aka: Carved 2  |  The Scissors Massacre  |  Kuchisake-Onna 2
Year: 2009
Directed: Kôtarô Terauchi
Genre: Horror
Runtime: 01:38
Country: Japan
Language: Japanese
Subtitles: English  |  Chinese
Cast: Rin Asuka, Yukie Kawamura,  Erina, Yosuke Saito, Mayuko Iwasa, Masashi Taniguchi

Synopsis / Plot

Three sisters grow up on a chicken farm in a small town of Gifu. The oldest sister, Yukie Sawada, is engaged to be married, the middle sister, Sachiko works at a beauty salon and the youngest, Mayu is on the track team in high school.Their happy , carefree lives are changed forever when Yukie’s ex-boyfriend Suzuki commits an atrocious crime with Mayu as the tragic victim. Half-crazed and bent on revenge against the Sawada family, Suzuki mistakes Mayu for Yukie and pours acid all over her face. Overwhelmed by physical and psychological trauma, Mayu sinks deeper into depression and isolation, unresponsive to her sisters’ encouragement…Meanwhile, chilling news of a serial murderer, who preys on the alumni of Mayu’s high school, sends shock waves through their small town…

Source:avistaz.com

AKA: Chum thaang rot fai phii
Directed: Sukhum Mathawanit
Genre: Crime, Horror, Mystery, Thriller
Year: 2007
Runtime: 01:21
Country: Thailand
Language: Thai
Subtitles: English
Cast: Kett Thantup, Savika Chaiyadej, Sura Theerakon, Chaleumpol Tikumpornteerawong, Yarichada Wattanawongsri, Phoomjai Tangsanga

Synopsis:

A thief gang flees from the police and catches a night train with Toe, an unlucky guy who is now their hostage. There’re many wealthy passengers in the train, so the thieves take advantage to rob the passengers. Oddly, when the thieves rush into the bogie, all they could see is just empty seats. Then, Toe is accused to be the one who told the passengers to escape from the train before they could begin to rob. Now, Toe has to run away before the thieves kill him. Luckily, there’s a pretty girl named Ratree comes to save him in time, and tells him the horrible story of the train. There’s something mysterious about the train and the passengers that Toe has to confront.

Source:avistaz.com

Naked Blood
AKA: Nekeddo burâddo: Megyaku
Year: 1995
Directed: Hisayasu Sato
Cast: Misa Aika, Yumika Hayashi, Mika Kirihara, Sadao Abe, Masumi Nakao
Tadashi Shiraishi,Seiya Hiramatsu
Genre: Horror / Thriller
Rated: USA Unrated (contains violence, gore, nuidity)
Runtime: 76 min
Country: Japan
Language: Japanese
Subtitles: English soft sub

Synopsis

Eiji is a young and determined amateur scientist; his ultimate goal at the present is to develop the ultimate pain killer. With this serum, which simply consists of transforming the pain into pleasure, Eiji really thinks that he can change and help the whole of humanity. One day his hard work completed he decides that it is the time to test his new serum, which he called MySon in the memory of his dead father.
His mother, who is a professional scientist, is conducting medical and inoffensive experiment on three young women. Eiji decide to mix his serum MySon with the experimental product that his mother his working on. Eiji now just have to spy these women with a camera for the following days to take some note on the secondary effect of his miraculous potion. But thing get out of control when the girls start to hurt and mutilate themselves with a strange pleasure at doing it. Eiji befriends one of the three girls, decides that he has to do something to stop this madness.

Source:avistaz.com

Country: Japan
Language: Japanese
Subtitles: English soft sub
Genre: Horror
Released: 2004
Director: Ataru Oikawa
Screeplayn: Noriko Tanimura
Footage: Satoshi Nishimura
Length: 78 min
Cast:
Sachiko Kokubu- Yumiko Osawa
Seiji Chihara- Keisuke Kataoka
Yuka Hayashi- Mika Nakahara
Mizuho Nakamura- Moe Masumoto
Masashi Taniguchi- Osamu Komiya

Synopsis

Yumiko Oosawa (Sachiko Kokubu) is a pretty young designer whose life is turned upside down by a stalker in Ataru Oikawa’s spare, ominous thriller. One day, a letter arrives on which the words “you were meant to marry me” are spelled out in newspaper clippings. This is followed by packages of escalating creepiness, until the inevitable occurs and Yumiko is forced to fight for her life.

