Father Geek here... We've got alot for you in today's column, sooooo I'll get out of the way so you can get to the real meat...

EURO AICN - CANNES FESTIVAL DAY 4 - 5

Hello, Hello... Edgard here with our fourth report from Cannes... First there's Solamen who reports on the Festival itself and a few movies (The rehearsal, Shrek, No Man's Land - and hopefully very soon the LOTR party); then there's Grozilla-the-Eternal who comments Takashi Miike; Versus, Solodz's Storytelling, the new Coen film, and Trouble Every Day. And finally, me, myself, moi... have seen the "redux" version of Apocalypse Now and - of course - reviewed for you... Hope you enjoy this little window on Cannes... And I take the opportunity to thank people like Grozilla, Solamen, Champagne 2000 and the rest who share their precious time with us... Thanks guys and enjoy the parties !! (bastards)

SOLAMEN's FOURTH DAY IN CANNES

Cannes day #... well, I don't remember...

Today : what I disliked, what I liked and what I loved

I disliked : The Rehearsal, first film I saw today. French film, boring and after that all the foreigners will say again that French films are always boring and intellectual (but they're not ! think of Jeunet's Amelie !)

I disliked : the weather... now it's too hot. And when you're queuing in the sun !

I disliked : people, tons of people... We're on Saturday, all the tourists are here and hoping to see a star. Well, when you're late for a screening it's not fun at all to try running among this crowd !

I disliked : Emmanuelle Beart, french award-winning actress, playing in The Rehearsal. Always acting the same, never natural, putting on simpering airs even when she acts.

I (anyway) liked : Pascale Bussières, co-starring with Emmanuel Beart in The Rehearsal. She plays with a very true and intense way a woman who falls in love for her best friend and how this passionate relationship destroys them.

I liked : the title of Matrix sequel : "The Matrix is reloaded". At last a sequel that is not stupidly called "Something 2"

I liked (a lot) : Shreck ! I don't know if it has been released in the US. It's an animated movie (with 3-D characters only) from Dreamworks. The story is about a misanthropic ogre who has to go to rescue a princess and... Well, I can't tell the end ! Anyway it's funny, with lot of second-degree, it's very anti-Walt Disney and Disneyland (I love when people are anti Walt Disney just like me !) with lots of allusions to fairy tales (I love fairy tales) with voices of Mike Meyers, Eddie Murphy and Cameron Diaz... great voices, great scenarios and stupendous effects with 3-D. Better than LaraCroft on my computer !

I loved : the third movie I went to. A Bosnian movie, No man's land, about three soldiers, one Serb, the two others Bosnians, trapped in a trench, a no man's land. Funny when it had to, excellent rhythm of action, and so true about what it says about us (I mean us European and Americans and media's from everywhere) and the way we acted (or not acted) in this terrible war which was a genocide.

I loved : the tears of the actors of No Man's Land at the end of the screening when the whole theatre was applausing and doing them a standing ovation. We really felt they had put their heart in this film and that they were now happy to see we loved it too and felt concerned. This film was competing for La Palme d'Or (the highest award) but also for La caméra d'Or (award fot a first film) and I hope it will have it.

I loved : the 90% of chances that I can go the LOTR Party tomorrow !! I promise to tell everything from the celebrity gossip to the details I could have about the movie !

I definitely dislike : the way I'm tired tonight after three screenings and 5 hours of sleep yesterday !

Well, let's see how I'll feel tomorrow...

Solamen

GROZILLA Stomping on Cannes - Report 3

Well, Cannes is almost at its half and no truly masterpiece or major discover seems to emerge. Some praises for Mohsen Makhmalbaf's Kandahar (about women's condition in nowadays Afghanistan ) and Danis Tanovic' s No Man's Land (described as a Mash in Bosnia)... So while waiting for THE film, here's to cut some buzz down : yes Quentin Tarantino is in town. No he's got no secret film to show. He's here to attend an award ceremony where Lawrence Bender will be honored. On the other side, The last letter, a Stephen Norrington film is actually screened in market, but I couldn't get needed invitation to get to those screenings.

