I’ll admit it… I was prepared to hate this film. I didn’t know much about it. Only that it was a short shot-on-video “horror” film that was going to be released on an upcoming Kevin Lindenmuth anthology called Monstersdotcom. It didn’t sound promising. But even though I was prepared to hate it, this creepy no-budget tale of a swamp-monster in pursuit of a serial killer won me over.

Shadows in the Garden is an atmospheric film about a vicious serial killer on the loose, an evil company making “bloodmeal” for dogs and cats, a missing police officer and a Swamp Thing like swamp creature. These elements combine on a lonely rainswept night as the creature searches for his identity while the serial killer stalks another victim. All of these ingredients could have easily added up to nothing more than a cheesy waste of time, but the talent of director Wayne Spitzer lifts the project to a higher level.

Spitzer makes a very wise choice for a low-budget director—Shadows in the Garden is essentially a silent film. He cheats a bit with radio broadcasts and newspaper headlines which definitely help communicate the complicated and fractured storyline. He also employs a very expressionistic dynamic visual style. The lack of dialog combined with the surreal imagery and steady downpour of rain really create a creepy and lonely atmosphere.

A monster suit can make or break a movie, and monster suits almost ALWAYS look terrible in shot on video flicks. Realizing this, Spitzer keeps his swamp beast obscured by shadows and rain and it works pretty ***censored*** well. The glimpses we do get of the swamp beast are impressive. This is definitely a nice monster suit. The beast looks like some kind of reptilian gorilla covered in swamp vegetation. That being said, the monster does have flowers growing out of his head which takes him down a notch or two on the coolness scale.

This is obviously a very low-budget effort so you have to look at it from a different perspective than you would a mainstream movie. Ultimately, Shadows in the Garden only amounts to an interesting diversion, but it definitely shows a real talent at work behind the camera. Spitzer shows real talent and has put a lot of energy into realizing his vision and pushing the limits of his budget and available technology.

(Note: Shadows in the Garden is available as part of the Brimstone Media anthology Monstersdotcom. We haven’t been supplied with the other segments to review. In addition to being a talented director Wayne Spitzer knows how to promote his work. Note to aspiring filmmakers: There’s a lesson be learned here.)

Review by Christopher Sharpe.

2002, Japan
Director: Fumihiko Sori
Cast: Yosuke Kubozuka, Arata, Sam Lee

Peco and Smile are best friends that have been playing ping-pong since they were kids. While Peco loves to play the game, Smile only plays to kill time with his friend despite the fact that he is the most talented.

This film is based on Taiyo Matsumoto’s manga of the same title. I can’t say anything about the manga because I am not familiar with it, but the film explores and brings the world of ping-pong to the next level. One might expect Shaolin Soccer. This is much more than that. While Shaolin Soccer was mainly a whacked out soccer game film, this film interestingly deals with the spirituality of the game. Sure it is very surreal indeed but characters have certainly more determination, ambition and perhaps spirit in Ping Pong.

First-time director Fumihiko Sori uses CGI very subtly throughout the film, so that it never takes over the film. He really could have gone overboard with the ping-pong matches and thrown in tremendous amounts of CGI to enhance the game. But once again this film is not about the game of winning and losing. It is about what goes on behind it. And there is some comedy to be had, but Ping Pong is much more charming and insightful than a wacky comedy.

This film will absolutely satisfy and inspire everyone. You may not stand up and cheer, but you will have a big smile at the end of the film. And perhaps it will bring tears to your eyes at some point.

Drama, 2003, Thai
Director: Pen-ek Ratanaruang
Starring: Tadanobu Asano, Laila Boonyasak, Sinitta Boonyasak,

Kenji (Tadanobu Asano) is a quiet Japanese library clerk working in Bangkok. He is so fed up with his mundane existence that he constantly fantasizes about suicide. After the tragic death of a girl he’s been infatuated with, witnessing the murder of his brother and murdering his brother’s killer, he moves in with the dead girl’s sister Noi (Sinitta Boonyasak) and their relationship slowly starts to grow.

This is an amazing and charming film. From the very first moment images appear, it will grab you. And it almost becomes addicting all the way through. It is playful and emotionally tender at the same time as Kenji and Noi’s lost souls build a bridge of the relationship. And once again Christopher Doyle did what he does best. His luscious images create a perfect mood for the film. The performance by the entire cast is superb. Asano’s performance is so effortless that if you haven’t seen him in other films you would believe he is this character in real life. And Sinitta Boonyasak is a total thrill to observe as well. If that’s not enough, this film has special guest stars. Riki Takeuchi and Takashi Miike portray yakuza in the film. This film brings together all the exciting talents in cinema world today and results in a piece that will be remembered for ages to come.

