If the goal with the self reflective JCVD was to recreate the public image of aging action star Jean Claude Van Damme, then you may consider that mission a success. If the goal was to announce to the world that sophomore feature director Mabrouk El Mechri is a truly world class talent, then you may also consider that mission a success. If the goal was to skewer celebrity-obsessed culture while laying out the toll it takes on those on the receiving end of the idol worship, then - yep - that’s another one in the success column.
That JCVD is able to show you a new face to its star and subject at all makes it a major accomplishment. That it does so with such an incredible sense of style, insight, and pure entertainment value makes it a revelation. Ladies and gentlemen, after spending decades turning out lowest-common-denominator action pictures Jean Claude Van Damme has just made a truly great film. No matter what criteria you may use to judge it - scripting, cinematography, humour, action, even dramatic performance - JCVD is one remarkable piece of work. Yes, I flat out love this film.
Continue Reading "TIFF Review: JCVD"...
A note to aspiring film makers: films populated entirely with horrible people are not generally a good time to sit through, no matter how well made they may be. Sure, there are exceptions, films with characters so bad that you get the vicarious thrill of living through them or films that pack a serious emotional catharsis generally, but for the most part it’s a pretty tough road to walk. Make those horrible characters all incredibly passive and self absorbed and you’ve got two big strikes against you.
And, with that, welcome to Cold Lunch, the debut feature from Norway’s Eva Sorhaug with a stellar cast of Norway’s best and brightest - including the first major screen role for Uno and Hawaii, Oslo star Aksel Hennie in a few years - playing horribly self absorbed people who just generally can’t seem to be bothered to make their lives - or anyone else’s, for that matter - any better.
Continue Reading "TIFF Review: COLD LUNCH (LONSJ)"...
“And you want to keep moving / and you want to stay still / but lost in the moment some longing gets filled…”—Joni Mitchell, “Barangrill”
They say the cleanest line of nature is the horizon and whether one empties one’s longing gazing from sea to land or land to sea, from the present to the past and back again—shifting projections from one to the other—the gamble is that desire (configured as what one looks for or looks at) will somehow fulfill you. In Lisandro Alonso’s Liverpool, the longing to remember and to be remembered is so intense it measures as body’s grief, moreso than the body of desire. Movement becomes the only available fulfillment and memory itself becomes the effort at remembering. The most token of connections becomes all that’s left to hold onto of origins, lineage, and family.
Spatiality governs and informs Alonso’s Liverpool. Interiorized spaces contrast against vast expanses of nature (both literal, and simulated as when Farrel (Juan Fernandez) eats a meal in a restaurant whose murals are an autumnal birchwood forest). Small ship compartments, small households, feebly contain the thoughts otherwise emptied into wintry landscapes. Compromised subjectivities contrast with compromised social spaces. Alonso places his camera to capture them all, large and small, thereby expressing the home one escapes and returns to, and the wandered distance between Liverpool and Ushuaia, the southernmost town of Argentina.
Liverpool is composed of beautifully articulated images. Dark long-eared rabbits in the snow. Snowcapped mountain ranges. A poster of Jesus pinned to the inside of a door. Farrel sitting alone at a long red table set against a green wall. Farrel’s eyebrows raising in bemused disbelief when Analia (Giselle Irrazabal) asks him for money and what her request tells him. What he must feel when his frail, ailing mother tells him she was just a little girl when he had already grown tall. By accretion, not through narration, a story is told.
Continue Reading "TIFF REVIEW: LIVERPOOL"...
A few of the boys here are fans of director Baltasar Kormakur who is Iceland’s most prolific director at the moment, his film White Night Wedding is screening at the Toronto Film Festival this year and he is still riding the waves that his breakout thriller Jar City made when it came out abroad. The man is insanely busy, working on the edit of his Hollywood debut Run For Her Life (having just snagged the Dark Knight’s James Newton Howard to do the music), writing the “sequel” to Jar City and a untitled Viking project and while doing this he is also producing and starring in a new film by Icelandic cult director Oskar Jonasson which is written by the author of Jar City Arnaldur Indridason. The film is Reykjavik Rotterdam, a thriller about a down on his luck ex con who decides to do one last booze smuggle job to get his finances in order. As one would expect from a story like this things don’t go as planned and start to spiral out of control.
