chocolate Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Pictured above (clockwise from upper left): Nights in Rodanthe, W., Frozen River, Chocolate.

Nights in Rodanthe
I'll quote our own Jeffrey M. Anderson: "If you're the type that likes crying at the movies, you'll love it. If you loved Richard Gere and Diane Lane together in a thriller like Unfaithful (2002) but you don't like to cry, you probably won't like it. Me, I found a few things to like and much to loathe." The DVD includes two mini-features, alternate scenes, and a music video. Also on Blu-ray. Skip it.

Add to Netflix queue. | Buy at Amazon. | Read Jeff's review.

W.
Oliver Stone's biopic is more bromide than probing drama, but as a comedy it's pretty entertaining, and Josh Brolin is superb as the confoundingly charming George W. Bush. DVD includes an audio commentary by Stone and the featurette "Dangerous Dynasty: The Bush Presidency." Also on Blu-ray. Rent it.

Add to Netflix queue. | Buy at Amazon. | Read James Rocchi's review.

Chocolate
Thai action has never hit harder than under Prachya (Ong Bak) Pinkaew's direction in Chocolate, featuring the irresistible young star Jeeja. She plays an autistic girl with a forcibly-retired assassin for a mother and an absent Yakuza for a father, and the girl has mad skills with her hands, feet, elbows, and knees! This has endless replay value for action fans. DVD includes interviews with the director and a "making of" mini-feature. Also on Blu-ray. Buy it.

Add to Netflix queue. | Buy at Amazon. | Read my review of the import DVD.

Also out: Spike Lee's WWI drama Miracle at St. Ann; Samuel L. Jackson and Bernie Mac in Malcolm D. Lee's comedy Soul Men; and Julianne Moore in Fernando Meirelles' thriller Blindness.

Welcome to the first weekly edition of Asian Cinema Scene. I've written about Asian films under this moniker irregularly in the past; from now on, you can look forward to a fresh new post every Monday. (Unless something emerges from a river and snatches me in its tentacles.) Some weeks I'll concentrate on one film; today I'll roundup a few items of interest from the past week.

Sweet treat. The awesome Thai action flick Chocolate got midnight screenings Friday and Saturday in select markets, courtesy of Magnolia Pictures. It looks great on the big screen, especially with an appreciative audience, but if you missed it, don't despair; look for details on the DVD release in tomorrow's Spin-ematical.

Non-deals. Will recent higher-profile Asian flicks like Tony Jaa's Ong Bak 2 or John Woo's Red Cliff (with the two parts edited into one epic) ever sell to US distributors? The European Film Market is happening this week in Berlin, and I'm keeping my fingers crossed that we hear something. Meanwhile, Red Cliff 2 is opening across Asia in staggered release; check one of the trailers below.

Consumer beware. DVD label Dragon Dynasty has taken a serious backward step with their decision to release The Enforcer (AKA My Father is a Hero), starring Jet Li, without the original-language Cantonese audio track. Mark Pollard of Kung Fu Cinema reviewed the new edition in detail, and also posted a response by Genius Products, distributor of the Dragon Dynasty line, to criticism expressed online, in which they claim no usable version of the original audio was available in time for the release. It's a good, crunchy action flick directed by Corey Yuen, and deserves better.

After the jump: Variety Asia says goodbye. Plus, which four films are represented in the image above? No peeking!

OK, so I missed my flight to San Diego this morning and I've had a really rotten day, but there's always a small silver lining, right? In the movie world there is: JUST announced (like, within the last few minutes!) is the Toronto Film Festival's Midnight Madness '08 line-up. And, as usual, it looks pretty damn awesome.

I've heard some really good things about Pascal Laugier's Martyrs, Franck Vestiel's Eden Log, and Jon Hewitt's Acolytes -- plus I've been itchin' to see JT Petty's horror-western The Burrowers for over a year now! Other selections include Pracha Pinkaew's Chocolate, Toshio Lee's Detroit Metal City, and Mark Hartley's Not Quite Hollywood. Click right here for all ten of TIFF's Midnight picks --and of course you can expect all sorts of expansive festival coverage once TIFF rolls out in early September. Woo!

(Note: Rocchi got all excited about JCVD being chosen as one of the Midnight selections, which is a title I neglected to mention the first time around. Ditto Sexykiller and Deadgirl.)