Anyway, it's official now, Takashi Miike is my new Japanese hero. I wrote about his sick visitor Q some days ago, Dead Or alive 2, is quite different. This story of two contract killers who must retire on their hometown is at times very moving, above all when it speaks about child's innocence as Takeshi Kitano did in his wonderful Kids return. Of course there's still some of Miike gross touch in here : a midget killed in a mathematic way, a mourning for a huge dick cut from a guy... Anyway, this is the 12th film of Miike I see, and it still has the ability to amaze me in a shocking or moving way.

Seen also in film market : Versus. Well, I 'm not gonna be as raving as some, but this fun film (starts as Night of the living Yakuza, ends like very cheap Matrix) is very promising for its director Ryuhei Kitamura. Even if this film puts sometime too much of its faith in sound effects or music, even if its script is sometimes childish, even if its editing is sometimes lousy, it manages to be more dynamic than most blockbusters that cost at least twenty times more money. The most enthusiastic thing is that Kitamura makes some shots à la Matrix, but kind of special effects free, kind of handmade. Versus has too much to do with videogame culture , but this guy is definitely someone to watch, he could be the next Peter Jackson or Sam Raimi.

Shown in Un certain regard, Todd Solondz's Storytelling is a bit disappointing. Of course it proves one more time, that Solondz is one great scriptwriter, there's truly gritty lines in here, some real unpolitically correctness, Solondz is definitely one daring filmmaker maybe the only one as smart and audacious since John Waters, but something's missing here. Unlike Welcome to the dollhouse or Happiness, he puts this time some empathy in some of his character. Therefore Storytelling seems to be the missing link between those two previous films. Unless this feeling is because of the disappearing of the James van der Beek's story. Which seems to been taken off by the producer, by fear of infamous X classification. Shame on them, they apparently deleted what might have been the salt of this film. Which still is in the edit screened here, one of the best films I've seen in this festival.

Unlike The Man who wasn't there. Those guys should stop making a film each year. Of course, the cast is great (Thornton, wonderful with a Boris Karloff's face), it's beautifully shot but I'm afraid the Coen have nothing to say anymore in their films. All here has been seen in their previous films. Even fat guy with wigs or this kind of sad irony. Since a few films, I guess since Hudsucker Proxy, - I'm not a huge fan of Fargo, good film but way weaker than Blood Simple or Barton Fink or their masterpiece Miller's crossing - the Coen seem to have forget filmmaking isn't only about style, well builded stories are also needed. Here they just seem, as they did in Big lebowski or O' brother, to run around the bush and just that. Of course, The man... is above the average production, it even gets some very beautiful ideas, like the short scene whicih explains the title, but hey, we know what these guys are really able of, so please stop the diet and get really back to work...

These last days a huge buzz roars around Claire Denis's Trouble every day. One of the most respected female auteur of French cinema, making some gore movie dealing with raw sexuality and cannibalism in what has been sold as a very violent film. Wow. Who didn't want to see that. This buzz get higher when the first screening was canceled for technical reasons, it feeds the need to see it. The second screening was the good one and proved that buzz isn't always a good thing for film. Trouble every day isn't a B movie disguised in Art film. But just the opposite. Yes there's some rude material here, but not much as told, and it's used to get the point. This a metaphoric story about desire, but also about Aids. In a nutshell, a just wed couple arrives in France for honey moon, husband can't cope with his wife fearing something. He looks for a scientist he worked years before on some brain experience. This scientist experiments his works on his own wife, she became some cannibal/ Vampire creatures who can't repress his need to get sex with men and then suck their blood. This film is definitely for arthouse. It sure will be delight for film analyst who'll see many possible interpretations possible. Those who expected to be thrilled by gore and violence will just feel dizzy not because of one very strong scene, but because of the atmosphere Denis puts in this film, very stressful one mixed with some slow pace. Just like Catherine Breillat , other very estimate female French filmmaker, did at the end of his latest A ma soeur, Denis made an uneasy film quite disturbing, some very dark tale. Maybe not the one critics awaited but a strong one.

And Oops !!... The Thai movie I reviewed a few days ago is called TEARS OF BLACK TIGER, and not DRAGON... My Mistake...

