The Movie:

Known in China as Twins Effect II (a sequel in name only to the first film, though they share leading ladies), Patrick Leung and Corey Yuen's Blade Of Kings (or as it's referred to in the trailer on this release Blade Of Roses) isn't really much more than a starring feature for Charlene Choi and Gillian Chung, the two lovely ladies who make up the pop group Twin in their native China. Borrowing elements from English legends and mixing them up with their own local folklore, the filmmakers have made a bit of a mess here but there are interesting moments and a few cool cast members to keep things interesting.

The story is set in an unnamed past where the nasty Queen (Ying Qu) rules over the land of Amazons and, due to a row with her former lover, decided that all men must be slaves for the women of the land. Things have deteriorated so much for the men in...Read the entire review

THE MOVIE:

Mamoru Oshii's Assault Girls is slight in every sense of the word. For his first full-length live action solo endeavor in years, Oshii delivers an inconsequential bit of ponderous video game inspired fluff. Assault Girls is even a slight to Avalon, Oshii's 2001 film, with which it shares a common gaming universe. While Avalon was thoughtful, engrossing and peppered with enough action to spark the senses, Assault Girls proves to be a hollow and utterly forgettable experience.

The problems start early as 'Show, Don't Tell' is ignored so the film can tell...and tell...and tell. In fact, roughly the first 8 minutes of the film (which is only 70 minutes long) consist of a long and unnecessary section of stock footage introducing us to a world where reality has subjugated imagin...Read the entire review

The Product:
There are certain subjects that cannot function as the subtext to a standard motion picture. You can't, for example, force race or abortion into a typical teen farce and expect things to work. Similarly, religion and politics tend to cloud things considerably, making dramatics or thrills that much more difficult to achieve. Similarly, the Holocaust is such a narrative no-no that you just can't go around tossing it into any story you want. For the most part, the drama Spring 1941, tries to avoid such struggles. Indeed, when it stays within the complicated motivations of the characters, the movie kinds of works. But the minute it steps into Final Solution territory, with goofy grinning Nazis killing children willy-nilly, the film loses its focus and falls apart - and considering how tenuous its grip was initially, that's fatal.

The Plot:
Artur Planck is a succ...Read the entire review

So,

Yeah, that's kinda how I feel too.

Eve (Alexia Fast) is ringing in her Sweet Sixteen with a slumber party. Maybe you're wondering what's on the docket tonight. Pillow fights? Pedicures? Macramé? Sudoku? ...Read the entire review

The Product:
What's worse - a movie that wastes your time by trying to pass off fantasy as full blown recreationist reality, or a movie that does so with the intent purpose of pulling the horror film wool over your eyes? Put another way, is it a bigger cinematic sin to fake the truth, or to pass it off as the same? That's the problem with The Greatest American Snuff Film (amplified from "Great" for this new DVD release). Supposedly based on the serial killing crime spree of William Allen Grone - a name that even Google can't find among its multi-gazillons of files - and drenched in the kind of first year film student desire to shock with sleaze and sensationalism, this overlong exercise in boredom can't even pull off its title promise. Instead, it offers 90 minutes of filmic farting around before really pissing us off with some clearly counterfeit "evidence".

The Plot:
W...Read the entire review

The Movie:

Directed by Wilson Yip and written by Edmond Wong (who previously worked together on Dragon Tiger Gate), 2008's Ip Man, which beings just before the Sino Japanese war starts, tells the true life story of Ip Man (who would later mentor Bruce Lee, and who is played here by Donnie Yen), the grand master of Wing Chun and the finest martial artist in all of Fo Shan, China. Popular throughout the community for defending the town's honor against some northerners who would like to see Fo Shon's martial arts community brought down, he and his wife (Xiong Dai Lin) and son enjoy a good life together. All of this changes when the Japanese invade and then occupy Fo Shon and claim Ip Man's mansion as their headquarters. Forced to live in squalid conditions with the rest of the population, it isn't long before he's shoveling coal just to scrape together enough money to ...Read the entire review

The Film:

The Product:
When you think of Japanese horror films, two distinct types come to mind. The first features folklore, superstition, and the standard long haired ghost girl dynamic. It's the scare standard bearer which lead to a massive Western interest, influx, and eventual influence. The other is far more seedy, a gore drenched geek show which pushes the boundaries of violence into sickening, pseudo-pornographic places. Names like Guinea Pig and Meatball Machine are just a few of cinematic substrata's 'juiciest' offerings. With Goth, however, a new category can finally come into play - the thoughtful, plaintive thriller. The premise offers something both sinister and suspicious - two young Japanese teens, each obsessed with death, begin investigating a string of serial killings in their hometown. But instead of exploring the grim and often grotesque manner in which these ...Read the entire review

THE MOVIE:

I was prepared for Negative Happy Chainsaw Edge. Chainsaw wielding brutes. Schoolgirls with killer moves. Schoolboys with awesomecrazycool hair. I was ready for all of it and yet I was surprised. While Negative Happy Chainsaw Edge features all the anticipated ingredients, it definitely has a very different idea as to how they should be combined. Rather than a schlocky gorefest, we get a thoughtful look at the nature of grief filtered through adolescent sensibilities.

