Ahoy, I'm Peter Tatara. In brief, I'm left-handed, a vegetarian, and my blood type is A. I work for the New York Comic Con and New York Anime Festival and have a cute girlfriend and a Space: Above & Beyond boxset. I'm generally a happy guy.

Superglorious Showcase at the Northside Festival!

On any given day, there's a ridiculous amount of music and art being made in New York City, with one of the most thriving hubs in the four-mile radius of Williamsburg and Greenpoint. The Northside Festival, starting in just a few days, aims to celebrate this community. Casting a spotlight on the independent musicians, filmmakers, and artists who call Brooklyn home, the Northside Festival kicks off June 24-27. Visit http://www.thelmagazine.com/blogs/NorthsideFestivalNews/ for the scoop and the full schedule.

If you just want to keep it simple, we recommend you check out Superglorious’s Northside Festival Showcase featuring...

Echostream: http://www.myspace.com/echostream

Honeychild Coleman: www.myspace.com/honeychild8rm

Gold Streets: http://www.goldstreetsnyc.com/

Love in October: www.loveinoctober.com

I Love Monsters: http://ilovemonstersmusic.com/

Fan-Tan: http://www.myspace.com/fantanmusic

Music by DJ Zivist

The event is Friday, June 25. It’s 21+ and free with a Northside badge or $6 without one. Doors open at 7 and the show starts at 7:30. After the show, DJs VJ Valujet, Hip*Starr, and Hotline take over.

Spike Hill

184/186 Bedford Avenue

Brooklyn, NY 11211

Panel and Screening Deadlines on July 1!

We should hit the NYAF and NYCC newsletters starting this week with the below information. Talk with Larry as it should also go to the Exhibitor lists.

Want to hold a presentation at the New York Comic Con or New York Anime Festival? Have something important to tell the world? Do you fancy yourself the Northeast's foremost expert on giant robots or chromium covers? From shounen to shoujo, from Golden Age to Present Day, NYCC and NYAF will host over 200 panels and covering the breadth and depth of Japanese and American popular culture, and if there's something you're passionate about, apply to host a panel now!

And, alongside our panels, we’ll be presenting a film and media festival highlighting both classic and cutting-edge works. From shorts to features, and indie on through big budget films, NYCC and NYAF are proud to celebrate the moving image. Have a film, video, pilot, or other screening you'd like to show off to New York? Enter it!

Note, though, time is running out. Panels and screenings for NYCC and NYAF are due at 11:59 PM EST on July 1st. You’ve been warned.

NYCC Submissions

http://www.newyorkcomiccon.com/en/NYCC/Events/Panels--Screenings/

NYAF Submissions

http://www.newyorkcomiccon.com/en/NYAF/Events/Panels-Screenings/

New York Asian Film Festival Complete Schedule!

NEW YORK ASIAN FILM FESTIVAL

Lincoln Center (June 25 - July 8)

Japan Society (July 1 - 4)

IFC Center (Fridays and Saturdays at midnight)

Official Opening Night Film

IP MAN 2 (Hong Kong, 2010, North American Premiere) - Sammo Hung and Donnie Yen throw down in this lavish martial arts flick that blew the Hong Kong box office wide open and beat IRON MAN 2 like a redheaded stepchild.

***The movie's star and action choreographer, Sammo Hung, will be present.

Centerpiece Presentation

CONFESSIONS (Japan, 2010, International Premiere) - Tetsuya Nakashima (MEMORIES OF MATSUKO) returns to the NYAFF with his brand new movie about a school teacher convinced that her daughter was murdered by one of her own seventh-grade students. This was the most buzzed-about discovery in Cannes this year.

Presented with Japan Cuts: Festival of New Japanese Film

Official Closing Night Film

BLADES OF BLOOD (Korea, 2010, International Premiere) - from the director of KING & CLOWN, the biggest hit in Korean box office history, comes this massive, posh swordplay flick about a hero leading a coup against the king and the blind swordsman who's out to stop him.

***Director Lee Joon-Ik will be at the screening.

China

COW (2009, North American Premiere) - hick farmer, Huang Bo, tries to survive WWII with his best buddy: a cow. By the time this movie is over you'll believe a cow can cry.

