As I mentioned not long ago when I wrote about the launch of the Grindhouse website, and the film's newest trailer, that April 6 release date just can't come fast enough for me. Anyone out there got a time machine ready for beta testing? This double feature pastiche of 70s exploitation films promises to be one of the most exciting releases of 2007.

Fangoria.com has an interesting bit of news regarding the fake trailers that will be inserted between Robert Rodriguez's Planet Terror and Quentin Tarantino's Death Proof. According to a "source," Rob Zombie, who will of course be directing the upcoming re-imagining of Halloween, is directing a trailer for a fictitious film tantalizingly titled Werewolf Women of the SS. Oh, man. Sounds like a blending of the 70s nazi-sploitation genre (the best-known example of which was Ilsa: She Wolf of the SS) with a good old-fashioned werewolf movie. Sweetening the deal is the fact that Nicholas Cage will be appearing in the trailer as Fu Manchu (the evil genius who originated in a series of novels by Sax Rohmer, and has been played onscreen by several actors including Boris Karloff, Christopher Lee and Peter Sellers). That sound you hear, by the way, is my mind boggling. Interestingly, the title also brings to mind a very real upcoming film called Werewolf in a Women's Prison.

Furthermore, Hostel director Eli Roth will not only be making a cameo appearance in Death Proof, but he will also direct a faux trailer for a slasher film called Thanksgiving. All the other holidays have their own slasher films, so it's time Turkey Day got its due. Now that I think of it, though, Arbor Day has a lot of potential too. How does Saplings of the Damned sound?

I slept with a cross in my hand for a month after watching The Exorcist. I did. I swear. I was terrified after seeing the film -- I think I was thirteen at the time -- and definitely old enough to be able to handle such a film. Well, apparently not. I might have benefited from attending a support group for people terrified by fictionalized stories of horrifying situations (do those exist?). What I didn't realize was that filmmakers of horror films had a support group of their own.

Horror film directors have made it a mission to reinstall the bloodiest and most gruesome situations in this cult favorite genre. To be honest, the last film that I saw of this type was The Descent -- which I very much enjoyed and only ragged on the acting abilities of the cheating husband once -- but think that amount of blood may be all I can handle. Films such as Saw and Hostel, I think, go beyond what I find as an audience member to be pleasurable to watch. These films are different in the sense that they are borderline NC-17 flicks and mostly revolve around endless torture of hapless victims. In Variety's article they describe a scene where a victim's face is blow torched off and the torturer then clips off the victim's eyes (not exactly something I want to think about while eating lasagna at Christmas dinner).

This group of filmmakers has been dubbed the Splat Pack. I must say, I do love the name even though my stomach can't handle the majority of what they're making. Give me Dawn of the Dead or any zombie movie for that matter, but the torture genre I just can't take. Even though I can't bring myself to buy a ticket to see their films, I love knowing that the Splat Pack has been offering up a great deal of support for one another as they do face issues with ratings; inspiration to go further with gruesome ideas, and even funding films. Rob Zombie and Quentin Tarantino have become the godfathers to many up and coming horror filmmakers. Tarantino was described as "showing the ropes" to Hostel director Eli Roth. Horror films definitely have an audience -- the films often times gross more than large blockbuster films -- therefore the work will continue to be made. They just need the backing of each other to make sure that the ratings board doesn't take a chainsaw to the final cut of their films.

I am seriously looking forward to Grindhouse, the forthcoming collaboration between Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez. The initial news of this modern day homage to low-rent double features of yesteryear got my movie geek blood percolating from the word go, and every time the film takes another step towards completion I find myself on the verge of a veritable geek-gasm.

The film's official website has launched, making good use of Macromedia Flash to emulate the look and feel of a cheesy 70's B-movie, much like Grindhouse itself. It runs pretty smoothly over my DSL line, but if you're using a dial-up connection I suspect the patience of Job will be required. There's a link to the teaser trailer which Scott Weinberg mentioned not too long ago, as well as character descriptions, a story synopsis and most of the stuff you see on this type of site. Click on "downloads" and you'll find jpegs of retro posters from the films two features Planet Terror and Death Proof fitted to wallpaper size. The Grindhouse 101 section contains excerpts from the book Grindhouse: The Sleaze-Filled Saga of an Exploitation Double Feature, written by the directors and available on February 28. Amping up the site's cool factor is an interesting Flash game. I haven't quite figured it out, but it involves wandering around a grindhouse theater and picking up automatic weapons. If anyone's got suggestions on how to navigate this, please feel free to post them in the comments.

The film releases on April 6, and though it's not yet rated, the smart money says it gets an R.

