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Posted: **Fri Aug 02, 2013 3:56 pm**

So Wrong--the follow-up from the guy who made the movie about the killer tire--is no masterpiece, but it's a step in the right direction. Rubber really only had enough material to sustain maybe a 15-minute short. This one occasionally lapses into the kinds of stretches that filled that one out, but for the most part, it earns its runtime. At first it might appear like just a random string of bizarre occurrences, but their connective tissue gradually manifests itself, and the initially random proves to have deeper resonance.

Spoiler

For instance, the workspace where it is constantly raining indoors eventually reveals itself to be a commentary on the divide between management and labor, with a lone dry room stocked with towels where the office manager insists that her workers thoroughly dry off before sitting down to speak to her. There's also the investigator's search for a dog turd, which eventually plays out as a reminder of the diminishing returns of advances in technology, as an almost magical discovery only serves to turn up information that could have easily been gathered through basic human communication.

It's not going to be for all tastes, but if you're the least bit curious I'd say take the plunge. The Blu-ray is still 50% off for a few more days during Barnes & Noble's Criterion/arthouse sale.

Posted: **Sat Aug 10, 2013 10:31 pm**

Alliance members, check your mail. A Band Called Death showed up for me today.

Posted: **Sun Aug 11, 2013 1:14 am**

I already had Bullhead and Wake in Fright from Drafthouse and last week I picked up 3 more Drafthouse films from the BN sale - Wrong, Pieta and Graceland. I don't want to own all Drafthouse releases for sure, but I am very much interested to get Klown next.

I watched Wrong last week and really enjoyed it. I have nothing to add to what Swo17 described earlier regarding Wrong, but I must say something about Graceland, which I just finished watching. Although the story is kind of old wine in a new bottle, it definitely has several great moments. its a gripping thriller with great direction and camera work! I guess it was my first Filipino cinema and I am totally blown away. If you haven't watched this film or have any doubt whether to get it, I would say go for it. You will not regret it.
I just got little confused about the rating system in cinema of the Philippines (if they even have one over there)! No offense, but does the concept of child abuse exist in their dictionary? Not ones but twice they showed naked 10-12 years old girls!!! I understand there was a motive in the film and they probably tried to use it as a protest against the worst crime in the World, but sensor board allowed the director to show those girls naked on the screen??? I mean, stripping a young teenager and showing her body parts on screen should be some sort of criminal act in my opinion. I don't know how they got away with that! From the trailer it looks like the film was screened at several International festivals. I wonder what type of reactions it received!

Well, after watching this film I am all pumped up to rewatch Kurosawa's High and Low...

Posted: **Sun Aug 11, 2013 5:25 am**

Child nudity =/= Child pornography... although I have no idea what the context is.

Even in the U.S., you can legally do it as long as you're careful about it... although I doubt any filmmaker would bother flirting with that potential hysteria in this day and age. And in view of something as infuriatingly mind-melting as the Evan Emory case, it's probably with good reason.

And in the internet age, where images can easily become de-contextualized, exchanged and multiplied, I think even the most respectful filmmaker should have pause doing such a thing.

Posted: **Sun Aug 11, 2013 8:57 am**

The BBFC in the UK doesn't have a problem with child nudity in a clearly non-sexualised context.

I once had an online discussion with someone who put forward the rather eye-opening proposition "what's wrong with child pornography?" It turned out that he was so genuinely innocent that he thought that child porn really did consist of no more than pictures of naked children.

Posted: **Sun Aug 11, 2013 8:04 pm**

chatterjees wrote:I just got little confused about the rating system in cinema of the Philippines (if they even have one over there)! No offense, but does the concept of child abuse exist in their dictionary? Not ones but twice they showed naked 10-12 years old girls!!!

