Kabukicho High School

Kabukicho High School (歌舞伎町はいすくーる) enrolls a trailer!


A trailer has dropped for Kabukicho High School (歌舞伎町はいすくーる), a live-action adaptaion of the manga series Teijisei Kabukicho Koukou by Masahide Motohashi. The story follows a real estate guru who enlists in a vocational high school out of boredom (in an area notorious for rough crowds and sex clubs) and hijinks ensue among all the different students. It looks like it might be interesting, filled with a bunch of silly stuff that suddenly turns all science fiction by the end. Of particular note is Sonny Chiba showing up! Besides that, there is little in English about the manga, so I have no real idea whether it’s considered good or not.

The film is directed by Shinichi Karube and written by Machiko Nasu. It stars Shun Shioya as Ken Haine, Ainosuke Kataoka as Kikumasa, and Shinichi “Sonny” Chiba as Chief Director Hakkaisan. There’s also an actress named Nagisa Oshima, which is the same name as a very famous Japanese director.

Ken Haine (Shun Shioya) is the president of a real estate company and he is known as the “King of Kabukicho”. He becomes sick and tired of making money. Ken then begins to say that he wants to go to school to look for some excitement. General Manager Masamune Kiku finds a vocational school located in the center of Kabukicho. Ken illegally enrolls in the vocational school. At the vocational school, the school is full of unusual people including a professional wrestler and a gay student.

Kabukicho High School opens May 3rd in Japan

via AsianWiki

Sisters of Death RiffTrax

Sisters of Death – New RiffTraxVOD!


I see a new RiffTrax VOD is out and I’m like ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) at the news! This feature is Sisters of Death, about a sorority initial that goes horribly wrong but also horribly right because it leads to accidental death and then revenge killing. Which means it’s a slasher movie where the protagonist is sort of justified, but not really, and why isn’t the sorority charged with anything? I smell cover up! Those are the people you need to gun down in dark alleys and then say quips to as the steam rises from their fresh wounds, the cold winter air biting at your cheeks. But all the revenge in the world will never bring her back…

I mean, I totally don’t revenge murder people in dark alleys and don’t support it. But I do support RiffTrax, and you should too by buying a copy or gifting a copy or planning to buy a copying in the not too distant future or playing Russian roulette with a copy, because what could go wrong?

A game of russian roulette at a sorority initiation goes tragically awry: one of the guns does not kill the pledge! The other one does. We gather that was supposed to happen. Sisters of Death; it’s right there in the sorority name after all. What were you expecting, a pimp and ho mixer with Delta house?

But it turns out that the father of the girl who dies is a total drama queen about his “daughter” being “murdered” and decides to go all Liam Neeson in Taken on her sorority sisters. Well, not exactly like Liam Neeson in Taken. He doesn’t so much kick butt as he does lure people to a luxury vacation rental where he provides them with free booze and a pool. And he doesn’t issue chilling phone threats about his set of skills as much as he plays the flute. But he has a spider! We think… It may have just been in the house already when he rented it.

When the girls start dropping one by one, they start to realize that maybe accepting money from a complete stranger to get in the car with two other complete strangers (one of whom has a complete distrust of light bulbs) for no specified reason may not have been a wise idea. It’s up to them to find out who’s behind this scheme (the dead girl’s father) and why he wants them all dead (because they killed his dead daughter.)

Join Mike, Kevin, and Bill as they pledge Delta Gamma and get initiated into the Sisters of Death!

Sisters of Death RiffTrax

女子ーズ Joshi zu Jossy's

Jossy’s (Joshi Zu – 女子ーズ ) trailer


The female tokusatsu comedy film Joshi Zu (女子ーズ) now has an English name (Jossy’s, though I have no idea why it is possessive!) and a trailer, which shows off how hard it is to have a fighting team with five completely different personalities with five completely different lives. It looks funny, but I’m just annoyed at the name.

Plot:

To battle a malicious monster, five women are gathered in front of Commander Charles against their will. The five women are selected because they each have a family name that represents a color. The five women are filled with doubts about what they are able to do collectively, but they go up against the monster using their lethal technique “Women Tornado”. The five women can only use the “Women Tornado” when they are all gathered together.

Mirei Kiritani(Ace Attorney) plays the red Naoko Akagi, Mina Fujii(Gehara: The Dark and Long Hair Monster and Monsterz – the Japanese remake of the Korean film Haunters) the blue Mika Aota, Mitsuki Takahata the yellow Yuri Kikawada, Kasumi Arimura the green Kano Midoriyama, and Mizuki Yamamoto(Black Butler) the blue Sumire Konno. Their boss Commander Charles is played by Jiro Sato. Joshi Zu is written and directed by Yuichi Fukuda, who directed Kid’s Police.

via Asian Wiki

Jem and the Holograms movie

Jem and the Holograms reveals cast!

