Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the current front page of the Casshern website. Hallelujah! And for those wondering why you should care about a Japanese film you’ve likely never heard of I present this trailer. October’s going to be a VERY expensive month for me. And now off I go in search of a spec sheet …

**** UPDATE **** Whee! English subtitles ARE included and it’s got a DTS track as well! Nummy!

**** UPDATE AGAIN **** Yesasia now has the DVD available for pre-order here. The price is a bit higher than what you’ll find on Japanese sites, but once you factor in the free shipping and the fact that they’ve got shipping depots in the US, Canada and the UK so you won’t get hit for customs fees, this will be the cheapest option if you’re buying a single copy.

When Robert Rodriguez was forced out of the director’s chair for Princess of Mars - his inclusion of Frank Miller as co-director on Sin City required Rodriguez to resign his director’s guild membership which in turn made him ineligible to direct within the studio system - it left a film that Paramount was counting on as a major tent-pole project in disarray, but it looks as though they’ve found a quality hand to bring the film to completion. Coming Soon is reporting that Paramount has signed Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow helmer Kerry Conran to take over the Mars project.

Well, I’ve been speculating that there’s one good film left in the Juon franchise - they still need to explain what exactly happened to Toshio - and it looks as though director Takashi Shimizu agrees with me. In a brief conversation with Fangoria Shimizu says that he sees Juon as a trilogy and is currently at work writing the third installment. Read the article here.

Yeah, the release date’s true, but really it’s just an excuse to post that picture. Can you blame me?

I’ve got to say that I’m not particularly a fan of South Park but every now and then Parker and Stone come up with a work of undeniable genius - like that clip they did for Bowling For Columbine - that has me laughing until I’m gasping for breath while also providing some pointed political commentary. Enter Team America. While it’s way too early to say whether they can make this work over the course of an entire film the trailer for Parker and Stones puppet animated satire has just hit online and it is some mighty funny stuff, taking square aim at both the left and right wings of American politics and current American foreign policy. Check out the website here and the trailer here.

Oops … check that … looks like they’ve pissed someone off already, ’cause they’ve got squatters on their website, but the trailer still works fine …

Manchurian Candidate director Jonathan Demme’s recent interview with NPR has been archived on the radio network’s website and is available here. Yep, he talks politics which is sure to get the ol’ left-right fires a-burnin’. In fact, they already are. For a right leaning take on Demme’s comments - complete with a partial transcript of the interview - check out The Gantelope here. Thanks to Andrew for the link.

Another piece of interesting news thanks to the ever-vigilant Twitch … Dark Horse comics have announce that they will be releasing a four issue comic mini-series based on The Incredibles with the first issue due November 24th. Check out all the info over at Superhero Hype.

It’s not exactly movie news but it is related so I’m putting it up anyway … If you’ve been paying attention to the site over the last little while you know that I’ve got a major fixation on Toshiaki Toyoda’s Blue Spring and that part of the reason for that is the killer soundtrack by Japan’s Thee Michelle Gun Elephant. Did a bit of digging around last week and was shocked to find that the band actually has a US record deal. Or at least they did before they broke up. Imagine a more muscular Black Rebel Motorcycle Club and you’re in the general vicinity of the Michelle Gun. Or if you prefer not to imagine you can check out some mp3s here. The Blue Spring stuff can be found on the Rodeo Tandem Beat Specter record. The mail man - one of my favorite people on the planet. I love the mail man. - brought me my copy yesterday and it’s gooooooooood ….

Want to talk Village spoilers? Do it here. Everything’s fair game. Got a question or interpretation? This is the place, so fire away in as much detail as you like.

Sweet mother of mystery! Your time’s almost up! You wanna win a pair of free Lady Snowblood DVDs? Of course you do, and today’s your last chance to do it. Click here, read the rules, and throw your hat into the ring. The winner will be announced tomorrow. While you’re at it go ahead and put an entry into the Village giveaway as well. There’s only a week left on that one.

