Well, film fans on THE continent this is Father Geek posting this week's column straight from our Paris offices. Our E-mail responces to the first Euro-report were outstanding and a number of Euro-spies have contacted our editor/reporters to volunteer their services. That's great, just what we hoped would happen. Now if only those all-access passes to Cannes 2000 would come thru for our hard working agents. The guys got lots of news tips, but can always use more. Remember you can file your scoops in French, Spanish, Dutch, German, or English with this office, so there is no excuse to hold back that interesting tidbit of film knowledge that may have crossed your desk, or exploded on the street right in front of you. Send it directly to our Euro-office at: EuroAICN@yahoo.com
Everyone gets everything he wants, I wanted a column, and for my sins they gave me one, brought up to me like room service. The response we got from our first EuroAICN column was incredible and we would like to thank all our supporters out there. We also want to thank all the people who sent in emails with information (btw, sorry we edited so much out). We already have a few spies plus a Brit TV channel expressed interest in us. Anyhoo, here's...
EuroAICN#2
By Darth Bond & Edgard
-Juliette Binoche ("Bleu", "The English Patient") will soon start to shoot "Chocolate" - directed by Swedish director Lasse Hallström ("The Cider House rules") - for 12 weeks in France (Bourgogne) & in the UK. It will be about a young woman trying to open a chocolate shop in a small French village in the late 50's... Johnny Depp could co-star...(but the Swedish director is also tipped for "Shipping News" with Kevin Spacey, this movie being already in pre-production...)
- Harry will like this one: Aardman and DreamWorks will continue to work together : after "Chicken Run", their next project could be an adaptation of La Fontaine's tale "Le Lièvre et la Tortue" ("The Hare and the Turtle"), for 2002, then a full movie with Wallace and Groomit (then not before 3 or 4 years).
-Clint Eastwood will be honoured and will receive a Golden Lion for his career during the next Venice Festival in September. His last movie, "Space Cowboys" should be presented there.
-Cannes Festival Update : Melvin Van Peebles will probably present his new movie in a parallel section of the Festival. The title is : "Conte du Ventre Plein" (that means... "Tale of the Full Stomach"... kind of..)
-"Est-Ouest" ("East-West"), the last film from French director Régis Wargnier ("Indochine") received the Price of the Public during the 15th Festival of Santa-Barbara. "Est-Ouest" will be distributed in the USA by Sony Pictures Classics (on March 31st) and tells how a French woman, married to a Russian doctor, tries to cross the "iron curtain" (the movie is set in 1946) to go back to France. "Est-Ouest" is also nominated for Best Foreign Film at the Academy Awards.
-German director Wim Wenders ("Wings of Desire", "The Million Dollar Hotel") has been nominated for "Buena Vista Social Club" for a "Django d'Or" ("Golden Django"). The "Django d'Or" is the "Oscar" for Jazz, the ceremony will take place in Paris on May 3rd.
-Jursy Sthur (Sp?) will be debuting a film at Cannes that was written by Krystof Kieslowski in 1975. The movie is called "The Day in the Life of a Man" I think. -Sunshine Hawknife
-Wong Kar Wai's film title is now "Flowers like years" and the international title of "Le Pacte des Loups" is "Brotherhood of the wolves". -Le French Guique
-The talented Mr Mingella (director of The English Patient) next projects might include an American civil war story - adapted from a novel. He would love to try and squeeze in some work on the filming all of Samuel Becketts plays which is set to take place in Dublin before he starts the three to four years work on the before mentioned next major film. He is also toying with the idea of maybe down the line filming one of his earlier plays -'chocolate & cigarettes'. -Deluxe
The following info was sent to us by Scythe:
- Jean-Jacques Annaud is currently filming "Enemy At The Gates" in Potsdam/Babelsberg. Tons of extras where hired as soviet and German soldiers in this movie about two snipers. (AICN covered that.) Filming is well underway but Annaud got about three weeks more to shoot.
- A movie with the interesting title "Das Schnarchen Gottes" (The Snoring Of God) is developed in Munich. German stars Heino Ferch, Nina Hoss and Moritz Bleibtreu (Manni from "Run, Lola, Run") will star.
- "Der Tunnel" (The Tunnel), a two-partner for the small screen, is currently shooting in and around Berlin. Director Roland Suso Richter ("Nichts als die Wahrheit" (After The Truth) directs. The movie tells the real story of a bunch of people trying to get from East-Berlin to West-Berlin through a tunnel. Some of them have to get back and get caught by eastern soldiers. (Note: Roland Suso Richter is a VERY good director. Expect this movie to be a real killer!)
- A life action version of "Nick Knatterton", a famous German comic hero, is already in the can and will be at the theatres in summer.
- "Marlene", the movie about Marlene Dietriech, is getting slashed by the press very badly. It seems this movie is really annoying. Even Maria Riva, the daughter of Marlene, couldn't tell a good word about it. But Joseph Vilsmaier, director and producer of the movie (also "Stalingrad", "Comedian Harmonists" etc.) will make a movie called "Leo & Claire". Mario Adorf will star.
- "Drei Chinesen mit dem Kontrabass" (Three Chinese with a bass, or something like that) will start on March, 16. The movie won already several awards and Juergen Tarrach, a very funny actor, stars in it. The story is about a guy who wakes up one morning and thinks he murdered his girlfriend (Happens more often than you think *DB).
