Well it seems someone other than World Geek Headquarters and Father Geek is having server problems, they can be such a pain. Does it strike any of you as wrong that you PAY your server to keep you up and running on line (in AICN case that several thousands of dollars a month) and when their equiptment breaks down or one of their employee's screws up and you go off line, it ends up costing you more money yet to get back up and running. I mean if I rent a car and it breaks down through no fault of mine they fix or replace it free, if you rent an apartment and the stove quicks working you don't have to buy a new one they replace or fix it free. And do these servers charge, man, $300.00 per hour or more repair cost. I don't know, but to ol' Father Geek it just doesn't seem right somehow...

Sorry it's late, server problems.

DR.SOTHA here for another Africa-AICN. I can hear the groans of patients in the hallway screaming for more drugs, painkillers, anaesthetic, tranquilizers, 'love'..'gimme love!' I hear one patient let out in a monstrous scream. Is he talking to me or Nurse Pout. I shout into the recesses of the hallway, 'Gimme 15 miligrams of ant mucus stat, this patient's going into a coma'. And they ask me how I don't lose my mind in this place. 'No Mucus' they shout back'. 'Well save him yourself then, I'm off to write my AICN Column' before Father Geek has a cat.

Send me messages why you think I don't get no respect from the lab staff anymore, to SOTHA'S Psycho Clinic , South Africa's finest.

Nurse, that type of mucus won't do.

SOUTH AFRICA

* Charlize Theron and Heather Graham caused a near riot at a Venice Beach, California, bikini shop - when they walked in to try on swimsuits. Young guys who'd spotted the pair gathered outside the shop, hoping to catch a glimpse of the girls modelling skimpy underwear before a mirror. By the time Heather and Charlize emerged from their dressing rooms, the crowd was so large that police had to be called to disperse the onlookers. (So it's a crime now to gawk at fine creations, what's next the end of art exhibits? - DR.SOTHA)

* The organisers of Encounters, the annual South African International Documentary Festival, are calling for entries from South African and International filmmakers for this year's event. Encounters will be held in Cape Town from 22 to 31 July 2001, and in Johannesburg from 3 to 9 August. Encounters will show a selection of documentary films from around the world, with a particular focus on South African work. Filmmakers must guarantee, should their film / video be selected, that permission from the rights holder are secured for a minimum of two screenings at this Festival. The deadline for submissions is Monday 14 May. Entry forms and any additional information can be found on www.bigworld.co.za/encounters

* The United Nations has appointed South African company Richard Stewart Enterprises (Pty) Ltd as its exclusive agent for the distribution of United Nations films to television and non-theatrical markets. Richard Stewart, a film and video distributor for 18 years, says: "For obvious political reasons the United Nations titles were not popular in the 'old days' but we expect the 'new' South African market to respond positively to some of the films, particularly the future PBS-style SABC, e.tv and educational institutions.

* Sandra Bullock's beauty pageant antics in 'Miss Congeniality' have blitzed the local box office in the film's first week of release. It is in the number one position followed by another new release, the animated 'The Emperors New Groove', 'What Women Want', 'Traffic' and 'Bedazzled.' (I predict Traffic is going to be huge 5 months ago - DR.SOTHA)

NORTH AFRICA

* CBS Evening News anchor Dan Rather chastised the television networks -- including his own -- for ignoring international news while increasing their coverage of celebrities. "At the very moment in history when we need more foreign news coverage, we're getting less," he told a student audience Tuesday at Brown University, where he accepted the Welles Hangen Award for Superior Achievement in Journalism. (Hangen was a 1949 Brown alumnus who was killed by Cambodian guerrillas in 1970 while covering the conflict there for CBS.) Rather noted that although dramatic overseas crises, such as the one involving the downed American spy plane, may receive extensive coverage, far more urgent international stories, such as AIDS in Africa, receive little at all. He maintained that just 6 percent of the news aired on the three network nightly newscasts is devoted to international news -- that his own newscast features only four international stories per week and that that number is greater than his competitors'. He also charged that TV journalists now tend to treat political figures like entertainment celebs. "I have far less appetite for the personal lives of public figures, and far more for what they do in their work. ... I wish I could tell you that this will pass, but I suspect that it won't." (Well said Mr. Rather - DR.SOTHA)

