Sharpen up your teeth, ladies, get your metallic Jesus costume just right, gentlemen (feel free to switch based on your own personal preferences and gender orientation) because Midnight Madness Alumnus Álex de la Iglesia's Witching & Bitching premieres tonight!
The Strange Colour of Your Body's Tears premieres tonight over at The Bloor Hot Docs Cinema, home of the Vanguard Program.
It's not part of Midnight Madness, but where would the Madness be without giallo, those stylish Italian thrillers that led to slasher films and classics like Halloween and Friday The Thirteenth? And The Strange Colour Of Your Body's Tears is Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani's homage to giallo. Here is the amazing poster
Dredd 3D opens this year's Midnight Madness programme. It's the first 3D film to play the programme, but it's one of two this year with JT Petty's Hellbenders.
Dredd is also not the first screen adaptation of the 2000 AD comic book character. Before Karl Urban, there was Sylvester Stallone.
Director Joe Dante is not only one of the fiendish master mind behind Trailers from Hell, he's also a Midnight Madness alumnus. He directed a segment in the horror anthology, Trapped Ashes, which screened at Midnight Madness 2006.
As the first among TFH gurus, Dante comments on a lot of films, but one film, he commented on twice: Mario Bava's classic giallo,Blood and Black Lace. and an excellent movie to watch in anticipation of Berberian Sound Studios, a movie that plays with giallo history and conventions.
James McNally has already covered giallo in depth at our Vanguard sister blog, so I'll just say that giallo is an Italian crime film genre that is generally more lurid than straight detective stories--and possibly more honest in its way. It often has weird or psychic phenomenon elements. And giallo influence the development of both slasher horror like John Carpenter's Halloween, sexy thrillers like Brian de Palma's Body Double and even artsy psychodramas like Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan.
It's somehow fitting that a giallo film would get two slightly different takes.
Here's Dante's most recent commentary:
And here is the original commentary, if you are curious to hear if he says anything different and to see the transfer quality for yourself.
Director Don Coscarelli talks about his love for Godzilla, King of the Monsters on Trailers From Hell, even noting that it was the first monster movie he ever saw and that it remains one of his favorite movies. That's right, the 1956 American version. You better believe it, baby.
See if you can catch the Honda Ishiro and Ifukube Akira's influences on Coscarelli's new movie, John Dies At The End at this year's Midnight Madness.
JOHN DIES AT THE END Sat., Sept. 15, 11:59pm: RYERSON Sun., Sept. 16, 5pm: CINEPLEX YONGE & DUNDAS 2
When last we had left director and producer Eli Roth, he had commented on 15 film trailers for the mighty Trailers From Hell. Eli Roth is returning to Midnight Madness this year as the star of Nicolás López Aftershock and he's returned to Trailers From Hell with a commentary on the trailer for the controversial, Goodbye, Uncle Tom an exploitation film that's not Blaxploitation of sexploitation, so much as slavesploitation. As it's described at Trailers From Hell:
Those Mondo Cane guys are back with an astoundingly non-P.C. farrago purporting to expose the history of black subjugation in pre-Civil War America. Gorgeously mounted but stunningly exploitative, it was rated X when first released in the States in a considerably reworked version. NSFW.
Follow the link if you're curious to see the original trailer and Roth's commentary. If not, enjoy this thoughtful and worksafe commentary on the trailer for The Birds.
Apart from the Midnight Madness Pass, the best bang for your buck at TIFF has got to be THE ABCs OF DEATH. 26 films. 26 directors. Sign me up! Check out the posters below as well as a trailer promoting the 26th director contest. Sorry folks, the contest is over but all the entries are posted here. Yeah, the trailer looks pretty badass... But this is the stuff that didn't make it into the film. Imagine how awesome the stuff they did put in is!
A figure wearing a faceless, iron mask, seemingly hammered directly into bone, handed me a slip of crumpled, bloody paper before falling to the ground convulsing, shrieking unspeakable things. I turned away, I am ashamed to admit, the paper still clutched in my hand. It was no more than a URL. As you will see, it leads to what is apparently a teaser for The Lords of Salem shot at a concert.
