Powers trailer

One of the best comic book series of the last 20 years is coming to tv, via the Playstation network. Powers, has a great cast and people working behind the camera.

Free sampler from Slumberland Records

Slumberland Records has a 25th anniversary sampler that is available for free on Amazon. http://www.amazon.com/o/ASIN/B00NNK32CM?tag=adapas02-20 Here is a music video of the Crystal Stilts track.

Trailer for a new film by Park Chan-wook

A new film by Park Chan-wook. Starring Daniel Wu and Jack Huston,

Tsui Hark's The Blade on youtube!

One of my favorite films, not just Hong Kong movies, is not readily available on dvd. But some kind person put up the whole movie on youtube with English subtitles. Tsui Hark's The Blade is definitely worth 100 minutes of your time.

Tower Block (UK,2012)

Heavily influenced by John Carpenter's Assault on Precinct 13, Tower Block has a group of high rise residents held captive by a sniper. Decent suspense with minor, forgivable plot holes. Not available on netflix, either streaming or disc.

Open Grave (2014)

Watched Open Grave today. The basic plot review made it seem to be a zombie film with people trapped in a house with no memory of who they are, or why they are there. The cast is good with with Sharlto Copley, Thomas Kretchmann and Josie Ho. Ho was the star of Dream Home, my favorite film of 2010 so I was excited to see her in a non Asian film. Unfortunately she plays a mute in the film so her role is limited. Worth checking out on a lazy afternoon.

Nowhere to Hide (Korea, 1999)

Here is the intro scene to the Korean film Nowhere To Hide. I saw it at the Music Box twice, when it played Chicago in 1999. It is definitely worth checking out, Although the US disc cut over 10 minutes, The movie makes great use of the Bee Gees song Holiday.

John Michael McDonagh's The Second Death

Another Irish short film, this time by John Michael McDonagh, The Second Death, stars 3 future members of the Game Of Thrones.

Martin McDonagh's Six Shooter short film

Very good, twisted Irish comedy. By the director of In Bruges and starring Brendan Gleeson

Trailer for The Dead 2

Trailer for The Dead 2, a zombie film set in India. The first movie was set in Africa and was pretty decent for a low budget film. This looks better than the first one.

Ending of Angel Enforcers

The ending of Angel Enforcers from 1989. A slightly lower budget attempt at John Woo style action. This time female cops verses Kenneth Tsang (Chow Yun Fat's manager in The Killer). I was never able to get this film at the store but now it is streaming on amazon prime under the title Angel Terminators.

Fists Of Fire BBC documentary on the Shaw Brothers from 1975

30 minute BBC documentary from 1975 on the Shaw Brothers movie studio. Lots of great behind the scenes footage. Shows the foley sound effect work.Highly recommended.

Sogo Ishii's Shuffle

Sogo Ishii's Shuffle is a proto cyberpunk mash up of Run Lola Run and Taxi Driver, in mostly black and white with a noisy jazz/funk soundtrack. It is the first adaptation of the work of Otomo Katsuhiro, the creator of Akira. 30 minutes long and subtitles, if you use the "cc" button on youtube. Ishii also directed the film Electric Dragon 80,000 V

Mad Max Fury Road

The trailer for the new Mad Max film looks great. Looks like mostly practical stunt work.

Latest Stephen Chow film, Journey To The West

The latest Stephen Chow film, Journey To The West is now streaming on netflix. He only directed it but it still is pretty funny. Much better than CJ7. And it stars Shu Qi,

The Knife - live version of Heartbeats

New movie based on a Philip K. Dick novel, stars Alanis Morissette

The effects don't look that great but the actors don't seem that wooden. I would watch it streaming, but for now here's the trailer.

John Oliver is so right about the World Cup and FIFA

A very good explanation of what FIFA is, and why it must change, by John Oliver on his HBO show Last Week Tonight.

REC4 trailer

The trailer for REC4 looks pretty good. The first REC was a great twist on the zombie film and found footage films. REC2 & 3 were enjoyable. Part 4 looks like it is set on a ship.

Joe Lansdale's Cold In July

One of my favorite authors of the last 20 years is Joe Lansdale. He has written novels and short stories in practically every genre, but in the 90's he was most famous for his horror and crime novels. He is a prolific short story writer. One of his short stories was adapted in to the movie Bubba Ho-Tep. Now one of his early novels, Cold In July has been adapted in to a feature film, by Jim Mickle. It has a great cast, Michael C. Hall, Don Johnson, and Sam Shepard. I hope that the film gets a theatrical release but it will be available on VOD on May 23rd.

Chinese Sci-Fi film starring Ai Weiwei

Here's video for an apocalyptic sci-fi film secretly shot in China. It stars Ai Weiwei and Christopher Doyle is the cameraman. They've met their kickstarter goal.

New movie version of The Bride With White Hair story

One of my favorite Hong Kong films from the 1990's is The Bride With White Hair. The director, Ronny Yu, took inspiration from Francis Ford Coppola's Dracula and tried to keep all of the special effects in camera. The new version of the story is called The White Haired Witch From Lunar Kingdom and it stars Fan Bing Bing. Comes out in April. One of my favorite Hong Kong directors, Tsui Hark is credited with artistic director.

Tony Ja's The Protector 2 US trailer

It has been a year since my last post but I hope to be more frequent. The sequel to one of the best martial arts films of the 2000's gets a US release next month. The Protector 2 looks like it will be better than Ong Bak 2 or Ong Bak 3. It costars the RZA as the film's villain, and that should mean a good soundtrack.