Helldriver(2010) Tonight at the Japan Society

I can't believe I almost forgot about this event. Vacations will do that to a man, no matter how dedicated he is to a silly cinema blog. Oh Well. Anyway, If you're a fan of the comical, ultra-gore that has been working it's way out of Japan recently (like Machine Girl and Tokyo Gore Police), I would suggest heading up to midtown this evening for a screening of Helldriver(2010).

The Japan Society says - "With director Yoshihiro Nishimura and actress Eihi Shiina in person.

Japan Cuts/NYAFF "Be a Zombie" after-party!

Your one chance to see the original director's cut of the film, with more action... and more gore!

The screening is also a very special launch event for our 5th Festival of Contemporary Japanese Film (July 7–July 18): Japan Cuts and for the New York Asian Film Festival 2011. It will be followed by a party for ye undead and proud, special announcements will be made revealing titles in this year's festivals, and prizes will be given away.


In a land where half of the population has become not-so-sexy flesh eaters and the economy gently withers away, all hope seems lost for Japan... until Kika (Yumiko Hara) arrives. A stunning high school girl armed with an artificial heart-powered chainsaw sword, she leads a motley crew of desperados on a secret mission into the zombie-infected wilds to exterminate zombie queen Rikka (Eihi Shiina from Audition and Tokyo Gore Police) and put an end to the plague of the living dead.

But the road is fraught with a thriving zombie culture that, with its own designs on the living half of Japan, refuses to just lay down and die.

Visionary filmmaker Yoshihiro Nishimura's first solo directorial effort since Tokyo Gore Police is an epic, apocalyptic road movie featuring non-stop, over-the-top splatter action. The long-awaited realization of his dreams, Helldriver is Nishimura's bid to create the ultimate zombie film.

The showdown for the future of Japan is at hand and no one, living or dead, may survive to see it!"

Ticket prices are $12/9 for members and 50% of all ticket sales will go to Japan Society's Earthquake Relief Fund.

Thursday, April 28th 7:30 PM @ Japan Society, 333 East 47th Street, at 47th Street and First Avenue

Free Screening of Stake Land TONIGHT at 8:00pm

Hey Fangstaz, I would have put this up earlier if I had actually known about it. I just learned over from the amazing film nerds over at Subway Cinema News that there is going to be a free screening tonight of the "Fully-loaded, bloody-knuckled, post-apocalyptic, non-sparkle vampire movie getting a theatrical release later this month." I've read some really good reviews of Stake Land(2010) from festival circuit news, and am actually going to make an effort to get over there this evening if the rain actually lets up.

IMDB says - "Stake Land is a dark vision of a post-apocalyptic America that stands out in a sea of formulaic look-alikes. In director Jim Mickle's world, creatures who blur the line between vampires and zombies are creeping northward toward the Canadian border and eating everyone in their path. This is no typical genre film, though, as the real story unfolds slowly and deliberately with surprises at every turn.

Nick Damici is "Mister," vampire hunter and mentor to orphaned teen Martin (Connor Paolo) as they fight "the vamps" on their trek to New Eden, a monster-free zone where humanity has staked a claim. But darkness is the real enemy here, as they only come out at night, of course. Then there are the cult groups who see the plague as a golden opportunity to spread their own unique brands of oppression."

Tuesday, April 12 at 8pm, Free Screening, the School of Visual Arts Theater at 333 W 23rd St between 8th and 9th Avenues.

Big Screen Big Apple- Legend of the Fist:The Return of Chen Zhen(2010) Friday at 10:45PM

It's the second weekend of The Film Society of Lincoln Center's Film Comments Select mini-festival(information here). Film three of what I deem to be the most interesting genre films in the series kicks off the weekend with Legend of the Fist:The Return of Chen Zhen(2010).Legend of the Fist stars Donnie Yen as Chen Zhen, the masked Chinese hero made famous by Bruce Lee in Fists of Fury.

