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Frightfest ‘09: Heartless cast and crew Q&A
3 September 2009 1:36 PM, PDT
For the world premiere of Philip Ridley’s Heartless the good people behind Frightfest organised two special bonuses; first, Jim Sturgess took the stage before the film screened to perform two of the songs off the soundtrack, and secondly, Ridley himself, Sturgess, producers Pippa Cross and Richard Raymond, plus actors Noel Clarke, Eddie Marsan and Joseph Mawle assembled to rapturous applause for a brief Q&A. Same deal again - this was recorded with an ancient mobile phone, and these people don’t speak too loudly, so a little more of this was indecipherable… but I thought some of you might like it all the same. Note that the transcript contains at least one major spoiler, duly marked. Full text below the break.
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- Eight Rooks
Frightfest ‘09: Fragment review
3 September 2009 1:14 PM, PDT
Another review from the final day of Frightfest ‘09 - Andrew Miles’ debut Fragment is a ‘little movie that could’, put together at weekends for a song. The story of a combat photographer who gains the power to raise the dead with his camera - and the trouble this gets him into - it’s an eerie genre flick that’s well worth tracking down as and when you get the chance, for all it’s obvious how much of a struggle it was to bring to the big screen. More details in the review after the break.
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- Eight Rooks
Frightfest ‘09: The House Of The Devil Ti West Q&A
3 September 2009 1:03 PM, PDT
While The House of the Devil may not have done much for me, Ti West proved to be a pretty voluble guy, happy to field questions from the audience for around fifteen minutes after his film screened on the last day of Frightfest ‘09. Here’s the transcript of that Q&A session, as good as I could get it, annotated where necessary - bear in mind this was recorded on an ancient mobile phone, so some parts were sadly inaudible, and also please note one answer semi-reveals moderate spoilers for the ending. Nonetheless, if you’re a fan of the man’s work, hopefully this’ll be of some interest to you. Full text below the break.
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- Eight Rooks
Frightfest ‘09: The House Of The Devil review
3 September 2009 12:53 PM, PDT
Better late than never - it’s taken a while getting my Frightfest reviews finished, but 27 hours without sleep tends to leave me a little shaken. Anyway! Couldn’t see Marc Price’s Diy zombie film Colin, as it had sold out before I even got to London, so first up - Ti West’s loving tribute to the genre chillers of two decades past, a little movie called House of the Devil. If you’re a regular reader you probably know it’s been covered on Twitch already, but here’s another take for the archives. Review after the break.
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- Eight Rooks
First Teaser Arrives For Yam Laranas’ Patient X!
3 September 2009 9:29 AM, PDT
You’ve got to say this: They work fast in The Philippines. Writer-director Yam Laranas - best known in these parts for atmospheric horror picture Sigaw - is still hard at work on his upcoming Patient X and already the first teaser has arrived. He reunites here with his Sigaw star Richard Gutierrez for a film built around the legendary aswang - a creature from Filipino folklore that hunts human prey and feeds on their entrails. This is very much a tease - loaded with images that must have just been shot in the past few days after they had to re-cast their lead actress for medical reasons - but a damn good one. Check it below the break.
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- Todd Brown
Chow Yun-Fat lay some Philosophy in Confucius Trailer
3 September 2009 8:03 AM, PDT
A three minute trailer has been unveiled online yesterday across every Chinese media outlet for the upcoming biopic Confucius with Chow Yun-Fat in the title role as the ancient philosopher. Although there is not a single line of dialogue spoken, the production values and the decorated sets featured in the video looks absolutely gorgeous. Perhaps this is the role that will catapult Chow back into the winning spotlight after his last couple misfire.
Confucius (551 BC-479 BC), was born in the ancient Chinese state of Lu, today’s Qufu City in Shandong Province. He was a great educator, philosopher, a renowned politician and the founding father of Confucianism. The film focuses on the great philosopher’s life experiences from 51 to 73.
