Father Geek here for the Euro-AICN weekly column... Its a short one this week but it packs a powerful punch...
First with this GREAT interview with HELLBOY director Guillermo del Toro that was sent to us here at World Geek Headquarters...
Hi there, here is the link special for you:
Go Here For A Very Cool, Major HELLBOY Interview
I'll be putting actual video clips on this official site when it finally
goes live again.
Now here's Robert at our offices in Rome with the rest of this week's report...
Hi people. A short column this week, but some cool stuff for you. First, we have great ads of Two Towers, and then a full report of the the Stockholm Film Festival. Enjoy!
The Two Towers
I found three great french ads of the LOTR phone card, the videogame and a show about our favourite movie. You can see them at the top right of this page:
Just Click Here To See Them All
You can click on the thumbnails to see larger versions. Below, there are two italian ads for the Decipher Cards
Hope you like it...
Mikael from Stockholm is attending the local festival, which from his report seems very interesting. Let’s read…
Hi, I choose a few movies that I thought were good/interesting/cool and not covered on AICN. The Stockholm Int' Film Festival is still only half way, so maybe I'll write some more reviews later. (If you can stand more ;) )
GO! (d. Isao Yukisada, w. Yosuke Kubozuka, Kou Shibasaki, Japan)
One of the first sequences in GO! begins as the main character Sugihara is about to play the "Super Great Chicken Race" in a subway. He stands on the rail while the train arrives and right before the train hits him, starts running. He outruns the train and keeps on running to the next station.
This sets the tone for at least the first half of the film, with speeded motion and lots of cool cutting.
The story is about Sugihara, a Korean born in Japan, making him a "foreigner". He changes schools from the strict korean to the "normal" japanese and is immediately is bullied, though not for long. He responds by hitting back... literally! He continues to be confronted by students and continues punching them out.
The violence in this movie is really exaggerated and slapstick and an older guy sitting next to me in the theatre was commenting through the movie how horrible it was. He probably hasn't seen a lot of japanese movies, since this kind of violence is quite common. (Battle Royale and especially a new strange movie called Suicide Club where 54 japanese school girls commit suicide together. And that's only the opening sequence!).
It eventually develops into a more "dramatic" movie; romance (with Kou Shibasaki, a.k.a. "Psycho Bitch" from Battle Royale. At least that's what me and my friends dubbed her) and discussion on how important nationality really is. The fast pace slows down, dramatically and in the end it becomes a bit too slow. But I still really recommend this movie, because it's crammed with so much it's got something for everyone. And it's got great humor too!
Also I'd like to recommend a short movie that was screened before GO! - "15" (Singapore), by Royston Tan. I've seen it three times now and it's still really fun. Three gang members (supposedly real ones) talk about life, girls and do a little fighting. Really cool! And also the photography is excellent.)
The Eye (d. the Pang Brothers, w. Angelica Lee, Lawrence Chou, Hong Kong)
I already read a review on AICN that pretty much said what I thought about this movie, but I'll repeat some.
The Pang Brothers previous movie Bangkok Dangerous was cool, but to me only sign of what was to come. And now it has come; the Eye. Some story elements resemble the Sixth Sense, e.g. she can see dead people, but the rest i really original and really scary! :)
Excellent photography and cutting, special effects and scare tactics. Anyway, I wont go into much more since this movie's already been covered.
JUST SEE IT!
Also I want to give more attention to two short films:
Good Dog (by Antoine Raimbault, France) was screened before Dark Water and I honestly thought they were equally good. Short, straight to the point classic horror. If you can, you should see this one; a kid has to stay all alone in his big house, with only his "good dog" to protect him.
Golden Gate/Palace II (by Fernando Meirelles & Kátia Lund, Brazil)
A really cool short, there's some real energy behind this movie. Two street kids in Brazil get in to trouble, stealing doors and delivering drugs. I really didn't think it would be this good. Try and seet it somewhere if you can find it.
Well, hopefully I'll see a couple of more good films I can write about, I'll get in touch next week. I'm seeing a "surprise"-movie on friday, maybe that'll be something cool?
/eMeL
