Hello Father Geek here at the World Geek HQ compound in Austin, Texas along with Robert Bernocchi in Rome, Grozilla in Paris, and ratbert out on the British Isles... with this Monday's regular Euro-AICN article, but before I turn it over to our editor Robert, I have this special treat for all you 007 fans that came in to Father Geek in person this morning...
Here's my Bond thingee...
I live in the South West of the UK. On the local news they just had a report that BOND 20 (or BENETH THE SEA) was filming here on the coast and in the EDEN PROJECT. The coast line footage was for the 'bad guys' hide out in Korea; there were lots of guys in uniform and battlements. In the EDEN PROJECT, it's the 'bad guy's' diamond mine. The reporter said he wasn't aloud to film in there while filming (it was a night shoot) but he was aloud to watch; he said there were lots of guys falling from the ceiling on ropes...cool! He said that Pierce wasn't there, due to a knee injury. You can check out the EDEN PROJECT'S web site it's here. CLICK HERE
Philly
Father Geek Back again... Just want to say I had a great time in ole London this week. All you guys and gals that came to the Borders book signing were great. Those of you that came over to our suite at the George Bernard Shaw Park Plaza Hotel afterwards were fantastic and I really enjoyed the mini brit-brew tour y'all gave us in the room. BTW the maids at the hotel hate all of you. All you press people we met with were a joy to work with, things moved quite smooth despite the hectic schedule (4 tv, 6 radio, 8 print and various photographers in just 3 days) To our lovely advance lady, DUSTY... thanks for all your help/hard-work, despite a few glitches (ahem HOTEL ahem) things went really great. To our super secret spy who briefed us in our room Saturday night, you know who you are... YOU RULE!!! Now on to Robert and the regular report...
Hi people. Here in the Euro Aicn column you can get exclusive information, as the Spider-Man world premiere release in Lebanon (sorry, I couldn't find the confirmation in the site pointed out by Evil Spy. Does anyone know something more about that?) or Kate Winslet nex project. But yesterday the Cesars (the french Oscars) were assigned and, surprise, Amelie didn't steal the show. Thus, what better than a report from our man in Paris Grozilla? Let's start with it...
The Cesars 2002
Hi there... Yesterday stood the Cesar ceremony (french oscars). Unexpectingly, Amelie didn't steal the show. Only four trophies for Jeunet' s film who was nominated 13 times. The best thing was that Sur mes lèvres, to me, a film far better than Amelie won 3 times, Emmanuelle Devos rightly awarded for being best actress of the year.
Best movie
Amelie
Best actor
Michel Bouquet (Comment j'ai tué mon père )
Best actress
Emmanuelle Devos (Sur mes lèvres)
Best supporting male
André Dussollier (the officer's ward)
Best supporting female
Annie Girardot (the pianist)
best male newcomer
Robinson Stévenin (Mauvais genres )
best female newcomer
Rachida Brakni (Chaos)
best director Jean-Pierre Jeunet ( Amelie)
Best first effort Danis Tanovic (No Man's Land )
Best script Jacques Audiard et Tonino Benacquista '(Sur mes lèvres)
best foreign film Mulholland Drive
best music Yann Tiersen (Amelie)
Best photography Tetsuo Nagata (the officer's ward)
Best sets Aline Bonetto (Amelie)
Best sound Marc-Antoine Beldent, Pascal Villard, Cyril Holtz (Sur mes lèvres)
best editing Marie-Josèphe Yoyotte ( Le Peuple migrateur)
best costumes
Dominique Borg (Brotherhood of the wolves)
I told you readers some time ago about how amazing Nid de guêpes is. This Florent Emilio's second effort is released here next week. I got a chance to trade some words from this director...