Source:avistaz.com

AKA: Xia Dao Xiao
Directed: Jack Neo, Boris Boo
Genre: Comedy, Horror, Shorts
Runtime: 01:41:35
Country: Singapore
Language: Hokien, Mandarin
Subtitles: English, Chinese, Malay
Cast:  Marcus Chin, Cheng John, Ming Lai, Zha Bor Lao, Mark Lee, Ru Ping Lin

Synopsis / Plot

Roadside Got Ghost
Swindlers Cai, Fu and Shou have a new scam – using a hotline to make random calls to people, promising them fortune. Those who win the lottery are required to pay commission to Cai or be scared into submission. One Dday, Cai receives a phone call. The caller gives Cai deploying the same hotline trick. Believing it is a copycat of his scam, Cai naturally disregards the call, but goes ahead and tries his luck with the given number anyway. To his surprise, he wins. Mysterious happenings assume….

Forest Got Ghost
Nan and Lei return for army reservists’ traing. They learn that the place they will be sent is the widely known “haunted hill”, so they take the short cut. Suddenly, the “haunted hill’ seems to come alive – tombstones, red dress spirit and other strange sightings. Then it rains. Nan and Lei seek refuge at Yin Yin’s House, a girl they just met. Little do they know their road to hell has been cut short….

House Got Ghost
It is the Lunar 7th Month, weird sightings happen at home, children can only think it is the late mother’s doings. The truth slowly surface as they begin their road trip, only this time it seems to be more than what they bargain for…

Source:avistaz.com

When Jackie Chan gave up on acting and decided to retire, he didn’t issue a press release, he made The Spy Next Door. The message is poignant and unmistakable: I give up. I have been defeated. My career no longer means anything to me.

It’s sad to see a once-vital star burn out, especially one as likable as Chan, but that sadness wears off quickly while watching The Spy Next Door. It is replaced by exasperation, and then annoyance as you realize that what you are watching is the same movie as The Pacifier, starring Vin Diesel, which you didn’t like then, either.

Chan plays Bob Ho, a Chinese spy who was loaned to the CIA and is now retiring so he can settle down and marry his girlfriend, Gillian (Amber Valletta), who lives next door and doesn’t know he’s a spy. She thinks he’s a pen importer. Around her, Bob acts like a boring geek, wears eyeglasses, and hides his super-spy abilities. Gillian loves that he’s normal and reliable, not like her ex-husband, who ran off and left her with three kids.

Oh yes! Gillian has three children: Farren (Madeline Carroll), 13, who still thinks Dad is going to come back; Ian (Will Shadley), about 10, a science nerd and a target for bullies; and Nora (Alina Foley), 4, whose job is to be adorable. The kids don’t want Mom to marry Bob. They think he’s a doofus. They may also object to the 20-year age difference between them, although this is not expressed outright.

So Gillian has to go out of town because her father’s in the hospital, and Bob volunteers to babysit so he can bond with the children. This is where we learn that, for all his many talents in the field of espionage, Bob is incompetent as a cook and nanny! Why, he dumps the entire box of Quaker oatmeal into the pot! And he tries to take muffins out of the oven with his bare hands — yowch! It isn’t until he starts using spy gadgets that he gets the household in order: a tracking device on Nora so she won’t get lost, and a miniature flamethrower to cook the toast and bacon. (Why this is easier than simply using a toaster and a frying pan, I do not know. Just remember that a SPY having to do MUNDANE KITCHEN THINGS is HILARIOUS.)

Meanwhile, a Russian terrorist named Poldark (Magnus Scheving) has escaped CIA custody and is looking for a top-secret code that young Ian accidentally downloaded from Bob’s computer, which means Poldark and his goons are going to show up any minute now and kill them all. Bob must save the children — and the world!

Will it impress you to learn that Bob’s CIA friends are played by George Lopez and Billy Ray Cyrus? And that Cyrus, sporting a soul patch, earrings, and pointy sideburns, is apparently visiting us from 1998? No? OK.

Despite the many imminent threats from Poldark and his crew, no one ever calls the police, not even when Bob is racing back to Gillian’s house because he knows Poldark is on his way there. None of the technology makes sense; Bob’s skills occasionally verge on the supernatural; the dialogue is purely functional, devoid of wit. To have any hope of enduring this film, you must abandon all expectations of reason, logic, or laughter.

It is clear that the three credited screenwriters — veterans of Just My Luck, Larry the Cable Guy: Health Inspector, and Tomcats — had no interest in producing something clever, and they probably had little incentive to do so. The director, Brian Levant, whose previous awful kid comedies include Jingle All the Way and Are We There Yet?, knew all he needed to sell the film to audiences were some scenes of Jackie Chan doing his fast-paced martial-arts thing and the image of Chan holding a mop or a vacuum cleaner or something. The old guy is still fun to watch when he’s fighting; every now and then in The Spy Next Door you catch a glimpse of why you like his movies. Then the glimpse fades and it’s back to the domestic shenanigans, which are routine and uninspired and depressing. Send us a postcard from oblivion, Jackie!

