dark dark future

Yesterday I attended a screening of CHILDREN OF MEN, by Alfonso Cuarón and like RIGHT AT YOUR DOOR, it was an emotional experience. A thoughtful sci-fi thriller set in a not too distant future. Astounding. At the end of the screening in the 1300 seat cinema the applause was like thunder and there were screams of approval. My eyes were watering. Due on NA shores soon. Trailer can been seen here and the offical site is here.

the rain in spain...

Still at Sitges. Internet connection has been spotty and want to elaborate on these photos soon.

the centre piece on the tables of the hotel restaurant

the lobby of the cinema at the main hotel

the lobby of the cinema at the main hotel

the lobby of the cinema at the main hotel

a party for Paul Verhoven at a swanky castle

from the director of Schiller's Reel comes his new mini-movie "Scared in Sitges"

Paul Verhoven et moi

no, I am not Paul Verhoven, but this is his award...

ola! emotionally devastated

thud! that was the cinematic sledgehammer that smacked me on the head 2 hours ago. just saw a powerful film that made me cringe and hold my breath (a feeling shared by the 5 friends sitting with me). we are all still shaking and communing after the experience... see this film and then call your loved ones and tell them how much they mean to you. sounds corny and sentimental, butif you are a friend of mine reading this – BIG HUG!

the trailer is here

RIGHT AT YOUR DOOR
Dirty bombs have been simultaneously detonated in Downtown, Beverly Hills, and at LAX, spreading mass panic through Los Angeles. By focusing on one couple (Mary McCormack and Rory Cochrane) and driving the narrative via news radio, writer-director Chris Gorak has made what is perhaps the first indie urban crisis movie a heart-in-your-throat viewing experience. But it is Gorak's background as a production designer ("Lords of Dogtown") and art director ("Minority Report") that may be most responsible for his ability to pull it off: in this movie, dollops of ash fall like toxic snow as whole city blocks burn in the distance. A story about the life-and-death choices one couple must make in the face of chaos, RIGHT AT YOUR DOOR is also a timely rumination on how the press and federal government responds to disasters of unthinkable proportions.

sandy beaches and severed ears

Where am I? Relaxing after the Toronto Int'l Film Fest by heading to Sitges, Spain to enjoy someone else's festival- The Sitges Festival - the number one European Fantasy Film Fest! The bloody ear? Why? Because they are having a tribute to David Lynch is why! Will add more details when I get a chance. Seeing movies, hanging with friends, eating incredible food and sampling the local spirits. I'll get sand between my toes soon...

Bong Joon-ho, the director of THE HOST, fresh from Toronto and New York!

Informal master class with Greg Nicotero and Howard Berger from KNB Effects Group the dudes behind the FX and make-up for: The Chronicles of Narnia, Hostel, Land of the Dead, Sin City, Lemony Snicket, Kill Bill, Hulk, Men In Black, Minority Report, The Cell, Men in Black, Scream, From Dusk Till Dawn, Casino, "Xena: Warrior Princess", In the Mouth of Madness, Army of Darkness, Reservoir Dogs, The People Under the Stairs, Misery, Bride of Re-Animator, Tales from the Darkside: The Movie, UHF (Weird Al's Rambo muscle makeup), etc, etc, etc...

The Casino Prado Cinema at 2am for BOXER'S OMEN (Down in front Mr Marc Walkow!)

trivia tidbit

I have had this little story in my email inbox for a month waiting to share it with you all. It comes from cinema supporter Dennis Bartok:

Did a Q&A last night with John Saxon in between screenings of ENTER THE DRAGON and NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET at the Aero Theatre in Santa Monica, which the Cinematheque now operates. What a guy ... He said of the 150+ movies he's made and all the actors he's worked with from Brando on down, he's been asked more questions about Bruce Lee than everyone else combined. I said, Don't worry, John -- I'm sure that in the next world Bruce Lee is tired of getting hassled by people coming up to him saying, "Hey, you worked with John Saxon didn't you?!" He laughed his ass off.

where have I been...?