I think the magic of editing has you imaging you've seen stuff that you actually haven't. Check out the credits and you'll see there's a body double for that first character, who we see naked in a dark bedroom. The second one who strips, the window prostitute, looks underage but almost assuredly isn't The film is constructed to make us believe we've seen little girls exploited, but I seriously doubt any underaged actresses were used in the explicit portions of this film. The director has U.S. connections and international ambitions for this film. There's no way he'd try anything that could get him in this kind of trouble. Even accepting the very real exploitation that he's depicting fictionally, he knows he's not making an actual documentary and he knows he's not making an artistic statement like, say, Sally Mann. In this respect, the film is not unlike last year's Michael, where even the most verbally explicit scenes were carefully constructed with editing (and in one case, I believe, invisible VFX) to take pains that the child actor was not harmed by exposure to the sickest parts of the world of child predators.

Posted: **Sun Aug 11, 2013 11:26 pm**

Still not fully convinced, but it makes a lot of sense now, thanks Mr. Oates!

Posted: **Fri Sep 27, 2013 12:23 pm**

Their latest acquisition from TIFF is a doozy!

http://drafthousefilms.com/blog/entry/d ... ected-r100" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Drafthouse Films announced today the acquisition of North American rights to Japanese director Hitoshi Matsumoto’s (Big Man Japan) R100, a comic tale of male self-destruction. R100 received its world premiere as part of Toronto International Film Festival’s Midnight Madness section and made its US premiere at Fantastic Fest last weekend. A VOD/Digital and theatrical release is planned for 2014.

R100 (a riff on the Japanese movie rating system, whose equivalent to NC-17 is R18) tells the story of lonely everyman, Takafumi Katayama (Nao Ohmori of Ichi The Killer infamy), who hires a boutique S&M agency that specialize in random acts of extreme public degradation. At first, this changes his outlook on life for the better, but a bizarre accident violates the terms of the contract and hurdles Takafumi into a confounding spiral that will test his very soul. The Hollywood Reporter said about the film, “its hard to remember a film about S&M as funny as this one, or one as beautifully and weirdly imagined.” And Twitch Film remarked, “it [delivers] an intensely intelligent [and] fabulously acted study of the lengths people will go to secure happiness…Matsumoto is one of the most ferociously unique filmmakers on the face of the planet.”

"There's probably no bigger fan of Hitoshi Matsumoto's comedy in North America than me," said Drafthouse Films Founder Tim League. "Without Matsumoto, there's no Jackass; there's no extreme reality TV. With the release of his brilliant new film R100, I hope to expose this legendary comic genius to a new, wide audience."

The deal was negotiated by Tim League and James Emanuel Shapiro on behalf of Drafthouse Films and Miyuki Takamatsu of Free Stone Productions on behalf of the producers.

Essentially the basic premise is a mild-mannered guy who signs up for a secret club that causes you (for the length of a year) to be randomly attacked by increasingly, possibly super powerful dominatrixes who humiliate you in public. The one rule being that once you sign up for the "service", you are not allowed to cancel the contract for absolutely any reason before the year is up, something our "hero" decides he has to do when the dominatrixes start to impede on his family. The title itself is a joke on the rating system suggesting that despite the fact that the film is actually apparently nudity-free, because of the series of bizarre humiliations (with each dom having their own speciality) which imply "Wait, people are into that?" reactions....the director is suggesting that no one under the age of 100 should be admitted to see it.

Here's the trailer (with subs):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jLMWi2udXGY" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

And here's a really excellent review from the Austin Chronicle:

http://www.austinchronicle.com/blogs/sc ... -new-nsfw/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Posted: **Fri Sep 27, 2013 1:44 pm**

> "Without Matsumoto, there's no Jackass; there's no extreme reality TV."

Not a claim that would make me want to watch a film!

Posted: **Fri Sep 27, 2013 3:09 pm**

Michael Kerpan wrote:> "Without Matsumoto, there's no Jackass; there's no extreme reality TV."

Not a claim that would make me want to watch a film!

It reminds me of some dreadful liner notes to an Ennio Morricone compilation CD, written by Danny Kelly, which he ended with "No Morricone, no Hammer." He was trying to argue that rap music was indebted to Morricone (and who better to represent rap than MC Hammer...)