Risk madness and despair--watch with the gathered crowd and gasp as Rob Zombie ascends what appears to be a cherry-picker, probably an unholy one.
LORDS OF SALEM Mon., Sept. 10, 11:59pm: RYERSON Wed., Sept. 12, 5pm: CINEPLEX YONGE AND DUNDAS 6
Midnight Madness 2012 opens with Dredd 3D, the first 3D movie ever to play the program and the first of two this year!
Check out the official poster and this clip from San Diego Comic Con that Bloody Disgusting says "[puts] the slow motion madness on display." (More at Bloody Disgusting).
Hitman movies are one of my favorite genres. I like the moral tension, the conflict between being a part and being apart, the slick suits. So while we wait for the genre-bending Kill List, tonight, here's a little list of cinematic gentleman who live off of blood money. Feel free to share some of your favorites.
Citta Violenta / Violent City / The Family (1970) Charles Bronson plays, Jeff Heston, a double-crossed hitman out for revenge. Jill Ireland plays a pretty woman in the clutches of the evil and salacious gangster played by Telly Savalas, with all the leering salaciousness he can muster. There's a fantastic score by Ennio Morricone. (It serves as my wake up alarm in the morning). And I enjoy how the movie conveys a more European sense of the distance between New Orleans, Louisiana and Michigan.
In The Mechanic (1972), well-established Charles' Bronson's professional hitman takes a young upstart--and even full-on whippersnapper, (played by a cocky as hell Jan Michael Vincent) as his protege. It's not really a good idea, but it does make for an excellent twist ending.
Golgo 13: Assignment Kowloon (1977) is a live-action version of Takao Saito's hardboiled manga series. JJ Sonny Chiba plays Duke Togo, a hitman hired by the United States government to eliminate a Hong Kong triad boss. Fans of Etsuko Shiomi/Sue Shiomi will be glad to see her do a little fighting in this film. Features the kind of violence you'd expect from a 1970s Chiba film blended with the coolness of 1970s Hong Kong.
Ostensibly the story of Jeff, a hitman played by Chow Yun-Fat, who's attempting to right a wrong and find a new life with the young nightclub singer he's blinded, played by Sally Yeh, The Killer (1989) is just as easily described as a love story between a noble hitman and a sort of corrupt cop (Danny Lee) who each cross the same moral line. There is, however, a helluva lot of shooting, fashionable suits and style to burn. And I'm sure it's just an accident that the hitman here is named Jeff and is double-crossed by a gangster boss a la The Mechanic.
In Leon: The Professional / The Professional (1994), Jean Reno plays an hitman ("Leon") who takes in a stray girl after her parents are killed. The is one of Natalie Portman's earliest roles, and she does a great job as a girl who desperately tries to convince a hired killer to take revenge.
Grosse Pointe Blank (1997) is a comedy. John Cusack plays Martin Blank, a man who not only has an incredibly Hal Hartley name, but also believes he is conflicted about his life choices. He's forced a therapist (played by Alan Arkin) into seeing him and decides he needs to go to his high school reunion, conveniently located near a job his been hired to do. Blanks' interactions with his therapist are revealing in just how frightening a professional hitman would be in real life. Also, for fight fans, Benny "The Jet" Urquidez does some kicking.
Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (1999) is a Jim Jarmusch movie. It is very quiet, contemplative and conversational as a hitman movie. That is, it is not action-packed (though it is compared to Broken Flowers). Forrest Whitaker plays Ghost Dog, a hitman who's been trying to understand his profession through the 18th Century manual of bushido, The Hidden Leaves / Hagakure. Unfortunately, its precepts of service, duty and honor get Ghost Dog in trouble with the Mafia.
Colin has said that this year Midnight Madness is about discovery, but as a (relatively) long time Midnight Madness acolyte, this year feels more like a return to Midnight Madness roots. In the last few years, MM has been associated with cutting edge horror, and while that's true, there's also a long tradition of action, rock'n'roll, documentary, comedy and films that make an audience go, "WTF?"
