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"...

“You never forget the man who killed you the first time ...”

We’ve been tracking the progress of Andrew Goth’s Gallowwalker in one form or another here for longer than I care to admit and after a long, long wait it’s finally done and the first trailer has arrived.  Wesley Snipes stars as a steely eyed old west gunslinger with a cursed weapon - anyone he guns down comes back from the dead.  And they’re not so happy about it.  Goth is putting an interesting spin on both the western and the zombie film here and while Snipes is less than expressive in the trailer the thing is loaded with impressive make up and effects shots.  Guilty pleasure?  You betcha.

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!"...

We first wrote about upcoming Swiss horror-western Dead Bones back in February and director Olivier Beguin just dropped a note to point out a stack of behind the scenes photos and videos from the recent shoot.  The verdict?  I thought this thing had a lot of potential based on the pre-production concept art and these behind the scenes images confirm it.  Beguin’s got something going on here.  The extended short film is being shot on location in Spain, using the old standing sets created for the classic Spaghetti Westerns of yore and it looks as though they’re being put to great use. 

My thanks to regular reader Vlad for pointing out the trailer for upcoming Russian action-adventure film Mirage.  It’s a curious mash up of a film and, honestly, some parts of the mix look to work much better than others but the good stuff looks quite good indeed.  What you’ve got is a) a fish out of water story with a group of college age kids stranded in the wilderness, b) an action adventure loaded with guns and a gloriously cartoonish lead villain, and c) a full on spaghetti western.

Part A there is the bit that doesn’t work for me at all, the framing story just seems awkward and clumsy and kind of irritating, really.  Part B gets the attention, however, and Part C looks fantastic.  Which means that if this bears out then Mirage has the exact same problem that plagues Alex De La Iglesia’s 800 Bullets - great when it goes for the old west, crappy when it tries for real world.  It does raise the question, though:  has Russia ever attempted a full on western?  Because if these guys made one I’d be right at the front of the line.

You’ll find the trailer in the Twitch Player below the break.

Continue Reading "Russia GoesWest (Sort Of) With MIRAGE"...

Dear God,

Mack

The first teaser trailer for Onechanbara arrived this week. The word ‘teaser’ is pretty much an understatement here. You get what I presume is a bit of footage from the video game then some shots of the heroine doing who knows what and who really cares. You’ll find the teaser in the Twitch Player below the break.

Continue Reading "Bikini Samurai Girls Versus Zombies!  ONECHANBARA Teaser Arrives!"...

I haven’t even seen Doomsday yet and already I am looking forward to director Neil Marshall’s next pic. The lads over at BloodyDisgusting tapped into an article from Variety where Marshall talks about his next project Sacrilege, greenlit by Rogue Studios. Giddy-up cause Marshall’s going back to the Old West and he wants it to be horrific! 

“It is set during the Gold Rush, a time remembered for incidents like the Donner Party… It is meant to be a pitch-black, gritty, period horror movie… This is ‘Unforgiven’ by way of H.P. Lovecraft, with that grim, gritty setting and a horror element nobody has seen before,” Marshall said.

The western horror is an untapped genre so there is no fear of it being over done and tired. The possibilities are virtually endless right now. This is a fresh field ripe for the tilling. Take a moment to glance at an account of this so-called Donner Party incident as well and this gives you an idea where Marshall’s head may be at as he approaches the script. Tastes like chicken!

About time! Corbucci’s Navajo Joe, which so far has never been available on DVD outside Japan, is finally getting an English-friendly DVD release courtesy of MGM. Release date is set May 13, no details yet on any possible bonus features - but it’s MGM, and so we should be lucky that they’ve gone through the trouble of releasing this at all. Previously, Navajo Joe was part of a bunch of spaghetti western gems rotting away in the license clutches of MGM, apparently deemed too unprofitable to be worth a DVD release. But, while Navajo Joe is a decent film, the most prominent victim of MGM’s shelving practice has always been Il Mercenario. Which means: BUY this disc when it comes out! And there might finally be a decent chance to see Corbucci’s true masterpiece on DVD as well. 

