Cautiously optimistic. That’s the frame of mind that I went into Spider-Man 2 with. I LIKED the first Spider-Man, but I didn’t LOVE it. The advanced reviews of Spider-Man 2 sounded really good‚Ķ but those can sometimes be deceiving. The trailers looked great, but even the trailer for Battlefield Earth looked good. So I entered the theatre, went to the concession stand to grab my Coke and went in to find my seat. 2 hours later I emerged from the Cineplex a VERY happy and satisfied camper‚Ķ
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Wow. If you’ve an extra eight hundred dollars or so lying around and a major radioactive lizard fixation the good folks at Toho Studios have got a deal for you: Every Japanese Godzilla film ever made in a handsome collector box. That’s a thirty DVD set with space left in the box for collectors to add Godzilla: Final Wars when the time comes. Excessive? Oh yes, but pretty nonetheless. No word on extra features or if this set will be subtitled …

Let me preface this by saying that nobody develops a foreign film fixation on the scale that I have without a LOT of help. I mean you have to have an in - someone trustworthy who speaks the language who can steer you in the right direction. The biggest single source I’ve got for Japanese info is Midnight Eye. The head guy over there, Tom Mes, is known worldwide as an expert on Japanese film. He’s written a book on cult director Takashi Miike and is starting to turn up doing commentary tracks on English language releases of Japanese films all over the place. The man knows his stuff. He’s also a very good writer and very fair and accurate in his reviews. I have never once picked up a film based on a Midnight Eye recommendation and been disappointed. Not once. Anyway …

All that to say that the new edition of Midnight Eye has just appeared online and they include a very detailed, and generally positive, review of Casshern. I’m still lusting over this film. Read the review here.

Okay, I realize that putting 2 Disney posts in a row (see below), you can get the idea that Disney’s business moves sorta bug me. And from that, some would assume that I’m saying that the Chicken Little Trailer sucks just because I don’t like Disney — But folks, the Chicken Little Trailer really DOES SUCK. No Seriously.

The Trailer.

Its got a character that isn’t high in “cuteness”, “attitude” or colour - and it plum isn’t funny. (This is nit-picking, but the voice-overs sound so “separately recorded” and spliced together - besides the fact that the voices are trying WAY too hard - it’s driving me to the bottle.)

Let this be a lesson for all you fat-cat future CEOs out there. When you release the best 3-D animators in the world and then try and do the same job they were doing yourself: It won’t work. It won’t be good, it won’t be pretty or happy or neat. It’ll be dumb and so are you. So’s your mom.

Okay, I’m not making political statements here, but let me get this straight:

1. Disney rejects and won’t distribute Fahrenheit 9-11
- “It has nothing to do with taking sides, we just don’t want to be political.” [Ed Note: We all heard this - It's complete garbage, but anyway..]

2. MoveAmericaForward.org - a website set up to attack Moore’s Film, makes a film of their own called “America’s Heart & Soul”.

3. Disney, the “politics-free” company that they are: backs them.

4. Then, Disney screens their movie for them

5. Then, Disney distributes the film nationwide on Friday.

6. And THEN, Disney says that “America’s Heart and Soul”:
- “has nothing to do with Fahrenheit 9/11 and there is no link at all between the two movies.”

- Okay, so backing a film that was made by a company formed expressly to ATTACK Fahrenheit 9-11, has nothing to do with Fahrenheit 9-11??
S’cuse me for a sec…… AhemAhemBULLSH*TAhemAhem

Stupid, stupid. I tell ya. Bicker about politics however you like. Like whoever you want to like, but c’mon — complete dishonesty is pretty apparent. (Iraq war)- Fortunately, this will be Disney’s 482nd Box Office Bomb in a row. I’m guessing they’re used to it by now.

