"Makoto Aida" Documentary Now on DVD

MAKOTO AIDA: CYNIC IN THE PLAYGROUND PROFILES ONE OF JAPAN’S MOST CONTROVERSIAL ARTISTS IN NEW VIZ PICTURES DVD

Latest Release In NEW PEOPLE ARTIST SERIES Captures The Work And Private Life Of Pop Art Provocateur

VIZ Pictures, an affiliate of VIZ Media, LLC that focuses on Japanese live-action film distribution, has announced the release of the newest volume of its ongoing NEW PEOPLE ARTIST SERIES – Makoto Aida: Cynic in the Playground. The documentary, releasing today, is directed by Yusuke Tamari, carries an MSRP of $25.92 U.S. / $35.99 CAN and will be distributed exclusively by VIZ Media.

To celebrate the DVD’s release, VIZ Pictures has also scheduled a special theatrical premiere of the film tonight at 7:00pm at the VIZ Cinema, located inside NEW PEOPLE, the cutting edge entertainment destination devoted to Japanese pop culture located in the heart of San Francisco. For tickets and more information about this event, please visit www.vizcinema.com or www.viz-pictures.com.

Makoto Aida is one of the most diverse and controversial artists in Japan working prolifically in various media including sculpture, painting, video, installation and manga. Known for his diverse and often controversial images, Makoto Aida shares his work and private life as he creates his "Human Project" and "Shinjuku Castle."

“Makoto Aida’s art often exhibits a dark cynicism that is infused with elements of a lighthearted, lowbrow-style humor as he tackles heavy subjects such as terrorism, pedophilia, and societal misogyny,” says Seiji Horibuchi, President and CEO of VIZ Pictures and the founder of NEW PEOPLE. “This documentary, which is the fifth release in our NEW PEOPLE ARTIST SERIES, is a rare look at one of the most provocative artists of our time, and lets his true character emerge through his intense creative process.”

The NEW PEOPLE ARTIST SERIES is an intriguing collection of documentaries introducing modern Japanese Pop artists to the American audience. All of the highlighted artists possess unique views and inspirations to create captivating works of art.

For more information, visit www.viz-pictures.com or www.newpeopleartistseries.com


About VIZ Pictures, Inc.:
Based in San Francisco, California, VIZ Pictures, Inc. licenses and distributes selective Japanese live-action films and DVDs, with focus on Japanese "kawaii (cute) and cool" pop culture. VIZ Pictures strives to offer the most entertaining motion pictures straight from the "Kingdom of Pop" for audiences of all ages, especially the manga and anime generation, in North America. Some titles include DEATH NOTE, 20TH CENTURY BOYS, and TRAIN MAN: DENSHA OTOKO. VIZ Pictures is also the producer of NEW PEOPLE, a part of the J-Pop Center Project, a unique entertainment destination bringing Japanese pop culture through film, art, fashion, and retail products. For more information please visit www.viz-pictures.com or www.newpeopleworld.com.

Imagination Can't Save Clunky "The Brothers Grimm"

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 137 (of 2005) by Leroy Douresseaux


The Brothers Grimm (2005)
Running time: 118 minutes (1 hour, 58 minutes)
MPAA – PG-13 for violence, frightening sequences, and brief suggestive material
DIRECTOR: Terry Gilliam
WRITER: Ehren Kruger
PRODUCERS: Daniel Bobker and Charles Roven
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Newton Thomas Sigel
EDITOR: Lesley Walker

FANTASY/ADVENTURE with elements of action, comedy, horror, and mystery

Starring: Matt Damon, Heath Ledger, Jonathan Pryce, Peter Stormare, Lena Headey, Peter Stormare, and Monica Bellucci

The Brothers Grimm, Wilhelm (Matt Damon) and Jacob (Heath Ledger), are renowned collectors of folklore and are also frauds. They travel from village to village in French-occupied Germany (around 1811 or 1812), and, with the help of two assistants, rid the hamlets of monsters and other “enchanted” creatures – monsters that are of their own making. The Napoleon government calls their bluff, however, when Delatombe (Jonathan Pryce), a French military official, demands that Will and Jacob investigate the disappearances of 11 girls in and around a remote village and a nearby forest.

