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Posted on 08.30.10 by David @ 12:02 pm
Private Joker (Matthew Modine) and Animal Mother (Adam Baldwin) on patrol. Filed under: Movie Image and People: Stanley Kubrick Comments: None |
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Posted on 08.25.10 by David @ 11:08 am
Filed under: Movie News and Movie News: Japan and Movie News: Obituaries Comments: None |
While Hayao Miyazaki remains the sentimental favorite and patron saint of anime, in recent years Satoshi Kon has taken the reins from such creators as Katsuhiro Otomo and Mamoru Oshii and become the representative of the cutting edge of big-screen anime with his gorgeously realized and psychologically intricate films. What would become Kon’s signature theme - the thin dividing line between fantasy and reality - was apparent even in his earlier works, like the Magnetic Rose segment of Memories. However, in recent years Kon raised his explorations of dreams and memories, and how they intrude on everyday life, to the level of masterpiece with films like Millennium Actress and Paprika, as well as the television freak-out Paranoia Agent. Upon his untimely death from cancer, he leaves behind one unfinished project, The Dream Machine. Released stills are intriguing - we can only hope that enough has been completed that The Dream Machine may serve as a fitting epitaph.
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Posted on 08.23.10 by David @ 10:07 am
Unfortunately, after an incident involving a visit to China, Leung was essentially banned from the film industry for roughly 16 years, from 1988 to 2004, when Stephen Chow brought him back to play the role of the villainous Beast in his phenomenally successful Kung Fu Hustle. Since then, Leung’s career has experienced a revival, with roles in gritty actioners like Shamo and Sasori (review here) and comedies like Just Another Pandora’s Box and Kung Fu Chefs (review here). His latest film is Gallants and it stars a slew of old school Hong Kong talent like Chen Kuan-Tai, Lo Meng, Shaw Yum-Yum and Teddy Robin, though nobody is better showcased than Leung. Recently, CSB’s David Austin and Charlie Prince had the opportunity to sit down with Bruce Leung, in town for the New York Asian Film Festival, to talk about Gallants and the ups and downs of his career. Leung, whose thickly-calloused knuckles bespeak a lifelong tough guy (and who has one of the best business cards I’ve ever seen, see immediately below), did not disappoint.
On Growing Up in Kung Fu Films CSB: How did you get involved in kung fu films? Bruce Leung: It’s a long story. I grew up in a single-parent family. To protect my family, every day when I walked past I saw little kids learning how to do martial arts and I wanted to learn. I used rice, and I would chop it until it was in really small pieces every day. My grandma would hit me when she saw me because I would cut the rice so small. To help my family, I got involved in the movies when I was 15. Filed under: General and Movie News and Movie News: Hong Kong and Contributors: David and People: Stephen Chow Sing Chi and Movie News: Interviews and Film Festivals: New York Asian Film Festival 2010 and People: Bruce Leung Siu-Leung and People: Angela Mao Ying Comments: None |
Bruce Leung Siu-Leung (who has gone by a number of names in the West, including Bruce Liang and Bruce Leong), now in his early sixties, has had a storied history in martial arts films, both as an actor and as an action choreographer. First entering the public eye as one of several “Lee-Alikes” in the wake of Bruce Lee’s untimely demise, Leung distinguished himself with his martial arts skills, especially as a leg fighter. Leung moved past his Bruceploitation phase to become a legitimate star in his own right in the seventies and eighties, working with producer Ng See-Yuen and alongside kung fu superstars like Angela Mao Ying and Sammo Hung, and taking leading roles for major studios in films like Call Me Dragon and Little Supermen.
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Posted on 08.10.10 by David @ 6:54 pm
On The Anthology Series William Lustig: First of all, I’m very grateful to the Anthology for picking up on this series. It’s been great.
