The first teaser for Hiroshi Nishitani’s Suspect X (Yougisha X no Kenshin) came out today and its official website was updated with more info. The story begins when a corpse is discovered with a smashed face and burned hands. Strangely, the cause of death is determined to be strangulation. When Detective Kaoru Utsumi (Kou Shibasaki) attempts to corroborate his ex-wife’s alibi she discovers the woman’s neighbor, a high school math teacher named Tetsuya Ishigami (Shinichi Tsutsumi), went to Teito University—the same school as genius physicist Manabu Yukawa, aka “Galileo” (Masaharu Fukuyama). She consults with Yukawa and he tells her that as far as he knows Ishigami is a true genius. Utsumi and Yukawa team up with only a few small clues and the victim’s personal effects to help them disprove a seemingly airtight alibi and figure out Ishigami’s role in all of it. Thus begins a battle of wits between geniuses.

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Here’s one of those titles that sort of slipped through the cracks of web coverage last year that probably shouldn’t have. Thankfully the people at Japan Society have other ideas, and are going to screen Gummi, Chocolate, Pine at Japan Cuts on Thursday and Saturday. Click here for event details. The movie is based on the autobiography of Kenji Otsuki, vocalist of rock band Kinniku Shojotai. Takuya Ishida stars as a high school-aged Otsuki and Nao Omori plays him as an adult. But more importantly (to me at least) is the fact that Keralino Sandorovich—my personal favorite filmmaker that’s made 3 movies or less—wrote the screenplay and directed.

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Don Brown has awakened from hibernation and started blogging about Japanese movies again. Head on over to Ryuganji for a translation of an article on the success of Boys Over Flowers, a link to the new Shochiku YouTube channel, speculation on Takeshi Kitano possibly shirking his demi-god responsibilities, and some Nikkatsu fanboy glee.

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As Tokyograph reported back in April, Otsuichi's story Shinizokonai no Ao is being turned into a movie starring Kenta Suga as a student who tries to kill an abusive teacher (Yu Shirota). Now comes word that Mitsuki Tanimura (God’s Puzzle, The Chasing World) also has a co-starring role. Screenwriter Toshiyuki Morioka (Another Lonely Hitman, Fudoh) wrote about her participation on his blog back in June. Tanimura plays a pale blue girl covered in scars. Shooting took one month and every day she had to spend 3 hours in the makeup chair. Removing it took another hour. She says since it went on for so long it began to wreak havoc on her skin, but she was willing to deal with it because she had fun and experienced many new things in the role. Stay tuned for more info on this one in the very near future.

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Handsome Suits, the new comedy based on a paperback novel written by “SMAP x SMAP” variety show writer Osamu Suzuki will be released on November 1, 2008. The story involves a goofy looking chef named Takuro (Muga Tsukaji) who has never been with a woman in his 33 years. When his mother dies he returns from studying abroad in Italy to take over ownership of her diner, “Kokoro-ya”. Although his food is a hit with the ladies, his face and body are not. He falls in love with a part-time worker at the diner (Keiko Kitagawa) but she’s not attracted to him. One day Takuro enters a men’s wear store and a conspicuously good-looking store manager says he has the perfect suit in mind for him. The suit seems too tight, but as he reaches half an arm through one of the sleeves he’s transformed into a handsome new version of himself (Shosuke Tanihara). Soon his luck with women takes a turn for the better, to say the least. Only a 34-second teaser is out so far but in this case I think it pretty much sums up the entire movie.

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