Father Geek here with Dr. SOTHA and the entire African reporting staff with another cool weekend Africa-AICN Column. There's a pretty damn fine interview concerning MR. BONES and of course another uber nice review from ol' Rigobert Song, soooo make sure to check it all out below...

DR.SOTHA back for another edition of Africa-AICN. My recent attempts to change the course of history in the shape of ladybug cloning, has recently landed me the enviable job of ‘Head of Patterns’ at the Institute of Second Degree Burning. I am Jack’s total lack of surprise. This has been a long time coming, and I can’t say I didn’t deserve it. ‘Inevitable’ is not the right word, but it’s the first word that comes to mind.

Nurse Hollis will now be promoted to VP of Neuron-surgery. Yes she still has to learn a lot, but that’s why we have corpses to practice on.

Send her your kind words to africaaicn@hotmail.com

SOUTH AFRICA

* Box office grosses to date on Leon Schuster's Mr Bones are R21 661 675. It’s the biggest film ever in South Africa, surpassing the once dominant ‘Titanic’. How did a local filmmaker take hold of the South African Box Office? The movie cost around R34 million to make. But his track record, box office-wise, has always been impressive. Besides, critics and reviewers have been less than kind to Schuster. You can be sure of one thing: when critics slam a movie, it's usually going to be a box office bonanza. We tend to give Schuster a bad press, to dismiss him patronisingly as vulgar. His movies are probably vulgar, although that's a matter of taste. They certainly fit into the categories of broad farce and slapstick.

He was someone who had to make movies, no matter how dangerous. Then I saw his movie Short 'n Sweet, a Rip Van Winkle story about a man who wakes up in the new South Africa, with an all-white, Afrikaans audience in one of the hearts of Afrikanerdom, Bloem! fontein. They were with Schuster all the way. I realised that he'd taken them, for better or worse, into the new South Africa, pointed out and laughed at racial foibles. His films were, in a sense, political.

In one of his movies I remember a candid camera scene, for example, in which he played a squatter who erected a shack on an upmarket golf course - he neatly showed up liberal whites as verkramp when it came to class and race. In another, he was an Indian demanding human rights in an AWB area, so he made amok in the lager as well. There's more to him, I think, than meets his detractors' eyes. His roots, for me, are in the Jamie Uys movies in that South Africa is a central metaphor rather than a real place. Uys, though, tended to be a myth-maker of the old South Africa. Schuster, with a mischievous twinkle in his eye, is a merry prankster in the new one.

He also continues a local comical tradition of slapstick started by Al Debbo and Frederick Burgers in the! Forties. He doesn't arrive in a void: his brand of comedy, even if reliant on the Dumber and Dumber comedies, on a scatological Hollywood tradition - and he's done his homework - has its indigenous precedents.

Schuster is both a auteur in that he's made his own kind of movies, presented a specific view of South Africa and dominated the industry: his auteurship, too, has a symbiosis with a paying public, whether you think they're reactionary or not. A fascinating exercise would be to apply the reception theory to his movies in South Africa to find out how they are perceived by his viewers, how they are used to create meaning - a rich field for cultural theorists to mine.

* Here’s an interview sent to me by Kobus Botha on South Africa’s funnyman Leon Schuster:

Q: Mr Bones is a big budget movie - R33 million - with lots of special effects, all locally done. Was it a difficult film to make?

It was a very difficult movie to make in terms of the CGI (Computer Generated Effects) that I've never used before in scripts. I wrote things that I didn't believe could be done. I was astounded by the fact that Gray (Hofmeyr, the director) and the team got it together, with the assistance of Videolab and Filmlab. To see the effects finally come together was just fantastic.

Gray had this scene in mind with a helicopter and an elephant, and I said "Listen forget about this thing, I cannot see this working" and he said "It' s gonna work!" I was there during the three days we filmed it, and I was sceptical. I still said it wasn't going to work. Then we saw a rough version of the CGI and I started believing in it. It's a very meticulous scene. We had to make that cable look like a real cable, to make it go tight around the! elephant's trunk as the animal went back, pulling the helicopter. But it worked. Gray also hasn't done that amount of CGI work with effects. But Gray 's a very solid director - I don't think I could have made this movie without Gray.

