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TV Review: HOUSE OF CARDS S1E01, CHAPTER 1 (Or, Kevin Spacey Will Eat You Alive)

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TV Review: HOUSE OF CARDS S1E01, CHAPTER 1 (Or, Kevin Spacey Will Eat You Alive)

TV Review: HOUSE OF CARDS S1E01, CHAPTER 1 (Or, Kevin Spacey Will Eat You Alive)

Posted: 01 Feb 2013 02:01 AM PST

Only David Fincher could compel me to stay awake until 02:00 a.m. in order to watch the debut of House of Cards, a new original series on Netflix. I was rewarded with the sight of Kevin Spacey killing a dog in the very first scene. Spacey plays Francis, the Majority Whip of the U.S. House of Representatives, a veteran politician from South Carolina who has been promised a nomination as Secretary of State after the Presidential election. Francis soon learns, however, that the President-Elect has other plans for him, and that prompts Francis to make plans of his own. House of Cards, the first original show made expressly for Netflix, is inspired by a 1990 BBC TV series that followed the machinations of a wily...

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Review: WARM BODIES Underplays the Zombie Thing With a Charming Romance

Posted: 31 Jan 2013 09:01 PM PST

A sweet yet innocuous romance steeped in both Shakespearean motifs and shoegazing tropes, the saving grace of Warm Bodies (AKA 'the emo zombie film') is that it's quite charming, never completely falling into a farcical take on the subject matter. We meet "R" (Nicholas Hoult) shuffling through an airport, intoning via a melancholy, sardonic voiceover about his days spent in utter banality, suffering from the condition of being undead. It's a highly literary device -- no surprise, since the movie is adapted from a novel by Isaac Marion -- and, done badly, it would have set the film adrift. Hoult's reading, however, immediately hooks the audience. After an outing in search of brains to munch upon, he stumbles on Julie (Teresa Palmer), who he falls...

[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]

Review: LOST IN THAILAND Worked at Home but Doesn't Travel Well

Posted: 31 Jan 2013 08:00 PM PST

Comic actor Xu Zheng's directorial debut broke a slew of box office records to become the most successful Chinese language film of all-time on home soil. But despite slick production values and a strong cast, Lost in Thailand is a private joke, funny only to a 1.3 billion-strong home crowd. Xu Zheng made a name for himself as part of director Ning Hao's comedy ensemble, appearing in the smash hit caper movies Crazy Stone (2006) and Crazy Racer (2009), as well as Ning's still unreleased Western Sunshine (aka No Man's Land). Last year, Xu appeared in Pang Ho Cheung's Hong Kong hit Love in the Buff as Miriam Yeung's rich new boyfriend, but all of that is now firmly in his past, and he is likely to...

[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]

IFFR 2013 Review: THE COMPLEX Gives A Decent Fright

Posted: 31 Jan 2013 07:30 PM PST

The International Film Festival Rotterdam is no longer the go-to event in The Netherlands when it concerns genre films from Asia. When the IFFR abolished its "Rotterdammerung" section, that honor went to the IMAGINE festival in Amsterdam and Camera Japan in Rotterdam. Still, each year the IFFR manages to get at least a few anticipated genre titles in its line-up, and this year it is no different. Case in point: last Sunday, Rotterdam had the world premiere of the J-horror title The Complex, attended by its director Nakata Hideo. And while the film may not be the classic that his The Ring was, Nakata once again shows he knows what makes the genre tick. The Story: Young student nurse Asuka and her family move into...

[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]

THE RAID 2: BERANDAL Starts Shooting (And Punching And Kicking) In Indonesia!

Posted: 31 Jan 2013 07:00 PM PST

Consider it pure joy, brothers and sisters, when the cinematic gods prepare to bestow upon us another blessing. Can we get an Amen? Because the apostles of action cinema are preparing another blood-soaked chapter to add to their gospel. Production has begun on the second Raid film in Jakarta, Indonesia! Hallelujah! The Raid 2: Berandal brings back together writer/director Gareth Huw Evans and rising action talent Iko Uwais. There will also be some familiar faces from other Indonesian films. Alex Abbad was in Merantau and Julie Estelle was in the Mo Brothers' Macabre. There will be more casting announcements as production moves along and I assure you there are more surprises to come.The story in the second film takes place shortly after the end of The...

