Nightcap 8/30/15- They are still cutting films for US release, Randi's links and Unseen's next few weeks

I’m really getting annoyed with US film releases of Asian films (and elsewhere) getting chopped up for US release. If you ask me the whole thing is getting out of hand.

I’m going to get on the bad side of Lionsgate by saying this, but honestly I don’t care. (If I don’t get the Jackie Chan interview this maybe why)

Last Tuesday I went to see a screening of the new Jackie Chan John Cusack Adrian Brody film DRAGON SWORD. The action is some of the best action Jackie has ever put on screen. His work is outstanding as is his dramatic performance. The trouble is that the film feels short. Its seems like they cut twenty minutes out of it.

Actually they cut 24 minutes out of it.

Why?

I’m not sure. Since the film is doing a dual theatrical/VOD release so it’s not a matter of getting more screenings in, it has to be something else, though what I don’t know. Based on what I’ve seen the film didn’t ramble all over the place and could only be helped by more exposition. I’d really like to know what the thinking was behind the cuts.

As this posts I have not seen the longer Asian version, but I’m hoping to do so by the time the film hits theaters next week. If I manage it, expect a compare and contrast between the versions

Personally this chopping things down has to stop. The Weinsteins have been fucking up films for years because they think they know better –I mean has any film that they have ever butchered actually been better? No, never. So seeing Lionsgate doing the same thing is a bad sign.

For the record I like DRAGON BLADE a great deal- enough that I’m really pissed off that they chopped out 25 minutes.

A review of the film will appear tomorrow.
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And now Randi's links

Francis Bacon
Mazes
Amélie Director Jean-Pierre Jeunet Introduces Lavazza to North America
The radio station that saved New Orleans
FUN HOME controversy
Fringe Joke Awards
Introducing the Internet- thank you Lycos
Watches that take a year to make
The last of the Great Escapees has died at 101
Why does a show for an all black show have a white woman on the poster?
The battle over Lisbeth Salander
The lowest grossing big releases of all time(well since 1982)
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For the next eight weeks or so Unseen is going to become very interesting. I mean that in a good way and a bad way. It’s the result of having two film festivals dropped in our laps plus things getting weird concerning the New York Film Festival. Oh and did I mention we have new releases we’re covering as well?

Yea once more it’s too much dropping in our laps.

This week we’re going to start off with some new releases both in theaters and DVD. Then we are going to switch over and have coverage of the Portland Film Festival.

After that we’re going to start the running theme of my August film diary. Alec had said that Unseen seemed to becoming everything that I saw. That’s not true, but I decided to diary a couple of weeks of August and post what I was watching, good bad or indifferent. The diary posts are going to fill in between all of the new releases and festival posts.

After Portland comes Toronto. I have five or six films scheduled for coverage. After that comes New York. And from New York comes Comic Con…

And of course I’ll have New releases as well.

I’m sure that all of that is going to change 15 times as well since my carefully crafted theme weeks have been tossed aside