[Though the Udine Far East Film Festival continues for a couple more days today will be my final day here and so I am taking the opportunity to pull earlier reviews for films I will be missing up from the archive to give a taste of what’s going on. Up first, Johnnie To and Wai Ka Fai’s Mad Detective.]

And the hot streak continues for Johnnie To. While the latest from the prolific action auteur lacks the blistering intensity of the Election films and the extreme high style of Exiled it reunites him with a pair of favored collaborators - screenwriter and co-director Wai Ka Fai and star Lau Ching Wan - and the result is an entertaining, surprising piece of work anchored by a powerhouse performance from Lau.

Continue Reading "Udine Report:  MAD DETECTIVE Review"...

No plans tomorrow night? May we strongly suggest that even if you do you cancel those plans right away, make up a strange and rare disease if you have to, and get your butt down to the Bloor Cinema tomorrow night for the Rue Morgue Cinemacabre screening of Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury’s incredible French horror film Inside. No excuses. See the movie that was too bloody and violent for a theatrical release.

Go to this Cinemacabre link for more details.

We here at Twitch have been unanimously supportive of Inside since many of us have seen it at numerous festival screenings in 2007. My only wish was that everyone would get to see this tour de force in the cinema instead of their homes. Mind you, after you see this film you may want to run right outside, do a quick spin around the house and make sure no one is trying to break in.

The uncut release will be presented in anamorphic widescreen, along with a French Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround track. English subtitles will also be provided, along with an English 5.1 dub. The only extra material will be a making of featurette which gets a ‘boo-urns’ from me since the guys who directed Inside were fun to talk to and have a lot to say. Myself, I’m mixed about the cover. It gets the point across, sure, and I guess when you have a brand like Dimension Extreme it makes sense on their end to make ALL their covers look the same, so that the uninitiated buyer can identify a product line instead of an individual property and it’s own merits. Can’t say I am a fan of the tag ‘UNRATED’ either. Ooh, that means it is extra, extra special.

Sleep with the lights on; Inside is coming on April 15th! 

As Dave Hudson has prefaced to my Greencine interview with Stefan Ruzowitzky, the director/screenwriter of The Counterfeiters (nominated for an Academy Award in the Best Foreign Language Film category), the film is based on true events: “the Nazis planned to destabilize the American and British economies by flooding the markets with fake dollars and pounds.  And they enlisted prisoners in concentration camps to counterfeit the bills.  This presents a dark dilemma to the prisoners: cooperate and survive—or sabotage the project and possibly pay with their lives.”

I first reviewed this Mephistophelian dilemma at the Toronto International, skeptical that audiences would digest this bitter fare; but, I’ve been proven wrong.  Dave Hudson has gathered the most recent reviews upon the film’s theatrical release, most of which are thoughtfully argued.

Cross-published on The Evening Class.

Stuck is a thrillingly outrageous howler.  Its IndieFest audience was yelling at the screen even as they were laughing and shouting, “Bravo!” This under-the-radar thriller came highly recommended by David D’Arcy when we swapped tips at the Toronto International.  D’Arcy wrote it up for The Greencine Daily as “a dark tale of an accident gone awry—if that’s not a conceptual oxymoron.” Twitch teammate Andrew Mack likewise praised how director, Stuart Gordon, took a “horrible story of inhumanity” and “turned it into an excruciatingly funny and dark film that surprises as much as it shocks.” Mack concluded: “Car crashes should never be this entertaining but thank god this one was.”

Blake Etheridge prefaced his Twitch interview with Gordon, scriptwriter John Strysik, and actress Mena Suvari with a detailed synopsis of the real-life atrocity on which Strysik based the film’s script.

Continue Reading "INDIEFEST08—REVIEW of STUCK"...

As Dave Hudson has prefaced at The Greencine Daily: “Tony Gilroy had been writing screenplays and watching directors turn them into movies for about a decade when he wrote Michael Clayton.  For six years, the project simply would not get up off the ground.  Then along came Jason Bourne.  With the help of, among others, George Clooney, Sydney Pollack and Steven Soderbergh, he was finally able to get Michael Clayton made—and direct it himself.

“The film was well-received when it premiered at the Venice Film Festival and lauded in Toronto.  But when it hit theaters ... well, you may have missed it.  Now’s your chance.  It’s out on DVD this week, just in time for the Oscars.  It’s been nominated for seven of those, including Best Picture.  And Gilroy’s been nominated for Best Director and Best Screenplay.”

My interview with Tony Gilroy is up at Greencine’s main site.

Cross-published on The Evening Class.