[via Film ick]

Last we heard from Quentin Tarantino regarding Inglorious Bastards (ya know, that WWII film he's been attached to for, like, ever?), the dude said he had spent five years writing the script (which was at a whopping 1,000 pages), and still needed one more year before moving forward. Well, that one year has come and gone -- and, while Tarantino has been busy filming Grind House with Robert Rodriguez, we still don't know if he will follow that film up with Bastards or if he'll be a bastard himself and squeeze out something else.

According to IMDB, Michael Madsen and Tim Roth are the only actors attached to Bastards, and there have been rumors that Sylvester Stallone was also interested in a role. Or Tarantino was interested in Stallone. Regardless, while out promoting Rocky Balboa, Stallone officially denied his participation (kind of), saying: "No, I gotta talk to Quentin about that, I've been reading about that. That's possible but I don't know how we would get together, it wouldn't be easy." It appears Stallone will follow up Rambo 4 with that biopic about Edgar Allen Poe (which he'll direct, not star -- thank God), and so his schedule is wrapped up for quite a while. Then again, it could be years before Tarantino actually gets around to making Inglorious Bastards -- if, at that time, there's a part for a 70 year-old Stallone, then why not?

With Bastards, Tarantino intends to pay homage (when is he not paying homage?) to Enzo G. Castellari's 1977 Italian film of the same name, as well as other classic war flicks like The Dirty Dozen and The Great Escape. Story follows a group of soldiers during WWII who are set to die by firing squad for doing bad things, but ultimately are awarded a chance to live for a little while longer when they're sent on a suicide mission for the Allies. Sounds groovy, but will it ever happen?

According to a report in Screen Daily, the unpredictable, prolific Japanese director Takashi Miike has two new surprises in store: he is directing his first film in English, and he is directing what is considered to be Japan's first Western. Miike had previously expressed his interest in making a Western, and now his dream has come true with a remake of Sergio Corbucci's classic Django (1966). Rather than the old West, however, the new film will be set during the Genpei clan wars of the 12th century.

The cast members, including Hideaki Ito (Onmyoji), Koichi Sato (Gonin), Kaori Momoi (Memoirs of a Geisha), Yusuke Iseya (After Life) and Masanobu Ando (Battle Royale), took an intensive two-month English classes to prepare for their roles. Last year, Miike directed the one-hour, made-for-TV movie Imprint in English, but Django will be his first English-language theatrical release. Miike began his directing career in the early 1990s, pumping out dozens of straight-to-video films, sometimes up to five or six in a given year. In 1996, he broke through to another level with his film Fudoh, and followed that up with the international cult classics Audition (1999), Dead or Alive (1999), Ichi the Killer (2001) and Visitor Q (2001). Miike is also known for his ability to jump genres, making horror, action, sci-fi, family movies and musicals on the turn of a dime.

"I want to make a film that will make audiences think 'Japanese are cool!'," Miike told the press on Sunday, an ironic statement coming from one of the coolest filmmakers in the world. It's likely that Quentin Tarantino had something to do with inspiring this unique new project; Tarantino has long championed Miike's films, and Miike made a cameo appearance in Hostel, which was executive produced by Tarantino. Now Tarantino will return the favor by playing a part in Django.

The movie is will shoot in Yamagata Prefecture and is scheduled to wrap by the end of November.

Chalk this one up as yet another rumor chugging its way around the net. Remember that Vega Brothers movie Quentin Tarantino has always flirted with, but never injected enough juice into his brain to actually make? The film was supposed to focus on brothers Vincent Vega (as played by John Travolta in Pulp Fiction) and Vic Vega (as played by Michael Madsen in Reservoir Dogs). Last we heard from Tarantino, he claimed to be into the project, and even revealed that he had found a way to write it even though both characters died in their respective movies. Would it be a prequel? Heck no, these guys are way too old to play younger versions of themselves. Would they come back from the dead? Nah, even Tarantino is smart enough to stay away from that bogus plot device.

So, what did he come up with? Well, CHUD recently sat down with Madsen, and the actor dumped an interesting scenario on the table, one that's still not officially a reality, but could be if Tarantino feels like churning out a script. Says Madsen, " [Tarantino] gave me an idea that would be really outrageous – that John and I would be the twin brothers of Vic and Vincent. We come from Amsterdam to LA to avenge the deaths of our brothers. I think that's pretty interesting. For me, I'd love to do it." If 'interesting' is another way of saying the idea is utterly ridiculous, then I certainly agree with Madsen. Let's get serious here folks, while I'd love to see these characters up on the big screen again, this plot is a bit absurd. Besides, Tarantino already gave us his big revenge pic in Kill Bill, so all he'd be doing is regurgitating a familiar storyline with the same actors (Madsen also appeared in Kill Bill as one of the dudes Uma Thurman comes after for beating her silly inside the wedding chapel). What say you about this latest rumor? Good idea? Bad? Personally, I say Tarantino scraps his Vega fantasy and finally gets to shooting Inglorious Bastards. Yes sir, those are my two cents.

