My thanks to Don Brown at Ryuganji for calling attention to upcoming Yoshitaka Yuriko star vehicle Snakes and Earrings. You may not know Yoshitaka’s name yet, but I guarantee you will soon. She plays a key part in Sion Sono’s Noriko’s Dinner Table and is an absolutely brilliant ball of manic energy in Miki Satoshi’s Adrift in Tokyo. This looks to be Yoshitaka’s first step into a lead role and the material is very strong, the young actress playing a ‘normal’ young woman drawn into the world of tattooing and body modification. The first teaser is available and though it is a touch on the brief side it’s very compelling stuff. You’ll find it below the break in the Twitch Player.
Continue Reading "Yoshitaka Yuriko Goes For The Body-Mod Crowd in SNAKES AND EARRINGS (HEBI NI PIASU)"...
Tomas Alfredson has crafted one of the most memorable films I’ve ever seen with his latest effort, Let the Right One In (Låt den rätte komma in). I recently had the chance to talk with him about his film. Magnet will be releasing the film to US theaters in late October and festival audiences can catch it at the upcoming Fantastic Fest in Austin and the Sitges International Film Festival of Catalonia in Spain. The interview follows after the link bump.
In times with endless remakes and a general malaise in cinematic storytelling, it’s refreshing for a film like Let the Right One In to come along that weaves classical stories we are already familiar with, that offers up something new and fresh that we have never experienced before on the big screen. We have seen coming of age films dealing with isolation and bullying before. We have seen films that deal with vampires before. Alfredson and crew go beyond where previous films have gone to offer up this universal tale that take us the audience to new terrain and unimagined heights of classical cinematic storytelling. Like the best films it lets our imagination soar, our hearts connect to what is happening on screen, a relief from our daily grind and that rare moment of redemption and euphoria where we feel our lense of life is forever altered. The films redemptive powers not only work for the characters in the film, but for the audience that experiences it as well. There is no bigger joy in cinema for 2008 than Let the Right One In. With it paving the way and becoming a festival darling from Tribeca to NIFFF to Fantasia and more, the future of new cinema has never looked brighter.
Continue Reading "NIFFF 2008 - Let the Right One In Interview"...
Yes, Akira Kurosawa must be spinning in his grave right now thanks to the disrespect his son is showing by selling off remake rights to his films to seemingly anyone who comes knocking and, yes, it’s sad to see that Samurai Fiction director Hiroyuki Nakano has slipped to this but damn if it doesn’t actually look pretty good.
What is it? Hiroyuki Nakano - once an international darling, now absent from the feature film world for several years - has directed a remake of Akira Kurosawa’s Seven Samurai starring Sonny Chiba and Nagase Masatoshi with several of Kurosawa’s original creative team on board in key support roles. As you’d expect from a Nakano film, it looks fantastic. And as you’d expect from a Nakano film it has a killer soundtrack - in this case all Rolling Stones tunes. The weird bit? It was prepared for a special edition pachinko machine. Yes, kids, to see the new Nakano film you’ll need to head to your local gambling emporium and get playing. Go figure.
There are multiple trailers available on the official website - if someone could figure out how to capture those and load them into the Twitch Player, I’d be grateful - and you can hit the link below for more details.
Hugofilm, Wüste Film West and Constantin Film are gathering their collective might to produce a film based on the 2006 novel Tannöd by German author Andrea Maria Schenkel. The story of the novel was based on a real event dating back to 1922 - Hinterkaifeck, where a family- a husband, his wife, their daughter, her two children and the maid- were all brutally murdered with a pickaxe. That crime remains unsolved. Schenkel used that event as inspiration for her own retelling of that story and sets it in post-war 1950s Germany.
Swiss filmmaker Bettina Oberli [North Wind and Late Bloomers] will be at the helm. Bettina also co-wrote the adapted screenplay with Petra Lüschow. Near as I can tell from reviews of the book it reads more like investigative journalism; along with a straight narrative of the events it also includes transcripts as eye witness accounts are recorded, not witnesses of the murder - there were none, but witnesses of the Danner family and the strains and tensions that existed within it. In one review I read the accounts include stories full of rape, incest, suicide, brutality and deception. Add a dash of religious poetry to the mix and by all accounts it makes for a very unsettling yet engrossing read.
Done right this could be could one of those films that effectively balances the horrors of the murders with the horrors revealed in the secretive lives, emotions and motives of the Danner family.