The film is schedule for release in the Spring of 2010. You’ll find the trailer embedded below after the break
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- Al Young
Guy Ritchie signs on to get loco with ‘Lobo’
3 September 2009 5:46 AM, PDT
***Update*** Never mind! This is going to suck balls. Read on. In the film, he is a seven-foot tall, blue-skinned, indestructible and heavily muscled anti-hero who drives a pimped out motorcycle, and lands on Earth in search of four fugitives who are bent on wreaking havoc. Lobo teams with a small town teenaged girl to stop the creatures. WB is aiming for a PG-13 rating. Variety. Ritchie’s visual panache aside. PG-13? Really?
As we wait in anticipation for his interpretation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s fictional character Sherlock Holmes, in his next film aptly titled Sherlock Holmes, news has surfaced that producer Joel Silver has signed on Guy Ritchie to direct a big screen adaptation of DC Comics anti-hero Lobo. Both worked together previously on Holmes. Doug Liman was originally intended to direct the film. Don Payne wrote the script [Rise of the Silver Surfer and the upcoming Maximum Ride about six kids created with avian DNA escaping wolf creatures called Erasers who can fly, I kid you not].
An alien, Lobo works as an interstellar mercenary and bounty hunter. »
- Andrew Mack
Aboriginal Stoner Comedy? Trailer for the Stone Bros.
2 September 2009 4:46 PM, PDT
One doesn’t hear much about Australian comedy, but the last thing one would expect to pop up in cinemas is a stoner comedy starring two young Aborigines.
A review in Variety described Richard J Frankland’s Stone Bros. as a comedy about “two dope-smokin’ Aboriginal dudes searching for a sacred rock.” Who can argue with that? The trailer has a Harold and Kumar Go to the Outback vibe, featuring crazy talk about stoned fingers, kangaroo shenanigans straight out of Wake in Fright (kind of, sort of), and non-pc riffing. The trailer is beneath the break.
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- Rodney Perkins
Tiff 09: The Defendor Is Here! It’s The Woody Harrelson Superhero Comedy In Trailer Form!
2 September 2009 2:06 PM, PDT
Reality intersects with delusion in the mind of Arthur Poppington (Woody Harrelson), a regular man who adopts a superhero persona known as Defendor, and combs the city streets at night in search of his arch-enemy, Captain Industry. In his attempts to combat crime and bring down Captain Industry, a drug and weapons dealer who he mistakenly blames for the death of his mother, Defendor ends up befriending a young prostitute, Katerina Debrofkowitz (Kat Dennings). Armed with unconventional weapons of mass confusion, aided by his new friend, and putting his life on the line, Defendor proves that everyone is capable of making a difference.
Canada may well have a new hero on its hands, and I’m not just referring to Woody Harrelson’s titular role in Defendor. No, I mean writer-director Peter Stebbings who, with his debut directorial effort, arrives on the local scene as that rarest of Canadian creatures: »
- Todd Brown
Rip Alexis Tioseco
2 September 2009 6:23 AM, PDT
I’m more than a little shocked right now, with word coming out that the online film community has just lost one of our own. Filipino-Canadian film journalist, best known around these parts as one of the founders of Criticine, Alexis Tioseco and his common-law partner have been shot and killed in a home invasion. Though I didn’t know him personally, I certainly knew Tioseco’s work and he will be sorely missed.
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- Todd Brown
Pang Ho Cheung’s Dream Home Delayed By Legal Wrangling
2 September 2009 6:11 AM, PDT
Want an example of why it may be a bad idea to have your lead actress and primary investor be the same person? Pang Ho-Cheung’s Dream Home is it. The film not only stars Josie Ho but is financed by a company funded by Ho’s billionaire father with Ho herself listed as copyright holder on the picture. It is directed by Pang, who can’t comment specifically on this film due to the now-public legal battle surrounding the film, but who has had final cut guaranteed in his contract for all of his previous films and so it’s a safe bet that he has it in his contract for this one, too. And this is where things get ugly. The Hong Kong gossip rags started circulating stories about Ho and Pang clashing over the cut of the film a little while back and now The Hollywood Reporter has backed those up, »
- Todd Brown
17th Raindance Film Festival lineup announced!
