I went to Berlin recently (LOOK AT ME IN BERLIN) and if there’s one thing Germany’s capital has a lot of, it’s graffiti. And branches of Lidl, but mainly graffiti.

Inevitably, film distributors have decided its high time they get in on the act and start spraying their banal promotional crap on walls too. The above A-Team stencil (my GCSE German makes that ‘Problem? Call the A-Team!’) was all over the city while I was there, and it’s full of jaunty angles and rough edges to convince you it wasn’t the result of a multi-million dollar marketing campaign.

Luckily, the day before I left somebody took to the streets to make a few corrections:

If only there was an equally efficient method of eradicating shit like this.

‘Regular readers’ will know how much I love a bit of Mumblecore. This week, the grandaddies of the scene are back in full effect with Cyrus, a comedy starring John C Reilly, Jonah Hill and Marisa Tomei. I’m talking of course, about The Duplass Brothers, the directing team behind such mumbleclassics as The Puffy Chair and Baghead.

Cyrus isn’t as bold as Noah Baumbach’s mainstream mumble Greenberg, but the three central performances are spot on and there’s plenty of subtle character stuff that’s very well observed, very funny and more importantly, very mumbly.

It’s a strange one to watch with an audience because the funny moments aren’t exactly signposted, so people tend to pick out different moments to find particularly LOLable. The man sitting behind me felt the need to do that ‘laugh and then do a single clap’ thing again and again to prove he was enjoying the film slightly more than the rest of us. I guess cunts will be cunts.

All in all, a satisfying transition into the Hollywood big leagues for the Duplasses, but I’d appreciate it if they could get the Mumblequeen back on board for whatever they do next.

… to put a pixellated bomb on a crow.”

We’ve already dedicated a ludicrous amount of bandwidth to Harmony Korine’s brilliant Trash Humpers, not only because it was the second film we did for Ultra Culture Cinema, but also because Warp Films are doing such a fucking amazing job with it.

It’s getting a home video released on September 20th and these are the formats you have to choose from:

		Enjoy waste fornication on the go with digital downloads ranging from 480×270 to 1280×720. It’s going to look shit whichever version you choose, so I wouldn’t worry too much about resolution. Actually, who am I kidding? 720 all the way bitchezzz. You can pointlessly ‘pre-order’ a download here.
		Probably the most practical format available (boring!), the DVD includes a 24-page booklet, a free A2 poster and even a variety of bonus features, including two short films (Mac and Plak, Blood of Havana) and 18 minutes of deleted scenes. Ouch. It also has some very nice cover art. Oooo! This pre-order might actually be worth doing. You get the DVD a week before release. That said, it’s quite a bit cheaper on Amazon.
		This is where things get silly/brilliant. Korine has individually created, and customised by hand, 300 copies of the film on VHS. Each comes in a totally unique vandalised package, like the rather beautiful example on the left. 150 are PAL and 150 are NTSC so get them while they’re hot. But beware, they’re not cheap.
		Finally, a very limited edition is being released on 35mm film print. Five (count ‘em) 35mm-gauge acetate-based theatrical film prints, consisting of four 1000 foot film reels, will be available – each one held in a print case hand-designed by Korine. The price? A steal at £7500. I e-mailed Warp to ask if they’d give me one of them, and was told… ‘Might be able to give you a print if you prove you have a 35mm projector at home to play it…’ Maybe next time.

Brucey’s looked better, hasn’t he?

MULHOLLAND DRIVE
Bringing Lynch’s Blu-ray count to three (we previously reviewed The Elephant Man and INLAND EMPIRE), this new transfer of his 2001 masterpiece is every bit as grainy and beautiful as you’d hope. I saw it at Somerset House just a few weeks ago and even compared to that magical evening, the Blu is a wholly satisfying experience. Extras are high-quality but standard-definition.

Now all I need is a Twin Peaks Blu-ray box set and I can die happy.

THE THIRD MAN
Almost two years after Criterion released their exemplary US Blu-ray of The Third Man, the Studio Canal Collection have ably done the same over here. It’s a different transfer to the Criterion version and apparently it’s not as good, but unless you’re a total ponce the difference is probably unnoticeable. All in all, a thing of beauty.

À BOUT DE SOUFFLE
It feels like this has already been released on Blu-ray about a thousand times (it hasn’t) but in any case, it’s hard to imagine it ever looking better than it does here. Studio Canal’s Blus are so uniformly awesome that reviewing them can get hideously banal. Amazing. End of.

