Grudge 2
This turned out to be a fairly lively panel, famed Japanese film maker Takashi Shimizu, accompanied by an interpreter and the films stars Amber Tamblyn and Arielle Kebbel. Shimizu is full of energy and mischief and managed to get a number of laughs during the Q&A even with an interpreter. He certainly demonstrated some smarts and a vast knowledge of film in general and used it to get a number of pretty good laughs. Tamblyn is his match when it comes to playful mischief and she didn't hesitate to tell a number of stories on Shimizu-san, The teaser clip really didn't do much to distinguish it from the first Grudge, but the basic story line came across. Sarah Michelle Gellar is in 2 just long enough to be hospitalized and then killed in the hospital by the evil grudgy forces that plagued her in the original. (This, by the way, is not a spoiler – it's in the trailer that she is killed.

When the family finds out that Gellar is in the hospital, they send over her little sister (Tamblyn) to see what's going on and it isn't long before her sister is killed and she is caught in the same web that ensnared her sister. Yes she goes in the "house." (Didn't she see the first one?) In any case the panel discussion was pretty fun and a few interesting tidbits of trivia came to light. I wasn't aware of this but it turns out that Amber's father is the veteran character actor Russ Tamblyn who was the top-billed star in the famed Tokyo production War of the Gargantuans. (I always had a soft spot for the orange one). His filmography stretches back 60 years and includes stints in Twin Peaks (he played Dr. Jacoby) to soap operas, to classic films such as West Side Story, Peyton Place, How the West Was Won. It's worth imdb-ing just to check out all the stuff he's been in.

I'll admit that I wan't nuts about the first Grudge, but after getting to hang out with all these people (that's what it feels like when you're sitting in the front row) I'll be a little more open minded about the sequel. Shimizu was pretty gracious, in fact one guy got up and asked the director how come the ending of the first Grudge sucked so bad? After all the interpreting had gone down, he had a big smile on his face and replied, "I'm sorry I did not realize that the ending suck so much, I guarantee that the ending to Grudge 2 suck not at all." Pretty classy, I was impressed.

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July 28, 2006