Q: This is the first time these kinds of special effects have been used in a SA movie?

Ja, for sure, for sure. Which is great for me, because we're always in awe when we watch what the Americans can do. Watching our guys working on their computers, it struck me that we can actually do the stuff. I've watched US movies and wondered "how did they do that?" Now I know. Whatever is written can be done nowadays, you know.

For sure, next time around I'll have more confidence in the script. I don't want the script to be overridden by these type of gags because people know it's an effect. Everybody watching the chopper and the elephant must think "How did they do it? It can't be for real." So you don't want the audience thro! ughout the movie to think "That's an effect, that's an effect."

I think in America, if they had to use elephants in the way we used elephants, and lions like we used lions, I don't think they would have done it, worked with the real animals. I think they would have cheated those scenes. But we had the real thing.

Q: Acting in a special effects movie - difficult?

A little bit more difficult. The performance with the elephant for example. It was a very difficult thing when my director told me "OK, if you grab this elephant by the tail and start reversing, it will come with you. Then you've got to get onto a rock, and then you've got to do your thing. And I was "bang"! Because this thing - it sort of swings to and fro, and just one "klap" with that back foot and I would have been a goner!

But it's the risk you have to take, and I've always said, I will die for my comedy, you know. And it's true, for sure, for sure. I've had a helluva lot of tr! aining in that regard, with my candid camera work (when the butts of the joke get angry and want to bash him.).

Q: It's interesting having a white guy play black in Mr Bones?

Well, William, you know, that was a very delicate issue initially. It was believed that this would be patronising. Edgar Bold, who sadly has died in the meantime, started developing this project eight years ago. He told me this is a dicey story, putting a white sangoma among a black tribe. He's the healer and the bone thrower, the.the "geestelike" leader of this tribe. That won't be a good thing for a white. I said "Listen, it's going to depend on what the character is like. It'll depend on the relationship of the character with his king, whether he grew up with that tribe."

I think the fact that Bones is actually the son of this king, and is loved and cherished by this tribe, didn't put any question on the colour of his skin. It really didn't matter in the movie. It was some! thing the producers feared.

Q: It seems to me you're having a ball creating stories in the new South Africa?

(Laughs.) Ja, absolutely! I think the crossover between cultures here is fantastic. We had a screening of Mr Bones for a black audience when we had our first screenings. They really dug this movie and came back to me, enthusiastic. I'm going to be Mister Bones with the black okes now, you know. Stopping at the filling stations now, it's "Hey, Mister Bones, when are you throwing the bones for us?"

So I'm proud of the fact that we could make this kind of crossover between white and black in South Africa.

For me, it is of the utmost importance to get our black audiences involved. The old cliché that black people don't go to the cinemas has changed, because there are many more cinemas now. It will be fantastic for me to know that the black South African audience will enjoy this movie, that they can relate to the movie - the whole sangoma bit. I really believe that they'll like the movie.

Q: Well, you're the SA film industry at the moment!

Ja! , that's tragic. It's sad that so few South African movies are made. In the past I've been blamed, you know, for making movies. People have said why must this guy make all the movies and have a success with them when other people struggle. I can't help that. I just go in there, with an idea. I make the movie. It's not like I'm standing on the corner of the street with a megaphone shouting "Guys, come and watch my movie!"

Either they come or they don't. Same with this one, you know. Audiences will decide whether they like it or not.

I'm a very insecure person. I'm very worried when I've done a project, when I'm doing it, when I'm pre- and post-producing it, because finally, it's up to the public to decide "Do we want this thing or don't we?" It's a very heavy burden to carry, especially if the budget is 33 million rands.

Anant (Singh, the producer) is very blase about this. He said "Listen, you' ve tried your best, you've done what you had to do. If the m! ovie doesn't work and we lose thirty million, so what! We'll go and make the next one." Hell! I wish I could adopt that attitude. Ja, He's very, very brave, I tell you!