A poster and a trailer have been released to promote the film but sadly it’s only un subtitled at the moment. The trailer is located on the Blueeyes Productions website on the left side of the screen.
Not the strongest trailer around but then Icelanders have never been able to cut together a good movie trailer for some reason.
Follow the links.
I have a feeling the World Film Fest team are praying TIFF will make journalists forget about the terrible edition they gave us this year. Talk about a flop : the rooms were empty, the good films didn’t have any publicity and major guests were not even mentionned in press kits. Even if you focus on the films shown that year, you’ll realize there was no logic in the programming. A festival should give an idea of the situation of world cinema. After this edition, I guess cinema is going somewhere, but where exactly ?
You’ll find here short reviews for movies seen at WFF this year. Enjoy !
Continue Reading "WFF Reviews - Final Round"...
Ask a number of producers around Chungmuro what their most pressing concern is at the moment, and the answers might actually be surprising. There’s likely to be quite a good and different number of ideas, but all the roads more or less lead to Rome. That is, trying to understand the mind of those with the time and money to visit the theater, every now and then, perhaps as a prelude to petting. That magic word, teenager, which can make or break today’s Korean films regardless of their quality or subject. With Korean Cinema’s Hollywood syndrome reaching its zenith, not only you’re starting to see companies mount the offensive almost all on the first opening weekend, particularly for those films that need to sell 4-5 million tickets to break even. But, in the last two-three years, something Korean producers rarely cared about started happening more and more: trying to avoid the maligned “18 and over” rating. Films like 무방비 도시 (Open City), 비스티 보이즈 (The Moonlight of Seoul) and many more were “18-rated” to begin with, but cut some touchy edges to reach every possible wallet, particularly that of those ever elusive teenagers. With only one film out of ten breaking even, it’s not surprising they’d try that.
It’s certainly a sad state of affairs things got to this point, but the industry can only blame itself: when they had the chance to make moviegoers mature and see films as more than background noise supporting the local Oppa while he examined his belle’s cavities free of charge, they wasted their time on inane jopok comedies and star vehicles. Way too many insiders use scapegoats to explain the bubble’s sudden explosion, particularly Jang Sun-Woo’s insane 성냥팔이 선녀의 재림 (Resurrection of the Little Match Girl) and its 12 Billion won (if you ask me, well spent. Ever seen a Techno-Taoist-cum-Buddhist blockbuster before?). But, really, the biggest issue has become that of “betraying” people with a serious interest in films for their intrinsic values, and a few producers’ penchant for banking on the lowest common denominator. So, the Jung Trio go on 상상 플러스 (Sang Sang Plus) acting silly for a night, and suddenly 투사부일체 (My Boss, My Student) becomes a nationwide phenomenon. An event you should participate in, lest you’ll fall off the “cool” bandwagon. Because the kiddos who saw it couldn’t just say “this is as fun as letting a donkey tip-tap on your cojones,” or their number would go from No. 1 to the “Don’t answer” zone of their girlfriends’ cell phones.
Continue Reading "[K-FILM REVIEWS] 고死 (Death Bell)"...
Ooh Purdy. We have been paying a lot of attention to Death Instinct (L’Instinct de Mort) and Public Enemy No.1 for some time now. Starring the hugely talented French actor Vincent Cassel it is the telling the true story of notorious international criminal Jacques Mesrine - who plied his trade throughout France, Canada, the USA and Venezuala. Everything we have seen so far has been very impressive and now we have been given a link to the French Press kit. It’s times like these that I wish I paid more attention in French class and less attention to the dynamic clicking action of my ball point pen.
You can download the press kit here. It’s VERY pretty.
Thanks Mary.
It is great to see how emerging animation studios progress and see their projects develop. Case in point, Studio Flying out of Korea. Not known as a hot bed of animation it is studios like this one that get Korean animation the attention it deserves. Their project Aachi & Ssipak is already a cult classic in animation circles and they drew a lot of attention last year with Mad Monkey. And now we have another full feature called Dokkaebi, which is Korean mythology not unlike Japanese Yokai.
And thanks to the watchful eye of our reader TheOrientalNightfish and the mighty website Catsuka we now have a smack of images of the character designs right from the studio walls. Find them after the jump!
