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Melbourne 2013: The Program Guide Reveals Plenty Of Australian Premieres For World Fest Faves

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Melbourne 2013: The Program Guide Reveals Plenty Of Australian Premieres For World Fest Faves

Melbourne 2013: The Program Guide Reveals Plenty Of Australian Premieres For World Fest Faves

Posted: 03 Jul 2013 03:00 AM PDT

The Melbourne International Film Festival program guide was unveiled yesterday to the media and to lucky MIFF members alike who are booking tickets as you read this (sales open to non-members on Friday).Besides the already exciting First Glance and Cannes selections, there are nigh-on 200 feature films to occupy your time and mind these coming weeks. The usual excellent segments are: International Panorama, Telescope: films from the EU, Australian Showcase, Next Gen, Accent on Asia, Documentaries, Animation Showcase, Backbeat (music industry related), Night Shift and Shorts.The new and exciting segments are a hot pot of diverse and strange countries and genres. Juche Days is a retrospective of North Korean films featuring a DPRK produced Kung-Fu fantasy spectacle Hong Kil Dong. Defying The Times gives focus...

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Marshy's 11 Favourite Asian Movies of 2013 Part 1

Posted: 03 Jul 2013 12:00 AM PDT

As we hit the halfway stage in 2013, I'd like to pause for a moment and take stock of the Asian films I have seen so far this year and throw a little light on my favourites. Of course this isn't an exhaustive list of everything I have seen - or even everything I have liked - after all, I've seen 44 new Asian films already this year. These are just the 10 I liked best...or in this case, the 11 I liked best. 2013 has seen plenty of other, bigger films hit our screens, particularly in China. Xu Zheng's Lost in Thailand, Stephen Chow's Journey to the West: Conquering the Demons, Tang Wei's comeback Finding Mr. Right, Peter Chan's American Dreams in China and Zhao...

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Review: DESPICABLE ME 2 Is Even Weaker Than the First One

Posted: 02 Jul 2013 10:01 PM PDT

In the pilot episode of the animated sitcom Despicable Me -- which somehow appeared in movie theaters, despite clearly being meant for TV -- we were introduced to Gru (voiced by Steve Carell), a comically accented supervillain who adopted three little orphan girls as part of a nefarious scheme, only to find that their presence in his life softened his heart and inspired him to stop being evil. The second episode of the series -- called Despicable Me 2 and somehow also mistakenly released in cinemas -- continues in that limp, unimaginative vein, with a humdrum story set almost entirely in a suburban shopping mall. There's a subplot with one of the girls, Margo (Miranda Cosgrove), developing her first crush on a boy. Gru tentatively...

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Hey Australia! Win REGULAR SHOW: THE BEST DVD IN THE WORLD*

Posted: 02 Jul 2013 09:00 PM PDT

*At this moment in time.Regular Show is awesome-tacular. You should know this as fact, so of course I'll assume you want to win it on DVD.Let's say hypothetically that civilization was wiped out right... NOW! Future generations on archaeological digs looking for remnants of our world would perhaps come across this Regular Show DVD. Imagine their awe-struck expressions when they realized they had uncovered the best DVD in the world. Of course, if civilization crumbles in a few months time, a different DVD might be the best one but, for now, it's this oneWe have five DVD's to give away with thanks.to Madman Entertainment.To get your slacker prints on one of these simply email me at kwenton[at]twitchfilm[dot]net with, in 25 words or less, your favorite Regular Show character and why...

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Franco-Italian Horror Anthology PHANTASMAGORIA Begins Production This September!

Posted: 02 Jul 2013 08:30 PM PDT

This September production will begin in Rome,Italy and Nice, France on a new horror anthology Phantasmagoria! Do you believe in ghosts?The company M International has launched the production of a new horror feature film, "Phantasmagoria". 3 shocking tales of horror that will get you beyond fear. From the mind of the filmmaker Domiziano Cristopharo (House of Flesh Mannequins, Bloody Sin of Horror, Poe: Poetry of Eerie) and Mickael Abbate (Festival Director of "Samain du cinéma fantastique"), Phantasmagoria is a Franco-Italian co production. Tiziano Martella (Legio XIII and also Make-Up Artist from Zombie Massacre, Eaters) also joined the team. The movie specifically aims at bringing revival to "hair-raising" movie genre by allowing the largest possible number of spectators to rediscover fear and other extreme feelings on screen...

