Father Geek here with our buddy Robert in Rome and his crew from across the Continent with the latest edition of our regular Weekly Feature Column...

THE EURO-AICN REPORT...

Hi people. I was amazed to witness this year's Oscar ceremony, considering the amount of prizes received by great and deserving artists. I mean, we can hope for a good future for this achievement (including a ROTK sweep next year) when the Academy honors people like Nicole Kidman, Roman Polanski, Adrien Brody, Chris Cooper, Pedro Almodovar, Hayao Miyazaki, Michael Moore, Eminem e the late Conrad Hall.

Anyway, I'm leaving tomorrow for Bruxelles where I will be able to attend the introduction at the European Parlament of Bruxelles of the event “To the Shire – In the name of Tolkien”, a convention which will occur in june in Italy dedicated to the english writer and to Peter Jackson.

If you're interested, you can find more information here:

By simply clicking your mouse here and now

So let's start with our usual column, this time one full of reviews.

Tony Head interview

Hi,

There is a fantastic interview with Tony Head up on icliverpool's site talking about his career, the future of Buffy, and the possibility of a movie...

Get all the poop by clicking right here now

Regards, Julez

Dreamcatcher review

ok harry its not often us brits get the scoop on you guys over the pond but i have just been taken to a screening of DREAMCATCHER and i thought you guys might like to hear my impressions. first off iam not a fan of stephen king novels yet i went into this movie with no preconceptions and was just looking to be entertained for two hours. iam sorry to say this movie must be one of the worst i have seen this year so far, it would be better suited as a straight to video release not a cinema one.it reminded me of those poor horror movies that we all avoid at our local blockbuster store. first off the movie itself vearse from high drama to high camp comedy , jason lees attempt at an english accent comes straight from the dick van dyke school of acting, and morgan freemans eyebrows are more alien than the mr grey of the movie. my main problem with the movie is that no real tension is injected into the plot until the final ten minutes when it is finally explained that the aliens want to contaminate the water supply, surely this could have been explained earlier so as to build the tension. as for the aliens themselves they looked like a penis on legs with teeth and actually brought about fits of laughter.sadly, even the climax reminded me of a low budget movie with the helicopter crash occurring off screen, allways a good sign of budget limitations. overall id give this movie a poor 4 out of 10, save your money till next week.

Geoffrey Careless

RECENT RELEASES by ETHAN

FINAL DESTINATION 2...

feels good. Script eventually loses it down the middle of the road and it delivers no climax. The initial film had a cool cocept. The sequel has better direction and staging. Way batter direction and staging. It is directed as an action flick. It was made by David R. Ellis famous second unit director and stunt specialist. His biggest job yet are MATRIX sequels. When you see cars pile up in this one, you`ll know who did the tech job on that RELOADED scene from the trailer. Joel Silver always had this great ability to hire great second unit guys. Anyway, Ellis` action movie flamboyance makes kinky deaths feel visceral and downright powerfully executed. And he doesn`t shy away from gore. seems like New Line knows a good director when they see one. He looks attached to CELLULAR. Great B-movie.

CRADLE 2 THE GRAVE.

Silver vs. Bartkowiak. I was so frightened by this film. I had all the worst expectations. I`m so glad I was wrong. Not too wrong. But wrong enough. This film is solid. If I were Maltin it`d be a ++1/2 movie. It is still a hip-hop infested cinema but there is enough action unlike ROMEO MUST DIE and EXIT WOUNDS. And DMX is better than Ja Rule even though HALF PAST DEAD has better outline than CRADLE 2 THE GRAVE. Some of the action even feels right. Dan Bradley (SWORDFISH, FROM DUSK TILL DAWN 2) did the second unit. That`s why! The script is dumb and the whole Bartkowiak sidekick bandwagon is on. But still there is enough action and even some touches of class. This feels like Jet Li`s second best Hollywood project. Silver is still tailing KISS OF THE DRAGON. There is even a casual supporting wheelchair bound villain. That`s so cool. I love seeing that. At the same time there is a Li vs. Dacascos showdown. I admit it is half-cocked. It should last for half an hour and be done in painstaking detail. But, Li`s illegal tournament rampage redeems it! Anyway, Dacascos nuclear death feels classy. I mean, this is a dumb Channing Gibson scripted film. Channing Gibson wrote goddamn LETHAL WEAPON 4! But the cinematic delivers some fine touches. It ain`t vintage Silver but he is on the way of recovery...

