There aren’t too many Uruguayan films featured on Twitch, but Whisky is not a conventional South American picture anyway; instead it embodies the style that Taxi Driver writer Paul Schrader termed Transcendental. This is where a sparse aesthetic and a mundane narrative builds tension that finally gives way to life-affirming decisive action and miraculous change. The style, which Schrader believes escapes cultural locality, has been found in the films of Bresson, Dreyer and Tarkovsky and, much to the delight no-doubt of Twitch’s preponderance of Asian cinema aficionados, Yasujiro Ozu. Unlike these men, however, Whisky directors Juan Pablo Rebella and Pablo Stoll also employ scant visual techniques in a bid to make us laugh. Whisky may well be the very first Transcendental comedy!
Continue Reading "Review of Whisky"...
Happy New Year!
It’s Adam here, Todd’s partner in grime on the upcoming After Dark Film Festival. I know there’s nothing more arbitrary then these 2005 Top Ten lists, but as it is the season for it, and people often ask me what kinds of films we’ll see at After Dark, here’s a selection of my personal favourites I saw on The Big Screen at film festivals or on release during my cinematic travels across North America in the past year:
In reverse Order (click on the titles for links to official websites):
10. MIND GAME (Japan, 2004)
Indescribably mad Japanese fantasy anime in the spirit of cult classic British mindtrip, The Yellow Submarine. After a shootout at a diner, a young manga artist goes on the run from a bunch of gunmen, and winds up holed up in a whale, with a bunch of other weirdos. And that’s when the fun really starts! Track down this award-winning eye-popper, blending old-school animation with the latest styles including some rotoscoping thrown in for good measure. The soundtrack is awesome too. If you’re looking for animation that’s different you won’t be disappointed.
Continue Reading "Top 10 Sci-Fi, Horror & Fantasy Films of 2005 (Adam’s Picks)"...
Jean-Luc Godard has been quoted as saying: “Post-war filmmakers gave us the documentary, Rob Reiner gave us the mockumentary and [Michael] Moore initiated a third genre, the crockumentary.” Such a comment, originating from one of the cinema’s arch-leftists, is addressed to a satirist and humorist who is somehow woefully unfunny, unless he is being blown to pieces by Trey Parker. Rob Reiner’s seminal mockumentary, This is Spinal Tap, manipulated the convention of the cinematic essay to remove the pomp and pretension beheld by musicians, in a bid to reclaim the life-affirming qualities of music; it did not do this by hectoring or grandstanding a la Moore, but by making us laugh. The film I wish to focus upon in this review, Babylon’s Fever, created in 2002 and directed by Raphael Frydman, shares these aspirations. This documentary would appear to be so unknown, it is yet to be listed even on the IMDB, and this is why I have longed to bring it to your attention! The subject is the 2001 concert tour of the Parisian singer-songwriter Manu Chajavascript:void(0);
Collapse Extended Texto and his latino-ska ensemble Radio Bemba.
Continue Reading "Review of the Manu Chao and Radio Bemba rockumentary “Babylon’s Fever”"...
Fernando Meirelles follow up to City of God sounds a bit remiscent of Stephen Frear’s fabulous “Dirty Pretty Things”. Check out the trailer. It doesn’t look like this film will be in the rarefied space that City of God resides, but it is always nice to see Pete Postlethwaite and Bill Nighy in solid supporting roles.
Here is the first official poster. Click here for a bigger version. It’s worth it.
You may be wondering why anyone on Twitch would post news about another Woody Allen film. The man has been cranking out derivative, uninteresting films for nearly a decade with the last bright spot being either 1999s Sweet and Lowdown or 1994s Bullets over Broadway.
But 2005 is set to be a good year for Woody. First, there were the raves coming out of Cannes for Match Point (starring Scarlett Johansson).
And now my interest is definately piqued with the cast of the new film he is about to shoot in London: Scarlett Johansson, Ian McShane, and joinging yesterday, Hugh Jackman. That is a highly interesting combination.
According to Allen: “Johansson plays a visiting American student who has a love affair with a British aristocrat. I play a low-grade American Entertainer, which is perfect for me because that’s what I am”
Shooting starts June 27th.
Via Variety (subscription).
The fine folks over at Pathe know how to make a fine trailer for a slightly-above-average horror pic:
QT High (10 Mb)
QT Med (4.7 Mb)
QT Low (1.6 Mb)
It’s a step above the original X-Filme trailer here.
Attention all Franka Potente fans: She is excellent as a “Scream Goddess” in this film.
Continue Reading "Creep - International Trailer + Review"...
The One-Sheet (and very little else) has appeared on the Mirovision Website for Byung-Ki Ahn’s new horror film, APT.
Here is a short synopsis:
“Somebody was with me in the darkness...”
