After all the buzz, Precious is finally coming out in select theaters this weekend, and even after winning unprecedentd back to back awards at Sundance and Toronto, for once this film lives up to the buzz. We reviewed it here back in January after it premiered at Sundance (then under the title Push), and I loved it (see the review here). Not a “fun” movie by any means, and probably not a great date movie, but a must-see nonetheless.

For those looking for something more upbeat, The Men Who Stare at Goats may do the trick. Ewan McGregor plays a journalist hot on the trail of a potentially scandalous story — a secret paranormal military “black ops” program that somehow involves characters played by George Clooney, Jeff Bridges and Kevin Spacey. It’s a bizarre film, and even with its star-studded cast, it’s hard to imagine who would read this script and say “this HAS to get made”. But that’s not to say it’s bad. The Men Who Stare at Goats is enjoyable enough, thanks to a rare, off-beat, almost bewildered kind of humor that rides throughout the film. To give away one small joke in the film as an example, at one point Ewan McGregor is riding in a car in the desert with George Clooney. McGregor reads about a psychic maneuver called the “sparkling eyes technique” and asks Clooney what it is. Clooney says “okay, you ready?” and looks away from the road for a moment (still driving) and stares at McGregor with eyes wide open for a moment and then asks “You got it?” That was it, we just witnessed “sparkling eyes technique” and like McGregor we can only wonder if Clooney is completely nuts, because it didn’t look like he was doing anything but staring for a moment. Dark humor, but effective at times. Although these moments are a lot of fun, unfortunately I can’t say it really adds up to what you’d normally think of as an engrossing film. But it’s good low boil fun, and you could do a lot worse with your Friday or Saturday night.

Last, and in this case least, is Turning Green, which is possibly a worse date film even than Precious. The star, an angry teenager played by Donal Gallery, spends about half the film masturbating, which eventually leads him to porno magazines and a realization that he could make some real money selling those magazines to the locals (the realization comes to him in a vision in which a pinup girl encourages him to start the business and tells him she’s proud of him!). His hope is to make enough money to go back to America, where he grew up as a kid. Timothy Hutton, Alessandro Nivola and Colm Meaney round out the cast with solid performances, but there doesn’t seem to be enough to the story to make the whole effort worthwhile. As the story approaches it’s key turning point later in the film, we see small-time gangsters Timothy Hutton and Alessandro Nivola pitting a big dog against a small dog as a fairly obvious foreshadowing of the inevitable conclusion to the film. Both dogs are pulling on a leash or something similar in a kind of tug-of-war and eventually the big dog tires of this and lets just say that things don’t end well for the small dog. As foreshadowing goes, you couldn’t make it much more obvious than that, and in a lot of ways it represents my thoughts on the film generally. The scene works okay enough, but it’s pretty obvious, a little forced, and more than anything underwhelming. This one you can probably skip. (Turning Green opens in LA this weekend and in NYC next weekend).

Full press release after the break:

Magnolia Takes North American Rights To Bong Joon-Ho’s Critically Acclaimed MOTHER

‘We are very excited to find a passionate partner like Magnolia, who successfully launched THE HOST in North America and has a real understanding of Bong’s films,” said Senior Vice President Kini S. Kim for CJ Entertainment. “With Magnolia distributing both MOTHER, and BARKING DOGS NEVER BITE, we know his unique, fun and exciting filmmaking will reach wider audiences.”

Yoshihiro Nishimura is at the forefront of the low-budget, gore film revolution coming out of Japan. Directors like Noboru Iguchi (Machine Girl) and Yudai Yamaguchi (Meatball Machine) are proving that Japanese horror isn’t all women with long, dark hair and the alienation of modern life, it’s also about penis guns, schoolgirls with machine guns for arms and people punching each other’s skeletons right out of their bodies. As a special effects and makeup artist of truly gruesome reputation, Nishimura has worked with some of the most fascinating directors in Japan today, including Iguchi, Yamaguchi, Sion Sono, Hideo Nakata, Takashi Shimizu, and even old ero-guro stalwarts like Teruo Ishii. More recently, Nishimura has achieved international notoriety as a director with Tokyo Gore Police, an international cult hit and one of Cinema Strikes Back’s choices for best film of 2008.

Recently, Nishimura came to town for the world premiere of his follow-up film as a director, Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl, at the New York Asian Film Festival. Nishimura set a high bar with Tokyo Gore Police, but, so far as I am concerned, he managed to meet it with Vampire Girl, while going in a very different direction tonally and thematically. Candy-colored where Tokyo Gore Police was dark, poppy where Tokyo Gore Police was brooding, Vampire Girl is the high school-set story of an ordinary teenager torn between two extraordinary girls, at a school that seems to operate under the same rules as The Story of Ricky.

Vampire Girl is scheduled to open in Japan in a week, but Nishimura and I sat down for a chat the day of the world premiere, and a few hours before the NYAFF’s Tokyo Gore Night, an event which involved action star Tak Sakaguchi throwing darts at the (barely) loincloth-covered asses of Nishimura, Iguchi and festival director Grady Hendrix (remind me to post some truly frightening video some day) and the recording of a live commentary track for the special edition release of Tokyo Gore Police.