It's been five long years since Albert and Allen Hughes gave us Hell -- From Hell that is -- and though they have been busy with television projects, it is time they got back to the big screen. Well, their next project has now been confirmed as the long-awaited adaptation of the TV-series Kung Fu. For those unfamiliar with the show (I admit, I've never seen one episode), it featured David Carradine as a Shaolin monk who is forced to flee China and ends up in the American wild west.

A script was written for the movie version by Howard Friedlander and Ed Spielman, both of whom worked on the show, but it will be rewritten by Cory Goodman, who also wrote the upcoming Andrew Douglas film Priest. There is no word on casting yet, though Carradine will have to be involved somehow, but Warner Bros. is planning for a 2008 release to coincide, and hopefully garner a promotional tie-in with, the Beijing Olympics.

Considering The Hughes Brothers had been trying to get this job for past two years, they hopefully know what to do with it. Though we don't know who the other filmmakers were who wanted the gigs, I have to wonder if Quentin Tarantino was interested, at least as a writer or producer. After all, he has paid homage to the series through dialogue (Pulp Fiction) and casting (Kill Bill's title character is played by Carradine).

The tie-in part of the story makes me wonder if Hollywood will be putting together any other martial arts films around the same time. We still haven't heard the full stories on the Bruce Lee biopic Martha wrote about last summer, or the mysterious Rob Cohen-directed, Bruce Lee-starring film that Erik mentioned last month. And maybe Kung Fu Hustle 2 is on hold for this very same reason. Okay, I doubt it. The Olympics and cinema may already be linked enough by the promotional videos being shot by Oliver Stone, Giuseppe Tornatore and Majid Majidi.

Any fans of the show care to chime in with your opinion?

It might be hard to believe, but Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs turns 15 today. Now, before you haul out the abacus, you've probably noted that 1992 + 15 = 2007. Reservoir Dogs premiered in October of 1992 the last time we checked, and it seems like only yesterday there was much fanfare over the tenth anniversary edition of this film (which was released in 2002), complete with five different covers for the same DVD ... collect them all! Perhaps 14 just wasn't as sexy of a number, and of course Lionsgate wants you to double dip when the HD-DVD version comes out at some point, so that leaves us with a 15th anniversary edition a year early. Although if you want to get extremely technical with the dates, Tarantino actually workshopped some of the scenes from Dogs at Sundance in 1991, so is this the date they're shooting for?

At any rate, the packaging alone is pretty cool on this release. They've housed the DVD in a metal case that looks like a gas can, and when you slip the interior packaging out, it is in the shape of a huge matchbook from "Uncle Bob's Pancake House," which is where Steve Buscemi tells everyone "I don't tip" as Mr. Pink. The whole package is sort of a gruesome reminder from one of the scenes in the movie. When the tenth anniversary DVD came out, Lionsgate sent out fake foam rubber ears announcing the release, which have become highly collectible among fans. I guess they like reminding us how violent the torture scene in this movie really is.

Tarantino's now cult-classic film opened the door for ultra-realistic violence in films, but it also helped usher in a new era of non-linear storytelling. After this movie came out, writers and directors began to play with the concept of time a lot more often, using flashbacks and flash-fowards to help make a simple story a lot more interesting, to show it from different angles and perspectives, and to flesh out character development. Tarantino didn't pioneer this technique, but he made such extensive use of it that you can still the effects of it in movies today.

The film also helped establish Tarantino's visual "look," from the black suits with the skinny ties, to the minimal sets with dialogue-heavy scenes. It also showcased his love for vintage and 70s music through "K-Billy Super Sounds of the 70s," on the radio throughout the movie, and DJed by deadpan comedian Steven Wright. Additionally, he took chances on B- and sometime C-list movie stars who had either fallen from the limelight, or had not worked in quite some time, which is something he continues to do -- reviving the careers of John Travolta, Robert Forster, Pam Grier and others.

Tarantino is a self-proclaimed cinephile, and in this movie he has lifted several scenes and plot elements directly from other films, particularly from Ringo Lam's excellent City on Fire which stars Chow Yun-Fat. If you haven't seen it, rent it some time and you'll see how similar the two films are, down to exact scenes. They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, and while Dogs isn't a direct ripoff, it comes close at times. Tarantino has claimed that he steals from all of his favorite movies, and if that's the case, then Dogs is no different.