It’s often told that a director always does a movie by reaction to his previous one. In your case, Une minute de silence is very very different from Nid de guêpes…
Une minute… was I guess a more personal movie, based on memories of my own : I'm a son of coal miner. This was a tribute to my coalminers pals. But there’s things in common with those two films : friendship, fighting against a common enemy, a realistic environment for fiction : the use of violence in Nid… isn’t gratuitous. All is always seen from a character’s point of view. There’s no stylisation of violence as you could find some in an Hollywood, or now French, action comedy. The main difference between my two films is that in this one, I’ve been able to express myself on a visual way. I was a bit frustrated by this lack on my first film. I needed to work this side this time, to the point I can almost get rid of dialogues. Nid… is born from a chat I had with my co-writer about genre movies. In particular The Poseidon adventure, with this boat getting upside down, the space always getting smaller around the characters, with the idea of treating them as survivors.
The main common theme to catastrophe films like Poseidon or Towering inferno, is the sense of sacrifice by redemption...
Definitely. The basis for Nid de guêpes is that you’ll always find someone meaner and more evilish than you are. I intended to do as in Hitchcock’s films, going forward in the movie by following some suspense but that the real suspense is in what’s expected from a character even if something else might happened. It’s not wanted as a surprise effect but it allowed me to use elements that seemed to be in background in the story. It also allowed me to show the character who’s about to sacrifice as some other side of the bad guy : he had forgot since long his humanity but the events going on are gonna remind it to him.
This bad guy is more some ultimate Evil incarnation than a character..
I need to have a subtext in my films. Why are the assaulters masked or in some ways quite invisible ? Because the more you’re vague around the bad guys characters the more it scares. In Alien, you’re flipped out because you don’t see the monster. It’s showed during all Aliens, the effect is less strong. We made a lot of research for our bad guy, we found out many awful stuff about what those kind of east-european crimelords do to the girls they’re gonna prostitute. All that in Albania, a country who long lived in some archaism, without morality (because of its dictatorial reign) but using a code of valors which is way more violent than the one you find in Italian mafia. I asked myself how to translate that in a character without forgetting a realistic point of view combined with a will of entertainment. I wanted to deshumanize this guy by showing less the less possible on screen. There’s at most thirty shots on him in all the movie.
Is it easy to stand on this will of realism in something so codified that genre film is ?
No. All the details here are realistic : the weapons, the uniforms… I just modified some like this military vehicle, or this storage device used to carry containers. I gave it a more "insectoïd" look. I tried to give to this storage warehouse where quite all the action stands, some more Hi-tech look…. It need to start from the reality to then give to the movies entertainement what it necessities, to feed the audience. Sometime with stuff off screen. There’s 2 400 shots in this movie. Twice the usual in a French film, but most of em are discreet. I tried to invisibilise my directing, my technical knowledge to serve the story. I directed 28 music videos. A music video consists to put visual style on foreground. Moviemaking is the absolute opposite. I loathe the movies where the entertainment in the screening room : a guy shooting in slow motion making in the same time a double looping, the audience going "Woooow!" before cheering or bursting in laughs… As an audience, I love to be taken away by movie without guessing anything of the technical savoir faire. I have to fight against gratuitous style figure. Not any stunt is made with cables in Nid de guêpes. I asked my main stuntman from how high he could fall without injuries. He told 3 meters. So all the stunts have been done on this height. When he falls on the ground, you can feel he’s really falling.
It’s hard not to think about John Carpenter’s Assault on preccint 13 during watching Nid de guêpes
Journalists quote this film because they usually got this reference only, but to me, my films has also something to do with When the drums roll ( G’s Note: I’m not sure of the translation of this brillant Hugo Fregonese’s one, in French it’s called : Quand les tambours s’arrêteront), Cat people, The clear sky, Predator… Some also mentioned Night of the living dead, a movie I’ve never seen… For the female characters, I thought much more of Alien than Assault… Of course my film has been fed by Carpenter’s one but much more by western, fantastic and catastrophe films. This in an unconscious way. I realized by watching again some Jacques Tourneur’s films that they influenced the way I worked on shadow in Nid de guêpes although I first thought it came from other movies than his. Just mentioning Assault about my film is shrinking it to some imitation. What was important in Nid de guêpes is the journey of the characters. They all will learn in this hazardous situation something on themselves, they all are gonna need to search inner stuff they never even suspected they could get.
