It’s not every day that you go to Apple Trailers’ page, and spot a film promotion there on a Finnish film. Jalmari Helander‘s first feature film Rare Exports, that’s based on the Rare Exports shorts that have been circling around the Internet for quite some time already, just landed a new page for Apple Trailers, and for once I can be proud of how internationally a Finnish film has been promoted. Go see yourself, here’s Rare Exports’ page on Apple Trailers!
According to Governator Schwarzenegger‘s Twitter account, something is going on between the main actor and the director of one of the greatest science fiction classics ever (Terminator 2, if you’re wondering…) are possibly going do something together in the future. What that is, nobody knows, but here’s what Schwarzenegger writes:
“Jim Cameron & I are working on something together, @zealcore. Will announce Mon. Here’s a shot of us discussing. “
And here they are, indeed:
What will that be? Avatar 2+3? One can only hope.
I have to admit that I was struggling with my words on this one, because how do you describe something that you had to see to believe? Yesterday I experienced something extraordinary at Night Visions Film Festival, The Crispin Glover Experience! It was indeed an experience, one that I won’t ever forget.
When I walked into the fully packed theatre, a weird circus music fills my head. It perfectly sets the mood to the show that’s about to begin. The Crispin Glover Experience! In the beginning we are instructed to turn of all technical equipment and no recording of any kind was permitted during the entire show. The lights go out and it gets totally dark and quiet. Suddenly a bright red spotlight hits Crispin Glover’s face. He welcomes us to the show and starts his performance. As soon as the first slide hits the screen, he is immediately in his element, reading passages from his books with a passionate drive. He goes trough about six books, that are just as absurd and surreal as the way he is presenting them. I loved this part of the show, especially parts from his books Concrete Inspection and Rat Catching.
When the hour-long slideshow ends, it’s time for the movie, part two of Glover’s IT-trilogy, It is Fine! EVERYTHING IS FINE. The movie is written by Glover’s friend, a CP-handicapped Steven C. Stewart who also plays the lead in the movie. It is Fine! EVERYTHING IS FINE tells a story of Paul, a wheelchair-bound man who craves women with long hair. In his fantasies people are able to understand him verbally, women find him irresistible, and his is a legitimate threat to anyone who stands in his way.
Photo by David Brothers (via crispinglover.com)
I had seen the trailer before hand and I’m of course familiar with Glovers previous work, but I could not have imagined what was to be projected to the silver screen last night. I can say that some parts of the movie are not easy to watch to say the least, but that’s exactly why you should watch them. One of the most fascinating elements about the movie is the fact that Stewart wrote the movie specifically for himself. It made me think if he wrote the script just to be able to experience the things he probably wouldn’t have been able to to do any other way. Also I thought it was very interesting that you couldn’t understand a word that the protagonist was saying. Only way to know what he was saying, was to listen and watch how other people reacted to him, who did understand him perfectly. I’m still quite blown away about this and I don’t think I have ever witnessed anything quite like it. So the movie is definitely not short on originality.
Here’s the trailer for It is Fine! EVERYTHING IS FINE so you get even some sense of what I’m talking about. But rest assured this movie needs to be seen in a theatre and with the director present. Trust me.
Right after the end credits had rolled mr. Glover came back on stage and asked the audience “So, is there any questions?” with a little grin on his face. He knew there were questions, he knew he had evoked thoughts. And ultimately that has always been his main goal with all his work. Glover talked very openly about his fears for traditional distributing, about financing the movie with money he’d made from Charlie’s Angels, and of course his relationship with the late Steven C. Stewart and how they came about to do the film together. The Q & A session lasted for about an hour, but I could have easily listened to it for much longer.
I encourage everyone to go see this show if you ever get a change. It was an experience like no other and it will definitely give you something to think about.
Also I would personally like to thank everyone at Night Visions for organizing The Crispin Glover Experience! This is one night I will remember for the rest of my life. And also a huge thanks to an idol of mine, mr. Crispin Glover, who not only gave me the movie experience of a life time, but also took the time to have lunch with and Timo the other day.
One of the coolest events at Night Visions this Halloween has to be THE CRISPIN GLOVER EXPERIENCE! Remember George McFly from Back to the Future? How about the the freaky Train Fireman from Dead Man? Yes, that’s Crispin Glover. The eccentric American actor and filmmaker has been an idol of mine for a long time and I can’t wait to see his “one man live-performance”. The Crispin Glover Experience contains a screening of his film It Is Fine. Everything Is Fine! (2007), Glover’s Big Slide Show, Q & A and a book signing.
Show and screening 30.10.2009 19.00 Maxim 1
Here is the trailer for It Is Fine. Everything Is Fine! I think it is an understatement to say that the trailer speaks for itself. Wow!
It Is Fine. Everything Is Fine! is based on Glover’s friend, a CP-handicapped Steven C. Stewart’s manuscript. It’s about Stewart’s alter ego, permanently wheelchair-bound Paul, who craves women with long hair. It is “partly autobiographical, psycho-sexual, imaginative report on Stewart’s outlook on life”. The screening in Night Visions is a unique opportunity to see the film, because Glover doesn’t sell his work for commercial distribution, and doesn’t make DVDs. Glover even transports the print personally to each screening himself.