Ex-Drummer, a film about three disabled guys who ask a celebrity to join their rock band, and one of Todd’s favorite films from last year, is getting a subtitled DVD release from Tartan UK on February 25.  I haven’t seen the film myself but I’m sure we can all take Todd’s word for it that it’s one to watch! So If you want to catch this film, check out the links below.

Three drug-addled punk rock misfits are looking for a drummer. They approach Dries, a well known writer. His problem is that he can’t play the drums, which appeals to the band’s punk sensibility. Fascinated by these dysfunctional characters, Dries joins the group, but his arrival awakens the personal disputes and the family feuds latent in the band. A shocking, hardcore, blood-splattered depiction of small time rock musicians losing the plot rather than living the dream.

Just wanted to point to towards the trailer for Baltasar Kormakur’s new feature film White Night Wedding which will be released on the 17th of this month. The story, a comedy drama, revolves around a man having some second thought about marrying a girl half his age almost a year after his former wife committed suicide.
The film is the results of a workshop that Baltasar and his group of actors who used the Anton Chekhov’s stage play Ivanov as a base, although the films characters or situations are not connected to the play, which they are currently showing on stage here in Reykjavik. The film was incredibly fast in production, with them beginning on the screenplay late January 2007, shot last summer and now premiered not a year later after the writing began. That’s pretty damn fast.
The trailer is unfortunately not subtitled but click anyway.

Now for something completely different.
Jar City was well liked in these parts, so much so that Todd got his name plastered on the front of the Icelandic DVD release, and the film has become Iceland’s most popular movie ever made. Now it has the honor of being the first Icelandic film that has sold its remake rights to a company abroad.
Overture films, the people behind Anchor Bay and Starz Entertainment, have bought the remake rights from Baltasar and Co but when speaking to reporters Baltasar was quick to point out that even though he sold the rights that it is no guarantee that it will ever be made. Hollywood is a fickle beast.
Rumors have also been flying that Baltasar had met with Brit director Kenneth Branagh who had expressed interest in remaking Jar City but had just missed the opportunity. Shame. But there are other books of Jar City’s author Arnaldur Indriðason that that he could tackle I guess.
Regardless it will be interesting to see if anything comes from this.

Put together by the Toronto International Film Festival Group (TIFFG) Canada’s Top 10 was established a few years back as a way to issue press release that yea, Canada has a film industry outside of granting Hollywood studios tax breaks to film in Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary and Montreal.  This year almost the complete series of films were on display at TIFF and we managed to catch most of the shorts and features even.  While I would nominate Guy Maddin’s fabulously vitriolic, absurdist, surreal and downright hilarious My Winnipeg to just barely edge out David Cronenberg’s Eastern Promises, your mileage may vary.  Bruce McDonanld’s experimental split-screen Into The Night-type film, The Tracey Fragments, that stars future A-list actress Ellen Page is deserving of your love, especially because it only got the most limited release possible - a few rep cinemas in large Canadian cities (this is however, more than many of the films on the list though).  Also, a huge shout out to Madame Tutli-Putli on the short films list, which is a must see for lovers of existential surrealism and stop motion animation and a film we’ve pumped and stumped for a lot around here. Certainly, the two directors (Chris Lavis and Maciek Szczerbowski) responsible for this gorgeous 17 minute short film (Available for purchase from the National Film Board if you have a Canadian shipping address). With a single film, they have joined the ranks with Jan Svankmajer, Henry Selick and The Brothers Quay in terms of groundbreaking stop-motion work.

Like good little non-confrontational Canucks, the moderators of this list chose not to number or prioritize the films.  The unordered Top 10 lists of both Features and Short Films are after the jump.

Continue Reading "It’s List Time Again - Canada’s Top 10 for 2007"...

A quick heads-up:
Our affiliate is prepping the Hong Kong R3 DVD of “Lust, Caution” for pre-order with a release date set on the 15th of December.

Ang Lee’s newest movie has been doing the rounds on the festival circuit, and gotten very differing reviews. Some trash it, some call it a masterpiece.
Many were shocked by seeing more of Tony Leung than ever before.

Movies with such a mixed reception can’t help but make me curious, and Ang Lee is always interesting even if he fails.
Count me in on this one!

Note: all Chinese DVD versions may be featuring the censored version, so be cautious.

I thoroughly enjoyed Lars and The Real Girl when I caught it at Toronto and wrote it up at that time for Twitch.  Since then, Dave Hudson has gathered up the critical fanfare at the Greencine Daily with his usual skill.  Onto that consummate list, I add Pam Grady’s interview with Ryan Gosling for the San Francisco Chronicle, wherein I discovered that Ryan was a Mousketeer and that—as I suggested—he too was thinking of Jimmy Stewart’s Harvey while performing Lars.