***Actor Huang Bo will be at the screening.

CRAZY RACER (2009, New York Premiere) - Ning Hao (CRAZY STONE) has made a movie that's like a Warner Brothers cartoon on crystal meth. Huang Bo plays a disgraced Olympic bicyclist reduced to being a delivery man, and Ning Hao sends him chasing after his dignity in a modern-day China full of con men, creeps, hustlers, scam artists, assassins, gangsters, drug dealers, murder-for-hire morons and all the other joys of modern day capitalism.

*** Actor Huang Bo will be present.

SOPHIE'S REVENGE (2009, New York Premiere) - Zhang Ziyi produced and stars in this madcap romantic comedy that co-stars Mainland diva, Fan Bing-bing, and Korean stud muffin, So Ji-Sub. Want to see the face of modern China? It's not in any Jia Zhangke movies - it's here in this slick, funny rom com.

TIAN AN MEN (2009, International Premiere) - one of the movies created for the 60th Anniversary of the Founding of the People's Republic of China, this is an earnest, unironic film about the struggles and sacrifices of the men and women who... cleaned up Tiananmen Square in 1949? A lavish special effects spectacle, it's like "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" Communist style.

Hong Kong

BODYGUARDS AND ASSASSINS (2009, New York Premiere) - the story of a ragtag team of bodyguards who gave their lives to protect Dr. Sun Yat-sen on his trip to Hong Kong, it made a ton of loot at the box office, stars an all-star cast and was nominated for more Hong Kong Film Awards than any other movie in history. Plus, Donnie Yen fights a horse.

***Actor Simon Yam will introduce the screening.

DEVELOPMENT HELL (2010, North American Premiere) - the uncut, uncensored documentary about the suicides, deaths and disease outbreaks that plagued BODYGUARDS & ASSASSINS, the most famous "cursed" Hong Kong film of all time.

(Development Hell will screen in conjunction with BODYGUARDS & ASSASSINS)

EASTERN CONDORS (1987) - a once-in-a-lifetime screening of Sammo Hung's Vietnam War blow-out. A true masterpiece. It will be screened on a 35mm print that was given to us by a private collector, and there will never be another chance to see it in theaters.

***Director, action choreographer and star Sammo Hung will be at the screening. It will be followed by an in-depth Q&A about his career.

ECHOES OF THE RAINBOW (2010, North American Premiere) - a bittersweet eulogy to 1960's Hong Kong, it won a special prize in Berlin, earned Simon Yam his first "Best Actor" trophy at the Hong Kong Film Awards and it saved the street on which it was shot from demolition.

***Actor Simon Yam will be at the screening.

GALLANTS (2010, North American Premiere) - like COCOON but with kung fu, this rocking action comedy features a cast of martial arts legends from the 70's, now in their 60's including Chen Kuan-tai, Bruce Leung and Teddy Robin.

***Actor Bruce Leung will be at the screening.

IP MAN (2008) - starring Donnie Yen, it's the first movie about Bruce Lee's master and it sparked the current revival of old school Hong Kong martial arts movies that's seeing everyone from Herman Yau to Wong Kar-wai shooting Ip Man projects.

IP MAN 2 (2010, North American Premiere) - Sammo Hung and Donnie Yen throw down in this lavish martial arts flick that blew the Hong Kong box office wide open.

***Actor and action choreographer Sammo Hung will be at the screenings.

KUNG FU CHEFS (2009, North American Premiere) - Sammo Hung likes to do two

things: cook food and kick ass. Finally, here's a movie that lets him do both. The kind of cracked, casual B-movie classic that Hong Kong used to crank out in the early 90's, full of butt-kicking action and mouth-watering cooking.

***Actor Sammo Hung will be present.

LITTLE BIG SOLDIER (2010, New York Premiere) - Jackie Chan's return to greatness, it's the best and most moving film he's made since 1994's DRUNKEN MASTER II. Now in his 50's, Jackie can't rely on death defying stunts to wow the audience anymore and instead he's had to dig deep and give his best actual acting performance in a movie with one of the best screenplays he's ever worked with.

RED CLIFF UNCUT (2008/2009) - celebrate freedom on the Fourth of July with a screening of John Woo's massive, five-hour plus martial epic shown uncut, the way God - and John Woo - intended. God Bless America!

THE STORM WARRIORS (2009, US Premiere) - the closest thing to a Hong Kong comic book ever put onscreen, this is like World of Warcraft via Iron Maiden, a heavy metal martial arts flick full of sword power and fist energy.