CSB: How did the series get started? William Lustig: I was contacted by the Anthology three years ago about doing a New York vigilante series. And obviously having made the movie Vigilante and movies like Maniac Cop, they thought I could be helpful in suggesting films, including my own, for the series. And the series was successful and while I was there I happened to mention offhand that I’ve always wanted a series to be done either there or at the Film Forum of these undiscovered movies from the sixties and seventies that are just languishing. They haven’t come out on video for various reasons and these are just some wonderful films that haven’t seen the light of day and I thought they could be interesting as a series. So, about six months later, they contacted me and said what films do you suggest? And I gave them a list and Jed over at the Anthology went searching for the prints and found most of them and we were able to do the first series last year, and it was met with sold-out houses. Filed under: Movie News and Contributors: David and Movie News: Interviews and Venues: Anthology Film Archives and People: William Lustig and People: Larry Cohen and People: John Frankenheimer and People: Jean-Paul Belmondo and People: Jan Michael Vincent Comments: None |
As we reported earlier, for the second year in a row the Anthology Film Archives in New York is presenting a great series of seventies genre films, curated by William Lustig. Mr. Lustig, of course, has a long history with New York genre films, having helmed the Maniac Cop series, Vigilante, Maniac, and numerous other films near and dear to the hearts of genre fans. In addition, Mr. Lustig has the distinction of founding and running Blue Underground, one of the first of the wave of independent DVD production companies to begin releasing underground treasures, and one of the few to survive the crash of the market in the mid-2000s. Last week, CSB’s David Austin had an opportunity to chat with Mr. Lustig, whose enthusiasm for these films is infectious, about the upcoming series running from August 12-20 (more information on the schedule and films can be found 
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Posted on 08.06.10 by Charlie @ 3:19 am
 An (ahem) “exciting” screening series kicks off today at NYC’s Lincoln Center — the first-ever English-language retrospective of Argentinian sexploitation star Isabel Sarli, who went by the nickname “Coca”. And though she may not be exactly shaped like a Coca-Cola bottle, we get the point: Ms. Sarli was a very curvy lady, and she made a career out of it — first as a “Miss Argentina” beauty pageant winner, and then as Argentina’s first bona fide sex star. In the US she’s barely known, but in Argentina she was huge. Think Marilyn Monroe. In fact, Sarli rose to stardom at the same time (the late 50s/early 60s), and in largely the same types of roles as Monroe, albeit with more nudity. For those unfamiliar with genre films of this era, the term “sexploitation” may give the wrong impression — especially for a retrospective at Lincoln Center. But here it’s helpful to remember that what passed for eye-popping on-screen sexuality in 1950s Argentina is very different than what would pass for sexploitation today. As the legendary genre book Mondo Macabro explains: Filed under: General and Movie Reviews and Contributors: Charlie and Venues: Film Society at Lincoln Center Comments: 1 Comment |
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Posted on 08.05.10 by David @ 1:27 pm
A tadpole, or something more sinister? Discovering the innocuous-seeming blob that will turn out to be big trouble in the trippy Godzilla vs. The Smog Monster. Filed under: Studios: Toho Company Ltd. and Movie Image and People: Godzilla Comments: None |
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Posted on 07.30.10 by David @ 9:49 am
Filed under: Movie News and People: James Cameron and People: Guillermo del Toro and People: H.P. Lovecraft Comments: 2 Comments |
I don’t usually like to report on quasi-substantiated rumors about upcoming projects, but this one has me excited. Fresh off the odyssey that was the non-filming of The Hobbit. Guillermo Del Toro has supposedly committed to film H.P. Lovecraft’s polar horror novella At the Mountains of Madness, to be produced by James Cameron. |
Posted on 07.28.10 by David @ 10:06 am
The plot thickens in The Ipcress File, one of the great revisionist spy films. Filed under: Movie Image and People: Michael Caine Comments: None |
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Posted on 07.20.10 by David @ 9:04 am