Okay, it’s a bit of a cult phenomenon and little known in the regular world but Mike Judge’s Office Space is a very, very funny movie. It’s Judge’s only move outside of the animation world - where he’s known for King of the Hill and Beavis and Butthead - and it’s just loaded up with quietly absurd characters made even moreso due to the fact that we all know people like this. See Day-vuh over there? Yeah, he can quote most of it. So I was pretty happy to hear that Judge is working on a new live action film, currently untitled, and even happier when he spilled this little bit of info to The Onion:

“The basic premise is that most science fiction shows the future as being more civilized or more intelligent, and that’s just not the way we’re headed. Like, if someone made a movie in the late ’50s about the year 2004, it probably wouldn’t have had The Maury Povich Show, and gangs, and whatever. So this starts out as a documentary about how the people who are reproducing the fastest are guys who are too lazy to put on a rubber, and lots of highly educated people are waiting until they’re 40 to have a kid, and then having one or none. It’s kind of a sleeper movie about how, 400 or 500 years from now, a guy who’s your average dumbass today is the smartest person in the world.”

Read the whole interview here.

The title says it all really … here it is. I’ve enjoyed the first two Blade films but never because of Snipes’ performances. He’s solid but unspectacular in them. So the big questions for me are how are the villains in this one and how are the new actors, particularly Ryan Reynolds who I have a really hard time picturing doing something like this. The villain question doesn’t get answered at all. We don’t even get a peek or a hint at what the villain is. Reynolds, however, is a different story … he’s only in the teaser briefly but I’ve seen a longer stretch of footage as well and he’s surprisingly convincing. Who knew? From a bad sitcom to Van Wilder to this …

Not a big surprise here considering Depp’s long standing relationship with Tim Burton, but Variety has just announced the first batch of voice talent confirmed for the Burton-produced stop motion flick The Corpse Bride. Lending (well, selling, really) their voices will be Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Emily Watson, Albert Finney, Richard Grant, Joanna Lumley and Christopher Lee. And THAT, my friends is one quality collection of voice talent. For an example of why good voice talent is important, go check out that really, really bad trailer for Disney’s Chicken Little. Ick.

I meant to post something about this a good while ago when I first spotted the teaser online, but I never quite got around to it. Just stumbled across a full review and the full trailer, so I suppose it’s time …

Were you one of those people who figured the talk show host in Lost in Translation had to be some sort of bizarre in joke? Nothing that weird could actually be on mainstream television, right? Wrong. That guy’s actually the top rated talk show host in Japan and he doesn’t even begin to scratch the surfact of just how bizarre Japanese pop culture can be. They’ve got some truly strange sub-cultures over there … case in point: Kamikaze Girls. A luridly colored, adapted from a popular comic story about an unlikely friendship between a country girl fixated on 18th century France - hence the frilly dresses and parasols - and a member of an all female biker gang. I don’t expect the story line to be remarkably deep but this is the sort of thing destined to become an instant cult classic if it ever gets seen outside of Japan simply because it just looks so strange that people such as myself will be strangely compelled to watch it over and over again.

Check out an in depth review here, the teaser trailer here, the full trailer here, and the website here. If you can figure out why the poster features cabbages falling from the sky, let me know. I’m kind of curious.

Man … very happy and very surprised to have come across this as one of the articles I read on Abnormal Beauty said this wasn’t even scheduled to begin filming yet …

Click here to see six minutes of stunning footage from Re-Cycle a new film reuniting Thai directors The Pang Brothers with Angelica Lee, the star of their worldwide hit The Eye. This one is based on the idea that there is an alternate plane of reality parallel to our own, one that serves as a dumping ground for discarded and forgotten hopes, dreams, desires, you name it. As we discard things here they are caught up in this alternate reality. Lee stars as a young writer who is working on her second novel, a supernatural story, who gets drawn into this alternate reality after discarding an early draft of her work. This is by far the largest budget the Pangs have had to work with thus far and though it’s still very early in the process and they must still have a ton of post production work to do it’s pretty obvious from these clips that all of that money is being spent on screen … mighty impressive stuff …