I disappeared for awhile, but to answer the question of where I went, simply do a search for "Borat + Toronto" on youtube for a general idea.


Toronto Film Festival Projectionist (Programmer) Slain By Angry Borat Fans

or for another take on the story read this

The order of the evening went as so:

#1 - the arrival!



#2 - the introduction!



#3 - the projection booth!



#4 - my impending lynching



and now I am part of a viral marketing campaign...

vintage thai ass kicking

reading the coverage at Kaiju Shakedown of Tony Jaa's appearance in NYC at a promo screening of THE PROTECTOR (aka TOM YUM GOONG) and came across this link to one of the early films by Panna Rittikrai, Jaa's fight director. look for this coming out subtitled in up coming weeks. and below is a pic of a handsome white devil and his bodyguards (Panna on the right)

cause its been too damn long

number one excuse - at a cottage for 15 days with dial-up only...

this harks back to one of my original blog postings on the super 8mm digest of THUNDER KICK. someone took their copy, transferred it to video, and scored all the fight scenes with hiphop tracks



and you can't forget the masters of fists and needles, the dudes at Hop Fu. if they ever play near your dojo, check'em!



The first tube courtesy of Joseph O'Brien author of Joe! The Blog and The Baron of Bad Ideas. Check out this spiffy trailer for his upcoming horror comic book.

They Call Him Chop Suey

Since I am taking it easy, trying to beat the heat of Toronto, I guess I should be filing more posts on the blog. Problem is I will be heading to the cottage in the next two days where there is only dial-up! GASP! Whatever will I do? Relax maybe...

This posting goes out to my good friend Romeo who has been sweating in worse climates in the Philippines. He has been working hard on his film THE INHERITANCE which you can read about here, here and even here.

Grabbed this poster for THEY CALL HIM CHOP SUEY, unaware that is was a Filipino flick starring 70s Tagalog kung fu hero Ramon Zamora (DRAGON, LIZARD, BOXER and SNAKE DRAGON CONNECTION) and written by Bobby Suarez who would later go on to direct/produce stellar films like ONE-ARMED EXECUTIONER, CLEOPATRA WONG, and BIONIC BOY 1 & 2 (aka DYNAMITE JOHNSON and TRONIC BOY). Romeo - look these dudes up for for cameos in your martial arts epic!

spaghettii-sci-fu.... nice!

Thanks to Paul McEvoy, beloved master of mayhem of London, UK's Fright Fest along with Alan Jones (read his great blog, a delight for true genre fans) and Ian Rattray (Ian - start a blog or something so I can link you!), for sending this link to the new video for Knights Of Cydonia by the band Muse. Oh they certainly don't mak'em like they used to (or did they ever?)

"There are no tigers or dragons in Saskatchewan, but there are lawyers."

They are talking about us - yes, CANADA! The son of the author of the novel that 'Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon' was based on has filed a suit against Columbia Pictures and The Weinstein Company for prequel rights in Canadian court no less! Click and read on for more info! (image from UtahArtists.com - the work of Jesse Draper)

at least he doesn't smoke

If cigs were this big we would have to fight back! Actually, back in the early days, Jackie was a smoker. I have also seen video footage of Jet Li smoking on the set of ONCE UPON A TIME IN CHINA AND AMERICA...

maybe he thought the invite said, "Drunken Master of Ceremonies"

From my secret source in TST/Kowloon comes this scandalous report...

"Some of you might have read that Jackie Chan made a clown of himself the other night by getting up onstage at a concert he attended and swearing at the crowd, singing songs, and so on. All the English language stories so far printed online have left out the juicy details such as him saying "Fuck Your Mother" to the audience. This is the Chan that HK people see, but that isn't seen by the outside world! This story is translated from local Chinese press..."

Jackie Chan angered the public by making himself a clown on Monday night while appearing at his long time Taiwanese singer song-writer friend Jonathan Lee's concert at the Hong Kong Coliseum.

The public complained that Chan's embarrassing stupidity truely detrimantal to Hong Kong's image.