I would like to preface this review by saying that teenage girls are stupid. Or, at the very least, the teenage girls who were sitting next to me at The Village are stupid. Here’s a hint, girls: when a film goes out of its way to repeatedly demonstrate and state outright that a particular character is blind, well hey golly, it’s because that character is, in fact, blind. Suddenly looking up a solid hour into said film and loudly asking “Hey, is she blind? Is that girl blind? What’s up with that? Is she blind?” both reflects very badly on your level of intelligence and is extremely irritating to those people around you who have actually been paying attention to the film they just paid a wildly inflated price to watch. So don’t do it. Yes, she’s blind. Questioned answered. Move along.

I should also point out that while I will not be talking any specific plot points here - you’re better served by not knowing very much going in - I will be talking some about themes within the film, and if you’re the attentive sort what I’ve got to say could give away some significant stuff. So if you don’t want to know, don’t read. Otherwise, continue on in …
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I don’t really need to say anything else, do I? Thanks to Twitch for pointing this out. Here are the links to the Quicktime versions, because all other formats are of the devil.

Lo-res
Medium-res
High-res

I thought I would post this to show to people that contrary to popular belief I am interested in what you think or your opinions.

Here is the deal. For years now I have been scared off of the Anime style of Feature Length films. You see for a while, I was quite taken with the idea of feature lenght Anime movies. A local shop had an impressive collection for rent, and I decided to give a few a try.

Problem was, I tended to select the “not suited for children” titles, since I was after something with a mature storyline, perhaps some violence, and very high quality animation. That and I was hoping to avoid all the Sailor Moon/CardCaptor types of movies that just catered to kids. Stuff like Akira and Bubblegum Crisis/Crash had this sort of rating and the Hayao Miyazaki films also made my “safe list”. Also things like Gatchaman or Macross Plus are nifty cool.

This of course lead me to discover that there is a LOT of crap out there, and even more that is not simply “not for kids” but most certainly ONLY FOR ADULTS! .. basically “adult movies” (really disturbingly creepy ones too.. aliens and animal people.. shudder)

So I stopped trying. But I have always liked that sort of film.

So here is the challenge, Anime fans. Tell me what is really worth watching.

If it falls under what most would call a film R or NC-17 rating, I am ok with that. Not porn. Keep in mind that I dislike reading a movie. English dubbed is preferred. (This is not to spark a debate about dubbing over subtitles) I like good action, detailed animation, likeable characters, and creative designs.

There you have it. So what am I renting next?

Good Lord, do we ever like giving stuff away. We like it so much, in fact, that we’re not even going to wait for our Lady Snowblood DVD giveaway contest - you’ve entered that one already, I’m sure - to wrap up before starting this one. What’ve we got this time? Free swag from M. Night Shyamalan’s The Village. Damn cool free swag, I might add. Swag in the form of a framed 16 x 20 glossy still from the film signed by Shyamalan and the cast, among other things. Want it? Of course you do. Read on for all of the details.
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Fangoria has just run the first part of a lengthy interview with Takashi Miike - conducted in part by Cabin Fever director Eli Roth - and it’s a good one. Check it out here.

Well, it’s not a Sandman movie, but it’s close … Neil Gaiman’s Death: The High Cost of Living is in development at New Line based on Gaiman’s own script with Hellboy director Guillermo Del Toro attached as an executive producer. It’s the right collection of talent at the right studio, so I’ve got decently high hopes for this. Full details are here.

According to an article on SciFi.com The Fantastic Four’s Ben Grimm / Thing will NOT be a CG created character. Actor Michael Chiklis is quoted saying, “I did not want to do this if Ben Grimm was going to be a CGI [character]. If he was going to be done in the way that the Hulk was done, then I felt that I would be wasted. And I was assured from the get-go that that wasn‚Äôt going to be the case. And I was thrilled.”

I really want this film to work, and it’s good to see that Chiklis, at least, is invested in his character, but I just can’t shake the feeling that this is a train wreck waiting to happen …

Korean director Chan Wook Park - along with his producer and star - are all receiving major Korean cultural awards for their work on Old Boy. “To recognize the contribution the movie made in the international cinema world, enhancing the image of Korean films and their reputation for artistic quality” Park will receive the Bogwan Order of Cultural Merit - the third highest cultural award Korea offers - while the producer and lead actor will both receive the country’s fourth highest honor. All the details can be found here.

