Editor’s Note: My long time friend and fellow Asian cinema fanboy Sean sent me this wonderful email giving his critique on the upcoming New York Asian Film Festival:
Films I’d Like to See
Accuracy of Death: All I have to say is “death and his telepathic dog” – Sold!
Dainipponjin, aka Big Man Japan: Okay, as someone who grew up watching Godzilla movies this fake documentary about a bumbling super guy who fights Tokyo’s giant monsters appeals to me.
Dead Time: Kala: Okay, more than one person has compared this film to Dark City a film which I think had such great unrealized potential! I will go see it just for that fact.
L: Change the World: I’ll admit it, I saw both Death-note films and thought they were okay made for TV movies (but they weren’t made for TV), and a result I am interested in seeing this film which is part of the Death-note Phenomena…
Love On Sunday: So this one looks like a chick-flick but it’s directed by former soft-porn director Ryuichi Hiroki. I saw his first “commercial” film Vibrator (named for the fact that the protagonist leaves her cell phone on vibrate, but also a reference to her depressed feelings of no one being able to ‘hear’ her – so get you minds out of the gutter!) and very VERY impressed, plus the reviewer compares it to a John Hughes film. For those reasons I am willing to face what appears to be a chick-flick.
Mad Detective: Sounds like TV show House meets a HK gangster film!
Sukiyaki Western Django: I know it’s not going to be good, but there has been so much hype over Miike’s Japanese Western costarring… Quentin Tarantino in his first Japanese acting roll, my curiosity has gotten the best of me.
This World Of Ours: The review of this film really piques my interest. A manifesto written by a hikikomori (literally an anti-social individual who locks themselves in their room and won’t come out) ! How can I pass it up?
“A fire at Universal Studios has destroyed a set from “Back to the Future,” the King Kong exhibit and a video vault containing more than 40,000 videos and reels. Los Angeles County fire Captain Frank Reynoso says the blaze broke out just before dawn Sunday on a backlot stage at the 400-acre property. The fire has been contained.
Officials say the iconic courthouse square from “Back to the Future,” has been destroyed, and the famous clocktower that enabled star Michael J. Fox’s character to time travel has been damaged. NBC Universal President and Chief Operating Officer Ron Meyer says 40,000 to 50,000 videos and reels were damaged in the video vault, but there are duplicates in a different location.”
The Grand Space Voyage (Bolshoe kosmicheskoe puteshestvie) was shot in 1974 in the Soviet Union by director Valentin Selivanov. The plot of the film follows two boys and a girl who are sent into space for a heroic adventure and a light dash of romance. The look of this film reminds me a great deal of Gerry & Sylvia Anderson’s UFO TV series. By the way the little girl in the film is Mila Berlinskaya, who went on to become a world-famous classical pianist who now lives in France (she sings that song too).
This Sydney Pollack interview is from 1992 and was shot while he was working on Tootsie. I love his advice to upcoming film directors (i.e. “just do it”) and the difference between film and video. Here’s the scene that he acted in (and also directed) from Tootsie:
I was just saddened to read that Sydney Pollack just passed away. What’s amazing about Pollack is not just the wide range of films that he directed and produced, but for me what I admired about him was that he was also an actor. In fact my favorite scenes from the Kubrick film Eyes Wide Shut are when Pollack playing Victor Ziegler tells the score to Tom Cruise who is playing Dr. William “Bill” Hartford. In those scenes he was so believable as the character even though I’d seen him interviewed on the small screen for quite a few years.
I’ve noticed the trend in the last few years to focus on the “Summer Blockbuster” which always seems to be a multimillion dollar special effects film based on a very well known franchise. As much as these films are my generational comfort food (Indiana Jones = Mac and Cheese?) my own personal nostalgia is more for the 90s which were a mini-golden age of indie film making. It’s for this reason that I’ve always been a fan of Stanley Kubrick, because while he made his fair share of blockbusters he was never afraid to take chances and get out of his comfort zone.
In August of this year Buck Rogers will be 80 years old! The franchise which takes place in the year 2419 first started life as a short story in the pulp magazine Amazing Stories has has spawned comic books, novels, toys, serialized movies and two TV series (first in 1950 on ABC and then the disco version in 1979). Now it looks like Nu Image/Millennium Films has acquired film rights to the property and will create a live action film:
“Nu Image/Millennium’s Avi Lerner got the rights from the Dille Trust, which is run by the surviving family of series originator Frank Dille. Those rights had once been with Disney, but the Dille family was attracted to moving them to a small movie and gaining more control over the direction of the film. Despite web reports that Frank Miller had boarded the project, sources at Millennium disputed than any creatives had yet aligned to the project.”
“I personally saw the film at last month’s screening here in NYC at NEW DIRECTORS/NEW FILMS and loved the film! I think the movie is hot and consider the hybrid movie to be a “Mexican Matrix.” Hybrid in the sense that it is both in English and in Spanish, something the trades forgot to mention. The futuristic film creates an environment where Mexican immigrant labor is outsourced from Tijuana via cyber network, with remote-controlled robots working in the United States.”
