No, it’s not a done deal yet but word is out from Nacho Vigalondo, director of the original Spanish version of Time Crimes, that iconic director David Cronenberg is in the running to direct the upcoming English language remake. This is not a done deal just yet - I honestly don’t even know how far into negotiations they are - but if this is the direction that the US producers are trying to take the project then I say hot damn, bring it on. A Cronenberg take on this material would, no doubt, be significantly different than Vigalondo’s source material but it should make for absolutely spectacular stuff ...
Well, it’s far more about the film makers thn the film but it’s the first motion on the Tokyo! front in quite some time which makes it a happy thing. Tokyo! is the upcoming three part anthology project from directors Bong Joon Ho, Leos Carax and Michel Gondry - each of whom tell an odd little story set in Japan’s capitol. The first teaser has arrived on the film’s official Japanese website and while it is built largely of behind the scenes footage of the projects’ three directors it’s at least something. I caught some scenes from Bong’s section of the film at the European Film Market and this thing cannot arrive fast enough ... You can find the teaser in the Twitch Player below the break.
Continue Reading "First Teaser Arrives For Gondry / Carax / Bong Anthology TOKYO!"...
As tempting as it is to label Michel Hazanavicius’ recent French spy comedy a parody of 1970’s globe hopping spy flicks – and, yes, I am absolutely thinking of a certain high profile Ian Fleming creation – doing so would somehow seem to lessen what OSS 117 really is. Parody these days means the endless parade of Scary Movie flicks or, in this particular realm, another stab at Austin Powers, films that poke fun at a genre from the outside looking in. What Hazanavicius has created, however, is something entirely different: OSS 117 is every inch a loving recreation of the films it is looking back on. Rather than make fun of a genre everyone involved here clearly loves – and loves dearly – they have instead brought a popular literary character, equal parts Connery era Bond and Sellers Pink Panther antics, to the screen in an astonishingly note perfect recreation of the films of the era. If not for the satiric edge laced throughout the film’s plot – a savage knock on western meddling in and ignorance of middle eastern affairs – this could easily be a lost treasure of the seventies.
Continue Reading "OSS 117: CAIRO NEST OF SPIES Review"...
Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, I proudly present to you one of the official Best Things Ever: outer space Nazis.
We have been anxiously awaiting the arrival of some footage from upcoming Finnish sci-fi comedy Iron Sky from the day we first caught wind of it seemingly ages ago. We’ve hosted the very first concept art from the film, had a few chats with the director and production team and just generally been sold on the concept from the word go. And here it is: in 1945, realizing that the war was taking a turn for the worst, the Nazis sent a collection of their best and brightest to establish a secret base on the moon where they would nurse themselves back to strength and develop their powerful military technology until the were ready to return. That day will arrive in 2018.
After months of work and fine tuning to get everything just right the teaser arrived on YouTube yesterday, which seems a shameful way to treat something as visually impressive as this. Apparently the director agrees as he’s just passed us a MUCH higher quality version of that same promo spot to load in to the Twitch Player. And, hot damn, the wait has been worth every second. This thing is spectacular, from the detailed CG work, to the spectacular production design, to that weirdly mournful title song - one that wouldn’t be out of place in a Bond film. Everything about this thing is absolutely perfect. You’ll find the teaser in the Twitch Player below the break.
Continue Reading "In 1945 The Nazis Went To The Moon … The IRON SKY Promo Arrives!"...
The modern historical epic – ushered in stylistically during the early ‘90s by the likes of Dances with Wolves and Braveheart - has long been one of film’s least malleable sub-genres. Whether the action strictly adheres to history or bends it at will (more often the case), certain beats and rhythms persist across films, around the globe. Even the idiosyncratic, frenzied mash-ups favored in South Korea can’t overcome the traditional, lock-step approach to large-scale storytelling (see Musa and The King and the Clown for serviceable examples). That in mind, it comes as little surprise that the Russian / German / Mongolian / Kazakhstani co-producition of Sergei Bodrov’s Mongol, an exciting and involving epic depicting the formative years of Genghis Khan, bears little cultural imprint beyond its narrative.
