Trailer and Link Round-Up April 30th

So as I await the release of Takashi Miike’s 13 Assassins (UK release date is May 5^th) I spot the trailer for his latest opus plus two other trailers which have piqued my interest.

Hara-Kiri: Death of a Samurai 3D

I briefly mentioned news of Takashi Miike’s latest remake of a classic film in a previous trailer round-up (complete with trailer for original film) and now here is the trailer for the modern version.

Starring Ebizo Ichikawa (Kabuki actor), the story is about a poor samurai named Hanshiro Tsugumo who goes to the manor of a feudal lord in order to commit ritual suicide, or hara kiri. The feudal lord suspects this is to gain money from him because he has shown beneficence in to other samurai. However, this is part of an elaborate plan to gain vengeance. This is a remake of a film made in 1962 and gets its premiere at the Cannes Film Festival where it is competing for the Palme d’Or.

Julia’s Eyes

When I say, “this is a Spanish horror film with the words Produced by Guillermo Del Toro”, that’s two reasons to go see a film because;

1. Spain have been producing brilliant atmospheric horror in recent years and

2. Guillermo Del Toro is involved, need I say more?

Synopsis

Julia (Belén Rueda) is a woman suffering from degenerative eye disease which means she is long her sight. When she finds out that her twin sister who is already blind Sara has committed suicide in the basement of her house, she is suspicious and begins to investigate. Pretty soon, she is under attack from a shadowy presence.

The film is due for release on the 20^th of May by Optimum, so it should feature in most cinemas nationwide.

The Perfect Host

Frasier has to be one of THE best television comedies every created. Every performance in every episode is brilliant. Who would have thought a show about an arrogant psychiatrist and his family would be so good?  David Hyde Pierce as Niles was simply divine and it’s nice to see him play fully on his lunatic side in this film.

 

Synopsis

Warwick Wilson is the consummate host. He carefully prepares for a dinner party, the table impeccably set and the duck perfectly timed for 8:30 p.m. John Taylor is a career criminal. He’s just robbed a bank and needs to get off the streets. He finds himself on Warwick’s doorstep posing as a friend of a friend, new to Los Angeles, who’s been mugged and lost his luggage. As the wine flows and the evening progresses, we become deeply intertwined in the lives of these two men and discover just how deceiving appearances can be.

Here’s a link to Roger Ebert’s blog. He’s one of the few North American critics I follow and his wealth of experience creates great articles.

Shōwa no Hi

Today is Shōwa Day (Shōwa no hi) in Japan and it was originally an annual holiday to honour the birthday of the Shōwa Emperor Hirohito during the period of 1926 to 1989.

After his death in 1989, it was renamed Greenery Day but Shōwa Day was re-established to remember the many things that happened during the reign of Hirohito and the efforts of the Japanese people made build Japan into the world power that it is now.

Royal Wedding

As much as I didn’t intend to submit to the event I have the Royal Wedding playing in the background. I’m sort of watching the BBC coverage of Prince William and Kate Middleton whilst writing a Shōwa Day post and news articles .

Seeing all of the pomp and ceremony on display with Huw Edwards and Simon Schama commentating is fascinating (apart from the dresses which are bizarre). The images of various social strata – royals from around the world (Denmark, Netherlands, Norway, Monte Carlo, Tonga, Brunei), military types including household cavalry and the crowds of people from all four corners of the earth – American, Australia, Canada, China, Japan, South Africa – makes one appreciate just the magic (and tourists) brought to Britain thanks to the Royal family.

Congratulations to Prince William and Kate Middleton.

Now I’m going to post about Shōwa Day and then watch television series Rubicon.

AMV of the Week – Last Exile Horteka Stomp

This is the perfect AMV mash-up in terms of music and anime. Music from a game about sky pirates where there is ship-to-ship turn-based combat, an anime about Sky Couriers in the middle of a sky war between two kingdoms orchestrated by a superior race of beings.

Hello Sweetie!

The first episode of the new season and I’ve fallen for Doctor Who all over again. Where the Christmas special was a gothic fairytale that was Dickensian and played with the timeline, this opener is hardboiled sci-fi with all the monster trimmings and history manipulation that played with the timeline.

Taking us from 2011 back to 1969, the plot includes Apollo 11 astronauts, the FBI and President Nixon. Moffat’s writing is as sharp as ever – both comedy and plot –

Why would anyone want to capture us?

I don’t know, I was going to wait for somebody to start trying to kill us and work back from there.

The monster is entirely creepy – slipping in and out of places and memory, turn around and you’ll forget it. It has a memorable first glimpse appearance where it blocks the sun and is indistinct but when it is seen in its full glory, it’s creepy. The fact it was also capable of violence on innocent bystanders helped a lot.

The acting is that usually assured brilliance that manages to capture the light and the dark, the extremes of emotions especially when confronting the extraordinary.

A great character actor named Mark Sheppard (The X-Files, Firefly, Warehouse 13, Supernatural) is also in the episode.

All in all I’m eager to see episode two.

Trailers and Links 3 Elisabeth Sladen, RIP

On the week that the new Doctor Who airs tragic news emerged with the death of Elisabeth Sladen.

Elisabeth Sladen died of cancer at the age of 63. She’s better known as Sarah Jane Smith and was probably one of the definitive Doctor Who assistants and as a result one of the iconic figures of British television because of her part as Sarah Jane Smith and her spin off show, The Sarah Jane Adventures. Her death was totally unexpected and took a lot of people by surprise, especially since she was busy filming a new series of her television show.
Elisabeth Sladen, RIP.

