Berandal aka The Raid 2 Starts Shooting, First Images Revealed

Production has finally started on the eagerly awaited The Raid 2 also known as Berandal, kicking off an 100 day shoot in the Indonesian capital Jakarta and we have some images to get us in the mood!

The Raid 2:Berandal reunites Gareth Huw Evans and star of The Raid Uwo Iwais as Rama once again picking up from the moment he leaves the towering high rise taking the city's infamous crime syndicate. With the stakes now even higher and with corruption among the city's police department now exposed too Rama must protect his family and go deeper into Jakarta's criminal underworld.

Very moody images with Rama looking tired, bruised but not out looking edgy but most of all ready to inflict more pain on some nasty people which we want to see. What's more intriguing is Evans promises The Raid 2: Berandal will be “bigger, better and bloodier!”. The Raid was one of my highlights of 2012 when it made it's UK premiere at Glasgow Film4 Frightfest  meeting the director and the film's main star and of course my autographed poster takes centre stage in The Peoples Movies & Cinehouse main office!

The Raid 2: Berandal will arrive sometime 2014.

Here's the official American press release:

Highly-anticipated Actioner “The Raid 2” Starts Production in Jakarta, Indonesia

Los Angeles, CA (January 31, 2013) – PT Merantau Films and XYZ Films announce the start of production for THE RAID 2 (Indonesian title, THE RAID 2: BERANDAL), the sequel to the wildly popular international hit THE RAID (aka THE RAID: REDEMPTION).  The film reunites writer/director Gareth Huw Evans with actor Iko Uwais, who will be reprising his starring role.  Ario Sagantoro is producing for PT Merantau Films, along with Nate Bolotin, Nick Spicer, Aram Tertzakian and Todd Brown for XYZ Films.  Executive producing are Rangga Maya Barack-Evans and Irwan D. Mussry.

In addition to Uwais, the international cast includes Tio Pakusadewo, Putra Arifin Scheunamann, Julie Estelle, Alex Abbad and Roy Marten.  The film is currently lensing in Jakarta, Indonesia and is scheduled to shoot for over 100 days. Line producing the film is Daiwanne Ralie, with Matthew Flannery and Dimas Imam Subhono serving as directors of photography.

Picking up right where the first film ends, The Raid 2 follows Rama (Uwais) as he goes undercover and infiltrates the ranks of a ruthless Jakarta crime syndicate in order to protect his family and uncover the corruption in his own police force.

The Raid premiered at the 2011 Toronto International Film Festival, where it took home the Audience Award in the Midnight Madness section. It went on to play at Sundance and SXSW, before enjoying a theatrical release in the United States through Sony Pictures Classics. The film is approaching $15M in global box office.

XYZ and PT Mereantau Films are also in post-production on KILLERS, which is co-directed by Timo Tjahjanto and Kimo Stamboel, with Gareth Huw Evans and Rangga Maya Barack-Evans executive producing .  Evans and Tjahjanto recently collaborated on SAFE HAVEN, a celebrated segment in the horror anthology film S-VHS, which just premiered at this year’s Sundance Film Festival.

XYZ Films recently premiered Calvin Lee Reeder’s THE RAMBLER at Sundance as well.

“We’re incredibly excited to start the next chapter of The Raid story,” said XYZ Films. “Gareth introduced a rich and fertile world in the first film, and we’re eager to see him expand on that vision with Berandal.”

“To all our fans thank you so much for your support. We can’t wait to come back and show you what we have been working on,” said writer/director Gareth Evans. “We’ll be there in 2014 with a film bigger, better and bloodier! Wish us luck.”

source:Twitch

Chained Review

First thing to note about Chained is: it is not a pleasant viewing experience.

Second thing to note about Chained is: it will probably rot your soul a wee bit.

From Jennifer Lynch (yes, that’s David Lynch’s daughter) comes possibly the most brutal study in serial killers you’ll see this year and I don’t feel too pedantic saying that even though its only February. This truly intense piece of film, is unrelenting in its focus and painful in its portrayal of life with a serial killer.