Last Life In The Universe is a funny, tender and subtly devastating film about how fate moves in mysterious ways. This is a film that should be on everyone’s watch list.

2003, Action
Director: Corey Yuen
Cast: Shu Qi, Vicki Zhao, Karen Mok

So Close is the movie that Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle should have been. It’s slick, it’s cool, it’s three girls kicking ***censored*** and – and this is the big difference – it’s not braying-donkey annoying.

Shu Qi (The Transporter) and Zhao Wei (Shaolin Soccer) are two sisters who have been working as an assassin-for-hire team ever since their parents were brutally murdered. Wei sits at home with a super-decked-out eye-in-the-sky satellite-linked computer spy system, feeding Qi info as she carries out the actual hits. The opening sequence is a stunner, with Qi carrying out a hit on a wealthy computer CEO and shooting her way through the enormous office building as a Carpenters-soundalike version of Burt Bacharach’s “Close to You” plays over the structure’s PA system. If this doesn’t suck you in to the film’s offbeat charms, nothing will.

Hot on their trail is cop Karen Mok (Black Mask), which results in a couple of great chase scenes. But to further complicate matters, Qi’s falling in love and Wei’s taking a liking to pulling triggers, something her big sister does not want her to do.

Directed by Hong Kong choreographer Cory Yuen (The Transporter), the high-tech flick takes some surprising turns and doesn’t follow the usual formula that your standard Hollywood action movie – especially one with a female-led cast – would. The three leads are all engaging – particularly the sister team of Qi and Wei – proving that sometimes, women can do these things better than the
men.

For those who usually gripe about American video releases of HK films, Columbia’s anamorphic widescreen print is crystal-clear, plus its language default is the original Mandarin track with Chinese subtitles. So all you lazy Americans will have to switch one or the other from the get-go if you care to follow the plot. The disc also sports trailers for this, the markedly inferior Charlie’s Angels franchise and other Eastern-born actioners like Returner, Black Mask 2, Double Vision and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.

Rod Lott writes about pop culture, annoying celebrities and life’s other absurdities every day at Hitch Daily and he also publishes the long-running Hitch:The Journal of Pop Culture Absurdity which is actually made out of paper.

First there was The Fast and the Furious, then 2 Fast 2 Furious, and now there’s Torque, which is essentially the same tale but told with motorcycles. And it’s 2 goofy 2 be any good.

The Ring’s Martin Henderson stars as Ford, because Kurt Russell is 20 years too old to be doing so. He’s a renegade cyclist who ditched his girlfriend Shane (Monet Mazur, who’s too clean-scrubbed to convincingly play white trash and looks like Mary-Louise Parker with a dye job) for a romp in Thailand after stealing some motorcycles with crystal meth in the gas tanks from a sniveling bad guy named Henry James (not the famous author of The Turn of the Screw, but Matt Schulze from The Transporter). Like all the bad guys in real life, he sports a mullet. But now he’s back to set things straight with both Henry James and the feds.

Only it ain’t that easy because he’s also pursued by a rival biker gang known as The Reapers, led by Ice Cube (forever frowning and snarling his way through a terrible performance), who thinks Ford has murdered his brother, because that’s just what Henry James wants everyone to believe. And while that may resemble a plot, the script does nothing to forward it. Oh, the characters talk alright – it’s just everything they say is meaningless, like the words of Charlie Brown’s school teacher, unless it’s a priceless bit of bad dialogue. This movie is jam-packed with exchanges like “Nice bike.”
“Nice ***censored***.”

Nice try. With its saturated, slightly washed-out colors, I liked the way Torque looks. I just didn’t like how it sounds, feels, tastes or smells. Every frame is jacked-up and pimped out to resemble a Mountain Dew commercial. Every character lacks peripheral vision and a hearing range beyond two feet so that people and motorcycles can sneak up on them all the time, yet the dudes have no trouble communicating with one another during their loud rides.

But action is the hook for a flick like Torque – unfortunately, it’s ludicrous. Cycles zip and zap everywhere, including through a moving train filled with passengers, but the climactic chase has Ford and Henry James facing off through downtown L.A. at 200 mph and having somehow obtained expert reflexes. This scene flies by at such speed that you cannot tell what the hell is happening
– like much of the movie, it’s as close as a film can get to being animated without using pencils.

Rod Lott writes about pop culture, annoying celebrities and life’s other absurdities every day at Hitch Daily and he also publishes the long-running Hitch:The Journal of Pop Culture Absurdity which is actually made out of paper.