Chan invited himself and turned up on the stage towards the end of the show, obviously drunk, started swearing right at the beginning. "I rarely show up at this kind of occasion drunk. But tonight I'm really drunk. Fuck [diu, lei lo mei, another version of fuck your mother in Cantonese]...Oh damn I just swore," he said.

The crowd was stunned. Chan then quickly explained that he just entertained some 20 Japanese friends and drank a lot. "What did I say? I can't quite remember. Damn I'm really drunk...I have to apologise," Chan said, then bowed to the audience. He continued: "I apologise to everybody. I shouldn't be on stage drunk. But I know that if I made a fool of myself, you guys will be happy. So I'd rather make a fool of myself."

After singing two songs, Chan still had no desire to leave. He wanted to sing one more song but the audience was getting impatient. Some members of the audience began swearing at him and saying something like: "Go home", "Very irritating" and "Shut up". But Chan acted as if he heard nothing. Then his singer friend Lee began looking at the watch and it angered Chan. Chan said: "Why are you looking at the watch? I'll pay [for the fines] if the show over runs. What do you look at your watch all the time?"

Then the band began to play, but Chan shouted at the band: "Shut up! You play music only when I tell you to! Now we sing 'Chun Sum Ying Hung' [True Heart Hero]"

Then Chan acted like an orchestra conductor and the keyboardist began playing. However, that angered Chan too. "How arrogant! I haven't even started to count one, two, three! Where do you come from?" he shouted. Audience then booed when he started singing.

After singing the song, Chan apologised to the audience and said: "We thank Jonathan for coming to MY concert." Then he said: "I've disturbed your show. Thanks to Jonathan for letting me come on to the stage. There was a crazy man out here." The show was over run and fined for HK$40,000.

When Chan was about to leave the show, he was interrogated by journalists and apologised. "I'm really ashamed of myself. I'm so sorry," he said.

But the next day, Chan denied that he was drunk on that night. However, his son Jaycee Fong was embarrassed by his father's stupidity and apologised. "I hope this will not happen again," Fong said.

The public was offended by Chan's stupid action as Chan was chosen by the Hong Kong Tourism Board as the ambassador. They feel that the incident did make Hong Kong look bad internationally.

The Tourism Board said that they were very concerned with the incident and has been trying to get in touch with Chan's management. But the board refused to comment on whether Chan's incident would affect Hong Kong's image.

Source: Chinese language newspapers.

more HK football lunacy

I should be working on something else FAR more important, but I stumbled across this and HAD to post it since it is so time sensitive. Germany just beat Portugal, so that means that my neighbourhood can sleep soundly tonight as I live in one of the many Little Portugals located in Toronto.

How does HK like their football? Well, 30 billion viewers watched the last World Cup in 2002, and 2.78 million Hong Kong people tuned in to watch Germany play Brazil in the final. And on the morbid side of things, according to the ever vigilant World Cup Death Watch from the WFMU blog, fifty soccer fans around the world have died as a result of the World Cup since it began on June 24 and eleven of those fans were from China, the most of any country.

"The experts attribute the death to the 'World Cup Syndrome', " China Daily reported. "The experts say the Chinese fans have to watch the World Cup at midnight due to the time difference, which breaks their biological clocks and makes them more exhausted, so the incidence rate rises sharply."

In Lan Kawi Fong, the notorious ex-pat nightclub/bar area, the streets are packed with fans and the booze does flow. I was there in March during an international rugby match and it was out of control. I have some footage I shot of the crowds and the cops standing by on alert, but sadly that is on my HD at the office. In the meantime, here is some fresh footage of Hong Kong-ers watching 2006 WC.

Here are more topical HK football postings:


"Airport 98" John Woo's Nike football ad from 1998. Watch the ad here.