"Damn, he topped me."
These are the words used by Yosuke (Hayato Ichihara) when referring to his friend, Noto (Yosuke Asari) who died in a motorcycle accident. Odd as they may seem, they represent his way of dealing with a grief that has no outward expression. He feels numb and incomplete which makes him do foolish things, like stealing food, in order to feel anything at a...Read the entire review

The Show:
Many episodic television dramas struggle with the requirement, at least in their incarnations produced in the United States, that each week, for twenty plus episodes a year, they present a conflict and satisfactorily resolve it. Each episode must be a self contained story, even if greater overall plot lines and themes are explored over the course of the season. This can lead to a number of the episodes, even in high quality shows, ending up as mediocre at best. The Canadian drama Durham County dispenses with this requirement, and spends its six episode first season taking a leisurely, if not always comfortable, stroll through the lives of its main characters, and observing how the one central conflict impacts them all.

The story revolves around two old friends, now something more like enemies, Mike Sweeney (Hugh Dillon) and Ray Prager (Justin Louis). Mike is a homicide det...Read the entire review

Hard Revenge Milly:
After watching the Making-Of featurettes for Hard Revenge, Milly and Hard Revenge, Milly: Bloody Battle, it's hard to doubt the sincerity of Japanese writer/ director Takanori Tsujimoto (Kill) and special effects artist Yoshihiro Nishimura (Tokyo Gore Police). Taking in these movies with little-to-no prior knowledge, however, might give you the impression you're watching almost too-clever satire or boutique chop-chop-hack. What else to make of this short double feature from Well Go USA's 'Hyper Violence Collection,' featuring deceptively little of substance save ADD-addled fights and people getting their jaws punched off in bloody geysers.

Now that I've cleared the room of all but who truly seek such things, let's talk about -
Hard Revenge, Milly: Tsujimoto's first solo outing, a 45-minute ode to tough women, florid fisticuffs, and...Read the entire review

THE MOVIE:

All movies pass through the editing room on their way to being a finished product but some of them really get edited. They get chopped up and reassembled while trying to satisfy the arbitrary needs of demographics or to address plot points that were previously salient. I'll Believe You is definitely one of those productions. Although the finished film is still an upbeat mélange of science fiction and comedy, its first act went through major edits which led to some definite pacing issues later on.

Dale Sweeney (David Alan Basche) has, in his own words, the 'best job in the world with the worst time slot'. He is the DJ for a radio show in Melbourne, Florida dedicated to uncovering the truth behind aliens, UFOs and other assorted unexplained phenomena. Unfortunately his show is on during the graveyard shift which means that he only has a few loyal listeners. ...Read the entire review

The Film:

The Movie:
If you like watching arterial blood being sprayed across the bare breasts of well endowed women, you're in luck! The Death Factory Bloodletting provides scads of this kind of thing, along with numerous gruesome murders, shootings, cannibalistic mutant women, lesbian make out sessions, crazed Christian fanatics and large handguns hidden in vaginas. If this is not your cup of gore, then this is a film to avoid, as it does not provide much in entertainment outside the parameters of the above list.

This is not to say that The Death Factory Bloodletting is a bad film, in the appropriate context. It is a film aimed at a very particular constituency, which effectively provides just the sort of content that this constituency desires. The story centers on two people who use immoral means to reach at least putatively good ends. The first introduced is Denny, played by N...Read the entire review

One of the generalities that people assume about martial films is that being a master of some hand-to-hand (and foot-to-foot) style is the most dangerous occupation. After all, that's the genre most people associate with martial films, the chop socky, kung fu flick where someone has to master some empty hand style to fend off or get revenge on a bad guy. But truthfully, the hand-to-hand combat artist has it the easiest. It is the sword master that has it rough. The swordplay genre didn't take off like the kung fu flick, so, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon aside, there isn't the same pop culture history, thus fewer people know the anxieties of the sword master.

