Father Geek here with Edgard's Euro-AICN column for this week. But first I have a bit of interesting news from St. Hubbins in Maghera, Northern Ireland...

I'm just so pleased I can finally contribute to your wonderful site. I live in Northern Ireland and I was Shopping in Belfast the other day when I was suprised to see a steadycam (Not what the local News stations use) so i asked the sound guy what they were doing and he said thay were doing final location scouting for the next James Bond movie "Beyond the Ice" and that what they were looking at would probably be in the opening sequences. They had scouted the Belfast city hall, Queens University, and, most interestingly, Harland and Wolff shipworks where the Titanic (real one) was built and home of two of the worlds biggest crains. Well thats all I know for right now.

St. Hubbins

Here's Edgard with our Monday morning Euro-report...

EURO AICN

Edgard here... Well Christmas is coming... In the USA you have Thanksgiving to remind you that a month after it's the Holy Season; in Europe we have the new Disney movie (DINOSAURE for this year in case you forgot). Every year the last week of November, bang !! here it comes : the new Disney ! In a way it's reassuring, don't need to leave a note to remind you about the Christmas gifts to buy... you know that when you come out of the theatre after seeing the "[insert year here] Walt Disney Classic", it's time to go Christmas shopping... Could life be more perfect ? I can't wait to have kids, it'll make things easier... They will see the movie in November, they will get the toys in December... Am I being too ironic ? Well it's just that with the years passing by I am getting less patient with that stuff... if only the new Disney was good, but this one with talking dinosaures (I should consider myself lucky, it could have been singing dino) was... well not a "oh-oh-oh season" film... I wish there was a rule that all Disney animated films were made by Pixar... at least they respect their audience...

Anyway... you can also feel it's Christmas as I don't have much news to share this week... a bit on "Ghost of Mars" and Terry Gilliam and that's about it... really sorry... Ozymandias went also Christmas shopping (hence no Ozy Corner); Ethan is making is "Top 10 Worst Films" list for Santa and the rest of our spies are probably preparing their Christmas tree... So anyway here're a few Euro news to wait until next week...

GHOST OF MARS

* Champagne 2000 saw a short report on French TV about John Carpenter's next film, GHOST OF MARS. Here's his brief report on it : The TV show was briefly describing the story of the film. The most interesting was that they showed the ghosts (a bit like the bad guys from Mad Max 2) and their leader (think of a mix between Marilyn Manson and the cenobites from Hellraiser). From what the report said, there will be many explosions and a siege like in ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13 where the good guys are stuck in a building surrended by the bad guys trying to get in. There was a great shot of a bar with a lot of headless bodies hanged on the ceiling by the feet. There was also a shot of the ghosts walking around with spears with human heads on it... among which was a red-hair head... Harry's head maybe ?

TERRY GILLIAM

* We all know that after 3 weeks the shooting Terry Gilliam's THE MAN WHO KILLED DON QUIXOTE has been stopped due to Jean Rochefort's (Don Quixote) condition. Here are news from two different movie magazine. First British Total Film claims the movie is stopped for "an undetermined amount of time". Problem is : will the production get the opportunity to reconvene the international cast for January restart ? Vanessa Paradis has already musical commitments, Johnny Depp should play Christopher Marlowe in a biopic and Gilliam himself "will be prepping GOOD OMENS, an adaptation of a book about an angel and a demon trying to capture an AWOL antichrist". Meanwhile French magazine Studio says the movie is definitely stopped as there's no way to get the cast back together. The loss will then be huge for the financial partners but also - and mostly - for Gilliam who has been working really hard to get the project started without any support from American producers.

EUROPEAN FILM AWARDS

* The 13th European Film Awards took place on Saturday here in Paris (why wasn't I invited ?). Celebrities like Viviane Redding (European Commissioner for culture), Lionel Jospin (French Prime Minister) or Catherine Tasca (French Minister for Culture and Communication) were present (okay maybe it was a good thing I wasn't invited anyway). But also Wim Wenders, Pedro Almodovar or Harvey Keitel. The main winner was - surprise - DANCER IN THE DARK which received 4 Awards (Best Film and Best Actress; both from the "academy" and the public).