I admit it: I had my doubts and frankly who could blame me for being a cynic after what happened with Star Wars? But I have to say that this new Indiana Jones flick is looking good and I’m getting the sense that Spielberg might be able to deliver the goods. Yes it looks like more of the same, but maybe sometimes that’s a good thing?
It looks like Land of the Lost is in production in Hollywood. The key thing that made this old series great was that they had some A+ science fictions writers doing the scripting, I hope the powers that be keep in mind that it’s going to take more than slicker Sleestaks to keep us fanboys happy:
“The Land of the Lost film is now shooting on multiple sound stages at Universal Studios, and the Sleestak surface in a temple where Ferrell’s character and his two companions (comedian Danny McBride, Pushing Daisies’ Anna Friel) are hoping a giant crystal will return them to their own dimension.
The plot involves three adults (not a dad and two kids as on TV) accidentally thrust into a realm ruled by dinosaurs, monkey-men called Pakuni and the murderous Sleestak. Director Brad Silberling (Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events) says he fought to keep the human shape of the Sleestak from Sid & Marty Krofft’s original production, and not give into the urge to render them as spindly computerized beings.”
What happens when you mix Robocop with ummm, well I’m not quite sure! I think the true test of a great B movie is if you can’t tell the trailer is real or if it’s a parody — and the Demolitionist (from 1995) succeeds!
I just found out that Charlton Heston passed away at age 84. While he got his start in films in 1950 and won an Oscar, as a fanboy I’ll always associate him with such classic fanboy favorites like Planet of the Apes, Soylent Green and The Omega Man.
Here’s an amazing scene from Soylent Green, Charlton Heston’s tears at Sol’s death were real, as Heston was the only cast member who knew that Edward G. Robinson was dying of terminal cancer. This was the 90th and last movie in which Robinson appeared:
I hare to admit it, but this looks pretty darn good! I know I made all of those jokes about Geriatric Jones but come May 22nd I get the feeling that this old dorky fanboy is standing on line waiting all day.
When ever I think of Fritz Lang the film Metropolis comes to mind, but often folks forget that he did a nice body of film noir projects in the 40s and 50s. It seems that RKO hasn’t forgotten this and is now in the process of putting together a remake of the 1956 Lang film Beyond a Reasonable Doubt with Michael Douglas:
“The movie in question is a film noir by Fritz Lang, who made such unquestionable classics as M and Metropolis. Beyond a Reasonable Doubt was a sturdy flick starring the underrated Dana Andrews (Laura, The Best Years of Our Lives) as a writer who pins a murder on himself to prove the folly of circumstantial evidence. Heady stuff.
Variety tells us that this time around, Michael Douglas, Amber Tamblyn and Jesse Metcalfe will star in a contemporary remake of the film to be written and directed by Peter Hyams (who’s a far cry from Timecop here), and production is expected to begin next month. Having adored the noir touches of Hollywoodland a couple years ago, I wish they’d kept it in the period. I guess with the litigous nature of modern America, it makes sense to skewer the judicial system in the here and now, but I can’t help thinking it would be more special as a traditional film noir.”
Hollywood is filled with tales of tragedy and excess and Heath Ledger is the newest in a long list of lives cut short in the world of entertainment. At only 28 years of age the young Aussie was just coming into his own as an actor. With his sudden explosion into the big time with Ten Things I Hate About You Heath managed to string together a series of successful roles including A Knight’s Tale, The Brothers Grimm and The Order .
It’s the beginning of a new year and is starting to look like the last good batch of movies we will see in a while. The Writer’s Guild of America remains on strike and until that is settled Hollywood will be starting to look rather barren around the end of this year and the start of ‘09. Television is already beginning to feel the sting with the cancellation of 24 this year and a load of Reality Shows ready to hit the mid season lineup. So I thought I would take the opportunity to look ahead to 2008 and see what’s coming up for us in theaters this year:
Kataude mashin gâru (the Machine Girl) is an action comedy from Japan directed by Noboru Iguchi due out in 2008. It looks much more fun than the upcoming Iron Man film, no?
“Indiana Jones co-producer Frank Marshall is authorized to confirm some rumors and detail some of the story, about a quest for South American relics with supernatural powers.
When last we saw Indy, he was riding off into the sunset in 1989’s The Last Crusade, set in 1938 near the start of World War II. The new movie, due this spring, is set at the height of the Cold War in 1957, so the character has aged in real time — 19 years.
The Nazis are no longer Indy’s chief foe — he’s racing for the Crystal Skull against operatives from the Soviet Union, including Oscar winner Cate Blanchett as the seductive Agent Spalko. “Indy always has a love-hate relationship with every woman he ever comes in contact with,” Marshall says.”
If your an Orson Welles fanboy you love this website which has mp3 files of the Mercury Theatre radio shows, a great way to fill up your iPod the fanboy way:
“The finest radio drama of the 1930’s was The Mercury Theatre on the Air, a show featuring the acclaimed New York drama company founded by Orson Welles and John Houseman. In its brief run, it featured an impressive array of talents, including Agnes Moorehead, Bernard Herrmann, and George Coulouris. The show is famous for its notorious War of the Worlds broadcast, but the other shows in the series are relatively unknown. This site has many of the surviving shows, and will eventually have all of them. The show first broadcast on CBS and CBC in July 1938.”