Continue Reading "IIFF 2008 - MONGOL review"...
There’s dark humor, and then there’s the obsidian comedy that pervades Aleksei Balabanov’s Cargo 200, a look at slices of Russia’s population as the country took its first awkward steps away from Communism toward Capitalism in the mid’ 80s. Filtered through the grim details surrounding a series of true-life murders and kidnappings committed by a local police captain and brimming with allegorical characters representing a spread of personalities and institutions, calling the film densely-layered would be gross understatement. A solid grasp of near-term Russian history isn’t required to appreciate what Cargo 200 (the clandestine code for dead Russian soldiers shipped home from Afghanistan) has to offer, but there’s little doubt a great deal more stands to be gained by viewers familiar with the country’s tumultuous turns in recent decades.
Continue Reading "IIFF 2008 - CARGO 200 review"...
[This one posted over the weekend and it’s far too good to let it slip through the cracks because of when it came in so I’m bumping it back to the top of the page for now.]
We have been big supporters of Finnish director AJ Annila in these pages, from his debut film - the wuxia oriented fantasy Jade Warrior - through to covering the development process of this, his sophomore effort. A hard-edged horror film following brothers fleeing their part in a horrific crime, everything that has been seen from the picture so far promises something special: beautiful, atmospheric and loaded with some truly disturbing imagery. And today we’ve got something special from the film: the world premiere of the full theatrical trailer. This will be appearing on the official website sometime in the next day or two but Twitch readers are being given a special advance look and it looks simply stunning.
A cruel horror film bathing in the Finnish sauna culture, in the no-zone between Christianity and paganism. A story of two brothers, who leave a young girl to die and become haunted by her, as she follows them in supernatural form, her face pouring with endless filth. The brothers escape with a commission marking the border between Russia and Finland to a Russian-Orthodox village. In there they find a sauna - The sauna where all sins are washed away. Seeking for forgiveness, the brothers step into the sauna…
Sauna is a horror film about sins, repentance and forgiveness. The story leads us into the core of darkness, where there is no forgiveness, no hope, no salvation.
You’ll find both the trailer and the original teaser in the Twitch Player below the break.
Continue Reading "An Exclusive First Look At The Full Trailer For AJ Annila’s Finnish Horror SAUNA!"...
Hurray for puppet films coming back in to style! They’re goofy! They’re fun! One just topped the box office chart in Chile! This one is Carsten og Gitte’s Filmballade and it first came to our attention because it comes from Denmark’s Copenhagen Bombay production outfit, a company overseen by Anders Morgenthaler whose animated anti-porn revenge film Princess we covered extensively around these parts.
This one is obviously much more kid friendly than Princess and features new shorts in a variety of styles by a handful of Danish animators, with Morgenthaler himself contributing one segment - Karla Nielsen, Rikke Hallund, Sabine Ravn, Mette Skov, and Esben Toft Jacobsen are the other contributors. It can’t be all doom and gloom and violence around here all the time, so check out the trailer in the Twitch Player below the break for chirpy happiness, bright colors and popcorn induced trauma.
Continue Reading "Beware The Flying Popcorn! CARSTEN AND GITTE Have A Trailer!"...
Fresh from the UK release of Joachim Trier’s debut film REPRISE, UK DVD label Diffusion Pictures are now releasing Lars von Trier’s The Boss Of It All on Region 2 DVD, for those without a Multi Region DVD player this is good news. The DVD is released June 23rd, see the links below for DVD pre order details.
For a low-budget Austrian movie which STILL hasn’t gotten a distribution deal in its home country, Peter Koller’s “Auf Bösem Boden” (On Evil Grounds) has had a remarkable amount of success. So far it has been an audience favorite at every single festival it played at, and it even managed to win some awards for itself.
Not bad for a… for a…
...damn, this one is rather hard to describe. Is “cleverly wicked” a genre?