The following was taken from a report from our numero uno spy, H.G.Wells:
-The title of the next Chabrol movie is MERCI POUR LE CHOCOLAT ( Thanks for the chocolate), and they're shooting in Lausanne for 45 days (it's retirement place for rich French celebrities like race pilot Alain Prost among others..).
-SHINEY'S HEAD, about an African Voodoo artefact in hands of Dan Aykroyd (the film is being produced by Voyageur Capital Films Corp). to be shoot in Dublin
-THE TAILOR OF PANAMA, the new one from John Boorman will also be partly shot in Dublin- the John is in Panama now shooting on location but whole interior scenes are gonna be done at Bray Studios, place of Excalibur, Michael Collins and Angela's Ashes...)
- Perhaps in an effort to prove that there's more to him than just Tarantino rip offs with Cockney accents, English writer-director Guy Ritchie has chosen an interesting twist on the buddy/road movie for his next film. Ritchie's SKA films is developing a period piece called "Black Earth" as the director's next project after "Snatch." The film is based on true events surrounding King Charles I. Fleeing from Oliver Cromwell, Charles tried to surrender to the Scottish army, which was occupying the north of England at that time. The King is guided on his flight by a black companion, who far from being the ruffian he first appears, turns out to be well acquainted with English high society. The film is budgeted at around GBP 10 million with no actors yet attached as far as I know. (thanks to "William Wallace")
And now over to Amsterdam-Pat who saw some cool movies at the International Film Festival in Rotterdam:
-Fucking Amal (Swedish film, will be released as "Show Me Love" in the States, because people confuse the title with 'Anal Fucking' (go figure *DB). It's a teen-comedy; one of the public's favourite at the festival. UNIVERSAL THEME, great acting, extremely funny, most enjoyable film I've seen in years.
-Absolute Giganten (German film; English title "Gigantics") (produced by Tom "Run Lola Run" Tykwer. Normally "produced by the director of..." doesn't guarantee a good film, but this is so cool. Coolest film I saw, mainly because of one scene. Did you see Rounders with John Malkovich playing poker? This movie has a similar scene; only they're not playing poker but TABLE-SOCCER! The movements you see (of the hands and ball-control) are done by the world-champions of table-soccer! Great soundtrack, funny.
-Rent-A-Friend (Dutch movie by young famous Dutch director who made the extremely funny comedy last year "Based on the Book"). This film had a larger budget, looks GREAT, and is even funnier. A lot of American production companies are already in talks of an American REMAKE, because the basic idea of this movie is brilliant, charming and in the right hands, could easily become an instant classic. I personally already find the Dutch version unique, except the bad ending and it's way too short. One of the funniest films of the festival, which had I seen it last year was almost as good a satire on society as THE TRUMAN SHOW. Don't fuck up the remake (like you screwed up The Vanishing)
-Ratcatcher: The proof of that the British can also make really uninteresting movies, which aren't BAD. All the movies mentioned above aren't BAD, compared to some of the shit Hollywood produces every year. It's just not very GOOD either The same with Ratcatcher, which tells a simple story which you'll already have forgotten when the ending credits roll on the screen.
-Molokai: The Story of Father Damien, which is the most expensive Belgium film ever made, also is the worst film you'll see in your whole life. Please rent it, or actually see it IF it comes out; You will NOT SEE a movie worse than that in your whole life... (As a Belgian myself, I, Edgard, have to admit we like to collect the "worst of..." prizes... - sigh....Shame, shame... even Jean-Claude can't save us anymore !)
Euro-Pick of the Week
Darth Bond and I have decided to add to our news this little European "Focus on ..." section. Sometimes we will talk about a European artist worth... talking about, and sometimes we will present a cool little European movie that in our humble opinion deserves some attention...
To start this section I decided to talk about a little movie from my home land, "Man Bites Dog". Made at the beginning of the 90's, in black and white, this Belgian movie had a great critical success in many festivals across the world. The story is very simple: a TV crew is making a documentary about Ben, a serial killer... little by little the crew will start to help Ben by taking part in his crimes until they all go too far...
The great thing of this movie is its "mockumentary" style (like "Spinal Tap") and of course its main actor, Benoit Poelvoorde, playing Ben. The situations are extremely funny and certainly worth seeing that movie. "Man Bites Dog" is not really politically correct as Ben kills old women and kids, makes racist comments and rapes a woman in front of her husband. His policy is not to attack rich people, but only middle class people (his motto : "Kill a whale, you get Greenpeace on the back; kill a group of herrings and people will help you putting them in cans"). As you can imagine, if you don't like black humour this one is really NOT for you. I remember that when it came out many people were shocked by its voyeurism... but let's not be hypocritical here, we all watch the news on TV. My only regret for that movie is the ending, too quick and common (like if the directors didn't know how to finish it).
So do not hesitate... if you want to know how to make a "Little Gregory" cocktail or how to get rid of a body in a river (Ben is also very pedagogical), go rent "Man Bites Dog" NOW!
And that's all for this week, remember to send you scoops, news, flames, premiere and festival passes, sex offers, etc to EuroAICN@yahoo.com. If it's easier, you can send the emails in Spanish, French, German, Dutch and, of course, English.(That's how talented your Euro crew is. Modest too). Check ya later.