You can read a more detailed synopsis here. As reported on the Abnormal Beauty entry below this film has been picked up by Tartan Films for the UK and North America, so it should make it to our part of the world sometime after its summer 2005 Asian release …

Here’s an interesting rumor … Nick over at CHUD is reporting that all those folks worldwide who have been stewing away waiting for Hellboy to see theater screens outside of North America may just be getting the last laugh and those of us over here who have been taunting them with the fact that we’ve already seen it should just shut the hell up. Why? Well, word is that the worldwide release of Hellboy may feature the extended, twenty minute longer cut that Del Toro has been prepping for this fall’s uber-DVD release. I went looking to see if there was any word of this over on the official Hellboy message boards - where Del Toro is known to show up from time to time - but nope. And Nick doesn’t cite a source, so there’s no way to vouch for the truth of this one but CHUD’s generally pretty much dead on …

In other Hellboy news the specs for July’s two disc DVD release of the theatrical version have been released and though I’ve been meaning to wait for the coming three disc extended version this one’s going to be really hard to pass up. Why? Multiple commentaries, new Mignola penned Hellboy comics, a stack of documentaries, the option to watch the film all the way through in story board mode, deleted scenes and an awful lot more … there’s no word yet on what the extras on the extended cut will include but word is they won’t be repeating features. It looks like they’ve learned a thing or two from how the Lord of the Rings DVDs were packaged up and actually upped the ante a good bit by cranking out a stack of stellar original bonus material for the ‘basic’ edition rather than just including old EPK materials like LotR did …

Another find courtesy of the forums at KFC …

The trailer for Oxide Pang’s new film Abnormal Beauty has just hit online and it looks incredible. The film is a psycho-sexual thriller about a young photography student who becomes obsessed with photographing death and based on what I’ve read it looks as though after a couple of pretty but vapid films the Pangs may be back to packing some substance to back up their wildly impressive visual style. You can view the trailer here and read a more detailed synopsis here. Tartan Films has picked up the rights to both Abnormal Beauty and Re-Cycle - co-directed by Oxide and his twin brother / producing partner Danny, and reuniting the brothers with their star from The Eye - for North America and the UK. Tartan’s handled a few previous Pang titles and treated them quite well, so this is a good thing …

For those of you who may have missed it, the release date for Spiderman 2 was moved up from July 2nd (as advertised in the trailer) to June 30th (yes, this Wednesday). Get ready to see this opening 5 day box office records smashed.

Even though this isn’t a movie related topic, being a Canadian based website I thought I would be remiss if I didn’t (don’t vote Conservative) at least mention the fact that (vote NDP or Liberal) today is Election Day in Canada.

I suppose by some definitions (don’t vote Conservative) some would consider us a part of “the media”, and as such, I remain (don’t vote Conservative) a fair and unbiased observer of the “goings on” of the world around us and do not wish in anyway (don’t vote Conservative) to influence the election one way or the other.

So if you’re Canadian, get out there today (vote NDP or Liberal) and exercise the rights that so many people fought and died for. And no matter who you vote for, (don’t vote Conservative) do so with a sense of gratitude and appreciation. Now back to (don’t vote Conservative) the movie nonsense (don’t vote Conservative).

Never let it be said that we’re not responsive sorts around here. Gripe enough about something and we will generally try and respond. Fantasia has still not released the complete film list for their coming festival, but there is a fairly extensive list here that I’m guessing probably makes up at least two thirds of what will be playing. I’m not going, but if I were here’s what I’d be trying to see:

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This’ll be the last new Fahrenheit 9/11 post from me for a while, honest …

Variety has just released their projected box office figures for this weekend and Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11 has come out on top with an estimated gross of $21.8 million. In just one weekend this film has surpassed the total domestic take of Moore’s Bowling For Columbine, which was the highest grossing documentary of all time until now. Whatever you may think of the film - my thoughts are down below - there are an awful lot of you going to see it …

Oh my. Thanks to a recommendation from Edgar Wright (have you read our interview with him yet? you should. here it is.) and a couple of fine British lads who post here regularly I recently went on a little quest for a BBC comedy show called Little Britain. Turns out the first season doesn’t come out on DVD until October, but thanks to the wonders of the inter-web I managed to secure myself a good viewing copy. Oh my. Absolutely demented genius.

