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Gregg Araki's latest film is receiving lots of attention in art-houses around France. In what seems to be another controversial effort from the director of the now notorious DOOM GENERATION Araki has created a plot that to say the least sounds quite "interesting"- a teenage hustler and a young man create a friendship based on their obsession with alien abductions. See the official site and trailer here.

Regards,
Svet

Marin Karmitz's empire MK2 will release two Bresson sets as what appears to be a Pan-Euro release (multiple sub options). Street date is May 18.

Complete line-up

Un condamné à mort s'est échappé
Lancelot du Lac
Le Diable probablement
Le Procès de Jeanne d'Arc
L'Argent
Pickpocket

***
MK2 is easily France's best production house so this clearly will be the definitive Bresson set.

Regards,
Pro-B

From the day that Shinya Tsukamoto’s Tetsuo: The Iron Man hit these shores he has had a rock solid global reputation as a cinematographer and experimentalist, known for shooting bizarre, visceral sequences of images obsessed with the interaction of humanity and technology. His reputation on that front is well deserved as Tetsuo is a true masterpiece of experimental film making and it has been justly hailed as a masterpiece of cyberpunk art. What people miss with all the hype around Tetsuo, however, is Tsukamoto’s growing desire, and ability, to wed his more surreal urges to living, breathing human characters, creating some stunning character studies in the process. He first got the mixture right with Bullet Ballet and, after a brief foray into commercial film making with Gemini, Tsukamoto returned to his distinctive vision with 2002’s A Snake of June, a film that I truly believe stands as Tsukamoto’s masterpiece.

Continue reading "A Snake of June Review"

Whoever's hosting this thing is probably getting slammed right now, so don't expect it to come in real fast, but the first proper trailer for the Wallace and Gromit feature film is now available here. In another ten minutes or so I'll even be able to watch it.

Spotted by Logboy over at AICN.

Tony Hawks won't be a name familiar with that many within the UK, let alone elsewhere, but his face will be familiar and you will have seen he on any number of television shows over many years. His brand of unusual and very accessible comedy is something I, as a Brit who watches more comedy than I have hot dinners, highly recommend.

Apprently his first (very sucessful) book "Round Ireland With A Fridge" is being touted as a movie (Brendan Fraser suggested as the lead), and it's about a stand-up comedian trying to hitchhike around Ireland, with a refridgerator, in a month. Hawks also has another book out there called "One Hit Wonderland" where he tries to have a hit single somewhere in the world, and travels writing songs to achieve that aim.

Worth sticking in your next Amazon order, or getting from play.com if you live in the UK. Great Stuff.

Via DarkHorizons.com.

Firstly, theres 3 new movies and 2 new OVAs in production in Japan based on the original manga for "Fist of The North Star"... starting in Spring next year with the first movie and spreading out over the following couple of years til the end of 2008. Blimey.

Secondly, the Initial D live action movie website is open... there's and english version too. Spotted at KFC forums. Ahem.

Thirdly, Hiroyuki Nasu, the director of last years Devilman live action movie has died of cancer at the age of 53, in Tokyo Hospital on the 27th of February. Not trying to turn the site into a specialist in film obituaries, but we have had a few lately.

These are appearing at all kinds of places, so no particular source for these...

After I posted information about The Wretched - the UK produced zombie western slated to star Chow Yun Fat as a bounty hunter - a while back and the news began to circulate around the web I saw a lot of talk on different message boards questioning whether this was for real or just a lot of talk. Apparently I wasn't the only one to think it was a strange piece of casting.

Well, Chow's wife was quoted in Monkey Peaches saying that he was doing it and I've just gotten word from the film's UK production company that the director is currently in Mexico scouting locations. So this one is definitely for real. My guess is that thanks to the sheer amount of work left to do to prepare for the Pirates of the Caribbean sequels that Chow will have time to get this one, which will be a fairly short shoot, in first and then move on to play with Depp and co.

After seeing all the strong reactions to Calvaire - a film I still haven't seen myself - I've gone off searching the web for trailers a few times with no success. People who have seen the film either really love it or really hate it and I just really wanted to see what all the noise was about ... well, now I can. A reader in France just sent me the links to the official trailer and four clips (one, two, three, four) from the film. Don't know what I'll end up thinking of the finished film - releasing here as The Ordeal sometime later this year - but I like the look of the clips ...

Thanks to Fred.

So, Canfield called me in the middle of last week to say he'd gotten the official word on a pair of new Kiyoshi Kurosawa discs coming from HVE. But did he post the info? Nope. Did he email them to me as promised? Nope. So we went out and cribbed them from the KFC Cinema message board. Kurosawa's Seance and Charisma will both be hitting DVD in North America on May 17th and both are pretty much essential purchases. Now if only someone would pick up Barren Illusions and The Adventures of the Do Re Mi Girl ...

I'll have to forgive Canfield this time, though, since he is interviewing Danny Boyle for us right about now ...

Sorry. I was off having a semblance of a social life - with a person of the opposite gender, even - and didn't watch the awards. I haven't even checked who won, though I did see a headline that a local boy won for best animated short. Anything interesting happen?

Go see M. Ward if he happens to be in your town. Nummy.

Well it should come as no surprise to anyone. It's official, Catwoman is the worst picture of the year. Catwoman took home four Razzies last night [Worst picture, actress, director and screenplay]. Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 also took home four [Actor, Supporting Actor, Supporting Actress and Screen Couple]. The only other film to take home a Razzie for the year was Scooby Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed [Remake or Sequel].

Other awards were given out last night to mark the 25th anniversary of the awards.