Grade: D+

Source:film.com

There’s a theory which states that in times of war and famine, it is the good people who die first. You’ve probably heard The Piano Man sing about it, but it basically follows that the sort of person able to survive times of great strife isn’t also generally the sort of person with strong moral convictions. If you’re not willing to lie, cheat, or steal … then the topsy-turvy landscape of a life-shattering global event finishes you off. I’m not sure if I personally subscribe to this theory, but into this precipice walks Denzel Washington’s Eli; he’s surrounded by post-apocalyptic baddies, a “good” man on an arduous mission. Can he keep his essential Godliness while also tangling with the devil? These are the questions the Hughes brothers ask of their audience in Book of Eli; they’re also the questions I haven’t quite been able to reconcile with the other moments of gunplay contained within. Could it be that faith is making a beeline toward hip?

There is no doubt that the power of love is a curious thing. And you don’t have to listen to the news to know that it can make one man weep, and another man sing. Eli (Denzel Washington) loves, beyond all comprehension, the book he carries across the remains of an ashen and dusty United States. He carries it with faith and fidelity; it’s both his burden and his blessing. But what of this world Eli inhabits? Something has happened, something awful, and now people are as scarce as they are scared. It seems as though the world went to war with itself, or an asteroid hit, or perhaps some other sort of natural disaster — whatever the case, civilization is utterly torched. Books? They’re even harder to find than people, and as a result literacy has taken a real dive. This is a world where people get murdered for their personal possessions, a world where you have to barter prized possessions for essential items like water and food.

And yet Eli walks. And walks. He’s a lonely traveler, with only his book to keep him company. Well, and Al Green, naturally, whose voice Denzel uses as a tool for escape early on in the movie. You’d have to assume that even a monumentally destructive force would leave us Al Green’s “How Can You Mend a Broken Heart” behind on an MP3 player. Or at least I like to hope she would. The Hughes brothers’ film feels more vibrant than the bleak Road, which was launched at us in November. Here the brothers show us the horror but somehow the staid and calm Denzel feels more approachable than the distraught and scrambling Viggo.

To give away what the book is, or Gary Oldman’s villainous role, or really any more details at all would be a disservice to the reader. See it clean, and without preconceptions. It’s a simple tale (in execution) but perhaps more complex in terms of the overarching theme. I mean, if it all came tumbling down, what would you hold dear? The recent earthquake in Haiti slams it home: Are we our brother’s keeper? Can great evil ride upon the best of intentions? Perhaps I’m reading too much into this, and if you get very little out of it then you have my sincere apologies.

Take it away, Al Green (covering the Bee Gees)!

“How can you mend this broken man? How can a loser ever win?”

The Hughes brothers might not have the answer there. But they’re sure as hell asking the questions with a lively vigor.

Grade: B+

Source:film.com

If I had known what Precious was about, I probably wouldn’t have wanted to see it. Just too dark and depressing. You can’t really tell a story like Precious (which joins a list of film titles I will never — ever — pronounce in full) successfully if you aren’t daring your audience to drive the nearest knife into their wrists. Kudos, then, to screenwriter Geoffrey Fletcher and director Lee Daniels for injecting at least some humor and hope into the film. About midway through the movie I was pretty astonished that, despite the rough hand our central character, Precious, was dealt, the movie is undeniably entertaining. It hooked me. I cared. I wanted a happy ending, and even though things got even worse from that point on for her, I believe what the film believes: that the good and strength in people doesn’t always prevail, but it can. I trusted in Precious’ strength, even if we only see it in snippets early on.

Gabourey Sidibe deserves the Oscar nomination she has coming to her. I’ve seen her in interviews, making the rounds of all the talk shows, and she couldn’t be more different than her character. I only point this out because I will admit to wondering if Sidibe — unfair as it might be — was essentially playing a version of herself which might be both a tribute to her work and an insult to the actress. She’s bursting with life, where Precious has it buried and burning inside. I went to middle and elementary school with girls like Precious. I’ve made fun of them. They deserve better.

