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Film & TV on DVD - John Doe News & Reviews

Greetings Film Fiends and welcome to John Doe's Film Blog. 30 years of dedicated celluloid obsession has meant that I have seen a few films. Drawing attention to some of the lesser discussed gems that I love. Cult classics, obscure curios and quality genre pictures. This blogs purpose is to translate some of my passion for these films and with luck, inspire you the reader to go check em out.

Action Coming Soon - Film & TV on DVD

The Good, the Bad, The Weird Trailer

June 2nd 2008 00:00

The Glorious Oriental Western trend continues...

The poster with no name walks into a frontier town.

The Good The Bad The Weird

High on John Doe’s list of must see films screening at this years Sydney Film Festival is the new Takashi Miike Spaghetti Western Parody titled Sukiyaki Western Django. The idea of an Eastern minded tribute to the Sergio Leone style mythic cowboy legends demands JD’s full attention.

The comic book style The Good The Bad The Weird banner

Peeking and foraging around the darkened recesses of cinema on the net John Doe stumbled across a similar project scheduled for release in some countries. The trailer for this new Korean film, The Good The Bad, The Weird has to be shared. (Even if there is no local date appearing on the calendar.)

Referencing the title of Leone’s best known work with an oriental spin, the footage below reveals some John Woo/Sam Peckinpah bullet wielding. From koreanfilm.or.kr:
“Inspired by the Sergio Leone classic The Good, The Bad and the Ugly, the film also builds off a string of Korean genre films from the 1970s that combined the aesthetics of the Western with outlaw movements aligned against Japanese colonial forces.”

The Good The Bad The Weird character teaser

Rapidly reloaded Winchester rifles crack a gunpowder atmosphere. The sound of hoofs come up beside a moving train. Holsters are reached for, pistols swiftly fired, gun-barrels emptied and the slain fall to the ground. Death is always present, the heat unrelenting setting the scene for showdowns.

Directed by Kim Ji-woon (A Tale of Two Sisters, A Bittersweet Life) Woo-sung Jung (Musa: the Warrior) plays The Good. The Bad is Lee Byung-hun (A Bittersweet Life, G.I. Joe) and The Weird, Kang-ho Song. (The Host)

Shame it’s not screening at the Sydney Film festival, Johnny would have been in the audience.

The Good, the Bad, The Weird Trailer

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Posted By: JohnDoe - Category: Action, Foreign, Coming Soon, Westerns

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Frank Miller’s The Spirit – Teaser Trailer

April 20th 2008 04:44

Frank Miller becomes a Celluloid Artist.

The Spirit Teaser Poster

John Doe has always been a fan of Frank Miller’s (Hardboiled, Ronin) edgy graphic novels. His comics raised the bar on what was possible from the medium reinventing Batman for the new era.

In the last few years his Hollywood stocks have raised with the successful adaptations of his work like 300, Sin City and Batman: The Dark Knight. Violent, stylish and vicious his universes are polluted with tough talking pulp characters that thrive in the vile underbelly of society.

Comic Legend Frank Miller basks in digital film success

Working with Director Robert Rodriguez on Sin City, Frank learnt the art of cinema and Rodriguez’s loyalty and appreciation to his contribution saw him receive a co-director credit. (A decision which resulted in Rodriguez’s expulsion from the DGA)

The monumental box-office of Zack Snyder’s 300 cemented confidence that there is a demand to see his work in moving pictures and now Mr Miller is finally going it alone as Writer/Director of Will Eisner’s 1940’s penned The Spirit.

An alternate poster

Dark and brooding, reading like an adult’s only version of the classic comic book The Shadow, this inspirational original is a near perfect property for the cult hero to catapult himself into the arena of cinema artist.

The original 1940's comic book

This week we finally get to see the first teaser trailer for the film and it looks promising. To the accompaniment of Ennio Moriccone’s theme from Brian De Palma’s The Untouchables this clip follows our noir hero as he traverses the city scape.

Adopting a similar visual atmosphere to Sin City, the monochrome imagery is punctuated by striking use of colour, in this case a bright red tie. Revealing little other than the tone, it is still very exciting to watch with no spoilers involved.

Miller has managed to assemble an impressive cast to bring his vision to life with Scarlett Johansson, Samuel L Jackson, Jamie King, Paz Vega, Eva Mendes all supporting Gabriel Macht who plays the title role.

Scheduled for release in early 2009 you can rest assured that John Doe will be attending the cold blooded premiere with eager glee.

