Father Geek here with Latin-AICN for this week along with Coffin Joe, and a note from Alejandro Jodorowsky that crossed my desk today. Latin-AICN covered the autheur's problems of access to his own films in several columns over the last year including the screenings that lead to the problem he talks about here. Just Click Here to see LOBO's original report. It is a real crime when the person who writes and directs a masterful film as he has on several occasions cannot even show those films at a festival of his chosing. I remember when Harry appeared on a special Roger Ebert show on cult movies in Jan, of 2000. Roger wanted to show clips from EL TOPO, but couldn't find a print of it in any form at all. He asked Harry about it and luckly we had seen the movie a few weeks before at Director Guillermo del Toro's house here in Austin. Harry called up Guillermo, who immediately sent his Japanese Laser Disc to Roger's producer so they could get the clips they needed for the show. Imagine, you create one of history's great films and a few years later no one, not even one of the most famous and powerful film critics in the world can get hold of a copy even for review purposes. Here's what the man has to say about it himself...
Subject: JODOROWSKY vs KLEIN
Date: Sun, 18 Feb 2001 17:27:41 +0100
From: "Jodorowsky-Costa"
Allen Klein insists to prevent my movies from being shown. Now he's trying to bring me into a trial for having shown my movies in some festivals and pirat copies. It would be good that all the people who admire my work demand life-time jail for Klein, under the charge of cultural murder.
Killing a work of art is as monstruous as killing a human being. For 25 years now, Klein has prohibited the public to see El Topo and the Holy Mountain. He has destroyed the orginal negatives. It would be necessary to have a worldwide campaign against him and his crimes.
Please translate this message in all possible languages and send it to as many people as you can. We will establish the existence of cultural crime against humanity.
Allen Klein is a criminal, together with his accomplice lawyers. All of them deserve punishment and prison.
Alejandro Jodorowsky
Contact: Anne Caisson anne.caisson@humano.com
Father Geek back with this review of the new Brad Pitt flick THE MEXICAN. We've covered this film alot in this column for about 6 months now. If you remember it was being filmed on location in the central Mexican ghost town of Real Catorce. A very very remote and atmospheric spot I took Harry to when he was about 7 years old. We stayed there about 5 days one November back in the 70's. That adventure was detailed in the very 1st Latin-AICN column Click Here if you missed it.
Today I had the pleasure of watching a sneak of The Mexican somewhere in the city of Vancouver, BC. Well I will admit that I was quite looking forward to this movie. Julia Roberts. Brad Pitt. James Gandolfini! What more could you ask for.
To start off it is a comedy of sorts. It's part romantic, part action and all cool (Julia shoots a gun! How cool is that?) Brad Pitt's character Jerry is recruited by his bosses for one last job. To retreive a fabled gun named the Mexican. He tries to explain the situation to Sam (Julia Roberts), who is less than amused. She tells him she won't be there when he comes back. She's going to Las Vegas. And so off to Mexico Jerry goes and Sam begins her drive to Nevada.
In Mexico Jerry gets a car (a hilarious exchange of goods and services) then hooks up w/ the bosses grandson and gets the gun but promptly loses it when his car 'El Comino' is stolen. Meanwhile Sam is kidnapped by Leroy (James Gandolfini) who has saved her life from an apparant hitman. Leroy wants to trade Sam to Jerry for the gun (as seen in the trailer). Sam and Leroy become buddies sharing their different takes on relationships and love. And Jerry is looking for the gun calling Sam every once and again leaving desperate messages. The gun changes hands many times and even one of Jerry's friends comes to help but is really there for other purposes.
The movie has good execution for the most part. All of the characters relationships made sense to me. My only complaint would be that when finally Jerry and Sam have the gun and are together the story takes a twist just when you thought it was all over. Of course once the payoff of seeing the great actor (a certain little unforgivable lawman - totally wasn't expecting him - added to coolness) who plays Jerry's boss, then I wasn't upset. It ended up making sense in the long run. If they could only make the twist flow a little better I would say it was a close to perfect story. All in all the script was great though. Smart and thoughtful about life. I really liked how everyone had a different story of why the gun was cursed and the one that is finally made gospel truth is beautiful and tragic. Kinda haunting.