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Mad Dog May Be Dead But Check Out Yayan Ruhian As Prakoso In THE RAID 2

Posted: 02 Jul 2013 06:55 PM PDT

Unleashed today via his Twittter account, The Raid filmmaker Gareth Huw Evans treated us to a fresh image from the production of his upcoming sequel The Raid 2: Berandal. And if that face looks familiar it is because that is Yayan Ruhian, Mad Dog from the first Raid film and Eric from Evans' debut feature film Merantau. It should be noted though, that he is not playing Mad Dog here but a new character called Prakoso. There is absolutely zero connection between the two characters. And to help disassociate between the two characters Yayan has let his hair out. Literally. The hair on Yayan's head has made a steady progression from clean cut in Merantau to completely disheveled in Berandal. I wager the next Evans film he...

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Vietnam Plans to Top Southeast Asia's Film Industry By 2020

Posted: 02 Jul 2013 05:00 PM PDT

There's no sarcasm here. Vietnam's Department of Cinema has announced a plan to make the local film industry the leading one in Southeast Asia by 2020, but experts have called it wishful thinking. The conference was organized to collect opinions from screenwriters, producers, directors and other experts on the Department of Cinema's draft plan for developing Vietnam's film industry. Nguyen Thi Hong Ngat (screenwriter) said the following at a conference in Hanoi: It is a fantasy that Vietnam's film industry will top the Southeast Asian region within the next seven years. It depends on many variable factors, including the determination of authorities, the presence of Vietnamese talent and the development of film industries in other countries. She noted that the current situation with the Vietnamese film industry was that...

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Now On Blu-ray: Arrow Video Dominates 2013, Mario Bava, FOXY BROWN, BLOW OUT, MOTEL HELL, SPIDER BABY

Posted: 02 Jul 2013 04:30 PM PDT

I'm calling it now: Arrow Video is the best cult home video label in the world. Sure, there was a little while in there when the going got a little bit rough. There were some problematic transfers of some classic Italian horror films, culminating in less than great A/V experiences of Dario Argento's Tenebre and The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, but Arrow Video have never given up the fight and have turned into the big boys on the block with their outstanding slate and continually impressive and comprehensive Blu-ray discs. The first half of 2013 has been packed with amazing releases, and it's partly due to that huge output that it's taken me this long to give them a proper look. However, I'll be...

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There Are All Kinds of Parents Shown in the Teaser for Laika's THE BOX TROLLS

Posted: 02 Jul 2013 04:00 PM PDT

Animation house Laika Inc. continue to evolve their sense of animated gothic-horror storytelling trending towards towards cuteness. The company started out with perhaps the scariest childrens film made in the past decade with Coraline and then continued handsomely with the quite underrated, if far safer, ParaNorman. Now comes a film that feels more like Monster's Inc. than Pixar's own recent prequel, that is if the trailer has anything to say about it.  The 'alternate' parenting lifestyles gleefully shown in the trailer here, proves that Laika is quite serious about putting some brains and allegory into its animated fables.Based on Alan Snow's "Here Be Monsters!" illustrated childrens book, the film is teaming with excellent voice talent: Simon Pegg, Elle Fanning, Toni Collette, Ben Kingsley, Jared Harris,...

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NYAFF 2013 Review: It's Never Too Late For New Year's Resolutions With COUNTDOWN

Posted: 02 Jul 2013 03:30 PM PDT

West meets East in this claustrophobic Thai thriller set almost entirely in a New York City apartment on New Year's Eve 2012. The story concerns the redemption of three roommates, and can either be enjoyed superficially as a tense exercise in home invasion (with the aid of a small amount of suspended disbelief), or you can let your inner philosopher run free and interpret the film's cross-cultural pollination as an exploration of Christianity vs. Buddhism.Jack, Bee, and Pam are all Thai students studying abroad in NYC. Away from their families for the holidays, they have a simple New Year's Eve plan: score some weed and get hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiigh. Unfortunately, their regular drug dealer has up and quit the biz. Furthermore, he is moving back home to...