“Auf Bösem Boden” tells the story of a young couple who stumble into a seemingly vacated factory, only to get caught by a brutal psychopath who imprisons them, then plans to have a long leisurely session of torture, rape and murder. But before you can yell “Hostel rip-off!” it has become apparent that you wouldn’t wish these victims on any psychopath, no matter how deranged…
Double-billing “Auf Bösem Boden” with “The Machine Girl”, the Amsterdam Fantastic Film Festival had made sure that there weren’t any faint-hearted people in the house during its one and only screening. Maybe this helped create the perfect mood for this picture, because the audience had an absolute blast with it!
Read on after the break.
Continue Reading "AFFF 2008: ON EVIL GROUNDS Review"...
The short subjects in the 2008 IIFF progam “Future Imperfect” touched on a little bit of everything, from the end of life on earth to the re-socialization of an alienated populace to a world teeming with folks literally infected by the omnipresent din of digital noise. Science fiction has always lent itself to short-form treatment, and the subject matter addressed in this year’s selections showcased the genre’s ability to offer pointed commentary amid the fantastic.
Continue Reading "IIFF 2008 - Future Imperfect - Science Fiction shorts review"...
Through the ongoing explosion of Russian genre film the one picture that stands out as my personal favorite is Philip Yankovsky’s The Sword Bearer - a sort of existential superhero love story laced with buckets of blood - and so I have been greatly anticipating his next feature from the day I first caught wind of it. Titled Rock Head (Каменная башка) is stars real life heavyweight boxer Nikolay Valuev as an amnesiac fighter trying to piece his live back together as he seeks revenge against those who have done him wrong. We’ve posted stills from the film in the past and linked to a television interview that featured a good amount of very impressive footage and while there is still no trailer for the picture a second television report has just appeared online with a new batch of footage included. Very tasty. You’ll find both TV reports in the Twitch Player below the break.
Continue Reading "Fresh Footage Of Heavyweight Boxer Nikolay Valuev in Philip Yankovsky’s ROCK HEAD."...
I recently came across one tasty new short from Russian director Egor Abramenko. Titled The Collector it’s an ominous little piece of work shot with a formal precision that reminds me of nobody so much as Korean auteur Park Chan-Wook in shooting style and camera work. Toronto audiences will get the chance to see this on the big screen sometime soon - details will come once I get the okay - but to give you a taste before then, Abramenko has just passed along a trailer for the piece. Very nice. You’ll find it below the break in the Twitch Player.
Continue Reading "A Trailer For Impressive Russian Short THE COLLECTOR"...
It’s been a long wait - and a bit of a turbulent one - but the first proper teaser for Mathieu Kassovitz’ big budget scifi action film Babylon AD has arrived and is looking good. No doubt about it, Kassovitz - probably still best known on these shores for playing the romantic lead in Amelie - can shoot some fine film and this thing is loaded with impressive imagery. Other than La Haine, however, his films also generally struggle with story and character elements so time will tell whether he’s pulled this one off though the teaser gives reason for optimism ...
The video file begins with a spoken introduction from Kassovitz before hitting the teaser itself and you’ll find it embedded below the break in the Twitch Player.
Continue Reading "The First Proper Teaser For Kassovitz’ BABYLON AD With Vin Diesel and Michelle Yeoh!"...
Heh ... after a series of early promotional concepts that won’t actually appear in the film, an extended scene and a leaked sales video hit online we finally have the first proper, theatrical teaser for the upcoming Jean Claude Van Damme, ripped from the headlines and his own life, action comedy JCVD. This bit revolves around the events that trigger the film’s climax: Van Damme is refused money at a bank, throws a fit, and is mistaken for a thief when an actual gang of robbers subsequently hold up the same bank and take the staff hostage. Very nice. You’ll find the teaser and all of the other videos below the break in the Twitch Player.
Continue Reading "When Van Damme Throws A Tantrum, He Really Throws A Tantrum."...