As you can guess, a huge reason this is an effective film is the acting. Mariah Carey is surprisingly effective as a social worker who wants some answers before she starts handing out welfare checks. Paula Patton essentially plays an angel, but we need one in stories like these — especially in stories with someone like Mo’Nique’s wretched mother. In a great assortment of strong female performances, Mo’Nique’s is perhaps the most powerful. I heard all the talk about how good she was, but I almost always take everything I hear with a grain of salt. I was taken aback by her work here. I mean, Mo’Nique?

There are moments that made me smile. Like when Precious sets a boy in her class straight because she has a crush on her teacher. Or watching the interactions between Precious and her classmates, particularly the antics of her eventual friend, Joann (Xosha Roquemore). Of course, there is the moment where Precious finally stands up to her monster of a mother. If you aren’t beaming with pride for how far she has come, somewhere you slipped. And it isn’t white liberal guilt that has made Precious a success in this way (as some online bloggers and writers have tried to spin this minor triumph) — it’s just good moviemaking. That’s it. There have been many movies that have tried to do what Precious does really well here. But where those films have failed, this film has succeeded.

Watching Precious, I’m reminded of another film about the depressive ordeals of women in distress, Dancer in the Dark. Both films are made with care. Both films contain strong performances. Both films contain a story that is increasingly cruel to its central character. I can understand the admiration for either film and I can understand the bile spewed toward either film. On an objective level, I get it. But movies become personal experiences and where I hate Dancer in the Dark and will not defend it, I will surely defend Precious. I walked out of Lars von Trier’s movie in a state of despair. I leave Precious encouraged. There are two worlds here: one hopeless, one hopeful. I choose to live in the latter.

Grade: A-

Source:film.com

Crazy Heart has been compared to The Wrestler in terms of plot and characters, but the tone is completely different. The Wrestler was a heavy, mostly very serious movie. Crazy Heart, though also about a washed-up performer trying to redeem himself, treats everything lightly, even superficially. In fact, it’s that lightness that keeps it from being a great movie, as even the biggest problems the protagonist faces are resolved cheerily. The movie’s almost too pleasant for its own good.

But it certainly is pleasant! This sunshine is mostly thanks to Jeff Bridges, the 60-year-old actor who has radiated joviality throughout his career. Even when that friendliness is tinged with crankiness, he still usually seems like someone you’d want to hang out with. That’s the major strength of Crazy Heart, in which he plays Bad Blake, a grizzled old country singer whose glory days are behind him. (The first song we hear from him begins: “I used to be somebody/Now I’m somebody else.”) He drives his 30-year-old pickup truck around the Southwest, performing in honky-tonk dive bars and greasy bowling alleys in places like Pueblo and Santa Fe. His manager (Paul Herman) books the gigs and arranges for backup bands in each city; Bad just has to show up with his guitar, get suitably drunk, and take the stage.

In Santa Fe, he meets Jean (Maggie Gyllenhaal), a twentysomething newspaper reporter who interviews him and becomes his local sweetheart. She’s one of those gals who’ve had nothing but trouble with men, and is now fully devoted to her 4-year-old son, Buddy (Jack Nation), trying not to repeat the mistakes of her past. (Tip: To avoid repeating the mistakes of your past, do not sleep with a 57-year-old alcoholic country singer who’s only passing through town.) I cannot imagine what Jean and Bad see in each other, but their fondness feels authentic. When he’s not on the road, Bad lives in Houston and plays regularly at a bar owned by his old pal Wayne (Robert Duvall). Houston and Santa Fe are not adjacent. Can anything real come of this May-December, Texas-New Mexico relationship?

Based on a novel by Thomas Cobb and written and directed by first-timer Scott Cooper, Crazy Heart keeps telling us that Bad Blake’s life is miserable. But that’s at odds with what Cooper is showing us. Bad loves the road, he’s genuinely good onstage, the people who come to the shows know who he is and have his old records, and there’s at least one groupie in each town eager to sleep with him. Yes, he’s an alcoholic, and yes, his life is ungrounded. But every time the film hints at deep complications — an illness, an accident, a setback — it’s only a matter of moments before it’s resolved, or at least moved to the background. We never get a strong sense that Bad needs “redemption” so much as he just needs a shave and a shower.

He’s envious that a young musician he trained, Tommy Sweet (Colin Farrell), has eclipsed him in popularity. But Tommy is respectful and grateful, and does what he can to help his mentor. Bad used to write a lot of great songs but hasn’t done so in a while … and then he starts writing again, just like that. Bad’s drinking makes him wake up sick one day; the next day he’s fine. He was never a millionaire, and he doesn’t make much money now. But he gets by, and he still has opportunities, and he loves what he does. A lot of people are a lot worse off.