Q: Well, what was the fun thing about making Mr Bones?

Well, there was the initial fear of working with these Americans, David Ramsay and Faizon Love, because both these guys have acted in movies before. David's done a few smaller parts in big movies like "Pay it Forward". Both of them have their own highly successful sitcoms in America. They are really solid actors, they are Americans and we're always in awe of American Actors!

But we combined so well as a team, the three of us. I overcame this fear within the first few days of filming, because especially David was an extremely pleasant guy. They understood the comedy.

Initially, they were very sceptical. "Yeah," they said, "whaddo you Africans know about making movies, man?" But as filming progressed, they grew in confiden! ce.

I got a call from David four o'clock one morning one morning because Gray went over to do some dubbing afterwards. He said, "Leon, I think you made a great comedy with a great heart. I really enjoyed it!" That was my first foreign review!

I don't know how this movie's going to do overseas. I don't really know if the Americans will take to it. I think the feeling of the movie is good enough for any audience to enjoy. We'll just have to wait and see.

Q: What was it like working with African Americans? Did they make up their own dialogue?

Ja they did, they did. You know, Faizon Love cannot deliver one line of script. He cannot! He'll do it in auditions. In rehearsals he'll do the lines perfectly. Once he's in front of the camera, he does his own thing. It was very difficult for Gray to handle this, because Gray said "Faizon, that' s the line." He'd reply, "I don't care what's the line, Ah got mah own line an' you gotta live wi'that!" So he! was quite difficult to work with, that one. But, I think, giving him the freedom to just do his own thing made the character he played a more natural human being.

Q: You auditioned them overseas?

Gray and I spent about ten days in America. We saw 65 different actors. David Ramsay just did a little scene with an actor we had in Los Angeles and I knew this was our guy! He had the right personality, the spark. He was a loving type of character. And he could handle this thing about being insecure about himself, about being an orphan, in the film.

Faizon, the big oke, walked in there - the first day we saw him - Stetson on his head, pair of dark glasses, a thick cigar and sat down. He started doing his part without even greeting us. Gray said, "This is the oke." I said "This is the oke!" No doubt in my mind.

But he was difficult, very difficult, a temperamental character, and shit scared! I mean, he was so "bang" of Africa, you cannot imagine i! t. He hated Africa. He hated going into the bush. He wore boots up to his knees in case a "mambo" - he called the snakes "mambo's - was in the grass. "Ahm scared of mambo's"

He bought himself a dagger this size (Schuster spreads his arms wide) and he was pegging the dagger all over the show, practising to kill mambo's.

He refused to go to the loo in the bush. We had to drive him back, from set (in Parys), to his hotel in Sandton if he wanted to go to the loo. He said there's spiders underneath there, "Ah jus' don' trus' the sedup!"

He didn't want to eat our food, he only ate American food - MacDonalds and Kentucky Fried Chicken. So it was difficult working with the guy. But I love him, he's a fantastic guy. I just think he doesn't know who he really is. And he fell in love with a South African lady. He getting married to her now. Ja! They're getting married in Hawaii. She was there last night (at the premiere).

Q: Would you like to make it big ! in LA? Live there? Most South Africans do.

I've never dug LA. I've never liked the place. It's like Jo'burg, unfriendly, and just a rush. And it's such a lot of glamour bullshit, you know. All those waitresses serving you in restaurants. They all want to be one thing, and that's an actress. And it's.it's false, it's plastic, it's not real, it's not life, it's not South Africa. So, I would never in my life want to go and live there. Just the experience of ten days told me: listen this is not your jol, for sure.

But that's why I take my hat off to Charlize Theron for going over there and doing it. It's just incredible to imagine that she could have been accepted by the Americans as she is. She played that thing brilliantly! And Arnold Vosloo too, you know. It's fantastic for me to know that South Africans could have achieved that.

Q: Why is your humour so popular in SA?

