Bleach: Memories of Nobody

Bleach: Memories of Nobody plays June 11 and 12 in select theaters (Viz Media)

Seiji Horibuchi founded Viz Media to introduce Japanese manga (comic books) to American audiences. Now more than two decades later, the company has become a leading distributor of both manga and anime here in the U.S. The company's latest innovation is to bring anime movies to mall theaters for two-day engagements that allow fans to see their favorite anime characters on the big screen. The first Naruto movie, Ninja Clash in the Land of the Snow, effectively employed this strategy, and now the first Bleach movie, Memories of Nobody, opens in more than three hundred theaters nationwide on June 11 and 12 at 7:30pm (in San Diego it will play at AMC Mission Valley 20 Theaters, Horton Plaza Theaters and Edwards Mira Mesa). The film is designed more for fans than for newcomers to anime but for $1.99 you can download (legally) the first episode and have the basics to enjoy the first film.

Shutter

A picture's worth a thousand words... Shutter (20th Century Fox)

This year alone Hollywood is scheduled to release remakes of the Asian horror films One Missed Call, The Eye, Shutter, The Echo, The Addicted, and A Tale of Two Sisters. One Missed Call and The Eye have both come and gone with mostly poor reviews and lukewarm box office. The latest to arrive in theaters is Shutter (opening March 21 throughout San Diego), a remake of the 2004 Thai film of the same name. But since J-horror (Japanese horror) has proven more popular and more familiar, this U.S. remake relocates its Thai story in Japan.

Thailand has a fairly long and increasingly rich collection of horror films. These films may not have the budgets of their Japanese, Hong Kong or South Korean counterparts, but they are invested with an energetic, often over the top sense of the supernatural. Thai director Banjong Pisanthanakun made the original Shutter a neat little supernatural chiller that took The Grudge’s notion of a vengeful spirit in a different direction. Pisanthanakun’s film suffered from excessive melodrama and occasional absurdity (including one character leaping out of a building not once but twice and surviving both improbable falls). But all in all it was a satisfying low-key horror tale with effective use of supernatural elements and a kicker of an ending.

SDLFF: Festival Update

 
An accident leads to strange happenings in Kilometro 31 (DistriMax)

I have spent the last few days watching films at the San Diego Latino Film Festival's opening weekend. Films continue through March 16 at the Ultrastar Mission Valley Theaters at Hazard Center with a closing night tribute to Cheech Marin. Marin's Born in East L.A. celebrates it 20th anniversary and the festival will honor Marin with an award. Executive director Ethan Van Thillo says, "there is so much focus on Spanish language films and filmmakers like Gael Garcia Bernal and Alejandro González Iñárritu, but we also have to support U.S. produced Latino films and Born in East L.A. was a very important Chicano film, starring a Chicano, directed by a Chicano, and we want to keep on supporting U.S. Latino filmmakers too." The Festival was a bustling place with a number of sellout screenings, including the one for Gael Garcia Bernal's directorial debut Deficit. But you can catch the Mexican star in Hector Babenco's new film O Passado on Thursday night. But I suggest getting there early. Listen to my Film Chat for an update on the festival.

15th Annual San Diego Latino Film Festival

Under the Same Moon kicks off the 15th San Diego Latino Film Festival (Fox Searchlight)

The San Diego Latino Film Festival celebrates its Quinceanera this year, and how wonderfully it has come of age. It has grown up into a stellar event, this year showcasing more than a hundred films with some 120 guests. That's a long way from its humble beginnings as a small student festival. The festival is sponsored by the Media Arts Center San Diego, which, through its Golden Hill home base, also provides facilities to train young people in filmmaking so that they can tell their stories. The festival kicks off tonight with the San Diego premiere of Under the Same Moon/La Misma Luna on its big Macy's screen at the Ultrastar Mission Valley Cinemas at Hazard Center). Directed by Patricia Riggen, the film concerns a young boy who comes to the U.S. from Mexico in order to find his mother after his grandma dies. This film will open theatrically in San Diego after the festival, but many of the other films playing have no U.S. release planned so this will be your only opportunity to catch some of these great movies. You will also have an opportunity to see the works of the Media Art Center's Teen Producers, who are poised to be the filmmakers of tomorrow. Listen to the festival's executive director Ethan Van Thillo and I talk about this year's event with Tom Fudge on These Days.