It should be noted that there is already a film titled Kaifeck Murder in post expected to be released early January 2009 in Germany.
In his Sundance dispatch to The Greencine Daily, Brian Darr queried whether the “nerve-wrackingly fun” Baghead would remain in audience memory 16 years from now? And if, indeed, it had the potential to end up being “the mumblecore film to outlast its moment?”
Baghead‘s fresh genre mash-up—part comedy, part horror, part relationship flick—completely worked for me, as I imagine it will for others; but, it is in a very real way undeniably tied into this particular moment in the history of independent film, let alone the burgeoning careers of Mark and Jay Duplass, which justifies Brian Darr’s prescient query.
Offered the chance to talk to the brothers, I did a little research first and found myself totally smitten with The Washington Post video of their arrival at Sundance where they immediately launched into a hunt for free food. Now aware that the way to a mumblecore director’s heart is through his stomach, I arrived at our interview at the Prescott Hotel armed with a baggie of homemade empanadas de calabasa (pumpkin turnovers). Their eyes lit up as they gobbled them down right in front of my eyes. We hold these truths to be self-evident….
Continue Reading "BAGHEAD—Interview with Mark and Jay Duplass"...
Filming began today for the adaptation of the novel Shikisoku Zenereishon by author Jun Miura. Taking the helm for only his second time in his career is noted actor Tomorowo Taguchi [Tetsuo: The Iron Man, Full Metal Yakuza, Dead or Alive and Doing Time]. The two were former band mates and this will be the second time that Tomorowo will adapt one of his friend’s works. It has been five years since Tomorowo’s debut film Iden & Tity. Not much is knows about the cast right now. What we do know is another friend of Jun Miura’s, Lily Franky, will playing the role of the father of the main character and former teen idol Hori Chiemi will play the mother. Mukai Kosuke, who wrote the screenplays for Linda, Linda, Linda and Shindo penned the screenplay.
Set in the 1970s, the story revolves around a Bob Dylan-worshiping virgin in his first year at a Buddhist high school who lives a pampered life with his caring parents (played by Hori and Franky) but struggles to cope with his teenage neuroses. One summer he heads off with his friends to Shimane’s Okinoshima, rumored to be an “island of free sex”…
Synapse Films has just released Seiichi Fukuda’s Japanese seedy sixties revenge movie “Madame O” and it’s an odd release to be sure.
For starters it’s the second film in a series of “Vice Doctor” movies, of which all other entries are considered lost.
The only reason this one still exists is that it was actually sold to a foreign distributor as a naughty picture. And as the only surviving copy is an American one, the English dub is a take-it-or-leave-it affair with the original Japanese soundtrack having gone AWOL…
All of this sounds very bad, but don’t dismiss this disc just yet. The story is self-contained to the point where (thankfully) no knowledge of any of the other “Vice Doctor” movies is required, and well… the movie itself is strangely enough rather good, and very much ahead of its time.
So read on after the break, and beware of angry women brandishing scalpels and syphilitic cotton balls!
Continue Reading "MADAME O DVD Review"...
In the current political it’s very easy to think of terrorism as being a problem that exists ‘over there’ somewhere and very easy to forget that in the 1960s and 1970s terrorism was very much a domestic problem as well. Heck, even here in peace loving Canada we were briefly put under military rule in the early 70s thanks to the actions of the FLQ, a home grown terror group to call our own. There were equivalent groups everywhere, it seemed, each of them with their own causes, the only unifying factor seeming to be the willingness to use violence for their own ends.
The big German terror group of the late 1960s - active into the early 70s - was the Red Army Faction, or RAF, who engaged in bombings and assassinations throughout the country. That particular slice of German history has been captured on film in the upcoming Der Baader-Meinhof Komplex, and if the freshly released teaser is any indication this should be potent stuff. The great Bruno Ganz has a key role - always a good sign - the tech end looks spectacular and the attention to detail is impressive. Pay particular attention to the shots at the end of the actors next to the real people they are portraying: some of the resemblences are truly eerie.
Teaser is below the break in the Twitch Player.
Continue Reading "Germany’s Past Explodes in DER BAADER-MEINHOF KOMPLEX"...