Today also sees the release of the Reservoir Dogs video game (featuring the voice and likeness of Michael Madsen), which promises to bring the same ultra-violence to your home gaming systems. It seems an odd choice to make a game out of this film, given the extreme violence and open and closed plot, but we've also seen Scarface and The Godfather made into games as well recently, so stranger things have happened. Just don't look for Jackie Brown: The Game anytime soon. We hope. ...

This week, the celebrity grapevine is twirling all its little tendrils around Angelina Jolie. My goodness, she's getting more news time than Tom Cruise and Mel Gibson combined. First, she and her family tried to take a rickshaw ride in India but had to stop due to excessive media coverage. Then her driver in India hit a pedestrian while trying to avoid paparazzi. (It was discovered later that she wasn't in the car at the time.) And now a photographer is claiming that he was punched and threatened at gunpoint by a bodyguard on the set of A Mighty Heart, in which Jolie is portraying Mariane Pearl, widow of journalist Daniel Pearl.

Fortunately, if you sift through the mountains of Angelina Jolie/Brad Pitt news (I refuse to do that name-combining thing), you can find some other celebrity activity this week:

• More celebrities considering adoption: Rumors have been flying that Madonna is in the process of adopting a year-old boy from Africa. She doesn't actually have the child yet, and Malawi law prohibits non-residents from adopting the country's children, so we'll see what happens.

Roger Corman is well-known for being a director and producer of over 300 low-budget films, many of them in the horror category. He is probably most famous for his adaptations of nine different Edgar Allen Poe stories. Between 1960 and 1964, Corman directed House of Usher, Pit and the Pendulum, The Premature Burial, Tales of Terror, The Raven, The Terror, The Haunted Palace, The Masque of the Red Death, and The Tomb of Ligeia. Seven of these films also starred the late, great Vincent Price, and established both Corman and Price in the genre.

Even more impressive is the fact that he churned out five other films during those four years. He's a movie-making machine, folks. Even today Corman continues to produce tons of "schlock" films, and is king of that genre even though he has only directed two films since 1971. He was an enormous influence on directors like Quentin Tarantino, who thrived on the many "Roger Corman presents" films that came out while he was growing up. Tarantino even has his own line of "Quentin Tarantino presents" films, and the upcoming Grind House owes part of its lineage to Corman's own Death Race 2000.

The Drkrm Gallery in Los Angeles hosts a special exhibition celebrating Corman's Edgar Allen Poe films, and will be open October 21st through November 18th. As a fan of bad puns, I had to use the tagline from Drkrm's page about the event: "We pay tribute to them, the legendary Roger Corman and the late Vincent Price with this exhibition of their greatest work together, the likes of which we will see ... NEVERMORE!"

[Thanks John]


Related stories:

Roger Corman on Death Race Remake

Disney Awash in Corman

Roger Corman Honored in Hawaii

On this edition of Movie Pics, Detective John McClane gets stuck in the wrong place (eh, Baltimore ain't so bad) at the wrong time ... again, and Kurt Russell shows up in Austin looking real cool, ready to do some serious damage.

• That's right, the Baltimore Sun has snagged the first pics from the set of Live Free or Die Hard. Yippee-ki-yay motherf**ker! In the photos, Bruce Willis is back, bald, walking on top of cars and looking a bit old. Once again, it appears traffic congestion is his biggest nemesis. Kick ass! Traffic rocks!
• Hey, is that Kurt Russell on the set of Death Proof, Quentin Tarantino's half of Grind House? You bet your sweet ass it is! Apparently, the dudes are still wreaking havoc in Austin, Texas -- this time, they're shooting at some sort of Food Mart ... which actually appears to be a doctored-up 7-Eleven. In the pic, Russell plays the driver of a car that kills people ... we think.

On a relatively slow news day, here's a story I found somewhat interesting. Prior to his death in 1994, Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love were offered small roles in Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction. Had Cobain not turned down the role, pic would have marked his feature debut as an actor and, since he died shortly after, there's a possibility the film would have deterred him from committing suicide. But that's just my own wacky speculation.

Can you guess who the couple would have played? No, not Pumpkin (Tim Roth) and Honey Bunny (Amanda Plummer) -- although that would have been rather hilarious and disturbing to watch. Had they hopped onboard, Cobain and Love would have taken on the roles of a neurotic drug dealer and his heavily pierced edgy girlfriend. However, after the Nirvana singer passed, Eric Stoltz and Rosanna Arquette came along and snatched the memorable characters up.