[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]

Sundance 2013 Interview: Shane Carruth on Control and the Self-Distribution of UPSTREAM COLOR

Posted: 31 Jan 2013 06:40 PM PST

One of the most buzzed about titles at this year's Sundance Film Fest was Shane Carruth's enigmatic competition drama Upstream Color. While the merits and puzzles of the film will be debated for some time to come (you can read Eric D. Snider's review here), one of the most interesting elements of the film is Shane Carruth's pre-festival announcement that he would self-distribute the film through his ERBP banner. In the high stakes slot machine that is independent cinema, being accepted to Sundance (especially in competition) is usually seen as getting 4 out of 5 cherries with the last wheel still spinning. So there were quite a few raised eyebrows when Carruth announced the decision to forego his chances of selling the film to a...

[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]

IFFR 2013 Review: ODAYAKA Dives Beneath the Surface of Polite Japanese Society

Posted: 31 Jan 2013 05:10 PM PST

This year the International Film Festival Rotterdam brought its visitors two Japanese features that, like the countless others that have already been made about it, just seemed to explore the earthquake, tsunami and Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster from March 11, 2011. Uchida Nobuteru's Odayaka featuring the looovely Sugino Kiki (yes, three o's there!), is one of those features. Luckily, that was just the surface. An intimate portrait of life, Odayaka brings more to the table than those other 3.11 films and powerfully touches the subject of group pressure in a way that maybe not all non-Japanese people might fully understand. Not that it is incomprehensible (far from it), but simply because it mixes it with something that is somehow embodied in Japanese society; to not...

[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]

WARM BODIES: Nicholas Hoult and Teresa Palmer Talk Zombies, Respecting Rules, and Then Breaking Them

Posted: 31 Jan 2013 04:15 PM PST

We've seen zombies walk, run, jump, and fight sharks, but we've never seen one fall in love with a human...that is, until now! Written and directed by Jonathan Levine (50/50, The Wackness, All the Boys Love Mandy Lane), Warm Bodies stars Nicholas Hoult (X-Men: First Class, A Single Man, About a Boy) and Teresa Palmer (Take Me Home Tonight, I Am Number Four, Wish You Were Here). The film is a fresh "Beauty and the Beast" meets "Romeo & Juliet" take on the decaying genre. You know, if Romeo had to fight the urge to eat the beauty's brains as he fell head over heels for her. I sat down with Hoult and Palmer to discuss the film's unconventional approach to the genre, how it...

[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]

Sundance 2013 Review: AFTERNOON DELIGHT Captures the Challenges of Seeking Love, Happiness, and Peace

Posted: 31 Jan 2013 03:30 PM PST

Poor Rachel (Kathryn Hahn). Although she's married to the man of her dreams, Jeff (Josh Radnor), leads a really nice lifestyle, and has a healthy son, she's bored as hell as a stay-at-home housewife. Her friends are starting to suck, because they all have day jobs and/or do normal mom things. And Jeff never wants to have sex. They high five in passing more often than they copulate, and Jeff even has an unspoken "no sex tonight" safe phrase when they're going to bed.In an attempt to spice up their sex life, she, along with Jeff and some of their friends, go to a strip club. Here's where it gets, well, a bit odd. After getting a lap dance from a young stripper named McKenna...