This is clearly a case of absence making the heart grow fonder. I for one will admit that I found the Britcom series Little Britain was wanting by its third year. It is amazing what a couple of years out of the limelight will do for a fan. HBO is presenting this brand new series on September 28th at 10:30pm Little Britain USA! Yes, all our favorite characters- Anne, Carol Beer, Marjorie Dawes, Vicky Pollard and Daffyd Thomas- should be making appearances in this new show. Here’s hoping they have new characters as well.
You can watch the clip after the break. Andy needs to use the toilet. I know!
Continue Reading "Litte Britain USA: The early preview clip of Lou and Andy!"...
As reported by Variety, Montreal-based distribution company Evokative Films has acquired Canadian rights to Pierre Laffargue’s French action film Black. The film stars French rapper MC Jean Gab’1, who Twitch readers might recognize from his small role in Pierre Morel’s Banliueue 13 (District 13), and Carole Karemera. Jean Gab’1 plays the titular Senegalese bank-robber (born and raised in France) who plans on going straight after a botched heist. His cousin interrupts his brief retirement with a call from Dakar, where a briefcase full of diamonds presents a new opportunity.
One might ask what differentiates this film from the pack? The trailer, which is currently being re-cut for the Canadian market, gives a hint. The French and Senegalese locales, the witchcraft, the Afro-beat music, the European heavies and the overall vibe invokes the black action films of the 70s but with a modern international vibe. Evokative Films is the first international distributor to purchase rights for Black, and the United States rights are still up for grabs. Who will be next? Stay tuned to Twitch.
Continue Reading "Evokative Films Acquires Canadian Rights for French Actioner BLACK"...
Well, glory be, Guy Ritchie is back and back in a big way. His debut film, Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, branded Ritchie the brash young wunderkind of Brit film; Snatch, for its part, confirmed his place as the patron of the punters and thugs. His films were bold, stylish, hyper-violent sned ups of UK crime culture, painting a vivid picture of a world where everyone was on the take, where everybody had an angle. Ritchie was indisputably the best in the world at what he did, the absolute king of his particular niche, and it seemed like there was nowhere to go but up.
And then he married Madonna and made Swept Away as a star vehicle for his new bride. And the less said about that film, the better. Recognizing he’d made a horrible mistake there Ritchie moved back towards his roots with Revolver but he couldn’t resist the urge to try and prove he was capable of something more, fusing a pastiche of other elements into the picture. The problem? He wasn’t as capable as he thought and the film failed both critically and commercially. So back to the drawing board once again, back to the world he was lord and master of seemingly from the word go and all that can be said is, “Welcome back, Guy. You’ve been missed.”
Continue Reading "TIFF Review: ROCK N ROLLA"...
Without any doubt at all Fabrice du Welz’s Vinyan has been one of the most anticipated films of the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival amongst genre film fans. Du Welz has a proven track record as a director with a compellingly unique viewpoint, a man not afraid to challenge and punish his audience, and with a cast as strong as he has here with a premise as compelling, it has been hard to imagine him going too far wrong. The down side to this, of course, is that with high expectations comes a high risk of disappointment.
Continue Reading "TIFF Review: VINYAN"...
For lovers of both the whimsical freeform and bittersweet intimate films of Studio Ghibli (My Neighbor Tortoro and Grave of the Fireflies for instance), there will be a lot to love in So Yong Kim‘s semi-autobiographical childhood film Treeless Mountain. It makes a finely articulated plea for the rejuvenating aspects of simple living over urban malaise; but more importantly, it is a showcase for the fragile dignity of children.
Continue Reading "TIFF Review: TREELESS MOUNTAIN"...
If you’ve never heard of M. Hulot I envy you. First go out and buy Criterions 2 Disc version of Playtime. Then invite several friends over and start the screening early so you’ll have plenty of time to talk about how much you all enjoyed it. Then go out and get Trafic, M. Hulots Holiday and Mon Uncle and wish that director Jacques Tati had made more movies starring his eternally befuddled middle-class protagonist M. Hulot. This is comedy on a grand scale. Imagine a thinking mans Chaplin in the modern world and a quieter sense of slapstick and you begin to get the charming often hilarious quality that is the legacy of M. Hulot.