Continue reading "Catwoman and 9/11 get a bad case of the Razzies"

A couple weeks back Aint It Cool ran a review of some mystery film coming out of Thailand ... the reviewer wasn't sure of the title, didn't know anything about the director, but was so enthusiastic that they ran the review anyway.

Well, the film in question is P, by former British child actor Paul Spurrier, who believes that this is the first ever Thai film shot by a westerner. Spurrier sunk years into learning Thai language and culture to make this thing and it shows. It tells the story of a girl raised in a remote Thai village by her grandmother who is forced to go to Bangkok and work in a go-go bar to support her family when her grandmother becomes ill. But here's the thing: grandma is a witch and has taught the girl the magic arts, arts she uses to her advantage in drawing 'clients' to herself in the bar. Things, of course, get out of hand ...

No stills yet, but we do have the trailer and it looks fantastic. Check it out.

Yeah, this one made me squirm ... a cheery tale of a serial killer / cannibal who preys upon small children in Thailand. Production design looks fantastic and there are some shots in the trailer that made me just about as uncomfortable as anything in Fruit Chan's Dumplings and for similar reasons. The full website exists in both Thai and English versions and includes a good batch of video files, plus an extensive gallery, on top of the official trailer.

Though I won't actually be watching the Oscars this year - got tickets to see M. Ward who I love and have never seen perform live before - I do try and keep a running tab of who's winning what leading up to them and the Independent Spirit awards are the last major set handed out before the little golden men. Those happened tonight and Alexander Payne's Sideways made a clean sweep, taking all six awards it was nominated for. The other major Oscar contender in play was The Sea Inside and you may as well just go ahead and give it the best foreign film award already, because it just won another one of them. I've lost count how many "Best Foreign / Best International" awards this thing has won already ... Check the full list out at Variety.

Where to even begin with something like this? Fusing elements of the teen sex comedy, martial arts epic, police thriller and the musical, Bangkok Loco is one of those massively genre hopping efforts that tend to fail miserably when attempted in North America but succeed occasionally overseas. The only film I can think of that comes even close to the mix of elements on display here is the woefully underappreciated Six String Samurai but Bangkok Loco’s lurid color scheme and caffeine driven pacing break that comparison down as well. Here’s all you really need to know: it’s very odd, very good and very funny.

Continue reading "Bangkok Loco Review"

Had no complaints about doing it this way last time, so here's another early Artsmagic review. This time it's the first four episodes of the twenty episode anime series "Salaryman Kintaro" which dates from 2001, released at four episodes per volume, five volumes in total, starting in May this year.

Also a live-action series with four seasons under its' belt, and a popular manga, the anime series thankfully stands alone effectively, and gives all the background to Kintaro's circumstances woven into the first show, then slowly reveals further details as things progress. It's a great little fun show that traces Kintaro from gang member to business man.

Continue reading "Salaryman Kintaro.The Anime Series. Early DVD Review : Volume One."

Our big Constantine contest has come to a close and someone is now the proud new owner of a stack of Constantine related merch ... a shirt, hat, screech beetles and a poster to be precise. To enter the contest we asked you to name the actor who played the irritating sidekick in the first of the three major Garth Ennis penned comic titles to get the big screen treatment. Well, Ennis' big three are Judge Dredd, The Punisher and Hellblazer. Dredd was the first to get the big screen treatment and that makes the answer to our triva question Mr. Rob Schneider, who I'll not mock here for fear that he take out a full page ad in Variety threatening to give me noogies. Which actually wouldn't be bad press for the site, come to think of it ...

And the winner is ... Christine Fidance. Congratulations Christine!

The official Sony Classics poster for the North American release of Kung Fu Hustle has just been released. It's nothing at all like I was expecting but I like it quite a lot. We got a larger version here.

Here's one courtesy of Kurt Halfyard, aka the ever present Triflic. The UK DVD of Hungary's Kontroll is slated for a March 21st release. If the DVD Times specs are correct it's not such a hot release - especially when compared to the loaded, and subtitled, Hungarian releases - with a non-anamorphic widescreen transfer, forced subs, 2.0 audio and only a 16 minute making of feature - give us the excellent music video, at least - but my guess is that this will be the only DVD release to come from the English speaking world and I have yet to find a site carrying the Hungarian release that you can navigate without being fluent in Hungarian. Which I'm not.

I'm kind of torn on this one ... there are SO MANY things that the film does incredibly well that I just really, really want to love it but I ultimately felt let down by the ending. We've got multiple reviews in our archives and Kurt's got one of his own here. Trailer here and music vid here.

Just a curiosity thing on my part, call it an informal survey. I give Colin Farrell the tag in the Miami Vice post below, and given their incredible willingness to coast on reputations earned in their past work I'd have to include John Travolta and Robert DeNiro on my list as well, but I'm curious who you people feel are the most over rated actors working today. Fire away.

Here's a little something that Logboy sent my way whilst I was preparing to file my income taxes last night - Yeah, there's a good idea, do your own taxes at one AM. Any bets on how long it takes me to get audited? - some set pics from the film adaptation of Miami Vice.

Now, I'm actually pretty curious to see what they do with this despite the presence Colin Farrell, who I consider pretty much the most over rated actor of this generation. It was quite possibly the best show of its era, certainly the best cop show, and the presence of Michael Mann and Jamie Foxx gives me great hope. Check the shots out here, but be warned that it's a Farrell fan site, so he's all you're getting.

Via Coming Soon.