2 September 2009 5:46 AM, PDT
The lineup for the 17th Raindance Film Festival was announced today, with the London-based event playing host to a wide range of 75 features and 150 shorts over 12 days from 30th September – 11th October. This year the action moves to Apollo Cinemas West End, a great venue reflecting an ever expanding festival with some increasingly high profile films on show. The programme opens with Us indie hit Humpday and closes off with Steven Soderbergh’s The Girlfriend Experience, not to mention all manner of cinematic goodness inbetween, including Homegrown UK, Japanese, Us Indie and documentary strands. Highlights look likely to include the late David Carradine in My Suicide, Brit micro-budget horror Colin (just shown at Frightfest) and The Cry Of The Owl with Julia Stiles and the excellent Paddy Considine (Dead Man’s Shoes).
You can check out the festival trailer here and the full list of films being screened below the break. »
- James Dennis
Paul W.S. Anderson ready to buckle his swash with a 3D ‘Three Muskateers’
1 September 2009 9:05 PM, PDT
Of all of the great mysteries this world has to offer one that has eluded everyone is how Paul W.S. Anderson continues to get money to make movies. It’s baffling. Not content with messing about with visions of the future he now wants to go back in the past and mess about with one of the works of French writer Alexandre Dumas. I speak of course about Les Trois Mousquetaires, The Three Muskateers. So Anderson wants to add his take of this rip roaring tale of adventure and romance to the 21 other film, television and animated versions of this film. He will co-write, co-produce and direct his film. The only thing that will set his film apart from any other previous incarnation of the story is that his will be in 3D! Yes. I can confidently say that this will be a case where 3D will be used as »
- Andrew Mack
Chris And Phil Present: Film4 Frightfest Fright Bite Five!
1 September 2009 4:45 PM, PDT
The 2009 edition of the Film4 Frightfest has come and gone and from the sounds of things they went out in style. Day five marked the long-awaited return of The Reflecting Skin director Philip Ridley to the big screen with Heartless and the word is good. That’s Ridley in the photo to the left and I’m reasonably confident you’ll be hearing a whole lot more about him and his film in the final Fright Bite podcast sent our way by Chris and Phil. Check it below the break!
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- Todd Brown
Chow Yun-Fat is ready for his extreme close-up, Mr. deMille!
1 September 2009 1:12 PM, PDT
(This post will no longer be on top of the page, but be allowed to slide down like the rest… for all pictures were guessed!)
Ah… Chow Yun-Fat. Talk about someone we’d love to love and hate to hate. Lately his public image seems to be defined by controversial career choices and diva-like behavior, so much so that at the mention of his name I now feel an apprehensive twitch (haha…) on top of the familiar warm glow I used to feel…
But it’s impossible to ditch him, because when he is coupled to even halfway decent material, he is still a force of nature. Say what you want about the failings of Zhang Yimou’s “Curse of the Golden Flower”, Chow Yun-Fat’s performance wasn’t one of them. And in the late eighties and early nineties, was there a cooler actor on the planet?
So once »
- Ard Vijn
First Look at 괴물2 (The Host 2)
1 September 2009 9:31 AM, PDT
Up until a few years ago, “monster movie” in Korea usually meant something to elicit laughter, a long dead cinematic recollection fading into the dusty pages of history, the spark for brewing nostalgia, like those “smoke trucks” spreading pesticide the kiddos would follow, or the wild, bizarre pages of magazines like Sunday Seoul. You had the terrifying monsters in pajama by kitschmeister Shim Hyung-Rae, and Shin Sang-Ok’s 불가사리 (Pulgasari), Kim Il-Sung’s favorite toy up in ye olde northern shores. But then it changed, when an eternal Peterpan like Bong Joon-Ho decided his visions of childhood weren’t going to remain constrained inside his mind. Enter 괴물 (The Host). What’s more interesting than once again singing the praises of Bong’s miraculous little dream project is noting how much the landscape for monster flicks in Korea has changed. The least said about 디워 (D-War), the better, but by all accounts, »
- X
Jang Jin-Young (1974-2009)
1 September 2009 6:10 AM, PDT
It was probably 1998, on the legendary Sbs sitcom 순풍산부인과 (Soonpong Clinic), that I first saw her.
