For the past few years and without really giving it too much thought I’ve been under the impression that “Turtles Are Surprisingly Fast Swimmers” had some sort of inherent flaw that led to the general lack of media buzz and web coverage that would (or should) normally come from a movie with names like Satoshi Miki, Juri Ueno, and Yu Aoi attached. Fortunately I was dead wrong about that. This is one of the funniest movies I’ve seen in a long time and offers a unique, childlike approach to cinematic absurdity you just can’t get from anyone else but Miki.

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Four musicians start a band in a small town and struggle not to fall apart. For the first teaser, see this link. For the second teaser, see this link.

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Katsuhito Ishii is working on a new, completely indie comedy with the Nice Rainbow crew. Set at a hostel, Sorasoi is a light-hearted mockumentary about a group of college students who participate in a dance training camp in preparation for an upcoming competition. Filming took place in Izu last month and is now in post production. It will be completely done by the end of the month, hopefully soon enough to be included in the Hawaii International Film Festival this year. Here are some high-res production photos taken by Yuuuka Ooosumi.

Source: Myspace / Blog

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Here’s further proof that if you need to get a truly bizarre project done in Japan, Sakichi Sato is your man. George Asakura, who is actually a woman in spite of her mysterious pen name, has deemed Sato the only person capable of bringing her Ikki comics manga, Heibon Punch to life. The film version will star Sato and gravure idol Rina Akiyama in her first major movie role.

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The trailer for Rian Johnson’s The Brothers Bloom is now online. In the movie Adrien Brody and Mark Ruffalo play scam artist brothers that come up with all sorts of elaborate schemes to separate rich people from their money. When they meet a young eccentric heiress named Penelope (Rachel Weisz) they initially plan to scam her, but instead end up enlisting her help on their next con. However, when one of the brothers falls for Penelope things get complicated. Rinko Kikuchi plays a quirky explosives expert appropriately named “Bang Bang” who’s also part of the team. Trailer embedded after the break.

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