Each of the M. Hulot films puts the character in a modern but completely familiar set of situations where he is completely in over his head. In Playtime these all have to do with the city and all its modern advances in architecture, advertising and night life. In Trafic it’s the world of the car and, among other things automotive, our increasing attempts to treat them as if thy were a second home. No one ever looked more at home walking down the street and I can barely imagine anyone less picturesque behind the wheel of an automobile. Tatis sly suggestion that our machinery (or our supposed dependence on it) is something to at least maintain a sense of humor about is of course even more a message of today than when he first made his film.
This is a two-disc set bursting with exactly the sorts of extras one expects from Criterion. High def digital transfer comes as a welcome addition since sound is such an important factor in the films of Tati but a two-hour documentary?! Titled In the Footsteps of Monsieur Hulot this is certainly the most comprehensive overview and dissection of the beloved character available. Vintage interviews with the Trafic cast, an entire episode of Morceaux de bravoure and a new essay by Jonathan Romney round out an impressive set.
If all Akira Kurasawas name brings to mind is epic samurai cinema you owe it to yourself to see Ikuru, but also the much earlier noirish Stray Dog and High and Low. As he did with any genre he worked in Kurasawa makes the most of the conventions associated with noir but he never loses sight of the society he’s making film’s about or the time he’s setting them in. This film concerns a wealthy Japanese industrialist whose son is kidnapped and held for ransom. Instead of aceding to the demands the father launches a campaign to get his son back. If the plot sounds familiar you’re probably thinking of Ransom starring Mel Gibson and directed by Ron Howard. Personally I don’t like Howard much as a dirctor but Ransom does work as a straightforward suspense action thriller. But in no way does it hold a candle to Kurasawas character driven, class aware, deconstruction of postwar Japanese society.
This is definitely a step up from the single disc edition of a while back. New restored high-definition digital transfer with newly restored original four-track surround soundNew audio commentary by Akira Kurosawa scholar Stephen PrinceA 37-minute documentary on the making of High and Low created as part of the Toho Masterworks series Akira Kurosawa: It Is Wonderful to CreateRare archival interview with Toshiro MifuneNew video interview with actor Tsutomu Yamazaki who plays the kidnapperTheatrical trailers from Japan and the U.S.New and improved English subtitletranslation as well as a booklet featuring a new essay by critic Geoffrey O’Brien and a reprinted essay by Japanese film scholar Donald Richie.
Guy Maddin is best encountered when you have time to pay close attention to what the man is trying to do. Otherwise he’s liable to mystify or worse annoy you. And that would be a shame because ultimately his stuff is whimsical in a way that can inspire anybody who gives it a chance. He’ll never be big mainstream stuff but anyone who loves movies should be able to appreciate his weird vsion which co-opts silent movie stylings with genre conventions. Surreal only begins to explain some of his output, bizarre comes closer when talking about the rest but there’s no doubt he’s an awful lot of fun. Brand on the Brain has split people somewhat, at least in comparison to his Universally heralded The Saddst Music In The World and Dracula: Pages From A Virgin’s Diary; one of the freshest takes on the Dracula legend in a long time. For Brand don’t even worry about the story just soak in the glorious visuals. This particular edition has some interesting special features. Most unusual are the Optional narration tracks featuring Isabella Rossellini, Laurie Anderson, John Ashbery, Crispin Glover, Guy Maddin, Louis Negrin, and Eli Wallach. And besides the stunning high def transfer there’s a new doc featuring interviews with Maddin and his significant creative others titled 97 Percent True and two new short films Maddin created specifically for this Criterion release: It’s My Mothers Birthday and Footsteps. Also included are a deleted scene, a trailer and A new essay by film critic Dennis Lim.
The Criterion Collection Edition of Carl Dryers magnificent Vampyr comes at a time when other silent horrors have become available in far less magnificent editions bearing the words Ultimate or Special Edition on their ad art and packaging. Criterion in contrast simply lets the content of the disc and its extras speak for itself. I can’t think of any other Silent horror that has received a treatment superior to this.
