Anyone spot Harry wandering the beach last night, or in some plush hotel theatre catching a hot new flick? Yep, the Big Man was there alright, to sneak a peek at a couple of things you will all be interested in. He should be back in Austin late tonight/early tomorrow, and will report all to you soon. In the meantime here's Edgard with a ton of Cannes info...
Hello everyone... Edgard here from Euro AICN with more
news from Cannes, as promised in our report from
yesterday here are more news from Grozilla, Ozymandias
and Champagne 2000... These are small production news
or info on Cannes... You will find also another review
of the new Romero's film BRUISER (review by Champagne
2000) and an announcement concerning a film based on
Hemingway's FIFTY GRAND'S... And hopefully we will get
back tonight with more for you...
From Grozilla....
From Grozilla....
* Bernardo Bertolucci, Nicholas Roeg , Jim Jarmusch, Aki Kaurismaki joined the group of directors who signed to direct short films only to be shown on the Net. Atom Films is about to close a list of 15 directors who will complete TEN MINUTES OLDER, title of a film collection about time. These films will be shot starting next August and will be shown next Spring.
* The Coen Brothers have asked James Gandolfini (The soprano's) to join the casting of their ,next film, with Billy Bob Thornton and Frances McDormand.
* Jerry Lewis will direct TRUFFLES in Paris next January. From what we know about the script (an American "chef" has to investigate a traffic of truffles on direct orders from the President), it does not look like classic Lewis comedies.
* Wim Wenders on the road again. IN AMERICA will cross the USA from next August, when shooting starts . No casting announced yet.
* Soren Kragh-Jacobsen will meet again Iben Hjejle, his star from his last film MIFUNE. In SKAGERAK, she will play a surrogate mother exiled in London without money. Kragh-Jacobsen describes the film as a "meeting between Barbara Cartland and Trainspotting ».
* Ettore Scola will co-direct with the Norwegian Thomas Robsahm, MIDNIGHT SUN where a divorced couple meet on a cruise ship. Greta Scacchi and Giancarlo Giannini could star.
* Walter Salles (Central do Brazil) prepares "The assumption of a virgin". Juliette Binoche just signed to star, the male lead will either go to Al Pacino or Robert DeNiro.
* Ken Russel prepares "Neverlands". A new approach of Peter Pan. Knowing Ken Russel's credentials... it looks interesting...
* Glenn Eichler, creator of "Daria", the amazing animated film post-generation X, prepares his first movie, a comedy in which a man inherits a museum dedicated to racism imagery.
From Ozymandias...
* Ten people were injured when fighting broke out at the launch party for the new film featuring members of All Saints in Cannes. Riot police were called after bottles and chairs were thrown at the Palm Beach night club following the midnight screening of the film, HONEST. Eyewitnesses said there was panic when gangs rushed the security guards, others said it was feared somebody had fired a gun, although police said there was no evidence that this was true. A spokeswoman for the party organisers described the incident as minor. She said: "There was a little bit of a fracas with local people trying to get in, but that's all." Before the screening, the producers had thrown a lavish party to celebrate Natalie Appleton's 27th birthday, which was on Sunday.
* Angelina Jolie and Billy Bob Thornton to star in new film. The couple will star alongside Matt Damon and Penelope Cruz (also romantically linked, according to gossips) in a dark comedy (described as a 'Midnight Cowboy' for the new millennium), about a man who through twists in his life leaves his past behind and embarks on a new life. Rumour has it Spanish director Pedro Almodovar ('All About My Mother') is being considered to direct the untitled project.
* A planned biopic about 80s pop star Boy George took a step closer to the big screen at the Cannes Festival on Tuesday. The film, formerly titled 'Take It Like A Man' (after George's autobiography) has been renamed the far more prosaic 'Karma Chameleon' and has landed a director. Kfir Yefet will helm, with Boy George (pictured in his mid-80s pomp) himself heavily involved in the film's production. "The movie is like 'Valley Of The Dolls'," Boy George told Variety, "only with bigger hair and a happy ending." BBC Films is still involved in the project, which is a warts'n'all look at the pop star's rise and fall in the 80s.
* Singer Geri Halliwell is to star in her first big screen movie since leaving the Spice Girls. The star would take the lead in a film called THERAPY, which is due to start shooting later this year. Halliwell, whose only previous cinema jaunt was in Spice World more than three years ago, is expected to fly to Cannes to formally announce her new project at the town's world-famous film festival.
* Lions Gate Films has closed a deal for North American rights to Ken Loach's ``Bread and Roses,'' an official competition selection at Cannes. Set in the late 1980s in Los Angeles, the picture centres two Latina sisters who work as cleaners in a downtown office block, and their fight for the right to unionize. It features actors Poilar Padilla, Elpidia Carrillo, Adrien Brody, George Lopez and Alonso Chavez as well as real-life activists Roscio Saenz, Mayron Payes and singer-songwriter Jesus ``Chuy'' Perez.
* Gary Oldman, Mena Suvari and Justin Chambers are in final negotiations to star in the $42 million action drama ``D'Artagnan.'' Directed by Peter Hyams (''End of Days''), ``D'Artagnan'' takes a fresh approach to the ``Three Musketeers'' tale. Production is slated to begin in August in Belgium, Luxembourg and France.
From Champagne 2000...
* Let's start with BRUISER the new film from George A Romero. It follows a man who has problems to impose himself in his daily life. His wife doesn't give a shit about him, his boss (Peter Stormare) doesn't give a shit about what he thinks... his life is a nightmare... From time to time, to support this, he lets off steam by imagining killing all the people who annoys him. A morning, his life will change : he wakes up with a white mask instead of his face, and will find out that his boss fucks his wife, his best friend takes his money, his cleaner lady steals from him... What will he do ? Well just blow his top and kill everyone... The first half hour is great in the description of the world the hero lives in. It reminds us how much Romero is a great director. The ZOMBIE's director gives life to this universe by showing us a succession of little details well seen. Unfortunately, it's after that things go wrong... If the hero's mask is great, what happens on the screen is not as much fun. The hero kills people one by one and we get bored. Even Stormare who was excellent in the first sequences overact and his character loses also credibility. The film goes down little by little to end in a kind of grotesque remake of the "Phantom of the Opera" with the hero trying to shoot with a laser the genitals of Stormare, hung to a cable above the night club !!! And like if this was not enough, the movie ends on an eye-catching image unworthy of Romero and the ending credits offer to people who didn't get enough a punk rock version of a stupid song from the 80's (don't remember which one it was but something like Kajagoogoo ). Big disappointment after a great first half hour...
Some News :
- As it was said before in another AICN report, BROTHERHOOD OF THE WOLVES' trailer was great and the film seems like THE event of next fall in Europe.
- 35 minutes of THE LORD OF THE RINGS were shown here in Cannes on the film market. Of course, it was held in total secret...
- The other day, I went to see TAXI 2 in the film market. Who was there afterwards ? Luc Besson ! I thought it was great to see him there to see how the public felt about the movie...
I'll be back tomorrow for a review of one of the big film of this year : CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON (wonderful fights and a double love story very moving)
Champagne 2000
And now just a short announcement :
Patriot Entertainment, a Massachusetts independent film company with offices in London has acquired the rights to Ernest Hemingway's boxing story, «FIFTY GRAND», for an undisclosed sum. Considered one of the best boxing stories of all time, «FIFTY GRAND's» lead character, Jack Brennan, battles demons within himself and the fight game in the classic Hemingway tradition. Brennan is believed to be by many, the quintessential Hemingway hero. Several A-list actors both in the US and the UK who are avid Hemingway fans have already approached Patriot regarding the lead role.
