Father Geek here with the lovely Ms Tamsin, the princess of movie news in the world sooooo far away that its 24 hours into the future, or something like that. Buuuuut before I put you into her capable hands I have this interesting bit that arrived here at our barbed-wired Central Texas World Geek Headquarters Compound...
Surprised I haven't seen anything about this on your site yet ... the trailer for Garage Days (the new Alex Proyas film ... y'know, the guy who did The Crow and Dark City) is up at This Location ... there's also the official movie site at This Uber Cool Spot ... He's leaving the sci-fi behind on this one and making a rock and roll film ...
Proyas' production company also runs hands down the coolest film maker operated web site I've ever seen, visit it by Just Clicking Right Here Right Now ... it beats the pants off of anything else out there, including pay sites (yeah, I'm looking at you, David Lynch ...)
And those of you entertained by things as juvenile as my super buff room mates and I can check out Our Poor Little Effort At A Humorsite for a lovely photo of Mr. Proyas (what else) being given the finger along with such lovely items as Walt Disney's star on the walk of fame, the largest thermometer in the world, and a paper mache moose watching television with a remote control in one hand and a glass of scotch in the other.
Call me Arthur Dent ...
Father Geek back, annnnnnd here's Tamsin...
THE AICN DOWNUNDER REPORT #41
To start with here is some news from MOVIEHOLE re: STAR WARS
Star Wars in New Zealand : WHATS REALLY GOING ON...
Aint it Cool recently ran a story indicating that George Lucas might be looking at filming a lot of 'Star Wars Episode 3' in New Zealand rather than Australia.
One of our spies, Enrique, who floats among the Lucasfilm circles, went out and discovered what's really going on.
Enrique tells us "actually lucas looked at NZ for episode2 (before he chose Australia) and is rumoured to have favoured NZ due to lower costs. All soundstages was taken up by the LOTR series. If LOTR have finished shooting, and enough soundstages are available for E3, don't be surprised if NZ is chosen over Fox (unless Fox/NSW govt cut a deal better than the costs in NZ)". But from looks of it, Lucas will possibly be doing the whole darn thing in NZ.
The plot thickens!
Clint Morris
Url : www.moviehole.net
email : cjnb@ihug.com.au
And now to the other news...
RUMPOLE OF THE BAILEY
Sadly, Australian-born/English-inspired actor Leo McKern, who was most known for his role as the grumpy barrister, RUMPOLE OF THE BAILEY, has died aged 82. McKern starred in one of my favourite, the exceptional Australian film, TRAVELLING NORTH, written by David Williamson, and also starring Graham Kennedy.
THE FOUNTAIN
After much debate and speculation, it has been finally announced that the majority of Darren Aronofsky's THE FOUNTAIN will be shot in Sydney, with addition scenes completed in the Gold Coast.
Australian Post Production house, Animal Logic, will contribute several sequences for Chinese Director, Zhang Yimou's (RAISE THE RED LANTERN), latest film starring Jet Li, Tony Leung Maggie Chung and Zhang Ziyi. For more info: www.animallogic.com
IN THE CUT
The new Jane Campion film, IN THE CUT, is causing a few raised eyebrows with the signing of America's sweetheart, Meg Ryan, for the lead in the supposed "gritty and sadistic novel". Ryan will play teacher, Franny Thorstin, in the film based on the Susanna Moore novel of the same name, which explores murder, sadism and sex.
ALEXANDER THE GREAT
The latest director to step up and take a shot at bringing ALEXANDER THE GREAT tot he big screen is Aussie, Baz Luhrmann with Dino De Laurentiis as producer. Maybe we need to have Marty Scorsese, Oliver Stone and Baz fight for the honour in a celebrity-death match so the one who wins would truly learn the spirit of conquering. De Laurentis told The Hollywood Reporter that "Any producer who wants to develop the story of a great man like Alexander needs a director with a vision."
THE TRACKER
Rolf De Heer's (BAD BOY BUBBY) new film, THE TRACKER has been selected for competition in the Venice Film Festival.
LORD OF THE RINGS
Melbournians are in for a treat with the opportunity for a "chat" with Academy Award cinematographer for FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING, Aussie Andrew Lesnie ACS at Popcorn Taxi. The first part of the night will focus on Andrew's past work and the second on the LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy. Not to be missed.
DATE: Thursday 15th August
WHERE: Treasury Theatre
For more info check out the Popcorn Taxi web site at www.popcorntaxi.com.au
And we'll end with a reader review of the New Zealand film BLESSED:
Hiya Tamsin,
Got the chance to see the world premiere of BLESSED last night, a little NZ flick that played at the NZ Film Festival in Wellington last night, and thought you might want to put it in your AICN Downunder report. The director announced at the premiere that it had just been selected for an out of competition "cutting edge" category at the Venice Film Festival. So here's a review for ya:
Rachel Douglas' BLESSED is a quirky film that does its best to be different but ultimately falls just short of satisfaction due to a number of limitations. However, I will get to those in a minute.
Shot in BetaSP (seriously), the movie tracks the lives of several individuals over the course of a couple of days in the New Zealand city of Wellington. Their stories are loosely tied together by a unifying theme - they each see a flying girl at some point during the day. The flying girl, for me, was the most intriguing aspect of BLESSED, very reminiscent of Wings of Desire, but she seemed to have a little less purpose than Wims Wenders' Berliners (I know it's a sausage). I have to say that, being a resident of the city, one of the coolest aspects was being able to identify familiar landmarks and locations. In fact, I could have sworn I saw my house in one shot! Other locals will be pleased to know the film does a good job of capturing the "vibe" of Wellington.
A lot of the action centres on a brothel - apparently, while making the film Douglas worked as a receptionist at one, and that's how she came up with the idea to include it as a link between the characters. It's quite interesting actually, and is one of the many ideas in the film that could have done with some expanding.
To cut a long story short, BLESSED is marred by some flaws. There are some moments of amateur dramatics and clunky dialogue ("We're a family. And families stick together!"), even some poorly edited sequences (I'm thinking specifically of early on, when Douglas' character almost hits "Alice" on her bicycle). But it has a lot going for it too, with some really unique and poignant scenes, such as the hunt near the end of the film - nice work from seasoned veteran Brian Sergent, in a small but important role. Had it overcome its problems, and had the movie been fleshed out and made perhaps half an hour longer, it could have really been something. Oh, and I would suggest avoiding BetaSP like the plague in future, it's got nothing on digital or film stock.
K? over and out.
Pelle the Conquered.