First the film is offered in a new high definition transfer taken from a 1998 restoration as well as an alternate version with English interstitials eliminating the need for English subs if that’s more your speed. If you do want subs they’ve been retooled and are easier to read and more exact than ever. Topping off disc one is a commentary by film scholar Tony Rayns. Disc Two contains a documentary by Jorgen Roos covering Carl Dreyers career, a visual essay by scholar Caspar Tybjerg on Dryer’s influences in creating the distinct look of Vampyr and a 1958 radio essay by Dryer himself on filmmaking.
With any other release that would be the end of any extras. But Criterion also includes substantial a booklet with essays by noted film historians Kim Newman, and Mark Le Fanu, as well as one by Koerber on his restoration and a 1964 interview with star and producer Nicolas de Gunzburg. Also included is a companion paperback book containing the Vampyr screenplay and the story that inspired it, Sheridan Le Fanus Carmilla.
I’m not a fanatic about silent film. But Vampyr is a haunting rumination on death that belongs in any film library. And while you’re at it The Passion of Joan of Arc or Ordet are every bit as powerful if not moreso. Have I ever seen a Dryer film that didn’t leave me shaken, breathless or at least wide-eyed? Nope. The man was a genius. The fact that he contributed such a grandly surreal effort to the horror film should leave fans proud and they should do themselves proud by making sure they’ve at least seen this masterpiece. No collection of classic horror or vampire cinema is complete without this new Criterion edition.
Attention all Chicago residents, independent theater enthusiasts and horror nuts. Horrorbles has announced a unique screening of “Family Portraits” at the Historic Portage Theater (4050 N. Milwaukee Ave), Friday, September 12th at 7:30pm. Douglas Buck will be on hand for autographs & a candid interview by John Aranza about his films. Tickets are $10 and can be purchased at Horrorbles (Berwyn) or at horrorbles.com and click on “Special Events”. A special free screening has been added at 9:45pm of Buck’s remake of Brian DePalma’s “Sisters” This will be a world premiere for “Sisters” on the big screen!
If you’ve never seen Family Portraits you are in for a treat. While gore-hounds have always appreciated the film for its occasionally explicit violence the real reason to catch it is Bucks extraordinary ability to capture people at the apex of despair, alienation and dysfunction. He’s a storyteller truly interested in the problem of evil and woundedness and the way they relate to one another.
Much like the release pattern of indie produced Bubba Ho Tep, Bruce Campbell‘s latest lure to his fan base, the goofy meta-laden My Name is Bruce, is getting a slow ‘tour date’ style roll out release. The first date is in Austin with the Ain’t it Cool News folks at the Alamo Drafthouse on October 26th. Then it (I’m assuming a single print) slowly makes its way across the wide US of A.
While the My Name is Bruce does not look like it achieves the level of ‘special’ or ‘beloved’ that Don Coscarelli managed to with Bubba, I expect these individual screenings should be very fun.
Cities and dates up to Christmas 2008 after the Jump.
Continue Reading "The Chin is coming to your City: Call him Bruce."...
This just gets cuter by the minute. Lee Yoon-Gi! WTF?
We posted the teaser of Lee Yoon-Gi’s 멋진 하루 (My Dear Enemy) last week, and it already looked like a complete departure from anything Lee had shown in the last three years, through gems like 여자, 정혜 (This Charming Girl) and 아주 특별한 손님 (Ad-Lib Night). But the full trailer looks even more like a cute, irreverent mix of temper tantrums (by Jeon Do-Yeon) and teddy bear conman techniques (by Ha Jung-Woo). It’s also really nice to see people like Kim Hye-Ok and the criminally underrated Kim Young-Min, who did so wonderfully in Ad-Lib Night.
Story tells of Hee-Soo (Jeon), an unemployed and penniless woman who meets her ex-boyfriend after a year to get her 3.5 million won back. Since Byung-Woon (Ha) is unemployed himself (and also tends to enjoy gambling), all they can do is go around and ask all of Byung-Woon’s “girlfriends” to help out, with lies starting to flow like water in the ocean. Release is set for September 25, and you can see both teaser and trailer below the break.
Continue Reading "Full Trailer for Lee Yoon-Gi’s 멋진 하루 (My Dear Enemy)"...