"Already a sponsor of the Brazilian National Team, Nike hired the skillful players to introduce their new soccer shoe line "Mercurial" in the wake of the 1998 World Cup France. A TV spot was conceived with the team killing time with a soccer ball while waiting on their flight to France. Wieden & Kennedy of Amsterdam, Nike's agency, teamed up with the advertising branch of Quentin Tarantino and Lawrence Bender's A Band Apart Commercials to produce the spot. A director was needed who was capable of bringing the lightweight and dancelike quality of Brazilian soccer to the small screen. John Woo seems like the ideal choice, although the acclaimed action director never had done a commercial before. But he brought TV experience to the project, the ability to stage fast-paced action sequences and his enthusiasm for the sport.
"In a commercial, you can try to do a lot of new experimental techniques. It's no limit. It's a crazy thing, but very, very creative," the directors told the Shawnee News Star." >>more

The above taken from a wire story posted on hardboiled.de

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A pair of Nike ads by HK art film director Fruit Chan (Made in Hong Kong, Longest Summer, Little Cheung, Dumplings: Three... Extremes). called "Baby Heart" and "Estate Joy". Great stuff, especially the one showing the residential estate.




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An ad for the Emirates Airline where a soccer ball will help you when you are shopping for chicken feet and tripe at the local market in HK...


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A San Miguel beer ad starring Stephen Chow Sing-chi and the cast of Shaolin Soccer. The subs are tiny, but at least they are there...


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Watch your back! During the final minutes of a soccer match in Hong Kong, two spectators had a dispute on which is the best team on the field. And here is how it ended... Lord love You Tube!


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Can't really blame the behaviour of the fans, when the referees act like this! Check this clip of a referee starting a fight with local football star Lee Kin Wo.

satanists, a dwarf, bonage, S&M and a Black Samurai!

Obviously other things I should be doing, but here you go --- from the Tomb Whom It May Concern blog, a great Jim Kelly image! Check David's blog for more groovy blaxploitation images.

health care in Hong Kong cinema

Don't know what this category III flick is, but the lobbycard sure makes the mind race. I have several other images from the film that I will post over time...

summer is here...

well, kung fu fridays might be done, but July 15th, in my back yard... the return of the Gladstone Drive-In!

world cup kung fu

And just in time for the end of World Cup, here is a Yuen Clan kung fu soccer comedy starring Yuen Biao, CHAMPIONS! Martial arts kick off action before SHAOLIN SOCCER!

June 23rd - the LAST Kung Fu Friday - CRIPPLED AVENGERS

Sorry not to get this post up earlier, but it has been a crazy period with Fest duties and clearing out the basement of the Royal...

Ten years over... It finally came and it was quite the day. I spent the afternoon at The Royal in the basement along with two disciples mastered in the boxing arts, Matt and Graeme, as we packed up prints from my collection of 35mm prints. Since the Royal was closing on the 30th, this has been an intensive endeavour to say the least. I think I spent around $600 on boxes that are the right size for these 50lb suckers. A film crew from CBC at Six stopped by and did some interviews with me and the owner of the cinema, Chris McQuillan about the state of rep cinemas in Toronto and the fate of these glorious spaces. I have a bright outlook on that, but more details on why, when the cards finally fall and get picked up...


I just had enough time to head back home, shower the filth off, leap into a cab and arrive at the Revue to meet up with the CBC crew again as they wanted to get some cool footage in the cinema with the film playing in the background. Once that got done, I joined boxing art master Matt and his lady friend and fellow Kung Fu Fridays devotee, Kate, at The Local, the cool bar next door for a drink. We were joined by Luis Ceriz, (owner of Suspect Video), Dave Constable (uber cinephile and print traffic grandmaster from the Film Circuit), his lady friend, Kagan McLeod (the ink pugilist responsible for the Infinite Kung Fu comic book) and several others who dropped by as we swigged beers and reminisced about the series. As I glanced out the window I saw my mom and sister walk by, who came all the way from Ottawa as a surprise! I was bowled over to say the least and almost started to weep!

Things started rolling as a line began to form earlier than usual for the show. With dexterity and speed, prize tickets were passed out thanks to the help of Dave Ferris, who has stepped up to help in the past when I found myself overwhelmed at previous shows. All seemed to be going smooth until I got some news sooner than expected from Midori, the manager of the Revue - at 9:30, fifteen minutes before show time, we only had 30 tickets left and a line-up of around 80 down the block.


