It’s no surprise that the Midnight Madness lineup is our favorite block of films in the Toronto International Film Festival, the ten included titles making up the premiere offering of new genre films int he world today. And - along with the Wavelengths and Family Zone titles - the complete Madness lineup has just been announced! And they are: JCVD, The Burrowers, Deadgirl, SexyKiller, Detroit Metal City, Not Quite Hollywood, Acolytes, Chocolate, Eden Log and Martyrs. Let the blood letting begin.
We’ve got the complete announcements for all three lineups below the break and all of the Madness trailers with the exceptions of The Burrowers and Deadgirl - and we’re working on those - in the TIFF Trailer Park.
Continue Reading "TIFF Midnight Madness, Wavelengths and Family Zone Titles Announced!"...
‘Tis the season for live action anime adaptations. Already on the ‘coming soon’ list are Spielberg’s spin on Ghost in the Shell, DiCaprio’s Akira and Tobey Maguire’s Robotech and now you can add to the list a 20th Century Fox-produced live action version of Shinichiro Watanabe’s Cowboy Bebop.
Now, Bebop is a show that could work beautifully in live action if done correctly and rumors of a live action version have circulated for years. When Watanabe was here in Toronto for the Worldwide Short Film Festival earlier this summer I put the question of a future live action version to him directly, to which he just smiled and commented that “That would be up to Hollywood.” And apparently Hollywood says yes. With further questioning Watanabe also spilled that he is currently preparing new animated and live action projects though he would not comment at all on what the new projects were, which at least opens up the possibility that he may have a hand in the Hollywood Bebop.
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.
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”…
The mammoth Fantasia Festival has come to an end and you know what that means: prizes! Who’s getting the hardware this year? Ahem ...
Swedish vampire picture Let The Right One In was the clear winner, taking home the jury award for Best Picture while also netting nods for Best Director and Best Photography. A surprising - and VERY gratifying - choice was Miki Satoshi winning best script for Adrift In Tokyo while Rule of Three and Shadows in the Palace took home Best Actor and Actress, respectively, and the jury awarded a special prize to Adrift In Tokyo‘s duo of Jô Odagiri and Tomokazu Miura. In the First Features category Koen Mortier’s Ex Drummer edged out Nacho Vigalondo’s Time Crimes and John Bergin’s From Inside, all three of which I truly adore.
Check out all the rest of the winners in the official announcement below the break!
Continue Reading "Fantasia Award Winners Announced!"...
The 28th San Francisco Jewish Film Festival ("SFJFF") takes place throughout the Bay Area from July 24 to August 11, and in terms of the number of films and screenings on offer, it’s their largest one yet. Although I’m sure the program contains some fine narrative features, the eclectic selection of documentaries is what really grabbed my attention this year. Here are a dozen that I’ve had the chance to preview.
Stalags: Holocaust and Pornography in Israel—Of all the documentaries in the festival, this one carries the highest profile, having garnered loads of media attention when it screened at the New York Jewish Film Festival this spring. Stalags were immensely popular Israeli pornographic novels from the early sixties, in which Allied POWs recounted tales of sexual torture by buxom Nazi SS babes. They arrived at a time when the world was first learning about concentration camp horrors (via the trial of Adolf Eichmann), and were penned in Hebrew using English sentence structures (to deceive Israeli readers into thinking the books were written abroad). In this loaded and densely packed film, Director Ari Libsker interviews Stalag writers and collectors, and goes about the messy business of deciphering the books’ psychological and sociological implications. Interestingly, the entire film was shot in black and white, save for the colorfully lurid book covers, which boast such titles as The Monster of Horror Stalag and I Was Colonel Schultz’s Private Bitch. Stalags was produced by Barak Heymann and is showing on a double bill with his brother Tomar’s It Kinda Scares Me. For a closer look at the film’s reception in New York, The Greencine Daily compiles reviews and write-ups here and here. Highly recommended.
Continue Reading "SFJFF 2008—Michael Hawley’s Documentary Dozen"...
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So. Christian Bale. Arrested for assaulting his mother and sister. That, my friends, is class. Or not, really. However this ends up playing out it can’t at all be a good thing when the female side of your family has you arrested. Bale’s denying it, of course, but what else would you expect him to do?