Because it's simple, basic. I get a lot of flack for my humour, but I! have to believe in what I do. I test what I've done. Take a movie like American Pie, as an example. It's a commercial movie, made for young people. So they have a gag like humping the pie. Then they want a sequel but they need another gag to top that one. I read recently that one guy said that they couldn't find a gag, so they didn't want to make the follow-up. Then someone came up with this gag where this oke's hand gets glued to his dick. They said "Ah, that's the gag that tops the previous one!" So you get American Pie2.

So it's the simplicity. Humour is very, very simple, but to execute it is difficult, and to make it work on the screen even more difficult. The best laughs in a movie are the simple ones that the audience relate to, because a simple gag is actually a clever gag. The simpler you are, the cleverer the gag actually is. Trying to go over the top completely in order to be very funny is very dangerous.

I feel very insecure playing myself, or play! ing me, without any mask. Once I 've got all this garb on, I feel a different person. I feel confident. If I had to go out and do maybe a serious movie, I'd crack. But it'll be very difficult for me playing Leon as a character in a movie. But when I put Bones' teeth in my mouth, I feel I'm Bones.

Q: Would you ever do a serious movie?

You know, I don't think I'll ever write a serious story, but, if I'm ever asked to do a serious movie, or play a crook or something, I'd do it. David Ramsay told me, "You'll play a bladdy good baddy in a movie." So if someone asked me to do that I'd consider it.

But I'll never go beyond what I'm doing. I'll never try and write a drama. I 'll stay with what I'm best at. A guy I admire a lot is Jim Carrey. He's also a brilliant, serious actor. Man on the Moon and The Truman Show proved that. But that's not what the people want to see. They want to see Jim Carrey as they see him in Ace Ventura. It must be very frustratin! g for him, because he must know he's good enough to break with comedy but can't.

You can't give audiences Dumb 'n Dumber, you can't give them Me, Myself And Irene and those kinds of movies, and then give them Carrey as the kind of serious guy that he was in Man On The Moon. He was also funny at times in the film, but it wasn't the Jim Carrey that the people got to know. I loved the film because I know the whole story of Andy Kaufman very well. It's a great movie.

Q: What movies have influenced you?

Oh, a broad range. I like most movies I see. I can't think of one.I went to Shrek. I loved Shrek. Took my kids to Shrek. I went to see Rush Hour the other day. Went to see The Fast And The Furious the other day, too. Now that was a movie that I personally didn't like. It's more like a streetwise young hip American movie, that I'm sure the younger people will enjoy. I haven't seen Harry Potter, but I'm sure that I'll enjoy Harry Potter - I'm convinced I ! will.

So I can't pinpoint influences. I watch every comedy that comes onto the circuit, of course. I think my favourite movie was Alan Parker’s Midnight Express. I don't know if you remember that. That's the movie that stands out - and that wasn't a comedy. As far as comedies go, you know Airplane and Mrs Doubtfire. I love visual stuff, I really love looking at visual gags..

* Outcomes-based film and drama school, AFDA will be screening its 35mm co-production feature film "Soldiers of the Rock" at the Rotterdam International Film Festival's Cinemart. Soldiers of the Rock has received additional funding from the Hubert Bals fund to complete post production and will be at the market to seek further funding for marketing and a possible pre-sale deal. Sandra Denhamer, director of the Rotterdam International Film Festival met with Garth Holmes, co-director and founder of AFDA at Sithengi in Cape Town where she commented that she and her panel were impressed by the quality of the 35mm rushes which they had seen and they felt that the film had a great deal of potential at Cinemart.

NORTH AFRICA

* Time for Rigobert Song:

Hello readers. Thought I’d review ‘Big Mama’ now that the Oscar push is in full swing. This challenging documentary won an Oscar the year it was released despite some legal problems it had to overcome. It’s perhaps one of the most piercing explorations of the generation gap that I’ve ever come across. Remember to email me with your African film musings at rigobertsong@hotmail.com

Big Mama – Produced & Directed by Tracy Seretean – Composed by Bobby McFerrin

"When, exactly, are you too old to love your own grandchild?" asks Viola Dees.