Initially the brothers assume that a group of men are pulling the same stunts they do, but they discover that the events in the forest really do involve the supernatural. The disappearances are directly connected to a 500 year-old curse. In an ancient tower deep in the dark forest sleeps the immortal sorceress, the Mirror Queen (Monica Bellucci), and though she sleeps, she commands the denizens of the fearsome magic forest, both animal and plant, to gather what is necessary to break her sleep and return her to her youthful beauty. With both French officials and the villagers doubting them, Will and Jake, joined by a village trapper named Angelika (Lean Headey), race solve the mystery of the curse if they are to save their own necks from the French and to free the village of the great evil.

Combine the dazzling visuals of visionary director Terry Gilliam (Brazil and 12 Monkeys, as well as being a Monty Python alum) with the imagination of horror movie scribe, Ehren Kruger (Scream 3 and The Ring), and in theory we should get something great. However, the first hour of Gilliam and Kruger’s collaboration, a new film entitled The Brothers Grimm, is an absolute disaster – a walk-out-the-theatre, sleep inducing disaster. Somewhere deep into the film’s second act, it comes alive. The film takes the real life folklore collectors, of course the Brothers Grimm, and turns them into fraudulent monster hunters, but also creates a scenario in which they redeem themselves and launch their literary career.

Kruger’s imaginative and radiant spin on the Grimm fairytales really doesn’t come to life until late; before that, all his script manages to do is drag out a concept that is itself nothing more than a fairytale – short and sweet, but not a two-hour movie. How Will and Jake got to the point of their conflict with the Mirror Queen is of little or no interest. In a written folktale, that would amount to maybe two paragraphs and not more than two-minute voiceover narration in a film. The story is really about the Brothers Grimm versus the Mirror Queen; all the other stuff (brotherly feuds, worrisome French officials, and the brothers’ snake oil show) becomes refuse if you stretch it out too long, which Kruger’s script did. When the Grimms finally take on the Queen, the film becomes a messy, but entertaining little fairy tale flick.

Gilliam, whose film career has sputtered much of the last decade, maintains his visual aplomb. The Brothers Grimm has production values to rival great films, whether they are serious costume drama or classic fantasy films like The Wizard of Oz or Tim Burton’s Nightmare Before Christmas. The costumes, sets, props, visual effects, cinematography, etc. are fabulous – from the dreary village hovels and mud-soaked streets to the haunted forest and the interiors of the Mirror Queen’s sumptuous (though dusty and filled with spider webs) sleeping chamber – and affirm Gilliam’s eye for creating period detail in fantasy movies.

Sadly, he doesn’t seem to have much control over the film’s narrative. At times, The Brothers Grimm is a clunky action movie, and then it becomes a comic fantasy full of bumbling oafs with weird accents, striking images (the horse that swallows a child whole), whimsy, and a variety of strange creatures. Gilliam seems powerless before Kruger’s awful dialogue for this movie (much of it hard to hear because of poor sound work). In the end, all he can do is make it an action/adventure fairy tale, in which all the characterization is lost in the sound, the fury, and the art direction/set decoration. Still, he’s the one who salvages any entertainment out of this messy script. The Brothers Grimm is like a Gilliam sampler of the director’s film trademarks – medieval shenanigans and gilded surrealism.

None of the actors here is worth mentioning, only to say that Heath Ledger still has that winsome handsomeness that makes him such a captivating boy. Gilliam and Kruger do great disservice to the female leads in this film, Lena Headey and Monica Bellucci. Ms. Bellucci is quite beautiful, but great actress she’s not. Her Mirror Queen won’t have people thinking of the White Queen in Disney’s Snow White. If you must see Gilliam’s dazzling vision on a big screen, then, by all means go. Otherwise, The Brothers Grimm is a home video experience – a fractured fairy tale that kids won’t dig, but movie lovers might appreciate for the clever visual invention.