IMDB says - "Seven years after the apparent death of Chen Zhen, who was shot after discovering who was responsible for his teacher's death (Huo Yuanjia) in Japanese-occupied Shanghai. A mysterious stranger arrives from overseas and befriends a local mafia boss. That man is a disguised Chen Zhen, who intends to infiltrate the mob when they form an alliance with the Japanese. Disguising himself as a caped fighter by night, Chen intends to take out everyone involved as well as get his hands on an assassination list prepared by the Japanese."


Friday February 25th @ 10:45PM Walter Reade Theater, West 65th Street, between Broadway and Amsterdam Ave, on the upper level, Upper West Side

Big Screen Big Apple- I Saw The Devil(2010) Friday Feb. 25 @7pm

Two screenings within a week of each other sounds pretty sweet to me since I missed a chance to see I Saw The Devil(2010) on Sunday. Horrah for the good people at BAMcinématek with producing the series Severely Damaged: The Cinema of Kim Jee-woon, showcasing six of Jee-Woon's films over the next 5 days. Life doesn't get much better than this for Korean cinema buffs.

BAMcinématek says - "This demented blood-drenched masterpiece was denied release in Korea for its graphic, “severely damaged” scenes of blood letting and vengeance gone wild. When his beautiful fiancee is savagely dismembered by crazed killer Kyung-chul (Oldboy’s Choi), devastated goverment agent Soo-hyun (A Bittersweet Life’s Lee) snaps, apprehending the killer and torturing him, but letting him escape with a tracker embedded in his skin. Uninterested in mere vengeance by homicide, Soo-hyun sets off a brutal game of cat and mouse, repeatedly capturing his prey to inflict pain and then re-releasing him. Graphic and gory, but damn gorgeous, too, Kim’s latest is one of the most well shot and stylish thrillers of the year and a trenchant examination of revenge and the price it exacts on one’s soul. Sneak preview courtesy of Magnolia Pictures, film opens Mar 4."


Friday February 25th @ 7pm BAM Rose Cinemas 30 Lafayette Avenue Brooklyn general admission is $12

Big Screen Big Apple- I Saw The Devil(2010) Sunday Feb. 20th at 1pm

It's nice to see that there are two films worth mentioning at the Film Society Lincoln Center this weekend. The first, of course, being Hobo With A Shotgun. It probably has something to do with the New York Film Festival's pre-game known as Film Comments Select, which is running from now until the beginning of March. Out of the couple of dozen films that will be screening over this time, I've picked out a couple of interest to highlight in this little old blog. This Sunday afternoon,you might want to head on down to the Walter Reade Theater to catch Kim Ji-Woon's I Saw The Devil(2010),a chaotic thriller that was banned in South Korea for being too graphic and "offensive to human dignity".

Filmlinc.com says - "Giving new meaning to catch-and-release, a secret agent searches for the serial wacko who murdered his fiancée and takes a very special form of vengeance. The twisty, gruesome new thriller by the director of The Good, The Bad, The Weird was initially banned in South Korea for its meticulous attention to bloody detail. Marked by Kim’s agile set pieces, and a sustained mood of encroaching darkness, it stars Lee Byung-hun (The Good, The Bad) and Choi Min-sik (Oldboy)."

Saturday February 20th @ 1PM Walter Reade Theater, West 65th Street, between Broadway and Amsterdam Ave, on the upper level, Upper West Side

Big Screen Big Apple- Alien Vs. Ninja(2010) Tues. Feb. 15th at 10pm in Brooklyn

For those fans of such insane, Japanese gorefests like Tokyo Gore Police and Machine Girl, has reRun Gastropub Theater in Brooklyn have a surprise for you. For one night only, reRun is going be showing the latest cinematic shitshow, Alien Vs. Ninja on Tuesday evening to celebrate the blue ray/dvd release. The best part of going to see AVN on Tuesday night is that you don't have to pay for it. Admission is free. Don't show up with pockets completely empty though, because reRun has a bar and a full menu(all I have to say is popcorn drenched in bacon fat).

reRun says - "In ancient Japan, the fiercest ninjas of the Iga clan face their toughest enemies—and they aren't from this planet! A fiery mass crashes in the forest, and soon, horrifyingly savage creatures reduce the warriors to tasty snacks. But these jerks from outer space have bitten off more than they can chew. The ninjas' swords and throwing stars may fail against the unearthly goons, but their skills don't stop at sharp stuff. If you're into ARMY OF DARKNESS, you’ll be taking bets over who'll win this over-the-top battle for survival!"