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Euro Beat: 7 Highlights From A Visit To The Set Of Jean-Luc Godard's 3-D FAREWELL TO LANGUAGE

Posted: 02 Jul 2013 02:45 PM PDT

"Experience has taught that we never learn anything about a film by visiting the set... We can capture an atmosphere, a way of being and acting, trying to discern intentions, but we never get a complete or tangible impression." So says Olivier Séguret somewhere around the midpoint of his lengthy article in Libération recounting his visit to the Swiss set of Jean Luc-Godard's upcoming 3-D feature, Farewell to Language.So why bother writing one at all? Well, his show-stopping 3-D short The Three Disasters certainly stoked the appetite of cinephiles for even non-news about his upcoming companion feature. But more importantly, even if we don't learn anything about the film from a visit to Godard's house, we can learn some pretty amusing and/or fascinating stuff about...

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Help Light The Fire For Larry Kent's SHE WHO MUST BURN

Posted: 02 Jul 2013 02:30 PM PDT

I know, I know, another day, another crowd funded film project. Nevertheless, the filmmaker in question for this particular case is the obscure, cultish (pretty much a secret handshake in Canuck film circles) Larry Kent who is kind of the the godfather of Indie Canadian cinema with a filmography that spans well over 50 years. Heck, the man cast Susan Sarandon in one of his films 4 years before The Rocky Horror Picture Show was made.  One can pretend that if Twitch had been in existence from the origins of cinema, rather than merely the early 21st century, that we would have been covering Kent and many of his Cinépix brethren during the 1960s and 1970s. She Who Must Burn, his latest project, might...

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Review: THE LONE RANGER Rides Hard Against History

Posted: 02 Jul 2013 02:00 PM PDT

There's a cliché that they don't make movies like they used to, with the implication that they're just not as good as they used to be. Sure, with the advent of CGI, epic films have gone by the wayside, but modern film production techniques can be a pretty amazing thing when set to capture practical imagery on a grand scale. Jerry Bruckheimer is the D.W. Griffith of the modern era, at least in one specific way. This producer, more than any other, has kept "big Hollywood" afloat, his megaproductions costing hundreds of millions of dollars, only to generate billions for the studios. Bruckheimer-produced films thrive on the big screen; they're often big and loud, and a hell of a lot of fun. Certainly, sequels to...

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A Master Returns With First Teaser For Mitani Koki's KIYOSU KAIGI

Posted: 02 Jul 2013 12:00 PM PDT

Japanese writer-director Mitani Koki is - in my opinion - one of the world's truly great overlooked masters. He is one of the absolute best at what he does and has been for many, many years now and yet he gets very little respect or attention outside of his native Japan?Why? Because critical praise, it seems, is reserved for directors who make movies about people being sad and Mitani likes to make people laugh, instead.The director of Suite Dreams and The Magic Hour - also the writer of University of Laughs - Mitani's specialty are super classy comedies that would have fit right in to Hollywood's Golden Age, the sorts of films that delight in poking fun at social strata and good manners and take...

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Who Needs Words When Dennis Law's THE CONSTABLE Has Plenty Of Guns And Knives?

Posted: 02 Jul 2013 11:36 AM PDT

Arguably the pulpiest of Hong Kong's current crop of mainstream directors - a title he has claimed from Herman Yau in recent years with Yau going all respectable on us - director Dennis Law returns to big screens with Simon Yam star vehicle The Constable. Lam Kwok Kuen, nearing retirement and raising a mentally challenged son by himself, is a police officer whose sole requirement on the job is oversee the department fleet. Despite this, he remains active in the front line of police service, putting his life on the line for sake of others, his heroism bettering even the most seasoned professionals. He fights the bad guys, putting criminals behind bars, upholding the law at any cost, for as his adage proclaims, to live...

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Watch A Half Dozen New Clips From THE CONJURING

Posted: 02 Jul 2013 11:00 AM PDT

James Wan's The Conjuring is drawing near-universal praise from those who have seen it early and perhaps emboldened by that fact an even half dozen new clips from the film have been released online. Check out the latest chiller from the director of Saw and Insidious below, just click through the gallery - there are new images as well - to find a clip paired with the freshly released images....