* Time for Rigobert Song:

Three Senegalese films for today, but before I get on with it, remember to e-mail me with your scathing comments at rigobertsong@hotmail.com

The three Senegalese shorts in this brief film anthology adapt the ancient African storytelling tradition to a modern medium and setting. If the novel and its close relative, the feature film, reflect the complex, overlapping narratives of urban life, then these cinematic fables encapsulate the basic beliefs which support ordinary Africans as they try to navigate through a rapidly changing world.

LE FRANC directed by Djibril Diop Mambety - Senegal - 45 minutes

Djibril Diop Mambety has already produced two feature-length masterpieces of African storytelling, 'Hyenas' and 'Touki Bouki'. Now in Le Franc, he begins a trilogy of shorts, 'Tales of Little People', whom he describes as, "the only truly consistent, unaffected people in the world, for whom every morning brings the same question: how to preserve what is essential to themselves." Mambety uses the French government's 50% devaluation of the West African Franc (CFA) in 1994 as the basis for a whimsical yet trenchant parable of life in today's Africa. For the millions of people impoverished by this devaluation, the national lotteries became the only hope for salvation. Mambety symbolizes the global economy as a game of chance, which the poor are compelled to play, though the odds are heavily stacked against them.

The hero of this tale (and perhaps Mambety's alter ego) is Marigo, a penniless musician living in a shanty town, relentlessly harassed by his formidable landlady. He survives only through dreams of playing his congoma (a kind of guitar) which has been confiscated in lieu of back rent. At the end of his luck, he buys a lottery ticket from the dwarf Kus, the god of fortune, and glues it to the back of his door under a poster of his hero, Yaadikoone, a legendary Senegalese Robin Hood. When he wins, Marigo begins a harrowing odyssey across a Dakar of trash heaps, dilapidated buildings and chaotic traffic. Stumbling along under the unwieldy door, he seems to carry the burdens of an absurd world on his shoulders. Played with slapstick gusto by the gangly, rubber-legged Dieye Ma Dieye, Marigo is both comic and poignant, a Senegalese Charlie Chaplin. Marigo is told the ticket has to be removed from the door so he carries it down to the shore so the waves can wash it off. He is, of course, swamped in the surf and loses the ticket, only to discover it pasted to his forehead. In the last shot, Marigo is seen exulting on a barren rock, as the breakers which opened the film continue to crash around him. We, the viewers, are left to decide if he is a symbol of hope or its ultimate futility.

PICC MI (Little Bird) - Directed by Mansour Sora Wade - Senegal - 20 minutes

After graduating from film school, director Mansour Sora Wade worked for the Senegalese Ministry of Culture charged with the preservation and revitalization of the country's oral tradition. In these two "fables on film," he displays a style characterized by economy and wit, each episode leading to the inevitable moral conclusion. Picc Mi, (Little Bird), protests the increasing exploitation of children in the fast-growing cities of the developing world. Mamadou (Modou) is a talibe, a boy given by his poor parents into the care of a marabout, or Moslem holy man. Each day the talibe are sent into the bazaars to beg for alms for the holy man. One day Modou meets another young boy, Ablaye, who scavenges the streets for junk to give to his father, a farmer driven into the city by drought. The two boys spend one day of freedom together scoffing at the venality of the adult world around them. A song by Senegalese superstar Youssou N'Dour about a young bird who a crocodile tries to lure from its nest with promises of food provides a commentary. In the final scene, Modou runs along the beach towards the sea and, at least in his imagination, is transformed into a bird, who can fly free of the adult crocodiles who would devour him.