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SXSW Announces 2013 Features Lineup, Including I AM DIVINE, REWIND THIS!, SNAP, and Much More

Posted: 31 Jan 2013 02:39 PM PST

The South by Southwest Film Conference and Festival, otherwise known as SXSW, gets underway next month, and has now announced this year's lineup of feature films. Joining previously-announced titles, such as Evil Dead and Spring Breakers, are 109 features, including 68 from first-time filmmakers. Notable titles include documentaries I Am Divine, by Jeffrey Schwarz, about Glen Milstead, better known as John Waters' muse Divine; Milius, directed by Zak Knutson and Joey Figueroa, which covers the life of renegade filmmaker John Milius; and Rewind This!, by Josh Johnson, a film that aims to "trace the ripples" of the VHS home video revolution. Among the narrative features that caught my eye: Chris Eska's The Retrieval, about a boy who must retrieve a wanted man during the Civil...

[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]

Review: STAND UP GUYS Stands Up to Scrutiny

Posted: 31 Jan 2013 01:00 PM PST

Put Al Pacino, Alan Arkin and Christopher Walken together on screen, and it's a laconic dream team. Each is so delightfully quirky and menacing in their own unique style that it's clear the film's greatest coup is casting. Stick these guys together in a car, let them kibbitz -- in a terse, concise manner, of course -- and you're halfway to a classic. The first 40 minutes or so of Stand Up Guys plays out exactly as you'd expect, a kind of Cocoon for old gangsters, another toothless reunion film like 1986's Tough Guys. We see Pacino get released from jail in that gettin-out scene that always shows up in these films, and yet always manages to remind of The Blues Brothers, however seriously they're...

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Motorbikes And Whup Ass In First Teaser For Dustin Nguyen's ONCE UPON A TIME IN VIETNAM

Posted: 31 Jan 2013 12:30 PM PST

Get ready martial arts fans, Dustin Nguyen has cooked up a potent blend of swordplay, super powered martial arts and motorcycle riding badassery for you with his upcoming Once Upon A Time In Vietnam.Formerly known as Monk On Fire, this film has literally been a passion project of Nguyen's for years now with the actor not only taking the lead role but also directing from his own script and producing. And with principal photography now wrapped and an August release planned a first 'unofficial' teaser has arrived online. And while it's under a minute long they've packed a whole lot of stuff in there. Check it out below....

[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]

Slamdance 2013 Interview: The Filmmakers Talk The Festival Experience

Posted: 31 Jan 2013 12:00 PM PST

In the final hours of the 2013 Slamdance Film Festival a group of filmmakers and I confiscated the Gallery screening room at Treasure Mountain Inn, made an impromptu circle and tossed a chair in the middle for my digital recorder and iPhone. We then settled in for a spirited talk on all things Slamdance. Joining me were Harry Patramanis and Eleni Asvesta, director and producer of the minimalist thriller Fynbos, Kimberly Culotta, cinematographer for Kate Mark's short film Pearl Was Here, Jan Eilhardt and Sanna Akehurst, the filmmakers behind the dazzling The Court Of Shards, J.R. Hughto director of the LA noir Diamond on Vinyl, from the New York noir Joy de V. director Nadia Szold and editor Kristen Swanbeck, the directing/writing/producing pair behind the...

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Bloody Second Trailer For Indonesian Horror BELENGGU

Posted: 31 Jan 2013 11:30 AM PST

We've been keeping an eye on Indonesian horror picture Belenggu since it was first announced to premiere at PiFan in Korea back in July and with the film's Indonesian release no edging up a second full trailer for the film has been released, one that keeps the impressive atmospherics of the early efforts while also ramping up the blood.Elang, who lived in the flat, is often haunted by images of bizarre murders involving a killer with a rabbit costume. His efforts to solve the mystery and save the lives of the people he presumed in danger, has in turn trapped him in a downward spiral and he became a suspect himself. In proving his innocence, he will be forced to unveil a horrible and long-buried...

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Review: GINGER & ROSA Goes Nuclear

Posted: 31 Jan 2013 11:00 AM PST

The new film by director Sally Potter (Orlando, Tango Lesson) starts with stock footage of an atomic blast. A great way to open a film, if it was an Ed Wood B-picture. But Ginger & Rosa is not one of those. It's the story of BFFs Ginger (Elle Fanning) and Rosa (Alice Englert, daughter of Aussie director Jane Campion), both born in 1945, going through their lives in 60s London, where everyone lives under the shadow of nuclear annihilation. It's also the time of the nuclear family. Rosa's father split early on. Ginger's ultra-liberal dad, Roland (Alessandro Nivola), can't seem to keep his pants zipped, causing heartaches for mom (Mad Men's Christina Hendricks) and not providing any emotional support for the increasingly confused Ginger. These...