The difference is pretty simple. Aside from the occasional lopped off limb or attained and learned weapon/manual, most swordplay films establish heroes who are already masters of their art. So, there often isn't that learning curve or ev...Read the entire review

The Film:

Poster Artwork from Nipponcinema.com

The Film:
The mistake some people make (and by some people I must confess that I mean myself), is that they often think that just because they love a certain genre, they will love all films in that genre. I've made that mistake in the past, and continue you to do so frequently, especially as I seek out different genre entries that may net some gem waiting to be "discovered." This is especially true for me when it comes to kung fu movies, which I love, but ranks among the genres where my knowledge is most limited. And as a result, I find myself, from time to time, watching stuff that does very little other than rob me of my time.

As someone who has long loved martial arts action movies, especially those produced by Hong Kong's Shaw Brothers, I have, in recent years, found myself eagerly rushing towards any and every DVD release that comes out of their massive catalog. Of course, among these...Read the entire review

The Movie:

Let's face it, one of the allures of having a big screen television is being able to show off beautiful landscapes and scenery in the luster that is high definition. In fact, it seems like when you get a new television (or the near mandatory high definition programming package), you pick up newer programming that you wouldn't have seen otherwise. For me, it was the Discovery Channel show Sunrise Earth. The show basically covers sunrises in various areas of America, and the world. Shows that focus on nature, and do it in high definition, are a good excuse to show off what high definition can do, and that's the mission of Experience Africa. I should note that the fill title is LCD/Plasma Ultimate HD Experience Africa. Featuring extended shots of the African landscape set to music from African composers, the hour-long feature shows the wonders of nature.

...Read the entire review

The Movie:
Red Victoria is an ultra-low budget horror comedy whose reach exceeds its grasp. The film has big ideas, and the film makers obviously enjoyed themselves making it. It fails more than it succeeds, but still represents a fairly impressive achievement considering the constraints under which it was made.

The story of Red Victoria is one that has a familiar ring to it. Our hero Jim, played by writer, director and producer Anthony Brownrigg, is a high minded screenwriter, interested only in "saying something" and high art. Unfortunately, he can't get any work and needs to make his house payment. His agent suggests that he write a horror script for some quick, easy cash. At first Jim is reluctant, but eventually succumbs, lowering himself into the gutter to pound out a horror script. Try as he might, he meets with no success, even going so far as to recruit the assistance...Read the entire review

The Movie:

The first thing worth noting about Lost Concert Series: Dean Martin is that the title is a complete misnomer. This isn't a concert at all; it is, in fact, a collection of musical performances from Martin's early TV appearances, mostly his gigs hosting The Colgate Comedy Hour with then-partner Jerry Lewis. The title and cover art are therefore more than a little deceptive, showing a 60s-era Dino in front of a Las Vegas skyline (these TV shows were done in Los Angeles). Not that the title is apparently that important; even the distributors aren't quite sure, with the disc titled "Dean Martin: Legends In Concert" on the on-screen menu and "Dino: The Early Performances" at the beginning of the program. Throw 'em all on the wall and see what sticks, I guess.

Titling gaffes aside, this is a pretty decent compilation of Martin tunes, though most are in a hurried or...Read the entire review

THE MOVIES:

No one would deny that Pedro Almodovar is a singular voice in world cinema. The Spanish auteur has his own peculiar fetishes, brought to life with a bizarre sense of humor and a particular sensitivity to people on the fringe. His movies tend to be about women in the middle of some peril, searching for some kind of relief, often from the men in their lives, often finding that relief in sisterhood. He also likes people who walk on the wrong side of the tracks, be they drug addicts, performers, transgender personalities, or what have you. Like a Spanish John Waters, Pedro sees the wrong side of the tracks as the right side.

That said, not every artist can paint a masterpiece every time out, and the two films in the Essentials Director Series - Pedro A...Read the entire review

THE MOVIES:

"At times you must make your way with a dagger."

Jean-Luc Godard is often the first name people go to when they want to invoke the spirit of difficult, deliberately challenging cinema. A leader of the French "Nouvelle Vague," bursting out of the French magazine Cahiers du Cinema in the late 1950s, Godard was a cinematic gadfly, employing his vast knowledge and love for movies of the past in such a way as to break them apart and look for something new. Often shooting in a loose manner, capturing what he could guerilla-style on the Parisian streets, he saw film as a mode of expression, one that could uniquely provoke. He set free image, dialogue, and other conventions of motion pictures like a prankster unmooring hot air balloons, glee...Read the entire review

The Movies:

Wellspring has repackaged two of their single disc Werner Herzog films for this Essential Directors Series boxed set release. The only difference here is the packaging - everything inside the box is identical to the single disc releases of White Diamond and The Wheel Of Time that came out a few years back.