While I'm sure Love would have maintained the hyper-active absurdity Arquette brought to the role, I have a feeling Cobain might have toned down the comedic anxiety present in Stoltz's character. What do you think?

Horror has been a sort of win-win genre in the States for over 30 years now, as slasher films and cheap gorefests have shown incredible stability at the box office. It isn't a surprise that studios were quick to do away with press screenings for the genre, since it typically performs well regardless of how critics respond. Though, not every horror film made in Hollywood is successful, and the market is often a bit flooded by too much product, but generally they're a safe bet.

The same hasn't been true for horror in the Netherlands. Since the 1992 disappointment of Rudolf van den Berg's The Johnsons, the Dutch haven't been too keen on producing films in the genre ... until now. After more than a decade, horror is making a comeback in the Netherlands, punctuated by a few special premieres at the upcoming Dutch Film Festival (Sept. 27-Oct. 6). The highlights of the series, called "Nederhorror and other strange phenomena", are Erwin van den Eshof's teenage slasher pic Doodeind (Deadend), Sl8n8 (Slaughter Night) and Horizonica. Van den Berg, whose last film was a romance starring Burt Reynolds and Julie Christie, is also returning to the genre with Exhibition, which goes into production later this year.

We'll have to wait and see if the Dutch will try exporting their new horror films to the States. While Asian horror is popular mostly in terms of being remade into Hollywood versions, European horror has a slightly better chance of getting released in the U.S., if it can follow in the footsteps of High Tension (which sold well because it was easily dubbed) and The Descent (which is British, and thus had no language issues). The last big attempt to break the American market, Dick Maas' Down, which starred Naomie Watts and was an English-language remake of Maas' The Lift, ended up going straight to video, and received little interest. Earlier this year, it was being reported that Quentin Tarantino is thinking about remaking Doodeind (likely as producer, not director), so maybe he can help bring a wave of interest.

Odds and ends from Friday and the weekend:

• In finalizing the cast for his part of Grind House (titled Death Proof), Quentin Tarantino has brought on Michael Bacall, newcomer Omar Doom and Eli Roth. Labeled a "slasher flick" and currently shooting in Austin, the three will star alongside Kurt Russell, Zoe Bell, Rosario Dawson and Rose McGowan, among others. Robert Rodriguez's Planet Terror wrapped its production recently and Grind House (as a whole) is expected to invade theaters on April 6, 2007.
• 20th Century Fox has gone ahead and snatched up Adam Sztykiel's spec script Matchbreaker, with Shawn Levy to produce the comedy through his 21 Laps Entertainment. Though the plot is being kept a secret for now, it's vaguely being described as a "high-concept comedy about two guys and a girl set against a vibrant cultural backdrop, which we haven't seen in a movie before."
• Looking to add a bit more funny to their repertoire, the Weinstein Co. has signed a one-year, first-look deal with Underground Films and acquired the comedy pitch Rising Son for Underground to produce. Pic revolves around a "young American who proposes to his Japanese-American girlfriend just as they are traveling to visit her estranged family." While there, he must compete in a bunch of challenges in order to win the respect of his future father-in-law, a la Meet The Parents.

Central Texas bloggers are, for once, all talking about the same thing: Idiocracy. Austin, Dallas and Houston were three of the seven cities in which the Mike Judge movie opened last Friday, and local film bloggers grabbed the rare opportunity to write about a movie before the New Yorkers could. In addition to the film itself, alot of bloggers are also writing about how disgusted they are with Twentieth Century Fox's limited release and non-publicity accompanying the release. Here are a few reactions from Austin and Dallas film bloggers:

• Austin Movie Blog: Sarah Lindner calls Idiocracy "not half-bad." She notes, "The main thing that bothered me, though, is that you can tell the movie is unloved. While I liked Idiocracy's inventive vision of the future, the film looks cheap and rushed, especially some special effects."
• Dumb Distraction: Micah quotes his wife: "Funnier than Beerfest." He speculates on the reasons for the limited release: "When did a little thing like bad taste prevent a studio from releasing a film?" He also experiences some very Idiocracy-like moments on the drive home.
• Matt Dentler's Blog: Matt thinks Idiocracy is definitely flawed, and that the jokes get old after a while. However, he observes that the opening sequence is "so clever it could exist as its own short film (or could be virally sent around the Web or YouTube as a guerilla marketing campaign)."

More news on a different filmmaker currently in Austin: Blake at Cinema Strikes Back alerts us to a local news clip about Death Proof, Quentin Tarantino's segment of Grind House. You can see Tarantino and Kurt Russell quite clearly over at the Texas Chili Parlor, but not that kickass car.