God bless, Ethan

I'm Not Scared review

Hiya. Long time reader, first submission.

I got to catch Gabriele Salvatores' "I'm not scared" (Io Non Ho Paura) last night, which premiered at Berlin and won't be in the States for some time so I thought I'd write a review.

The film is based on an eponymous bestselling novel by Niccolò Ammanniti. The novel is short, simple and powerful. It had been originally conceived as a low budget film, which is why it's hardly surprising that it should make a good, tight script, especially with the novelist on board as a screenwriter.

The story is that of a ten year old boy called Michele who lives in a minute community, hidden away amongst vast oceans of wheat in Italy's rural south in the late seventies. He hangs with a crew of other kids, all aged between 6 and 10. They play games that are occasionally cruel , but always kind of innocent, they chase each other across the wheatfields and basically are just waiting to grow up and leave the place. Despite the fact that the village is made up of a grand total of some four houses, the children are quite separate from their parents who merely get to call them in for dinner. It's a great setting and the macguffin is plausible and interesting: while exploring the countryside surrounding the village, Michele discovers a hole in the ground that leads to a dark cavity. Within this cavity there is a body, it's another ten year old child, he's alive and he is in chains. This child is the victim of a kidnapping-for-ransom scheme cooked up by some of the grownups in the village, among them Michele's dad, whom Michele loves. The film develops from there describing the relationship between Michele and the kidnapped boy, who has started to lose his mind after months in the hole, as well as Michele's quest to find out what's happening and stop his dad and his mates from having to kill the kidnapped boy. We also see the parents side of it: desperate, well-rounded characters forced to band together into an evil enterprise.

By current Italian standards, it's a great movie, it has a good story, great setting, great photography, highly competent direction from Oscar-winner Salvatores, and a truly marvellous cast of kids. Having read the book however, I have to say that I don't think Salvatores has made the most of what he had. There is a brutal quality to the book which has been somewhat softened in the film. The cluster of houses chosen to portray the poor southern town of "Acqua Traverse", are actually quite beautiful and picturesque, to the extent of appearing almost removed from the reality of Italy in the seventies which was pretty dire. In the novel, the village was only comforting insofar as it was recognizable, otherwise it was pretty squalid. The set here looks a little like the set of Salvatores' "Sud" (1993): yellow stone buildings, yellow dust, bleached out photography.

The other bone I have to pick is that the novel focussed, from the title onwards, onto Michele's struggle with his own fears. In my view, the film goes a little lightly on this. It does show some of the mantras Michele repeats to himself to scare his fears away, but it never really delves into the pitted battle between him and what he's afraid of. To make an example, the shot of Haley Joel Osment torn between having to pee and being terrified of the apparitions he sees, conveyed that same struggle very rapidly and powerfully. Here, we get the impression that Michele is pretty much fearless from the word go, whereas in my opinion it would have made the film more wrenching if we saw that Michele was teetering on the border between panic and bravery. The actor certainly could have handled it, and indeed he's such a charming kid that he makes up in empathy what the direction lacks in psychological insight. There are many successful visual flourishes, and a couple of good scares (the first one somewhat dimished by slack editing).

There is an element of comedy which works because the kids are fun, but is in my opinion overused to the detriment of the tension. The music is very nice though by the end you know the two themes off by heart and it's not because they are so spectacularly good. *minor spoiler below*

In my view, there is only one scene which is a real letdown, and it is the scene in which Michele is going to save the kidnapped kid from getting shot. As he rides his bike down the path through the fields, we see in some order, a snake, a mouse, a frog, an owl and another owl. Because Michele doesn't seem to notice these animals, which I imagine represent danger and his childlike fears of it, it just ends up looking like he's cycling through a zoo.

To counter we have a great game of "Un Due Tre Stella!" played by the kids (go watch it, I can't explain), great stuff with eyes not used to light, with helicopters and with combine harvesters. We have a thoughtful use of accents (irrelevant outside of Italy), and we have an overall attention to detail and respect for the source material which is really, really, really rare for this country.

To sum up this super long review, the film is a cross between "Stand By Me", "Signs" (for the location, more than anything) and something like "A Simple Plan". It's not as good as "A Simple Plan", because I reckon it's a little too cute. Still, so far it's my favourite Italian film of 2003. Salvatores could have made it slightly longer, slightly nastier and slightly dryer, but he flinched. That he did probably means better box office for the film and good stuff abroad where everybody loves postcards from Italy, so all in all I really can't complain. All the best.