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!
There’s a good reason why Peter Sciretta’s site /Film heads my Evening Class blogroll. Actually two good reasons this morning. One of my fave raves at Peter’s site is his galleries of artists who create movie poster art. Peter’s turned me on to Tom Whalen (whose rendition of The Dark Knight graces this entry) and Eric Tan. Check ‘em out! As Todd would say, “They’re tasty!”
Cross-published on The Evening Class.
... and she’s taking special effects man Robert Kurtzman with her. In a somewhat surprising move, not only is director Jennifer Lynch already moving on to her next film - her latest, Surveillance, is just starting to roll out around the globe - but it will be a Hindi language musical murder mystery with fantasy overtones.
Titled Naagin - The Snake Woman, the film will explore the myths and legends around snake charmers with Malika Sherawat (not an ugly woman) in the lead role and Irrfan Khan as a cop hunting down the magical woman. This is such an incredibly odd choice for Lynch that I’m really quite intrigued ...
While details on this are still sketchy at this stage I am generally of the opinion that any news involving Japanese writer-director-comedian Kankuro Kudo is good news. I am also of the opinion that any news involving actor Tadanobu Asano is good news. So news that Kudo and Asano will soon be collaborating? Spectacular!
The project is titled Donju, the film adaptation of a crime comedy written by Kudo as a stage play - one that won Japan’s Kunio Kishida Drama Award. Kudo will not be directing this himself but he did handle the adaptation from stage play to screen play himself before passing it off to first time feature director Hideaki Hosono, who has previously directed music videos for Kudo’s band. The story? It’s a mystery revolving around a young writer who keeps getting killed but keeps returning to life.
I’m not a great fan of microcinema; however, I’m not above spending an insomniatic hour or two trolling YouTube or fingerpopping to scopitones at Bedazzled TV, or even occasionally dipping into the Twitch Video Player. I certainly enjoy the Twitch Trailer Park for each year’s Toronto International Film Festival.
And speaking of trailer parks, Trailers From Hell—the brainchild of film director Joe Dante, new media entrepreneur Jonas Hudson, graphic artist Charlie Largent and producer Elizabeth Stanley, born out of their mutual love of classic films of all types, but particularly horror and exploitation films—has been rocking my late night world of late. With an impressive list of “Grindhouse Gurus” to guide the way, Trailers From Hell offers up vintage trailers with contemporary commentary. Where else will you find Eli Roth enthusing over Alfred Hitchcock’s trailer for The Birds? Or Jack Hill offering directorial insight into Foxy Brown? Or John Landis adding “scare-ewy” context to the careers of Bud Abbott and Lou Costello in Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein? Or Stuart Gordon extolling the carnivalesque geekdom of Nightmare Alley? And that is just a smidgin of the hellish delights offered at the site! Trailers From Hell is a wonderful project expertly administered. Insomnia has never looked so good!
Cross-published on The Evening Class.
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"...
Along with the lineage that can be traced from Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight (2008) back to Paul Leni’s The Man Who Laughs (1928) is the latter’s indelible imprint upon Brian DePalma’s 2006 neo-noir The Black Dahlia, based on James Ellroy’s novel, where mutilation reclaims its destructive thrust as an expressive mask of life’s inequitable if not inevitable horrors.
To synopsize briefly, in The Man Who Laughs—the filmic adaptation of Victor Hugo’s 1869 novel—Gwynplaine (Conrad Veidt), the son of a noble father who has displeased King James II, is turned over to a surgeon, Dr. Hardquannone (George Siegman), associated with a band of ostracized and feared gypsies, the Comprachicos (literally “child-buyers"), for proper punishment: a facial mutilation which leaves him with a permanent and ghastly rictus grin. As a title card states, the King condemns him “to laugh forever at his fool of a father.” Abandoned to a snowy death by the Comprachicos, Gwynplaine nonetheless survives—along with saving the life of a young blind girl Dea (Mary Philbin)—the two of them fortuitously coming under the care of Ursus (Cesare Gravina), who finds them sustainful employment as a sideshow act in a traveling carnival.
Continue Reading "THE MAN WHO LAUGHS (1928) / THE BLACK DAHLIA (2006)"...
