FANTASIA 2012—SUSHI GIRL: MARK HAMILL & TONY TODD

Also by press release, the Fantasia International Film Festival (Fantasia) "will be presenting the international premiere of Kern Saxton's hotly anticipated crime thriller Sushi Girl (2012), featuring Mark Hamill in a startlingly sinister lead.

"Hamill's portrayal of Luke Skywalker in the originating Star Wars trilogy is one of the most iconic performances in Fantastic Film history and remains among the most beloved screen characters in the annals of pop culture.

"Sushi Girl was produced by—and co-stars—the inimitable Tony Todd (Candyman, the Final Destination films). Also appearing in the film are Noah Hathaway (The Neverending Story), James Duval (Donnie Darko), Danny Trejo (Machete), Michael Biehn (The Terminator) and none other than Sonny Chiba (Street Fighter). Hosting the Fantasia launch will be Mark Hamill, Tony Todd, Michael Biehn and Kern Saxton—with additional guests to be announced!

"This, of course, is especially exciting news for [Montreal] as it cosmically coincides with the ongoing blockbuster Star Wars: Identities exhibition at the Montreal Science Centre, a show that has been regularly packing out since its launch on April 19 and will be continuing until September 16.

"The gala Sushi Girl screening will take place on the night of Saturday July 21. Hit it raw."

The interviews are already piling up with regard to this project. Noah Hathaway talks it up at Fruitless Pursuits, Sticky Trigger, and Spotlight Report. Destin Pfaff, Kern Saxton, Neal Fischer and Suren Seron talk to Media Mikes, who also talk to Cortney Palm and Tony Todd. Todd also talks to Bloody Disgusting. Mark Hamill talks to FEARnet, A.V. Club and The Hollywood Reporter.

PREDATORS (2010)

"Certainly there is no hunting like the hunting of man and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never really care for anything else thereafter."—Ernest Hemingway (from "On the Blue Water" in Esquire, April 1936)

With Predators (2010), producer Robert Rodriguez and director Nimród Antal have lifted the central premise of The Naked Prey (1966) and dropped it freefall onto a foreign planet spinning violently in—yes, indeed—a predatorial universe. But Planet Terror this ain't even though, admittedly, that's what I was hoping for. Irregardless, as far as the Predator franchise goes, it's a helluva lot more faithful to the original storyline than the double fumble of AVP and AVP: Requiem. One could say Predators has put the dread back into the dreadlocks of one of my favorite cancroid creatures.

Twitch teammates James Marsh and Jim Tudor have already weighed in with competent synopses of the plot so there's no need for me to repeat their efforts other than to point to Wikipedia where plot, casting, development, marketing and reception have been methodically tracked. I am touched, however, by the nostalgic commentary to James Marsh's entry where a yearning has been expressed for the fun action and B-movie vibe of the original, which pleased audiences with its visceral gut punch. Predators has testosterone-fueled action as well; but, it feels relentlessly crafted and self-conscious. The dialogue is clunky with an almost formulaic Q&A vibe of one-sentence questions and one-sentence answers posed again and again and again to simulate, I presume, a bad-ass aesthetic. Bad-ass is the name of the game here with an ensemble made up of an American ex-military soldier turned mercenary, an Israeli Defence Force black ops sniper, a Mexican Los Zetas drug cartel enforcer, a former Sierra Leone RUF death squad officer, a Russian VDV commando during the Second Chechen War, a notorious and deadly death-row inmate from San Quentin state prison, a Yakuza assassin, and a seemingly-normal physician who is, secretly, a serial killer. The film's title purposely flirts with this hierarchy of predation, essential to fight or flight scenarios; but, has left out possibly the worst predator of all: a studio exec banking on a franchise reboot and sequel.

Recently interviewed by Elvis Mitchell on TCM's Under the Influence, Quentin Tarantino complained that one of the main failures of contemporary genre films is that "they have sophisticated the pleasure out of the genre." It's a razor's edge. Do you imitate? Do you simulate? Do you ironize? How do you get just the right feel? The plot shift in the original was a narrative switchback that worked wonders and probably can never be replicated.

Jim Tudor's complaint lies in the casting. He criticizes that Adrien Brody lacks saliency as an action hero. I likewise felt Brody was channeling Christian Bale's phrasing a bit too obviously and I'm not a big fan of his blasé eyebrows which tend to tilt his performances towards irony; but, otherwise, he sufficed. I was delighted by Alice Braga. I've been following her career since she popped out in the Brazilian features City of God and Lower City and have been pleased that she's been showing up in these big budget blockbusters. She exhibits a perfect meld of toughness and vulnerability. I've already told her that she could probably turn me straight. Topher Grace provided some key humor early on though his character devolved into cliché by film's end. Walton Goggins—who's delivered one of the best TV performances of this past year on FX's Justified—follows through with an equally charismatic turn in Predators; I look forward to seeing more of him in years to come. As has been said, Danny Trejo's face is a national treasure. And the least said about Laurence Fishburne, the better.

Cross-published on Twitch.