A young boy (Evan Bird) is forced to become the personal slave of a serial killer cab-driver called Bob (Vincent D’Onofrio), after him and his mother are kidnapped and the mother murdered.  As a strange relationship forms between the two, not unlike a master-apprentice, the boy, (now older and portrayed by Eamon Farren) must choose whether to follow in his captor’s footsteps or make desperate attempts to flee the horror of the isolated home.

Even the first ten minutes is enough to deeply unsettle any seasoned horror fan, and it kinda roller coasters from there, reaching highs that have you so wound up you’ll want to look away and lows that will make you ponder the sad and inevitable lifestyles inherent to many abusive childhoods.  These lows are where D’Onofrio shows his true worth, in those sad wretched moments masked with rage and in the flashbacks of a life plagued with violence and cruelty. His quiet lisping voice and gaited wander are so adept at masking the strength and ferocity of a murderer, that at some points you can’t help but feel sorry for him. But then, that’s Lynch’s point: there’s a feeling that this piece doesn’t really have a villain in the traditional sense,  there’s too much cause and effect going about to simply mark any of the characters down as “evil”. By the end, though, he definitely deserves his comeuppance,

This careful characterisation allows the bizarre father/son relationship between Bob and Rabbit to grow without ever seeming laughable. Farrer’s barren performance is painful to watch but in that good way reserved only for truly distressing thrillers, kind of like Leland Orser in Se7en. Stuttered words and the furtive body language of a terrified child in a teen’s body all hint at years of systematic abuse and exposure to a life less cared for. Lynch is careful with which details of Rabbit’s life she presents to us, and which she holds back, since this is an intricate study in psychological horror it could easily be upset by anything too out-there.

There’s an ironic tone under all this misery matched with a deft and startling eye for detail. Bob’s taxi, scrawled luxuriously with the word Comfort is unsettling start to finish, Rabbit’s seemingly mile-long chain is near iconic, and Bob’s house in the middle of a lush green field seems like a prison island out at sea, to name a few wee details. That’s not to mention Bob and Rabbit playing trumps with the slain girls’ I.D. cards. There are a lot of clever little touches and beautiful framings which play with the restricted space of the house also, ensuring the film has merit as a cinematic construction as well as a heart-wrenching psyche-disturbance.

This is why it’s such a shame the ending flops.

A last minute dash for a twist leaves the film switching tracks far too late and the message gets thrown into the air. Its disappointing and does render the film slightly less than if it had stayed on its simple but strong premise.

Overall an intense and wholly unsettling affair thanks to careful scripting and a jaunting, claustrophobic style. D’Onofrio’s stellar performance is one of the best screen killers in a long time, whilst Lynch’s direction maintains an impressive near-perfect study of the cycle of abuse, spoiled only by an outlandish finale.

SCOTT CLARK

★★★★☆

Rating:18
UK Release Date: 1st February 2013 (Cinema) 4th February 2013 (DVD)
Director: Jennifer Chambers Lynch
Cast: Vincent D'Onofrio, Eamon Farren, Evan Bird
Pre-order/Buy Chained: DVD / Blu-ray

Antiviral Review

Take a look at the modern world and it’s difficult to deny we’re in a certain amount of trouble. Pick up any magazine, flick through any social networking sites, and you’ll see we have celebrity on the brain. Brandon Cronenberg (son of cult director, David Cronenberg) has chosen this sordid affair as a launching point for his impressive debut: Antiviral.

                Syd March (Caleb Landry Jones) works at the Lucas Clinic, a multi-million dollar institute that specialises in a very particular product: viruses that have been extracted from celebrities. In a world where celebrity obsession has reached dizzying levels, these diseases are the most intimate way for fans to connect to their idols. Syd infects himself with the diseases in order to smuggle them out the clinic and sell them on the black market, but after infecting himself with a disease that goes on to kill superstar Hannah Geist, he is forced to race against time in a desperate attempt to unravel the mystery of what is happening to his body.

