I suppose with Singaporean films like Royston Tan’s 15 and Kelvin Tong’s Eating Air, you’d probably know by now we’re not all that squeaky clean. Of course at this point in time I’m speculating that it’s Young and Dangerous-ish, but from the key poster art, stills and the likes, this is one upcoming Singapore movie on my radar that I can’t wait to watch when it makes its screening here in the later half of this year.
Here’s the synopsis:
Based on a true story – “THE DAYS” tells a cautionary tale between two brothers, set between 1989 and 1990. In a misguided effort to teach BABY (IVAN LIM) independence, and to make him feel protected, ZI LONG (JUSTIN CHAN) brings him into his own gang of delinquents. Unknowingly, his decision has thrown them both into a tumultuous and violent world that will, in different ways, imprison them both.
The Days will be at this year’s Marché du Film, Festival de Cannes, so to lucky folks heading there, let us know what you think. The rest of us mortals can hit those links below to learn more about the film!
A trailer for God’s Puzzle, the latest from Japanese maverick Takashi Miike, first appeared online back in April but at the time it was available only in a horrible, postage stamp sized format and I’ve been anxiously awaiting a decent version of the trailer ever since. Well, it has arrived, with a full trailer and a teaser now available in a size you don’t need a magnifying glass to appreciate. The film - the story of a college age slacker thrust into a relationship with an attractive but withdrawn genius - looks to be by far the most mainstream friendly thing Miike has done in years, possibly his most mainstream film ever, but hey ... it’s Miike and that makes it worth at least taking a peek at. You’ll find both trailers in the Twitch Player below the break, but be aware that you’ll need to wait through a brief interview with the man himself before the main trailer begins. And, for the record, every trailer for every Miike film made from here on out needs to start with that opening graphic ... brilliant ...
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Director Ryuichi Hiroki - of Vibrator fame - has become a big favorite here at Twitch, the former pinku director making a name for himself with a string of rawly poetic dramatic works. Hiroki draws a lot of attention for sexual sub plots in most of his work but the real power comes from the emotional vulnerability he draws out of his performers, a trait in full effect with his latest film, Your Friends, which leaves the sex issues behind but is otherwise one hundred percent vintage Hiroki. I had the chance to catch this one at the Udine Far East Film Festival and now the trailer has arrived for all to enjoy. You’ll find it below the break in the Twitch Player.
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Though he’s best known on these shores for his cult genre films such as Gagamboy, Exodus and Pa-Siyam, Filipino director Erik Matti’s range actually spreads a good bit farther than that. Matti has a handful of solid dramatic pictures to his credit as well - I recommend tracking down his raw drama Prosti if you have the chance - and is latest looks to return to that world. Matti’s latest is titled Arrival, the story of a mid level office worker it looks to be one solid, quirky piece of work. But don;t take my word for it, we’ve got an eight+ minute demo reel from the film to check out in the Twitch Player below the break.
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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.
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Ask those in the know about current Filipino film and they’ll tell you that director Quark Henares is one of the up and comers of the independent scene. Henares has dabbled in mainstream film but his heart belongs with independent work, which is where he does his strongest stuff. His current project is titled Rakenrol, a rock and roll inspired comedy-drama that looks to borrow more from Kevin Smith than from anything currently happening in the Philippines. We’ve just gotten an early look at the first trailer for the film - English subtitles included - which you’ll find in the Twitch Player below the break.
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The characters of debuting writer/director Thomas Callaway’s rustic noir Broke Sky exist in a world perched somewhere between everyday reality and a slightly heightened, off-kilter pastiche of rural Americana. They booze it up at the local saloon, obsess over talent pageants, and dream of movin’ on up from a single- to a double-wide trailer; they also find themselves caught up in murder and near-operatic levels of personal disaster. Against the odds Callaway’s script (co-written with four other writers) melds its incongruent elements into a subversive, satisfying whole. Broke Sky assembles a unique world through cleverly deconstructing overworked genres, resulting in an original and highly rewarding low-key thriller.
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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.
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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.
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We first wrote about Sanjay Leela Bansali’s Saawariya all the way back in August and with the film about to hit DVD worldwide - the North American release strikes tomorrow - we’ve got three copies of the American release from Sony to give away to you, the Twitch faithful. The film is an adaptation of a Dostoevsky short story and in Bansali’s hands it becomes a lush, sumptuously designed thing. I have yet to watch my own copy of the film but the trailer for this - which you can find below the break in the Twitch Player - is flat out gorgeous, eye candy of the highest order. Very nice.
Want one of these to call your own? Simple enough. You have until May 15th to . Saawariya doesn’t count. The three people who send the most words get the DVD.
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Besides stuff from Hollywood, Bollywood too have its own share of highly anticipated blockbusters, and from some of the trailers shown, I’m hyped to watch them too. Tashan was billed as one of THE most highly anticipated for 2008, but I was quite surprised at the lower than low turnout at the cinemas. When I watched Jodha Akbar, it was a full house, but it wasn’t so for Tashan, and I was a little worried.
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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 >
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Good news for fans of incredible animation. Mamoru Hosoda’s excellent animated feature film The Girl Who Leapt Through Time will have limited theatrical runs in New York, Los Angeles and Seattle. We here at Twitch flat out love this film and would implore anyone who lives in the cities to jump at the opportunity to see this wonderful film on the big screen, even if you have the import DVD at home and you have watched it over and over again as any of us have. Such a good movie!
The movie will screen at The ImaginAsian theaters in Los Angeles and New York from June 13 to 19, then at Landmark Theatres’ Varsity Theatre in Seattle from August 29 to September 4. The film will be subbed for Los Angeles and Seattle, while New York will have the dubbed version.
What’s going on in New York? Dubbed version? This implies two things. One, that New Yorkers are illiterate or two, they’re lazy. What a shame they cannot see it in its original language.
The report suggests that Bandai Entertainment, one of the company’s responsible for these screenings, also has plans to release the movie on DVD.
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.
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Anchored by a pair of strong performances from Minnie Driver and Jeremy Renner, Charles Oliver’s Take succeeds in spite of an unnecessarily convoluted framing device that jumps between multiple fields of time as its characters’ lives careen toward one another leading up to and following a tragic turn of happenstance. One can’t help but think Oliver’s choice in splicing space-time had something to do with undercutting the picture’s increasingly grim tone as it builds toward its climax, the state-sanctioned execution of Renner’s small-time thug for his involvement in the death of Driver’s young son.
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