Smuggler follows in a long line of insanely awesome Japanese movies at MM. Fellow Japanese filmmakers who have shown repeatedly at Midnight Madness include: MM All-Star, Takashi Miike with Fudoh: The New Generation (1997), The City of Lost Souls (2000), Ichi The Killer (2001), Gozu (2003), Zebraman (2004) The Great Yokai War (2005), Sukiyaki Western Django (2007)); Shinya Tsukamoto with Tetsuo/Iron Man/ Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1990), Tetsuo 2 /Tetsuo: The Bodyhammer (1992), and Tokyo Fist (1995); and, most recently, Hitoshi Matsumoto with Dainipponjin/Big Man Japan (2007) and Symbol (2009).
But less well-known filmmakers like Tetsuro Takeuchi amazed the Uptown with his "rock'n'roll JET movie," Wild Zero (2000):
And in 1998 Lance Mungia envisioned a future in which the King is dead. (Though MM acolytes know that the King is in a nursing home in Nacogdoches, Texas):
There's also Jung Jun-Hwan's almost uncategorizable Save the Green Planet (2003)--a brutal sci fi "torture porn" romantic comedy with action elements?
And the animated wonder of Stephane Aubier and Vincent Patar's A Town Called Panic (2009)
But for me, the quintessential WTF Midnight Madness movie will always be Pornchai Hongrattanaporn's Bangkok Loco (2005) about a drummer who might or might not have committed murder and can save the world through a drum duel. It features a bunch of Thai visual puns that are probably hilarious if you understand Thai.
Tonight's the premiere of Smuggler, the latest film from Midnight Madness favorite, Katsuhito Ishii, whose previous films include Funky Forest; Party 7; Shark Skin Man and Peach Hip Girl; and the animated segment in Kill Bill vol. 1.
The film also features Midnight Madness alumnus, Masanobu Ando, who played the vengeful thief in Wuershan's The Butcher, The Chef and the Swordsman (2009) and Yoichi (Nasu no Yoichi) in Takashi Miike's Sukiyaki Western Django (2007). Both Midnight Madness selections. Ando also played Detective Wakamiya in Shinya Tsukamoto's Nightmare Detective (2007) and Kazuo Kiriyama in Kinji Fukasaku's Battle Royale (2000).
Get ready for Sleepless Night at the Ryerson tonight. It's already getting goodreviews on the internet and looks to be a fine mix of action and thriller, hearkening back to the genre films of Jean-Pierre Mélvìlle and through him, back to film noir. But it's pedigree isn't important, what is important is it looks amazing and its hero, played by Tomer Sisley, will need all his sangfroid, to make it through the night..
If you missed the trailer yesterday, here it is again.
From the trailer above, Frederic Jardin's Sleepless Night looks to be the equivalent of six cans of Red Bull. Or your preferred energy drink of choice.
Get your buzz on with the Midnight Madness crowd when Sleepless Night premieres Tuesday night!
One of the most brutal and controversial horror films of all time, Ruggero Deodato's fake snuff movie is heavily influenced by the makers of Mondo Cane. Banned in many countries due to inexcusable animal cruelty and all-too-realistic-looking gore scenes, it has been hailed as an anti-imperialist media expose and condemned as racist torture porn. Shot on location in the Amazon with a "found footage" format, it presages both The Blair Witch Project and that most terrifying of modern horrors, The Reality Show.
Viewers under 18 and those of a sensitive disposition be warned, Stuart Gordon discusses Cannibal Holocaust beyond this link.
Midnight Madness alumni Eli Roth might well be the most prolific commentator on the Trailers from Hell website. He's commented on 15 film trailers.
And because Roth's Cabin Fever and Hostel in 2004 both played Midnight Madness (2002 and 2004, respectively), it'd be easy to think that he only covers horror. But, instead, Roth covers a helluva a lot of genre ground.
From the Ramones and Rock'n'Roll High School
to the science fiction classic, Forbidden Planet
and a defense of Exorcist II
To Star Crash, the Italian "version" of Star Wars, starring Christopher Plummer.
Rolling Thunder
The giallo film, The House with the Laughing Windows