5 of 10
C+

Sunday, August 28, 2005

Negromancer News Bits and Bites: Queen Latifah Producing Movie for VH1

According to this article I found at AOL Black Voics "BV on Movies" blog, Queen Latifah is producing a "Movie of the Week" for cable channel VH1 through her productions Flavor Unite Entertainment.

Entitled "Single Ladies," the telefilm will star Lauren London, Lisa Raye, and Stacey Dash and is a comedy and drama about a group of female best friends with different philosophies on sex and relationships.  Single Ladies is set in the city of Atlanta, specifically the city's fashion, music, and celebrity worlds.  The film will be shot in the Atlanta area.

The script for "Single Ladies" is written by Stacey Littlejohn, who will also serve as an executive producer.  Littlejohn has worked on various TV shows, including "All of Us," "Cedric the Entertainer Presents," and "The Hughleys." She will also serve as an executive producer.

Flavor Unit has previoulys produced a number of films including such Queen Latifah vehicles as Beauty Shop and Last Holiday and the upcoming film, Just Wright, starring Latifah and rapper/actor, Common.

Leonard Nimoy, Chris Nolan, Ridley Scott Headline Geek Event

Leonard Nimoy, Christopher Nolan and Ridley Scott Headline Los Angeles Times’ First-Ever Hero Complex Film Festival

June 11-13th Weekend to be Presented by Anime Expo

LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The Times Hero Complex, the go-to guide for all things geek, superheroic and sci-fi, enters a new dimension with the first annual Hero Complex Film Festival hosted by pop culture writer Geoff Boucher. The three-day event brings four iconic fan favorites to the big screen with the rare chance to experience live Q&A sessions with their legendary creators.

Leonard Nimoy, Christopher Nolan and Ridley Scott will talk about the making of “Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home;” “The Dark Knight;” and “Blade Runner” & “Alien.” Nimoy has just announced his retirement from acting and Nolan’s “Insomnia” will screen as a bonus-- adding even greater luster to this very special June 11-13 event. Nolan will also discuss the $1 billion box-office success of "The Dark Knight" and give a preview to his film "Inception," one of the most anticipated releases of 2010. Scott will delve into the influence of "Blade Runner," considered by many to be the greatest sci-fi film ever, and discuss his plans to return to the deep-space horror of "Alien" with a prequel.

"The initial idea behind Hero Complex was to write about the pop culture I love: sci-fi, fantasy, superheroes, graphic novels and horror and to cover these fanboy entertainments with sophistication and journalistic standards,” said Boucher. “Now, the festival allows The Times to bring even deeper insight into these vivid sectors of art and entertainment and no three names speak to the cerebral possibilities and creative greatness in these genres more than Ridley Scott, Leonard Nimoy and Christopher Nolan."

The first site by a major mainstream news outlet dedicated to genre-based film, TV and publishing projects, Hero Complex debuted in July 2008 and quickly became a wildly popular must-read. The Online Journalism Awards have named it 2009’s best “Online Blogging/Commentary, Large Site” and the blog has evolved as an emerging franchise for The Times including hosted screenings of upcoming releases, a comics/graphic novel area at the annual Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, an influential presence at the San Diego Comic-Con, featured content in the flagship Calendar section and a weekly page in Brand X.

The Hero Complex Film Festival is being undertaken in association with presenting sponsor Anime Expo.

“The last decade has seen the genre-film explode and we’ve designed the Hero Complex Film Festival to share The Times’ unique access to Hollywood’s top creators and their creations with devoted followers,” said EVP of Advertising and Marketing, John O’Loughlin. “We are continuing to build new experiential arenas around our unique coverage by which our advertising partners can more deeply engage an enthusiastic audience.”