Glover finances his films with money made from playing roles in big films like Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle.
Here are some of my favorite Crispin Glover moments. What are yours?
“My career has been a mixture of having to make money and doing things I feel OK about. If I could just get a lobotomy, I’d be a lot better off.” – Crispin Hellion Glover
For more info visit the official site www.nightvisions.info
Visit Crispin Glover´s official site here.
Norwegian zombie film Dead Snow screenwriter and actor, Stig Frode Henriksen, will visit Night Visions Film Festival next week. Night Visions Maximum Halloween 3009 is held in Helsinki 28.10.-1.11.2009. Dead Snow will be screened twice on the festival and Henriksen will be visiting both screenings.
First screening is on the opening night of the festival and I can promise you it will be quite something. Not only are we organizing a Zombie Walk to take place at the theatre, but there is also a Best Zombie Costume competition, which Henriksen will be judging. And let me tell you, that guy knows his zombies! There’s gonna be some awesome movie stuff for the winners, too.
To buy the tickets to either of the screenings just press links below:
Screening # 1 28.10 21:00 Maxim 2
Screening # 1 30.10 01:30 Maxim 1
More about the Dead Snow Zombie Walk here and here.
More information: www.nightvisions.info
Official Dead Snow site here.
When there’s no more room in hell, the dead shall walk the Hellsinki.
The Norwegian Nazi Zombies are finally crawling to Finland, and what better way to hail their excellency than throw in a proper Zombie Walk! In collaboration with Night Visions and Zombiewalk Helsinki, Zombie Room is proud to invite all you freaks to join the Zombie Walk from Helsinki Railway Station to Maxim movie theater, and then watch the greatest nazi zombie film ever - Dead Snow.
Well, it’s simple – Dead Snow Zombies are deceased soldiers and wear military – you know what I mean. Now add some blood, guts and gore and you’re all set. Then show up at Helsinki Railway Station at 20:00 on Wednesday, October 28th – and be sure to book your ticket for the screening beforehand! The price ain’t bad – 7,5€.
You can (and you should!) order the tickets in advance from here.
And remember to RSVP to the Facebook event here!
There’s also a competition here! The Night Visions organizers will pick the most rotten zombie corpse among all of the Zombie Walkers and hand out some cool prices.
Oh, how about the film? Yeah, we’ve seen it – we were actually among the first ~15 people who saw the film – and you can check out a review for the film from here.
TL;DR: Fucking awesome.
Here’s the trailer:
Here are some photos from the movie for inspiration:
For more info visit the official site www.nightvisions.info
Check out also the Helsinki Zombiewalk official site
And here’s Dead Snow official site.
On Wednesday was the premiere of a Finnish indie movie What Became of Us. This was actually the second screening of the film in Finland since it was also shown to a sold out theatre in Love & Anarchy film festival a couple of weeks ago. The Zombies were invited to the premiere and after seeing the movie I felt compelled to spill my guts about the experience.
First off you should know that What Became of Us is a no-budget movie that is completely independently made. There is no distributor, no professional actors or even professional film makers involved. Regardless of this What Became of Us is one the best Finnish movies I have seen in years. It is not even in comparison to most of the so-called professional films that are produced in Finland each year. And do you know why? The answer is simple; the movie actually manages to move, make you laugh and surprise you. This is unfortunately more than I can say about most Finnish movies.
It was clear from the beginning that the movie is made with love and true passion for film making. Even the opening speeches felt different and I could have listened them for hours. The true power of the movie comes from the amazing script, combined with great acting and of course the directors ability to tell a story. It’s the perfect example that you don’t always need money to make a great film, after all it’s about telling stories and telling them well.
What Became of Us is a movie about friendship. It’s a tale of gathering of the former elementary school classmates. At the climax of the story is the class reunion, set on a cruise ship. In the chilling night even the most kept secrets of the past are revealed by the salty sea wind. Only the debt of gratitude of one bullied young man can save the classmates from certain death. Check out the trailer below.
The film is directed by the multi-talented Miika Ullakko, who is also responsible for writing the script and playing one of the lead characters. The movie is more or less a sequel to his award-winning first feature film Graffiti Within, that was also made independently and with only 2000 euros or so in 2006. Here is the trailer, unfortunately I couldn’t find one with english subtitles.
For the past few days I’ve been asking myself what is the difference between an amateur and a professional film maker? The description for amateur from Wikipedia says: “An amateur is generally considered a person attached to a particular pursuit, study, or science, without formal training or pay. An amateur receives little or irregular income from their activities, and differs from a professional who makes a living from the pursuit and typically has some formal training and certifications in the domain. Translated from its French origin to the English “lover”, the term “amateur” reflects a voluntary motivation to work as a result of personal interest in the activity.”
Of course these are just words and pointless titles per se, but as long as you a considered an “amateur”, finding a distributor for your film can be very difficult. If your movie isn’t funded trough governmental money, you don’t exist basically. Even if you have made the best movie of the year, you can’t get help for example making a film print to send to festivals, or you don’t get considered for the Finnish Oscar, the Jussi Award. This doesn’t seem quite right…
I admire the spirit and determination of the film makers and actors involved in What Became of Us. I for one am inspired and a bit more hopeful about the future of Finnish cinema.
