Feliz Ano Nuevo!!! Father Geek here with a photo studded report for the Christmas/New Year's edition of Latin-AICN. Not alot of news happening over the holidays as to be expected, but what is is very coooool! Iglesia's FU MANCHU has me pretty excited, and wait till you see all the pictures Coffin Joe has dug up for you. Sorry this is a little late, but family and friends during the holidays takes a little more time than usual. Enough of ol' Father Geek though, lets get on to our cuate reports from Espana y Brasil...

Hi AICN readers. JRRR here from Madrid, Spain. Nice New Zealand trip stories, eh?. God, how much I envy you.....

Well, here I am, Christmas Day and working, I mean really working in the office. That's my life... Of course I had time for reading the newspaper and finding something interesting....

A little scoop of that Fu Manchú movie that Alex de la Iglesia is working on. Alex attended the first Short Movies Festival of Granada and there he made a press conference where he was inevitably asked about that project. He confirmed the presence of Banderas and then he launch the bomb: Robert de Niro could be casted. He said that the main obstacle is, of course, de Niro's salary, almost the whole film budget. We are talking about a 20 million dollar movie, maybe something normal on a Hollywood scope but really big for european standards. In despite of that, Alex said that the producer studies the possibility. He confirmed that after several trips to Asia, Bangkok is the selected place where the movie will be filmed and he expects to start shooting on October. He said that the movie will have that spirit of the first Bond movies, an adventure movie with real bad-ass evil guys. It will be filmed in English in order to have an international distribution.

The link to the extended story (in Spanish) of the news is Right Here .

Alex is still with the promotion of his last movie, "La Comunidad" (The Community), a dark comedy, with sporadic great moments and performances, but not perfect at all, in my humble opinion. As a comedy, it had to have a perfect clockwork screenplay, but this had a couple of scenes that "hiss".

Well feel free of correcting any mispelling or gramatical or syntax error of my horrible English and please, please keep on this way. Thank you.

JRRR

Here's Coffin Joe...

Hey Father Geek , everybody , Happy Christmas . As I type this I´m literally falling asleep . I´m still kinda awake though , so I´ll type this report . I saw a few movies this weekend , including " Lost Souls " ( IT SUCKED SO BAD I WANTED MY MONEY BACK , AND WHAT´S WITH THAT ENDING ? ) , " Get Carter " ( I liked it , so sue me , Sly rules ) and the documentary " O Rap do Pequeno Príncipe contra as Almas Sebosas " .

I scored some pics for you of Walter Salles´ and Daniela Tomas´ " Midnight " ( which has just been released in the U.S. on DVD by FOX Lorber )

Here´s the review I´ve been promising you guys :

- " O RAP DO PEQUENO PRÍNCIPE CONTRA AS ALMAS SEBOSAS "

First of all , I´d like to say that for a documentary that lasts 75 minutes ( it´s really short ) , it kept me hooked , and at the end I wanted to see a bit more . The main reason I wanted to see this doc is because one of the directors , Paulo Caldas , also co-directed one of the coolest movies of this new crop of Brazilian flicks , called " Baile Perfumado " ( its English title is " Perfumed Ball " ) . It´s a " cangaceiro " movie , and for those of you who don´t know what that is , shame on you . It´s the Brazilian equivalent of an American western , and the true classic of the genre is called " O Cangaceiro " ( " The Bandit " was the American title of this 1953 classic , which won awards at the Cannes Film Festival ) . Anyway , he did that film and kinda vanished , so I was curious to see what the heck he would do next , and he decided to follow that film with this documentary . It´s mainly about these two guys from the slums of the city of Camaragide here in Brazil : Helinho , only 21 years old , a local hitman who is accused of killing more than 65 criminals ( who´s know as the Little Prince ) , and Garninzé , 26 years old , a musician , who´s part of the band Faces do Subúrbio , and a local political activist . However the directors ( Caldas and co-director Marcelo Luna ) are aiming a bit higher as far as themes of the documentary go . They try to paint this portrait of life in a Brazilian suburb , and from there analyze the entire country , in particular , the unfair distribution of wealth . This ambition is what truly elevates this documentary from being a diary of few days in the lives of these two young fellas . It´s gripping stuff , really sad sometimes , and it´s interesting to see such different points of view and opinions ( and life styles for that matter ) from the two main characters of this piece . They speak their mind , and it´s not always the stuff you want to hear . The directors also present you with one huge moral question, is the " cleaning " that Helinho does ( he only kills criminals ) justified ? Is it right ? It´s not an easy answer and that´s just one of the many things the filmmakers throw at your face . Kudos to them for having the balls to make this as raw as possible . Some fancy sound editing and kinda stylish , so it´s not just substance , there´s some style to this documentary as well . Heavy stuff . Highly recommended , if you can catch it at a film festival go see it . Check out more about the film at : Their Site .

I also scored several pictures of the movie " Tolerância " which has also been recently released , but this one in theatres here in Brazil , by Columbia/TriStar Brazil . Enjoy the pics .

Hope to see you all next week .

Coffin Joe says : bye .