On 8000 Miles CSB: The English title, 8000 Miles, is a play on the Eminem film, 8 Mile. Did you like that choice? Do you see parallels in the stories? Yu Irie: I chose it myself. They are both stories about people who are trying to make it in rap. Filed under: Movie News and Movie News: Japan and Contributors: David and Movie News: Interviews and Film Festivals: New York Asian Film Festival 2010 Comments: None |
Yu Irie has made a name for himself in Japan recently with back-to-back independent films chronicling the hijinks and setbacks of wannabe rappers in small town Japan. The first film, Saitama Rapper (re-christened 8000 Miles for US audiences) was a sleeper success, and Irie quickly followed up with Saitama Rapper 2: Chick Rappers’ Hurtful Rhyme (aka 8000 Miles 2: Girl Rappers), which guest-starred the characters of Ikku and Tom from the first series but otherwise added an entirely new female cast. CSB’s David Austin sat down with Yu Irie, in town for the New York Asian Film Festival, to discuss the films.|
Posted on 07.19.10 by David @ 5:30 pm
[Read our interview with William Lustig here] Screenings will run from from August 12-20 and the lineup includes the excellent Dark of the Sun and Machine Gun McCain, as well as a focus on actors Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jan-Michael Vincent, along with a lot of Henri Verneuil and some rarely-seen films by Larry Cohen and John Frankenheimer. The full schedule from the Anthology below: Filed under: General and Movie News and Venues: Anthology Film Archives and People: William Lustig Comments: None |
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Posted on 07.13.10 by David @ 11:14 am
 This is the last in our series of articles on the Japan Cuts 2010 film festival. As usual, the festival included some truly excellent films, particularly Confessions, One Million Yen Girl, Nightmare Detective II. As part of the series, Japan Cuts is also showing a print of Memories of Matsuko, which after four years still has yet to see an official release in the U.S – the sole screening is this Thursday, July 15, at 6:!5, if you have never seen the film I highly recommend it.
Also, stay tuned over the next week or two for our wrap-up coverage of the New York Asian Film Festival, as we post reviews of additional films and our interviews with Simon Yam, Bruce Leung and Yu Irie. [For more information, visit the Japan Cuts website here - http://www.japansociety.org/japancuts. For all Japan Cuts 2010 articles, click here - http://www.cinemastrikesback.com/?cat=775.]
Nightmare Detective 2 (Japan 2008) - I enjoyed the first Nightmare Detective film as a thriller, but the mix of police procedural and Nightmare on Elm Street horror was about as commercial a film as I’ve ever seen from director Shinya Tsukamoto (even Hiruko the Goblin was too odd to have real mass appeal). Nightmare Detective II changes all of that. Vastly more personal, vastly more emotional, and, frankly, vastly better, Nightmare Detective II is the rare sequel that far surpasses the original. While the first film dropped us into the world of Kagenuma (Ryuhei Matsuda), the titular sleuth, Nightmare Detective II provides Kagenuma with tragic weight and heft to match his powers. While Tsukamoto leans heavily on the imagery and atmosphere of J-horror, his actual concerns are more intimate, dealing with the inherent horror of being unable to shut out the minds of others. Tsukamoto remains a director who is fascinating even in failure - it is wonderful to see him craft a success on par with his Vital and A Snake of June out of such humble material. Filed under: General and Movie Reviews and Movie Reviews: Japan and Contributors: David and People: Ryuhei Matsuda and People: Shinya Tsukamoto and Movie Reviews: Capsule Reviews and Film Festivals: Japan Cuts 2010 and People: Yu Aoi and People: Nao Omori and People: Miki Nakatani Comments: None |
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Posted on 07.08.10 by David @ 8:05 pm
Today is the last day of the New York Asian Film Festival, but The Japan Cuts festival at the Japan Society continues, with a number of films including the Best of the Unreleased Naughties, a celebration of some of the great films of the last decade that have inexplicably never been released in the U.S. Japan Cuts may be a little more focused on human relationships than on martial arts and blood splattering wild boars , but there is still a nice mix of genre, arthouse, and anime to be found. We’ve already covered the co-presentations of Confessions, Boys on the Run, Golden Slumber, Dear Doctor, Blood of Rebirth, and Alien vs. Ninja, but serious and casual film enthusiasts alike will definitely want to check out Parade, Zero Focus, Nightmare Detective 2, and One Million Yen Girl at a minimum. [For more information, visit the Japan Cuts website here. For all Japan Cuts 2010 articles, click here.]