A young man, who lives in an old apartment suburban of Seoul, finds himself amused observing opposite side apartments. One day, he finds out that the lights of some houses on the opposite apartments kept being turned off at the very same time. He concluded that this weird happening is somehow related to those mysterious serial deaths. He begins to act to figure out the mystery and becomes.
Any fans of Ahn’s previous film, Phone, out there? I’ve seen it on the video shelf, but it looked (and sounded) too much like a Ringu knock-off to rent.
Fangoria via Bloody Disgusting
Who can announce more projects without follow through, Quentin Tarantino or John Woo? While working with Eddie Murphy on the pre-production and script-writing of Inglorious Bastards, the two have been considering the idea of a Tarantino Beverly Hills Cop Movie, which Murphy passed along to Joblo.com.
Quentin: Please, just shoot something. Oh, and get the Weinstein’s to finally put out the DVD of Kill Bill: The Whole Bloody Affair or release it theatrically, or something.
Lions Gate didn’t pick up the second part in Lars Von Trier’s “USA - Land of Opportunities” trilogy as it did for Dogville. Instead, IFC stepped up and got the US distribution rights for Manderlay. IFCTV indicates only that Manderlay will be on IFCs 2005 theatrical release schedule. Hopefully this means sooner than later.
For the past several years, the only way to obtain a Region 1 DVD of David Lynch’s surreal classic was through his own website, www.davidlynch.com. It is now available through a wholesaler (at distinctly un-wholesaler prices, meaning mucho $$$) for retailers to stock either the standalone DVD or box-set containg a selected collection of Lynch’s short films. Expect to shell out at least US$40 ($80 for the box) for this one if you spot it at the local DVD store.
DavisDVD via Bloody Disgusting.
Well, it’s a Landlady kind of day. The new issue of Firecracker Magazine is now online, with Qiu Yuen on the cover page. As usual, it is packed with goodness:
A summary of Asian films at Cannes
A Feature on Jackie Chan and a review of the Project A Boxset
Paul Spurrier’s “P” and other Thai Ghost stories
Lots of Kung Fu Hustle
Tae Guk Gi
Addicted
Acacia
Eros
The Quiet Family
and
Lee Mu-yeong’s Humanist and Bizarre Love Triangle
Go there Now.
Stephen Chow will be directing some of his Kung-Fu Hustle cast members in what is billed as a TV Comic Drama. Returning are The Landlady (Qiu Yuen), as well as mute Ice-Cream Girl (Huang Shengyi), who may talk in this. Also appearing is Shaolin Soccer’s Golden Leg Fung (Ng Man Tat).
Will this ever appear on DVD? We’ll keep you posted (for now shooting is underway).
Chow is not set to appear in front of the camera, but more Landlady with Chow directing can only be a good thing.
CRIOnline via Kaiju Shakedown.
Have you ever said to yourself, “I wish there was one place on the web were I could find downloadable trailers, clips, and film shorts from just about everthing David Lynch has been associated with?” Well today your wish has been granted. Click Here.
(Via Greencine Daily.)
And as reported earlier, don’t forget to get Mr. Lynch’s daily L.A. weather report (although there is an amusingly amateurish scroll on the site at the moment of this post).
BTW, the DVD of the his extended version of Dune has been added to our release calender. After the release was pushed back from May 10th, it should now be available June 7th.
Screendaily is reporting that production is about to start on a new Tom Tykwer film. Being a huge fan of Run Lola Run, The Princess and the Warrior, and the underrated Heaven, the sooner this European co-production gets going the better. Perfume has had a bit of a troubled production history. It seems that at one point, Ridley Scott was attached to direct, then Julian Schnabel took a crack at it, and tried to get Johnny Depp.
This time around Tykwer has gone a bit hollywood in his casting, with Dustin Hoffman in the lead role. The villian in the piece is the always fantastic Alan Rickman. No Sign of Ms. Potente anywere in this production, which is a shame. Shooting is set to start July 12th in Spain, France and Germany.
Here is Penguin Publishing‘s blurb on the novel:
“Perfume takes place in eighteenth-century France and is about a man, Jean-Baptiste Grenouille, who had no scent of his own but had been gifted with the most extraordinary sense of smell.
Jean-Baptiste Grenouille was born in 1738 in Paris, in the most horrid conditions, and was abandoned by his mother. Brought up by a succession of wet nurses, he started working for a tanner who, when Grenouille was thirteen, allowed him to go out and wander around the streets of Paris for one hour every day. It was then that Grenouille started his quest for the perfect smell and, with it, began his reign of terror.
Perfume is a bizarre, hypnotic and absolutely brilliant tale of horror. The depictions of the decadence of 18th century France are so vivid, you can almost smell the reek of the age and Grenouille is a mesmerising character, whose gift from God also proves to be his greatest weapon against good. ”