I don't know that I'd be so interested in this one if not for the production company involved but I've read some good reviews online and the trailer holds promise. I have a certain fascination with seeing what people do to follow up on success and Turkish Gambit - a historical war / adventure film - is the latest film from the Russian production house responsible for The Night Watch. The Russian industry is in an interesting place right now ... after decades of neglect a new crop of film makers are injecting some fresh blood and audiences are turning out in record numbers, so much so that Russia is now the third largest film market in mainland Europe, behind only France and Italy. If they can build on their past success we could be seeing the birth of a major new power in the film world ...

Anyway, enough of that. The film's website is here and you can check the trailer out here. Hard to say for sure because you don't get a very good look at his face but I'm pretty sure I spotted the lead actor from Night Watch getting blown through the air ...

The Guide speaks! Marvin speaks! The whale falls from the sky! It's only available as a streaming Windows Media file at the moment, but there's a new Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy trailer here.

It's a very brief [5 questions via E-mail] and not wholly satisfying interview but it gives just a taste of what should be a film of true Kitano style and brutality.

- First generation Korean-Japanese Kim Jun-pyeong, the man you played in the film, is a man who rules his kingdom through money and violence. What do you think made him that way?

"On the 31st day of shooting, I separated my right shoulder, and it was like hell afterwards. Moreover, I had to deliver lines in the Osaka and Jeju dialects, so it was quite difficult."

Click here to read the full article with Takeshi Kitano about Blood and Bones.

via Chosun.

Well this is just plain fun. As if I needed another excuse to go to Korea other than Kim Chi and the ladies.

Say hello to the Cine i-Studio theme park in Seoul, S Korea. There's not much to tell from the official web site because my Korean is limited to polite phrases and pick up lines [okay. just polite phrases] and Babelfish wouldn't translate it for me. But the jist of it is that the theme park recreates sets and props from well known Korean movies and television shows and visitors can interact with them. For Korean film buffs this should be tops on your list of things to see if you're ever over there.

Where's my plane ticket!

"Visitors can enter a North Korean observation post just like the one in the movie "JSA," which tells the story of two South Korean and two North Korean soldiers becoming friends, and then becoming involved in a murder mystery.

Or, meet Oh Dae-su, the main character in Park Chan-wook's film "Old Boy," the story of an average man who gets kidnapped and imprisoned in a hotel room for 15 years due to an old classmate's revenge he never knew about. The set even offers the famous fried dumplings from the movie".

via Chosun and HanCinema.

ADV Films are issuing the legendary anime series "Gatchaman", bastardised and edited into oblivion and released (here in the UK, probably elsewhere too) as "Battle of The Planets" and "G Force". It's one of those series i watched as a kid, and have fond(ish) memories of, so it could be a tempter...

The first two volumes ($15 each - 250 minutes each volume) and a special package containing both of those and an extras disc ($45 rrp) will be June 14th, and they seem to be going to town on it - see the lovely artwork shown here which must have cost them a few bob. Has anyone here abouts seen the original version of Gatchaman? All I want now is Go Nagais' "X-Bomber" aka "Star Fleet" and perhaps a few other shows that I remember too.

Just a reminder that today is the last day to enter our Constantine giveaway contest. Click here for all the details.

Oooh ... Cinema Blend has some new pics from the Tim Burton / Johnny Depp remake of Charlie and the Choclate Factory and they look, ahem, sweet. I'm just itching to see Burton pull out all the visual stops on this ...

Now go watch the trailer again and get that song locked deep into you subconscious.

Wow. The full trailer for the Amityville Horror remake has turned up online and it looks to have a shot at being one of the best American horror films of the past decade or so. Seriously. There is some legitimately creepy stuff in there and the cast looks fantastic. Don't know why it is but there's just something about Mr. Alanis Morisette that I find immensely watchable and now that he's decided to actually put some effort into his work - he's talked openly about changing his approach in the local press - he's turning out to be a pretty solid actor. Nice.

Oooh ... Salon is streaming five Oscar nominated short films here until midnight tonight. They make you watch an ad to get into the site, which is irritating, but the ad is for Be Cool which softens the blow somewhat.

via Greencine.

Here's something that started popping up all over the place yesterday and came as a bit of a surprise to me ... Dino Di Laurentis has apparently told the Italian press that not only is there a fourth Hannibal Lecter film in the works but that Gong Li has been cast for the film. Between this, 2046 and Memoirs of a Geisha that means Li should be making a pretty strong impression on North American audiences over the next year ...

The new film is a prequel revolving around Hannibal's early years and is titled The Lecter Variation. Word is that Anthony Hopkins may have a cameo or narration role but they are currently at work casting the character at various ages.

Not really news, here, but a week or so back Svet posted a note singing the praises of a German / Turkish co-production titled Head On (Gegen Die Wand), a film that has won stacks of major international awards but is only available with English subtitles in a hard to find Korean DVD release. I emailed YesAsia about it at the time and they've just added the film to their catalog so if you've been looking it can be had here. I'd also recommend checking out the official website here.

Here's one for Crazybee, just because I know how much he loves his Danish film ...

Wellspring has just picked up all North American rights to Dear Wendy, the anti-gun collaboration from Dogme 95 co-founders Thomas Vinterberg and Lars Von Trier. Directed by Vinterberg and scripted by Von Trier (in English, by the way) Dear Wendy raised more than a few eyebrows at this year's Sundance Festival with people once again challenging Von Trier's right and ability to criticize US culture considering that he has never once set foot on American soil and never will given his extreme phobia of flying.

You can check the official website here and read on for the full press release.

Continue reading "Wellspring Picks Up Vinterberg's Dear Wendy."