Since two or three years, with films like Crimson rivers or Brotherhood of the wolves, there’s a huge and growing buzz about an awakening of genre films in french cinema…
When I’ve done my first film, some social movie fashion was the flavour of the month here. Une minute de silence was quite in that mood but I was accused of having shot it in a too clean way, that it was to beautifully shot… I love movie in the widest way, I’m as fond of Antonioni than Spielberg, Bergman than Coppola. I’ve just done an action flick, I’d love to do another intimate film. I want to do Sf, crimefilm, comedies… This return of genre film reopens French cinema to exportation. We shouldn’t forget than cinema is an universal art, not only made for French audience and critics. My generation was keen on American movies in the 80’s because the French ones at that time bored us to death. We were always asking what was their point. The nowadays generation apparently wants to see on screen people like them. That’s the basic idea of Taxi (G’s note : this Besson’s production was one of the biggest unexpected hits here some years ago). This aside, these days this "genre film" espression is becoming pejorative. Une minute de silence is talked about as a film d’auteur against Nid de guêpes as a genre film. But to me, Nid de guêpes is also a film d’auteur. As all the films are genre.I feel that way of thinking come from a minsinterpretaion of the French New Wave. This French need of realism those French directors created gave birth to some American masterpieces like Bonnie & Clyde or Mean streets. Here we lost this street, raw feeling to think that film d’auteur was a synonymous of egotrip, that a film must be about the director’s own and private problems. Even when they feed from the New Wave, American directors didn’t forget to care avout the audience. For many years, we, French directors did. Besson must be thanked because he was the only one who tried to put something else on screen.. I hope this rebirth of genre won’t forbid director to use genre to talk about personal stuff.
The Hollywood rule states that humour is a quite an obligation in action flick. Even in Besson’s productions. You didn’t follow that rule
I don’t like action comedy. The only hints of humour in Nid de guêpes are meaning something from a character always joking but revealed as a coward in action. The same symbolic principe is used with this guard who’s a sharp Doom-like videogame player but can’t kill anyone in real life. In any action comedy, he would have been a supernerd who’s revealed as a hero. I didn’t want to tell something about heroism but describing some plausible journeys in plausibles events. For instance, it would have really suck to put any love story in this film
After seeing your film, how not to think that if any americain producer sees it, he’ll praise you to direct some blockbuster for him ?
If that’s for work ing on Alien 5, it’ s a no. When you see Amelie, it appears obviously as a way of curing Jeunet of his Hollywood experience… If it’s for making a hollywoodian sub-product, I’m not interested. I already have been contacted to do some 100 millions $ plus epic, some mix between Gladiator and Crouching tiger, hidden dragon… Why the hell should I do this kind of stuff. If there wasn’t the language issue, it would be way lesser difficult to French movies worldwide. That would be my main asking : If I’m allowed to do some 250 FF millions film (G’s Note : the hugest budget ever used in France is Asterix and Cleopâtre : 300 FF millions), shall I shot it in French or English language ? To Hollywood producer Nid de guêpes is peanuts : it had cost 9 $ millions, the price of a telefilm over there… A few years ago, after seeing some music video I directed, an American music company got in touch with me. They asked : how much did this video costed ? I lied and doubled it : 4 FF millions. This guy immediately picked up his phone, reached his associate and told him : "I got in front of me some French guy who works for free"… Directing a popcorn movie is easy, that’s just about style. But I could never do it, that's not my purpose…
Evil Spy report from the Middle East
Dear AICNers,
Harry congrats on your book...
Its me again with rumblings and bumblings from the Middle East.
I would like to start off with a major "shocker". Did you guys know that SPIDERMAN IS HAVING ITS WORLD PREMIERE RELEASE IN LEBANON???Unbelievable... Spiderman will hit theatres on the 2nd of May 2002!!! AND GUYS AND THIS IS CONFIRMED! Pls. log onto circuit-empire.com.lb... the site sucks ass... but they did announce it... I thought International Territories depend (or at least for movies like that) on the US buzz and not the other way around... :)
Well, lets go on... AFM is back and so are lots of new movies... not necessarily good but one of the very few good ones seems to be "Harv The Barbarian". Rob Shneider just signed with Winddancer (production co.) and rumors have it that Danny De Vito will too. The comedy is described as a sardonic, Monthy Python-esue tale of a barbarian on a voyage to self-discovery. The shooting of the film is set to begin in June. Dreamworks stepped in this project and will be handeling the US... planning on a wide release sometime in May 2003...
