News

Stars: Kodi Smit-McPhee, Jóhannes Haukur Jóhannesson, Morgan Freeman, Natassia Malthe, Leonor Varela, Mercedes de la Zerda, Jens Hultén, Priya Rajaratnam, Spencer Bogaert, Marcin Kowalczyk | Written by Albert Hughes, Daniele Sebastian Wiedenhaupt | Directed by Albert Hughes

An epic adventure set in the last Ice Age, Alpha tells a fascinating, visually stunning story that shines a light on the origins of man’s best friend. While on his first hunt with his tribe’s most elite group, a young man is injured and must learn to survive alone in the wilderness. Reluctantly taming a lone wolf abandoned by its pack, the pair learn to rely on each other and become unlikely allies, enduring countless dangers and overwhelming odds in order to find their way home before winter arrives.

It’s somewhat difficult to articulate a considerably insightful review of Alpha, not because its a poor film as such, but in the vein...

Stars: Kodi Smit-McPhee, Jóhannes Haukur Jóhannesson, Morgan Freeman, Natassia Malthe, Leonor Varela, Mercedes de la Zerda, Jens Hultén, Priya Rajaratnam, Spencer Bogaert, Marcin Kowalczyk | Written by Albert Hughes, Daniele Sebastian Wiedenhaupt | Directed by Albert Hughes

An epic adventure set in the last Ice Age, Alpha tells a fascinating, visually stunning story that shines a light on the origins of man’s best friend. While on his first hunt with his tribe’s most elite group, a young man is injured and must learn to survive alone in the wilderness. Reluctantly taming a lone wolf abandoned by its pack, the pair learn to rely on each other and become unlikely allies, enduring countless dangers and overwhelming odds in order to find their way home before winter arrives.

It’s somewhat difficult to articulate a considerably insightful review of Alpha, not because its a poor film as such, but in the vein...

No jokes about fish and visitors please — Agnieszka Smoczyńska’s horror fantasy musical is indeed about delectable creatures from the deep, but these particular mythical misses have their own agenda, and woe to the man who trifles with their affections. What’s today’s catch? A Polish phantasmagoria seemingly teleported from the glitzy 1980s.

The Lure

Blu-ray

The Criterion Collection 896

2015 / Color / 2:39 widescreen / 92 min. / available through The Criterion Collection / Street Date October 10, 2017 / 39.95

Starring: Kinga Preis, Michalina Olszańska, Marta Mazurek, Jakub Gierszał, Andrzej Konopka, Zygmunt Malanowicz, Marcin Kowalczyk.

Cinematography: Kuba Kijowski

Film Editor: Jarosław Kamiński

Production Design: Joanna Macha

Costume: Katarzyna Lewińska

Special Effects makeup: Tomasz Matraszek

Choreography: Kaya Kołodziejczyk and Jarosław Staniek

Original Music and Lyrics: Barbara Wrońska and Zuzanna Wrońska

Written by Robert Bolesto

Produced by Włodzimierz Niderhaus

Directed by Agnieszka Smoczyńska

I’m normally an easy mark for bizarre genre-bending horror fare. I also like musicals of all sorts,...

Agnieszka Smoczynska’s The Lure demands praise as one of the year’s most unique, unexpected treats; a fanciful feast of cannibalistic Eurotrash ultra-sweetness. Believe in this female-directed debut about playful sirens who pack disco-drenched nightclubs. Dive headfirst into musical mayhem spawned from pixie-punks with gigantic eel tails. Have your minds blown by a foreign-romantic-musical-thriller about murderous sea seductresses who’d dominate the next Eurovision competition. You are not ready for The Lure, and nor should you be – Smoczynska’s unconventional creation is pure sonic seduction.

Marta Mazurek and Michalina Olszanska star as the film’s young muses, Srebrna (Silver) and Zlota (Golden). The two mermaid sisters emerge from blackened waters, captivated by a Polish nightlife band known as Figs ‘N Dates. Before long, they become part of a Warsaw cabaret act that incorporates their mermaid forms (hey, kink sells). Silver and Golden unleash their voices, splash a little water...

"All you need to do is have fun. The rest is easy." Janus Films has debuted an official Us trailer (red band for mermaid nudity) for a film titled The Lure, a wacky Polish indie about two mermaid girls who join a human band in Warsaw. Part comedy, part cabaret, part horror, part romance, you won't find anything else like this film out there, though it may be a little too wacky for some. The cast includes Marta Mazurek, Michalina Olszanska, Kinga Preis, Andrzej Konopka, Jakub Gierszal, Zygmunt Malanowicz, Katarzyna Herman and Marcin Kowalczyk. I've been hearing about this film for a while, ever since it premiered at Sundance last year, and it's destined to become a cult classic - catch it in theaters this winter. Here's the first red band trailer (+ poster) for Agnieszka Smoczynska's The Lure, originally from EW.com: One dark night, at water's edge, a...