( Also announced today: Toronto's Wavelengths and Sprockets Family Zone selections. )

I know you shouldn't be jealous of friends, but dang! A couple of my friends from Twitch are in Berlin right about now, preparing to watch Prachya Pinkaew's Chocolate at the European Film Market, and I'm jealous. (Cue: raised fist and railing at the heavens.) I'm also jealous of all the good people in Thailand, where the movie opens today. Why so jealous? First, Pinkaew directed Ong Bak and The Protector, both of which were rocket-fueled flicks filled with jaw-dropping action. And second, have you seen the trailer?

The trailer hit last month and features "Jeeja" as an autistic girl who kicks butt like there's no tomorrow. She was discovered four years ago by Pinkaew while he was helping to cast another movie (Born to Fight), according to Bangkok newspaper The Nation. She didn't get a part in that film, but Pinkaew was so impressed he invited her to begin working with his friend and fellow filmmaker Panna Rittikrai. She's been training in martial arts ever since.

Thai film expert Wise Kwai says the first 30 minutes develops the heroine's character, followed by "90 minutes of non-stop, innovative and dangerous action, as new female martial arts star Yanin 'Jeeja' Wismitanant single-handedly lays waste to dozens of men with just her feet, knees, shins and fists." Given the current inhospitable climate for nearly all foreign-language genre films in the US, I don't expect Chocolate to get a wide theatrical release, but it would be sweet if some kind distributor gave it exposure on the specialty festival circuit and selected theatrical playdates -- like Magnolia Pictures did with Rittikrai's Dynamite Warrior -- before releasing it on DVD.

[ Via Grady Hendrix at Kaiju Shakedown. ]

The strike isn't the only thing that has been cooking up lately. Check out all the international indie deals that Variety threw up recently:

• Oldboy helmer Park Chan-Wook has not only been cooking up some machine love with I'm a Cyborg, But That's OK. He's also got Bakjwi (Evil Live) on the way -- a modern-day bloodsucking vampire story, and Variety reports that CJ Entertainment has pre-sold French and Russian rights to the pic, which hopefully means North America will get some bloody rights soon. Other current CJ deals include Secret Sunshine, Shadows in the Palace, and Love Now.
• On the more Bolly side of things, Variety has posted that India indie distributor Indo-Overseas Films has picked up some movie rights. First up is the romcom Chocolate, directed by Mayavi helmer Shafi, and written by Sachi and Sethu. Ah, the ease of one-word, short names! The other film that Indo-Overseas has nabbed is Power Kids, but that currently seems to be lurking beyond the reach of the Internet.
• There's also a few action flicks coming out of Hong Kong. Variety reports that Rialto has gotten Aussie and Kiwi rights to both award-winner Dante Lam's upcoming flick Sniper, and Assassins -- Soi Cheang's latest action film. I don't know Cantonese, but maybe one of you, out there, can tell me if that's the same as The Grudge detective Ryo Ishibashi's Shamo? The flicks are also reaching Israel, the ex-Yugoslavian region, and Turkey, so maybe, again, we'll hear North American rights soon.

A lot of people have taken to calling the Masters of Horror series a Showtime production, but the truth is that the experiment was born over at Anchor Bay. Series creator Mick Garris had the idea to snag a bunch of the finest horror-makers under the sun, have each one direct an hour-long mini-movie, and then let the Gorehounds devour the goods through the magic of DVD. But then Showtime got involved, and they aired 12 of the 13 episodes between last December and March of this year. (The 13th episode, Takashi Miike's Imprint, was deemed too harsh by the Showtime folks, which means you won't be able to see it till the DVD hits shelves.)

Unfortunately, Anchor Bay has taken a fairly money-hungry approach to releasing Masters on DVD: Two episodes hit stores yesterday, available individually or as part of a 2-pack. But with a list price of $16.98 apiece (which means a retail cost of about 11 bucks each), it seems that the horror faithful are expected to dole out about $150 if they want the entire season. (By comparison, my 13-episode collection of the brilliant Firefly set me back only about 40 bucks!) But hey, nobody's saying you have to buy 'em all, right? We horror geeks aren't ravenous completists and ferocious collectors ... are we? (To be fair, if the first 2 DVDs are any indication, each release promises to come stocked with loads of extra goodies, so at least we're getting some value for our money.)

Anyway, to commemorate the DVD debut of the series (well, the first two episodes) I thought it might be helpful to give our readers a Masters Guide -- despite the fact that I've seen precisely ONE episode of the show so far! Click below for a list of all the actors, the Masters, the release dates, all 13 plot synopses, and a variety of trivial hoo-hah intended mainly for the hardcore horror freaks.