Little Britain is the brain child of two comic performers - Matt Lucas and David Walliams - who have set out to create a sort of absurdist educational film about the diversity of Britain and its residents. The duo plays upwards of fifteen characters between them rapidly jumping from character to character, region to region throughout the UK, gradually telling more and more of the stories of these utterly bizarre people. The approach reminded me somewhat of the League of Gentlemen, though without all the nods to classic horror films and not tied into one specific location as the League is, which is not surprising considering the League’s Mark Gatiss is involved behind the scenes.

So what’ve we got? A motivational weight loss group gone wrong, the world’s least convincing transvestite, a mental hospital, child-acting obsessed parents, a washed out actor reliving his glory years, a man caring for his supposedly crippled friend … the characters just go on and on and they’re all amazing. Upping the ante even further are a hilarious recurrent part for Anthony Stewart Head (Giles from Buffy) as the British Prime Minister dealing with a smitten aide and a wildly unhinged narration provided by the Dr. Who of my youth, Tom Baker. He’s the one with the long scarf. I have no idea what Baker’s current profile in the UK is like but his performance here is ten times as surreal as any of William Shatner’s pieces of self parody. Check this show out if you’re at all able … the DVD releases October 11th in the UK.

As the countdown begins for the official release of Spiderman 2, early reviews are causing erections on fan boys everywhere. The good folks over at Rotten Tomatoes summarize some of the major reviews being offered and give the film an AVERAGE rating of 100%. Here are some of the highlights:

“Production values exceed those of the earlier film in creating a comic book world with design, costumes, cinematography and CG effects that deliver the ‘wow’ factor in spades.”
- Kirk Honeycutt, HOLLYWOOD REPORTER

“[F]aster, funnier and more entertaining than the original.”
- Richard Roeper, EBERT & ROEPER

“Crackerjack entertainment from start to finish.”
- Todd McCarthy, VARIETY

Every audience in every theatre will inevitably react to a film in a quasi-unique way. After viewing Fahrenheit 9/11 in a St. Catharines Cineplex Odeon theatre last night (which was PACKED) a few interesting things caught my attention. First of all, as the credits started to roll, the audience broke into a huge ovation. The only other time I’d seen something like that was at the end of Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. Even those who stayed sitting in their seat, stunned by everything they had just witnessed were almost involuntarily clapping their hands‚Ķ like their bodies just had to react to what they just witnessed.

The second interesting thing I noticed as we were all walking out. Everyone, and I do mean EVERYONE, was talking about the film. Complete strangers stopped in the foyer to discuss the film and they’re own personal takes on it. No one was talking about where to go for drinks, or who was going to drive the babysitter home, or what they want to do now.

Regardless of what people think of Moore, or what political party they support, or what their political views are, Fahrenheit 9/11 is a “film” (see my article coming in the next few days where I ask if documentaries should actually be considered movies at all) that WILL make you talk about it, it will make you think, and one way or the other, it will instantly slightly increase your interest in political future of the United States. I’m going to go eat some cereal now.

Here’s something I found thanks to the good people over at KFC Cinema …

The trailer for Howl’s Moving Castle - the new film by revered Japanese animation director Hayao Miyazaki (Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke) - has appeared online and it looks mighty good. There’s a stack of quality animated films releasing around the world this year, so many that Disney will be hard pressed to have their own releases crack the top five, and this one looks to be leading the pack of child-friendly entries. Check it out here.

So I just got back from Fahrenheit 9/11 and honestly I’m a bit underwhelmed. Is it a good film? Yes, fairly, but it’s not a great film by any definition and though I’ve only seen one of the other films that were in competition at Cannes this year (that being Old Boy) I’m pretty confident that Moore won the Palme D’Or for his politics more than his film.