Besides, he’s so darned gregarious! There are some oversimplified characterizations elsewhere (Bad’s agent is like a Mel Brooks parody of Hollywood agents), but Bad himself is layered and honest, a low-rent Johnny Cash who comes across as a real person: moody and flawed, but always sincere and likable. As usual, Bridges makes it look easy, ramblin’ along through this ramblin’ story as if it takes no effort at all to create a three-dimensional character out of nothing. A more substantive examination of Bad Blake’s life would have made for a more powerful movie, but even this shallower treatment is a nice way to spend a couple hours.

Grade: B

In 1993, C.D. Payne penned a massive tome of a book, which turned out to be one of the craziest portraits of juvenile haphazard delinquency ever to hit the market — Youth in Revolt. In 2009 it finally became a movie. The book is rich with the sort of wild situations that are the stuff of dreams for any film director: divorced parents, middle class angst, falling in love for the first time and the drama that comes with that. But most importantly, we are introduced to Nick Twisp, a mid-teenage protagonist whose complicated inner monologue runs the gamut from the quest for intelligence to the meticulous obsession with sexuality that marks the teen years.

From the beginning, there’s a lot of characters, too many to do them all justice unless the film was eight hours long, but the basic plot revolves around Nick Twisp (Michael Cera), a resolute teenaged boy, consumed with his burgeoning sexuality and someday getting away from his cartoonishly obnoxious parents. Twisp’s mother (Jean Smart) and her boyfriend (Zach Galifianakis) take a short vacation at a trailer park where Twisp meets Sheeni Saunders (Portia Doubleday). Almost immediately Twisp plans to move closer to Sheeni and so uproots his father (Steve Buscemi) and enrolls in Sheeni’s school, where he makes friends and hears of rival love interests. Twisp’s machinations reach Machiavellian proportions with the introduction of the bad-boy side of him, Francois Dillinger. The universe intervenes time and time again as Twisp attempts to win the lovely Sheeni’s heart with the help of those around him. Will he ever lose his virginity and get the girl?

Nick Twisp is straight-up Cera, bumbling and adorable, all half-formed smiles and mumbling sentences, but Dillinger? Francois Dillinger is one of the funniest characters to appear on screen in years. Part suave competence, part who-gives-a-damn nonchalance, Cera plays the role with a smooth detachment unlike anything he has brought to his other acting roles. Dillinger is the ying to his yang, the dark side of Twisp’s moon, the cool competent part of us that we always wish could take control and walk us through situations. (Instead we are left to think of just the right thing to say, minutes or days after the incident has already taken place.) The presence of Francois Dillinger gives voice to Twisp’s inner thoughts, and provides a convenient scapegoat for the wilder antics of young Twisp.

Michael Cera is undoubtedly the star of this movie, and a great deal rests on his slim shoulders. He’s up to the task, and the complications of playing two parts must have been a nice departure for a young actor who is probably beginning to feel a little typecast. As I said before, this film has a remarkable number of reputable faces in it, which, due to the 90-minute running time, ends up feeling a bit like a long string of cameos. Zach Galifianakas, Steve Buscemi, Ray Liotta, Fred Willard — the list goes on and on. Portia Doubleday turns in a sweet but bland performance as the beloved Sheeni Saunders, and it is Justin Long who is notable as Sheeni’s wayward and open-minded brother Paul, guilty of introducing Twisp to psychedelic drugs and seeming clairvoyant at times. (Does Justin Long have the best cameos, or what? Remember when he took over Zack and Miri Make a Porno?)

The film earned a few negative points from me when they chose to move the time period from staunchly 1993 in the book, to a vaguely now-ish indistinguishable moment in time. There were some funny bits in the book that referenced the early ’90s and we’re far enough away from 1993 that it would have been nice to see a period piece, as it were. That said, hats off to screenwriter Gustin Nash and director Miguel Arteta, as translating this book to screen wasn’t an easy task. They gave it their best shot and came out with something that feels very much like the book, but entirely able to stand on its own two feet. There are even some remarkably fun animated sequences that move the plot along without the feeling that you’ve lost some of the story.

Youth in Revolt is charmingly depraved in all the best ways. If you’ve read the book, you’re really going to like it; if you haven’t read the book, you’re still really going to like it. The film is honest about what it feels like to be 14 with your whole life ahead of you,. The out-of-control feeling that goes hand in hand with being in the in-between stage of life — divorced parents, leaving childhood behind — is wonderfully preserved, though perhaps as adults all we can do is shake our heads. The thing is, Youth in Revolt is a movie for adults, the kind of embellished truth that we laugh at while remembering our own wilder days.

Grade: B+