                I can’t actually remember the last time a debut feature was so poignant, so keyed into what’s going on in the modern world. Brandon has obviously inherited his father’s keen eye for social commentary along with a vivid sense of style. Dependency on gossip, desire for more than just autographs, and the tide of nonsense crap that we consume daily in our desire to know more and more about glorified wannabes, it’s all here. Cronenberg flaunts his wit when he shows just how all this madness will end up, his script proves inventive time and time again; the faces given to viruses in order to determine their character, edibles made from celeb stem cells, cyber strippers, you get the drift. It’s a bleak and unsettling affair.

                The film looks dead sharp too; the cinematography, particularly the miserable palate, enforces a truly bleak dream-like world where the only real colour amidst the droll is blood-red. Bare minimum white-washed sets dominated by unnervingly large celeb posters are to be found everywhere in Cronenberg’s world. There’s some genius moments of body horror here reminiscent of early Cronenberg Sr; mechanical-human crossovers are unnerving viewing but if any real achievement is made, its making blood genuinely horrific. The parasites unseen are where our fears should really be lying, and after watching Syd slowly succumb, you’ll probably start noticing how few people bother to cover their mouths when they cough.

                Landry Jones deserves praise for a fantastic performance, one which becomes more and more desperate as the film progresses and hence, more riveting to watch.  Malcolm McDowell sneaks in as a Doctor interested in Syd’s regression, at one point admitting to him ‘I’m afraid you’ve become involved with something sinister’, surely  scoring the best horror one-liner thus far this year. It’s a wonder it’s not on the poster.

By the end of this ride you may be left wondering if the plot packs enough wallop, but in the face of the concept, style, and discourse, narrative can be excused ever-so-slightly. This is not only an impressive debut, but an important one, especially depressing when you stop to think, actually…this isn’t that far-fetched.

SCOTT CLARK

★★★★☆

Rating:15
UK Release Date: 1st February 2013 (Cinema) 11th February 2013 (DVD)
Director:Brandon Cronenberg
Cast: Caleb Landry Jones, Sarah Gadon, Malcolm McDowell
Buy:Antiviral [DVD]

Bullhead Review

In February 2011 Bullhead, the directing debut of Michaël R. Roskam, was released in Belgian cinemas and enjoyed success with both viewers and critics. Later that year it was selected and lauded by multiple international festivals. The director Roskam appeared on the “Ten directors to watch” list of Variety and it’s rumored that Hollywood is interested in Matthias Schoenaerts, who plays the lead in the film. But all this praise for a rather small Belgian movie pales in comparison to the news released a few days ago. Bullhead has been nominated for the “Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film”. It is in the light of this latest bit of praise that I went to revisit this tale of animals and hormones but above all of one’s humanity.

When you hear the opening monologue of the movie you already sense you’re in for something rather special. Beneath the surface it already hints at the deeper themes of the movie in a profound but delicate way.

You might’ve heard about Schoenaerts who gained 25 kilos of muscle for the role. And while this may sound impressive one might argue that the role of an actor is not (only) one of physical transformation. But transformation is more than physical the movement, the look, the tics but predominantly the eyes. The praise Schoenaerts presentation received is no hyperbole, it is a full and complete character. And quite a meaty one at that.

The movie has excellent pace there is never a dull moment as the story slowly unfolds and brings you deeper and deeper in its ever escalating tragedy. The finale especially is a powerful piece of cinematography, it almost feels hallucinatory, with powerful acting and beautiful camerawork. Speaking of which, the camerawork throughout the whole movie is splendid it doesn’t take the forefront by quick montages and flashes of imagery but just produces powerful images with panning slowly and making great use of depth of field which creates ghostlike visions that suite the overall tone and story rather nicely. The music has the same use keeping a low profile; but still contributing in acquiring that overall powerful emotional feel.

Well after all this praise I have to admit the movie is not without its faults. The gags with the two Walloon mechanics are in the vain of a typical French comedy (be it of a lesser comedic quality) which is indeed an acquired taste. And some might say they feel a bit out of place.