Here's one more reason to subscribe to all those "Focus is the new Miramax" comments ... Screendaily is reporting that Focus has just bought all non-Italian rights to Roberto Benigni's The Tiger and the Snow. I have a bit of a mixed reaction to the man myself - I find him simultaneously immensely talented and immensely irritating - but there's no denying his influence in world cinema. From the enclosed synopsis it sounds as though he's been somewhat humbled by the immense critical and commercial flop that was his version of Pinnochio and he's returning to more commercially viable waters:

"The film, written and directed by and starring two-time Academy Award-winner Benigni, is in post-production and will be released first in Italy on Oct 14. Benigni plays a poet desperately wooing the woman of his dreams until they suddenly find themselves suddenly in Iraq on the eve of war."

Think they're gonna play up the connection to Life is Beautiful with this one? Naaaah ...

Marc Evans' Trauma was a casualty of Toronto Film Festival programming for me last year ... I really wanted to see it but the day previous had been a five film day and I was suffering from a major case of burnout and ended up sleeping right through the early screening. DEJ Productions - nope, I haven't heard of them either but apparently they're an offshoot of Blockbuster - have picked up all North American rights for the film and are planning a DVD release for June 14th. Check out the official - and very creepy - website here.

Via Screendaily

What better day was there in grade school when your teacher wheeled in that old Bell & Howell Super 8 projector on those cold war era mobile stands and you got to watch public service announcements about acne, feudal farming systems and wankel rotary engines. Now you can re-live those golden years thanks in part to the creative minds behind Look Around You, the educational school film spoofs by Peter Serafinowicz [Spaced and Shaun of the Dead and also the voice of Darth Maul] and Robert Popper.

Where is Toronto on the Periodic Table of Elements? Up and to the right of Music.
Where do germs originate from? Germany.
What is the boiling point of water? 1,000 degrees.

Nothing is right in these shorts so that even calling them educational is a misdemeanor. But then that’s not the point. But not only are the falsities laughable but they ram so many sight gags into each episode that second and third viewings are required to catch most of them. Coming in just shy of 10 minutes each of the 8 educational shorts [Maths, Water, Germs, Ghosts, Sulphur, Music, Iron and Brain] is chock full of titters and laugh out loud bits.

Continue reading "R2 DVD: Look Around You review"

Hurray! Another solid North American source of Asian films! Fangoria has got the scoop on Panik House, a new DVD imprint focusing on Asian horror fare. Coming in July from Panik House will be Bangkok Haunted and The Omen, a pair of Pang Brothers related titles, but the big 2005 release comes later in the year with The Uninvited, a film that I absolutely love. Sweet. Check out the Panik House website here.

Logboy just dropped a note to point out that Bloody Disgusting is hosting the trailer for the Paul Schrader version of the Exorcist prequel and it looks like fairly nice stuff. It's been zipped, so it's download only.

Now, I've not actually seen the Renny Harlin version of this but I have no problems whatsoever saying that this one will be better purely because a) the Schrader trailer looks quite good and b) Harlin makes Very Bad Films and his continuing employment classes as a Mystery of the Universe.

Though I didn't find it up to par with his earlier work I'm still quite happy about this wee bit of Life Aquatic news ... speculation started to circulate that Criterion would handle the DVD release for Wes Anderson's latest even before the film hit theaters and that speculation has proven correct. The DVD Times has the full specs for the May 10th release here. It'll be coming in both single and double disc editions with a healthy stack of bonus features on the two disc set. The one major disappointment is that the commentary offering is scene specific only - there is no feature length commentary. Too bad, because Anderson's an interesting guy ...

It's been up to varying degrees for a while but the full and complete version of the North American website for Stephen Chow's Kung Fu Hustle is now alive and well at KungFuHustleMovie.com ... even if you don't feel like playing one of the games you really should go and watch the trailer twenty or thirty times. Just because.

Glory! It's only one theater in New York so far, but Koren genre hopping madhouse of a film Save The Green Planet has itself a theatrical release date for its domestic run. It'll hit New York City's Film Forum on April 20th and hopefully expand somewhat from there. I love this film - and am still a little surprised that a company the size of Koch Lorber was willing to take a chance on it - and I've got to say that even if you've seen it on DVD you really should see it on the big screen if you have the chance. It definitely shines in the larger format ...

Read on for the full press release:

Continue reading "Save The Green Planet Theatrical Release Date!"

Another fine review courtesy of Twitch regular Kurt Halfyard aka Triflic, this one of Olivier Assayas' Clean, starring Maggie Cheung.

French director Olivier Assayas is an interesting filmmaker. He makes his films to look real first and cinematic second. He loves open endings (and this film is no exception). And he can always make his actors feel like they are their characters. With Clean, he tells the story of Emily, a actress/singer mother who is addicted to drugs and loses her boyfriend (and father of their child) to heroin she purchased.

Continue reading "Clean Review"

Here's one courtesy of Stauffen's Japanese Film Blog ... Migakagami is an independent short film that features some of the same people responsible for Gusher No Binds Me (AKA Hellevator) and, though the trailer is streaming only and had some buffering problems, it looks to have a similar lo-fi sci-fi aesthetic ... check it out. There are a few other good links over at Stauffen's at the moment, so be sure to click around ...

Ah, Kurt, you're a good man ... obviously aware that I'm a huge fan of Darren Aronofsky Kurt just sent me a link to this detailed review of Flicker, the novel that will apparently be the basis for Aronofsky's next film once he wraps up The Fountain. I'm still a little bummed that Aronofsky had the Watchmen film taken away from him but the sting of that is eased somewhat by the fact that he has rights to some fascinating properties - including Lone Wolf And Cub - and, if this re-issue of the novel is any indication, is actually all set to go with at least one of them. I think I've got me some reading to do ...