Beginning today, tickets can be purchased for individual days or in a limited number of 3-day packages and the event schedule can be found at http://www.latimes.com/herocomplexfilmfest. Purchasers of the 3-day pass will also receive a limited edition print of the exclusive “Hero Complex Film Festival” poster designed by award-winning graphic novel creator Darwyn Cooke.

About the Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is the largest metropolitan daily newspaper in the country, with a daily readership of 2 million and 3 million on Sunday, and a combined print and interactive local weekly audience of 4.5 million. The fast-growing latimes.com draws over 10 million unique visitors monthly.

The Los Angeles Times Media Group businesses and affiliates also include The Envelope, Times Community Newspapers, LA, Los Angeles Times Magazine, Brand X, Hoy, and California Community News and - combined with the flagship Los Angeles Times - reach approximately 5.9 million or 44% of all adults in the Southern California marketplace. The Pulitzer Prize-winning Times has been covering Southern California for over 128 years and is part of Tribune Company, one of the country's leading media companies with businesses in publishing, the Internet and broadcasting. Additional information is available at http://latimes.com/aboutus.

New "Nightmare on Elm Street" Scary for Real

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 29 (of 2010) by Leroy Douresseaux


A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010)
Running time: 95 minutes (1 hour, 35 minutes)
MPAA – R for strong bloody horror violence, disturbing images, terror and language
DIRECTOR: Samuel Bayer
WRITERS: Wesley Strick and Eric Heisserer; from a story by Wesley Strick (based on the story and characters created by Wes Craven)
PRODUCERS: Michael Bay, Andrew Form, and Bradley Fuller
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Jeff Cutter (director of photography)
EDITOR: Glen Scantlebury

HORROR/THRILLER

Starring: Jackie Earle Haley, Kyle Gallner, Rooney Mara, Katie Cassidy, Thomas Dekker, Kellan Lutz, and Clancy Brown

The new film, A Nightmare on Elm Street, is, of course, a remake of the 1984 horror classic of the same title. While people unfamiliar with the original can certainly enjoy this film (and will), I think that it is better if you have seen the original because you can better appreciate the new ideas. The 2010 return to Elm Street is less a remake than it is a re-imagining or retelling of a beloved ghost story in a way that adds fresh fear to boogeyman.

After the peculiar death of a classmate, a group of teenagers in suburban (and fictional), Springwood, Ohio, discover that they have more in common than they ever imagined. First, a horribly disfigured killer is hunting the teens in their dreams. Secondly, he may a mysterious man named Freddy Krueger (Jackie Earle Haley), a dark figure from a shared past they didn’t even know they had. When one of them, Nancy Holbrook (Rooney Mara), discovers that she is of particular interest to Freddy, she joins forces with the smart kid, Quentin Smith (Kyle Gallner), to stop Freddy before he kills them all.

A Nightmare on Elm Street 2010 could have dutifully grinded out the usual thrills of a routine horror movie – people jumping from around corners, monsters suddenly sliding into view from outside the picture frame, pets knocking down knick-knacks to make sounds that chill the blood, etc. This new Nightmare is more thoughtful, and the familiar scare tactics have a delightfully, chilling new edge to them. That’s not just because CGI can exploit the landscape of dreams and nightmares and do things that writer/director Wes Craven could not have done in the original film.

As the new Freddy, Academy Award-nominee Jackie Earle Haley (Little Children) is so malevolent and menacing as Krueger that he actually seems to embody the remorseless killer. Haley is able to do something that the original Freddy, Robert Englund, was probably not allowed to do – make it obvious that Freddy has a hard-on for murder and a taste for slashing up mommy and daddy’s pride and joy. Freddy’s murderous impulses aren’t just about revenge; they’re also about perversion.

This movie feels like everyone involved – the filmmakers, the creative crew, and the cast – really wanted to make a good film. Director Samuel Bayer (who directed the music video for Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” among many others) explores the range of color, sound, design, movement, staging, etc. and creates a scary moving picture that is genuine unsettling. Bayer’s A Nightmare on Elm Street is like a bad dream that you want to leave because you know that there is absolutely going to be some screwed up stuff happening. If a director wants to get fans off his back about remaking a beloved horror flick, this is the way to do it; give them a brutal bonbon like this new Nightmare.