FARY l'ANESSE (Fary the Donkey) - Directed by Mansour Sora Wade - Senegal, 17 minutes

Fary, l'Anesse (Fary, the Donkey) gives an African twist to the timeless theme of men led astray by foolish desires. Ibra refuses to marry any woman with the slightest physical flaw. One day, Fary, a beautiful young woman, arrives mysteriously at his village. Ibra marries her but soon word spreads among the villagers that each day Fary transforms herself into a donkey. Things that seem too good to be true usually are. The moral: "The man who falls in love with beauty forgets that there are other qualities in women. Since Fary, the donkey, have times changed?" And now some quotes to wet your African appetites: "Le Franc uses the backdrop of the franc devaluation to give us some of the most fantastic, magic-realist moments in African cinema...So surreal it creates an African sublime." -- Village Voice "Mambety's work has been compared to Godard, and it's easy to see why...A comedic, well-told and visually poetic story." -- San Francisco Guardian

AFRICAN AMERICAN

* Famke Janssen ("X-Men") is in negotiations to star as the lead villainess in Columbia Pictures' "Men in Black 2" for director Barry Sonnenfeld. Production is scheduled to begin in June. "MiB 2" will see the original film's stars, Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones, reprise their roles as Agent J and Agent K, respectively. Although the plot is being kept under wraps, it is known that Janssen will play the villainess bombshell, Serleena. Johnny Knoxville ("Jackass") also will be featured as a two-headed alien, while Rosario Dawson ("Josie and the Pussycats") plays Rita, a love interest to Smith's character. Barry Fanaro wrote the most recent draft of the screenplay. Walter Parkes and Laurie MacDonald are back on board to produce. Columbia Pictures executive vp production Doug Belgrad is overseeing the project. Janssen, next stars in Artisan Entertainment's "Made" and 20th Century Fox/New Regency's "Don't Say a Word" opposite Michael Douglas.

* In an unusual move, John Travolta, Halle Berry and Hugh Jackman have granted likeness approval rights to be used for a Heineken television spot as part of a promotional campaign for Warner Bros.' "Swordfish," in which they all star. Heineken is spending an estimated $10 million on a worldwide media and marketing blitz. Rarely do A-list stars like Travolta give their permission to appear in TV spots that are for a product, especially an alcoholic beverage. Most actors shy away from such associations because of the appearance of an implied endorsement. Travolta's likeness will also appear in Heineken's point-of-purchase materials. The deal could be a coup for the brewer and the filmmakers because Heineken will get a rare association with a $20 million-per-movie star (I'm not sure about that at the moment - DR.SOTHA), while "Swordfish" will get the kind of high-profile tie-in not often afforded for what is expected to be an R-rated film. Heineken has minor product placement in the film.

* Kasi Lemmons, who wrote and directed the indie feature "Eve's Bayou," has come aboard to adapt for the big screen Vikram Seth's novel "An Equal Music" as a possible directing vehicle for Sydney Pollack. Pollack and Anthony Minghella's Mirage Enterprises will produce with Scott Rudin for Paramount Pictures. Seth's romantic story follows two talented musicians -- a male violinist and female pianist -- who are reunited 10 years after their initial meeting. This time around, the woman is married with a family; however, their romance blooms, forcing the duo to confront love and a dark secret. The novel was published in May 1999 by Broadway Books. Rudin and Pollack partnered on the project and together acquired the rights to the novel in fall 1999. Paramount production president Michelle Manning is overseeing the project for the studio. Lemmons most recently directed Universal Focus' "The Caveman's Valentine" starring Samuel L. Jackson.

* 20th Century Fox has plunked down $300,000 against $600,000 for Mike Elliot's family spec script "Like Mike" with multiplatinum teen rap sensation Lil' Bow Wow in negotiations to star in what would be his feature acting debut. Described as in the vein of "Big," Elliot's story revolves around a teenager (Lil' Bow Wow) who finds a pair of Michael Jordan's sneakers that have magical powers that catapult the boy to the NBA. Peter Heller ("Bones"), Elliot's manager, will produce through his Heller Highwater management/production company. Elliot will receive a co-producer credit. TCF vp of production Elysa Koplovitz brought the project to the division headed by president Hutch

That's it, but just a special word to Liverpool FC - You're going to win the treble this year, and I'm right behind you.

DR.SOTHA REVO & OUT