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Okay, chances are that friend who emails you every bad joke on the planet has sent a big version of this picture to you. - It’s a picture from the movie Troy with a blurry, distant airplane flying over Brad Pitt’s head.

The world would be an empty place if everyone who thinks this thing is real dropped dead - but folks. It’s a fake. It was created for an advanced Photoshop contest on “Worth1000.com”.

Now I know that grouchy people who thought it was real and think I’m somehow being mean by pointing it out their mistake and who’ll decide to snap back at me “Where’s your PROOF??” - and then claim something nutty that they’ve seen it in the movie, will think I’m making this up. But to those people I give you:

This Picture’s Offical Advanced Photoshop Entry Page.

You may now cease filling the world’s Inboxes with it.

Was scanning around this morning and I came across this alternate poster for Fahrenheit 9/11. I realize most of you have already seen it… but I hadn’t, so I’m putting it up here for the enjoyment of all the other slow people. Personally I like this one better than the main one.

Oh man. I wouldn’t have thought it possible to make a worse film than the original Dungeons and Dragons but producer Joel Silver, God bless ‘im, has found a way. According to Dark Horizons Silver is in conversations to cast Paris Hilton in the lead role. Ick. In her case fifteen minutes of fame is about twenty too many …

Is it a review? Is it a contest? It’s both! Yessir, the good folks at Artsmagic have sent us some goodies and we’re passing the love along both in terms of information and by actually, y’know, passing things along. After being active in the UK DVD market for years Artsmagic has launched their new US imprint with a pair of excellent DVD releases showcasing the polar extremes of Japanese cult director Takashi Miike. With Full Metal Yakuza Miike runs the basic story of Robocop through his twisted blender of shock effects and exploitation to come up with something that could only have come from Miike’s perturbed brain. Then with Sabu Miike dials the weirdness back to zero and turns in a stunning period drama starring Tatsuya Fujiwara of Battle Royale fame. Want to know more about the DVDs and how you can win free copies to call your very own? Read on!
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This is pure rumor mongering, but I spotted another interesting note whilst perusing Digital Bits … they’ve had word that both seasons of the animated Clone Wars shorts will be hitting DVD in the first quarter of 2005. Timeline seems about right so though there’s been no ‘official’ word on these I don’t see much reason not to accept that … in the less believable file goes their note that a live action Star Wars TV series may be in the works for 2006 …

Is Michael Eisner picking a fight with yet another of Disney’s major feeder studios? Could be. According to The Digital Bits Disney has just indefinitely delayed the DVD releases of Studio Ghibli’s My Neighbor Totoro, Porco Rosso and Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind. Big deal, you say, it’s only a DVD release. Well, here’s the thing … when Disney went after Princess Mononoke Ghibli was only willing to deal with them on the condition that Disney release the entire Studio Ghibli library of films and that every release be complete and unedited. All Disney is allowed to do is translate and dub, and even in that case the original language tracks are still included. If they start messing with the Ghibli releases that could quite conceivably put their contract in jeopardy. Considering the last Ghibli film won Disney an Oscar they probably shouldn’t do that. And, of course, beyond the business considerations is the sheer nuisance of having to wait indefinitely for these … I’m no big fan of Porco Rosso but the other two films are sheer genius. Was watching Totoro with my son earlier this evening, actually …

Okay, there’s next to nothing on the site so far and what’s there is in Japanese but this particular combination of talent has got me giddy with excitement. Japanese cult director Takashi Miike - Audition, Ichi the Killer - is just about to release Izo, a period samurai film starring Japanese cult actor / internationally renowned art house director Takeshi Kitano. Do I know anything beyond this? Nope. But the simple fact that these two men are involved has vaulted this film right up to the top of my current ‘to buy’ list. You can check out the website here.