The Solutrean, which will be the first film to come out of the Sony-owned Studio 8, has finished up casting. Kodi-Smit McPhee (Dawn of the Planet of the Apes) will star in the film, with Jóhannes Haukur Johannesson (A.D. The Bible Continues), Jens Hultén (Skyfall), Natasha Wilson (Darc), Marcin Kowalczyk (The Lure) and Spencer Bogaert (Vincent) also joining the cast.

Directed by Albert Hughes, the movie will detail the story of a hunting expedition gone horribly wrong, with its lead characters on an epic mission of survival to make it back home amidst a harsh and brutal landscape. Specifically, the title “Solutrean” is a nod to a hypothesis written by scholars who believe that Europeans settled America somewhere around 20,000 years ago.

The genesis of the project? Hughes came up with the idea and went to Studio 8’s Jeff Robinov who, in a previous incarnation, represented the filmmaker when the...

Kodi Smit-McPhee, Jahannes Haukur Johannesson, Jens Hulten, Natasha Wilson, Marcin Kowalczyk and Spencer Bogaert have joined the cast of "The Book of Eli" filmmaker Albert Hughes' Ice Age epic "The Solutrean" at Studio 8.

The story follows a hunting expedition gone bad and the tale of survival through dangerous conditions to get home. The title refers to a hypothesis that Europeans settled America some 20,000 years ago.

The project will be shot in IMAX-3D and is scheduled to go before the cameras this Monday in Canada and Iceland. Daniele Sebastian Wiedenhaupt penned the script while Hughes is producing with Andrew Rona.

Source: Deadline...

Back in March I had a chance to talk with Krzysztof Skonieczny about his experimental, thrilling debut Hardkor Disko. I did not know a lot about him back then besides the fact that he's always busy; working on sets, shooting music videos, giving workshops and writing. I was even a bit afraid that to some extent he might be like Marcin (Marcin Kowalczyk) - the protagonist his film - who does not speak a lot, does not raise questions, and just prefers to do things quietly his own way. But Skonieczny turned out to be a talkative and open-minded person who cherishes a real dialogue. On the other hand he is indeed a truly independent artist who knows what he wants and what to do...

[Read the whole post on twitchfilm.com...]...

Hardkor Disko

Written by Krzysztof Skonieczny and Robert Bolesto

Directed by Krzysztof Skonieczny

Poland, 2013

‘Be intense or be nothing’. This statement, made by a middle-aged architect during a civilised breakfast, is put forward as a motto for his daughter’s disaffected generation. Lacking in attention and purpose, they need ‘stimulus after stimulus’ to stay interested, to keep them feeling alive. The phrase also becomes something like a raison d’être for Hardkor Disko, a film that hinges on its discomforting atmosphere and ability to aggravate the senses.

It opens with Marcin (Marcin Kowalczyk), a sullen, misanthropic figure, playing with a large knife in an abandoned theme park. At one point he leaves it hovering right between his eyes; you get the impression he could just let it drop there and then. Instead, he makes for Warsaw and goes directly to an expensive apartment, in search of the couple who live there.

The foundation Amondo Films, which seeks to unite filmmakers across the globe with film production, events, workshops and screenings, is now in post-production on its first feature Hel.

Amondo is in post production on the film, which was backed by the Polish Film Institute, but is now using Indiegogo to raise $70,000 in finishing funds.

The filmmakers’ goal is to screen at international film festivals and release theatrically in early 2015.

Lodz Film School graduate Pawel Tarasiewicz makes his feature directorial debut, working alongside another debutante writer/director, Warsaw Film School graduate Katia Priwieziencew.

The cast features Philip Lenkowsky, Katarzyna Paskuda, Marcin Kowalczyk and Malgorzata Krukowska

Rewards for donors include the usual posters and T-shirts on up to an associate producer credit and a cut of the film’s profits for a $15,0000 donation. The campaign closes March 24.

Hel, set in Poland’s Hel peninsula, is about a lonely boy, a stripper and a mysterious writer who are involved in the...

Killing Them Softly (18)

(Andrew Dominik, 2012, Us) Brad Pitt, Ray Liotta, James Gandolfini. 97 mins

With a cast like that, no prizes for guessing this is a gangster movie. But despite the well-trodden ground, it finds its own patch thanks to an up-to-date landscape of economic hardship and all-round criminal incompetence. Thus, Pitt's suave assassin breezes into town to clean up a mess, but only gets caught in a bigger one. It's tough, violent stuff, but with a certain sleazy finesse.

Savages (15)

(Oliver Stone, 2012, Us) Taylor Kitsch, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Blake Lively. 130 mins

Stone gives up the politics and returns to crime, with a violent thriller involving two pot-growing California dudes and their run-in with a Mexican drug cartel.

Hysteria (15)

(Tanya Wexler, 2011, UK/Fra/Ger/Lux) Hugh Dancy, Maggie Gyllenhaal, 99 mins

The invention of the vibrator and the phenomenon of women's "hysteria" are viewed with jaunty decorum but some political savvy in this Victorian romcom.