The Year That Was: 2014 in Film

Check out ALL of the PDC end of year lists!

Review: Ava DuVernay's 'Selma'

Starring David Oyelowo

Review: Rob Marshall's 'Into The Woods'

Starring Meryl Streep, Emily Blunt, and Anna Kendrick

Tim Burton's 'Big Eyes'

Starring Christoph Waltz and Amy Adams

Showing posts with label takashi shimizu. Show all posts
Showing posts with label takashi shimizu. Show all posts

Tuesday, December 10, 2013

First Full Trailer for Live-Action 'Kiki's Delivery Service'


When it was revealed that a live-action version of Kiki's Delivery Service was in the works that would have nothing to do with Studio Ghibli and Hayao Miyazaki's 1989 film, there was understandable worry about how it would turn out. But over the course of the last few months of images and teasers, it does seem that director Takashi Shimizu has captured the fun-loving and high-flying spirit of the novels and Miyazaki's animated gem.

The first full trailer for Kiki's Delivery Service has been released, and while it doesn't have a lot of flash, the simple design and effects clearly draw inspiration from Miyazaki's clean animation style. Newcomer Fuka Koshiba stars as the titular witch who at the age of 13 strikes out on her own to live in the big city, using her broom-flying skills to start a delivery business and meet people. Unlike Miyazaki's film this one is combining the first two novels in Eiko Kadono's six-book series, and if it does well we can probably expect to see a sequel that merges the next two books.

The trailer is in Japanese but those who know the story won't need the dialogue anyway. Kiki's Delivery Service opens in Japan on March 1st 2014. 

Thursday, October 27, 2011

Ryan Kwanten and Amy Smart board Flight 7500, from director of The Grudge


If you hated that spaight of lousy J-Horrors we were subject to back in the mid 2000s, like One Missed Call, Dark Water, and so forth, then you've got Takashi Shimizu to blame. The Japanese filmmaker began the craze with the legitimately scarey Ju-On series, and then had the nerve to dumb them down and bring them here as The Grudge and it's awful sequel. Since then we havent' seen much of him stateside, but now he's primed to make a comeback by directing the airline thriller, Flight 7500.

Ryan Kwanten, best known as Jason Stackhouse on HBO's True Blood will star, alongside Amy Smart(Crank), in a film about a flight across the Pacific Ocean which begins to experience strange events after one of the passengers dies mysteriously.  The script comes courtesy of Craig Rosenberg, who most recently gave us the lousy remake, The Uninvited.

Kwanten will be seen next in the live-action role playing comedy, The Knights of Badassdom. Smart is currently starring in The Reunion, the WWE Studios film starring John Cena.