The Eye

Jessica Alba stars in The Eye, a remake of a Hong Kong horror film (Lionsgate)

The Eye (opened on February 2 throughout San Diego) follows films such as The Ring, The Grudge and Dark Water in turning to Asian horror film successes as inspiration for a Hollywood remake. But unlike those Japanese or J-horror inspired films, The Eye draws on a Hong Kong film directed by the Thai-born Pang Brothers as source material. The story works on a very simple premise: what if you received someone else's eyes in a transplant operation and suddenly began seeing from the organ donor's perspective. Jessica Alba plays a blind violinist who hopes that a cornea transplant will change her life. It does but not in the way she or anyone could have expected. 

The Orphanage

The Orphanage (Picturehouse) 

If you have ever seen or met Guillermo Del Toro at the San Diego Comic-Con, then you know he's a filmmaker who is sincere about two things: championing the horror genre and helping young filmmakers. I was meeting up with Del Toro at the Comic-Con for an interview a few years back and was impressed by the fact that he took time to speak with filmmakers who came up to him after his panel. He also willingly accepted DVDs of their work. In fact, at one point he turned to his assistant and asked, in reference to the DVDs that had just been handed to him, "where are my treasures?" Now I've seen filmmakers toss the DVDs handed to them at the Comic-Con, but not Del Toro. And he apparently even watches them as well, although he says it may take some time before he gets to each. Now Del Toro shows his support for both horror and neophyte filmmakers by producing the feature debut of Spainish director J.A. Bayona and writer Sergio G. Snchez, El Orphanato/The Orphanage (opening January 4 at Landmark's Hillcrest Cinemas).

If you are familiar with Del Toro's work then you can immediately see why he would be eager to support Bayona, Snchez and The Orphanage. Snchez' story has much in common with Del Toro's The Devil's Backbone. Both deal with orphan children and the supernatural in unexpected ways. Both Bayona and Snchez then approach this ghost story with the same kind of humanism as Del Toro. But The Orphanage does not come off as a Del Toro imitation. Bayona and Snchez imprint their own unique stamp on the film and reveal themselves as promising filmmakers.

The Messengers

Evan Turner as Ben in The Messengers (Ghost House)  

The Messengers (opening February 3 throughout San Diego) is not, as is popular at the moment, a Hollywood remake of an Asian horror film. But it is a Hollywood horror film that imports the Asian filmmaking team of Oxide and Danny Pang. After scoring a handful of hits in Hong Kong, the Pang brothers have crossed the Pacific to try their hand at scaring up an American audience. The Pang brothers drew attention with their first feature, Bangkok Dangerous, a violent Hong Kong actioner with style to burn. They then toned down the violence and turned up the atmosphere for the creepy chiller The Eye and its sequel. The Eye has already caught Hollywoods eye with Tom Cruise's company quickly snapping up the U.S. remake rights. But its Sam Raimi's Ghost House Pictures that snapped up the talented Pangs for their first English language film.

Lemming

Charlotte Rampling in Lemming (Strand Releasing)

French filmmaker Dominik Moll gained attention for his Hitchcock-like thriller With a Friend Like Harry back in 2000. Now he delivers another disturbing and unnerving drama with Lemming (opening July 7 at Landmark's La Jolla Village Theaters) starring Charlotte Rampling.

As with With a Friend Like Harry, Lemming begins innocently enough. We meet Alain Getty (Laurent Lucas) at a demonstration of his latest invention, a flying web cam that keeps an eye on your home while you're at work and lets you know when things are awry. As Alain's presentation glides along, his boss Richard Pollock (Andre Dussolier) is all smiles. To celebrate or just to be social, Alain and his wife Benedicte (Charlotte Gainesbourg) invite Mr. Pollock and his wife Alice (Charlotte Rampling) over for dinner. A backed up kitchen drain proves to be a harbinger of what's to come. (The drain turns out to be blocked by a Scandinavian lemming thousands of miles from its home, hence the film's obscure title.)