She wasn’t one of those actresses whose obnoxious beauty jumps straight at you, but her charms were much subtler, as if she knew she didn’t have to flaunt anything to get by. And, strangely, her acting had the same exact aftertaste. Until Kim Ji-Woon cast her in 2000’s 반칙왕 (The Foul King), she went through the usual steps most actresses her age had to endure: a debut with a supporting role on low-key TV dramas, and then a move to Chungmuro, where she headlined the CG-heavy fantasy-melodrama 자귀모 (Ghost in Love). Film was pretty bad, but she managed to shine anyhow. And it’s not like The Foul King would be anything that could display her acting chops, as she was one of the few straight-faced characters in what was a wonderful »
- X
TIFF09: Review of A History Of Israeli Cinema
31 August 2009 8:30 PM, PDT
Raphaël Nadjari’s A History of Israeli Cinema / Historia Shel Hakolnoah Israeli, Pts. 1 & 2, played at the Berlin Film Forum, then screened at this year’s San Francisco Jewish Film Festival (Sfjff), where Janis Plotkin wrote in her program capsule: “Israel as a nation is far younger than motion pictures; in fact, its modern identity has been formed in parallel with the medium of film. Israeli films, when seen unfolding over time as they do in this engrossing retrospective documentary, reveal a cinematic national identity that encapsulates the emotional reality of a country often torn by ethnic, religious and political conflicts.”
A methodical albeit sprawling three and a half-hour inventory, I was at first put off by this documentary’s somewhat nationalistic intensity, though—upon a second viewing—I could more easily digest its voluminous information, and came to appreciate—as Plotin has contextualized—how the history of Israel and the history of cinema have, »
- Michael Guillen
Frightfest 2009 Review: Giallo
31 August 2009 2:44 PM, PDT
Dario Argento’s latest has been one of the biggest surprises of the festival. Surprising in that it’s absolutely hilarious, and by that I don’t mean a little bit funny, I mean as funny a film I’ve seen at the cinema in ages, comedies included. Giallo is Argento’s homage to the Italian thrillers of the 70s that so informed his early work and made his name. The film centres on Inspector Enzo Avolfi’s (Adrien Brody) hunt for an aerosol sniffing, rubber faced serial killer known simply as yellow, or in a classic line “you yellow fuck”, who targets beautiful young girls to torture and ‘make ugly’ before finally dispatching them. Tailing Brody’s renegade inspector (his “methods aren’t exactly by the book”) is the sister of a missing fashion model (Emmanuelle Seigner). The duo bumble around an Italian city populated by American-speaking Italians, making »
- James Dennis
Twitch Presents Simon Rumley’s The Handyman!
31 August 2009 2:27 PM, PDT
[This one will remain at the top of the page for the rest of the day. Why? ‘Cause it’s good, dammit! New content will continue to appear below.]
Regular readers of Twitch will be well familiar with UK indie film maker Simon Rumley by this point. We’ve covered his work extensively, from 2006 feature film The Living And The Dead through to the now-in-post Red, White and Blue, which we’ve been hosting a series of video blogs for. And now we’ve got a real treat for fans. In early 2006 - just before putting together The Living And The Dead, Rumley helmed a fifteen minute short film starring Greta Scacchi and Bill Sage titled simply The Handyman. Though this is the first film Rumley ever directed that he didn’t also write and produce it is immediately recognizable as his own and also features his first collaborations with cinematographer Milton Kam and composer Richard Chester who went on to continue their collaboration with Rumley on both The Living and the Dead and Red, White and Blue.
The »
- Todd Brown
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