Here's the complete Palmarès :

Best Film : "Dancer in the Dark" (Lars Von Trier - Denmark)

Best Actor : Sergi Lopez ("Harry un ami qui vous veut du bien" - France)

Best Actress : Björk ("Dancer in the Dark" - Denmark)

Best Screenwriter : Agnes Jaoui, Jean-Pierre Bacri ("Le goût des autres" - France)

Best Cinematographer : Vittorio Storato ("Goya en burdeos" - Spain)

Best Non-European Film :"In the Mood for Love" (Wong Kar-Wai - Honk-Kong)

Best Documentary : "Les Glaneurs et la Glaneuse" (Agnes Varda - France) (special mention to "Heimspiel" from Pepe Danquart - Germany)

Best "First Film" : "Ressources Humaines" (Laurent Cantet - France)

Best Short Film : "Notre Cigogne" (Livia Gyarmarthy - Hungary) Fipresci Award from the critics : "Mayis Sikintisi" (Nuri Bilge Ceylan - Turkey)

Public Award - Best Film : "Dancer in the Dark" (Lars Von Trier - Denmark)

Public Award - Best Actor : Ingvar E. Sigurdsson ("Englar Alheimsins" - Iceland)

Public Award - Best Actress : Björk ("Dancer in the Dark" - Denmark)

NORWAY / ICELAND

* We never talk about box-office up up up in the North... so let's talk about it for once : Icelandic feature 101 Reykjavik, directed by Baltasar Kormakur, made an impressive entry into the Norwegian box office in fifth place. The film grossed $49,154 from eight screens during its first week on release, easily beating fellow opener Urban Legends: Final Cut which made $33,423 from 15 screens during the same period. 101 Reykjavik maintained its strong position in the Norwegian box office over the weekend of Nov 24-26, by grossing $29,369, bringing its total gross to $75,736. The comedy about a thirtysomething mummy’s boy and his party adventures in the Icelandic capital has so far been sold to more than 20 territories, including the UK, France, Greece and Russia. The film still has sturdy legs in Iceland after 26 weeks. 101 Reykjavik is expected to become one of the 10 highest-grossing films in the country in 2000. It currently has a total gross of $305,741, more than Gladiator’s $256,883, but not as much as two of its domestic competitors. The Kormakur-starrer Angels Of The Universe had a total gross of $940,813, while low-budget production The Icelandic Dream took $385,949. Last weekend saw the opening of another domestic competitor, Plan B, which grossed $8,631 on four screens from Nov 24-26. (Source : Screendaily)

UK

* From Empire on Line , some news about a possible play reuniting Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman : Theatre purists in London can date the invasion of Hollywood stars on to the West End stage to Nicole Kidman's stint at the Donmar Warehouse two years ago. Now it seems, she's on her way back, this time with husband Tom Cruise in tow. Empire Online caught up with actor Dougray Scott in London this week who shared with us the rumour that the Cruises are planning a joint venture in London. "I hear the whisper that Tom and Nicole may - the word is 'may' - be going into the Donmar,' Dougray told us. 'I have heard talk about it. I think it will be fantastic, they are both terrific actors. The security will be interesting though, I mean how will they allow people to get so close to them on stage. Dougray, who is himself finishing up a run in Sam Mendes production of To The Green Fields Beyond at the Donmar, went on to say; "I think they should both go there, together, I think they will have a wonderful time. I did. It is an extraordinary theatre because you are so close to the audience. It freaks some actors out. It excites me; I love it when you get so close to the front row. You are kind of emoting and getting very passionate and the spittle goes on to the front of the audience in the auditorium."

* And a bit on the London Turkish Festival which will start Friday : This month's expanded London Turkish Film Festival will screen films ranging from Nuri Bilge Ceylan's critically-acclaimed Clouds Of May to Gani Mujde's Turkish box-office hit Byzantium. Now in its eighth year, the event has expanded from one to two weeks, while films will tour other London and regional cinemas for the first time. The festival runs from Friday 8 to Thursday 21 December. Attending the event are Ayse Polat, director of Tour Abroad, Halit Refig, director of Birds Of Exile, and actor-producer Gani Savata, promoting Border. Other titles screening include black comedy Run For Money, Kafkaesque drama The Third Page and popular comedy thriller Everything's Gonna be Great.(Source : Screendaily)

Well that's already it for this week... as I wrote before it was a really slow week and you know it's time for Christmas shopping... But I will took this opportunity to ask our faithful readers (if we have any) to answer this question : what's your favorite guilty pleasure ? Okay... let me rephrase that (or I might get X-rated emails - which is okay from you ladies) : what's your favorite guilty pleasure MOVIE ? You see we (movie geeks united) have all a few movies we love even though we know it's not good... you know this kind of film you can watch over and over and never be tired of it while all your pals wonder why you're wasting your time on that crappy film... For example mine is THE PEACEMAKER... I know many people think it's not a good film... many people think it's a weak action film... I will also agree on the negative aspects of that film... meanwhile I love it and can watch it again and again... don't ask me why (Hans Zimmer's music ? Clooney's coolness ? Kidman's.. erm... presence ?)... and I will never try to convince anyone it's a great film... I know it isn't... still I love it...

So let me hear your own guilty pleasures... send everything - along your news, comments, critics... whatever to make next week not as slow as this one - to the Euro AICN offices in Paris at : euroaicn@yahoo.com

Edgard