Sigh. Why couldn’t they have just recognized that people wanted this in the first place rather than chopping a perfectly good film to bits? Apparently Miramax has taken out a full page ad in the current Video Business magazine announcing that their DVD release of Shaolin Soccer will include both the edited and dubbed Miramax hack job and the original 112 minute Cantonese version. The irony abounds in this ad … not only are they taking out a full page ad for a video release of a film that they completely refused to promote theatrically - if they believe in the film enough to take out a full page ad now why didn’t they believe in it back when they were quietly slipping it on and off all of a dozen screens theatrically? - but this ad actually references the massive online petition against the Miramax hack and slash job as a positive sign that “Fans demand Shaolin Soccer! Fans petitioned Miramax for theatrical release!” …

I’m of mixed mind about this release. On the one hand I’m generally so irritated with Miramax over the way they’ve handled this thing - and their other Asian properties - that I don’t much want to give them any of my money for it. On the other hand this is quite possibly the first time that Miramax has done a decent release of an Asian property - i.e. one that includes the original, unmolested film - and if there’s any hope of them making a habit of this it’s going to take this film being a financial success on DVD to convince them. Oh well … I’ve got until August 24th to make up my mind …

If anybody’s actually got a copy of this ad I’d appreciate a scan …

The Hollywood Reporter is reporting (appropriately enough) that the MPAA appeals board has heard the arguments in the ratings appeal for Fahrenheit 9-11 and has re-affirmed their original decision. The film will be released rated R in the US.

Well folks. Here it is: My big regret. I was actually pretty excited to audition for this last year, but I couldn’t - but good grief, I should’ve anyway. Returning for another very short run in Toronto after staging out west, and before heading off to the world-famous Just for Laughs festival in Montreal, is Evil Dead 1&2: The Musical.

The Musical? You say? My oh my. And does it ever work. In fact, the entire show is a meshing of all three movies into one single cabin trip.. with a slight 13th century trip at the end. And folks, the folks know their stuff. Absolutley everything is referenced: the big one-liners that’d you’d expect - Come Get Some - Honey, you got real ugly, etcetc — Right down to the REALLY dedicated references. - They even have a production referencing poster torn in half. (that’s for the hard core people). And yes, there’s even a self-propelled, forward, hand-thrown somersault. The first 3 rows of the theatre? - The Blood Spray section. Oh the joy.

The gorgeous thing about this musical is this 1) The over-the-top fare of the movies really provides an awful lot of slack for props that are purposefully cheesy looking. The props that are used are very well made and the cheap “camera tricks” of the first 2 movies, allows for very successful stage tricks. and 2) - Ever watch figure skating?, not that you should BUT, you often hear people judging a performance based on “It really looks like they’re having fun out there”. This applies here in spades. Many of the cast have worked together on Tony and Tina’s Wedding and obviously have a dubious love for these films. And don’t even get me started on the songs. Extremely funny stuff. Especially the love song(s) and the crowd favourite: “What the F#@$ Was That”?

Folks, tickets are 25 bucks at the Bathurst Street Theatre at 8pm tonight until the 26th. GO!!! Seriously.

Here’s their webpage again: www.evildeadthemusical.com

Well, we didn’t really expect it, but themovieblog was bumped off of the Internet for a wee while today because of bandwidth. Hang in there, we’ll look into it. We’ve weathered a few VERY high traffic days so far this month so we’ll play with limits and stuff. Okay. Good Good.

Whee! The trailer for the US remake of The Grudge is now online and it had me giggling like a little schoolgirl … I had huge hopes for this film based on the involvement of Sam Raimi and original director Takashi Shimizu and if this trailer is any indication at all they’ve met them all and then some … The original Grudge is one of the absolute best horror films to come out of Japan and it looks as though they’ve carried all the best stuff through to the US version. Click here to behold the goodness.

When the 2 names at the top of a film are Tom Hanks and Steven Spielberg, you can be forgiven for going into it with perhaps unrealistic expectations. Such is the case with The Terminal.