Ah yes. Takashi Miike’s Sukiyaki Western Django was a big hit with the Twitch gang at TIFF and IGN got themselves a hold of some very nice U.S. character posters for the upcoming, and likely very small, theatrical release. The characters posters look damn fine and thankfully there are no town mayors hanging from Torii Mon (Shinto shrine gate) to offend local Shintoists.

You can always order the R2 discs and enjoy the full cut of the film.

Thanks 24FPS

There seems to be a bit of a boom in horror-westerns lately and I say this is a good thing indeed, the two genres merging together beautifully when handled correctly.  The latest such effort to keep an eye on is the about-to-shoot Dead Bones, a fifteen minute short from Swiss director Olivier Beguin.  The film stars Arie Verveen from Sin City and The Thin Red Line and is being shot on location in the old Spanish standing sets created for countless old western classics, so you know it’s going to get the look and feel dead on.  How’s the horror element going to fit in?  Well, just head over to the official site where you can find some stunning concept art and you can tell this is one to look forward to ...

Its no big secret around here at Twitch that we are huge supporter of genre films, whether its sci-fi, fantasy or horror and so by extension, its pretty cool to see the Saturn Awards giving these genre its due.  Since it was founded in 1972, the non-profit organization has been devoted to ”honoring, recognizing and promoting genre entertainment”.  Today, the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films has announced the nominations for the 34th installment.  300 leads out with 10 nods while Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix takes second most nods with 9.  What come as no surprise, Guillermo del Toro will receive the well-deserved George Pal Memorial Award in recognition of his imaginative works as a director within the fantasy/horror genre. You’ll find the complete list of the nominations below after the break or you can check it at the official site. 

The winners will be announced on June 24th.

Continue Reading "34th SATURN AWARDS Nominations Announced"...

It’s over schedule and so badly over budget that it’s had to move to a larger production company to get the funds needed for completion but Kim Ji-Woon’s upcoming Korean western remains very high on our list of anticipated titles around here.  Why?  As a director Kim - at the controls of A Bittersweet Life, A Tale of Two Sisters and The Foul King - seems simply incapable of making a bad film and when you give someone with his immense visual talents a stellar cast that includes Song Kang-Ho, Lee Byung-Hun and Jung Woo-Sung and it seems like pure gold.  Plus, it’s a full on period western.  Made by Koreans.

The first footage from the film arrived online a while back thanks to a Korean news broadcast and now a more extensive reel of footage has arrived online via the same means.  Yeah.  Very, very cool.  You’ll find the new clips embedded in the Twitch Player below the break.

Continue Reading "Fresh Footage From Kim Ji-Woon’s Korean Western THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE WEIRD"...

A little over eight months ago we got our hands on the first set of images from Andrew Goth’s horror western GallowWalker. It has been a long time coming. But the fellas over at BloodyDisgusting have linked over to a dozen pages of production images taken on the set of the film. We finally get to see Wesley Snipes in costume as well.

When a man takes a life, you take his in return. That’s the way it’s always been. A gunman knows too well the ways of vengeance. Fast and furious, he has killed every man who has crossed him. But his gift with a gun comes with a curse. All those who die by his hand will return. Enter the world of GALLOWWALKER, where vengeance lives forever.

Head on over buckaroos!

Piotr Uklanski’s western Summer Love generated a certain amount of notoriety when it hit the festival circuit last year, in no small part due to Uklanski’s casting of Val Kilmer as a corpse.  Yep, not only is it the first ever Polish western but the director cast a major Hollywood star in it and then had him simply draped limp over the back of a horse for the entire film.  The good people at Cinema Epoch quietly acquired the film a little while back and begin rolling it out for limited theatrical engagements next week in Seattle in LA before moving along to Chicago and Portland later in the month with more dates planned.