***Main bad guy Simon Yam will be at the screening.

Indonesia

MERANTAU (2009, New York Premiere) - you think Tony Jaa is awesome, then check out this rocking slab of exploitation action starring Iko Uwais, an ace practicioner of Silat, Indonesia's unique martial art. This movie is an excuse for him to put people in traction and to jump off of buildings.

Japan

8000 MILES (2009, North American Premiere) - a funnier version of Eminem's 8 MILE about rappers dying on the vine in the boring suburbs. This was Japan's sleeper hit of 2009.

***Director Yu Irie will be at the screenings.

8000 MILES 2: GIRL RAPPERS (2010, North American Premiere) - the same premise (rappers in the sticks, dreaming of Tokyo) only this time they're women and the result is a less funny, more moving and deeply affecting film.

***Director Yu Irie will be at the screening.

ALIEN VS NINJA (2010, World Premiere) - the first movie from Nikkatsu's Sushi Typhoon label, it's about an alien that comes to Earth to hunt humans.

It is unstoppable. It is unkillable. It is insatiable. But it made one

mistake: it's not ninja-proof.

***Actor Masanori Mimoto will be at the first screening.

Presented with Japan Cuts: Festival of New Japanese Film

ANNYONG YUMIKA (2009, North American Premiere) - part documentary, part personal odyssey, part porn movie, this flick's about legendary adult film actress Yumika Hayashi's career in Korea.

***Director Tetsuaki Matsue will be at the screenings.

THE BLOOD OF REBIRTH (2009, New York Premiere) - director Toshiaki Toyoda (BLUE SPRING, HANGING GARDEN) makes a triumphant return to filmmaking with this trippy revenge saga that sticks its throbbing soundtrack deep inside your ears, while its shimmering visuals fry your eyes.

***Director Toshiaki Toyoda will be present.

Presented with Japan Cuts: Festival of New Japanese Film

BOYS ON THE RUN (2010, North American Premiere) - a movie that will capture the heart of the serial masturbator inside all of us. This sex comedy starts with the borrowing of a bestiality DVD and ends with a Travis Bickle-style fist fight and in between it's humiliating and hilarious in equal measures.

Presented with Japan Cuts: Festival of New Japanese Film

CONFESSIONS (2010, International Premiere) - Tetsuya Nakashima (MEMORIES OF

MATSUKO) returns to the NYAFF with his brand new movie about a school teacher convinced that her daughter was murdered by one of her seventh-grade students. She vows to take revenge on her entire class...and that's just in the first 20 minutes.

Presented with Japan Cuts: Festival of New Japanese Film

DEAR DOCTOR (2009, New York Premiere) - Miwa Nishikawa's (SWAY) deceptively simple movie about a small town doctor won every major Japanese film award

(21 and counting) and it's one of the smartest and most twisted films in our line-up.

Presented with Japan Cuts: Festival of New Japanese Film

DEATH KAPPA (2010, World Premiere) - the Kappa is a delightful Japanese folk monster that's cute as a biscuit...until Nazis cause it to grow to enormous size and go on a kill crazy rampage! A pitch perfect recreation of the 80's, direct-to-VHS monster movie.

Presented as part of Midnights @ IFC

DOMAN SEMAN (2010, World Premiere) - Go Shibata (LATE BLOOMER) has made a rocking thrash anthem about pretty boys bashing the homeless, occult conspiracies, mental emissions, magic mushrooms and massive zombie attacks.

Like a Richard Lester film transformed into a magikal ritual to stave off the apocalypse, it'll kick down your doors of perception like a psychedelic SWAT team.

***Director Go Shibata will be at the screenings.

GOLDEN SLUMBER (2009, New York Premiere) - the director of last year's festival fave, FISH STORY, returns with this twisty conspiracy thriller about a simple delivery man who's framed for the assassination of the Prime Minister.

Presented with Japan Cuts: Festival of New Japanese Film

LIVE TAPE (2010, North American Premiere) - on New Year's Day, 2009, director Tetsuaki Matsue (ANNYONG YUMIKA) and singer/songwriter Kenta Maeno (sometimes called "the Bob Dylan of Japan") made this amazing concert film:

a single 74 minute take of Kenta performing in the streets of Tokyo before ripping it up at an outdoor gig with his full band. More than the sum of its parts, it's a raw and liberating lo-fi miracle.