TOKYO STORY
I’ve never seen any of the BFI’s Blu-rays before because they’re SO. FUCKING. EXPENSIVE. but after seeing this one, I might have to start breaking the bank. The menu’s alone are a work of art (one area Studio Canal aren’t so solid on), beautifully understated and elegant. The film looks alright too.

It’s entirely devoid of extras, although the back of the case does include the heading ‘Special features’, under which it says:

High definition presentation of Tokyo Story.

Who’d have thunk it?

Cyrus is not a particularly mainstream proposition. It’s directed by the Mumblecore Kings themselves, Jay and Mark Duplass, which means it’s full of shaky HD camerawork and more crash zooms than your average Jason Statham movie. It’s also very subtle as comedies go, with no big set-pieces or out and out LMAO-moments, and although the central cast are all big names (at least compared with your average Duplass credit list), they haven’t quite got the selling power that Ben Stiller leant to this year’s other big Mumblecrossover, Greenberg.

So instead, Fox have decided the best way to promote Cyrus is total deception. Hence we get a music-saturated trailer which portrays the film as some kind of kooky blend of Little Miss Sunshine and Step Brothers, distorting the movie’s tone to such an extreme degree that it made it look totally shit. The posters have been equally bad, in particular the UK quad pictured above.

Bland doesn’t begin to describe the design, which must have taken somebody all of ten minutes to bash together. The tagline is equally lame, and the dynamic between the characters isn’t even hinted at. Is Jonah aiming a playful punch at John C or calling him a wanker? At least the French poster was a little more direct…

Those nutty French.

Anyway, the point I’m trying to make is: please ignore all of this awful crap, because Cyrus is a very nice film and deserves to be seen by more people than just the small number of Superbad fans who go by mistake and leave after 15 minutes.

One film that hasn’t been removed from this week’s Film4 Frightfest line-up is the Eli-Roth-produced found-footage shocker The Last Exorcism. The film’s UK premiere will end the festival on Monday night and we’ve got a pair of tickets to give away for the screening and the after party.

I imagine there will be free alcohol.

Here’s what you need to know:

Monday 30th August 2010
Empire Leicester Square
Doors open at 8:30pm. Film starts at 9pm.

And here’s the question you need to answer to win:

Competition Over.

‘An Exorcise for the Mind’ won it. Obviously.

Entrants must be over 15 and be able to get to London on Monday night. We’ll pick a winner tomorrow morning so enter today ffs.

For those who care, our write-up of Ultra Culture Cinema #04: Scott Pilgrim vs. The World is now online here. You can also download our special notes on the film in a beautiful, thoughtful and entirely printable .pdf right here:

RIGHT HERE

We have yet to confirm our next event, but as ever, sign up to our mailing list and you’ll be the first to know.

The Film4 Frightfest began last night with the world premiere of Hatchet 2 and I was quite literally not there. Partly because I haven’t got a clue what Hatchet 2 actually is, partly because the Empire Leicester Square have THE LEAST COMFORTABLE SEATS ON THE PLANET EARTH, and partly because my legs still ached from running around the ICA all night on Wednesday.

As you’ve probably read elsewhere, the festival has had a few problems over the last week. Gregg Araki’s Kaboom was pulled for a variety of vague marketing reasons, and now that the BBFC have had a chance to check out some of the programme, they’ve deemed two of the titles unsuitable for public consumption.

The I Spit On Your Grave remake has been cut by 43 seconds but will still screen tomorrow evening. BBFC director David Cooke said this:

‘The cuts to this version of I Spit on Your Grave, which the Board has required, remove elements that tend to eroticise sexual assault (for example, through the use of titillation), as well as other elements that tend to endorse sexual assault (for example, by encouraging viewer complicity by the use of camcorder footage, filmed by the rapists, during the various scenes of sexual assault).’

Cuts to the festival’s controversy-jackpot A Serbian Film however, have been much more drastic. Almost four minutes have been expurgated, forcing Frightfest organisers to withdraw the film from its Sunday night UK premiere. Cooke said:

‘The cuts to A Serbian Film do not detract from the message of the film but remove the most problematic images of sexual and sexualised violence.  The section in the Board’s Guidelines which lists the possible grounds for compulsory cuts also includes material which portrays children in a sexualised or abusive context.  Whilst the Board understands that these images are intended to make a political point, that does not remove the genuine harm risks to which they give rise.’

There’s no word yet on A Serbian Film’s replacement, or on whether the planned DVD release will also be scrapped.

If you’re at Frightfest this weekend, give me a shout on Twitter and let me know what’s worth seeing. From what I hear, Monsters is sure to be aces.