The latest series of Doctor Who starts tonight and there will be a tribute show after it.

On to the trailers:
Behind the Walls French 3D Horror

France, 1922. A writer named Suzanne (Laetitia Casta) in need of inspiration travels to the country in order to write her new book. She discovers a hidden room in the basement. This room has a mysterious well. After the discovery of the well, she gains inspiration. And nightmares. Soon, girls start to disappear in the local region.

The music builds up nicely to a crescendo as we get images of girls with long hair, wells in basements, people hiding under blankets and children grabbing ankles. It screams, inspired by Ringu and Ju-On respectively but I look forward to seeing it. Whether it will be released in cinemas is another matter.

Sion Sono’s Guilty of Romance
Sion Sono (Love Exposure, Cold Fish) is back with a new film and it is getting its premiere at Cannes. This is a tale of three women, a cop, a professor and a housewife are each connected in a thriller that is packed full of violence and sex.

Izumi is married to a famous romantic novelist but their life seems just a simple repetition without romance. One day, she decides to follow her desires and accepts to be a naked model that fakes sex in front of the camera. Soon she meets a mentor and starts selling her body to strangers but at home, she is still the wife she is supposed to be.One day a brutally murdered body is found in the love hotels district. The police tries to understand what happened.

Sion Sono. When I hear the name, two P’s come to mind. He’s a provocative and productive director who is interested in people with cracked mentalities. His next film is an adaptation of a manga about a schoolboy who is slowly losing his mind.

BFXR
Fancy making your own videogame sound effects? Try this. I haven’t used to extensively but it seems quite useful. It captures those grating sounds that are so reminiscent of the 8-bit era and features some neat functionality as well as the ability to export sounds made and download the entire thing.

Into the Abyss

I love films and I love reading about them so I’ll start writing about them to spread the word. This is the latest one I have found. It’s an interesting film blog written by a film-maker.

AMV of the Week – Suzumiya Security

A short AMV combining the anime series The Melancholy of Suzumiya and the awesome rock sound of　 凜　として　時雨（Rin Tosite Sigure）

Rin Tosite Sigure are my latest craze (for the past three months). Their sound is like an onslaught of intricately connected sounds, so the combination with an anime I regard as uninteresting was intriguing.

The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, I never really fell in love with this series. Stories set in high schools don’t hold much interest for me. I liked the AMV purely for the innocuous mash-up.

Vodpod videos no longer available.

涼宮ハルヒの憂鬱 -閉鎖空間のSecurity, posted with vodpod

3rd ANNUAL TERRACOTTA FESTIVAL

For fans of Far Eastern cinema I have some exciting news as the Terracotta Far East Film Festival have announced an impressive line-up of titles including many European and international premieres. Just check out this promo:

Movies and Air Traffic Controllers

The news of US air traffic controllers being asleep on duty is worrying. The news that one chap was watching a movie? Well I found that somewhat amusing (the 2007 movie, The Cleaner starring Samuel L. Jackson, Ed Harris if you’re interested). Thankfully, no major disasters but I wouldn’t be as lax (or should that be incredibly dumb?) as to watch a film whilst I was responsible for landing aircraft but there just isn’t enough time in the day to watch every movie you want to watch so I started to think about the types of films I would watch whilst keeping aircraft in a holding pattern above JFK.

Trailer and Link Dump

Trailers that have caught my eye from this week. Cannes is coming up and the line-up of films looks brain-meltingly interesting. I’ll probably post more trailers as the event gets underway.

Stake Land

Taking place in a post-Apocalyptic version of America, vampirism is a disease that has struck the nation and humanity is on the back foot. Survivors flee the cities and head to the country. A young man named Martin (Connor Paolo) joins a vampire hunter named Mister (Nick Damici) as they travel through America battling the undead and a fundamentalist militia.

Sleeping Beauty

So I watched Sucker Punch and in my forthcoming review for the film hoped that the lead actress, Emily Browning would get better material to display her acting range. From a trailer I have viewed, it looks like she might have it.

Emily Browning portrays a university student drawn into prostitution. Her specialty is being drugged and sleeping through her ordeals. The premise alone is bad enough, the trailer unnerved me.

Written and directed by Julia Leigh, an Australian novelist I have never heard of, the film is a darker, adult take on the Sleeping Beauty fairy tale but this trailer left me feeling rather disturbed.

The film will debut at the Cannes Film Festival.

Harakiri 3D

Also released at this year’s Cannes film festival is Miike Takashi’s latest, Harakiri 3D. Yes, you read right. We get to see the act in 3DI couldn’t find a trailer for it but like 13 Assassins, it’s a remake of an earlier film so here’s the trailer for that.

Battlefield 3

Taking me back to more comfortable and male dominated realm is a 12-minute gameplay trailer for Battlefield 3. I’m not one for realism in games but this looks to be as close to real war as I’d like to get.

The trailer looks awesome. A lot of work has gone into the visuals and the audio. I get a Green Zone vibe from this and it presents a compelling gameplay experience. It looks set to out Call of Duty Call of Duty My only problem is the fact that it is set in the Middle East and I’d rather not revisit the place.

Last Exile

Gonzo bring back their acclaimed 2004 series, which I rather liked, and the trailer shows moe girls, which I don’t like, as well as the standard awesome visuals. I hope this works out instead of being a cash-in on nostalgia.