***Director Tetsuaki Matsuewill be at the screenings.

***Singer/songwriter Kenta Maeno and his drummer POP Suzuki will perform live after each screening.

MUTANT GIRLS SQUAD (2010, International Premiere) - at last year's NYAFF, directors Tak Sakaguchi (BE A MAN! SAMURAI SCHOOL), Yoshihiro Nishimura (TOKYO GORE POLICE) and Noboru Iguchi (ROBOGEISHA) got drunk and vowed to make a movie together. Now they have, and this twisted take on the X-Men is here to upset pretty much everyone.

***Directors Yoshihiro Nishimura and Noboru Iguchi will be at the screenings.

Presented with Japan Cuts: Festival of New Japanese Film

PINK POWER STRIKES BACK - pink films are the uniquely Japanese genre of 60 minute, softcore movies shot entirely analog: 35mm, flatbed editing, no digital mixing. This year's pink film double feature will screen GROPER

TRAIN: SCHOOL UNIFORM HUNTER and JAPANESE WIFE NEXT DOOR, PART 2, the sequel to last year's fest fave pink film. Totally smutty and completely nuts, these are date movies for very horny couples.

*** Asami, star of GROPER TRAIN: SCHOOL UNIFORM HUNTER will be the screening.

***Presented as part of Midnights @ IFC

SAWAKO DECIDES (2010, North American Premiere) - Sawako (Hikari Mitsushima, LOVE EXPOSURE) is on her fifth job, her fifth boyfriend and her fifth year in Tokyo. But it's not until she returns to her family's clam-packing plant that she discovers that it's okay to be a loser. Bizarre and hilarious, it's a chick flick on acid featuring musical numbers, horrible toys and the world's worst boyfriend.

Presented with Japan Cuts: Festival of New Japanese Film

SYMBOL (2009, New York Premiere) - Japan's #1 comedian, Hitoshi Matsumoto (director and star of DAI NIPPONJIN, aka BIG MAN JAPAN) directs and stars in this flick that's the 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY of J-quirk cinema. The only movie this year to feature President Obama, Mexican wrestlers and five million angel penises.

YATTERMAN (2009) - Takashi Miike's biggest box office hit of all time, this slyly hilarious send-up of kiddie show, Yatterman, is like a self-aware, satirical update of "Scooby-Doo" only with giant robots, leather-bondage-clad femme fatales and a pile of all the schoolgirls in Japan. Hilariously stupid, but insanely smart, it's exactly the giant robot movie you thought Miike would make. We hosted the world premiere last year, but we're bringing it back so even more people can feel the sweetness.

Korea

ACTRESSES (2009, New York Premiere) - six of Korea's biggest actresses play cockeyed versions of themselves in this real-time chronicle of a Vogue photo shoot gone wrong. Endlessly self-referential, it speaks the international language of celebrity and looks like the kind of project Andy Warhol would have come up with if he edited US Weekly.

***Director E J-Yong (DASEPO NAUGHTY GIRLS) will be at the screenings.

ANIMAL TOWN (2009, North American Premiere) - a savage, sterile art film, this brutalist nightmare follows an ex-con and the owner of a small business as the economic crisis, and Korea's bleak urban hellscapes, grind them up into pulp.

BLADES OF BLOOD (2010, International Premiere) - from the director of KING & CLOWN comes this massive swordplay flick about a hero leading a coup against the king and the blind swordsman who sets out to stop him.

***Director Lee Joon-Ik will be present.

CASTAWAY ON THE MOON (2009, New York Premiere) - WHEN HARRY MET SALLY meets LOST by way of J.G. Ballard. And it's a romantic comedy! A businessman tries to kill himself and winds up stranded on an island in the middle of the Han River in downtown Seoul. His only lifeline? An OCD agoraphobe spying on him from her apartment. Ah, true love.

***Director Lee Hey-Jun will be at the screening.

CHAW (2009, North American Premiere) - a box office hit, this bacon-flavored version of THE HOST is a send-up of JAWS only with a giant killer pig instead of a giant killer shark and, probably, a lot more pot got smoked while the script was being written. More like a movie from Joe Dante than Steven Spielberg, and that's a good thing.

A LITTLE POND (2010, International Premiere) - the most controversial movie of the year, this all-star flick about the American massacre of Korean civillians at No Gun Ri in 1950 is a quiet, underplayed, life-goes-on account of the bloody incident, that unspools as gently as a Hou Hsiao-hsien film.