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TAXIDERMIA Director To Tell Hero Story With TOLDI

Posted: 02 Jul 2013 10:30 AM PDT

It's been a long time coming for Hungarian director Gyorgy Palfi. After the successful one-two punch of Hukkle (2002) and Taxidermia (2006) it appeared that Palfi would have more or less free rein to do whatever he chose next. He was, after all, by far the best known and most successful of his nation's directors in international circles. But then the economic crisis hit, and the Hungarian film funds essentially shut down. So while Palfi was able to keep busy it was only through embracing super low budget projects such as the improvised I Am Not Your Friend and his collage piece Final Cut while his more ambitious projects were forced to sit and wait.Well, the wait is over. The Hungarian film support system has...

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China Box Office: The Girls Of TINY TIMES Trounce The MAN OF STEEL

Posted: 02 Jul 2013 10:00 AM PDT

Mainland youth drama Tiny Times scores an epic opening weekend, easily knocking Zack Snyder's Man of Steel off the top spot, while local animation also does well. Rank Title Origin 24/6-30/6 (US$) Total (US$) Screening days 1 Tiny Times China $42.76 $42.76 4 2 Man of Steel USA $21.14 $47.22 11 3 Badges of Fury China $18.30 $33.40 10 4 Happy Heroes China $2.12 $2.12 3 5 Sammy's Adventures 2 China $0.92 $0.92 3 6 Star Trek Into Darkness USA $0.48 $56.91 34 7 Mysterious Face China $0.47 $3.59 17 8 Switch China $0.42 $46.82 22 9 American Dreams in China China $0.34 $86.45 45 10 Colombiana USA $0.15 $8.05 24 While Jet Li/Wen Zhang cop comedy Badges of Fury came close to snatching pole...

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Win COME OUT AND PLAY On Blu-ray

Posted: 02 Jul 2013 09:30 AM PDT

Makinov's Come Out And Play is available now on US DVD and Blu-ray and Twitch has got five Blu-ray copies to give away!Beth (Vinessa Shaw) and Francis (Ebon Moss-Bachrach) decide to take a vacation before the birth of their child. Francis insists on venturing to a more serene island; Beth hesitantly agrees. Soon they discover the island is mysteriously abandoned, populated only by children. Beth and Francis are left to uncover the mystery of the disappearances, as a day in paradise quickly turns into a struggle for survival. Your chance to win is simple enough! Just email me here and name the film that this is a remake of. Please include your mailing address. Winners will be drawn at random....

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Funny Commercials: Darth Vader And The Light Saber Pocky Sticks

Posted: 02 Jul 2013 09:00 AM PDT

Pocky, produced by the Glico Company, is a very popular brand of Japanese biscuit sticks with flavored coatings that has been sold since 1966. It comes in a large variety of flavors like chocolate, almond, strawberry, melon, banana, green tea, coconut and many others.The latest release is a series of Star Wars-themed products that is hitting the shelves in Japan this week, and one of the highlights is the light saber-like giant Pocky sticks. And to promote these products, the company has made a series of commercials that show Darth Vader and the Stormtroopers visiting the Pocky factory in Japan. The videos are pretty funny, and you can check them out below....

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Nakata Hideo Remaking Korean HAUNTERS As Japanese MONSTER

Posted: 02 Jul 2013 08:30 AM PDT

Nakata Hideo, best known for Ringu, is remaking the Korean thriller Haunters, according to Variety. Production is set to begin later this month; Fujiwara Tatsuya and Yamada Takayuki will star. Our own Charles Webb reviewed Haunters when it screened at the New York Film Festival in 2011: A mysterious, evil, mind-controlling psychic young man kills and steals with his power, and only a good-hearted young man [who is] resistant to his power can stop him. Cue familiar but bland actors in the lead, maybe a pop song or two, a level of gloss on top of some dodgy CG and you've got your thin, mostly empty blockbuster. The problem with my labored (and intentionally broad) comparison is that Haunters is really, really good, elevated by...

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