It is also being reported that Park has joined forces with eight other prominent South Korean directors - Bong Joon-ho (Memories Of Murder), Kim Jee-woon (A Tale Of Two Sisters), E J-yong (Untold Scandal), Hur Jin-ho (One Fine Spring Day), Kim Sung-soo (Musa), Yu Ha (Once Upon A Time In High School), Lee Hyun-seung (Il Mare), and Kwon Chil-in (Singles) - to form their own production company. Calling themselves, appropriately enough, Nine Directors the company will provide seed financing and negotiate completion financing and distribution with outside partners. Full story is here.

The good folks over at Screen Daily have posted a review of Harold and Kumar go to White Castle and they HATE it. Really. Very active dislike here. Though frankly, based on what they’ve got to say about it I’m betting the film’s target audience is going to love it for all the reasons that Screen Daily hates it … read the review here …

Whee! I’ve been itching to see this teaser - just unveiled at the San Diego Comic Con - so I was more than a little pleased to get an email this morning directing me over to CHUD, where they’ve apparently got bandwidth to burn. Yeah, there’s not much there in terms of footage, but the tone is perfect and the production values on this thing beat the total production expense of the entire BBC television show combined. Not that that would be difficult, really. Click here to view the trailer and here to check out the film’s website. I was mighty skeptical at first but it looks as though Douglas Adams’ masterpiece is finally getting the film it deserves … Thanks to Tracy for the heads up …

Four new TV spots for M. Night Shyamalan’s The Village have just turned up online. These exist in a couple different formats, but I’m only going to give you the Quicktime ones because that’s just the kind of guy I am.

Spot One: large small
Spot Two: large small
Spot Three: large small
Spot Four: large small

Shyamalan seems be turning into something of a “love or hate” director, and personally I love him. His scripts are tight, he draws great performances out of his casts, he trusts his audience is intelligent enough to keep up without having every point rammed down their throats and I firmly believe that his films would’ve already won numerous cinematography, editing and other technical awards if not for the fact that they’re all such unrepentant genre films. I’m looking forward to this one a lot …

Huzzah! Specs for the UK DVD of Shaun of the Dead have hit the web and it looks awesome! Not only has the DVD release been moved up to September 6th, but it includes a STACK of killer extras. Check this out:

Audio commentary from actor/writer Simon Pegg and director Edgar Wright
Audio commentary from actors Simon Pegg, Nick Frost, Dylan Moran, Kate Ashfield and Lucy Davis
Audio commentary from actors Bill Nighy and Penelope Wilton
Audio commentary from the zombies!
Extended bits with audio commentary
Outtakes
‘The Man Who Would Be Shaun’: Simon Pegg and Nick Frost impersonate Sean Connery and Michael Caine
‘Plotholes’: comic strip sequences with voiceover from Lucy Davis, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost including What Happened To Shaun When He Ran Off? / What Happened To Diane When She Left The Winchester? / How Did Ed Get From The Cellar To The Shed?
Extended edits of the TV Shows within the movie: Coldplay on T4 / Fun Dead (full version of It’s a Knockout Zombies) / Trisha - ‘Your nine lives are up!’ / Trisha - ‘I married a monster’
‘Remembering Z Day’: an interview with Jeremy Thompson
‘Electronic Press Kit’ featurette
Vignettes: Simon’s cam / Lucy’s cam / Joe’s diary
‘Edgar Wright’s and Simon Pegg’s Flip Chart’: a presentation of the first draft
SFX comparison from Double Negative
Make-up tests
Photo Gallery: photo’s by Simon, Lucy and Charlotte
Poster Designs: from the original Oscar poster to the final official poster
2000AD Strip: ‘There’s Something About Mary’
TV spots
Official trailer
Official teaser trailer
‘Fright Fest’ exclusive trailer

You read that right. An audio commentary by the zombies. That rules.

Time’s running out if you want to lay claim to the Lady Snowblood DVDs we’re giving away. Haven’t entered yet? Read the rules here and get to it.

Obviously jealous of my movie news superiority, Day-vuh just erased my post about the upcoming Return of the King Extended Edition DVD set. The search features over on the One Ring site, where I pulled that bit from, are less than pleasing, so here are the comic con details as posted on AICN. Erase at your own peril, Day-vuh. Peril, I say!