Doors open at 9pm, so be sure to get there early enough for seats and shots. Get your free tickets here(limit of 4 per person).



Tuesday February 15th at 10pm @ reRun Gastropub Theater 147 Front Street Brooklyn, NY 11201

Orcs!(2010)- Where Do You Go When All The Other Monsters Have Been Used Up?

Since I've recently come into quite a bit of free time(unemployment will do that), I've been spending more and more time haunting some of my favorite spots on the internet. My favorite, of course, being this little slice of stupid I like to refer to as "my blog". After spending the majority of last year ignoring blogging, you might have noticed I've been devoting a lot more time to watching and writing about movies. Not that my audience was ever large or I was on a deadline but expression is one of those things that make people happy. Even if it's a couple of paragraphs about a shitty exploitation movie, at least I'm doing something. So far. 2011 has proved to be successful since I have already doubled the blog entries I put in during the entirety of 2010.

Besides the reviews, I have also been known to drop knowledge on some up-in-coming indie horrors. After recently trolling the darkeah deptha of genre forumdom, I came upon the trailer for Orcs!(2010), and it caught my interest. Now I'm just as sick of the oversaturation in the monster market as the next nerd, but I find something interesting about replacing the undead with fantasy creatures. As a former roleplayer and Magic The Gathering addict, I can't get enough of orcs. There are only so many times I can watch LOTR, so where else can I get my geek fix unless I resort to my old ways(which I still might do regardless)?

Hopefully, Orcs reaches the festival circuit pretty soon. Even straight to DVD would work for me even though I would love to see such a fun idea get the recongition it deserves. Any way it comes to me I'm going to enjoy it. I'm sure many of you will find the trailer a bit campy, but what else are you going to do with such a motley fantasy race?



http://orcs-movie.blogspot.com/

http://www.facebook.com/OrcsMovie

Predators(2010)-The Rare New Movie Review

Despite the way I portrait myself through my internet persona, I do watch new movies on a regular basis. As a homebody, my television is always on. If I'm not watching re-runs from yesteryear or the Travel Channel, chances are my eyes are glued to the screen for a movie. As a "cult" and "genre" movie connoisseur, I am always watching whatever random trash I've picked up at the 99 Cent store or via Netflix. Fortunately, I also have a significant other, and she is not always down with my "eclectic" tastes, so I do tend to spend a great deal of time watching more mainstream movies, typically of the indie and horror variety. I don't write reviews or voice opinions of everything I watch, mostly because of what little image I have to maintain as a film doouche. Kidding. I really just don't think people want to read about how much I enjoyed The Kids Are Alright when there are assholes who get paid to write better and more in depth reviews for such snooty rags as the New York Times and The Village Voice. I write about exploitation and kung-fu flicks, top notch indie is way out of my league.

The same rule typically applies for newer horror movies. Not because I'm one of the shithead horror snobs that proudly vocalizes how much new horror sucks, because I don't feel that way all the time. There has been awesome shit coming out of France and Korea for a couple years now. Its mostly because I don't usually have an interest in writing about something 1000's of people are raving over at the same time period. For me it would just be beating a dead horse.

And now we come to the re-makes, yet another thing I don't typically touch with a 10 foot pole. Usually because the snob comes out in me and I just think the movie is going to be shit, and in a lot of ways I'm usually right. Any other Predator movie I would have never wasted my time on, unless it were the first and second. I couldn't even get through the first AVP because it bored the living daylights out of me, and didn't even touch Requiem because of it. I've done the same for all the Saw and Hostel movies. The first ones couldn't capture my attention, so there is no way the rest of the series could.

