• Ghost in the Shell remake rights picked up by Dreamworks – pushed ahead by Steven Spielberg and with no one but producer Steven Paul (of SuperBabies: Baby Geniuses 2, Bratz and Ghost Rider fame) attached to the project so far. And before you laugh at the hapless Shirow fans – he’s also attached to the Tekken and Castlevania remakes.
• Just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse – Cowboy Bebop remake announced, with Keanu Reeves attached to play Spike Spiegel. It does say it’s just a rumour, but the previously announced info, with Keanu’s agent/manager Erwin Stoff as producer attached points in that direction. Really now. It’ll be horrible.
• Zack Snyder’s Watchmen adaptation has teaser footage released. I don’t care, to be honest. I saw the trailer ahead of The Dark Knight and it was a confusing mess. Calling Zack Snyder visionary is a joke. Dawn of the Dead came on the heels of 28 Days Later, 300 was after Sin City and Watchmen is coming after basically every single other goddamn comicbook movie. He’s a hack who makes technically sound but incredibly shallow and unsatisfying films – calling him Michael Bay for fanboys does Michael Bay a disservice. His films have the potential to be so much more, but I have this feeling that he’s sitting there in the background going “Oh shit, the audience is about to start thinking! Quick! Stop them! Spoonfeed them some more information!”.
• Just when you thought Singstar couldn’t get any gayer after Singstar Anthems (probably the best of the Singstar games out there along with Singstar 90s), Singstar: Hits from the Musicals is allegedly in development. I do like that they’re going an anti-Rock Band/Guitar Hero route with these games, and I admit, “Can You Feel The Love Tonight” is damn tempting.
• Mythological Veterinarian sounds like an incredibly cute concept, though the whole point of comedies is that they’re cheap to make and this sounds like it’ll need a lot of creature effects. Still, gonna keep my eye on it.
• Spiderman Musical wtf. Directed by Julie Taymor, so obviously they want to recapture the magic of The Lion King Musical (interesting trivia – Timon and Pumbaa’s dialogue is localised for the various regions, even within countries. In the Japanese run, the Nagoya, Tokyo and Fukuoka productions each had different regional accents for the characters). But yeah.
  

  Arache, a beautiful, boastful young woman turned into a spider for her hubris and lack of respect for the gods. She subsequently appears to Peter Parker and the audience as in turn a powerful spider-woman who comes from another time to inspire Peter; an otherworldly lover; a bride; a terrifying (and sexy) dark goddess of vengeance; a dance partner in a charged and violent spiders dance of death; and, finally, a lonely, fragile young woman.”

  This just doesn’t make sense.

As well as all that, the success of The Dark Knight – currently number 1 on IMDB, breaking records left and right. And of course, the viral marketing campaign was a huge success. Indeed, even just Gotham Cable News is a good watch to prepare for the film or to watch later as a supplement.

So naturally, everyone and their dog wants to start viral marketing or an ARG of some kind.

• What looks like it’s trying to be this year’s Halo 2 Ilovebees – Resistance 2 has a game going on at http://www.getawarjob.com/, where you can sign up to join their army (but I wouldn’t recommend it – they’ll test drugs on you).
• Need for Speed has a viral site up at http://www.whichroadtotake.com/, which is… kinda lame really. You click around and find video clips. The weird numbers spell out “Undercover” when inputted into a cellphone with predictive text.
• The game Too Human has a weird one up, apparently about the Goblin Man of Norway. Yeah I don’t know what the fuck.
• Apparently there’ll be some sort of Watchmen related viral material – naturally, they’re all about the bandwagon. The source for this is apparently somewhere within G4’s coverage of SDCC, but… ugh, don’t want to touch that shit.
• Lost is starting up again, apparently. They had a fairly successful campaign a few years back, and at this year’s Comic Con was recruiting for the Dharma initiative.
• Tropic Thunder, the comedy about a group of actors filming a war film (Kung Fu Panda and Iron Man go to the Jungle), has a few viral marketing sites up which are rather giggle-worthy. http://www.tuggspeedman.com/ and http://www.kirklazarus.com/ are both up, as are the various websites for the movies they’ve been in. I tried emailing the Panda Relocation Foundation regarding a panda, but they haven’t gotten back to me…
• Can probably expect something from the upcoming Star Trek film as well – the creator JJ Abrams is big on the viral thing, what with Lost and Cloverfield both having big online campaigns.

