I Saw the Devil is a terrific suspense/horror about a serial killer who murders the beloved fiancé of a secret agent. It is directed by Ji-Woon Kim, whose previous work includes writer/director credit for the horror A Tale of Two Sisters (2003) and the period comedy The Good, The Bad and The Weird (2008).

Min-Sik Choi, better known for his work in Oldboy and Lady Vengeance, gives an incredible performance as the psychopath Kyung-Chul. He does such a great job of making this character despicable.  There is no vulnerability in this character; he’s pure evil, but not in a two-dimensional …

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A revision of the Snow White story, this from the mind of Tarsem, the visual director that brought us……..The Fall.

I’m somewhat interested, if anything, it’ll be visually appealing. Plus, Julia Roberts has the perfect role!!!…

The Cuban zombie satire Juan of the Dead was just picked up for distribution in the US.  It will have a limited run at the Tower Theater at Miami Dade College following a screening at the Miami International Film festival which runs March 2-11. Just as its title might suggest, Juan of the dead is a comedy about a sort of deadbeat dad who turns hero zombie killer in the wake of a plague that hits Havanna.  Focus Features will be releasing Juan on demand and DVD later this year.  For more information on the film you can go to the …

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MOVIE ITSELF

The Outrage is about a band of Yakuza families feuding, agreeing and disagreeing, about turfs and whatnot. Petty stuff for the most part, but every little thing counts. The differing families come off as friends, but they each have agendas. The storyline sounds a bit superficial and unoriginal, and maybe it is. But, it’s the storytelling style that counts here. The characters are very refined – they are memorable, some are quirky, some are scary, and some are just plain comical. This isn’t to say that this is a goofy film, it isn’t.

Think of a Scorcese and Tarantino …

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MOVIE ITSELF

Think of Rocky, but for kids, that’s what you get in Disney’s Real Steel. Hugh Jackman plays a loser father who is unwilling to take care of his child. But, the boy (Max) has to stay with his father temporarily while his adopted parents goes on vacation. It isn’t very hard to figure out where the story goes.

The film utilizes its CG very well, the robots fighting each other looks amazingly good. There is no real emotional content in the film, not for us adults anyways. But, this is a Disney production, and kids will more likely enjoy …

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Oh oh.  Could it be? And it seemed like the live-action Akira was full steam ahead, what with Garrett Hedlund scoring the part of Kaneda and Kristen Stewart being offered the role of Kai, not to mention additional offers being extended to Ken Watanabe and Helena Bonham Carter to co-star.  But then it seemed something was wrong when Warner had announced the contenders for the Tetsuo role and said they’d be making a decision before Thanksgiving then all we heard was crickets coming from them all through December. Now comes news that they’ve closed down their production office in Vancouver …

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13 Assassins is a great samurai film about a group of assassins who get together to take out the brutal and homicidal son of the former shogun.  The film is directed by Takashi Miike who brought us the two horror masterpieces Ichi the Killer and Audition.  It also stars Koji Yakusho (Babel, Memoirs of a Geisha) and the ultra-cool Takayuki Yamada (Gantz). 

A samurai film might on the surface appear to be outside of Miike’s area of expertise, however, he proves himself to be very adept at pulling off something of this magnitude. While the samurai genre differs …

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Check out this nice little featurette about what goes on behind the scenes in the making of the music and the sound for the film.

SoundWorks Collection: The Sound and Music of Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol from Michael Coleman on Vimeo.…

Dawn of the Dead came out in 1978.  After that, the film industry all but forgot about zombies for the next two decades. The 80’s and 90’s gave viewers virtually nothing in the way of the undead save The Evil Dead films and those weren’t really about zombies per se. Thankfully, the genre has taken off in the past ten years with films like 28 Days Later, Resident Evil, Shaun of the Dead, Tokyo Zombies and Zombieland.  These have have not only given viewers a different perspective on the zombie as an entity but reignited the genre and inspired other zombie …

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Uchuu Kyoudai is a manga by Koyama Chuya about two brothers, Mutta and Hibito, who make a childhood pact to go into outer space after witnessing what looks like a UFO headed toward the moon.  The younger brother goes for his dream while the older one follows a more conventional path.  The film stars two alumni of the popular Japanese teen drama Hana-Kimi, Shun Oguri and Masaki Okada.

From the trailer, the film adaptation looks like it might be a little humorous and poignant at the same time. Coldplay provides the theme song “Every Teardrop is a Watrfall.” The film …

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