A trio of interesting news bits from the box office this week. First, and somewhat surprisingly, The Bourne Supremacy totally dominated with a weekend take over $53 million. That’s almost half the total take of the first film in one weekend, which is mighty impressive for a film that received relatively little in the way of marketing. Catwoman, however received a monstrous marketing push and drew only $17 mil. When you factor in the overwhelmingly bad press Catwoman’s received plus the fact that there are three highly anticipated films - The Village, The Manchurian Candidate and Harold and Kumar Go To White Castle - opening next weeked I’d be willing to put down money that Catwoman’s take will drop about 70% next week and that it’ll be largely out of theaters the week after which means it’ll be lucky to make back the money spent on marketing, never mind what they spent actually making the stupid thing. And, finally, Fahrenheit 9/11, already by far the top grossing documentary of all time, has just become the first documentary to ever cross the $100 million mark and thus enter into official blockbuster status.

Korean martial arts fantasy film Arahan has won two top awards at this year’s Puchon International Fantastic Film Festival. The Puchon festival is the largest genre festival in Asia and gives a pretty strong indicator of what to expect from the region over the next year. Arahan won both the jury’s Best of Puchon award as well as the Citizen’s Award as the favorite film as chosen by festival patrons. I was thinking Arahan was a strong contender to be in the Toronto Festival even before the strong showing at Puchon, and this makes it even more likely.

In other interesting news from Puchon Chan Wook Park’s contribution to Three: Monster was a surprise screening and word on the street is that all three parts of the anthology film are now complete. Mamoru Oshii’s Innocence also won a special jury award.

Check out the Arahan website here and the trailer here.

C’mon. Admit it. You know who Matthew Lillard is. He was Shaggy in the Scooby Doo films, in which he starred with Freddy Prinze Jr. He was also in Summer Catch, with Freddy Prinze Jr. Wing Commander? Yep, he was in that one, too. So was Freddy Prinze Jr. How ’bout She’s All That? You bet, also with Freddy Prinze Jr. Yep, Lillard and Mr. Buffy have a long and not so illustrious history together which goes a long way towards explaining why I have never seen a film starring the man. But last night I caught the trailer for Without A Paddle, in which Lillard gets over his Prinze fixation, replacing the man with the far superior Seth Green, and it made me laugh very, very hard. Stupid teen film, yes, but it looks to be a very funny stupid teen film. Check out the website here - trailer’s on the very first page. Whoever put Burt Reynolds into that ridiculous hermit getup deserves a pat on the bum.

Ah … I’m just itching to see this. My love for Donnie Darko is on an epic scale. This is just a fantastic film, easily one of the best debut films I’ve ever seen, and I’ve been anxiously checking the website waiting for the day that they announce some screening dates for the director’s cut here in Toronto. Twenty extra minutes of narcolepsy, a giant talking bunny and the coming apocalypse. What’s not to like about that? Well, our good friend Big Bald Dave has seen it and deigned to share his opinion with us. Yeah. He likes it a bit, too. Read on.
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Hey kids … here’s a scrap of information to stir the program - rumor pot for the Toronto Film fest … our good friend Nick just went to a volunteer recruitment session for the Festival where the made a very specific request for volunteers who can translate Thai. Now, I went to the very first one of these session at the beginning of the month and, while they did go through their generic translator request as they always do, there were no specific requests for any particular language group. Obvious conclusion: sometime between when I went to the session and when Nick went to the session they’ve added a Thai film, or at least a Thai directed film, and are planning to have the director in attendance to do a Q&A session at the screening. Born to Fight, anyone? Garuda and The Bodyguard are both strong possibilites as well, as are the new Pang films since the Pang Brothers have a decently long relationship with the festival, and there was a Thai drama that was very well received at Cannes this year that may be coming over, but Born To Fight just jumped to the top of my list of films that I expect to see at Midnight Madness …

Can you imagine the uproar if the new Superman movie was re-worked so that Superman is actually a guy named Eddie Sanchez who works as a dish washer in Toronto, who was given super powers by correctly finishing a crossword puzzle in a newspaper that a Gypsy witch had accidentally sneezed on the day before? People would be PISSED. Rightly so. Whoever came up with the idea of screwing around with Catwoman should be shot. Sorry, “shot” might not be appropriate. I meant beaten‚Ķ and THEN shot. Someone needs to lose their job over this.