Posted: **Tue Oct 08, 2013 7:08 pm**

Drafthouse films will be releasing Ms. 45 on blu-ray early next year.

http://drafthousefilms.com/blog/entry/d ... ers-ms.-45" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Posted: **Wed Oct 09, 2013 9:44 pm**

The Visitor (1979) will also be released on Blu-ray in January, 2014.

http://www.blu-ray.com/news/?id=12341

Posted: **Thu Oct 10, 2013 12:30 am**

Interesting given that the guy behind Code Red claims the rights-holders sold him exclusive home media rights already

Posted: **Fri Oct 11, 2013 2:52 am**

Amazingly, that poster art is less insane than the cast list.

Posted: **Fri Oct 11, 2013 3:14 am**

domino harvey wrote:Interesting given that the guy behind Code Red claims the rights-holders sold him exclusive home media rights already

Thanks for that link Dom. It's a shame Code Red seems to be getting the short end of the stick on this.

Posted: **Fri Oct 11, 2013 7:19 am**

Besides the rights situation, Code Red has done very little with the title themselves. Granted they put out the dvd, but I was unaware of it until the Drafthouse announcement.

Code Red put out nice stuff in the past, but eventually labels like Scorpion and Shout Factory started doing things better by upping to blu-ray, more awareness of their titles and a steady stream of releases, including rereleases of code red titles like "savage streets" etc.

Code Red is now just whining at this point. If they have the legal rights to the film, do something about it rather than complain on a message board. The best thing to do is work out a joint venture with Drafthouse at this point and have the title released, then everyone can be happy.

Posted: **Fri Oct 18, 2013 8:01 pm**

I love how the clowns on that forum thread all rally around the Code Red guy and dump all over Drafthouse because they're "hipsters," even though both labels are releasing the same film and it sounds pretty clear that both got screwed by a third party. Is everyone on the internet eight years old?

I'm generally pro-Code Red but, jeez, Bill does not do himself any favors by issuing public statements written in the voice of the Asian stereotype guy from the Hangover movies.

Posted: **Wed Nov 13, 2013 9:58 pm**

I Delcare War arrived for me yesterday. I really like the alternate cover on it!

Posted: **Sat Nov 16, 2013 3:19 am**

Hi guys. First post, I've been taking advantage of the B&N 50% off sale and decided to drop back in here. Thats when I decided to search for Drafthouse Films now that I work at one of the theaters (Kansas City). I've only seen a few of these films: Miami Connection, Wrong and Wake In Freight. I got to see both Miami Connection and Wrong at the theater, Miami Connection looked superb and Wrong looked like some horribly compressed torrent lol.. I'm curious, does the blu-ray look really nice?

Wish I knew more details about Tims reaction to the Code Red dilemma.. he doesn't make it to KC very often :/

Posted: **Sun Nov 17, 2013 6:05 pm**

Ms 45 Uncut Blu-ray/DVD combo coming March 25th

Posted: **Fri Jan 03, 2014 2:36 am**

Act of Killing arrived for me today, courtesy of the Alliance membership. As usual, I like the alternate cover better, but there's a very prominent "DISC MADE IN MEXICO" stamp on the case that is even more prominent on the white background of the alternate cover. The film includes a 166 min directors cut as well as the 122 min theatrical cut; has anyone seen both and able to comment on which is better? I'm inclined to go with the theatrical since it has already garnered quite a bit of acclaim.

Posted: **Sun Jan 05, 2014 5:09 am**

So "Act Of Killing" is distributed by Cinedigm in the US, not Image?

bluraydefinition review
DVDTalk review

DVDTalk gives is a "Collector's Series" tag

Dogwoof released this in the UK. Same specs/extras?

Posted: **Sun Jan 05, 2014 10:07 pm**

manicsounds wrote:So "Act Of Killing" is distributed by Cinedigm in the US, not Image?

Yeah, Drafthouse Films announced that they were leaving Image this past summer.

Posted: **Sun Jan 05, 2014 10:45 pm**

Is Image going out of business? It seems everyone is leaving them.

Posted: **Sun Jan 05, 2014 11:00 pm**

knives wrote:Is Image going out of business? It seems everyone is leaving them.

They got acquired by some other company and I'm guessing they're going to fold Image and just retain whatever licenses they can.

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