Skyfall and Inazuma Eleven The Movie 2012 Trailer and the Japanese Movie Box Office Chart

This week I had a break from work and spent time doing… well I had hoped to do lots of writing but I ended up playing the last three episodes of The Walking Dead. I was almost in tears at the end. The journey that I embarked on with Clementine came to a fitting conclusion and I can confidently say it is my game of the year. As far as movies go… I watched Skyfall at a cinema and loved it (review tomorrow), Berserk Golden Age Arc I: Egg of the King and a lot of other films at home. As far as movies and this blog go… I started off with two trailers for forthcoming anime movies: Steins;Gate and Aura and I posted my review of For Love’s Sake, the final film I saw at the 56^th BFI London Film Festival.

What does the Japanese movie chart look like this week?

1. Evangelion: 3.0 You Can (Not) Redo
2. Lesson of the Evil
3. The Floating Castle
4. Ninkyo Helper: Beautiful World.
5. Trouble with the Curve
6. Crow’s Thumb
7. A Chorus of Angels
8. Smile Precure!
9. Lockout
10. Cirque du Soleil: Worlds Away

The latest Eva movie is killing everything out there. At $35 million in just two weeks, it looks set to be one of the biggest box-office hits of the year. Crow’s Thumb, which was released last week, is the only new Japanese film to enter the chart. For its third week, Takashi Miike’s Lesson of the Evil stays in second place. No surprise in the absence of Milocrorze.

What Japanese film is released today? A lot of small ones in an example of counter programming because Skyfall is released this weekend and I suspect distributors are scared to go up against it with anything major. That said, the latest Inazuma Eleven anime movie is released and suspect that will do well. Here’s the trailer for Skyfall and Inazuma Eleven.

Skyfall                                                        

Release Date:  26^th October 2012 (UK)

Running Time: 143 mins.

Director: Sam Mendes

Writer: Robert Wade, Neal Purvis, John Logan, Ian Fleming (Original Characters)

Starring: Daniel Craig, Judi Dench, Javier Bardem, Naomie Harris, Bérénice Marlohe, Albert Finney, Ralph Fiennes, Ben Whishaw, Rory Kinnear

I saw this film earlier in the week and I loved it! Expect a review tomorrow!

Istanbul, James Bond (Craig) is on assignment with fellow field agent Eve (Harris) tracking down a computer hard drive which contains the identity of almost every NATO agent embedded in terrorist cells around the globe. Things go wrong when Bond is wounded and falls into a river leaving M (Dench), back in London, with an agent down and major security headache all while she is being pressured into retirement by the Parliamentary security committee chairman Gareth Mallory (Fiennes). Then MI6 headquarters is attacked during a cyber-terrorist assault on British Intelligence. With events spiralling out of M’s control Bond comes back, joining forces with the new Q (Whishaw), to track down the person behind the attack, first heading to Shanghai then to Macau where he meets Severin (Marlohe), a woman who knows about the plot and how it is linked to a man named Raoul Silva (Bardem).

Inazuma Eleven The Movie 2012                                                     

Japanese Title:　 イナズマイレブンGO ｖｓダンボール戦機Ｗ

Romaji: Inazuma Erebun Go vs Danbo-ru Senki W

Release Date:  01^st December 2012 (Japan)

Running Time: 90 mins.

Director: Yoshikazu Miyao

Writer:  Akihiro Hino

Starring: Jiro Shimono (Oozora Hiro), Kana Hanazawa (Hanasaki Ran), Megumi Kubota (Yamano Ban), Mitsuki Saiga (Shindou Takuto), Ryohei Kimura (Asta)

Inazuma Eleven is a popular franchise that merges spectacular powers and the sport of football. In this movie the team fight a terrorist organisation who launch a robot invasion. Ah Japan, so imaginative.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Based on John le Carré’s classic novel, the film is a glorious failure of an adaptation that manages to fit in a lot in its two-hour running time but sacrifices key details and, as a result, a lot of power. 

London, 1973, MI6 is in turmoil as its head, Control (John Hurt), is forced to resign after a botched operation to uncover a Soviet mole in the Circus, MI6’s headquarters in London. Also forced into retirement is Smiley (Gary Oldman) as a change in command begins to pursue a new vein of intelligence named “Witchcraft” which Control and Smiley felt too good to be true but the new men running the Circus, lead by Percy Alleline (Toby Jones) and Bill Haydon (Colin Firth) find priceless in buying American cooperation. Smiley is called back into action when Ricky Tarr (Tom Hardy), an agent thought to have gone over to the Soviets contacts a government minister confirming Control’s suspicions that there is a double agent at the top of The Circus. With the help of Guillam (Benedict Cumberbatch), Smiley investigates his former colleagues and the events surrounding the operation.

Genkina hito predicts the 2011 BAFTA Awards

With the BAFTA’s (British Academy of Film and Television Arts) due to take place on the 13^th February, the British film industry gets a chance to wave the flag for British talent and reward films from the rest of the world. The issue of what is or isn’t a British film depends upon the amount of British involvement but it is safe to say that Britain had a good year (apart from the UK Film Council getting axed).

Anyway, here’s what I think should win. When the results are read out on BBC One I’ll be able to compare and contrast. In the meantime I’ll probably change my mind after watching a few more films but first… 

The King’s Speech

The King’s Speech, thanks to the performances of the cast and direction of Tom Hooper (director of HBO’s John Adams and The Damned United) managed to draw me in and root for royalty.

4.3.2.1

4 Girls. 3 Days. 2 Cities. 1 Chance. And a hell of a lot of coincidences.

This film has a lot of elements that would irritate me beyond reason:

1. Garage music dominating the soundtrack,
2. Needlessly mouthy and over-aggressive girls and boys and,
3. Pointless excessive scenes of lesbianism and girls in underwear just for the hell of it (I am a po-faced, pretentious serious person and prefer stylised violence).

 Did I hate it?

 I liked it. I liked it purely because it was entertaining. Yes it is derivative and far-fetched and full of clichés but it has genuinely surreal moments, great performances and pop-culture references (Lara Croft really does beat the boys).