Short notice before it begins issuing, but here it is - a recent Production I.G piece, still airing (and will be when the first volume arrives i believe) in Japan. Cromartie has 26 episodes, at 12 minutes each, over 4 discs when it arrives here. First volume can be bought in a box with the original manga thrown in (i think...), and is pretty cheap too even though the RRPs at $30 and $45 respectively i can see them listed for $17 and $25 instead.

The series is about a bunch of delinquent teenagers, and Freddy Mercury too it seems. The english-dubbed trailer is online, Production I.G.s japanese-language |episode guide and other info is too. Then there's the Japanese official site for the series, and finally there's the Anime News Network info / ratings (ahem), and the animenfo ones too.

The visual style is heavy line drawings, reminding me of "Fist of The North Star" - not cutesy anime, so - anyone seen it? 'Cos i haven't, but I am tempted.

We love our executive transvestites. Love 'em to death. So it brings me great joy to announce that THINKFilm has bought the North American rights to the untitled doco of British comedian Eddie Izzard.

But wait. There's more. THINKFilm hopes to unveil the picture at the Toronto International Film Festival in September accompanied by a live Izzard show! To the rest of the world I say - HA!

Can you say Huzzah? I knew you could.

via ScreenDaily.

Not familiar with your executive transvestites? Experience Eddie at his web-site.

Sometimes a film review tells me more about myself than about the film itself. I think I finally get anime' but it still doesn't mean the form isn't light years behind what it could be- especially for it's size. But one of the better recent examples is Sky Blue. More emotionally resonant than most anime despite it's overblown sci-fi premise, and character dwarfing visuals. Then again maybe it's we anime fans who are the characters. Movie, video game or something in between? You decide.

Continue reading "SKY BLUE AND ANIME IN REVIEW"

I noticed a Katsucon post at AnimeNewsNetwork in the last couple of days that said in the title it was about specific Media Blasters licenses, and not expecting anything new after the recent slew of announcements I didn't check it out. Well, I discovered today that it happened to mention MB have the rights for the USA release of Takashi Miikes "Izo".

I have the CK disc from eBay but didn't get to watch it last night - it's a tough one to call, as it should be from the R2 Japan disc, and Miike films often have what appear to be visual faults which are actually visual styles... that and many won't have seen the Japanese disc and the CK one. Personally, being in the UK the disc cost me £11 including shipping, so it's cheap enough to double-dip and get the official release if i decide to when it gets issued - no telling when that will be.

MB will also be releasing Miikes "One Missed Call" which is perfectly good on the R3 HK disc, and its' sequel which is by another director, and recently opened pretty well in Japan at cinemas.

Good chance i will pick this up : this time on 4 discs at an RRP of $90 instead of 7 discs at $30 each. The highly rated anime series gets a nice little boxset, which i would love to see more evidence of from other companies - still.

The Animenfo ratings and votes system says the animation, story etc are all highly regarded and there's always thread with recommendation of the show around - plus it's by Gonzo who always seem to do a nice job. You can load a trailer into a window at the ADV site here.

ADV have now also put up a dedicated GANTZ site with trailers on.

Spotted at AnimatedBliss.

We'll stop talking about it once everybody's seen it. The US trailer for OldBoy is online here. Via Opus.

Zowie. A Bittersweet Life was already high on my 'to-see' list but this just bumped it up a notch or two: a minute and a half of behind the scenes footage aired on Korean television. The measured pace of director Kim Jee Woon's A Tale of Two Sisters? Yeah, that looks to be out the window. Very long takes of some pretty intense fight scenes ... I've got to see how the final footage of that tight alley fight comes out ...

Via Filmacco.

Olivier Assayas' Clean - which won his ex-wife Maggie Cheung the best actress award at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival - has just been announced on Korean DVD and, yes, the Korean release will feature English subtitles! I've not caught this one yet, but you can bet I will come March 17th. The DVD is now available for pre-order at YesAsia.

A pair of other interesting titles over there ... Kung Fu Hustle is now in stock and shipping, as is the Thai horror flick Shutter. Nummy.

Oooh ... Logboy just sent me a link to a quartet of clips from the dubbed version of Steamboy over at Yahoo and, shockingly, I like the dub quite a lot. Normally I loathe voice over dubs, but this one is helped quite a lot both by the solid voice cast and the fact that the film is set in an alternate version of Victorian England. That last bit helps the English voices fit in rather a lot better than is normally the case with anime dubs. You can check my full review of the film in the archive.

A new behind the scenes featurette for The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe has popped up online. This one is a bit of a puff piece of director Andrew Adamson so don't expect a lot in terms of in depth reporting, but it features a stack of fantastic shots of sets and locations. Between this piece and the earlier footage focusing on the work WETA has been doing on the film I'm absolutely convinced that this will look absolutely stunning ... I probably read this books ten or fifteen times before I was twelve so I'm pretty excited to see them being done and done well. Check the footage out here.

Thanks to Tracy for the heads up.

Man, it has been a bad few days for news like this ...

Veteran actor Miao Tien has died of cancer in a Taipei hospital. Miao was a popular figure in 1970's kung fu films and was a recent favorite of Taiwanese art-house director director Tsai Ming-liang, last appearing in Tsai's Goodbye Dragon Inn as an elderly man watching a screening of King Hu's Dragon Inn which featured a much younger version of himself. He was 80. A full obituary can be found in the Taipei Times.

Thanks to Juan for the link.