Grozilla

APOCALYPSE NOW REDUX Review by Edgard

Well you know this famous French sentence... "If you don't go to Cannes, make Cannes go to you !". So that's what I did... As the new director's cut of APOCALYPSE NOW was being screened in Cannes, the film was released all over France. Good... who needs to go to Cannes when you can walk a few minutes from your own place to see a (almost) new film ? Still it had to feel like Cannes so when I took my seat I looked around and decided that the strange bearded man on my right would be Francis Ford Coppola; the weird one on the front row would be Martin Sheen (I know he's not Japanese but there were not many people in the theatre so I had to make choices) and the fat bold one would be Marlon Brando. Things went well until the end when I decided to make my own standing ovation, that ran to the fake Coppola, Sheen and Brando to congratulate them... the result was that I was quickly thrown out the theatre and asked to never come back again. Next time I'll stay home.

Anyway... APOCALYPSE NOW REDUX... woaw !!... my first woaw is because I love this film... and I never had the chance to see it on a big screen. So here I was at the Grand Rex (one of the biggest screen in Paris, but also one of the oldest movie theatre here, a great great place for any movie fan - except they often show their films in French version, but hopefully not this time !), facing a huge screen full of helicopters, with Wagner and The Doors screaming in my hears... "The horror... the horror...". What striked me the most is that this film doesn't feel at all like 20 years old... Some of the films of the late 70's look really old today, not this one... This is the kind of ageless film.

So in case you haven't read about this "redux" version, here is what's added (for a total of 53 minutes more... meaning AP now runs for 3 hours and 17 minutes... a long pleasure) :

- Two major scenes are added... one involving the "Playboy" girls, after the show went wrong, Willard (M. Sheen) and his team meet again the girls in a deserted American camp. Willard manages to exchange fuel for 2 hours for his men with the girls. The main advantage of this scene is to give some importance to these women - and more generally to literally add female characters in a movie revolving only around men. It allows also to show than anyone - even the "bunnies" - is affected by this war to the point of losing your mind. The second major scene added comes just after - and just before the arrival to Kurtz camp - and involves a French family living and working there. This is actually a very good scene which allows Coppola to make an historical link with the Vietnam war as the French complain that they also lost a war in Indochine a few years before, trying to convince Willard that the Americans can't win there. This scene involves also a woman who adds more "female ouch" to the film.

- The rest of the bonus is added sequences... the arrival of Kilgore (Duvall) is longer (you see him landing in helicopter first); the surf sequence on the beach is also longer (to the point Willard and his men steal the surf board of Kilgore, meaning they have to hide under trees later on because Kilgore gets angry and look for them); a passage with Clean (a very young Lawrence Fishburne) telling the story of an American killing a South Vietnamese officer and a bit more of Marlon Brando (in daylight !!) reading some news articles on the war to Willard and surrounded by kids...

As Coppola said himself : all this makes the film funnier, sexier and weirder... and it's exactly the feeling I had also... This "redux" version is definitely better than the original, it doesn't betray the spirit of APOCALYPSE NOW, but instead it adds so much to it. It's for me still the best Vietnam film that is not about Vietnam. And it's for me still the best film about the "darkness of human nature". Every time I see it I feel like I went down this river myself... Coppola will probably never do better but he should be glad because few directors will ever achieve to make a masterpiece like this one. Probably the last "insane" movie made in Hollywood...

EURO AICN WEEKLY COLUMN

Edgard here again with our regular column... the Cannes Festival is probably the main attraction right now, so nothing much new... a few news from Denmark, France and Ireland... also two interesting links sent by Robert from Italy... and last but not least Ethan is here again to discuss Renny Harlin with you... he knows he's the minority that loves Harlin's work but he doesn't care about it... so go ahead, make his day and talk back to him !!

DENMARK

* From Screendaily : Exactly one year after Denmark's Zentropa's international arm, announced its collaboration with Fine Line Features of the US on a trio of English-language films, Berlin Silver-Bear winner Lone Scherfig (Italian For Beginners) has signed to direct one of the three, Moments Of Clarity. Budgeted around $8m, Moments Of Clarity is set to go into production in April 2003 on locations in Eastern Europe and US. It will mark Scherfig's English-language debut. The original screenplay was penned by Copenhagen-based Mikael Colville-Andersen, but director Scherfig is expected to co-write the script with fellow Dane, Anders Thomas Jensen. Jensen co-wrote Mifune, The King Is Alive and Beyond among others. The film is a serious love comedy about a suave New Yorker who much to his surprise inherits a castle in Eastern Europe.