You might’ve noticed I didn’t provide a synopsis of the story as is customary in reviews. I did this for two reasons.What I particularly like about the movie is its deeper underlying story. At first it might seem like a regular cops an gangster movie with some side story, but it is quite a bit more than that. It is a movie which touches on a few difficult themes and an intricate way. It is a story about the border between feeling human and the bestial. What it is like, to not feel normal and the obsessions it creates. And it tells this using a strong, hypnotic narrative, supported by equally strong visuals. A movie with balls, powerful but fragile at the same time.

Lieven Glovers

★★★★1/2

Rating:15
Release Date: 1st February 2013 (UK)
Director:Michaël R. Roskam
Cast:  Matthias Schoenaerts, Jeroen Perceval, Jeanne Dandoy

*This is a reprint of review posted 4th February 2012
T

Ask Gael Garcia Bernal A Question, In live Q&A For NO

Gael Garcia Bernal is starring in 'No', the Oscar-nominated film looking at the referendum and ad campaign that helped force General Pinochet out of office.

Gael is no stranger to Amnesty, or to political films - he worked with us to create The Invisibles, four films which charted the dangerous journey across Mexico for migrants who are kidnapped, raped and sometimes murdered as they aim for America. He also played Ernesto Guevara (Che) in The Motorcycle Diaries.

Send us your questions for Gael - about his new film 'No', his previous work, or anything else - and we'll ask him a selection during a live Youtube broadcast on Thursday. Leave them as a comment, or ask them on Twitter using #AskGael

You can also send in your questions for Eugenio Garcia, one of the two advertising executives who created Chile's 'No' campaign, who Gael's character in 'No' is partly based.

The event is happening  in association with Amnesty International on Thursday 31st January at 1545 until 1630 (GMT)

Watch Creepy Clip For Jennifer Lynch's Chained

She is certainly a 'daddy's girl' Jennifer Lynch as her latest film Chained is showing her daddy David Lynch has certain been a 'father figure' to her inspiring twisted wholesomeness.

This Friday will see the limited cinema release of Chained starring Vincent D'Onfrio as Bob the serial killing taxi-driver, but he is a serial killer with a difference. One of his victims had a boy and he raises him not as a father/ son relationship but to be his protege calling him rabbit instead of Tim his correct name, but will he follow his new found daddy's steps?

Below is a new creepy clip which shows the new family set up is not as happy and dynamic as it should be.


Chained is set for a limited release in UK cinemas on 1st February with the film been released on DVD& Blu-Ray from 4th February. Chained stars Evan Bird, Jake Weber and Julia Ormond.

source:Totalfilm

Treat Your Other Half With Future Cinema Presents…Casablanca At The Troxy

“Of all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world, she walks into mine”

If your ever looking for an cinematic experience with a difference our friends  Future Cinema, the creators of Secret Cinema know how to deliver that experience and this February  they return for a classic romantic film. Returning  to the Troxy for a Valentine’s Day special, bringing to life the enduring tale of love, exile and adventure, the iconic romance  – Casablanca.

 It is 1941 and the Second World War is raging. The Germans have taken Paris and occupied France.

Casablanca is one of the last free cities. The city is a melting pot of cultures, stories and sights.  People are desperate to flee a tumultuous Europe and are looking for safe passage across the Atlantic to the Americas. Amidst the turmoil and the frenzy, Ricks Café Americain is a haven for refugees trying to purchase illicit papers and flee the fast approaching war. On a dark night, amongst the chaos, a world-weary Rick Blaine meets his one time love…

 Future Cinema invites audiences to step inside the world of Casablanca as the Troxy is transformed into the most exclusive night-spot in town, and join Rick and Ilsa on this whirlwind of mystery, romance and espionage. Gather around Sam’s Piano and join in the chorus of the Marseillaise, dance to Benoit Viellefon and his Orchestra, dine at the Blue Parrot Café with food by acclaimed Spanish/North African London restaurant Moro, search for secret bars and discover secret bands, explore the vivid and wild Casablanca and re-live the story as never before.

