The Skin I Live In is an immensely bold and engaging film of perfect gray. “Gray” in the sense that it’s certainly not white, or light, and yet, not black, either. At the core is a redemptive love, but the path that leads to that love is, if one steps back, wholly repugnant. That director Pedro Almodovar (Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown, Talk to Her) is able to show us the chain of events in a plausible, sympathetic, and, not the least of which, compelling way, is a height of craft and human understanding.

If that description seems vague, it should be, because the film’s greatest strength is drawing you in with unexplained details only made clear after the events have transpired. An example: Early on we see a lab, with blood samples, high-tech equipment, and then bees.

Wait, what the hell are those doing here? And then beetles. Why are they there? To provide a tinge of intrigue, of course. The shots are quick, and the explanation comes seconds later, but it’s a moment that represents the whole of Almodovar’s approach. Of course, others like it range from just as casual to much, much more elaborate.

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It’s rare that we ever come across a film that crosses two very different genres so seamlessly as the Finnish film Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale. Based on the series of shorts in which a Finnish shipping company explains the best and worst ways in dealing with renegade Santa Clauses, this story tells the tale of how that fictional company came to be.

Marketed as a horror, yet played as a Joe Dante-esque holiday adventure, Exports is able to both scare the crap out of you with hundreds of naked old men, as it is able to make you smile at the ridiculousness of hundreds of naked old men running through the snow.

If you’ve got the stomach for a film in subtitles, we recommend watching this one in its original tongue. Skip the dubs so you don’t get lost in some of the performances that make this playful horror film as fun as it is.

Some may consider the film to be a bit of a slow build for what is surely an epic and explosive ending, but if you relate with the two curious boys or any of the members of the search party then you will be along for every minute of the action here.

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Sequels are sometimes considered just an attempt at squeezing more money out of a franchise that studios or producers feel is possible after the success of a single film. That definitely isn’t the case with Tom Six’s upcoming sequel to Human Centipede: First Sequence.

This sequel, simply labeled Full Sequence, takes the premise and understanding of the first film and goes all meta and cerebral with it. Here’s the film’s premise.

Martin is a mentally disturbed loner who lives with his mother in a bleak housing project. He works the night shift as a security guard in an equally grim and foreboding underground parking complex. To escape his dreary existence, Martin loses himself in the fantasy world of the cult horror film The Human Centipede (First Sequence), fetishizing the meticulous surgical skills of the gifted Dr. Heiter, whose knowledge of the human gastrointestinal system inspires Martin to attempt the unthinkable.

Not only will this film follow a completely different story than First Sequence, but its toting itself as being “100% Medically Inaccurate”, which alone is a brilliant marketing strategy.

The film is currently making its way around the festivals, including making huge waves at Fantastic Fest, but you can expect it to hit everywhere but the UK early next year. Take a look at the first full trailer after the jump.

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Less than a week ago, we brought you a brand new trailer for an action-packed film out of Indonesia called The Raid about a SWAT group that has to make their way to the top of a crime-riddled apartment building. Apparently, we weren’t the only ones blown away by what the trailer had to offer, as Screen Gems is already vying to remake the film here in the states.

Since the film made so many waves at the Toronto International Film Festival, and it already had a distributor going into the fest, Screen Gems’ only reasonable plan was to remake the film for American audiences. Here’s what THR had to report.

Screen Gems is in negotiations on a remake, a move made possible for the label since sister arm Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions picked up North American distribution rights to the film during the Cannes Film Festival. The initial deal called for Sony to have an exclusive negotiating period and right of refusal on a remake in its deal with XYZ Films, the makers of the original.

So it seems that the new recourse isn’t to acquire films so that a wider audience can be privy to the art, but to remake it with young up-and-comers that will likely bring a completely different (possibly terrible) take on the film before we, the frustrated audience members, get to even see the original.

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Leave it to folks from Indonesia to put together one of the best action trailers we’ve seen so far this year. That’s exactly what we get with the red band trailer for The Raid, a new action flick from Welsh director Gareth Evans.

The premise is pretty simple, but when it comes to a “nonstop thrill ride” like this one you only need the visuals to get you where you’re going. For those who still need more, here’s the synopsis.

Deep in the heart of Jakarta’s slums lies an impenetrable safe house for the world’s most dangerous killers and gangsters. Until now, the run-down apartment block has been considered untouchable to even the bravest of police. Cloaked under the cover of pre-dawn darkness and silence, an elite swat team is tasked with raiding the safe house in order to take down the notorious drug lord that runs it.