Only days after we posted the news about John Woo's return to his homeland this is just in from CityonFire and IMDB. Jackie Chan is going home!

"The Hong Kong native, 50, is selling his five-bedroom Beverly Hills mansion for $6.7 million, after realizing he only spends four to six weeks a year in the city"

May I be the first one to volunteer to help you pack and send you on your way? I don't mean for that to sound malicious but really now, Hollywood hasn't been kind to Mr. Chan for a few years now. We have said it before: Asian fim stars like Chan should go back to their roots and we would get a much finer product from them. Case in point, the awesome New Police Story vs. the laughable Around the World in 80 Days? Exactly.

It may take the general viewing public longer to see a finished product from the likes of Chan and John Woo but you can better it will be worth the wait. They do so much better back home.

What do you do to follow up an amazing year where you will likely win cinemas highest honor for your acting skills? Apparently, if you're Jamie Foxx, you make a movie with the master of the Bigger, Louder and Dumber philosophy of moviemaking, Rob Cohen.

Remember him? You probably don't since you didn't need to have your brain turned on when you watched his movies, The Fast & The Furious and xXx, two movies I never thought I would find myself mentioning on this site. To the 12 to 14 male demographic - Your savior has returned.

Click here to see Jamie Foxx in the trailer for the next Rob Cohen movie - Stealth.

How's this for a plot? Deeply ensconced in a top-secret military program, three pilots struggle to bring an artificial intelligence program under control ... before it initiates the next world war. YahooMovies

This could be great summer popcorn fluff, it's just that I have found Cohens most recent movies too stupid to enjoy and there are other things that bother me about this movie.

1. Chicks flying military aircraft?!!? Yeah. Right.
2. FilmRot says, Think Top Gun (but more vapid) meets Short Circuit (but less cute) meets Starship Troopers (check out those helmets) meets Independence Day (but less entertaining). Bingo!
3. Jamie! Bookums! What's one of the first rules of any action movie?
Dude! The Black man always dies! You deserve better than Hollywood action movie cliches.
4. Are we ready to watch Jessic Biel in another action movie after the failed Blade: Trinity? Right. Stupid Question.

Look. I understand that Jamie Foxx is entitled to pick which projects he wishes. He's earned that right. I just hope there's something else beyond Stealth and that this doesn't sink his career when he's done so well. I guess we'll find out with Jarhead and Miami Vice.

via YahooMovies.

Read this over at the DVDTalk.com forum, but apparently it's also posted somewhere at KFC forums. Eun-ju Lee, who played Young-shin in "Tae Guk Gi" or "Brotherhood" has been found hanged at the very yound age of 25 by her brother. The unfortunate and untimely end comes not long after her final role in "The Scarlet Letter", and is reported in English by a Korean site here. Her (as yet not updated) IMDB entry is here.

Got here to my machine to find an email from Japan courtesy of Teppodama, whom i must have emailed when we were looking into Shimizus' "Marebito" a long time back. Teppodama has pointed to an April 2nd DVD release for the film which stars Shinya Tsukamoto, but i haven't looked into the issue of Subtitles yet, so expect a slight edit or update on this post at some point.

Anyhow here's the details specifically for Marebito : Publisher: GENEON Entartainment. Release No: GNBD-7171. Price: 3,420Yen（with Tax 3,591Yen). You can view a streaming trailer still (realplayer or windows thingy) here. There's also a site i havent seen before (as far as I remember) for the EigaBancho series, of which the films is part, here.

There's also news in that last site of a simultaneous release of a boxset containing the whole EigaBancho series, plus individual releases for all of the films within.

Oooh ... Chelle from DonnieYen.us just dropped me a note to say that the official website for Tsui Hark's Seven Swords is now online here. It doesn't look to be finished yet, but if you click around a bit there are some mighty pretty pictures to look at. Hopefully a trailer will pop up soon. She also floats word that Sha Po Lang is currently in the editing phase and that, yes, the director is apparently putting together a trailer. It's going to be a good year for martial arts fans with Donnie Yen finally moving back in front of the camera ...

The name Hunter S Thompson may not have been at your mind's forefront when you woke up this morning, but a few hours ago (Sunday night) he was found in his Colorado Home dead from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.

Hunter penned the book behind Terry Gilliam's "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" - and has also penned the novel-turned-screenplay "The Rum Diary" currently in the works with, again, Johnny Depp and Benicio del Toro.

Thompson joins the already-too-long list of celebrities that have shuffled off this mortal coil in the last year. The "Remembering...." segment of this year's Oscar's will be very long... Christopher Reeve, Rodney Dangerfield, Janet Leigh, Johnny Ramone (okay, not an actor), Fay Wray, Jerry Goldsmith, Marlon Brando, Ray Charles, Ronald Reagan, Peter Ustinov, Ossie Davis, Johnny Carson Man oh man....it keeps going...

- The Denver Post's article via AICN

Whee. I found a preview article for the movie Crying Fist in The Seoul Times. The 'fourth' effort from the director of the wildly successful Arahan, Ryoo Seung-Wan, is due to hit theatres in Korea in April.

What we didn't know until now is that Crying Fist is really based on two real-life stories, Director Ryoo's perceptions of both... men striving to overcome the desperate situation they are in without losing their positive outlook and hope. What if the two men, each with their uniquely remarkable stories, were to go up against each other in one film!

Some excerpts from the director and his two stars; his brother, Ryoo Seung-Bum [Arahan], and Choi Min-Sik [Oldboy]

Choi Min-Sik This project was meaningful and quite satisfying for me. The movie may seem rather crude at first but it is a deep penetrating look at human nature and the way a man is made or ruined under pressure. I believe that the inspirational message of this movie is needed in today's society of indifference.