Applications for identity papers will be open this Tuesday 29^th January, from 1.00pm at www.futurecinema.co.uk/tickets.

Other news from Future Cinema: Following the sold-out Secret Cinema production of The Shawshank Redemption (October 31^st - December 2^nd 2012), Future Cinema reopened the production on Thursday, January 10th, with an extended run until February 24^th. Court times can be booked here: www.futurecinema.co.uk/tickets.





-       Future Cinema presents Casablanca

Dates:   14th February – 3^rd March 2013

            Tickets: www.futurecinema.co.uk/tickets (£25 Full / £20 Concessions / £15 Children (matinees only))

-       2013 Extension: Future Cinema presents The Shawshank Redemption

Dates:  10^th January - 24th February 2013. Productions will take place on Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays

Tickets: www.futurecinema.co.uk/tickets (£43.50 Full / £33.50 Concessions)

Here's a little video on the Shawshank  Redemption event:

-       Secret Cinema 20 – London, New York and Athens

Dates: 24^th April – 5^th May 2013 in an undisclosed location in London and launching in New York and Athens.

Tickets: www.secretcinema.org/tickets - on sale date TBA

If your a newbie to the Future and Secret Cinema you can get more information at  www.secretcinema.org / www.futurecinema.co.uk

American Mary Review

The Soska Sisters’ ambitious yet flawed debut feature Dead Hooker in a Trunk was just enough to get their feet in the door, something we can all be pretty grateful for considering the impressive cult legend that is their second feature film: American Mary.

                Katharine Isabelle stars as Mary, a dedicated and gifted young medical student struggling to make ends meet. After she responds to a Job advert for a local strip joint she is forced to use her skills in shady circumstance for the club owner. The result is $5000 and the promise she will keep her mouth shut. Soon, news of Mary’s skills reaches the black market and she begins to spiral into an underworld of people infatuated with body modification. Whatever needs done “Bloody Mary” can do… for a price.

                Everything that was perhaps amateur about Dead Hooker is sorted in American Mary, a film that is, for all its guts and glory, a fairly muted affair centred around a great principal idea. That’s no said to muddy the sisters’ use of gore (since this is a film at points dripping with the stuff) but the strong point is in the fact it doesn’t rush into being a horror film. At the very least that it doesn’t seem too interested in being a conformist piece of slash-happy Friday night fun.  Too often Indy horror dwindles in the plot department letting any terror miss-fire since we don’t actually give a shit about what’s going on.  Here the Twisted Twins have parodied American ideals, hinting that the macabre side of life is almost unavoidable in this: a film that narrates the collision point of sex, money, and the American Dream.

Isabelle is largely to thank for the success of the film, having spent plenty of time being fodder for serial killers (Freddy vs. Jason comes nostalgically to mind) she gets a shot at being an unexpected but formidable force. A careful balance of stone-cold calculating and human guilt hedges in the possibility of the ridiculous. If there’s any gripe about her performance it’s that she’s not given enough scenes to explore the more guilt-ridden side of Mary.

                Very quickly the film reveals a slick black heart wrapped in blood, mayhem, and sex.  The Soska’s obviously have a direction they want to take their own brand of visceral charm, but at times this seems too recycled. Moments that should have been truly deranged are lost in translation, the shock factor reined in by repetition. Cult imagery rears its triumphant head at numerous points, proving the Soska’s have the capacity for impressive mise en scene. An example?  Isabelle decked in stripper-wear performing surgery in a strip club basement jumps to mind first. It’s the sort of thing that sticks in your head.

                Plot-wise the film is pretty fluid, a nice birth-of-the-monster origin story makes the first half a hoot, but there seems to be some trouble with which direction to take the film in once Mary is taken advantage of. The revenge idea is great and certainly gives the film drive, but act two just seems a little bare, add this to the out-of-nowhere ending and the film seems to degrade slightly from its strong opening.