Zero Focus (Japan 2009) – Zero Focus, a period murder mystery, has drawn deserved comparison to Hitchcock. Those comparisons are fair, but with its sweeping string score and psychosexual anxiety, Zero Focus evokes the claustrophobic small town mysteries of David Lynch as much as the free-floating dread of Vertigo. Impeccably crafted, Zero Focus functions best as a gorgeous evocation of its time – the late ‘50s – and place – frigid Kanazawa on the northern coast of Japan – conjuring up dazzling images of rocky shores, snowy roads and dark trains. Disappointingly, the underlying plot, in which Teiko (Ryoko Hirosue) searches for her missing husband and bodies begin to pile up, while more than serviceable, never quite lives up to the aesthetic achievements of the cinematography and sets. Teiko never gels as a character and the denouement, in which she serves almost a bystander, enforces that absence of a central performance. Nevertheless, Zero Focus is one of the most visually impressive achievements in the festival and, bolstered by a ferocious turn from Miki Nakatani, more than worth your time. Filed under: Movie Reviews and Movie Reviews: Japan and Contributors: David and People: Tatsuya Fujiwara and Movie Reviews: Capsule Reviews and Venues: The Japan Society and Film Festivals: Japan Cuts 2010 and People: Yu Aoi and People: Miki Nakatani Comments: None |
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Posted on 07.07.10 by David @ 9:03 am
For those familiar with Hong Kong cinema, Sammo Hung is a legend. Coming up in the same Peking Opera training school as Jackie Chan and Yuen Biao, Sammo has since made a name for himself as one of the greatest martial arts actors, directors and choreographers of all time, as well as one of the most beloved stars in Hong Kong. Big Brother Big’s filmography would take pages to even summarize, but a quick list of his outstanding work includes Magnificent Butcher, The Prodigal Son, Millionaire’s Express, Knockabout, Eastern Condors, Wheels on Meals, Pedicab Driver, Encounters of the Spooky Kind and Dragons Forever. Nevertheless, Sammo remains less well known in the U.S. than his peers, Jackie Chan and Jet Li, despite an attempted breakthrough into U.S. television with Martial Law, which ran for several years in the late nineties. Since then, Sammo has aged gracefully into the Great Man of Hong Kong cinema, appearing frequently on the screen and providing support and choreography for countless other films.
CSB: Congratulations on the lifetime achievement award last night. Because your back catalog of films is so extraordinarily deep, before we discuss Ip Man and your more recent work, I want to ask whether there any of your older movies that don’t get the attention you think they deserve or are not seen as much as they should be? Sammo Hung: To me, making movies is a natural progression, one thing after another. My hope would be that all of my movies get the recognition they deserve. CSB: How is your body holding up after all these years? Can you still get in there and handle long days? Sammo Hung: I wish my body could go back 20 years (laughs). On the Ip Man films and Wing Chun CSB: You did the choreography for both the first and second Ip Man films, but only appeared in the second film. Did choreographing these films present any unique challenges? Sammo Hung: I did some research about Wing Chun. Many years ago, I did two films focusing on Wing Chun. One was The Prodigal Son with Yuen Biao. The other was Zan xian sheng yu zhao qian hua [Warriors Two], starring myself, Leung Kar-yan, and the Korean, Ka Sa Fa [Casanova Wong]. So what I was thinking about here was how to create fights that were different from what I did before. The previous films were both period pieces set a long time ago in China. Ip Man is set in the much more recent past – the ‘30s and ‘40s. Much closer to now. So the action has to look more like that of today. Also, Ip Man deals with real people, not people created to fit into history hundreds of years ago. Everything, the fights, must look closer to today and like real fights and real movements. Filed under: Movie News and Movie News: Hong Kong and Contributors: David and Contributors: Charlie and People: Donnie Yen and People: Sammo Hung and Movie News: Interviews and Genre: Martial Arts and Film Festivals: New York Asian Film Festival 2010 Comments: None |
Recently, CSB’s David Austin and Charlie Prince had the honor of sitting down with Sammo, in town for screenings at the New York Asian Film Festival of Ip Man (for which he choreographed the action), Ip Man 2 (for which he provided choreography and took on a role as Ip Man’s rival), and Kung Fu Chefs (in which he stars) ((reviews of all three films may be found |
Posted on 07.02.10 by David @ 2:14 pm
[As part of the NYAFF’s continuing program at Lincoln Center’s Walter Reade Theater, Crazy Racer plays again tonight at 10:00 pm and Cow plays again at 1:15 pm on Tuesday, July 6.]