In part one, I neglected to mention the Raro DVD for Il Profumo della signora in nero (The Perfume of the Lady in Black). According to Manlio Gomarasca, this video release was possible with the personal uncut pristine film print that its director Francesco Barilli had. All other home release versions out there have too much cut out. The Raro release is the real deal and it also features a great interview with Manlio and Francesco Barilli. Chances are if you have watched an interview on a Raro DVD, it was Manlio doing the interview.
Additionally, I should note in the current Italian monthly (print only), Il Caffe Del Teatro, there is a good article on Barilli on pages 48-49. This profile seems to highlight how though he hasn’t been able to make a film, he has channeled his passion for making movies over the years into paintings.
Now for part two of this interview we talk Mimsy Farmer and the painstaking detail Barilli went into getting his singular vision onto the screen.
In part two of this interview we talk about:
* Working with Mimsy Farmer
* Creating a Single Cinematic Vision & Voice
Continue Reading "NIFFF 2008 - Perfume of the Lady in Black Interview Part 2"...
The New York Asian Film Festival completed another successful run more than two weeks ago. By all rights, this review should have run before United Red Army had its North American Premiere on the fest’s last day, but it took me this long to wrap my head fully around it. My apologies. I an currently self-criticizing my actions.
Rat-a-tat-tat. Rat-a-tat-tat.
The dates, facts, and figures come flying out of the introductory section of United Red Army like a machine gun, accompanied by a hypnotic musical theme, shooting down any possible suspicion that director Kôji Wakamatsu intended to make an audience-friendly film about the Japanese student movement of the late 60s and early 70s.
Indeed, the tone is so strident that you feel guilty for not taking notes, as though a class were being taught and you were not properly prepared to answer questions asked by the deep-voiced narrator. Initially fascinating, the tone and pace becomes off-putting, frustrating, and finally wearisome. Suddenly, though, you notice that Wakamatsu has been sneaking in brief dramatizations of the student movement’s evolution that have grown longer each time they break up the narrated documentary footage. Almost before you realize it, you’re caught up in a brutally gripping dilemma facing sincere individuals.
In short, you face the same situation as the real-life characters depicted in the film.
Continue Reading "NYAFF Hangover: UNITED RED ARMY Review"...
I have, many times in the past, referred to Danish writer-director Anders Thomas Jensen as the Danish equivalent to the Coen Brothers. He’s smart, he’s savvy, he’s a great writer and he loves to play with genre conventions just enough to keep the audience on their collective toes. I love the guy, I really do, but he’s just received a major challenge to that particular throne in the form of Henrik Ruben Genz and his film Terribly Happy, or Frygtelig Lykkelig. The Danish Film Institute’s synopsis for this one doesn’t even begin to do the trailer justice, but here it is anyway:
Robert has a number of skeletons in his closet, which he is determined to bury. Although hardly his dream job, Robert sees the position of temporary village constable as a necessary stage on the road to rehabilitation. He just needs to do well and generally behave by the book. However, village life and the macabre provincial order don’t fit easily into Robert’s plans. Nothing is ever straightforward, and certainly not when you are way out in the country.
The camera work in this one is spectacular, making stellar use of lighting and the natural countryside but more impressive is the casting. Fans of Lars von Trier will recognize a few regulars in there, the always strong Kim Bodnia has a key role and Jakob Cedergren looks stellar in the lead. Keep an eye in Cedergren in general, really ... he made his first big splash as the lead of Dagur Kari’s Dark Horse and has quietly become one of Denmark’s most reliable performers in the years since, choosing a string of very strong roles and excelling in all of them.
The trailer for this is exceptionally strong, check it out in the Twitch Player below the break.
Continue Reading "Is Henrik Ruben Genz A Danish Answer To The Coen Brothers?"...
Yes, we’ve been looking forward to this one rather a lot, thanks in no small part to the acting one-two punch of Nicolai Cleve Broche and Kristoffer Joner - two of the very best the region has to offer - in the leads. Set in the end of the hippie era and based on a cult novel The Last Joint Venture casts Broche and Joner as a pair of stoner pot dealers swept up in the wave of harder drugs that burst on to the scene in the seventies. Here’s the synopsis:
“Paranoid is when you think someone’s following you, but if you know it, that’s different, right?” says Carl in The Last Joint Venture. The final strains of the hippie decade are fading, and the 80s are looming ahead. Carl (Kristoffer Joner) and Robert (Nicolai Cleve Broch) are two wasters who live in harmony with the world, letting life slide by in an eternal cannabis haze. They earn their keep peddling small batches of hash, and feel they provide an essential supplement to the suffering populace.