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Hey Toronto! Win Tickets To See Classic Japanese Crime Film RETALIATION On The Big Screen Saturday!

Posted: 31 Jan 2013 10:30 AM PST

The Twitch-curated Tokyo Drifters: 100 Years Of Nikkatsu series continues at the TIFF Bell Lightbox on Saturday with a screening of Hasebe Yusaharu's tough as nails crime film Retaliation. And not only do we want you to have the chance to catch the film projected on the big screen from 35mm, as it was intended, but we want you to do it for free. Yep. We've got two pairs of tickets to give away for this one and one of them can be yours if you just email me here and tell me the name of the future Lady Snowblood star who plays a supporting role here.Can you find the answer on the official screening series page? Yeah, probably....

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Jason Eisener Talks THE ABCs OF DEATH

Posted: 31 Jan 2013 10:00 AM PST

With massive horror anthology project The ABCs Of Death now available on VOD with a limited theatrical release coming March 8th, twenty six different websites had the chance to sit down and chat with each of the twenty six directors. Here at Twitch we landed Hobo With A Shotgun helmer Jason Eisener who, while under instructions not to spill any specific details regarding his piece delivered a typically fun conversation with the bearded Canuck.Twitch: How did you get involved with the ABCs project? When did you find out what your letter would be?I was approached when I was in the middle of touring with Hobo With a Shotgun, I received an email from Tim League, who said he was working on a strange little anthology...

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Review: BULLET TO THE HEAD Offers Up Cinematic Cotton Candy

Posted: 31 Jan 2013 09:30 AM PST

Bullet To The Head is more than just a Walter Hill project, or the newest movie starring the resurgent Sylvester Stallone. It's also shaped by the firm hand of producer Joel Silver, a man not known for keeping his cards close to his chest. Genre stalwart Hill has said, "Every film I've done has been a Western." However, beyond the obvious ones he's made in his career, such as The Long Riders or Wild Bill, it's hard to see explicitly the "stripped down moral universe" he's referred to in interviews when watching the likes of the gang musical Streets of Fire or the slapstick Brewster's Millions. Nonetheless, Hill has secured his spot in cinema history as a writer/producer on part of the Alien franchise, and...

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Watch An Exclusive Clip From Austin Chick's GIRLS AGAINST BOYS

Posted: 31 Jan 2013 09:00 AM PST

Austin Chick's violent revenge flick Girls Against Boys this screens tomorrow with the launch of a limited theatrical release from Anchor Bay Films and Twitch is proud to offer up an exclusive clip from the film.When Shae (Danielle Panabaker), a naïve college student, is tormented by several men in a matter of days, she reaches her breaking point, and is drawn into coworker Lu's (Nicole LaLiberte) twisted plan for revenge. Together, the two embark on a gruesome killing spree, terrorizing and brutally murdering not just their attackers, but any man who gets in their way. However, after a wild weekend of retaliation, the friendship between the girls shifts into a dangerous obsession, and their perverse game becomes a desperate struggle for Shae to maintain control...

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SPACE PIRATE CAPTAIN HARLOCK Gets Fall 2013 Release And Teaser Trailer

Posted: 31 Jan 2013 08:30 AM PST

Back in 2010, Toei Animation previewed a 4-minute pilot trailer for a potential CG animated adaptation of Space Pirate Captain Harlock at the Tokyo International Anime Fair. Fortunately for fans of the classic property, it seems there has been progress on the production since then.  The Japanese media has confirmation on a fall release and a teaser trailer has been unveiled.  Based on a space opera manga by Matsumoto Leiji, the film version will be helmed by Shinji Aramaki (Appleseed EX Machina), scripted by Fukui Harutoshi and Marza Animation Planet will produce the animation.  The total production cost is budgeted at $30 million, the most expensive ever in Toei Animation.You'll find the minute-long teaser embedded below....