But when a chance encounter with a spotter blows their cover and news of their assault reaches the drug lord, the building’s lights are cut and all the exits blocked. Stranded on the sixth floor with no way out, the unit must fight their way through the city’s worst to survive their mission.

The film stars up-and-coming young Indonesian martial arts star Iko Uwais and should  hit US theaters later this year. Check out the action-packed trailer after the jump.

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Last year, the world was rocked when a man named Tom Six directed some of the most gruesome and horrific scenes in the history of film, let alone the horror genre. Now he’s planning to up the ante even higher with his sequel, the alleged Full Sequence.

The film, which is shrouded in a fair amount of mystery, has got some reportedly ridiculous things to show us, and Six even has the balls to make the film meta in explaining how it ties with the original Sequence. Here’s the synopsis.

The film centers on an antagonist called Martin (Laurence Harvey), who becomes sexually obsessed with a DVD recording of the film within the film, The Human Centipede (First Sequence). In the DVD, a surgeon kidnaps three people and surgically connects them mouth-to-anus. Martin masturbates as he watches the film, with sandpaper wrapped around his penis.

He subsequently creates his own twelve-person “human centipede” and gains sexual gratification from the pain, humiliation and suffering of his victims. He is shown to become sexually aroused whenever a member of his centipede is forced to defecate into the mouth of the victim behind them. Martin rapes the woman at the rear of the centipede with barbed wire wrapped around his penis.^[2] A teaser trailer also revealed that a baby will be in some-way involved with the plot. The penises of two of the victims will be attached to the top of the head of the lead segment.

That rundown alone is enough to make you cringe, but don’t take our word for it. Take a look at the reactions of real-life folks after the jump when they watched the uncensored version of the film in Australia. Human Centipede 2: Full Sequence may just hit theaters here in the US sometime in the next decade.

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Nine out of ten times, when we hear about a foreign film being remade for American audiences, we here at The Flickcast are the first to agree that it will likely be terrible, and won’t do the original any justice. Then we heard that the remake of Oldboy will be taken on by acclaimed director Spike Lee.

Needless to say, we were intrigued. Now, the story is only getting better, as Jonah Hex himself, Josh Brolin, has been announced to take on the lead of the project. Here’s what Deadline has on the scoop.

It’s official: Brolin will topline the Mandate Pictures redo, which begins production in March. Brolin, who just wrapped Men in Black 3 with Will Smith, next begins work on Warner Bros’ Gangster Squad.

The new Oldboy has script adapted by Mark Protosevich, who will co-produce. Roy Lee and Doug Davison will produce via Vertigo Entertainment with Lee’s 40 Acres & A Mule. Mandate president Nathan Kahane will executive produce.

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It’s not a good sign when you’re half an hour into the movie and are still unsure who the main character is or what’s going on. By the end, I had a pretty good idea, but to make sure (this was the winner of the Audience Award for Drama at Sundance), I checked out IMDB’s synopsis, which says, “A wealthy Iranian family struggles to contain a teenager’s growing sexual rebellion and her brother’s dangerous obsession.”

Not quite satisfied, I then headed over to the film’s Facebook page, which conversely says that it’s, “the story of two vivacious young girls…discovering their burgeoning sexuality.” Finally, I looked up the film’s actual website, which stated that Circumstance “is a suspenseful tale of love and family upended by obsession and suspicion.”

Evidently, I’m not the only one who was more than a bit confused. Again, not a good sign.

None of them are flat-out wrong, and indeed the movie contains elements of all three—there’s Atafeh (Nikohl Boosheri) and Shireen (Sarah Kazemy) as the two 16-year-olds discovering their burgeoning sexuality; Atafeh’s brother Mehran (Reza Sixo Safai), the former addict who finds a new addiction in Islamic extremism; and their father Azar (Soheil Parsa), the liberal-minded man who disagrees with the old ways but nevertheless must adhere to them for his family’s safety.

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Letters from Iwo Jima was Clint Eastwood’s follow up to Flags of Our Fathers as told through the Japanese defender’s perspective. Ken Watanabe stars as General Tadamichi Kuribayashi, who was the man responsible for defending Iwo Jima from the American invasion. Kazunari Ninomiya stars as PFC. Saigo, a conscripted baker who doesn’t want to fight, and wants to return home to his wife and new child.