Whew, I think that’s it for now.

To be honest, this year I’m pretty underwhelmed by the range of films. I’m usually pretty big on seeing anime at the cinema, but there isn’t even very much of that. But this is a long entry nonetheless…

Anime is represented by Evangelion 1.0 and Vexille. I’d never heard of Vexille so I looked it up – it’s by the director of the live action Ping Pong. It’s also already been out in the States on DVD for the past month, ugh. So shit, basically – I’m pretty pissed that Madman NZ have screwed us out of any chance of seeing anything good. I’ll still wind up seeing Evangelion, but… eh. It’s at the Skycity cinemas, for one, which is highly unatmospheric (for any non-locals reading this, the main screenings are done in the theatre from the modern King Kong movie – you know, where they’re exhibiting Kong and he breaks free and escapes into New York).

There’s Sukiyaki Western Django, for the Takashi Miike fans here (the guy who did Audition). It sounds… kind of odd, but that’s Miike for you. I still have no idea what it’s about, so read the synopsis for yourself.

The new movie by Nobuhiro Yamashita (directed Linda Linda Linda, and The Matsugane Potshot Affair from last year’s film fest), which is apparently based on a shoujo manga series. It’s been given the horribly bland English title of A Gentle Breeze in the Village. A good watch if you like boring tedium/slice of life stories, I imagine – Linda Linda Linda was worth seeing for the opening tracking shot through the high school festival preparations alone. Also I Just Didn’t Do It, which won a boatload of things at the Japanese Academy Awards. Still looks… eh.

Lots of Chinese, Hong Kong and Taiwanese film for those of you who are into that sort of thing, including a retrospective on Edward Yang. Top of my list there is probably Stephen Chow’s CJ7 – it’ll be interesting to see him do something a bit different to his older work (Kung Fu Hustle, Shaolin Soccer). Also Wong Kar-wai’s Ashes of Time Redux, relegated to the ghetto of the Skycity theatre. I didn’t even know he did wuxia. Only two Korean films this year, and both look rapeful, so I think I’ll skip that.

Lots of American and French film, especially docos like King of Kong, Gonzo: The Life and Work of Doctor Hunter S. Thompson and Standard Operating Procedure. Personally I want to see Michel Gondry’s Be Kind, Rewind, partially because of this video (Probably best to watch the official trailer first though).

Zombies (though I haven’t been able to get into Romero), Nazis (Best Foreign Film at the Oscars last year), Das Experiment Lite, Turkmenistan, Ben X and Boy A both showing on the same day in Auckland (bound to cause confusion), the world’s most descriptive title, The Next Karate Kid, among others. Also lots of European torture porn in the Incredibly Strange Film Festival section, if you’re into that sort of thing.

There doesn’t seem to be anything too horribly pretentiously indie, which is a relief, but still seems like slim pickings this year. Especially The Incredible Film Festival section – I expected more than splatter movies, and it did not deliver.

So anyway, so a list of what I’m interested in.

A Gentle Breeze in the Village

Yeah, what the hell, might as well. If it isn’t boring as hell, it might not be so bad.

Be Kind, Rewind

Michel Gondry is an imperfect director, but I forgive him. Plus I like Jack Black and I think Mos Def is a highly underrated.

CJ7

Stephen Chow hasn’t steered me wrong so far.

Earth

Apparently the BBC’s Planet Earth is one of the best things on bluray right now, and this is derived from it. Sometimes you’re in the mood for a grandiose nature doco, though it remains to be seen whether I’ll feel this way in a few weeks’ time.

Evangelion 1.0

Because it’s a moneygrubbing attempt to leech money out of a classic series, and I’m stupid enough to fall for that shit.