White Diamond:

Graham Dorrington is a London-base aeronautics specialist who has spent the last few years of his life designing and building an airship. Not a plane or a helicopter but an airship - basically a zeppelin. His reasoning is that airplanes are too loud, whereas with an airship, you can fly with virtually no noise pollution at all. Dorrington has made some interesting alterations to his project. He's replaced the hydrogen that was used in older blimps like the Hindenburg with helium, making it a much safer vehicle and he's sca...Read the entire review

Imagine my surprise upon discovery that Frostbitten (Frostbiten), a solid horror flick from director Anders Banke, reigns as the first dedicated vampire film to come out of Sweden. Uncovering said info after viewing this slick, comedic bloodbath impressed me. Aside from a few classic genre sacrifices and a flimsy story, Sweden's colorfully cold stab at vampirism satisfies in humorously macabre fashion.


The Film:

The story hooks us from the start: A man, Caucasian, early thirties, suddenly finds himself on the New York subway. He has no idea how he got on the subway. He has no idea where the subway is taking him. And then he realizes that he has no idea who he is at all. He has no memory whatsoever before an early morning subway ride.

He spends his next few hours in a wide-eyed daze, first trying to learn as much as he can on his own (the train was headed to Coney Island, he discovered, but where is that?), then at a nearby hospital, hoping someone there can help him. With no luck (and no identification), he's administered to the psychiatric ward, a blank slate, terrified and alone.

As the day progresses, the mystery is cracked and his identity is revealed as Doug Bruce, a Londoner living in New York, a former stock broker now making a go as a photographer. An ex-girlfriend arrives to help, and th...Read the entire review

It feels so very weird to say this, considering that one is a low-budget indie drama and the other is a special effects-laden sci-fi spectacular, but it's all too true anyway: "Hard Pill" is the movie "X-Men: The Last Stand" wanted to be but couldn't.

"X-Men," you no doubt recall, was a failed grab at social commentary in which superhero mutants are tempted with a "cure" that would remove their powers and return them to normal; it was, among other things, an attempt to examine how some in this world view homosexuality as a disease that can be treated and removed. "Hard Pill" dials down the science fiction but presents the same curious scenario: what if someone made a pill that could cure gayness?

The result here is a daring, captivating exercise in "what if" that succeeds because it focuses entirely on the personal experience. Tim (Jonathan Slavin) is a gay man with plenty of friends but ...Read the entire review

The Film:

He is the perfect husband, father, and friend. Employed by Banco de Espana, the largest and most respected financial institution in Spain, Emilio Barrero (Jose Coronado) has everything a man could wish for: a beautiful wife, an adoring son, a massive house in the suburbs. For over twenty years Emilio has been assisting friends and relatives investing their hard-earned money in stocks, bonds, and mutual funds, providing them with valuable leads. Only…at Banco de Espana no one knows who Emilio Barrero is!

Based on the true story of a well-known Spanish "economist" who did indeed manage to "invest" millions and millions of pesetas, or so his investors thought, during a period of over twenty years La Vida de Nadie a.k.a Nobody's Life (2002) is a film that attempts to partially recreate a story that is so absurd I decided to do some research on my own and...Read the entire review

The Film:

In a quiet corner of the Swiss-French border Louis Trebor (Michel Subor) lives a life devoid of excitement. His past, an inconceivable mess of contradicting events, has slowly begun to catch up with the old man often blending reality with fantasy. In a dire need of a heart transplant Louis Trebor will arrange to meet a mysterious Russian woman (Katia Golubeva) before he embarks on a journey around the world meant to appease his soul.

A story whose core line of events is so incomprehensible it makes for a never-ending puzzle with plenty of missing pieces Claire Denis' latest L'Intrus a.k.a The Intruder (2004) is quite possibly one of the most challenging films to be released in recent years. Beautiful to behold yet somewhat intentionally confusing L'Intrus relies on emotions rather than logic. The journey which the main protagonist embarks...Read the entire review

The Film:

Italy, 1920.

Charming 35 year old virgin Nello Balocchi (Neri Marcore) is sent to a school in the heart of Bologna where he must teach Latin literature. At ease with poetry but incapable of winning women's hearts Nello will encounter a special person (Vanessa Incontrada), who will finally teach him the secrets of love and carnal pleasure. But when Nello's father Cesare (Giancarlo Giannini) arrives in Bologna to meet the woman who has stolen his son's heart something unusual happens.