"My interest in the project resembles the one I had my 1990 film The Birthday Trip, which took place in Poland. You could call it a microscopic view of the cultural clash between East and West because there's still an enormous difference. And with a New Yorker as the main character the contrasts are even more clearly drawn. The iron curtain is still there today, it's just less visible," Scherfig told Screen International. "However, Moments Of Clarity is more than that: it's a love-story with great characters, humour and is exactly what I have been looking for in the past 6 months."

The other two films in the Zentropa/Fine Line deal are the sci-fi thriller The Last Born from Niels Arden Oplev and an adaptation of Jostein Gaarder's Through A Glass Darkly from Susanne Bier. Other distributors involved as international partners are Instituto Luce and Leo Pescarolo. Zentropa Internationale is headed by Lene Børglum, Ole Søndberg and Lars Sund Duus. Trust Film Sales handle international sales. Scherfig became a hot commodity on the international circuit with her Italian For Beginners, which was snapped up by Miramax Films after being the hit of the Berlin Film Festival. While Moments marks her first film in English, such language barriers are easier to cross than one might think, she says. "I don't believe language to be a problem, as I tried directing Polish actors on The Birthday Trip, and though I would characterize myself as a filmmaker who directs using my ears, I believe I will be able to find actors who can follow me and complement my directing. I've been working with Anders Thomas Jensen on my new film Wilbur, and our collaboration has been so good I would like to continue it on Moments Of Clarity, which I feel has all the right ingredients."

ITALY

Two piece of information sent by Robert...

* We got the trailer of the movie that Leonardo DiCaprio and Tobey Maguire don't want we see. After the trailer, you can understand why. I saw the film in Berlin and this is a typical teenage no budget movie with many talks and no action at all. Leo is out of his mind: he puts his fingers into his nose and then in his mouth, he offers provocatively some money to a girl and suggests her to become a prostitute. More, in one of the first scenes of the pic he touches his private parts and at the end he treats with contempt a girl with whom he was having an affair just a few minutes before. The reason of this behaviour? Maybe because his father committed suicide...

My colleague Loredana Di Domenico, who followed the Salerno Film Festival when the movie was showed, made an interview with the actress who plays the Leo love interest, Jenny Lewis. She told that everyone involved in Don's Plum had to improvise his role. Thus, the DiCaprio show that I described was his own choice and not because he had to follow a script written by other people. She didn't provide new information about the lawsuit among the producers and DiCaprio and Maguire.

You can find the trailer here: Click Here

* A few days ago french director Patrice Chéreau came in Rome to introduce his movie Intimacy (who received the Golden Bear at the Berlin Film Festival). Chéreau was very angry with the censorship board of Italy and England, which banned his film at under-18. Worse, in Utah (where the movie was first showed at Sundance) you've got to be 21 or older to see it. In fact, Intimacy is a very moving and complex movie, with a few sex scenes very explicit. But is also a great love story, with two great actors as Kerry Fox and Mark Rylance. You can see some clip of the movie here: Just Click Right Now

I spoke with Chéreau about his next project about Napoleon. He was contacted by Al Pacino (who, of course, will play the lead role) and he started working with a screenwriter to adapt for the screen. The pic was originally called "Betsy and the Emperor", whereas Chèreau said the producers changed their mind and refused to use this orrible title. The movie will tell the last five years of Napoleon in the isle of St. Helène and it will be very critical towards him. Chéreau told me that he can't understand why people are fascinated with a man who is responsible of millions of deaths. In his idea, this film will look a bit as The Queen Margot. The director is very happy to work with Al Pacino. "He is the one I need", he told me, "because is one of the few american actors who isn't afraid to take risks". "I like when he is excessive, because he will fit the role perfectly". Chéreau is also interested to realize a pic about the France during the WW2, focusing his attention on the Vichy Republic, which collaborated with the Germans. Thus, if Intimacy stirred up a lot of controversy, I'm sure both these projects can make the same.

Bye... Robert

FRANCE

* Also from Screendaily : Having bought just about everything this year, Miramax Films is now out to remake just about everything. The Weinstein powerhouse is negotiating remake rights for 15 Aout (Weekend Break), a three men and some children tale reminiscent of one of the most succesful re-makes ever - Trois Homme Et Un Couffin (otherwise known as Three Men And A Baby). Miramax has also reportedly bought remake rights to two of its recent acquisitions Mercure Distribution - Everybody Famous!, the foreign Oscar nominee from Belgium, and With a Friend Like Harry, which it bought at Cannes last year.