Unfortunately I don’t have any news on when or where you could see this movie, but as soon as I do, I will be sure to post it here. Until then visit the official site for more info. And stay tuned for more coverage on these guys and their plans for the future.
The Zombies are proud to present you the cool new look of the site, one we’ve been dying (literally) to get it online – and here we are now!
You are looking at a completely new site design provided by our friend Brian Chirls in his infinite wisdom and mad skillz, added with the hyper-cool Zombie Room artwork by Jussi Lehtiniemi, also known as the guy behind the Iron Sky concept art.
So, to many this might be first time you visit here – so let me tell you in brief what this site is about:
1. We complain about movies. You know, rate them, share our thoughts etc.
2. We write some news. Well, usually it’s some old shit that’s been around the internet for minutes, but we add our own flavor to it. Kinda.
3. We do lists. Different kind of lists – like what films are cool etc.
4. We do fights. Like how bad a film kicks ass compare to some other lame-ass shit film.
5. We complain about how fucked the film industry in general is. And it is. In distribution and production, and how completely lost the industry is with the Internet.
6. Also, we write about festivals. We tend to be around at film festivals quite a lot, and we like to get free badges by writing about them. A fair deal, right?
7. And we write about zombies. We kinda think they are cool.
All in all, we write about stuff we think is interesting.
And a quick word about who we are. Well, there’s two of us – Essi and Timo. Essi is the hot movie nerd chick who actually cares about films and actually knows about them. And Timo is the big guy with a loud voice and likes to mouth-breath quite a lot on films. Together, we form a team – like Mork and Mindy – called the Zombies.
We are both in film. Essi is a filmmaker, working in a company called Bronson Club here in Finland, and her coolest job so far is a Finnish horror film called Sauna, directed by AJ Annila.
And Timo is a filmmaker who has done so far only one film, called Star Wreck: In the Pirkinning, but is working on the next one – called Iron Sky. He is also working on a collaborative filmmaking website called Wreckamovie, hoping to help filmmakers to get their heads out of their asses sooner than later.
So this is who we are. In addition to Zombie Room blog, you can reach us via Twitter and Facebook:
Essi on Twitter; Facebook
ZombieRoom on Twitter; Facebook
Thanks for checking us out, now go away and do something productive.
Once upon a time in Nazi occupied France… in Cannes to be exact. A group of film makers decided to have a break from meetings and to have some fun.
We were in Cannes film festival for 8 days straight and everyone had lots of meetings and very little free time. So when we had one day that was more or less a free day, we decided to do something fun together. And because we are all big movie nerds, we just had to do our version of Inglourious Basterds trailer. We decided to re-make the whole trailer shot by shot, only using the soundtrack from the original trailer. It took us a bout 12 hours to do the graphics, organize and finally shoot the trailer. Let´s take a look at how this all came together.
Everything starts with good planning. Here are Timo Vuorensola and Pekka Ollula looking for the right angels to shoot
Samuli Torssonen is getting ready for his close-up as Hitler
Samuli is getting in the zone
Roll camera... and... ACTION!
As you can see, we have a map of Cannes here covered with Swastikas just like in the original film... well almost
We even got Iron Sky producer Tero Kaukomaa to play a part. Ukko Kaarto is making the last touch-ups to the props before shooting
Ukko Kaarto as Lt. Aldo Raine. Each and every man under his command owes him one hundred Nazi scalps... and Ukko want his scalps!
Pekka Ollula is getting his make-up done by Merja. The metamorphosis to Diane Kruger is almost complete
Last adjustments to the wardrobe
And the transformation is complete, you go girl!
Ukko Kaarto, Timo Vuorensola and Merja Ritola are hanging around the "set"
I have no idea what's going on here...
Ukko Kaarto, Pekka Ollula and Merja Ritola are shooting a running scene
Merja is running away from the Nazis
We were shooting outside a sex store in the streets of Cannes and we were loosing light fast. But we got the shot.
And here’s where it all started, the original trailer for Inglourious Basterds.
And finally, here is the the end result of all of our hard work once again. Enjoy!
I have say that I had a blast making Iroun Sky Basterds and it was probably one of the funniest days of my life. And for that me and Timo would like to thank our wonderful team one more time: Pekka Ollula, Ukko Kaarto, Janne Torssonen, Christian Arnold, Merja Ritola, Tero Kaukomaa and Samuli Torssonen as Der Führer.
- Essi
The grandest of all Nazi films lately is coming to the theaters tomorrow here in Finland, so we decided to celebrate it with a small video we made with the Iron Sky team while in Cannes.
Enjoy 
Shot and edited during one quite fuzzy and hot day in Cannes by our wonderful Pekka Ollula, directed by umm maybe me or something 
Starring Ukko Kaarto, Essi Suomela, Janne Torssonen, Christian Arnold, Merja Ritola, Pekka Ollula, Tero Kaukomaa and Samuli Torssonen as Der Führer.
