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Fresh from Facebook, the first picture from AJ Annila’s upcoming horror film Sauna. Tero (the producer) showed us a three minute promo yesterday and the film is looking really good.

2008 will be a bloody interesting year for Finnish movies. After decades of kitchen drama there are four Finnish horror films coming this year. First up is Dark Floors, the Lordi film on 8th of February. Without a set date are Sauna, Skeleton Crew from the makers of Kohtalon Kirja (who are practically our neighbors being based in Ylöjärvi) and the zombies in WWII film Stone’s war.

Huba -tiimin kaverit ovat saaneet uutta kamaa nettiin, nimittäin jo edesmenneen Yle Extran sketsiklinikassa palkitun pätkänsä MÄX - miesten kanava. Käykää katsomassa.

And for those who don’t speak Finnish, the Huba guys have a subtitled version of their previous film. They are seriously funny.

From the Finnish independent filmmakers, an oldskool production crew that goes by the name Acid Cinema is about to release their next short film in 27.12., and although I have *no* idea on what will the film be about and what the heck is going on there, the teasers sure look interesting. As YouTube seems to be sucking pretty rough today, you can also download the teasers from here (first teaser) and here (second teaser).

Here’s the first trailer:

And the new teaser released today:

Acid Cinema is known from their earlier films like Protocop, Juoppojen sota and Planet of the Bouncers, and they have a pretty convincing catalog of 20 short films released before The Jolly Scoundrel.

The Trailer for the Lordi movie Dark Floors has been released. Of all the places in the (virtual) world it’s available on Habbo Hotel. Check out the trailer there.

The video size is ridiculously small it’s hard to say much about the film yet, but what I can see it looks pretty cool. Though for us Finns it’s hard to take Lordi seriously as evil monsters. Even though the Eurovision song contest is close to hell winning it made the band national heroes.

David, a fellow Wrecker and a filmmaker from New Caledonia, South Pacific Island just dropped us e-mail to tell us about his production he’s been working on now. It’s called The Invincible Iron Man, and - yes, you got it right, it’s Iron Man fan film.

Timing is good, while waiting for the big-ass Hollywood Iron Man -movie, fan flick and also animated Marvel Studios’ version (with the same name) seem to give a bit of remedy for those who are most eagerly waiting for the next big studio superhero to save the world from evil villians. I have to say I’m more interested on fan films based on Marvel originals, and would actually like to see more of them emerging to the Internet.

Anyhow, David’s The Invincible Iron Man has a short teaser out, and it does look good! He promised that the film should be released online by Christmas.

The things we find on the Internet! Today, it’s the thesis work of a German film student. Check it out; apart from the pretty CGI, the music and graphic design combine to depict a haunting, surreal world that reminds me, at least, of the decidedly otherworldly French science-fiction animation, La Planète Sauvage (translated to English as Fantastic Planet).

It’s also artsy-fartsy as all hell! It is a question of personal preference whether that is a good or a bad thing (I like it, director Vuorensola seems to disagree). It also says “die.art” with a fancy logo at the beginning of the end credits, which is just asking to be punned (like in the title of this post), if you ask me.

Oh, and in case you’re worried, no, Iron Sky will not look like this… or will it?

According to TorrentFreak the lates member of the “getting this internet thing” club is Erik Wilkinson, producer of the scifi film Man from Earth. He just thanked pirates for promoting his Film:

Wilkinson was pleasantly surprised by all the attention. He explained in his email to RLSlog that the people who illegally downloaded his film actually helped to promote it.

He writes: “Our independent movie had next to no advertising budget and very little going for it until somebody ripped one of the DVD screeners and put the movie online for all to download. Most of the feedback from everyone who has downloaded “The Man From Earth” has been overwhelmingly positive. People like our movie and are talking about it, all thanks to piracy on the net!”

Hopefully the other producers (IMDb lists six) and the crew are as understanding. It’s not a fun situation for anyone if half the people get the benefits of online distribution but the people holding the other half of the money thinks all this downloading humbug is the Devil’s work.

As for me, this is one film that goes straight to my have-to-watch list. Not because of a producer who knows the value of good publicity, but because it sounds damn interesting.

Update: There’s also a message to people who have downloaded the film on their MySpace blog, asking people to make a small donation if they liked the film. There is some harsher words there, but it’s still reasoanable.

Hot Rod is a film from the Lonely Island comedy troupe, who made their name by posting their rejected Fox pilot Awesome Town online. They released it under a Creative Commons licence and it got quite popular, getting them hired on Saturday Night Live.

Awesome Town

The main players are Akiva Schaffer, Andy Samberg and the curiously named Jorma Taccone. For you foreigner readers, the curious part is that “Jorma” is a rather traditional Finnish name pretty much equal to the english “Dick”.

Check out the Awsome Town intro above with it’s undying lyrics like “My name’s Jorma motherfuckers”. Check out the whole episode on their site. I recommed watching the “dude’s cut” first, it’s less traditional, but a lot funnier than the Fox version.

Hot Rod

Hot Rod is their first feature, shot between seasons of Saturday Night Live. It was released last month and thus far has made some $14 million worldwide. I think that can be classified as step up from YouTube fame.

It tells the story of Rod Kimble, a self-proclaimed stuntman who decides to sget the money needed for his step-dad’s operation in order to get to kick his ass in a fair fight. The plot, as usual, is pretty meaningless. Many of the funniest parts of the film look like they come straight out of the fictional tv show “Ow My Balls” in the non-fictional film Idiocracy, with Rod getting hit, punched, set on fire and crashing in to large objects. But the plot does it’s job without getting in the way of the funny stuff. And yes, the film is funny. Not constatly, nor does it come anywhere near to suffocating you with laughter, but it’s funny. The humor ranges from slapstick to weird and post modern - quite like what Awesome Town had, even pulling some of the jokes straight from the pilot.

The main thing for the film is that it has the feeling of being honest and natural, that’s enough to make it stand out from the sea of *movie and *trip franchises. I wouldn’t be suprised if the Lonely Island dudes would be the next comedy superstars to come out of SNL. Indeed, internet video stars have done good. It’s a shame there isn’t a SNL in Finland to hire people like the Huba guys. We’re still waiting to see a TV series from them. Nudge, nudge, wink, wink.

Trailer