Note – JD purposefully has not included a synopsis for The Spirit comic so that those unfamiliar with it will remain untainted for this cinema event.

The Spirit Teaser Trailer

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Posted By: JohnDoe - Category: Action, Coming Soon, Film News and Views

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Dragon Wars aka D-Wars (2007) – Trailer Included

October 11th 2007 00:00

Winged Serpents in a cultural conflict

John Doe meets the Director of Dragon Wars plus a few hotties

Fine weather had greeted JD every step of his journey through the US, until his first day in NYC. Never one to need an excuse for a cinema visit the crew decided to catch a flick. Inspired by the viewing of the hilarious Korean Monster movie The Host just days before departure Johnny opted to catch this highly publicised event movie from the region.

Turning up at the Times Square Empire Multiplex we were greeted by the films Writer/Director Hyung-rae Shim (The Young-gu adventures). Excited at the opportunity of meeting the man behind the lens soon John Doe was wearing a complimentary T shirt with a personalised autograph. But that’s enough about the preliminaries, onto the review.

Dragon Wars Poster

Writer/Director: Hyung-rae Shim
Starring: Robert Forster, Jason Behr, Amanda Brookes, Chris Mulkey

D-Wars titled Dragon Wars in the US is a special FX driven fantasy adventure where winged serpents wage a war for good and evil in the heart of Los Angeles. Breaking box office records and promising much. Sadly delivering few thrills, the story opens uncomfortably in the middle of exposition and then continues to reiterate the legend on which it was based every 15 minutes.

As the story begins Ethan (Jason Behr), an LA reporter turns up at the scene of a mysterious crash site where he notices a bizarre unknown substance. Put in charge of investigating the event he soon experiences flashbacks to his early years and is led to visit trinket store owner Jack (Robert Foster), an eccentric who shares the ancient tale of the Imoogi.

The Imoogi is a legendary Asian monster that must return for it’s sacrifice of a young girl who has been reincarnated as valley girl Sarah (Amanda Brooks). Only together can the kismet lovers hope to solve the puzzle and save the world. Naturally it takes the virtuous Ethan a while to put the pieces together and track her down.

Now with time running out and massive creatures stalking the city streets determined to find the pair, the stage is set for a battle royale between man, beast and magic.

Monster vs Machine

John Doe says.
Humourless and clunky, if this rough plot outline sounded hokey that’s because it is. Paying little attention to what happened in previous scenes the characters contradict their actions and most of the time the screenplay is just telling us what we already know. Ignoring massive leaps in reason there is no rhythm or atmosphere established, kind of like when John Woo started making American films with Van Damme. (Or Jaws 4)

Surprisingly there are few laughs considering the Writer/Director is a respected comedian in his homeland with an impressive list of credits.

The action set pieces are passable for a joint Asian/American co-production but even they fall flat because you are cheering for the Dragons instead of humans. (The CG also feels rushed) The editing never establishes a tone, but more positive is that cinematography frames some of the destruction with zeel. The creature designs are quite richly detailed with a fresh Korean inspired rendering reminiscent of the cult classic Q-The Winged Sepent.

The performances from the cast are uncomfortable and leading man Jason Behr (Skinwalkers, Roswell) is vacant of charisma. The usually reliable Robert Foster (Medium Cool, Jackie Brown, Alligator, The Black Hole) seems embarrassed at the lines he is forced to utter. Trying to be nice, JD will say that Amanda Brooks (FlightPlan) is pleasing to the eyes, but again manages a straight to video style of acting.

John Doe has been obsessed with Dragons since childhood and really wanted to like the film. It really is a shame that no movie (EG: Reign of Fire, Dungeons and Dragons, Dragonheart etc) has ever done the mythical creatures justice. Here is hoping that the Anne McCaffrey books are adapted loyally to rectify this problem. For the time being the 1980’s film Dragonslayer still stands as the only worthwhile member of the genre.

Watch the trailer

Here is a clip containing some random snippets from D-Wars

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Posted By: JohnDoe - Category: Action, Fantasy/Adventure, Coming Soon

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Quentin Tarantino’s DeathProof (2007) – Trailer Included

October 4th 2007 06:15

A high powered box office death machine?

John Doe’s trip to the U.S of A was filled with visits to cinematic landmarks and the odd historical monument but the greatest pleasure derived from the journey was access to DVD’s currently unavailable in Australia. Due for a bigscreen release in Oz on November 1st JD was lucky enough to grab the 2 disc unrated Special Edition of Mr Tarantino’s latest schlock celluloid salute.
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