Ryoo Seung-Bum Of course it was tough physically but the mental difficulty far surpassed the physical side of it. I was also quite hesitant to throw punches at such a respected and mature actor as Mr. Choi.

Ryoo Seung-Wan Working with my younger brother and an accomplished actor such as Mr. Choi was a great experience. I noticed that Mr. Choi is always joking, eating snacks, and generally not paying much attention to filming but when the camera light turns on and I shout 'action!', he suddenly snaps right into character and becomes a different man. This was something I wasn't used to as my brother Seung-Bum is always in character when filming a movie. Even when the camera is not rolling, he stays in character lest he lose the 'feel.

via HanCinema and TheSeoulTimes.

Is John Woo done with Hollywood? He's still got a couple films to finish up here but it looks like that may be it for him. Crienglish is reporting that Woo has bought a luxury villa in the outskirts of Beijing and plans to relocate his family there with the stated aim of refocusing himself on the Asian film industry. Ah, John ... we hardly knew ye ...

And in the unsubstantiated rumor of the day Jennifer Garner is currently heading the list of possible actresses to play She-Ra in Woo's coming He-Man film, a move which should promptly end the Hollywood careers of all involved. The move to Beijing makes more sense now ...

It's just a place holder at the moment but the official website for the League of Gentlemen's Apocalypse has gone online. And though the Universal UK website still lists April 22nd as the UK release date I'm hearing rumblings that the release has been pushed back to June 3rd.

Right-o. Got a couple of interesting trailers dug up from the BIFF lineup posted yesterday and I've got a stack more today ... here we go ...

Vanity Serum. Italian serial killer flick takes a good rip at what's got to be the most banal tv industry in the world. Trailer starts off slow, but the musical selection at the mid-point brought a big ol' smile to my face ...

Vaterland. Surreal Czech dark comedy ... reads like a social satire of post-communist Czech culture. A little hard to get a feel for but it looks pretty good. Teaser here and trailer here. Both in Windows Media format.

Riding the Bullet. Never been a fan of Stephen King based films and this one doesn't look to make a believer of me.

Les Revenants. I missed this one at last year's Toronto Film Festival and I'm kicking myself for it now ... the dead return, but not in typical zombie fashion. They just want to come back and live with us. How do you handle the logistics of a wholesale rising of the dead? How do you handle the actual return of a lost loved one? A totally revisionist existential take on the zombie genre played totally straight ... I really need to look this one up.

Dead and Breakfast. Comic zombie splatter. I find it very strange to think that some people will automatically file this in the same genre as Les Revenants, but there you have it. Looks very low budget but a lot of fun.

Rojo Sangre. Out of work actor employed as a doorman at a theater recreates classic murders. Very stylish and very, very bloody. I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure Fangoria's bringing this one out on DVD. Trailer the first and trailer the second.

Hypnos. Uber stylish Spanish supernatural thriller from the good folks at Filmax. This one gets my vote as the best trailer of the lot ... teaser one, teaser two, full trailer. Filmax seems to have added some new trailers to their site since the last time I was there, by the way, so dig around a bit. Their stuff is always quality.

Hotel. Sigh. They spent a lot of money on a solid Flash-designed site for this one just to have the trailers - apparently - refuse to load. And since it's Flash I can't even pull out the direct links. Maybe it'll work better for you than it did for me ... minimalist horror film revolving around a series of disappearences in a hotel. Was part of the Un Certain Regard lineup at the 2004 Cannes Festival ...

Shallow Ground. Another very low budget one here ... naked teenaged boy completely covered in blood arrives in a small town and commences with the slasher action.

Jacqueline Hyde. This one makes Shallow Ground look like major Hollywood studio product ... ridiculous spin on the Jeckyll and Hyde thing looks to be mostly an excuse to get naked a lot and kill people in an over the top sexual manner.

Shinya Tsukamoto is always and forever going to be known primarily as the director of the intense and intensely strange Tetsuo: The Iron Man. It is a situation that must be both a blessing and a curse for the man. On the one hand he has instant name recognition and instant credibility, but on the other he has progressed so far from the days of his metallic creation that he must feel somewhat restricted by his reputation. Case in point: 1998’s Bullet Ballet. That this film has lain neglected for so long is simply shocking. It is, without question, a masterpiece that would have jetted any other director to immediate international acclaim on the art house circuit but it played just far enough against type for Tsukamoto that it was allowed to slide into obscurity.

Continue reading "Bullet Ballet Review"

Yeh, two things in one post - not strictly film, but heavily related and fun to watch. Firstly, I love the old videogames still, and I've seen clips of the upcoming (April) game based in the Star Wars universe but made entirely out of LEGO. See the trailer (which you can also download) here, and official site (not fully operational but kind of there) here. The game looks quite tongue-in-cheek and could be a complete pile of tripe in the end, but this trailer is FUN.

Also, some in the UK may have seen this next one, which may be playing in other countries... It's the Golf GTI advert which features remixed / rejigged footage from "Singing In The Rain" featuring Gene Kelly. It's so cool - probably better than that recent "Transformers" type car advert. Watch him breakdance his way down the street, boddy-popping and all. Download by right clicking and saving this, or just click that to open a window with it in.

Wow ... I first heard word of Anders Klarlund's Strings a while back and I've been itching to see something of it ever since. The film is a historical epic told with marrionettes, and at roughly the same time that the Team America boys were doing a piss-take on the art form Klarlund was putting together a film that, by all accounts, is well nigh a masterpiece. I've just stumbled across the French website for the film and the trailer certainly lives up to my expectations ... and english release sometime please? Hello? Anyone out there?