Cpt. Willard

Dirty Pretty Things

Director: Stephen Frears... Chiwetwl Ejifor, Audrey Tautou, Sergi Lopez, Benedict Wong 107 mins Certificate 15

They are the "invisibles" of modern day life who drive our cabs and tidy our hotel rooms - they are seen but not seen. For many people arriving in a new country - illegally or not - employment in menial, labourious, poorly-paid and dangerous jobs is the only way to make ends meet.

This world of illegal immigrants comes under the spotlight in Dirty Pretty Things as we follow the story of Okwe (Chiwetwl Ejifor), a former doctor who now works two jobs as a hotel clerk and cab driver in order to raise the money to get home to Nigeria.

One night he finds a human heart blocking a room's toilet and it leads him onto a path that he never expected. On the run from Immigration Inspectors, he has to give up his rented couch in friend Senay's (Audrey Tautou) flat and he finally ends up staying in a hospital morgue, the workplace of his Chinese friend Guo Yi (Benedict Wong).

Soon he discovers that his sleazy fellow hotel worker Juan (Sergi Lopez) offers a deal to other illegal immigrant workers: in exchange for a passport, they must give him a kidney - and he wants Okwe's expertise as a doctor in the operations - in exchange for a passport, of course.

Despite being in dire straits, Okwe continues to refuse until the day that Senay cannot bear the struggle of her life in the clothes sweatshop anymore and offers to be the next donor. Now Okwe must decide if he will operate on her and give them both the chance to be free.

Dirty Pretty Things is one of the best British films of recent years. The searing and brilliant script by Steven Knight is complimented by the pacey and effective direction by Frears.

As the world seems to be rabidly on the lookout for "others" in our midst, a story that features characters from all over the world - and of all religions and beliefs - really lifts the lid on a poverty-stricken and dangerous sub-culture that exists all around us and has done for a long time - though as "invisibles", we either haven't noticed or cared.

Even though I never quite bought the relationship between Okwe and Senay (Tautou - the star of Amelie - was very second fiddle to the excellent Ejifor), Dirty Pretty Things really is a film that you should make an effort to see.

Equilibrium

Director: Kurt Wimmer... Christian Bale, Emily Watson, Angus McFayden, Taye Diggs, Sean Pertwee 107 mins Certificate 15

Zoom forward into the future (past a scarily plausible just now WWIII) and we are living in a utopian society; there's no war, hate or jealously - because no one has any emotions or feelings. Everyone conforms and, zombie-like, they all go to their offices and work hard all day. Any problems are kept from surfacing by the regular doses of Prozium that everyone takes by rote every day.

Prozium is the "opiate of the masses" according to Father (Sean Pertwee) and he rules with an absolute iron fist. Any rebels who go against the State are hunted down by "the Clerics" - uber kung fu gun sword master squads - of whom the star is John Preston (Christian Bale).

When his own partner succumbs to the desire to learn about the forbidden - books, music, art - Preston blows him away without a second thought, but then he starts to have doubts, especially when a young female rebel Mary (Emily Watson) is arrested. She reminds Cleric of his wife, who herself was terminated for sense crimes while Preston watched on.

As Preston begins to deliberately miss his doses of Prozium his feelings start to come to life and he realises that he must try to contact the rebel underground, as this way of life is no way at all. Hot on his trail is suspicious new partner Brandt (Taye Diggs), who has convinced their boss Du Pont (Angus McFayden) that Cleric may be "going native".

You can spot many influences in Equilibrium; Fahrenheit 451, Minority Report, Brave New World, Gattaca and of course The Matrix and 1984. All those are great films/books, but this does not necessarily a good film make when they are hashed together and Equilibrium ends up being a mess.

There are some good ideas and it looks great, but the action sequences are too few and far inbetween and it really doesn't look at the emergence of Prestons' sensual world - an awesome experience that isn't dealt with enough intellectually here.

There are also story problems - it's so close to 1984 that it's obvious what is happening - and Preston, our supposed hero, lets women close to him die - twice - so it's hard to feel for him. What a waste of Emily Watson's talents that was for a start and it's a crying shame to see Sean Bean in a bit-part.

You might have expected more from the man who wrote the recent remake of The Thomas Crown Affair, though his other stab at sci-fi was an adaptation of Sphere and, like that film, this too is weak sci-fi.

It bombed in the USA, but it may keep fans happy until the Matrix resurfaces.

James Bartlett

That's all for today See you next time

Robert Bernocchi

Caltanet