Everyone on this site should know of my love for Ryuhei Kitamura, and furthermore his action protege, Tak Sakaguchi, by now. If you don’t, here’s a short video as to why.

Now I am totally with you guys- I have NO idea what that is about. From the English version of the film’s website, here’s a brief synopsis!

Inheriting the Samurai Spirit, Otokojuku is a private boys school to nurture true men. As usual, 1st-year students enroll this year. What awaits them is grilling training by Drill Master Onihige. Momotaro is professed in both academics and martial arts. Hidemaro is a puny coward. 300 push-ups, Oil Bath punishment, Disciplinary Twin Cells are just examples of what the newcomers experience. With blood and sweat, Momotaro and Hidemaro live through the Otokojuku days, but during that time, they become true friends as well as pitch friendship with their other classmates. Meanwhile, Omito Date, a former Otokojuku 1st-year student leader, carrying a grudge on this school, now leads the evil army of Kanto Gogakuren school, is ready for a pay back. He conspires to take over Otokojuku and sets out to their school ground. The Otokojuku principle, Heihachi Edajima, appears and utters: “No personal vendetta is allowed on the grounds of Otokojuku, but it’s a different story elsewhere.” Thus, Otokojuku versus Kanto Gogakuren.

Yes it might make absolutely no sense to the unenlightened, but what lay in store here is a unique parody of over-masculinated, over stylized Japanese animes in live action form. With that new synopsis in mind, try watching trailer 2!

My favorite thing about this is that it is actually direct BY Tak, a guy who just ten years ago was simply streetfighting for a living. Now he’s a successful cult action movie director. I guess I can only dream right?

For more info about Tak, visit his myspace and of course visit the website for BE A MAN: SAMURAI SCHOOL here. Click the ENGLISH text to read the website in a limited English…errr…TEXT!

AND THEN BE A MAN!

Hello, Everybody!

I’m here to serve as an independent advertiser for one of the most anticipated sequels of all time (at least in my worthless opinion), CRANK 2: HIGH VOLTAGE.

Chev Chelios, played by the ever-incredible and ass kicking King of the Modern B-Cinema Jason Statham, is a hitman who just ran out of juice…all the way from a 500 foot drop out of a helicopter into the LA pavement. With one final blink in the last frame of the film, many viewers were left wondering if Chelios survived…

Chev Chelios vs. Godzilla? Dream Sequence

Well thanks to avante-guard action directors Mark Neveldine and Brian Taylor (who also serve as the writers), somehow a man dropped from a chopper can survive and be more than enough man to kick ass in the sequel! Released earlier this week is the first full trailer, featuring a wonderfully extreme use of the F-Bomb, stripper nudity, and lots and lots of electrocutions.
The following trailer is NSFW, so put in the headphones and wait for your boss to make it to his office while you sit in your lame little cubicle wishing you could be as cool as JASON FUCKING STATHAM.

This is simply one of the best trailers I’ve ever seen, its totally RED BAN and well, DAMN.

Can’t wait for this baby to come out! When I came out of the theaters of the first film I felt like I had just done 10 lines of Cocaine mixed into a Redbull. It was one of the greatest experiences of my life.

…Yeah my life’s pretty lame, but CRANK 2 looks awesome! It premiers on April 19th 2009.

I’m pretty excited about this film, seeing as how much X3 truly sucked, and how good of a character Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine was becoming in X2. This one pretty much ignores all the problems with 3 and continues the character down that sort of path of memories.

On a further note, I am interested in this breed of film. Lately I have had the desire to make an action film similar in scope and technique to fantasy films such as the first two X-Men, to an extent the Blade Movies, and with a twist of Ryuhei Kitamura. I just bought his Ultimate Versus 3 Disc Collectors box, btw.

Anyways, I’ll update/edit this post more later, but I was just trying out this quick post thing for now. I’m really inspired by this trailer- the movie looks a lot of fun and the action looks fantastic, and Hugh Jackman is, as always, pretty badass.

Much like the last video I posted in my “catching up” post, which I’ve failed to keep my word at maintaining, this next package (filmed before the Skate package) was created by myself and news production (CMAT 373 at Salisbury, TAKE IT!) partner, Bryan Babcock. As in the last project, Bryan did the reporting, while I worked as cameraman (photog in the lingo).

Bryan’s connections and sources, combined with my knack for framing, netted us a huge A (97 or 98, I believe) on this project. I’ll be posting all of these to the films page soon under one post called “News Packages,” but for now, here’s a post from Bryan’s Youtube page. Also remember to look him up on NoBoundaryproductions.com

More videos from us are to come, as well as one or two where I actually do the reporting, one where a certain local Governor is featured, and eventually one where we show how one nearby-campus beer store is still making money; OFF OF MINORS!

This has seriously been my favorite class of the semester, and its the only one I’m really going to miss. Wait till you see Bryan’s documentary profile on me, and mine on him. Those are going to be classics.

Here are some updates on our film making, and a few other notes. First in the news:

We’ve filmed a new movie with Future Film Makers called “Be a Dude, Man”- a quirky classroom comedy about a conflict resolution student who’s desk neighbor plans to kill him as soon as class lets out! Working with nearly 15 members of the Club, this is the biggest cast I’ve ever directed, and also one of the most diverse and cooperative.

In News Production (Videos WILL be posted soon), I’ve worked with Bryan Babcock (check out his feature length Documentary “Bicycle Man”) on 4 news packages, each one receiving excellent reviews from our teacher. We’re certainly top of the class over there. Here’s one of them:

Most of the credit on that one goes to Bryan.

Personal projects such as Clarity and Line of Sight are still in production but its been a bumpy road thanks to all the work I’ve gone through for school. I’ve been writing screenplays in Dr. Moeder’s classes, and those have gone, for the most part, well, and I hope to make some of them. I’ve written two essays for Film Genre, one on Eastern Promises and one on Brokeback Mountain. These will be included in the soon-to-come Essay’s portion of the website. I also wrote an essay on the Paradigm as guided by Syd Field, which has become a helpful tool in my story structure.

I’ve seen, what…three movies in theaters this semester? I know I saw Quarantine and Max Payne (reviews NEED to come, so far behind!), but I forget whatelse I’ve sat through. Quantum of Solace and Transporter 3 come out this month, so that’s what I’ll be looking forward to.

Other than that, it was this little news story that got me pumped to write again.

From always resourceful Darkhorizons.com:

Action heroes Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham and Jet Li are in final negotiations to play the team of mercenaries in “The Expendables” for Nu Image/Millennium Films says the trades.

In “Expendables,” the main characters are sent to infiltrate a South American country and overthrow its ruthless dictator to liberate the population. Their team is “expendable,” hired to do jobs that no one else can or will.

Sounds simple. Even sounds really dumb. But hell, SOUNDS FREAKING AMAZING!

So I’ll try and catch up. At least this time I wasn’t a full month behind.