American Mary takes the passion and rage of a revenge film mixes it with modern gothic, anchors it with a great central performance, wraps the whole sordid affair in a slick and black shiny wrapping then lets it spin into an urban legend. Perhaps the spinning goes a little too far out of control and some wobbly decisions leave the film on a downer, but at this rate of improvement the Twisted Twins’ next piece should be genius.

SCOTT CLARK

★★★☆☆

UK Rating: 18
DVD/BD Release Date: 28th January 2013 (UK)
Director: Jen Soska, Sylvia Soska
Cast:  Katharine Isabelle, Antonio Cupo, Tristan Risk

The Confrontation (Fényes szelek) DVD Review

“Those who have never seen a film by Jancsó from the 1960s, when this Hungarian director was at his peak, are usually astonished by the experience,” says renowned critic Derek Malcolm in a statement that those of us who have seen the masterpieces The Round Up and The Red and the White know only too well. With The Confrontation, the fifth, and hopefully not the last, of the director’s films to be released by Second Run DVD, the results are, at times, equally astonishing and, although the film never reaches the lofty heights of those previously mentioned, it is the film’s beautiful use of colour that sets it apart from the others.

The Confrontation is Jancsó’s first film to make use of colour and, as the informative essay by Graham Petrie included with the DVD makes clear, it is this “visual and aural style of the film” that moves his aesthetic away from the black and white realism of his previous films into a more colourful and co-ordinated direction.

The film is set, much like with Jancsó’s previous films, in Hungary’s past. In this instance the backdrop is the student protests that occurred in the newly Communist Hungary of 1947. The film draws upon the director’s own experiences with the ‘Peoples’ Colleges’ protests, whose aim was to make University more accessible to working class students, and can clearly be seen as a parallel to the student protests that happened in both France and the United States, as well as elsewhere, during 1968.

The film’s story is centred on a demonstration that takes place in the courtyard of a church run school in which the protesting students try to persuade the school’s students to join their cause. It is through this demonstration that the films theme becomes clear. Whereas Jancsó’s previous films concentrated on an exploration of the power of nature, The Confrontation concentrates on an examination of the tactics and beliefs necessary for revolution, with the student’s loyalties split between two leaders; one who prefers to use compromise and negotiation and the other who sees violence as a necessity.

While the film never reaches the heights of Jancsó’s best films, all in all the film is beautifully colourful, wonderfully choreographed, and ultimately a fascinating experience.

Shane James

★★★★☆

Rating:U
BD Release Date: 28 January 2013 (UK)
Director: Miklós Jancsó
Cast: Andrea Drahota, Kati Kovács, Lajos Balázsovits
Buy:The Confrontation (Fényes szelek) [DVD]

Park Circus To Re-Release Jerry Schatzberg's Digitally Restored Scarecrow

Park Circus have announced 26th April 2013 sees the UK re-release of Jerry Schatzberg's Scarecrow,starring Al Pacino and Gene Hackman. Scarecrow has been digitally remastered to celebrate the Palme d'Or winning film's 40th Anniversary.

From professional photographer Jerry Schatzberg won the Palme d’Or in 1973 for this rarely screened eccentric on-the-road American classic, starring the acclaimed duo Gene Hackman and Al Pacino. A tale of intense and newfound friendship between lowly Max (Hackman – stated as his favourite ever role) and Lion (Pacino), Scarecrow is digitally restored and ripe for rediscovery on the big screen.
Opening amidst an isolated backdrop of dusty American landscape, Max, just released from prison, happens upon Lion. A muted meeting at first soon blossoms into the beginning of a new friendship that takes them hitchhiking across America to realise Max’s dream of opening his own car wash in Pittsburgh. Encountering a series of oddball characters along the way, often delving deep into the protagonists’ peculiarities and personal problems, Scarecrow is an intriguing, gritty gem from a significant period of great American cinema.

Scarecrow has been newly restored by Warner Bros. Pictures. The film will open in the UK on 26th April at BFI Southbank and selected cinemas nationwide.