Following the worst drought ever in Oslo’s streets, they now face the final score: forty-five keys of prime Nepali hash await distribution – and Carl and Robert are set to make a fortune. Finally they can realise their dream about a commune in the country!
But then Glen (Kåre Conradi) turns up, a financial backer with ambitious, coked-up plans. Carl and Robert are jolted out of the fog, and now have to fight back. Equipped with Afghan coats, a ghettoblaster and a battered Peugeot, they face a breathless, dramatic and hilarious trip through Oslo’s underworld and into the darkest forests of Norway.
The Last Joint Venture is based on Ingvar Ambjørnsens cult slacker novel about the transition from the idyllic 70s to the hardnosed egotism of the yuppie era. The film is directed by Ulrik Imtiaz Rolfsen, the creator of films like Izzat and Varg Veum – Bitter Flowers.
We posted the first teaser a while back and now the full theatrical trailer has arrived. It’s an impressive bit of work, too ... the period detail draws you in at first but it quickly becomes clear that this is no nostalgia trip, there’s a hard realism to it as well. Check both trailers below the break.
Continue Reading "Full Theatrical Trailer For Norwegian Drug Drama THE LAST JOINT VENTURE"...
To say that this year’s retrospective of his films at the Udine Far East Film Festival left me a fan of Japan’s Miki Satoshi is something of an understatement. Moving from film to film over the course of the program - wisely laid out in chronological order - you got the undeniable sense of a director figuring himself out as he moved from film to film, gradually discovering his unique voice until he finally arrived at Adrift in Tokyo - my review here - which is, in my opinion, one of the absolute best films of the year.
And so I am very happy to see that not only is Satoshi hard at work on a new film project but also has one stellar cast lined up. Ryo Kase - you know him from Funky Forest, Letters From Iwo Jima and a host of others - and Kumiko Aso will be taking the lead roles in Satoshi’s Instant Numa, the story of an office lady trying to start a new life for herself as an antiques dealer with the support of a friend. And, no, that synopsis doesn’t sound like much but, hey ... Adrift is about a couple of guys taking a long walk and it’s brilliant.
The photo, incidentally, is of Satoshi, myself and Mark Schilling in the lobby of the theater in Udine. You can probably work out who’s who.
Otanjohbi omedetohgozaimasu, Kiyoshi Kurosawa! Saturday, July 19, marked Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s 53rd birthday celebration and over at The Evening Class I’m giving him something of a belated birthday party by hosting the Kiyoshi Kurosawa Birthday Blogathon, kicking off this coming Friday, July 25, 2008 and running through the week until Friday, August 1, 2008. Todd has given me permission to invite the Twitch readership to the party.
For those of you unfamiliar with the blogathon phenomena, blogathons are the brainchild of Girish Shambu who hosted the first blogathon (orginally termed a “blog orgy") at his eponymous site on Paul Verhoeven’s Showgirls. The experience was a winning one and, since then, blogathons pop up as frequently as ... well ... you fill in the blank.
Basically, this is how they work. If you have your own blog or website and want to write a piece on Kiyoshi Kurosawa, just let me know and I’ll link it into the Evening Class birthday blogathon. If you don’t have a site but still wish to contribute, contact me by email or through the comments section when the party begins and I’ll do my best to post an entry for you. By way of further example, the last blogathon I hosted was on producer Val Lewton. The experience was so enjoyable and productive, that I’ve decided to follow through with the Kiyoshi Kurosawa Birthday Blogathon. I hope to see some of you there!
Nippon Cinema has reported about the new teaser and website for Ryuichi Honda’s GS Wonderland, which tells the story of a fictional rock band called The Tightsmen during the Group Sounds (GS) wave that swept Japan during the 1960s. As indicated by both the clip and the psychedelic, eye-bleeding website, the film seems to be emphasizing the fashion and style of this era but the music seems to be getting some attention: Jun Hashimoto and Kyohei Tsutsumi, both of whom composed music for GS bands such as The Golden Cups, The Dynamites, and Ox, have written 10 new songs for GS Wonderland. Chiaki Kuriyama, and Ittoku Kishibe, who was a member of The Tigers, both star in the film.
Continue Reading "Group Sounds Return in GS WONDERLAND"...