Yes, we all knew for a very long time that Catwoman wasn’t going to be very good. It’s just something you could tell from a mile away. But at the same time I held out some small hope, some fleeting belief that somehow, someway, this movie would surprise me. That by some miracle Catwoman would end up being at least moderately enjoyable. That perhaps if the stars aligned properly, and if I was wearing my lucky underwear I could at least say the movie was fun. Within about 15 minutes after the HORRIBLE opening credits, my hopes were obliterated and smashed to pieces like a computer class nerd goosing the head cheerleader‚Ķ in front of her football team captain boyfriend‚Ķ and the rest of his team. That my friend is a long painful beating, believe you me. Such was the experience of watching Catwoman.

Go on… keep reading.
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Yesterday, superherohype & aintitcool posted a little blip about the apparent Tranformers movie coming to your local movie house by summer 2006.

Superherohype’s article.

Dreamworks and Paramount are the companies behind it with nothing else yet determined with the exception that it’ll be live action. Well, Mr. Spielberg might be the executive producer and AintitCool swears their “source” is correct by saying Rob Zemeckis will direct it. Hmmmm… Live Action. An interesting concept, but ..well.. I just dunno…

- Personally for me, I’m still having a hard time getting around the fact that in an attempt to push more products (Milton Bradley?) went and killed off my favourite transformers in the Transformers Movie — get this — 18 years ago. As a kid, now correct me if I’m wrong, but the news that Optimus Prime died was the first “where-were-you-when-John F Kennedy” moment in our young little lives. Killing off the “coolest” and most “followed” icon of millions of 8-10 year-olds was the dumbest move I have ever seen a company make. And I think the company has been trying to take that moment back ever since.

- That and I’m ticked that the new tranformers are made entirely out of cheap plastic - we had it so good back then. Sigh…
So here we are making a new movie for the newer generation of Transformer lovers - 18 years later, who likely don’t know much about the blasphemies that have taken place before them. Unless they do some show-stopping filming, I likely won’t see this, just to protest that my inner 10 year old is still mad.

Robert Zemeckis is of course the genius behind Back to the Future (and a puss-load of other stuff). But I’m sure you knew that already.

You know those guys that you see on tons of movies, but you just don’t know who they are because they’re never the lead guy? Yeah? Well Bruce Greenwood is one of those, and a damn good one too.

I first really noticed him as the evil husband in Double Jeopardy with Ashley Judd. He was just so slick in the role, and personally I thought he made the flick work. Even more impressive was his performance in Kevin Costner’s Thirteen Days where he portrayed John F. Kenedy during the Cuban missile crisis. I thought it was a brilliant film (and I know most people disagree with me on that) and Greenwood carried the whole stinking picture on his back. Right now you can catch him as the world richest man in I, Robot.

I’d really like to see him get some solid lead roles, but the reality is it’ll never happen. He’s probably just a bit too old to pull off the “Leading Man” thing. But who cares. He’s got a great career going and apparently more work than you can shake a stick at. Keep goin Bruce.

Oh my. I can’t believe what I just saw. The Born To Fight trailer is online. That’s the new film from the director and fight choreographer of Ong Bak. Watch it. Right now. It’s here. Watch for the truck scene. Repeat to yourself, “No wires or CGI.” These people should all be dead. Absolute insanity. I realllllly need to see this film … when you’re done with the trailer you can check out the website here and a behind the scenes making of clip here.

Wow. You know a film is bad when its the largest major release of the week, has been the object of a major ad campaign and one of the entertainment weeklies in a major city decides to run an article detailing the best films of its genre but can’t even be bothered to review the film itself. That happened this week … Now Magazine here in Toronto ran an article on the best comic adaptations of all time this week - similar choices to my own list, by the way - while similtaneously refusing to waste any space whatsoever on a Catwoman review. Ouch.

How bad is it? Check this out:

Metacritic score: 24 / 100
Rotten Tomatos score: 13 / 100

In short, the critics loathe it. It’s really hard to score that low.