One internet writer gives this plot summary for the film: An immigrant (Hanks) fleeing the war that ravages his tiny Eastern European homeland finds himself stuck in the terminal of one of New York City’s airports when the time of his landing coincides precisely with the point at which the war causes his nation of origin to no longer exist, meaning that his passport and paperwork are no longer valid. As a man without a home, he (is forced) to take up residence in the terminal itself, befriending the staff of the airport, and falling in love with an airline flight attendant.

What’s good?

Well, Hanks never ceases to impress me with his talent. He is both believable and charming as the stranded tourist. Without Hanks, this film is just a total waste. Having said that, let me move on to…

What sucked?

This is the first Spielberg film I’ve ever seen that just lacked direction. As I said before, Hanks’s character is likable and entertaining‚Ķ but the story surrounding him and the way it progresses (or lack thereof) is scattered, unfocused and in general just a mess. The romance between Hanks and Catherine Zeta-Jones is forced at best and just pathetic at worst. Every supporting character in the movie is purely 2 dimensional, and the ending is tremendously unsatisfying for the viewer.

The Terminal can be charming and give you some good laughs along the way, but it fails to make you feel anything and has no real sense of identity or purpose along the way. It’s really just a poor man’s Forest Gump mixed with some Castaway.

I give it a 6 out of 10 (only because of Hank’s performance).

It’s an unfortunate thing that when most of us think of Ben Affleck we instantly associate failures like Gigli or Pearl Harbor, or Forces of Nature. Yes, these movies were crap, and Affleck was craptacular in them. However, I think most people also fail to give credit where credit is sometimes due.

As bad as Affleck has been in some films, he was fantastic in some others. He’s often overlooked for his performance in Good Will Hunting, he was wonderful in Chasing Amy, Changing Lanes is on my top 10 underrated movies of all time list, and while the movie didn’t really work all that well Affleck did a really respectable job as Jack Ryan in Sum of All Fears.

Personally, I’m glad he’s going to be back as Ryan. I thought he pulled it off well and did actually remind me of Harrison Ford (back when he could act) in the role. I’m not suggesting that Affleck is one of the great actors of our time, but the man, from time to time, can truly give a great performance and deliver some solid characters on screen. That is‚Ķ when he’s not stinking the joint out.

The following is from The MovieHole:

There’s been a lot of speculation as to whether Ben Affleck has been dropped from Paramount’s Jack Ryan series - he made his debut as the character in “The Sum of All Fears” - because of his bad box-office run of late. Not true, says Affleck, whilst talking to WhatDVD Mag.

“I’m still Jack Ryan, I know that”, says Affleck. “I don’t know if my career’s ruined. You’re going to have to tell me. I still have offers to do things. One of the things in the business is that people are competitive with you and it’s just a tough business of long knives. But ultimately it comes down to the movies and the movies I like”. The next Jack Ryan film is “Red Rabbit”, based again on the book by Tom Clancy, and Affeck thinks it’s a worthwhile gig. “I think it works as a movie and I think it should work commercially.

Hot diggity! If you’ve been paying close attention you know that I’ve been obsessing over a Japanese film called Nine Souls ever since I saw it at the Toronto Film Festival last year. I love this film. I adore it. I truly belive that this is one of the best films of this millenium. Sure, we’re not very far into the millenium yet, but still … it’s a really good movie. Well, Phil at Artsmagic has just made me a very happy boy by confirming the rumors that I’ve been hearing for a while. In his words Artsmagic will be releasing Nine Souls on DVD in North America and the UK “early next year“. I’m trying to pin him down on what exactly qualifies as ‘early’ and on what sort of features the disc will have, but if the stack of extras on their release of the same director’s Blue Spring is any indication this one should be coming with all the bells and whistles attached.