Even though "The Animal" and "Deuce Bigalow" were basically demential... I liked them and had a few laughs... well, I am waiting for this one... COMMON ROBBIE... "YOU CAN DO IT!!!!"
Another cool movie coming up is a movie called "Scorched". Alicia Silverstone, Woody Harrelson, John Cleese and don't know if that is attached to a major distributor but the promo reel to it is hilarious. Three individual employees (Costanzo, Harrelson, Silverstone) of a bank in a small desert town (managed by Leonard) all make plans to rob it on the same weekend... except, none of them knows about the others. Meanwhile, a clothing store employee (Cook) has plans for revenge against a local millionaire (Cleese).
Then again, there's this new company called "Signpost" lead by Stuart Till (Ex Polygram guy) who punctually found a US Distributor for their upcoming project BULLETPROOF MONK. Now, the project is budgetted at US$ 55 Million, produced by Chuck Roven (Three Kings, Twelve Monkey and well... Scooby Doo), John Woo and Terence Chang (Mission Impossible II, Face Off, and the very shitty Hard Target) BULLETPROOF MONK is an action adventure starring Chow Yun-Fat (CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON), Seann William Scott (Stifler in AMERICAN PIE I & II) and (Jaime King - PEARL HARBOR, BLOW, SLACKERS) which takes place in USA and will be ready for delivery in Spring 2003. Who's attached to direct? Well, he's on his first feature film debut. His name is Paul Hunter... he's won awards for directing the TV clip for Lady Marmallade (very very cool clip) and ads for GAP, Nike among others... Now, all of this sounds interesting right? In my opinion it does... but as "appealing" as Bulletproof may look... its US Distributor is going to be..... (DRUMROLLS PLEASE!!!!!!!!!) THE ROARING MGM who's sure bets are the usual Bonds and lately Hannibal but I assure you that RED DRAGON IS GOING DOWN DOWN DOWN DOWN... As for Moriarty's article... I totally agree. Did you know that MGM keep buying stuff throughout these Markets but keep on delaying and delaying. They have projects on their shelves of finished products such as Scenes Of The Crime with Jeff Bridges, Noah Whyle and Jon Abrahams and then there's the coolest movie I've seen which is Scott Calvert's Deuce's Wild. I saw that last February. I mean in the February of 2001 and now, MGM have scheduled it for an April release... lets just wait and see... these guys have no clue of what they're doing... I'm sure of filled you up with different subjects and stuff... but hey... "a geek's gotta do... what a geek's gotta do..."
I fid you barewell....
Over and out...
Evil Spy From the Middle East!
News from ShowBiz Ireland (CLICK HERE)
Neil Jordan's Borgia
The Irish film maker Neil Jordan is to go ahead with his planned controversial movie about The Vatican.
The movie, called "Borgia", is based on Rodrigo Borgia, who became Pope Alexander VI, and his illegitimate children Cesare and Lucretia.
The story follows the Spanish family's conquest of the papacy at the end of the 15th century, which turned the Vatican into a den of crime.
"This movie is about power and treachery and really about how a family is torn apart by getting what they want", explained Jordan, who won an Oscar in 1993 for writing The Crying Game.
Originally, film bosses wanted Jordan to focus on Lucretia Borgia, however he decided to incorporate the whole family. "I thought the entire family was more interesting", he said.
Next cinematographic projects in Ireland...
Ireland's movie industry kicked off again yesterday after a slow period towards the end of last year with a number of big Hollywood stars.
Chasing the Dragon, The Veronica Guerin story started shooting yesterday in Drumcondra with the Oscar winning actress Cate Blanchett in the lead role. Filming will go on until the end of May.
Also, Irish comedian Dylan Moran of Black Books sitcom fame also started filming this week with the legendary actor Michael Caine on the new Neil Jordan movie The Actors.