Winner of the David di Donatello Award for Best Director Pupi Avati's charming Il Cuore Altrove a.k.a Incantato (2003) about a man who would learn that there is always more in love than what the eye could see is indeed a film of subtle ...Read the entire review

Note:

There are some unusual flaws with this DVD release so feel free to skip straight to the technical description.

The Film:

On May 9, 1978 Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro was kidnapped by the Red Brigades, an extreme-left terrorist organization, after he publicly announced his plans to invite the Communist Party to Italy's ruling coalition. 55 days later Aldo Moro was assassinated. Buongiorno, Notte a.k.a Good Morning Night (2003), a film by Marco Bellocchio, recalls the final moments of this most-disturbing tragedy.

The foundation of Buongiorno, Notte is built around the gentle Chiara (Maya Sansa) whose internal struggle to justify her radical actions places the young revolutionary in some uncommon situations. As an influential member of the Red Brigades Chiara is often faced with moral dilemmas she is unable to resol...Read the entire review

The Movie

Dear Wendy is an unsettling and thought-provoking drama from avowed contrarian Lars Von Trier and fellow Dogme disciple Thomas Vinterberg; the former wrote this stylized fable about American gun violence and the latter, responsible for the shattering The Celebration, directed a stellar cast of young adults, including the always fascinating Jamie Bell. Set in a nameless American town (the film shot on location in Copenhagen, Denmark and Germany), Dear Wendy is a sly, biting exploration of what fuels violence.

Despite being set in a nondescript, seemingly average American town, many of the characters speak with a distinctly Texan twang (draw whatever incendiary political overtones out of that you'd like) – Bell stars as Dick Dandelion, a youthful loner who chances upon a vintage handgun he dubs "Wendy." Not long after meeting "Wendy...Read the entire review

The Film:

While beautifully photographed and full of interesting characters Fernando Colomo's latest feature film Al sur de Granada a.k.a South from Granada (2003) is a perfect example of a story uncapable of living up to its potential. Set amidst the green hills of the beautiful Spanish countryside South from Granada follows up British writer Gerald Brenan (Matthew Goode), perhaps better known for his short-lived affair with Dora Carrington (Jessica Meyer), and his involvement with the Bloomsbury Group.

South from Granada begins with a short introduction revealing a young man arriving in rural Alpujarras, Spain looking for peace and solace. The young man appears to be writer Gerald Brenan who has decided to flee his native England in search for a place that will allow him to work on his book undisturbed by the "civilized world". Spared from the pretentio...Read the entire review

The Movie:

An Oscar-nominated documentary released in 1995, "Troublesome Creek" is a haunting feature looking at a subject that's still happening just as often today. The film, directed by the husband/wife pairing of Jeanne Jordan and Steven Ascher, visits the farm of Jeanne's parents, Mary Jane and Russ. The family has been farming the same land since 1867, on the banks of Troublesome Creek.

Early in the film, we find that the family has fallen on hard times, and they're currently deeply in debt. As the days pass, it seems less likely that any loans will be approved. The local bank has just been bought out by a chain, and while they have had a good reputation with the loan officers that they've been familiar with for countless years, the new bank certainly doesn't take that into account.

With $200,000 in debt hanging over their heads, it's the family against the bank (the f...Read the entire review

Sometimes a documentary will operate from a premise so irresistible that liking it is a foregone conclusion. Such is the case with Reel Paradise (2005), a film about an American family who moves to the Fijian island of Taveuni for a year to operate "the world's most remote movie theater."

Unseen director Steve James (Hoop Dreams) arrives in Fiji to document the family's final month on the island. John Pierson, the "Guru of Independent Film," had been programmer at the Film Forum and later as a producer's representative helped secure financing and distribution for some of the most important independent films of the late-1980s/early-'90s, including She's Gotta Have It (1986), The Thin Blue Line (1988), and Roger & Me (1989). Anxious to get out of the indie film rat race for a while, and inspired by a segment on Split Screen, a series about indie cinema th...Read the entire review

The Product:
Though he's been locked up in prison for nearly 40 years, and hasn't been a part of the cultural landscape for at least that long, there is still an odd fascination with Charles Manson that is difficult to dissect. Some see him as the ultimate outsider, a man made and manipulated by the system that eventually caught and condemned him. Others seem drawn to his insane independence, a kind of cockeyed inspiration for playing by your own rules. There are those who will always be fascinated by his radical rebellious nature, and a few strangely sucked in by the charisma of his craziness. Still, it doesn't explain why musicians cover his crappy songs, or why filmmakers find his story so fascinating. LA punk scene fixture John Roecker is stuck somewhere in the middle. His first feature film, the oddball animated anarchy entitled Live Freaky! Die Freaky! is an obvious paean to our ...Read the entire review