For your reading enjoyment I present some entertaining quotes courtesy of Rotten Tomatos:

“The Showgirls of superhero movies.” Robert Elder, Chicago Tribune

“Putting Halle Berry in a tight leather suit is a good idea. The rest of the film is not.” Boo Allen, Denton Record Chronicle

“So much talent wasted. So much money squandered. So much opportunity missed.” Winda Benedetti, SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER

“Most of the movie has the cruddy lighting and generic, death-by-franchise atmosphere of a third-rate spectacle that’s been worked over by too many hacks.” Owen Gleiberman, ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY

“It’s bad enough that not only are careers over, but somebody should be slapped.” Walter Chaw, FILM FREAK CENTRAL

“Catwoman has all the appeal of a hairball.” Jeffrey Bruner, DES MOINES REGISTER

“Feels as if it‚Äôs been pieced together from a dozen or so Ally McBeal parodies posing as hip-hop videos.” Ed Gonzalez, SLANT MAGAZINE

Well, we reported on the rumors of a Darren Aronofsky helmed adaptation of The Watchmen a while back and it looks as though the project is now officially a go. The film has been officially announced by Paramount Pictures and will be written by David Hayter, produced by Aronofsky’s long time business partner Eric Watson with Aronofsky at the helm. Production should gear up just as soon as Aronofsky wraps up The Fountain …

Well, it looks like things are pretty much settled for the US remake of Infernal Affairs and I gotta say I’m not real pleased. According to The Hollywood Reporter the Scorsese helmed remake has been titled “The Departed”, and will star Leonardo Dicaprio as the deep cover cop infiltrating the mob with Matt Damon as the mobster infiltrating the police force.

While it’s not as bad as it could’ve been there’s no way this is going to match the tone of the original. They’ve gone much younger and much prettier with the casting and while both Damon and Dicaprio are skilled performers I just don’t see them being believable in these parts. The original film stars Andy Lau - who gives a career best performance - in the Damon role with Tony Leung - one of the finest dramatic actors in the world - in the Dicaprio part. Damon’s a better fit for his role, but I really don’t envy Dicaprio the task of following Leung’s power house performance and both stars are far too young to be playing characters that have been in deep cover roles for upwards of fifteen years. Scorsese strikes me as a solid choice as a director, but what’s with that title? “The Departed”? Sounds like a bad ghost story, not a cop thriller …

It has only been a month, but we’re about to hit the extent of our new bandwidth limit yet again. In the next day or so, we may be down for a little while because we don’t know if our service request will be received by our provider before our bandwidth runs out.

In short, we’ve already applied to upgrade our bandwidth before the problem occurs, so if we do go down, it will be very temporary. - Last month I believe we were offline for a few hours.

All in all, this is quite a spectacular problem to be having - it only means you’re helping the site become more and more successful. Thanks.

And remember:
txt msging srthand iz bad 4 ur health.

Zhang Yimou’s martial arts epic The House of Flying Daggers has just set a Chinese box office record, bringing in $6.7 million while playing on only 360 screens. That’s a mighty impressive per screen daily average of $6203 US. On a per dollar basis that’s slightly better than Spider-man 2 did in the US this weekend, but when you factor in the fact that Chinese theaters don’t charge anywhere close to as much for admission as North American theaters do - this is, after all, a country where new non-bootleg DVDs sell for as little as $3 - Daggers just kicked all sorts of ass in terms of ticket sales.

Oh … and the previous record holder? That’d be Yimou’s Hero. Which Miramax has just officially pushed back another week to August 27th in the US.

According to Screen Daily Tartan Video has just inked a distribution deal with US based TLA that will see 35 - 40 Tartan titles per year brought out on video and DVD with up to a dozen of those getting the full theatrical treatment as well. Why should we care? Because Tartan has an amazing catalog of titles from around the world and has been leading the charge championing current Asian film for quite some time. Check out what’s already confirmed to be coming out:

Old Boy - Chan Wook Park
Sword in the Moon - Eui-Suk Kim
Anatomy of Hell - Catherine Breillat
Phone - Byeong-ki Ahn
Tale of Two Sisters - Ji-Woon Kim
Doppelganger - Kiyoshi Kurosawa
Memento Mori - Tae Yong Kim

And though they weren’t in the list of films I saw I know Tartan also has rights to the two upcoming Pang Brothers films Abnormal Beauty and Re-Cycle. That, boys and girls, is one mighty impressive line up of films. And now I’m off to see if I can land any info on release dates and the like …