Weekly Comp - Pick Your Own Damn Prize! - Easter Special 24/04/2011 - FINISHED

[iluvdvds@Cult Labs]

HAPPY EASTER EVERYONE! Wahey!

Since it's Easter today, I thought rather than choosing one film to give away, I'll put up three different films, and the three winners will be able to pick the film they'd like most!

So, here are the three choices...

Numero Uno...



Label: eOne
Release date: 18th April 2011
Release type: DVD
Certificate: 15

Pricing: £12.99
Genre: Action, Thriller, World Cinema
Director: Thomas Cappelen Malling
Stars: Mads Oussdal, Jon Oigarden


“HILARIOUS AND MENACING, ABSURD AND INSIGHTFUL – AN ACCOMPLISHED WORK OF GENRE FILMMAKING THAT AUTHORITATIVELY UPENDS THE COLD-WAR SPY THRILLER.” – WALL STREET JOURNAL.

A true story of treason and espionage in Cold War-era Norway re-imagined by a writer-director who, as a 12-year-old, had his mind warped by a diet of Star Wars, 1980s Ninja movies, C64 video games and his dad’s spy novels, provides the bizarre source material and inspires the vision for Norwegian Ninja, the debut feature by author-turned-filmmaker Thomas Cappelen Malling.

Produced by the people responsible for the cult Nazi zombies hit “Dead Snow”, uis a quirky, offbeat homage to everything from James Bond’s improbable spy shenanigans to B-movie Ninja flicks and post-modern Grindhouse culture to political conspiracy theory. Described as “quite possibly the most inventive and peculiar Norwegian film ever” (Tord Olander Pedersen, iTromsø.no) and “a refreshing Norwegian film in all its twisted boyhood fantasies” (Terje Eidsvåg, Adresseavisen) that “delivers plenty laughs and excitement” (Twitch), Malling’s film is a true original, a potent mix of fact, fiction and fantasy that is impossible to pigeonhole.

In reality, Norwegian Ninja’s main protagonist, Arne Treholt, was a former Norwegian social democratic politician and diplomat who, in the mid-1980s, was convicted of high treason and espionage on behalf of the Soviet Union and Iraq and sentenced to 20 years in prison. However, in the eyes of the juvenile Thomas Cappelen Malling watching events unfold on the TV news, the handsome, hotshot diplomat was neither traitor nor spy. He was a skilled Ninja Master secretly working for King Olav V and defending the Norwegian Way!

When Commander Treholt (Mads Oussdal) and the highly trained members of his covert Ninja Force discover a sinister plot against Norway, they immediately leap into action to avert the crisis. Behind the devious plans for a coup-d'état that would effectively place the US in control of the country is Treholt’s nemesis, Meyer (Jon Oigarden), an operative of “Stay Behind”, an anti-Soviet force funded by NATO and with nefarious links to the CIA. As Treholt and Meyer wage a private and very personal war for the hearts and minds of the Norwegian people, the Ninja Force must fight to defeat Meyer’s co-conspirators in the name of King Olav’s battle cry, “All For Norway!” Meanwhile, Treholt is also occupied with the unenviable task of training a seemingly incompetent member of the Ninja Force to become his second-in-command.

Norwegian Ninja (cert. 15) will be released on DVD (£12.99) by eOne on 18th April 2011. Special Features include: Oddities and Bloopers; Home Alone With Otto; Interviews plus Fight Choreography, Music Video, Skycar and Torpedo featurettes; Bonus Scenes (Action Figures, Life On A Grassy Island, Wingsuits, Pyrotechnics).










Choice #2



Label: Momentum Pictures
Release date: 18th April 2011
Release type: DVD
Certificate: 12

Pricing: £12.99
Genre: Thriller, Martial Arts, World Cinema, Asian Cinema
Director: Zhang Yimou
Stars: Sun Hunglei, Yan Ni, Ni Dahong

THE COEN BROTHERS’ NEO-NOIR CLASSIC REIMAGINED BY THE DIRECTOR OF “HERO” AND “HOUSE OF FLYING DAGGERS”.
A remake of Joel and Ethan Coen’s 1984 debut feature, “Blood Simple”, award winning director Zhang Yimou (House Of Flying Daggers; Hero; Raise The Red Lantern)’s Blood Simple (aka “A Simple Noodle Story” and “A Woman, A Gun And A Noodle Shop”) transposes the story from small town Texas during the 1980s to the Gansu province of feudal era China and transforms the Coens’ cult neo-noir crime movie into a period-set piece that begins as a slapstick farce before evolving into a riveting crime thriller.

The owner of a noodle shop in a small desert town, Wang is a miserable, ill-tempered, money-grabbing boss not averse to short-changing his workers whenever the opportunity arises. His dark moods and abusiveness have driven his wife into an illicit affair with Li, one of his employees, and provoked her into buying a gun believing that only Wang’s death can bring her the happiness she desires.

Aware of his wife’s infidelity and her plans to kill him off, Wang bribes a local patrol officer, Zhang, into murdering the two lovers while providing him with an alibi. But what looks like a perfect plan to Wang soon spirals out of control thanks to an unexpected double-cross that has all the players silently plotting against each other in twist-filled scenario driven by avarice, revenge and murder.