CSB: At the showing of Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl, you appeared with the bone samurai hat and blood sword from the film. Have you kept more props from your films?

Nishimura: We hold on to all the props. Our storage starts to overflow with all the crazy props, though, so we hold on to props from a movie until the DVD release. It’s really starting to get full so we’re starting to think about throwing away stuff from the film Meatball Machine.

CSB: Do you just throw the props away or do you ever leave them in unusual places to startle people?

Nishimura: That’s a good idea, but if we do it in our neighborhood, they’re totally going to know who did it. (laughs)

CSB: Nobody else is going to leave a fake, half-exploded head in your area?

Nishimura: Exactly.

On the Low-Budget Gore Revolution in Japan

CSB: It seems like there is a group of people who are doing these underground, independent gore films – you, Noboru Iguchi, Tak Sakaguchi, and others. Are you all friends? Do you all work together constantly?

Nishimura: We’re all friends. And even Takashi Shimizu, who directed The Grudge, he came out to Hollywood and is a big-shot here, but back at home he’s just one of us, really. He does really low-budget films as well.

CSB: Who else in this circle? Yudai Yamaguchi?

Nishimura: Yamaguchi. Takanori Tsujimoto [director of Hard Revenge Milly]. Keisuke Toyoshima [director of Tales of Terror from Tokyo]. He works with the same agency as Shimizu and really likes that genre of work.

CSB: How did you all get to know each other and start working together?

Nishimura: Originally, there were three. Shimizu, Toyoshima and Yamaguchi, who all worked on Kaiki Daikazoku [loosely translated - “The Great Horror Family”] together. Sort of like an Addams Family-type project. They worked on this project together and got to be really good friends. I was working with them and that’s how I got to know them. And a lot of the other directors – we were all working, doing these late-night TV shows. So that’s how we got to know each other, and we would all go out drinking together. At the time, I was not a director.

CSB: I saw you did some early work for Teruo Ishii. Is that how you got your start in the business or did you do any work before that?

Nishimura: I was working before that. The first director I worked for was Sion Sono on Suicide Club.

CSB: How did you get involved in that project?

Nishimura: I was working with Sono way before Suicide Club, when Sono was financing that film, doing it independently all by himself.

On Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl

CSB: How did you get involved in Vampire Girl vs. Frankenstein Girl?

Nishimura: Vampire Girl has two directors. It was originally based on a manga series by Shungiku Uchida, and the other director, Naoyuki Tomomatsu, worked as an assistant on the manga, so he had the rights to do the film adaptation. I knew about the manga, but had not read it. I still haven’t actually read any of it.

CSB: I guess I won’t ask how faithful it is.

Nishimura: (laughs) By the time I got involved in the project, there was already a script that Tomomatsu had written. So there was already a completed screenplay. Tomomatsu is a serious working director, so I’m sure he was quite faithful to the original work. When I got involved, in my own way, I sort of broke that down a little bit.

CSB: I thought Vampire Girl was a brutal take on high school. Did that come out of any personal experience?

Nishimura: In Tokyo Gore Police, we wanted to make fun of all of society and set it up as a police state. But for this project, our target was really high school – specifically the girls. That’s why I wanted to have the ganguro girls club, and the wrist-cutting club and the gothic Lolita club, because we were focusing on high school girls.

CSB: One sensitive issue – watching the scenes with the ganguro girls [Japanese teenagers who affect extremely dark tans and sometimes imitate African-American culture – in the film, the ganguro club dresses like members of an African tribe], I know from experience that there is not so much sensitivity to this kind of thing in Japan, but are you at all concerned that people might mistake making fun of the ganguro girls for making fun of the African-Americans they imitate?

Nishimura: No, I was totally worried that it would be misunderstood. What I really wanted to make fun of and parody were high school girls. I’m sure there a lot of people who misinterpreted and took it the wrong way. I think our intention was that if we’re going to parody something, let’s take it all the way and see what happens. And we totally went out of control. After it was done, I sat back and thought “I hope nobody thinks I was making fun of black people.” A difficult situation.

CSB: I thought it worked, but I could see how someone could take it out of context, and not get the joke.

Nishimura: One audience member who was black left in the middle of the screening after the first scene with the ganguro girls. Just one though.

CSB: In the script, did you always plan for the male lead to be so ineffectual?

Nishimura: That’s how he is portrayed in the original work.

CSB: Do you think that will help draw in more of a female audience? Is there a big gender breakdown in your audience or do you have a sizable female fanbase for your work?

Nishimura: Of course, there’s a very strong female fanbase. One of the things I was originally drawn to in the script was that you had these two girls who turn into monsters and fight over a boy. And that made me think, my god, women are frightening, women are scary, so I thought that would be a lot of fun to work with.

CSB: I think your films are very funny and I think anybody could appreciate that, but I do wonder if the gore turns off women in particular?

Nishimura: Actually, I think women are a lot tougher and a lot stronger, and actually better with the gore than men are.

CSB: I thought in a lot of places Vampire Girl was almost like a musical. Did you ever consider taking that next step and actually having the characters sing?