For those who might need prodding, attached are seven Quicktime clips generously provided Twitch by Sidney Kimmel Entertainment to help you make up your mind, entitled variously “A Visitor”; “Bianca Montage”; “Can We Help”; “Church Meeting”; “Lars and Margo Bowl”; “Leaves Church”; and “You Were A Man.”

Cross-published on The Evening Class. Photo courtesy of Jason Gemnich/WireImage for TIFFG.

This could lead to wonderful things for us here in North America. While [●REC] was not part of the official lineup at TIFF this year I did hear word that the filmmakers/producers of this Spanish horror were screening it independently in their hotel lobbies or conference rooms, or something like that. Apparently that happens a lot on the sales side of film festivals. Of course the goal of such screenings is that the right people come to watch and deals are made and hands are shaken firmly. And since Europeans tend to be on the ball with these types of things I am sure that someone on our side of the pond will pay close attention to this announcement and get cracking on securing those North Americans rights for us.

Odeon Sky Filmworks has picked up U.K. distribution rights of Jaume Balaguero and Paco Plaza’s Spanish horror REC. The deal was apparently done during the Toronto Int Film Festival. REC is the story of a TV reporter and her cameraman who are taping a reality series when things go VERY wrong.

“‘REC’ is one of the scariest films I’ve seen and we are thrilled to have secured the U.K. theatrical rights to this excellent horror movie,” Sky Filmworks chief Tony Miller said in a statement. So with that fantastic news, you can expect a U.K Cinema release in the not too distant future.

And to follow that up with a North American release would be neat. Or, we can just buy the R2 U.K. release when it comes out on DVD. We’re cool with it either way. 

Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury‘s À l’intérieur (INSIDE) was acquired by the Brothers W just after Cannes in May.  It screened at this years Midnight Madness Programme this year to the joy of all the Twitch folk which gave it unanimous praise.  After coming down off the high (or up from the low, you don’t feel like fist pumping after this film!) immediate thoughts were how the heck will this thing ever get distributed? It is way out there in NC-17 territory in terms of body-violence.  I even asked the directors when they were getting their 10000 screen wide-release for their ‘family film’ during the Q&A in Toronto.  Their answer was that The Weinstein Company were giving the film a direct to DVD release.  OK, now the film has the dubious branding of Direct to Video, but no matter, it’s such a good little nasty, that a little hype here and there in the right circles and this should find its way into the hands of both gore-hounds and Hitchcock fans alike.  But nay, the inside word (heh.) is that there is to be no advertising or release hype at all.  This is sad.  I hate to plug for a company that leaves so many films to wither on the vine.  But you really should see this.

Also, our man Blake, who is in Sitges at the moment doing hookers and blow with Michael Rooker, Matthew Vaughn and Alex Proyas passed along confirmation that Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury are certainly involved with the Hellraiser remake on the go right now. 

Controversy just seems to follow the man wherever he goes. Even when he is not going out of his way to use controversial imagery to solicit emotive responses to his films and their themes, one of Miike’s latest films, Sukiayaki Western Django, better yet, the first wave of promotional material for the film, raised storms of protest from the Association of Shinto Shrines - the head organization for the 80,000 Shinto shrines in Japan, who claimed that the scene was a violation of a sacred symbol.

The imagery, seen and highlighted in the picture left, comes from a scene early in the film, when a town mayor is hanged from a huge Torii Mon (Shinto shrine gate) by an invading gang, adding further insult to the gates purpose as a point of sanctification and cleansing. Is response to the protests Sony quietly removed all references to the offending scene from the trailer, as well as posters and fliers; replacing them with a character montage poster [logboy’s post here]. Of course, nothing can be kept quiet forever and we’re only hearing about this now after a report was printed in the Asahi Shimbun newspaper on Saturday.

Speaking to the Asahi, a rep from the Shrine org[anization] said, “Freedom of expression is important, but it’s also necessary to consider how people affected (by the scene) feel about it.”

Sony reps reportedly apologized to the org[anization] and subsequently removed the offending scenes from all PR material, though it remains in the pic[ture].  “When people interested in the film see it in its entirety, they will realize that it does not insult Shintoism,” a Sony PR rep said.

My interview with blue-eyed contrarian and long take meister Béla Tarr is up at Greencine’s main page.

Photo courtesy of David Bordwell.