Winner of an Oscar in the Documentary Short category, Big Mama depicts this devoted grandmother's struggle to raise her orphaned grandson under the watchful eye of a complex and difficult social welfare system.

Big Mama follows 18 months in the lives of Viola Dees, an African American grandmother and Walter, her grandson, as she tries to raise him alone in South Central Los Angeles. Dees had taken care of her grandson Walter since his father (Viola's son) died when Walter was four years old. Walter appears in the documentary as bright and sweetly loving to his grandmother, but also profoundly troubled, affected by his mother's prenatal drug intake. In the documentary, Walter is age nine, and Dees is shown turning 90.

The film focuses on the continuous battle against age discrimination faced by Dees and many like her. While contending with her own declining health, and a bureaucratic and legal system that continually threatens to force them apart, Dees fights the misconception that age supersedes one's ability to love and care for a child.

Big Mama candidly chronicles the family when life deals them several blows. Dees suffers a heart attack, provoking hostile behavior from Walter who burns their house down when he sets a magazine ablaze in his room. When Walter is admitted to a psychiatric hospital, the doctors determine that Dees is no longer able to handle her grandson, and will not release him to her until she agrees to place him in long-term residential care. After a challenging search, Walter is accepted at an appropriate facility and thrives during his year there. However, when treatment is completed, social workers determine that Dees is too frail to care for him, and Walter is returned to the foster care system.

Sadly, Viola Dees died at age 91. Weeks later, the Los Angeles Department of Children and Family Services sought an eleventh-hour block of the film's release, citing issues of Walter's privacy. The case was ultimately dismissed and the documentary went on to win an Academy Award. The strong connection and boundless affection between these loved ones is captured in a compelling and compassionate manner in this portrait in an ever-increasing phenomenon of a generation of children raised by their grandparents. Some quotes to affirm the greatness of this film: "It's a chronicle of intense highs and lows . . . and you may think differently about all the other Walters in the world." Chicago Tribune -- "Viewers are left sharing Ms. Dees's hope that Walter will remember what she taught him." -- New York Times

AFRICAN AMERICAN

* Whoopi Goldberg has been named to host the Oscars for a fourth time. This year's will take place on March 24th at the new Kodak Theater in Hollywood. "It'll be the first broadcast done from Oscar's new home, and I love a housewarming," Goldberg said Monday. (When will the Academy have the balls to ask Jim Carey to host the show? No let’s take the safe route again, and once in a while throw in a wildcard like David Letterman or Steve Martin. No offence to Whoopi, but we’ve been down that road once too often….yawnn – DR.SOTHA)

* Suggesting once again that no film has anything close to a commanding lead for Oscar recognition, the American Film Institute on Saturday divided up its top awards for 2001 among a number of filmmakers. It selected ‘The Lord of the Rings’ as best picture. Training Day’s DENZEL WASHINGTON was voted best actor, while In the Bedroom’s Sissy Spacek was voted best actress. Robert Altman took the best director award for Gosford Park, while Christopher Nolan was recognized for his screenplay for Memento.

* Will Smith and singer Alicia Keys are expected to team for a fourth version of ‘A Star Is Born’, the New York Post's "Page Six" column reported, citing "Left Coast" insiders. The project would be produced by Quincy Jones and distributed by Warner Bros., the Post said.

* Rapper-actor DMX and Jet Li will topline Warner Bros.' "Cradle to the Grave," which Andrzej Bartkowiak will direct for producer Joel Silver. The project will go into production late next month for release in the fall. "Cradle" reunites the actors, helmer and producer, who worked together on the studio's "Romeo Must Die." Li also starred in Silver's "Lethal Weapon 4," while DMX also starred in Silver's "Exit Wounds," the latter of which Bartkowiak directed. (The helmer began his relationship with Silver as the cinematographer on "Lethal 4").

DR.SOTHA REVO & OUT