The film is told through a series of flash forwards and flashbacks such as Flags, and shows the struggle many Japanese soldiers faced while preparing the island for the upcoming invasion by the American Marines portrayed in the first film.

Letters From Iwo Jima is most noted for being the most realistic portrayal of Japanese combatants in a World War II before. Eastwood uses his direction to show a picture which shows the struggles the Japanese faced in preparing themselves for certain death. Of all the characters in the film, both Saigo (Ninomiya) and Kuribayashi (Watanabe) know that this is a fight that they can’t win.

When Kuribayashi arrives on Iwo he is amazed to see how unprepared his forces are in meeting the American threat. Kuribayashi begins transforming Mt. Suribachi into an impregnable fortress that will prove fatal for the American invaders. He also has his men prepare bunker complexes, pillboxes, blockhouses, and many earth covered structures to keep the Americans from gaining a foothold inland from the water’s edge.

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There’s a scene midway through The Guard where Brendon Gleeson and Don Cheadle have an extended conversation in a pub. Cheadle’s explaining some details of the drug ring and criminals the two are trying to stop. Gleeson looks like a boy being handed his homework assignment and is far more engaged in his beer and the pub’s shoot-’em-up arcade game.

Then you notice that Gleeson’s plastic arcade gun is pressed directly against the screen—he’s cheating. Now if you don’t know anything about arcade games you may miss it, even if you do, you may miss it, and while it doesn’t quite save the scene from being some overly long exposition, it’s a fantastic character touch. And that’s kind of the The Guardin a nutshell: a movie that’s willing to make sacrifices of pacing, plot, and whatever else if it can just have some more fun with its protagonist.

And, for the most part, it works, thanks to Gleeson, who plays Boyle, a roly-poly Irish West County policeman who sees himself as slightly above the law. He’s not the type of fellow who’d commit actual murder, mind you, but he doesn’t mind stopping off at the pub for a quick pint while on duty or even sampling a spot of acid now and then.

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After doing the seemingly impossible and breathing life back into the Batman film franchise after Joel Schumacher had his nipple-loving mitts on it, David Goyer is setting his sights on another failed film franchise to make it cool once again.

It looks like Legendary Pictures has tagged Goyer to help them out of a bind and write the script for their upcoming Godzilla reboot. Here’s the scoop from Deadline.

David Goyer has worked with Thomas Tull’s Legendary Pictures on both Chris Nolan’s Batman trilogy and the new Superman reboot Man Of Steel. Now the in-demand writer will pen the screenplay, from a draft written by David Callaham, for Legendary Pictures’ new version of Godzilla. The project will fall under Legendary’s overall agreement with Warner Bros while Toho Company, which own the rights to the oversized reptile, will distribute the film in Japan.

The film is also set to be directed by Monsters director Gareth Edwards, who managed to make an epic monster adventure with a minimum production budget. Let’s hope that Goyer can help us forget Matthew Broderick, Godzilla eggs, and Puff Daddy’s Led Zeppelin cover.

This week’s pick is Wolfgang Petersen’s 1981 masterpiece Das Boot (The Boat) which tells the story of a German U-boat crew and their amazing two month ordeal while on patrol in the North Atlantic in the fall of 1941. The film was based on the real life account of author Lothar-Gunther Buchheim who served with the U-boat service in World War II. The film stars Jurgen Prochnow (Capt. “Der Alte”), Herbert Gronemeyer (Lt. Werner), Klaus Wennemann (The Chief of the boat), Hubertus Bengsch (1st Watch Officer), and Erwin Leder (Johann, Chief Mechanic of the U-96).

Das Boot is one of the greatest and most successful war films ever produced. Petersen wastes no time and gives the audience a fantastic first hand look at what life was like aboard a U-boat during the early days of World War II. The film begins with its narrator Lt. Werner (Gronemeyer) being driven along the French coast by the U-96′s Captain (Prochnow). Werner is assigned to the U-96 as a war correspondent in order to show the German people the heroes of the U-boat fleet.

Werner and the Captain are on their way to a French nightclub in celebration of another officer’s new promotion. Petersen also shows key members of the crew who are vital to the execution of the story. The officer who is the guest of honor, Thomsen (Otto Sander) gives a drunken speech and openly mocks both Winston Churchill and the U-boat tactics of Adolf Hitler. The rest of the evening allows the men to blow of some steam before their long patrol in a sector of the North Atlantic.

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