Oliver Stone: three-time Oscar winning filmmaker, always-opinionated and never dull, returns to the director’s chair for the ferocious thriller Savages, based on Don Winslow’s bestselling crime novel. Once again, Stone takes on a highly relevant issue for 21st America, this time depicting a bitter battle between three successful weed dealers and a vicious Mexican drug cartel. Hard hitting, brutally violent, drug fuelled and action packed, Savages is released on Blu-ray™ and DVD both with UltraVilolet, and on Digital Download on 11th February 2013.
It’s fair to say that Piranha, Roger Corman’s love letter to (read: rip off of) Jaws is not a film that was made with Hi-Def in mind. The cult classic, re-released last week on Blu-Ray, hasn’t aged all that well, but is still a fun campy ride.
The movie starts, like so many others, with a pair of skinny dipping teens. Rather than swimming in the waters of ‘Lost River Lake’, they opt for something more adventurous, breaking into a dilapidated military research centre. Ultimately, they’re dragged below the surface of the centre’s pool. But, just what was it that lurks there? Spoiler: Piranhas.
Weeks later, Maggie (Heather Menzies) a missing persons investigator, turns up at the Lake in search of the teens. She enlists the help of local alcoholic loner/genre cliche Paul Grogan (Bradford Dillman) and they set off towards the military centre. While looking for clues, Maggie decides to drain the pool. The two things she doesn’t know are a) the pool drains into the Lake and b) it’s full of weaponised carnivorous fish.
What follows is Maggie and Paul’s race against time to warn the river-folk of the incoming threat. Unfortunately for the inhabitants of Lost River Lake (which include a kids summer camp and a holiday resort, natch) they always seem to turn up about 5 minutes late.
You have to assume that this is so that director Joe Dante can pack in as much carnage as possible. Where as Jaws’ killer fish managed to get his… jaws around maybe three or four hapless victims, these little bastards attack en-masse and without prejudice, going after helpless kiddywinks and water-skiing beefcakes with the demented fervour of, well, military-grade piranhas.
To modern eyes, the more violent parts of Piranha feel positively restrained compared to up-to-date creature features, including 2010’s ludicrously gory Piranha 3D. The fish puppets themselves are a little shonky (to say the least), but in many ways look better than their newer CGI cousins.
Performances all round are solid, although it feels like everyone’s taking things a little too seriously, such as recognisable Scream Queen Barbara Steele, who pops up as a marine scientist.
The Blu Ray comes packed with a decent raft of extras for anyone interested in the Making Of. Ultimately Piranha doesn’t reach the lofty heights of the toothy film it’s trying to emulate. It’s still good schlocky fun though, just not a film that will gnaw it’s way into many people’s top 50 lists.
The ABCs of Death is perhaps the most ambitious anthology film ever conceived with productions spanning fifteen countries and featuring segments directed by over two dozen of the world’s leading talents in contemporary genre film, including the directors of House of the Devil, Hobo with a Shotgun, A Serbian Film, Tokyo Gore Police, You’re Next & four British Directors – Ben Wheatley (Sightseers), Simon Rumley (Red, White & Blue), Jake West (Doghouse) & Leeds based Lee Hardcastle, who with his claymation short, won a competition to be the final Director. Inspired by children’s educational books, the motion picture is comprised of twenty-six individual chapters, each helmed by a different director assigned a letter of the alphabet. The directors were then given free rein in choosing a word to create a story involving death.
This alphabetical arsenal of destruction orchestrated by what has been described as “a stunning roll call of some of the most exciting names in horror across the world.” is one of the most hotly anticipated releases for 2013. When the trailer received its first UK airing, last year, it was screened to a packed audience at the 13th Frightfest, Empire Cinema, Leicester Square, the 2 minute clip received rapturous applause from the attending audience. The film will receive its UK premiere at the this year’s Glasgow Film Festival as part of Film4Frightfest (Tickets for this event are now sold out) and its Irish premiere at the inaugural Twisted Celluloid Film Festival at the Triskel Arts Centre.
The following is the list of participating directors and the titles of the short films
Apocalypse by Nacho Vigalondo (TimeCrimes), Spain
Bigfoot by Adrían Garcia Bogliano (Cold Sweat), Mexico
Cycle by Ernesto Díaz Espinoza (Mirageman; Mandrill), Chile
Dogfight by Marcel Sarmiento (Deadgirl), USA
Exterminate by Angela Bettis (Roman), USA
Fart by Noburu Iguchi, (Robo Geisha), Japan
Gravity by Andrew Traucki (The Reef), Australia
Hydro-Electric Diffusion by Thomas Malling (Norwegian Ninja), Norway
Ingrown by Jorge Michel Grau (We Are What We Are), Mexico
Jidai-Geki by Yudai Yamaguchi (Yakuza Weapon), Japan
Klutz by Anders Morgenthaler (Princess), Denmark
Libido by Timo Tjahjanto (Macabre), Indonesia
Miscarriage by Ti West (House of the Devil; The Innkeepers), USA
Nuptials by Banjong Pisathanakun (Shutter), Thailand
Orgasm by Bruno Forzani & Héléne Cattet (Amer), Belgium
Pressure by Simon Rumley (Red, White & Blue), UK
Quack by Adam Wingard (A Horrible Way to Die), USA
Removed by Srdjan Spasojevic (A Serbian Film), Serbia
Speed by Jake West (Doghouse), UK
Toilet by Lee Hardcastle (T is For Toilet), UK
Unearthed by Ben Wheatley (Kill List), UK
Vagitus by Kaare Andrews (Altitude), USA
WTF! by Jon Schnepp (Metalocalypse; The Venture Bros.), USA
XXL by Xavier Gens (Frontiers; Hitman), France
Youngbuck by Jason Eisener (Hobo With A Shotgun), Canada
Zetsumetsu by Yoshihiro Nishimura (Tokyo Gore Police), Japan
The 26 cinemas where The ABCs of Death will be screening at on 26 April 2013 are as follows:
Tickets for many of the venues are available to pre-order now. The ABCs of Death will also be previewed in selected cities around the UK. Further details will be announced shortly.