Bayer had a good script from which to work. Writers Wesley Strick and Eric Heisserer bring more dark magic to Freddy Krueger, presenting new ideas about how Freddy can stalk and kill even when his victims are not sleeping.

Ultimately, what really sells this movie is the young cast playing the teens. Maybe no one told them that the Screen Actors Guild is unlikely to hand out an “Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture” nomination (let alone a win) to the cast of a horror movie. As an ensemble, however, I believe they were as earnest and as hard working for Bayer as they would be for Martin Scorsese. This is the art of the convincing performance.

I wouldn’t put A Nightmare on Elm Street 2010 next to an outright horror masterpiece like The Exorcist, but this suspenseful, blood-freezing treat is the real deal in horror flicks.

7 of 10
B+

Sunday, May 02, 2010

Oliver Stone Developing Television Drama

Oliver Stone and Bruce Wagner to Develop One Hour Dramatic Series for EPIX

Academy Award winning Stone Latest Talent to Join Standout Creative Roster for EPIX

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oscar-winning producer/writer/director Oliver Stone and Bruce Wagner have entered into a development deal with EPIX it was announced today. Their first project will be a one hour scripted dramatic series, “Still Holding,” based on the iconoclastic Wagner’s critically acclaimed novel of the same name. The series will explore the colliding worlds of three disparate people in Los Angeles, and the violent consequences of love and betrayal, of holding on and letting go. Stone and Wagner will serve as executive producers. They previously worked together on the mini-series “Wild Palms.”

Stone is the latest award-winning talent to develop original programming for the multiplatform premium entertainment channel, video-on-demand and online service. "I'm interested in the possibilities in television," Stone explained. "When a company like EPIX comes along, it's a chance to break new ground. They want to make their mark. They want to entertain and provoke; they don't want their drama or comedy watered down. The team at EPIX showed early on they could provide the supportive environment and creative freedom necessary to recognize the vision Bruce and I have for 'Still Holding." EPIX has the two vital organs that are essential to all human endeavors: guts and heart."

Mark Greenberg, President and CEO of EPIX, added: “EPIX offers a unique canvas for talent to fully realize their creative vision across multiple screens on television and online. We’re thrilled that filmmakers and writers have flocked to our network with bold, daring concepts – they truly get what we’re trying to do. To have Oliver and Bruce come to us for his first scripted drama is a validation of what we are trying to do at EPIX -- backing our talent and giving them the creative freedom they deserve.”

Bruce Wagner has been a Pen Faulkner finalist for his novel Chrysanthemum Palace. He alsoco-wrote and produced Tracy Ullman's show “State of the Union” for Showtime and is a frequent contributor to The New York Times, The New Yorker, Vogue and Vanity Fair.

EPIX’s aggressive roster of development projects includes the recently shot “Tough Trade,” a one-hour drama pilot starring Sam Shepherd and Lucas Black with music, by Academy Award winner T-Bone Burnett (“Crazy Heart”) The project, about three generations of a music dynasty set in Nashville, is executive produced by Jenji Kohan, Sean Furst and Bryan Furst, and created by Chris Offutt. Also recently announced was the half hour single camera comedy “iCon” from the legendary Emmy Award-winner Larry Charles (“Seinfeld”, “Entourage”, “Curb Your Enthusiasm”) and Media Rights Capital (MRC). Charles will co-write the script with Dan Lyons, a technology consultant for Newsweek, the creator of the popular Fake Steve Jobs blog and author of “Options: The Secret Life of Steve Jobs” The show is a savage satire centering on a technology tycoon whose ego is a study in power and greed.


