If you’ve been wondering where I am, I had to go out of town sort of unexpectedly this week.
I’m about to return home (should be back Monday) and will have regular updates (and a computer…I need a laptop for these trips) then.
Until then, here are a few new reviews to tide you over…
I got nothing witty or insightful to add here. Feel free to insert your own joke/observation about these behind the scenes Halloween II photos.
Jump past the break for the rest…
Some things are truly strange–Kenichi Endo, Visitor Q
Takashi Miike is insane and I love him because of it.
I’ve suspected it for a while now, after viewing numerous films in his rapidly expanding oeuvre (he seems to direct three or four a year, barely giving his audience time to digest one before the next course is already flitting across cinema screens worldwide). I mean, the opening of Dead or Alive, the flat out insanity of Fudoh, the squirm-inducing climax of Audition, the ultraviolent Ichi the Killer-all of these seem to point to a man who’s ‘not well’ in the traditional sense of the phrase. This is cool if you’re into cinema that truly pushes the boundaries of taste and decorum.
However, I only really knew that Miike was completely off his rocker after catching his 2001 film Visitor Q. To say that I’ve never seen anything quite like it is an understatement of epic proportions. I don’t know that such a taboo-busting film has ever been filmed-the closest example I can even think of is Todd Solondz’s Happiness, and that pales in comparison to the maddening chaos of Miike’s demented vision of domestic Japanese life.If Miike’s cinema has been concerned with pushing the envelope thematically, then Visitor Q takes said envelope, tears a hole in it, sexually assaults the envelope, then uses it to wipe off its ‘tool’ when it’s finished before tossing it casually into a gutter. A crude analogy? Probably. A fitting one? You bet.
If you were looking forward to catching Dennis Quaid and Ben Foster in the sci-fi horror flick Pandorum on September 4th, I have some bad news.
Overture films has announced that the film (which finds Forster waking up on a deserted space ship and trying to figure out what happened) is being bumped back to a September 18th release date. No reason has been given for the move, but it’s interesting as this now puts Pandorum in direct competition with the Megan Fox flick Jennifer’s Body. I don’t know that it’s a huge deal (I have a hard time imagining either film being particularly dominant at the box office…) but like Halloween II/The Final Destination, it’s puzzling why studios would want to open two genre films in direct competition.
Anyway, here’s a look at the trailer in case you missed it.
Lots of buzz surrounding the remake of Predator over the past month or so. The latest involves yet another potential director being tossed into the mix.
Last we heard, AICN was reporting that Neil Marshall was close to signing on to direct the new film. That was great news given that Marshall is not only an excellent director, but he has experience with this sort of film thanks to his work on Dog Soldiers. However, the Marshall signing isn’t a done deal–and Latino Review is now reporting that Fox is eyeing Nimrod (wow what a name…) Antal to handle the directing duties.
Antal was the director responsible for Vacancy–which doesn’t exactly indicate that he’s ready for a project of Predators’ magnitude.
According to LR’s sources, there are no less than seven directors in the running for the gig (Marshall is indeed one of them…) and Antal is currently the frontrunner and appears to be the guy most likely to get the job. This is still all conjecture at this point, but if the film really intends to hit screens by July 7th, 2010, a decision will have to be made sooner rather than later. I will say this–choosing between Antal and Marshall is a no brainer for me. Marshall’s got a great track record and has shown that he understands how to make this kind of film. Without knowing who the other five guys are, Marshall would be my choice to make this movie hands down.
Bloody-Disgusting brings good news this morning–Dark Sky films will be hosting a series of midnight screenings for Deadgirl. If you’ve not heard of the film prior to now, it’s a film about two teenagers who find a woman tied to a bed in an abandoned asylum. I’ve not seen the film yet (which has been playing on the festival circuit), but the buzz from people who have had an opportunity to watch it has been very positive. That’s the new one-sheet pictured above–interesting choice to place the lips vertically. If HP Lovecraft had seen that he’d have probably run screaming from the room.
Head over here for a look at the screening dates planned so far.
Fear Itself, NBC’s version of Masters of Horror, never really took off. There were a number of reasons why the show didn’t draw an audience–the directors weren’t as “big name” as the ones featured in Masters of Horror, it was on prime time network TV where it had to be censored for content, and it didn’t have a particularly great slot on the schedule. All of these things conspired to ensure that the show didn’t even last through an entire season. When Fear Itself disappeared for good, five finished episodes had never even made it to the airwaves.
If you’ve wondered what those five shows were like, or wanted to see the entire run of the series, you’re in luck. Lionsgate will be releasing them on DVD come September 15th. The box set (that’s the cool packaging pictured above…) will include all 13 episodes (four with “director’s cuts”) and a featurette talking to each of the filmmakers. The best part? The entire package is set to retail for $29.98.
I’m still waiting for season 3 of Showtime’s Dexter to hit DVD later this summer (in August) so I’m behind on what’s happened over the course of the past year in the show. I can only imagine what I’ve missed based on the new promotional photo for the fourth season (above).
Is everyone’s favorite serial killer becoming a dad? Or maybe it’s John Lithgow’s serial killer character who’s got a little one at home. I suspect it’s the former, but I guess I’ll all have to wait until the fourth season starts this September to find out for sure–or more accurately, until it comes out on DVD because I don’t have Showtime.
As August 28th draws ever closer, I guess we can expect more and more news on Halloween II. Last night, a new trailer debuted during the Spike TV Guys’ Choice Awards.
Lots of new footage to check out in the nearly two-and-a-half minute clip–including a scene with Malcolm McDowell’s Loomis that looks pretty good. I’m extra pleased to see that this trailer actually incorporates some of the classic Halloween score–albeit in a slightly different (and cool) way.
If you missed it last night (and I did…) check it out below.
With the French currently dominating the world of “extreme horror” (thanks to a series of ever more gory and disturbing films like Inside, Frontier(s), and Martyrs) everyone else is essentially playing catch-up. The Americans continue to churn out remakes with all the finesse of a soul-less assembly line, the Asians are waging their own civil war between the new brand of over-the-top gore comedies and the formerly popular pissed off girl ghost films, and everyone else seems fascinated with zombies. The country that’s probably closest to competing with France is Japan (provided they keep their current gore-train rolling full steam ahead), but there’s an unlikely dark horse in the race too: England.
I know, the Brits haven’t ever been particularly good at making horror films (the Hammer movies excluded, of course). I’ve just never felt it was in their temperament. The rest of the world doesn’t view the Brits as stodgy traditionalists on accident-they’ve worked really hard cultivating the image that they’ve got a stick placed firmly up their backside. That sort of self-view is never conducive to making good horror cinema, which is why the English have struggled mightily at it for as long as I can remember.