Nishimura: I originally wanted to turn it into a musical, but the budget didn’t allow.

CSB: Would you consider having musical numbers in your films some day?

Nishimura: Well, I love De Palma’s Phantom of the Paradise and The Rocky Horror Picture Show, so I would love to.

CSB: I got that Rocky Horror vibe. I thought the musical aspects worked very well for Seijun Suzuki in Princess Raccoon. I feel like his career had almost been building up to a musical. I’d like to see that from you, I think it would be fun.

When you were directing, how did you divide the labor with Tomomatsu?

Nishimura: Tomomatsu is a very serious, very diligent director. For the scenes that are mostly dramatic scenes, he directed those. Any of the scenes where there’s action or weird sh-t happens, I directed those (laughs). And ultimately I was the editor, so I put it all together.

CSB: The editing was extremely rapid-fire. Did it take a long time to complete?

Nishimura: About one month.

CSB: How long did the whole project take, pre-production, shooting and post.

Nishimura: Two months, from pre-production. Shooting was two weeks. Altogether, two months.

CSB: Did you sleep at all during those two months.

Nishimura: There really wasn’t time.

CSB: Was Vampire Girl also made with the assistance of Media Blasters and John Sirabella, like Tokyo Gore Police?

Nishimura: No. It was entirely financed by Japanese companies. Pony Canyon.

CSB: Last night was the world premiere. Is Vampire Girl going to open in theaters in Japan or go straight to DVD?

Nishimura: It is going to be released in Japanese theaters on August 15.

On Tokyo Gore Police

CSB: Going back to Tokyo Gore Police from last year, which I loved, can we expect any kind of sequel or prequel?

Nishimura: My next film might actually feel like something of a sequel. I think a lot of people might like to see a Tokyo Gore Police 2, and I have a lot of ideas for it, and I’ve already written out a plot synopsis for it. But I feel like then people will say, oh, okay, well this is what he does. So I want to keep people waiting a little longer.

CSB: In Tokyo Gore Police, how did you manage the effect with the person who had no arms and no legs?

Nishimura: CGI.

On CGI versus Practical Effects

CSB: How do you feel about CGI? Do you handle any CGI work yourself or just specialize in practical effects?

Nishimura: I don’t do any of the CGI work myself. And while I try to do everything as much as possible without using computers, we are working with low budgets, so if there is an effect that we absolutely need computers for, we will employ CGI. But we don’t ever start out saying, “Here is a character that will always be completely computer-generated.” As a director, I really like to work with something three-dimensional and tangible.

CSB: You don’t see yourself creating that type of new Star Wars world where everything is CGI background, CGI characters?

Nishimura: No, I don’t really want to do anything like that (laughs). In that kind of working environment, you never get to experience the joy and fun of spraying people down with blood or getting blood sprayed all over yourself.

CSB: You don’t get messy.

Nishimura: Yeah, I get totally dirty during a shoot. I’m totally red.

On Some of His Notable Projects

CSB: How’d you end up doing special effects for the Hard Revenge Milly films?

Nishimura: The director, Tsujimoto, actually saw an article about me in this film periodical in Japan called Eiga Hiho, or “Movie Treasures.” He saw the article about me and my work, and he approached me saying that this was the type of film he wanted to make. When he originally presented the project to me, it was more that he wanted to do an action film kind of like Machine Girl. Apparently, right now in Japan there are a lot of film proposals out there for projects that are just like Machine Girl or Tokyo Gore Police. I think everyone’s trying to get on that bandwagon. One example is Samurai Princess [see our review here], which is also being shown at the festival here. And Milly is in the same group.

CSB: I saw that you and your company worked on the special effects for L: Change the World. That’s a big budget, family-friendly film, and aimed at a pretty broad audience, but I remember shocked when I saw it at how gory some of the effects were, especially those involving an Ebola-like virus. How did you get away with that?

Nishimura: Well, the director was Hideo Nakata [The Ring] and he got us involved. He kept encouraging us so we kept pushing it further. (laughs)

On Tokyo Gore Night

CSB: Can you tell us a little bit about the short films that will be playing at Tokyo Gore Night and whether audiences who can’t attend will ever get to see them?

Nishimura: Two of the things we are showing tonight are some short films that were made for the special edition DVD of Tokyo Gore Police as DVD extras and Machine Girl Light. We’re also having the world premiere of the trailer for Noboru Iguchi’s new film, Robo-Geisha [Ed. – which looks pretty mind-boggling].

One last thing. I asked Mr. Nishimura what was next after taking on the police state and high school. What is annoying him now and to what we can look forward. Mr. Nishimura has stated during public Q+As that he was planning a zombie opus, which sounded promising but not exactly original given the current prevalence of zombie films. Well, off the record, Mr. Nishimura was willing to share more details and, while I can’t elaborate at this point, I can tell you he’s got what sounds like a truly original slant on the genre that is certain to raise some eyebrows, and that will bring the message back to the zombie film in a way rarely seen outside of George Romero films.

Thanks to Yoshihiro Nishimura for being such a good sport and to Grady Hendrix and the whole crew at Subway Cinema for their help.