Coming Soon - Villain (Akunin)

Set to hit UK theaters on August 19th from Third Window Films is Villain from director Lee Sang-il. It's opening in 11 theaters with a view to add more. From the looks of the preview I would definitely say that this is a movie to keep an eye out for. When I hear of US release details I will be sure to post them. 

BASED ON THE AWARD WINNING NOVEL BY SHUICHI YOSHIDA

TRANSLATED IN ENGLISH AND OUT IN PAPERBACK ON AUGUST 18TH, 2011 FROM RANDOM HOUSE PUBLISHING

Yuichi (Satoshi Tsumabuki) is a construction worker who has lived his entire life in a dreary fishing village. With no girlfriend or friends, he spends his days working and looking after his grandparents, with no enjoyment in life other than his car. Meanwhile, Mitsuyo (Eri Fukatsu) also lives a monotonous life pacing between the men’s clothing store where she works and the apartment where she lives with her sister. When the two lonely souls meet using an online dating site, they immediately fall in love with each other. But there’s a secret Yuichi had been keeping from Mitsuyo: Yuichi is the one suspected of killing the woman whose body was found at Mitsue Pass only a few days before...

As Yuichi and his new lover try to elude the police, the events that led up to the murder and its aftermath are revealed. We learn the stories of the victim, the murderer, and their families - stories of loneliness, love hotels, violence and desperation, exposing the inner lives of men and woman who are not everything they appear to be.

Who is the true “villain” here?

London Riots Take Their Toll

Their are far more tragic events happening all over the world, and I would never belittle them. However, speaking as a movie fan the news of the effect that the riots in the UK has had on the industry is just sickening. I may well be US based now but I still order plenty of movies from the UK. Looks like that might not be happening for a while now. The release below is from Third Window Films, from whom I recently received a copy of Sion Sono's Cold Fish.

The UK Riots and their affect on UK indepdendent film distribution and Third Window Films
Recently London and many other cities in the UK were hit by some of the worst riots in history, leaving 5 people dead, shops destroyed, mass-looting and hundreds of thousands of lives affected. 

During these riots the Sony warehouse in Enfield was looted and burnt down. This warehouse was the main stockist for the majority of small to medium sized film and music distribution labels (along with some of the majors) in the UK. Third Window Films, along with Terracotta Distribution, Arrow Films, Network, Peccadillo Pictures, Dogwoof,BFI, Eureka and many more had most, if not all of their stock destroyed. We lost nearly 20,000 units of stock. 

This is an undoubted tragedy and nobody is sure yet how this will affect the long-term situation for us and many of these companies, though what we can try to explain is that there will be a massive impact on the short term. While our stock was insured, it was only the number of units destroyed and units which will be replaced in terms of stock credit with Sony. Unfortunately with Sony's minimum top up of 500 units (luckily they've changed from the 1000 as previously required) we will need to pay for all the difference in units replicated against credit. For example as we had more than 10 films which had under 500 units of stock in at the time, we need to pay the difference for all stock below 500 to top it up to the minimum number. While this may only equate to around 3,000-4,000 units, it still means paying that amount at a time when we won't have been generating sales, which is another major problem with the situation...

This other major problem is that with this affecting so many companies, and right leading to the main Q4 campaigns, all other companies that are larger (we are one of the smallest in the UK) will have priority in having their titles replicated and put back into circulation. We should get a couple of our larger titles such as Confessions back into circulation quickly, but it may take a couple months before our catalogue titles get back into circulation, and with no units available for sale anywhere (Amazon is nearly sold out of all films across our whole catalogue) we will lose a massive chunk of our earnings over the next few months. Unfortunately as such a small company we don't have business interruption insurance which covers companies in the event of such situations. Ironically the larger companies have such insurance and yet their stock will be replicated first despite the fact they're covered for the eventual losses, so this will really hit the smaller companies the hardest (as is usually the case). 

We will endeavor to get through this situation and plan on keeping our release schedule of 2011 on track. 'Sawako Decides' and 'Quirky Guys and Gals' will still be out October 3rd, though 'Underwater Love' has been moved to November 21st. We can't really plan too far into the future as we're really unsure right now as to how bad this will affect us. 

What we ask of you, our fans, is to get the word out about us and other small niche labels like Terracotta Distribution, Arrow Films, Network, etc and get people interested in supporting independent cinema through these hard times. We don't have any new stock to send to stores, but there are still a few copies of our films on places like Amazon,Play.com and in high-street stores such as HMV and Fopp, so if there was a title you were thinking about picking up, please go out and buy it now so that we can convince stores that ours are worth restocking sooner rather than later. Alternately, we are trying to make many of our titles available to view online via MUBI so if you want to spread the word through that you can legally watch our titles through your PC or Playstation. 
Thanks for your support and we'll try hard to get through this!

Dear God No Poster Is A Thing Of Beauty

I previous posted about the upcoming Exploitation flick Dear God No here and have to say I am quite excited about it. Now we have this cracking new poster to accompany it. Thanks to Marc at Brutal As Hell for bringing it to my attention. 

Look for Dear God No to hit the Festivals later this year.

Watch the trailer before Youtube remove it again

Coming Soon - Creature

Sid Haig and a half-man/half-alligator running amok? Sounds like cheesetastic fun, so make me an omelette. Lake Placid meets Hatchet with a dose of Captain Spaulding? Creature is set for a September 9th theatrical release

An ex-Navy seal (Mehcad Brooks), his girlfriend (Serinda Swan) and their friends head out on a road trip to New Orleans. The group decides to stop at a roadside convenience store owned by Chopper (Sid Haig), who tells them the tale of Lockjaw, a fabled god-like creature who is half-man, half-alligator.