Jordan has however taken a back seat for the new Hollywood and has handed the Directors job over to the young playwright Connor McPherson, who has also wrote the screenplay for the movie.
This is McPherson's third film while it is Caine's 126th film.
Acting with Caine and Dylan will be Miranda Richardson and maybe even Gabriel Byrne. The film will be made in Ardmore Studios at a cost of 6.3 million euro and will be produced by Jordan, who has also put Caine up at the new apartment block down the road from his own home in Dalkey.
The Actors will put Caine back working with Jordan's film firm The Company of Wolves Production Company for the first time since the 1986 movie Mona Lisa. The Actors tells the story of a struggling Irish actor who uses his skill to get a friend out of trouble with a gangster. As things go wrong the actor has to play more and more roles to cover things up.
Another Irish movie, which got its first screening last night, was Patrick Bergin's new movie, Some other Place.
The movie was shown to a VIP audience in Dublin's IFC where Bergin made a guest appearance.
Other stars who have been floating around Dublin over the past few days include Pop Idol Will Young who made it to number one in the UK yesterday with his first single Evergreen.
He spent last week in Dublin Windmill Lane studious recording his album.
While the eighties Pop princess Kim Wilde flew into Dublin on Friday to promote Spar national tree week.
News from Ratbert
The Gorillaz are heading for the big screen Jamie Hewlett says writing and animation for a feature film starring the group is in its early stages. The film's soundtrack will be the band's second album. "It's going to be a very dark film, perhaps with cannibals and zombies. I think it may be called Celebrity Harvest."
Jude Law is set to play Sherlock Holmes in a new film He has been offered the detective role in Sherlock Holmes And The Vengeance Of Dracula. It has been described as the darkest Sherlock Holmes movie ever made. The actor had a small role in the TV series The Casebook Of Sherlock Holmes in 1990.
Robert Downey Jr is to star in a new film version of The Singing Detective Downey will play the lead role in the film, which is being made by Mel Gibson's production company. The film will be based on the BBC series which starred Michael Gambon. Filming will begin in April.
Kate Winslet could appear in a new film with her younger sister Beth The comedy movie Cuba is due to go into production in the summer, with John Roberts directing. The Winslet sisters are being tipped to feature in the cast, barring other commitments. The film is about two sisters on a mission to Cuba, who hope to erase ghosts from their past by laying their father's ashes to rest in Havana.
David Thewlis is preparing to direct his first film He will star in it himself but he hasn't cast the other roles yet. However, he says his girlfriend Anna Friel won't be appearing in it. Thewlis won't reveal the name of the film or what it is about. He says he won't talk about it because he once gave away the ending of a book he wrote. "I'm going to be starring in it and I wrote it, I'm going to direct and I'm doing the cooking as well," joked Thewlis.
The Magic Carpet
Brenda Fricker plots the downfall of her late husband's business partner in the new black comedy The Magic Carpet. John Wood co-stars as the man she targets for destruction. Sally Phillips appears as her right-hand girl in the study of morality and revenge. The film is being directed by Terry Hughes later this year and has been scripted by Douglas Watkinson. Ex-Casualty star Fricker has just finished making The War Bride with Anna Friel.
A Flight Of Fancy
Kirsty Mitchell is to play the girl who steals Jason Flemyng's heart in romantic comedy A Flight Of Fancy. The film focuses on a high flyer from the London publishing world who walks out on his wife and job in search of a more fulfilling life. Samantha Janus plays Flemyng's screen wife, with Maureen Lipman, John Sessions and Frank Finlay also in the cast. Glasgow born Mitchell, 24, received warm reviews at last year's Cannes Film Festival for her performance in the thriller Al's Lads. Her new film is being directed by David Fairman from a script by Sharon Cobb.
Are you worried about the international release of Hong Kong Pictures? Don't you have faith in Disney? Web Alliance For Respectful Treatment of HK films is an online community dedicated to the following:
We seek to ally all the Hong Kong film fans on the web to help
convince Disney to release HK films uncut with their original language
tracks.
This is the link: CLICK HERE To Do Your Part
That's all for today
Robert Bernocchi
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