I never thought I’d ever say this, but there’s very little to complain about, looking at SBS’ 2008. A station usually known for superficial trendy dramas has actually offered a healthy dose of diversity, ranging from the mainstream to genre dramas, despite this being one of the industry’s worst years ever. They did screw up both 왕과 나 (The King & I) and 비천무 (Bichunmoo), but from 사랑해 (I Love U) to 달콤한 나의 도시 (My Sweet Seoul) all the way to the surprise of 신의 저울 (Scale of Providence), 2008 might prove to be a pretty positive year for the station. Some will say the best is yet to come, as the sageuk 바람의 화원 (Painter in the Wind) is about to start. Three things show promise, in particular: one, that the show will have shot the majority of its episodes before broadcast, a novelty for Korean dramas; two, that the cast is actually quite good, setting aside the star casting of Moon Geun-Young and Park Shin-Yang - particularly interesting will be how Bae Soo-Bin of 주몽 (Jumong) portrays King Jeongjo. Finally, the fact this drama is adapted from Lee Jung-Myung’s novel (if you speak Korean, you can read a few excerpts here, which puts two of the most acclaimed painters in Joseon history, Kim Hong-Do and Shin Yoon-Bok, in an interesting premise: what if Shin Yoon-Bok was actually a woman, only pretending to be a man to avoid the strict social mores of Confucianism?
The show debuts on September 24, after the conclusion of 워킹맘 (Working Mom). More than a trailer, what you’ll find below the break is a highlight package lasting about 4 minutes, showing Moon’s transformation and Kim Hong-Do trying to paint his famous 송하맹호도 (Roaring Tiger).
Continue Reading "Moon Geun-Young’s 바람의 화원 (Painter in the Wind) Unveils First Strokes"...
Though it’s not screening here at TIFF the Canadian premiere of Bruce LaBruce’s gay zombie movie Otto; Or, Up With Dead People is just around the corner, the film slated to screen as part of the Atlantic Film Festival in Halifax on September 17th with LaBruce in attendance.. And, being a good local boy, LaBruce is also about to unleash his zombie creation here at home with a special Toronto Sneak Peek on September 12th at the Skyy Cinema, 126 John St in Toronto. There will be two screenings of the film, one at 7pm, one at 9pm, tickets are $15. After the second screening there will also be a record release party for the film’s official soundtrack and everyone attending the screening is welcome to stick around for that ...
“Otto; or, Up with Dead People” is a melancholy zombie movie with political overtones that seeks to extend and elaborate the emerging zombie mythology.
A modern fable about the loneliness, emptiness, and alienation that results from rampant consumerism and materialism under advanced capitalism, “Otto; or, Up with Dead People” presents as its central character Otto, a young man who may or may not be a zombie, depending on your point of view. Otto is first seen walking down a deserted stretch of highway, not knowing exactly where he came from or where he’s going. He is dressed as a kind of neo-Goth dandy, but his clothes look and smell like they are rotting on his body. After hitching a ride with a clueless elderly couple that drops him off in the city, it quickly becomes apparent that there is something distinctly odd about Otto. He seems to be homeless, taking refuge in an abandoned amusement park, and he never sleeps.
He also has an eating disorder: he has an aversion to consuming human flesh. He’s a zombie with an identity crisis.
Check the trailers in the Twitch Player below the break!
Continue Reading "An Extended Trailer For Bruce LaBruce’s Gay Zombie Movie OTTO!"...
You probably know by now that Twitch loves Mitani Koki, the man behind the lovely THE 有頂天ホテル (The Uchōten Hotel) and 笑の大学 (University of Laughs), so it’s always good news to hear more of his work will get a chance to shine outside Japanese shores. And no, we’re not talking of festival runs or anything, but the news that Japanese DVD and Blu-Ray releases of Mitani’s latest ザ・マジックアワー (The Magic Hour) will indeed feature English subs.
The 2008 comedy stars Tsumabuki Satoshi as a gangster who recruits an actor to play a hitman, after all the hoopla caused by his affair with the boss’ - Nishida Toshiyuki of スキヤキ・ウエスタン ジャンゴ (Sukiyaki Western Django) - wife. Up for release this December, you can find a Special Edition DVD, the cheaper Standard Edition DVD, and the Blu-Ray. All three have English Subs, Dts 6.1 tracks and in the SE’s case another disc of extras.