An inventive, original and totally off-the-wall remake of cult classic that somehow manages to remain true to the roots of the original, Blood Simple stars Sun Hunglei (Blood Brothers; Mongol; Seven Swords), Yan Ni (Kung Fu Dunk) and Ni Dahong (Curse Of The Golden Flower).

Blood Simple (cert. 12) will be released on DVD (£12.99) by Momentum Pictures on 18th April 2011.










OR the third choice....



Label: Third Window Films
Release date: 25th April 2011
Release type: DVD, Blu-ray
Certificate: 15

Pricing: £14.99 (DVD), £19.99 (Blu-ray)
Genre: Thriller, Drama
Director: Tetsuya Nakashima
Stars: Takako Matsu, Masaki Okada


FROM THE DIRECTOR OF ‘KAMIKAZE GIRLS’ AND ‘MEMORIES OF MATSUKO’.

Following the critical acclaim of his previous features, ‘Kamikaze Girls’ and ‘Memories Of Matsuko’, genre-busting auteur Tetsuya Nakashima returns with Confessions, a notably darker but equally absorbing and typically idiosyncratic work, this time adapted from the award winning debut novel by Kanae Minato.

Written and directed by Nakashima, Confessions was selected as Japan’s official entry in the Best Foreign Film category of the 83rd Annual Academy Awards and was the winner of the awards for Best Film, Best Screenplay and Best Director (Tetsuya Nakashima) at the 34th Japanese Academy Awards earlier this year.

Reigning in his impulse to create surreal candy-coloured worlds full of chaos and confusion, with Confessions Nakashima opts instead for an intense drama throbbing with dark emotions and powered by a savage central performance.

Takako Matsu (K-20: Legend Of The Mask) stars as Yuko Moriguchi, a middle-school teacher whose four-year-old daughter is found dead. Shattered, she finally returns to her classroom only to become convinced that two of her students were responsible for her daughter's murder. No one believes her, and she may very well be wrong, but she decides, nevertheless, that it's time to take her revenge. What happens next is all-out psychological warfare waged against her students in an attempt to force them into confessing what she knows in her heart to be true: they are guilty and must be punished.

Brilliantly building the psychological tension from the film’s very start before pulling out all the stops for a devastating and explosive finale, Nakashima has produced what is arguably his most mature and impressive work to date. A superb script, excellent performances from a fine cast and a perfectly pitched soundtrack (that includes tracks by Radiohead, acclaimed Japanese experimental rock band, Boris, and this year’s Mercury Prize winners, The XX) make Confessions one of the most original and impressive films of the year.

Confessions (cert. 15) will be released as a two-disc DVD (£14.99) and single-disc Blu-ray (£19.99) by Third Window Films on 25th April 2011. Special Features include: 70-minute featurette “Final Confessions” by Tetsuya Nakashima; “Real Confessions” by students; theatrical trailer; Third Window Films trailers.









The next post will explain how to win - it's super easy!

Kyle

[iluvdvds@Cult Labs]

So here's how to win!

This is possibly the third Easter the weekly comp's have seen, I believe, so in keeping with tradition here is how to win the competition this week!

So all you have to do is get an egg, draw on it, send it in and hey presto you'll be entered into the comp! Told you it was easy!

That's right, grab an egg from your kitchen, draw a face on it and post a pic. Or if you'd prefer, use this picture below as a template and draw a face using paint or whatever.

And since it is a horror forum after-all, entries with a horror/cult theme to them will earn brownie points!

Here's a template for those too lazy to do it for real



Or find another egg pic online. However you wish to do it.

Competition closes next sunday - as per usual - and anyone can enter as many times as you like! The three winners will be picked based on how good their pic/s is/are. And then the winners will be able to pick which film they'd like!

EASY PEASY!

So, get cracking with those eggs! ¬_¬

Good luck

Kyle

[pedromonkey]

don't know if we're supposed to post them or Pm you Kyle, so im posting my first one....

[iluvdvds@Cult Labs]

Ah yeah, I should've said that Just post them all up here - much easier and you can show off your talents

Thanks for the reminder Pedro - and that's a great looking egg!

[Drugula]

I HAD to do it. It's not directly horror, but we all know heavy metal and horror movies have been making love since the dawn of time.

Besides, we are all aware of the shape of the skull of this man too.

[Victhulhu]

Man, let me just that the only thing harder than drawing on an egg is trying to take a bloody photo of it! Haha.

The egg was all wet and my pen kept slipping but oh well, here's how it turned out. It was SUPPOSED to be the zombie from Zombie Flesh Eaters, but I decided to add a little exposed brain!

[DryJack]

"Shellraiser"

3d models created in Wings3d. Textures created in Serif photo plus. Rendered in Daz Studio.

[pedromonkey]

here's a blast from the past Kyle...

I did actually draw this, just super imposed the picture onto the egg on PS.

[iluvdvds@Cult Labs]

Originally Posted by pedromonkey

here's a blast from the past Kyle...

I did actually draw this, just super imposed the picture onto the egg on PS.

That zombie blog of ours didn't last very long! Shame though, it was pretty good!

[PaulD]

Here's my effort:

Jas-egg Vorhees, from the popular slasher movie franchise Fried Egg the 13th*



edit: sorry for the size of the image, I don't know how to make it smaller.


* sorry, I just love egg puns.