Film at Eleven

From Filmstalker comes the news that Abel Ferrara, still best known for films such as Driller Killer and Bad Lieutenant is turning his hand to, er, screwball comedy.

Go Go Tales is centered on a Manhattan go-go dancing club, where a financial struggle between the owner, his accountant and his silent partner brother threatens the business’s future. And the film is packed with talent.

Willem Dafoe plays the owner, Bob Hoskins is the accountant and Matthew Modine is the silent parner. Also on the cast list is everyone’s favourite Italian, Asia Argento.

This could turn out to be a very good film indeed.

This looks interesting. Film School in a Box (FSB), launched by a team of filmmakers with decades of experience, allows anyone to edit their own version of The Confession.

Every aspiring filmmaker has the desire to tell a story his or her own way. Now, FSB provides everyone with the opportunity to assemble, manipulate and tweak a raw film. Shot on 11 security cameras, the voyeuristic ‘neo-noir’ thriller unfolds a whodunit mystery surrounding the murder of a young girl. And since the movie can be edited into as many unique films as there are filmmakers who lay their hands on it, the film you choose to make will ultimately be your own.

Film School in a Box provides a shooting script and over 15 hours of original, dramatic footage, from which any filmmaker can build tension, create mood, shape characters and make a story come to life. Check it out here.

Twitch reports that James Felix McKenney’s retro science-fiction film, Automatons will be playing at New York’s Two Boots Pioneer Theater in December.

The film premieres on December 13th with co-star Angus Scrimm present at the screening, and then plays for the rest of the month. Click here to see the full list of screening dates and times.

Filmstalker is reporting that action film, DOA: Dead or Alive may have been pulled from the US release schedule by the Weinsteins.

Box Office Mojo are not currently showing a release date for the film, after it had already been punted to the 8th of December (currently showing on IMDB), and Cinema Blend are suggesting that it’s because the date has been moved again, and indeed pulled from the schedule.

The film has already been released in several countries around the world and hits the UK DVD shelves in January.

I hadn’t realised that American audiences had been denied the joy of seeing Wisit Sasanatieng’s gloriously surreal Thai western, Tears of a Black Tiger on the big screen, until now.

According to Twitch, Magnolia Pictures have finally succeeded in buying North American rights to the film from Miramax and are planning a cinema release in early 2007 with a DVD to follow.

It’s a fantastic film - see it as soon as you can.

A second trailer for the delightfully derivative Dunyayi Kurtaran Adamin Oglu (The Son of the Man who Saved the World) has turned up on the film’s official site. Twitch has a synopsis:

It’s the year 2055; the universe has not yet reached peace, and a government that will establish universal peace has not yet been formed.

Although planets, states have formed an Orion Union, this union is also incapable of solving the problems. Gangs, short-sighted kings and dominant queens… Shortly, it’s the chaos that rules in space.

Turks are now in space too with their kebab restaurants, grocery stores, and with professions like car park mafia. The Turks’ application to join the Orion-Union is still being discussed by the member states.

The only team who can put an end to this mess is the crew on the Turkish spaceship captained by Kartal Kaptan. Will this team, who gets sad and drinks raki while steering the spaceship, has a barbeque party in the cockpit and throws the garbage out into space, be able to save the cosmos from all these troubles?

The Son of the Man Who Saved the World is the sequel to The Man Who Saved the World (also known as Turkish Star Wars), the 1982 film famous for blatantly lifting soundtrack and footage from Hollywood blockbusters such as Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark.

The film is due to open in Turkey on December 15th, if the lawyers don’t get to it first, and you can watch the trailer by visiting the official site and clicking on “fragman”.

After far too many years in limbo, “indie-insta-cult-classic” Lethal Force will finally see light of a legitimate North American DVD release on November 14, 2006 courtesy of upstart and forward-thinking DVD company Unearthed Films.

Produced on a shoestring budget that wouldn’t pay for Quentin Tarantino’s Netflix tab, this straight-faced satire spins the tragic tale of a gangster forced to betray his best friend– an unstoppable killer– while sending up forty years’ worth of action movie convention and cliche. Released nearly five years ago, this unseen gem was declared one of Aint’ It Cool News’ Top Ten Indies of 2001 and went on to gain accolades from both the mainstream and microcinema press, with the Washington Post declaring it “Proudly Cheesy!” and Psychotronic Video Magazine hailing it as “Clever and violent… (with) violent and surreal surprises with over the top action, blood and gore!”

And while we’re getting our quotes in, check out the Pulpmovies review which calls it a stylish, violent and deliriously funny film that sure-footedly manages to walk the very fine line between paying homage to the action films of the 70s and sending them up.

“It’s been a frustrating go of it,” confesses Lethal Force writer/director Sir Alvin D. Ecarma, “but we finally made it through the distribution gauntlet without too much damage. We thank Unearthed Films for believing in the film and standing by it 100%.” The Lethal Force DVD will feature not only the film, but a cast and crew commentary and a selection of short films by Sir Alvin D. Ecarma exclusive to this release.

Also available are exclusive souvenir one-sheets of the original artwork, in full colour and suitable for framing. Click here to avail yourselves of one of these excellent items.

Lethal Force will be available for rent through Netflix, Hollywood Video and Movie Gallery and available for purchase at Amazon.com and at your finer retail outlets.

On November 21st, Anchor Bay will release Slayer, the story of a company of soldiers sent on a mission into the South American jungle where they discover a new breed of vampire, deadly by day as well as by night. Written and directed by Kevin VanHook (Voodoo Moon, The Fallen Ones, The Damned) and starring Casper Van Dien (Starship Troopers, Sleepy Hollow) and Jennifer O’Dell (CSI: Miami, The Closer, Nip/Tuck), Slayer promises to be a terrifying update on the vampire legend.

Slayer begins when a peace-keeping army is dispatched to a remote jungle in South America to investigate a series of horrific attacks. Headed by Captain Tom ‘Hawk’ Hawkins (Van Dien) and his second-in-command Grieves (Kevin Grevioux – Underworld , “Angel”, Bowfinger), the squad finds itself in a deadly confrontation with a nest of vampires impervious to daylight. And these vampires are growing in number, for they have gone beyond preying on the local villagers. Now they are directing their thirst towards Hawk’s fellow officers, intent on absorbing their military knowledge for their own bloody campaign!

Slayer co-stars Lynda Carter (”Wonder Woman”, “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit,” Sky High ), cult movie favorite Danny Trejo ( The Devil’s Rejects , All Souls Day: Dia de los Muertos ) and former Miss Puerto Rico Joyce Giraud (“Joey”, Dude, Where’s My Car? ) – and look for Kevin VanHook’s son, Cameron, as one of the vampires!

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The final UK quad poster for Guillermo del Toro’s Pan’s Labrynth has turned up at I Spit On Your Movie.

ComingSoon (via) reports that Roger Corman and John Davison are to make Space 3001, a $20 million sci-fi action picture, with Irish government subsidies.

The deal will see Corman and Davison finance the production through their respective companies, New Horizons and Cowboy Outfit LLC, in conjunction with the Dublin-based Merlin Film Fund headed by Kieran Corrigan.

With a screenplay by Sam Straider, Space 3001 will start production in the spring at Corman’s Irish studio Concorde Anois.