Flight of the Red Balloon

The director Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s earlier film Cafe Lumiere holds a firm place in my heart – the main character in the film lives a few steps away from my grandparents’ house in Tokyo, and while the film’s slow pace is definitely not for everyone, for me it managed to perfectly capture a certain time and place that’s very special to me. If he can manage the same for the city of Paris, it’s definitely something I want to see.

In Bruges

Must see Irish humour, apparently.

In Search of a Midnight Kiss

This film apparently manages to make downtown Los Angeles look romantic. Kind of curious as to how that goes…

Obscene

One of my favourite poems is Allen Ginsberg’s “Howl” (along with Oscar Wilde’s “Ballad of Reading Gaol”, if you must know) and this film covers, among other things, the legal battle to publish it in Britain. Plus censorship is something I’ve been fairly uneducated about and feel I should care more about.

The Orphanage

Apparently a great spooky Spanish horror film, strong on atmosphere. It’s a Spanish blockbuster too, which I like – I generally go to the festival to see popular foreign films, rather than stuff that’s niche even in its own country. Produced by Guillermo del Toro, and apparently it’s got that creepy Pan’s Labyrinth vibe. Plus, you know, orphanages are scary as shit.

Persepolis

It lost out on the Best Animated Feature Oscar to Ratatouille last year. Plus you know, Iranian Revolution black and white animated coming of age film in French… deep. It looks interesting, even though the last animation I saw in French was The Triplets of Belleville. I won’t hold that against it.

Standard Operating Procedure

I read this blog entry by the director Errol Morris regarding the Abu Ghraib photographs and immediately realised that I’d been doing the same kneejerk reaction. I don’t agree with everything he says, but from reading some of the other stuff he’s blogged, I admire his depth of analysis. Go read that article!

The Visitor

The director Tom McCarthy made The Station Agent, which was all sorts of things I should hate – Sundance acclaimed full of self-absorbed Americans wandering around doing nothing, yet McCarthy managed to make me thoroughly enjoy his film. While the synopsis worries me, I hope he can do the same this time around.

So like I said, slim pickings this year, heh.

Apparently what appears to be a Ghibli licensed patisserie, making nothing but Totoro shaped cream puffs, has showed up in suburban Tokyo. This image is making me hungry. The details, in case anyone who reads this is anywhere near Tokyo:
3-21-21 Takaido Higashi, Suginami-ku, Tokyo, and the map shows it as close to the Takaido station off the Keio Inokashira line. The hours are 11am-7pm with Wednesdays off. Website: http://www.shiro-hige.com

Of course, I’m far more likely to end up there than at Patisserie Swallowtail. Even if… mmm, delicious…

Except, goddamn, now I’m craving omu-rice. With something cute drawn on the top in tomato sauce, or something. Which of course any self-respecting maid cafe in Japan, or even less self-respecting places outside of Japan would do.

Of course, there’s other novelty cafe options in Tokyo. I don’t exactly make a habit of trying them all (maybe I should?) because so many of them are temporary affairs, but there’s always this place:

The menu is… a bit odd. There’s a disconcertingly large amount of pasta on there, and there was also a photo of a burger containing kiwifruit. And to top it all off, there’s an Outback Steakhouse next door *shakes fist*

The address, in case you’re interested, is 6-1-3 Roppongi, Minato-ku, Tokyo. It’s fairly close to Roppongi station on both the Oedo line and Hibiya line, and there’s more info on the site if you need it.

Probably my favourite of the places is Jackson Hole from the live action film, anime and manga franchise NANA. It technically doesn’t count as a novelty food place, given the bar existed before the manga, but it’s still nice because the entire place is exactly as it appears in the show. And of course there’s the Jackson Burgers, which are kind of small and kind of expensive, but oh so tasty.

Unfortunately, they closed their original store at the end of March this year and moved, and I can’t find their new address. It’s on the north side Chofu station on the Keio line (changing at Shinjuku is the easiest way to go) in Tokyo though, as opposed to the south side where it was previously. I don’t know if they’ll keep the decor or anything, but no doubt they’ll still have the burgers.

Via Nausicaa.net and Yahoo News