It was tense, but we managed to get as many seated in the temple of fu, and rather than have a potential fire hazard due to over crowding, regrettably informed the line-up that the show was sold out. I was fretful about that, but everyone seemed to understand and I got an enthusiastic round of applause and thanks for my efforts over the years of putting on the shows. Time to start the show!


I did my usual schtick and introduced some coming attactions, that of course, are never coming to a theatre near anyone! I usually show 2 or 3, but packed with five! These included: POLICE STORY 3: SUPERCOP (which got rawkous applause when the Brit superintendent says, "We need a cop - a SUPER COP" and Jackie Chan shows up and salutes!); DEAD CURSE (a good contender for a Halloween show); CHINESE KUNG FU AND ACUPUNCTURE; ZEN KWAN DO STRIKES IN PARIS; and the show stopper, CHALLENGE OF THE LADY NINJA (aka CHINESE SUPER NINJA 2), complete with stripping lady ninjas, Chen Kwan-tai, and some funky ass muzik!



Light went up and I ran back to reintroduce myself and give a little rundown on how Kung Fu Fridays started. Not going to recite it again, but in brief, I looked back at the humble start at the Metro Cinema (Toronto's last remaining porn house) with a print of SNAKE IN THE EAGLE'S SHADOW that turned out to have no subtitles! I name checked the night we had a celebrity in the house at the screening of MASTER KILLER (aka 36 CHAMBERS OF SHAOLIN) - Quentin Tarantino and a rather bored looking Mira Sorvino. I rambled on some more and started throwing out props to the folks who helped over the years like Tim Smy, Hal Kelly, the staff at the cinemas, Dion Conflict, Suspect, Magic Pony, our valiant projectionist Kai (who I first worked with at Golden Classics), and Peter McQuillan, the late owner and cinema fan who owned the cinemas, giving me the chance to relocate to the Royal and the opportunity to start my little theatrical distribution game with BUBBA HO-TEP.

With the help of Prize Queen Jen, her magic box of raffle tickets, and courtesy of Suspect Video, we gave away around 14 dvds and some gift certificates. As I was about to wrap it up, the above mentioned Kate, came down to the front and presented me with a trophy (with a cool karate dude on it) for my efforts along with an amazing piece of artwork by Kagan. And she even had a prize for Jen! Then two long time disciples, Donald and David Simmons (these two spear headed anime screenings in Toronto) presented me with a Bruce Lee poster that they had the audience sign!


And finally Dion Conflict of Trailer Trash/Hunkajunk/Conflict Archives fame gave me a trophy with a baseball player, but he modified the bat into a nunchuck! The thing that really humbled me was when the whole cinema gave me a rousing standing ovation.


Picking CRIPPLED AVENGERS as my final title for Kung Fu Fridays turned out to be a random choice. When scheduling for June I originally intended to schedule AVENGERS to fit in with the end of the Shaw Brothers series at the Cinematheque Ontario followed Taoism Drunkard to continue with the Yuen Wo-ping theme. After turning in the write-ups, I was told that the owners had decided to close the Review and the dates I wanted were unavailable. I decided to play only one title in June and AVENGERS was it, but I was unaware that AVENGERS was actually the second title that I screened after moving the series to the Royal in 2000 and it also played on June 23rd! AVENGERS turned out to be the best choice as the audience went nuts for the flips and kicks matched by the classic Shaw Brothers English dubbing.


After the screening I was joined by others at the sports bar up the street, Joe Mercury's, where we our ears were assaulted by drunken locals doing karaoke. Luckily Hal Kelly brought a cake to celebrate which made things better. As the booze flowed, dubbed lines and flubtitles were quoted back and forth. Truly a good way to bid farewell to Kung Fu Fridays. One chapter closed, another is just starting...


Photos courtesy of Jen Howard and Greg Woods (editor of The Eclectic Screening Room)