What the ...

How have I not heard of this before now? The Wretched is director Andrew Goth's (Everybody Loves Sunshine) horrific spin on the spaghetti western with - wait for it - Chow Yun Fat cast in the lead role as a bounty hunter. This thing's still in early pre-production but the official site does include a gallery of pre-production art and story boards that leaves no doubt that Goth is going for the full on zombie effect.

Chow Yun Fat in a UK shot western zombie flick ... that's just wacky ...

Just browsing the program for the Brussels Fantastic Film Festival - scroll on down for news of that - to see what I can find and I came across Cold and Dark, a bloody hybrid police thriller / horror film. The official site - complete with trailer - is here and there's some compelling stuff there though I've got to say that I find the presence of Little Britain's Matt Lucas totally jarring ...

Glory! The trailer for Richard Linklater's A Scanner Darkly has turned up online here! I caught this on the big screen in front of Constantine on Friday and my immediate reaction was that Linklater may just be the first person since Ridley Scott to do justice to a Philip K Dick film. Just brilliant stuff ...

Yes, yes ... I cocked it up last time I posted this, but this time I actually took the time to download and view the file to make sure it was what I claimed it was. And it is. The new Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy trailer in glorious, high resolution Quicktime. Yummy.

I know a lot of people aren't looking kindly on this one, but I love the original film and I honestly quite like the trailer for the remake. Which is a rather long winded way of leading into a post saying simply that there's a new poster for the US remake of Dark Water. Here's a bigger version of it.

Perhaps one of the best films to come out of Europe last year the Turkish/German production Head-On is still widely unknown in the US. The German born Turkish director Fatih Akin (In July) has pretty much won every major award there is to win in Europe: the FIPRESCI Award (Berlin International Film Festival), Golden Bear for Best Director, The German Camera Award, The Spanish Goya Award (Best European Film), The Best Director/Best Film Award from the Italian Syndicate of Film Journalists, the list goes on and on.

For those of you willing to test my words take a chance and track down the only English friendly DVD version- the official South Korean DVD. Last September when I first had a chance to see and promote this production there was no English version available now there is one- look for it, SEE IT.

Svet

From the creator of the highly acclaimed Fucking Amal and Lilya 4-Ever comes the latest production A Hole in My Heart. Set for a May 16 release in the UK A Hole in My Heart has already generated an enormous amount of buzz between critics and casual filmgoers.

It appears that Moodysson has gone even further after the controversial Lilya 4-Ever this time focusing on the subject of amateur pornography. Needless to say I hope for a quality package from the Brits that will hopefully include all of the extras currently announced for the Swedish official DVD which is set for a March release.

There are people out there dedicated to a single cause. They wake up each morning and know what they have to do and they do so willingly, knowing that the work they do makes the world a better place. They are a largely neglected group. No one knows them by name. No one says hello to them when they walk down the street. It is a lonely existance. I'm talking about stuntmen and women people. And for just pennies a day you and your family can support a stunt professional of your own... erm.

I don't watch a lot of fluff. Though I make room for it the type of movies I LOVE to watch usually involve destruction of a biblical scale. And someone usually gets hurt - very badly. Someone's gotta take the fall, right? Someone has to make you believe that the fall you just witnessed hurt like the dickens, right? That person is the the stunt professional. And they're feeling sadly neglected right now people. Aw. Somebody wants attention.

Four groups [Stunts Unlimited, the Stuntmen's Association of Motion Pictures, the International Stunt Association and Brand X] representing film stuntmen plan to lobby the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to include a new Academy Award category next year acknowledging the dangerous work that so many modern movies rely on to sell tickets. What they are lobbying for would be a category that acknowledges the work of the Stunt Coordinator - the person[s] responsible for the development and execution of said stunts.

Conrad Palmisano, president of the Stuntmen's Association, "For what we do, why shouldn't we be acknowledged for the work". If it were not for stunt work, most of today's movies would suck nuts. They rely too much on big special effects [which is a category] and big action scenes [which is not] instead of solid scripts and good acting. And lets face it. Jackie Chan movies [the good ones I mean] would not be the same if we didn't get our blooper reel at the end of the movie.

Further in the Yahoo! article, Jon Pavlik, a spokesman for the Motion Picture Academy, acknowledged the work done by the stunt groups, but said the group's Board of Governors is reluctant to add new categories for several reasons, including that each new honor might diminish the importance of the current awards. Hollow-wood's biggest coorporate butt-slap is concerned about the importance of current awards? Ahem. "Who are you wearing?" Riiiiiight.

I guess what also may scare them could be the acceptance speeches. "Wow! Who'da ever think I'd end up on this here stage. I only just re-learned to walk after that horrific car crash in that movie with Will Smith. Hey Will! Remember when I crashed that articulated lorry and caught on fire in your place? How you like me now, Beotch!"

Oh dear.

What do you think? Should stunt professionals be given a category? IF such a category existed which movie would win this year's Oscar. My vote would probably go to Born to Fight b/c some many of those guys and gals should be dead after what they did for the sake of action cinema.

via Yahoo! and thank you CityonFire for the lead.

Yes, yes. No pictures on this batch of posts. I'm off being familial in the hinterlands of Ontario, in the land where you're pretty damn lucky to have the internet at all, so don't even bother asking for a high speed connection or decent image processing software. I'll try and add pictures when I get back home ...

The reviews are just flying in this week ... one that I meant to write myself a while back but never quite got around to - I hang my head in shame - was