MISE EN SCENE SHORT FILM PROGRAM - two 90 minute programs of short films from the genre film festival curated by E J-Yong, Park Chan-Wook, Kim Ji-Woon and Bong Joon-Ho. These short flicks pack more of a punch than many longer features, and it's your chance to see Korea's future filmmakers trying their hands at weird little romances, gore and animated films. This year's line-up has an unhealthy obsession with children and tiny, four-inch-tall women.

SECRET REUNION (2009) - the director of ROUGH CUT returns with this two-hander for Song Kang-Ho (THE HOST) and Gang Dong-Won (THE DUELIST) playing retired spies battling it out long after their missions are over.

It's a throwback to 80's style buddy movies (LETHAL WEAPON, 48 HOURS) set against the backdrop of the Cold War between North and South Korea.

Thailand

POWER KIDS (2009) - do you like to see children thrown face-first through plate glass windows? We do! Johnny Nguyen (THE REBEL) plays a terrorist who takes over a hospital. The only people who can stop him? A team of tikes with killer muay thai skills. Like a Hong Kong movie from 1988, it's totally reckless, the action is breathless and child labor laws are completely ignored.

Presented as part of Midnights @ IFC

RAGING PHOENIX (2009, New York Premiere) - Jeeja Yanin, Thailand's only female action star, burst onto the scene with CHOCOLATE and now she's back in this flick where she learns how to combine muay thai beatdowns with sick B-boy moves. Truly jaw-dropping, it's full of high impact kicks, lethal breakdancing and the discovery that the greatest martial art of all is "Drunken Muay Thai." Come drunk!

USA

L.A. STREETFIGHTERS (USA, 1985) - a longtime favorite of the Subway Cinema crew, we finally found a 35mm print of this unseen 80's exploitation movie.

As if Ed Wood directed a Korean-American martial arts film set in totally tubular L.A. it will shock you, dazzle you and leave you quoting the immortal dialogue. Bill "Superfoot" Wallace and a host of other exploitation actors appear in this retro classic that's on a par with last year's HOUSE.

Only instead of being a deconstruction of the haunted house movie, it's a bizarre, inadvertent takedown of the 80's action film.

Presented as part of Midnights @ IFC

Tickets Go On Sale June 10

Walter Reade Tickets:

Single Screening Tickets:

$12 general public

$8 students & seniors

$7 Film Society members

Weekday Matinee Screenings @ WR

(Mon-Fri shows starting before 6pm)

$9 general public

$6 students & seniors

$5 Film Society members

Subway Ten Pack @ WR

(admits one person to any ten films screening at the Walter Reade as part of the NYAFF, certain restrictions apply)

$99 general public

$69 students & seniors

$59 Film Society members

Japan Society Tickets:

$11 general public

$7 Japan Society members, students & seniors

IFC Center Tickets

$12.50 general public

$7.50 IFC members

For full details please go to:

www.subwaycinema.com

Keep up with the latest news at:

www.subwaycinemanews.com

Lolita Day is Saturday!

For its third straight year, Kinokuniya Bookstore is proud to offer activities for NYC's Lolita fashion community in honor of International Lolita Day, a day created to spread information and outreach about the diverse world of cute, cool, elegant, and hip Lolita fashion in modern Japan. Taking place on Saturday, June 5 at Kinokuniya Bookstore, located at 1073 Avenue of the Americas in Manhattan, the store will present an afternoon series of workshops, presentations, and giveaways Kinokuniya's Lolita Day events -- created by members of the NYC Lolita community -- is aimed at discussing with general New Yorkers and fashion lovers alike how Lolita fashion has influenced designers, bloggers, fans, and both runway and mainstream fashion. The day will include a selection of special activities aimed at everyone from dedicated Lolita fashionistas, to casual fashion fans, to New Yorkers up for a unique experience. For the schedule, visit newyorkanimefestival.com.

NYAF Mascot Contest Battle Royale!

Several hundred entered. Now, only ten remain. The New York Anime Festival, TheOtaku.com, Del Rey Manga, and Kinokuniya Bookstore are proud to present the New York Anime Festival’s 2010 Mascot Finalists! Each has been selected through the deliberation of a sage jury, and now we’re turning it over to you to make the final call. From now until June 23, cast your vote at newyorkanimefestival.com! All the finalists will receive free tickets to NYAF, with the winning mascot’s artist also taking home some nice swag including 50 free manga from Del Rey Manga!

Want to vote? It’s easy. Just visit newyorkanimefestival.com to pick your favorite. Do your civic duty and vote now!

And be sure to visit Kinokuniya Bookstore this month in NYC, too, to see all our finalists on display!