But wait! It gets better! Artsmagic has also confirmed that they will be handling a US and UK release of Shinya Tsukamoto’s Bullet Ballet! Tsukamoto is widely known as Japan’s answer to David Lynch, which is a fair enough comparison, and he made a huge splash internationally with his debut short film Tetsuo The Iron Man. For my money Bullet Ballet - the story of a man descending into depression and self destructive behavior following his girlfriend’s suicide shot in stunning high conrast black and white - is Tsukamoto’s second best film behind only the staggering Snake of June. Get the picture? I like Tsukamoto a bit, too.

Rest assured that I’m nagging away trying to get release dates and technical specs and will post any information I manage to dig up. In the meantime you can read my film fest review of Nine Souls here and Jason Morehead’s here.

I’ve actually known about this for a while, but for some reason it never occured to me to post anything, so thanks to Tracy for dropping a note and reminding me …

George Romero. The man is one of the greatest cult film directors of all time, being responsible for the the classic zombie film Dawn of the Dead, among others. Now, take Romero and combine him with Richard Hartley - composer of The Rocky Horror Picture Show - and then cast Marilyn Manson as a rock and roll Jesus Christ and what you get is a whole lot of blasphemy and a sure to be instant cult classic called Diamond Dead. The film is still in the fairly early stages of production, but what makes it so noteworthy already is that Romero is offering a pretty much unheard of level of interaction for everyday people off the street … the website has in depth diaries about the film production, scripts, and offers chances to win walk on roles. So there you go. You may not be able to be Johnny Depp’s new love interest but you can be one of the undead. Check the website above for info.

Well boys and girls it’s been fun but all good things must come to an end. Such is life. And such is our Hellboy Giveaway Contest which has now come to an end. Hellboy has a home. We have a winner. The haiku’s have been read, opinions have been bandied, votes have been counted and we have a clear winner. Both in terms of quality and quantity our champion clearly bested the competition. Ladies and gentlemen I give you Mr. Andrew Mack. And some of his poetry.

Is it hot in here?
Hold a Pop Tart to my head
Until it’s well done

I am tall and red.
You are svelte and kind of hot.
Uh, pun intended?

Soft music. Candlelight.
Give me some sugar baby.
Oops. That’s not my line.

Embarrassed and red
Here we were. Soft candlelight.
And then I farted.

I’ll Tell You Something
Kool-Aid in the shower head
That ain’t right sister.

All good, yes? But then there’s my personal favorite and the one in particular that won him the goods:

I think I smell toast
It could be a stroke. Or you.
Nope, It’s a stroke. Dang.

Congratulations Andrew. No need to contact us. We’ll track you down and slay you in the street like the dog that you are. And thanks to all our other entrants …

Okay, I realize that this movie isn’t straight from the foreign depths of Asia or from the Press Junket of Lucasfilm - but it is in fact, a small film short that I and a few others had a lot of fun shooting a few weeks ago. How does this affect you? Well it doesn’t, - although we do have a little trailer for you to watch.

The Trailer.

Apparently, we’re checking it out on July 13th. - And Jawad Mir, the director, is also submitting the sucker to a festival or two, or 6. So take a gander and see what can be done with a tiny budget and a few cameras. Oh, and the guy who turns the girl around after “Experience the Love” fades from view… yeah.. Yours truly.

First Mean Girls, now this.. tomorrow I take over everything. Let me know if that’s okay.

Well, ask and thou shalt receive, I suppose … following a little exchange on one of our feedback threads wondering why Errol Morris’ early films hadn’t been released on DVD to capitalize on the press with his Oscar win I fired off an email to his production company to see what I could turn up … here’s what they had to say:

“Look for Errol’s earlier films to come out on dvd between Nov 2004 and
Jan 2005. MGM is the distributor. First Person should be out around the
same time.”

Now there are no specific dates for specific titles in there but the feature films currently unavailable are Vernon Florida, Gates of Heaven, A Brief History of Time and The Thin Blue Line. First Person is a television show that Morris did for two seasons on the Bravo channel in the US. Morris is pretty easily my favorite documentary film maker, so this is pretty good news … keep watching this space for more specifics just as soon as we can weasel them out of MGM.