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Two New Images From Edgar Wright's THE WORLD'S END!

Posted: 31 Jan 2013 07:30 AM PST

Two new images have shown up over at EmpireOnline for Edgar Wright's final installment of his Coronetto Trilogy The World's End. Of course this movie would not be possible without his usual partners in crime, Simon Pegg and Nick Frost. The first image above is Simon Pegg as Gary King, the man who has gathered his mates together to attempt an epic pub crawl one more time. One last time it would seem. The second image is of the lads, likely taking in their first pint of the night as they all appear to be standing with complete muscle control. Notice Freeman's pinky. Dainty. After the image Empire was kind enough to give us a brief description of everyone's character. Left to right are Bluetoothed...

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Review: Quentin Dupieux's WRONG is Weird and Awesome

Posted: 31 Jan 2013 07:00 AM PST

Writer / director / composer / editor / cinematographer / auteur / weirdo Quentin Dupieux is a guy who pulls the mat right out from under the Hollywood norm and takes bold and colorful chances. A couple of years ago, Dupieux created a feature-length film about a killer tire called Rubber. He broke every rule he could and created something pretty fucking incredible. With Wrong, Dupieux turns a little story about a man's quest to find his missing dog into a mind-bending, chopped and screwed reality where almost nothing makes sense. Dear reader, this ain't your average Homeward Bound. Dolph Spring (Rubber's Jack Plotnick) is having a bad week. He wakes up every day at 7:60AM (not a typo), but on this day, something is...

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New IRON MAN 3 Poster And Super Brief Tease

Posted: 31 Jan 2013 06:30 AM PST

Yes, it's football silly season, which means that every major film under the sun along with some that aren't but wish they were is currently pimping the TV ads they'll run on Sunday with super brief teaser clips online. It's kind of irritating, really, but at least the folks at Marvel had the good sense to provide a new poster for Iron Man 3 along with their new ad-pimping spot - no new footage, just quick shots of Robert Downey Jr, Gwyneth Paltrow, Don Cheadle, Ben Knigsley, etc - so there's some actual content to put out there. And if you had any lingering questions about what direction Shane Black was planing to take the franchise well, there. Pretty clear, no? Check out the new...

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Review: MOVIE 43 Asks the God of Comedy, "Why Hast Thou Forsaken Me?"

Posted: 31 Jan 2013 06:00 AM PST

Movie 43 really is an irredeemable experience. As you leave the cinema, you may curse the heavens and cry out, "Why?! Why, oh why, Comedy, did you allow yourself to be violated by the flaccid members of unoriginal, conventional and supremely unfunny influences?' That previous comment is really about as risqué and 'dirty' that Movie 43 gets, by the way. It is a series of sketches as retold in the framework of a Hollywood (ha-ha, the film industry, am I right?) meeting featuring a crazed guy pitching god-awful ideas for films. Ideas that, for some unfathomable reason, we are then pained to experience as they come to life in random clips that barely segue from one to another. Peter Farrelly, the main brain and one...

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First Trailer For Herman Yau's IP MAN: THE FINAL FIGHT

Posted: 31 Jan 2013 05:00 AM PST

Director Herman Yau reunites with The Untold Story actor Anthony Wong in Ip Man: The Final Fight. The semi-biopic is the follow-up to Yau's The Legend Is Born: Ip Man, and while the first film focused on his early life, the new picture tells the story of his last battle during his elderly years, in the period leading up to his death. To prepare for the role, Wong trained extensively in Wing Chun for a year. This interpretation is one of many to join the Ip Man bandwagon. Among the related projects based on the legendary martial artist is Wong Kar-wai's The Grandmaster, with Tony Leung Chiu-wai in the title role. Pegasus Motion Pictures announced that Donnie Yen will return in the third installment of...

[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]

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