Huang Bo: I’ve now had a chance to go to a lot of places because of the films. I’m excited to go to more places and see how different countries react to my films. It’s a lot of fun. CSB: What country has had the best reaction? Huang Bo: They were all pretty good, but everywhere you go is different. The places people laugh in China, the places people laugh in Spain, or Italy, or America, are all different, so it’s interesting to watch. CSB: Are you starting to develop an international fan base outside the Chinese language community? Huang Bo: Not really. Mostly Chinese and overseas Chinese. Though in Italy, I signed some autographs (laughs). Filed under: Movie News and Contributors: David and Contributors: Charlie and Movie News: China and Movie News: Interviews and Film Festivals: New York Asian Film Festival 2010 and People: Huang Bo Comments: None |
Through his series of “Crazy” films with director Ning Hao, starting with Crazy Stone in 2006, 35-year-old former singer Huang Bo has made a name for himself as one of the preeminent comic actors working in mainland China today. In this year’s New York Asian Film Festival, Bo appears in both Crazy Racer (see our review 
CSB: I understand that this is your first time in New York. Are you traveling more now that your films are starting to see some international exposure? |
Posted on 06.30.10 by David @ 11:50 am
Starting on July 1st, half of the NYAFF screenings will be co-presented by the Japan Society as part of the Japan Cuts festival.
The Good
Confessions (Japan 2010) – I enjoyed Tetsuya Nakashima’s wacky, visually inventive Kamikaze Girls, but it in no way prepared me for the Technicolor kick-in-the-stomach that was 2006’s Memories of Matsuko, the heartbreaking story of a failed life told in the style of a joyful musical. With Confessions, the tale of a teacher’s attempt to wreak a terrible vengeance on the students she blames for the death of her daughter, Nakashima maintains his heavily operatic style (though moving away from the literal musical), using every cinematic trick in the book to portray big emotions. In that respect, Confessions frequently plays like the bastard love child of Park Chan-Wook and Shunji Iwai, transplanting Lady Vengeance’s cold, calculated protagonist and icy but flashy visual style into the fraught high school world of All About Lily Chou-Chou. However, Nakashima has far more heart than Park has ever shown and Confessions is messy in a way the clockwork vengeance world of Park could never be. A deeply flawed movie, Confessions is nevertheless fascinating for its flaws, and one of the best films in the festival. It doesn’t hurt that Nakashima has slipped in a ringer by packing the soundtrack with great cuts by Radiohead and Japanese noise-metal pioneers Boris. Filed under: Movie Reviews and Movie Reviews: Japan and Contributors: David and Movie Reviews: Capsule Reviews and Venues: The Japan Society and Venues: Film Society at Lincoln Center and Film Festivals: New York Asian Film Festival 2010 and Film Festivals: Japan Cuts 2010 and People: Tetsuya Nakashima and Production Company: Sushi Typhoon and People: Nao Omori Comments: None |
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