About EPIX
EPIX, a joint venture between Viacom Inc. (NYSE: VIA and VIA.B), its Paramount Pictures unit, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc. (MGM) and Lionsgate (NYSE: LGF), is a next-generation premium entertainment channel, video-on-demand and online service launched on October 30, 2009. With access to more than 15,000 motion pictures spanning the vast libraries of its partners and other studios, EPIX provides a powerful entertainment experience with more feature films on demand and online and more HD movies than any other service. It is the only premium service providing its entire monthly line-up of new Hollywood titles, classic feature films, original series, music and comedy specials through the linear channel, video-on-demand and online at EpixHD.com, the leading online destination for movies. EPIX has made the commitment to deliver the industry’s most expansive online collection of movies, making more than 3,000 titles available online to subscribers via its enhanced service, EPIX Megaplex, on www.EpixHD.com. The service is available to over 30 million homes nationwide through carriage agreements with Verizon FiOS, DISH Network, Cox Communications, Mediacom, Charter Communications and NCTC.

For more information about EPIX, go to http://www.epixhd.com/.

Second Elm Street, "Freddy's Revenge," Poor Follow-up to Classic

TRASH IN MY EYE No. 127 (of 2003) by Leroy Douresseaux


A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge (1985)
Running time: 87 minutes (1 hour, 27 minutes)
DIRECTOR: Jack Shoulder
WRITER: David Chaskin (based on the characters created by Wes Craven)
PRODUCER: Robert Shaye
CINEMATOGRAPHER: Jacques Haitkin and Christopher Tufty
EDITORS: Bob Brady and Arline Garson

HORROR

Starring: Robert Englund, Mark Patton, Kim Meyers, Robert Rusler, Clu Gulager, Hope Lange, Marshal Bell, Melinda O. Free, and Tom McFadden

With Freddy Krueger, the boogeyman of the A Nightmare on Elm Street films, set to arise again in the upcoming Freddy Vs. Jason, I thought I should see one of the two “Elm Street” films that I hadn’t seen, A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge. In this the first of many sequels, Jesse Walsh (Mark Patton) and his family move into the home that Freddy’s (Robert Englund) evil spirit haunted in the original film. Freddy’s uses Jesse’s body as his new conduit into the real world where he can get at a fresh batch of Elm Street teens. You see it was the parents of those Elm Street kiddies who, in an act of vigilante justice, murdered Krueger, a child killer who’d evaded the law. Years later, Freddy, the embodiment of evil, comes back as a malevolent spirit who haunts the dreams of his murderers’ offspring and kills them in their sleep.

Freddy’s Revenge isn’t so much an entire movie as it is part of a movie. As an entry in a long running series, it’s barely a chapter. The movie begins with a lot of poorly constructed setup. It’s boring because we don’t need to know the history of Elm Street. The audience knows Freddy will come; drop the bull and bring on the bad guy. Instead, we get a lot of scenes of Jesse having difficulty adjusting to school and to life as a teen, although he does have a girlfriend. Jesse’s role as a teenage misfit is mostly boring, and I couldn’t care less about the rest of the cretins who populate his high school world. The show doesn’t really start jumping until you-know-who shows up, but by the time Freddy really busts out, the movie is about over.

Clearly the writer and the director of Freddy’s Revenge didn’t have a grasp of the character like original writer/director and Freddy creator Wes Craven did. They did keep Freddy carefully cloaked in the inky darkness of night, his face mostly hidden in shadows, a creepy and convincing bogeyman (gleefully played by Englund), but they didn’t let Freddy run amuck enough. The great thing about the original was that Freddy really got to let loose. He was a truly frightening monster, especially when we couldn’t see him, but we knew he was there. There are some interesting moments here, mostly to do with Freddy. I must say that this film isn’t as bad as I expected it to be, but it’s really a clunky film. It’s feels like what it is – a sequel the studio rushed out to catch some of the good buzz left over from the first film. It’s cynical, cheap, and sad, because if they’d taken their time, the filmmakers had enough good ideas to at least make a really good scary movie.

3 of 10
C-