Though Marcel Sarmien and Gadi Harel are still playing coy with actual footage from their film Deadgirl - due for it’s world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in just a couple days, soon to be followed by an appearance at Fantastic Fest in Austin - they have been good enough to pass along a brand new Behind the Scenes teaser for the film with one of their leading ladies talking about her role in the picture. So, no footage yet but we do at least get an insider’s view of what’s going on.
A horror/thriller about two teenagers who make a shocking discovery that not only threatens their friendship but also their lives. In a forgotten room of an abandoned asylum, they find a beautiful woman tied to a bed, and soon come to realize she is anything but dead.
Check the teaser out below the break in the Twitch Player!
Continue Reading "Behind the Scenes Teaser For DEADGIRL!"...
We just showed the teaser a few days ago, and the trailer is already out. Looks like producers of new horror 외톨이 (Loner) [lit. title] are eager to bank on the surprising popularity of 고死 (Death Bell)—which, with a 1.3 billion Won budget and its 1.7 million tickets sold is the surprise hit of 2008, and it could even do well with buyers at the TIFF—hoping for a new horror trend to build. Loner does have a very good cast, with former child actress Go Eun-Ah, the underrated Jung Yoo-Seok and Chae Min-Seo. Film is directed by Park Jae-Shik, whose sole horror-related credit was acting as producer in the 2000 disaster 찍히면 죽는다 (Record). But the trailer here looks actually pretty decent. Go plays your normal student whose life is destroyed by the suicide of a schoolmate, turning her into a case of social withdrawal, and then the blood starts spilling. Film releases in two weeks, and you can find both trailer and teaser below the break.
Continue Reading "Some More Thrills from 외톨이 (Loner)"...
...and rolls, that is.
Think of the 70s, and a few things will certainly come to mind: the Yushin? Tear gas? TV Dramas shot like theater plays, including ads shot live? Little known Chungmuro classics amid the rampant censorship? College bands? There you go. Choi Ho has had a pretty unpredictable career so far, as even trying to pinpoint any particular style throughout his first four films will be hard. But then you sit down to think about it, and music might be the answer. First it was the teen angst-drenched OST in 바이준 (Bye June) from 1998; 우아유 (Who R.U.) was like a “Hongdae sound” fanboy’s dream come true, with some of the best indie rock bands in the country; set in the IMF crisis of the late 90s and Busan, 사생결단 (Bloody Tie) went for a 70s funk feel, which strangely fits the explosive energy of the film. And now, almost as if all that music needed some kind of canvas to be painted on, director Choi is back with 고고 70 (Go Go 70s).
It’s really hard to predict box office nowadays, but it wouldn’t take a rocket scientist to predict 신기전 (The Divine Weapon) will do great. But two weeks is a long time, particularly in these days’ Chungmuro, and Go Go 70s could actually become a decent hit. It faces heavy competition, with the maligned Hollywood flick Babylon AD, Jung Ji-Woo’s promising 모던보이 (Modern Boy) and the remaining few blasts from whatever is in between - including Hellboy 2. But this trailer just looks like truckloads of fun. Good music (played live), some touches of political satire, and very likely some really good acting. Jo Seung-Woo is born for this kind of roles, and Shin Min-Ah looks surprisingly comfortable in her new clothes (or lack thereof), mixing cute with sexy in ways she’s never done before. Release is set for October 2. Now let’s rock and roll, below the break.
Continue Reading "고고70 (Go Go 70s) Trailer Rocks"...
My friends, we have forgotten our own history. The cult of Italian giallo film is alive and well. The eighties American grinders? We are well versed in those. From Euro-cult to Hong Kong Cat III fare it seems every bit of the cult film world is well represented with hosts of knowledgable fans but there is one glaring area of oversight. Whither the Australian b-film of the seventies and eighties? Sure, we all remember Mad Max and The Man From Hong Kong has a certain following both Hong Kong action fans and Bond fans alike, thanks to the presence of George Lazenby as the lead villain, but for the most part this is where Oz-fandom ends. But no more, friends! No more! Mark Hartley is here to redress this wrong with Not Quite Hollywood, a riotous run through the many faces of Australian cult film.
Continue Reading "TIFF Review: NOT QUITE HOLLYWOOD"...