The Jem and the Holograms flick has announced its cast, and there are some strong names!

Aubrey Peeples will play Jem, Peeples stars in Nashville and had a role in Sharknado. Stefanie Scott (A.N.T. Farm) will play Kimber (Jem’s sister), Hayley Kiyoko (Scooby-Doo! The Mystery Begins) will play Aja, and Aurora Perrineau (A House Is Not a Home) will play Shana.

Aubrey Peeples has a singing and acting background that will do well for a musical role, and so does Hayley Kiyoko, who has released her own albums in addition to the film Lemonade Mouth. I’m not as familiar with the other two ladies, but Scott is a Disney kid while Perrineau hasn’t been in enough for me to have an opinion. Jon Chu directs, and we’ll have more info when it happens. Hopefully it will be truly outrageous. I’m required to use the phrase “truly outrageous” in all Jem the Movie updates, it’s the law. Big guys in greasy suits will beat me with a hammer if I don’t.

The plot is:

Project will reimagine Jem for a hyperlinked social media age, the producers say, and revolve around an orphaned teenage girl who becomes an online recording sensation, she and her sisters embark on a music-driven scavenger hunt –- one that sends them on an adventure across Los Angeles in an attempt to unlock a final message left by her father.

via Jem The Movie
Jem and the Holograms movie

Party Cake Peeps

Peeps becoming a franchise

Party Cake Peeps

These Peeps will cry if they want to!


Peeps are an awesome candy that I love and eat all the time, but now that they will be in movie and tv series form, I’m starting to wonder if everything ever will become a movie at some point. Will there be a movie about toilet paper? Probably at least about those Charmin bears. But enough about bears pooping in the woods, we’re talking about candy here! Peeps are awesome and make Easter 1000% better, so much so that Peeps are around almost all year long now. There are even flavored peeps, including chocolate flavored ones, which I would kill every single one of you for. I mean, I like them.

So now we’ll have a Peeps film, thanks to Adam Rifkin, who pitched an idea after watching his kids make Peeps dioramas for a contest. The tale will follow a Peep who is lost from his diorama and has to move from themed diorama to themed diorama to get home before the contest begins. It is a diorama-rama, you could say. It’s also a lot like The Lego Movie, which is why they gave him the rights in the hopes that he’ll bring a dump truck full of money in returns. Just Born (the makers of Peeps) already makes $2 billion a year off the candy, so a film will be medium potatoes. But that also means lots of new Peeps based on the Peeps in the movie. Synergy, people, synergy. Or do I mean “Synergy, Peeps, synergy”?

I wonder if this means that Peeps won’t be showing up in any eventual Candy Land movie? We shall see… But until the, I’ll eat some Peeps!

Check out the sweet 2014 Peeps Diorama Contest winners and entrants!
via Deadline

Barbie life in the dreamhouse

Barbie gets a Malibu Dream Movie!

Barbie life in the dreamhouse

We’ll be back, and with a new hat!


A bunch of properties got announce that they were optioned for films this week, and the least surprising among the group was Barbie. Barbie has at least 27 animated films released direct to video with more on the way, and there is even a surprisingly funny web series called Barbie: Life in the Dreamhouse, which takes place in a world where all the characters are dolls and Barbie has all the accessories and jobs she’s had over the past 60 years. It’s pretty tongue in cheek and the entire series is on YouTube and worth checking out if you need some fun goofy fluff.

The Barbie film is being fast-tracked with production set to begin at the end of the year. I’m pleased to see a surprising amount of female names attached to the project, specifically writer Jenny Bicks, who will be doing the script based on a pitch she created along with Parkes/MacDonald Productions. Mattel’s Playground Productions’ Julia Pistor will executive produce along with Parkes/MacDonald’s Marc Resteghnini. Sony studio chief Amy Pascal was instrumental in getting the deal done, aalong with production president Hannah Minghella. That is a lot of femme power, and hopefully it translates well into a good Barbie film that has a lot of female involvement, unlike the Jem movie, which seems to be going ahead with an almost entirely male writer/producer/director team. The real key will be if they attach a female director.

Besides the film being a life-action contemporary take on Barbie, no further details are available at this time.

Astute movie news fans might remember that a Barbie movie was promised way back in 2009, but it seems The Lego Movie making so much money was the final straw that pushed Mattel forward with going ahead with the deal. You might recall they originally didn’t even want Barbie in Toy Story, but after that made buckets of cash, the suddenly were okay with her showing up in the sequels.

via Deadline