The legend has it that an inbred local man by the name of Grimley (Daniel Bernhardt) lost his family to a monstrous white alligator, which then drove him to madness and some believe he was transformed into that very creature that now haunts the depths of the swamps. Their curiosity peaked, the group decides to play along with the local tourist trap and journey deep into the backwoods to find the old dilapidated cabin which is supposed to be the birthplace of the creature.

As they set-up camp for the night, their faith is put to the test when Lockjaw turns out to be more than just a myth and they realize the locals are hiding a horrifying secret that jeopardizes them all.

Directed by Fred M. Andrews and starring Mehcad Brooks, Serinda Swan, Amanda Fuller, Dillon Casey, Lauren Schneider, Aaron Hill, Daniel Bernhardt, and Sid Haig, CREATURE introduces a new monster legend into the horror film lexicon.

Coming Soon - Drive

One director that always plays by his rules, and generally delivers cracking movies, is Nicolas Winding Refn. Now the Danish director has made the move to Hollywood, so to speak, with the thriller Drive. It stars the underrated Ryan Gosling as well as Brian (Breaking Bad) Cranston and Ron Perlman. Check out below for a shitload of stills, and behind the scenes pics, as well as the trailer.


Drive hits theaters, through Film District, on Spetember 16th

Ryan Gosling stars as a Los Angeles wheelman for hire, stunt driving for movie productions by day and steering getaway vehicles for armed heists by night. Though a loner by nature, Driver can't help falling in love with his beautiful neighbor Irene (Carey Mulligan), a vulnerable young mother dragged into a dangerous underworld by the return of her ex-convict husband Standard (Oscar Isaac).

After a heist intended to pay off Standard's protection money spins unpredictably out of control, Driver finds himself driving defense for the girl he loves, tailgated by a syndicate of deadly serious criminals (Albert Brooks and Ron Perlman). But when he realizes that the gangsters are after more than the bag of cash in his trunk-that they're coming straight for Irene and her son-Driver is forced to shift gears and go on offense.

DRIVE was written by Academy Award® nominee Hossein Amini (THE WINGS OF THE DOVE) and adapted from the eponymous novel by James Sallis. It was produced by Marc Platt, Gigi Pritzker, Michel Litvak, Adam Siegel and John Palermo; executive producers are David Lancaster, Gary Michael Walters, Bill Lischak and Linda McDonough.

Cast includes Academy Award® nominees Ryan Gosling (THE NOTEBOOK, HALF NELSON, BLUE VALENTINE) and Carey Mulligan (AN EDUCATION, WALL STREET 2: MONEY NEVER SLEEPS), three-time Emmy® Award winner Bryan Cranston ("Breaking Bad"), Golden Globe® winner Ron Perlman ("Sons of Anarchy"), Emmy® nominee Christina Hendricks ("Mad Men"), Oscar Isaac (BODY OF LIES, ROBIN HOOD) and Academy Award® nominee Albert Brooks (BROADCAST NEWS, "Weeds").

Filthy Review - Deus Irae

Deus Irae (2010)

Review by Jude Felton

Social networking sites are often looked at in a scornful manner. The “cool” folk like to ridicule them, whilst using them themselves. For me though I fully embrace the use of them. Aside from being able to keep in touch with friends and family back in Blighty, and other fair nations of this planet, I have been able to discover movies that I otherwise may not have noticed. Deus Irae is one such short movie, it came highly recommended from a friend (thanks Christian!), and I will say straight away that it kicks all sorts of holy ass.

In 2010 we had the movie The Last Exorcism, and whilst the title referred to the protagonist’s last exorcism and didn’t claim to be the last exorcism film ever needed, which was an enjoyable movie. The same year, unbeknownst to me, this 13 minute movie from Argentina also entered the exorcism arena, and proceeds to beat the ever-loving Hell out of the viewer. Set entirely in one room Deus Irae focuses on three priests who are called in to perform an exorcism on a young girl while her mother watches on. Nowt new there then. Hang on just one second though, these priests are a special order who come armed with more than just a Bible, some Holy Water and a few choice phrases. Deus Irae is brutal viewing in places, and I found myself yelling “Holy shit” on more than one occasion!

Deus Irae manages to squeeze into its short running time enough thrills, spills and special effects to satiate even the most finicky of genre fan. The slime oozes, the blood spills and the scares are all there on the screen to embrace, and everything looks just wonderful. This is an incredible good looking and well-made movie in which the main cast of five all deliver great performances, especially Gaston Ricard as Father Marcos who really gets into his role.

Whenever a recommendation comes my way it is quite easy to end up feeling let down after watching it, as they don’t always deliver on that promise. Rest assured though Deus Irae does deliver, and deliver in spades it does. On top of this the plan is to make this into a feature length movie, which will no doubt expand on the priests background as well as the demonic entities they are sent to protect the world from. On this form I can only see good things ahead, Director Pedro Cristiani, and his crew, have delivered a bombastic short movie that I cannot recommend highly enough.

Deus Irae is not a family-friendly watered down exorcism movie, this is balls-to-the-wall action that takes no prisoners. God only knows we needed one.

For more information check out the Official Site