Twitch recently presented a piece on Seppuku Paradigm (aka the Cortez Brothers), the creators of the soundtrack for Martyrs and Eden Log. The introduction to that article made special note of the “killing me softly” main theme from Martyrs. The name of song is Your Witness and the Cortez Brothers kindly provided Twitch with the music video. Anyone who has seen the film may experience a moment of déjà vu so mild spoilers are appropriate. A world of sound and images awaits beneath the fold.
Continue Reading "Seppuku Paradigm Music Video from MARTYRS"...
There is one thing that the world can never have enough of and that is martial arts movies with female leads. Thank the maker that there is another project on the horizon as we await the arrival of Coweb. What is even more shocking is that Coweb marks the directorial debut of Xiong Xin Xin, our beloved Clubfoot from the Once Upon A Time in China [and in America] movies. Holy crap, it took this long for him to get his own project? He was everywhere in the 90s and just sort of slipped out of the picture in the new millennium. Production of his debut began back in May, has already wrapped up the shoot and in is post. Expect to hear and see more about this film near the end of the year.
I digress, what is Coweb about? Newcomer 蒋露霞 Jiang Luxia, a finalist of The Disciple reality TV show, plays the lead role as Guangdong wushu coach Nie Yi Yi who gets implicated by a kidnap case in Hong Kong. It’s up to her to battle waves after waves of fighters to rescue her employer and his wife who are kidnapped. Little did she know that her fights are being captured on video and broadcast live via a website which serves as an illegal online gambling den...
Be sure to check out the trailer. From the trailer it looks like Coweb could be a showcase featuring of all the great scenes in other martial arts films. I like what I see from Jiang. I hope that Xiong Xin Xin had the foresight to put his own flavor or style into a scene though. Penalty for rehashing if he didn’t.
Thanks to reader EdBailey for heads up.
Golly, it’s been well over a year since we first introduced that awesome trailer for Hernán Migoya’s ¡SOY UN PELELE! You know the one I am talking about, the one with the woman’s beach volleyball team in all their… ahem… natural glory. Need a reminder? Sure you do, head on over to the film’s site, but be warned, it is definitely not work safe. Capiche? The movie itself is about a man who loses his memory and forgets he is gay!
Fast forward more than a year and the filmmaker himself let us know today that there is a clip from the film posted over on YouTube. Brightcove has been a bit of a bitch recently so we’re just going to embed the clip after the break. The clip itself is the theme song, sung by comic Spanish duo Los Hermanos Calatrava. Migoya wrote us, This is the first time in more than a decade since Los Hermanos Calatrava record a song together.Also, Paco Calatrava, also known as “The ugly brother”, is one of the main stars in the film. This is a huge comeback to the big screen for him, since he quit from movies in 1983, 25 years ago! Migoya’s film will also be screened at the International Film Festival Sitges this October, where our lord and master Todd will be so you can be sure we will have a full report then.
Continue Reading "Fresh new clip for Spanish comedy ¡SOY UN PELELE! or I, The Clown"...
It has only been a few days since we announced local boy Justin McConnell and the folks at Unstable Ground were preparing the follow up to their short film Ending the Eternal which would be aptly titled The Eternal. A quick recap of the film in question.
Samuel Gradius has lived too long. In his 500 years on earth he has seen empires rise and fall, changed the course of history with his bare hands and experienced countless revolutions first hand. Samuel Gradius is a vampire, perhaps the only vampire, and he’s had enough. He wants to die.
No longer content with the idea of simple suicide, he makes the decision to go out in the ways of old. He wants a warrior’s death. THE ETERNAL follows Samuel on the pursuit of his own personal oblivion, he hopes, at the hands of someone worthy.
So now we can add a couple names to the cast list. Adam Wilson will play the lead role of Samuel and joining him will be James Lorinz of Frankenhooker and Street Trash fame. Ah, Frankenhooker. That one DVD that was always kicking around but I never managed to grab and watch for fear it would turn me on to dead hookers. I grew up in Port Coquitlam, B.C. We’ve got a bad history with dead hookers. Google it.
Full press release after the jump.
Continue Reading "First bit o’ casting news for Canadian vampire film ‘The Eternal’."...