I didn't feel the same way when I first heard about Predators(2010). First off, Rodriguez produced it. Yeah, the man is responsible for more than one shitty film, but he can still do no wrong in my eyes. Two, the script was based on the original storyline, so it was going to be like AVP never existed. Last but not least, Danny Trejo. Need I say more? I knew i was probably going to love this film no matter how shitty it was, and I was close to right.

Summary: Eight people find themselves mysteriously transported to am environment they are unfamiliar with. Most are bad asses of some type:black ops, warlords, yakuza, special forces...the entire spectrum of action movie has been covered. With the exception of one, Edwin (played by Topher Grace,who ofrom all appearances is a skinny little sissypants. It doesn't take long to realize why they have been thrown together on what turns out to be and alien world: they have just stepped into the Most Dangerous Game. Only this time the hunters aren't a bunch of bored white guys.

As with any good Predator movie, one-by-one our troop of tough guys get picked off. If you entered this movie not knowing that this is the plot, you probably have an adult supervisor. Some of the kills were fun, but would have been more interesting if CGI wasn't used. I know it's a common complaint from old guys like me, but there is something more organic about the kills is Predator compared to this new ofshoot. It just feels more realistic. Compared to early works of CGI horror, like Blade, Predators looks spectacular, but there is a difference.

The cast was fantastic, and not because they are notable thespians. Quite the opposite actually. With the exception of Fishburne, this was probably the most glorious mix of B and C-listers ever put together. Grace, Trejo, and best of all, Adrien Brody. A man who has flirted with the A List many a time over the last 15 years, and should probably still be schmoozing with the lot of them. A man who has unfortunately made some flawed career choices that prevent him from ever hitting the top again(like working with Argento). A man who you would never expect to be America's next big action hero, but he's going to give it a fighting chance. Brody gained 25 pounds, changed his voice cadence up, and is going for the gold. If he can't be in Apatow's or the Coen Brothers next box office sensation, he might as well try to fill the JCVD/Ah-nold/Rock shoes. That reason alone I found reason enough to give this movie a good letter grade.

Unlike Dinner with Schmucks, this was two hours of my life I will give away freely if it presents itself again. I had few gripes and a lot of fun. It helps to go into not expecting a cultural masterpiece. But because of Brody's over-the-topness, it kind of was in its own right. If it wasn't already available On Demand, I would have forked over the cash to see it in the theater.

Happy New Year and Happy Birthday

Thankfully the holidays are over. As much fun as it was, it was just a little too hectic for my taste. I know I say the same thing every year, and have the same amount of relief when its over, but god damn it's rough on a man! Now that it's over, it's hibernatin' time. Not that I'll be spending the rest of Winter sleeping, but there will be a bunch of sitting on my ass in front of the tube, polluting my DVD player. Not only am I going to get plenty of movie watching done, I'm going to try to get in at least 15 blog entries a month.

Now for the biggest reason I'm writing this little ditty, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME!!!

Me, as in, Cinematografo Dei Trash, the very genre cinema blog you have your beady, little eyes focused on at this moment. It has been a year and a couple days since I started sharing my self-described expertise with the rest of the world, and I have learned quite a bit this past year. First off, it is really fuckin' hard to write a movie review every day. In the beginning I thought it might be probable, but it didn't take me long to realize it's not a good idea. Maybe one review a week, two if I'm lucky.

Second.....warm weather is a burden on my ability to sit in front of my computer. As much as I would like to spend a couple hours everyday updating this labor of love, when it's Springtime this guy wants to hit the parks and beer gardens! Hopefully this year I will learn how to better mange my time so that I may write more than 4 entries a month during the Spring.

I could go on and on with excuses about what I need to do to make this blog thingy a better experience, but in reality I just need more focus. I am proud of the fact that I am still going after a year. I haven't had a track record like that since my Livejournal days.

So here's to one more year!! Hopefully, if all goes well, you will be seeing a bunch more this year than in the last, and hopefully more contributors besides this guy!! One of these days CDT is going to be the Twitch of the realm of moustaches and car chases.

To another year!!!