Overall I'd reccommend it strongly. It's got a lot of good comedy. Something I don't see that often. Believe me I work at a theater...there's been a lotta crap comedy lately (Down to Earth anyone?) and this is a more pleasent alternative to Hannibal (not a comedy but popular). And guys your date will thank you too. Gals too. I won't be surprised if this is numero uno next week.
Call me.......
Movie Theater Guy
Father Geek back again only to welcome our South American Editor/reporter Coffin Joe...
Hello , Coffin Joe here . You know I´m going to talk about a few things before we start this week´s column . First about my nick name . It seems that it truly confuses people . I get mail every now and then of people asking me quastions as if I were the real Coffin Joe , José Mojica Marins . I´M NOT . Recently a newspaper here in São Paulo ( the one I read by the way ) ran an article about AICN , and they talked about our work here at Latin-AICN , and guess what ? The guy who wrote the damn article thinks I´m the real Coffin Joe , which I´M NOT . I´m ranting here , don´t know if this is relevant or not , but I´ve been thinking of changing my nick name , so maybe next week I´ll have a new monniker . Enough of me thinking out loud , here´s what you came here for . Enjoy .
-Benicio del Toro won the Silver Bear at the Berlim Film Festival for Best Actor . Benicio was awarded for his role as the Mexican cop in the movie " Traffic " , directed by Steven Soderbergh .
-The Brazilian short film " Uma História de Futebol " , directed by Paulo Machline , was nominated for an Academy Award in the best live action short film category . The short is about the king of soccer , Pelé , and tells a few tales about his childhood in Bauru , here in the state of São Paulo . Actor Antônio Fagundes ( " Bossa Nova " ) is the narrator , playing a friend of pelé , who played soccer with him when they were kids . Good luck to Paulo Machline .
Latin America is also represented at this year´s Academy Awards with the amazing Mexican film " Amores Perros " , which is up for the Best Foreign Film category . There´s some stiff competition , but the movie is so good , that I hope that it can upset the juggernaut that is " Crouching Tiger , Hidden Dragon " .
-There´s a DVD of Hector Babenco´s " Pixote " being released in the U.S. this March 13th , by the people over at New Yorker , who did a decent job on their DVD of Takeshi Kitano´s " Hana-BI " . Pre-orders are already being taken at all the major web stores ( Amazon , Express.com , DVD Empire , etc ) . Among the extras there´ll be the theatrical trailer , filmographies and possibly other stuff too .
- " Tainá , uma Aventura na Amazônia " , a Brazilian film aimed at kids which got a decent release here this summer , directed by Tânia Lamarca and Sérgio Bloch , was recently screened at the New York International Children´s Film Festival ( February 2nd - 11th , 2001 ) . The copy they screened in N.Y. is dubbed , and both showings were sold out .
Check out the festival´s site at : www.gkids.com
-Another movie about real life events and famous figures of the past , has wrapped this last January ( recently here in Brazil there has been a flood of period pieces , all based on real notable figures of Brazilian history , including movies based on the lives of composer Villa-Lobos , revolutionary Tiradentes , and many others ) , and this one is called " Sonhos Tropicais " . It revolves around the incident known as the " Vacine Revolt " , and one of the main figures of Brazilian history , Osvaldo Cruz , who was involved in this affair , which happened in the beginning of the last century . Ignorance among the population in Rio , resulted in a massive fear of the vaccines the local authorities were manufacturing to prevent certain diseases . The mandatory nature of the vaccination , which was instituted by the government to sanitize the city of Rio , didn´t please the locals who refused to take the shots . The situation escalated to a point where both sides decided to resort to violence and so began the revolt .
Cast members include Bruno Giordano , soap opera star Carolina Kasting and veteran character actors Hugo Carvana , José Lewgoy and Cecil Thiré . The movie has been shot in Rio de janeiro and in the state of Paraná . Principal photography was supposed to end by January with the editing following shortly after . The movie is budgeted at 2.8 million reais ( US$ 1.4 million ) .
