mermaid Takes Top Honors"...
Many of Enzo G. Castellari’s classic movies were made over thirty years ago and I’ve seen them over and over again, with each passing viewing feeling just as fresh and powerful. Mr. Castellari exploded the Italian crime film movement in the early 70’s with High Crime and knocked out a film cannon that is still dazzling and exciting audiences to this day. From Keoma to The Big Racket to Street Law and on, his movies keep enduring and gaining new fans. The power of great cinema is that it works regardless of the person, time or place. Like the best of Sam Peckinpah or Don Siegel (which were huge influences on him), he found a great cinematic voice for men overcoming huge obstacles and journeys through hell and back.
If the rising tide of popularity in 70’s crime cinema has gotten you to see many of these films, yet have never seen High Crime I whole heartedly suggest seeing this film as soon as possible. It’s the one that exploded it all. Seeing it would be like seeing every Spaghetti Western, but not seeing Fistful of Dollars and that just isn’t right. The jury is still out if and when Blue Underground will ever release it on DVD or Blu-ray.
Onto the Interview...
Continue Reading "A BRIEF INTERVIEW WITH A LEGEND OF CINEMA – ENZO G. CASTELLARI"...
As far as festivals go, it gets no better for Japanese film lovers than the annual Nippon Connection held each year in Frankfurt, Germany. It’s a 5 day festival of Japanese cinema that offers an incredibly immersive cultural experience - robot dancing, sushi bar, karaoke lounge, sake lounge, filmmaker panel discussions, lectures from renowned Japanese cinema scholars around the world and just a whole rich set of activities outside of just showing films. There are no red ropes or VIP areas. At Nippon Connection everyone gets to mingle with each other and the filmmakers themselves. It was one of my favorite film festivals and experiences attending one. Highly recommended!
For 2008, the dates are April 2-6, 2008. 150+ films will be screened including the German premiere of APPLESEED: EX MACHINA! New activities include a live performance of Japanese Shibari (Bondage)-Art and a return of all the other great activities that have set this great festival apart. Continue reading for the full press release or hit the link below for their website.
Nippon Connection Website
Continue Reading "Nippon Connection 2008 - APPLESEED: EX MACHINA & More Details Announced!"...
On October 26, 2001, Chante Jawan Mallard who was intoxicated behind the wheel of her car hit a homeless man, Gregory Biggs. Instead of getting Mr. Biggs help, she panicked and drove home with him stuck in her windshield. Two days pass and Mr. Biggs has still been left in her garage, still stuck in her car. Miss Mallard then seeks the help of male friend, Clete Jackson, who disposes of Mr. Biggs at a park. Four months pass with the coast clear for Miss Mallard. At this point for reasons unknown, she mentions this episode at a party to Maranda Daniel. Not only does she tell Maranada about the episode she also says she plans to destroy the car and make an insurance claim. Maranda immediately tells the Fort Worth Police, who put together enough evidence and testimony that results in Miss Mallard being busted for 50 years in prison for killing Gregory Biggs.
The case drew national headlines, not only because of the audacity of Miss Mallard to leave a dying man she hit stuck in her windshield, but also because of the fact she was a nurses aide at a retirement home. Perhaps she wanted to be promoted or pretend it didn’t happen. Regardless, it was a modern day horror story come to life, that shook the Dallas/Fort Worth area.
The tale of Mr. Biggs, however, does not end there. Veteran filmmaker Stuart Gordon and screenwriter John Strysik have brought his tale to the big screen with the 2007 film, Stuck. Gordon and Strysik flesh out the characters and their motivations in a very stark world where individuals are clawing their way to stay afloat with their careers.
AFTER THE LINK BUMP, AN INTERVIEW WITH STUART GORDON, MENA SUVARI AND JOHN STRYSIK ON STUCK
Continue Reading "STUCK—Interview With Stuart Gordon, Mena Suvari and John Strysik"...
Films with a hero searching for a treasure have always fascinated me. The first film of this kind I remember seeing at the movie theater was Raiders of the Lost Ark. I was instantly hooked from then on! In the past few years there really hasn’t been that many treasure hunting films. With the new National Treasure film now out and the films Once Upon a Time and Indy 4 on the horizon, things certainly look to be on the upswing for treasure hunting films.
Many treasure hunting films are constructed with a cat and mouse thriller structure to keep the tension and excitement running throughout the film. They typically always feature two competing groups, one good and one bad that are both vying for a secret long lost treasure. As the film progresses the stakes continue to get higher and higher between the two. The obstacles also get greater and the puzzle pieces become increasingly tougher and tougher to unravel. Will either group reach the end alive? Can either group even ultimately find the treasure? Treasure-hunting films have fun casting doubts on both throughout through the many twists and turns it offers up.
Continue Reading "National Treasure: Book of Secrets - Review"...
