CELLULOID BURNING

Everyone knows the economy kinda sucks right now. Jobs are hard to come by and money may be tight for a lot of people. For many out there, going out to a movie theater may provide some desperately needed escapism/entertainment/glimmers-of-hope-in-a-sea-of-crushing-disappointments. There’s only one problem:

Watching movies at the theater is f*cking expensive!
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Gaiking was a Japanese Super robot cartoon series back in the 70’s.

Now some folks are making a live action adaption of it. As a mecha/giant robot fan, this has me stoked. It has a giant robot with a goddamn skull on its chest. I’ll be there on opening night.

Well Ethan Hunt is gonna be back and his first mission in 4 years is to find a new director. My favorite thing about Mission Impossible movies is that right after one is released there is always talk from Cruise and the director of that movie about their ideas for the next Mission Impossible movie…well that is always talk because the behind the scenes chatter of all the MI movies is how much each respective director hated working with Tom Cruise. That since he was the producer of the movie and it’s star, the director pretty much as to do everything Cruise wants. The fact that the trio of movies have turned out as good as they are is a minor miracle.

Next up on the the Cruise ego vehicle is Brad Bird, mostly known for his animation work: Iron Giant (very underrated), The Incredibles and Ratatouille. He is an interesting choice to say the least and I would definitely like to see his take on the franchise (almost as much as I would have like to have seen Joe Carnahan’s take before he walked off the project weeks before production).

Via Heat Vision Blog

Hong Kong based Media Distributers recently showed the promo reel below highlighting their upcoming 2010 releases. The quality is less than to be desired, but it’s a special treat getting to look at these types of sales/promo reels as they are usually only seen my regional and international film buyers.

The highlights include glimpses at the following movies:
-Fire of Conscious – directed by Dante Lam and starring Leon Lai and Richie Jen
-Legend of the Fist: the Return of Chen Zhen – Directed by Andrew Lau and staring Donnie Yen and Shu Qi
-Reign of Assassins – produced by John Woo and staring Michelle Yeoh
-Punished – produced by Johnnie To starring Anthony Wong and Richie Jen
-An Untitled Johnnie To Movie – starring Lau Ching-wan and Richie Jen
-Single Men & Women – directed by Johnnie To and Wai Ka-fai staring Daniel Wu and Louis Koo

On paper it does look like a strong crop of movies, with 3 movies alone from Johnnie To… not bad at all

Up today is the first full trailer of the latest Donnie Yen/Wilson Yip/Sammo Hung future classic Ip Man 2. The trailer has no english subtitles and I can’t quite tell what the heck the story is… but does that really matter? The fighting looks awesome!

Repo Men is Blade Runner (1982) running with scissors into Repo! The Genetic Opera (2008), but with a better soundtrack.
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Guess what surfaced on the internet today… a brand new teaser trailer to Donnie Yen’s Ip Man 2…. sequel to possibly the best martial arts movie of the last decade. Donnie Yen has been on fire the last 5 years or so and here is hoping that this sequel will add and enhance his string of fine martial arts flicks.

And as an excuse to show another AWESOME trailer, before Donnie Yen (and Yuen Woo Ping) became synonymous for big budget martial arts spectacles… they made this awesomely bad, yet awesomely good breakdance martial arts classic, Mismatched Couples!

From the minds that brought you The Skulls, xXx, Stealth, The Island, Pearl Harbor and Armageddon comes the remake to 80’s shlock classic (I say this with great affection) MONSTER SQUAD! Rob Cohen the producer of the original is set to direct and produce along with Michael Bay.

Dear Hollywood, thanks for ruining more of my childhood memories….

Via Deadline Hollywood

Ok the first official trailer for Tony Jaa’s upcoming snorfest, Ong Bak 3 has just hit the innerwebs and… well… judge for yourself. Excuse me while I play it again and fall asleep on my keyboard.

Dead Leaves is Ren and Stimpy meets Akira, but tripping balls on mescaline

Some of you out there may remember the short animated series Aeon Flux on MTV. This was when MTV didn’t revolve around insipidly stupid reality show contestants and when kids knew how to stay off my goddamn lawn. It was a cool, stylized, somewhat cerebral sci-fi action series geared towards older audiences with violence, sex, and trippy visuals. Dead Leaves is somewhat like a gonzo version of Aeon Flux that doesn’t take itself too seriously with every available knob cranked to 11 and all gauges firmly in the red.
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