Provocative, shocking, funny and ultimately confrontational, The ABCs of Death is the definitive vision of modern horror diversity.
For further information and details about The ABCs of Death go to the film’s official website www.26waystodie.com and follow on Twitter @26waystodie
A DVD and Blu-ray edition of The ABCs of Death are set to be released on 3 June 2013. Pre-order now from Amazon and other online outlets DVD http://amzn.to/Wl0yOy Blu-ray http://amzn.to/WJaLpo. Details about extras and special features will be announced later this year.
EE, the title sponsor of the EE British Academy Film Awards and the provider of Britain’s first superfast 4G network, have announced that it will be streaming the ‘EE BAFTAs 360° Red Carpet Show’ live from the ceremony using multi-camera, cutting edge, 360° technology. Film lovers watching the show will be offered the chance to virtually mingle with the stars on the BAFTA Film Awards red carpet in a way they have never been able to before.
Viewers will be able to toggle between each camera in real time, controlling the action by panning up down, left and right in full 360°, putting them in the director’s chair for what is one the film world’s most star studded evenings. A highlights edit of the show will be released on Monday 11 February.
Within the EE Film app for iOs and Android, the 360° video player will use the device’s inbuilt gyroscopic controls to let viewers literally turn themselves and their device to look to their left, right and even behind themselves, as if they are on the red carpet in person.
On facebook.com/EE viewers will be able to experience the stream in full 360°, switch between the four camera streams, as well as interacting and discussing the show in real time.
The ‘EE BAFTA 360° Red Carpet Show’ follows on from the star turn made in 2012 by self-proclaimed “international star, role model and diva,” Miss Piggy who anchored an online show for sister brand Orange, interviewing the likes of Daniel Radcliffe, Michael Fassbender, Jessica Chastain, Gary Oldman and Octavia Spencer amongst many more, before EE took over title sponsorship for the 2013 ceremony.
Presenter Laura Whitmore will be anchoring the show from Camera One, directly outside the Royal Opera House, where she will be interviewing leading stars of the film world, including nominated actors, actresses and directors from the year’s biggest blockbusters including Life of Pi, Lincoln, Argo, Django Unchained, Skyfall and Les Misérables.
“I’m not a great man. I’m a fuckin’ man like you, struggling through the goddamn day”
Perhaps one of most controversial and politically-charged directors of his generation, Oliver Stone has made some of the most seminal and enduring films of any time. His political views are strongly portrayed across his films; from Born on the Fourth of July to Wall Street. Another theme ubiquitous in Stone’s films is drugs. Scarface is loosely based on his own addiction to cocaine, which he successfully kicked while writing the screenplay for the film. So it’s no surprise his latest films Savages takes on a highly relevant issue for 21st century America, this time depicting a bitter battle between three successful weed dealers and a vicious Mexican drug cartel.
Stone enrolled at Yale University but dropped out to teach English in Saigon, Vietnam. In April 1967, Stone enlisted in the United States Army, requesting combat duty in Vietnam. Ten days after being honourably discharged, he found himself in jail in San Diego, after getting caught bringing two ounces of pot across the border from Mexico. Facing 5-20 years on Federal smuggling charges, Stone made a call to his father, who summoned a lawyer to spring him from jail after a couple of weeks. It was at this time that Stone went from a flag-waving conservative to an anti-establishment rebel after seeing first-hand the waste and corruption inherent in both the Vietnam and U.S. legal system. This experience is highly evident in nearly all of his films, which primarily focus on drugs, anti-right wing governments and the Vietnam War.
Stone did go back to University after the war and graduated from New York University in 1971, where among his teachers was director Martin Scorsese. His breakthrough as a director came in 1974 with Seizure. However, Stone’s directing career didn’t really kick start until his critically acclaimed, autobiographical, American War film, Platoon. In between this time Stone did write the cult classic that is Scarface, Brian De Palma’s hyper-violent look at a Cuban exile (Al Pacino) reaching for the American Dream by rising to the top of Miami’s drug game.
Next on Stone’s list, the rich fat cats in Wall Street, a movie that exposed the corrupt system of the American economy and how greed was going to destroy us. He returned to the film in 2010 with the sequel Wall Street 2. In 1989, Stone follows up on his theme of the Vietnam War with Born on the Fourth of July. Tom Cruise plays Ron Kovic, a true blue American who gets paralyzed in the Vietnam War, and is hated by almost everyone when he comes back home.
JFK was released in 1991 and is widely received as one of his best and most controversial films to date. JFK examines the events leading up to the assassination of President Kennedy and the alleged subsequent cover-up. He followed this up with two more films about American Presidents; Nixon which was released in 1995 and W (about George Bush), released in 2008.
Once again Al Pacino steals the show in Stone’s film about American football, titled Any Given Sunday (1999), famous for its motivational half time talk “inch by inch”. In his latest film Stone returns once again to his favourite subjects drugs and politics. Savages looks into a twisted love triangle, the strongest Marijuana known to man, the Mexican drug cartel and a kidnapping.
Over the years he has been in the spotlight for his divorce, drug use, outlandish statements, criminal charges and at times provocative films. He has directed 22 films, acted in 10, written 6, made 3 documentaries and written 4 books; the man has certainly been busy during his tenure. Whilst not all will be fans of Stone’s work he has cemented himself in the hall of fame as one of the great director/screen writers of all time.
Savages is released on 11th February on Blu-ray and DVD.