15 Aout, produced, distributed and sold worldwide by Luc Besson's Europa, follows three friends whose wives vanish during a summer week-end. They are left alone to look after a rented house, their chilldren and themselves. The picture is currently enjoying a strong box office in France with over 800,000 tickets sold in its second week. Europa, which Besson created with former Gaumont top executive Pierre-Ange Le Pogam last year, has also passed the two million admissions mark with another title on its debut slate - Yamakasi. The film tells the story of a group of seven suburban youths who have developed special physical skills and end up stealing from the rich to help a young boy who needs a heart transplant

IRELAND

As every week, here're some news from Showbiz Ireland...

- Bono & Friday open Cannes with Moulin Rouge...

The 54th Cannes Film Festival starts this morning and will turn the French resort into an international showcase of film-making talent. The opening movie of this festival, Moulin Rouge has its theme song performed by Irish singer Gavin Friday and his best friend Bono. The film is directed by Baz Luhrmann and is a love story set in the famous Parisian nightclub at the turn of the 20th century.

- Kenneth Branagh portrays Nazi leader in Conspiracy...

The Irish born actor Kenneth Branagh portrays Nazi leader Reinhard Heydrich and Stanley Tucci plays Adolf Eichmann in Conspiracy. The film centres on the 90-minute meeting of the German High Command at which the murder of more than four million Jews was approved. Based on a tape of the meeting, held at Wannsee, outside Berlin, in January 1942, Conspiracy will be seen on cable television in America but the producers hope to release it as a feature film in the rest of the world.

- Brendan Gleeson joins Gigolo Jude Law in A.I. ...

Irish actor Brendan Gleeson will join the English actor Jude Law when he plays a romantic robot named Joe Gigolo in Stephen Spielberg's new film AI, the science-fiction drama Stanley Kubrick was working on when he died.

Full Stories:

http://www.ShowBizIreland.com

ETHAN'S COLUMN

Hollywood has entered the series of remakes and sequels. These projects are usually rehashes of old mainstream fare that loses steam when reinterpreted. Still there are some films that deserve the remake because their spirit should be transferred into something that can be approached by a larger contemporary audience. One of those movies is Robert Aldrich`s EMPEROR OF THE NORTH POLE. This 1973 movie was heavily quoted in great (but very ironic) O, BROTHER WHERE ART THOU last season. I deeply believe that there is room for a straight remake of this one. It is the story of two Depression Era bums that jump trains and travel from town to town searching for scams and places to crash. There are two legends in this world the evil Railroad Man (Ernest Borgnine)who never let a passenger leave the train alive if he traveled without the ticket and Number One bum (Lee Marvin) the man who could beat him. Potential remake can be set as a period piece but it may as well work as a modern story since the original wasn`t basicaly made as a history lesson. It was a movie about toughness, manhood and dignity. The film described the struggle between Old American Spirit and the upcoming concept of corporate suit America that would settle for anything. It was the fable of male bonding and respect. It was the movie made in the era when, at least in cinemas, men were men and sheep were affraid. We need such a movie now. I have great respect for Hollywood`s hottest talents but their movies rely too heavily on hype. Rare examples of potent cinema usually fails on the box-office and studios are becoming a desperately lame place to work at. EMPEROR OF THE NORTH POLE could be a solid box-office hit. It can be set on a train. It can be set on any other moving platform. Still I`d always choose a train since trains hold the key to the essence of cinema. Train machinery inspired such masterpieces as John Ford`s IRON HORSE or even Lumiere Brothers` pioneer efforts. It can be made very expensively. On the other hand it can be made cheap. If you want to choose the high concept get Bruce Willis, Edward Norton and John Travolta to replace Lee Marvin, Keith Carradine and Ernest Borgnine. If you want the cheap movie just get Michael Madsen, Ben Affleck and Harvey Keitel. If you keep the essence of the script any kind of direction would do. With script with such a strong mood like Christopher Knopf`s original even Raja Gosnell could do no wrong. The perfect director would be the one that knows how to treat, shoot and edit elements like male bonding, arch-battles, physical tension, suspense and nail-bitting action. Like it or not but only one name springs to mind. It`s Walter Hill. I confess-I m a rabid Hill fan but still just get over LAST MAN STANDING and think about how he would make a not-too expensive nail-bitting male bonding adventure without any corporate bullshit to distract him. This movie was made by MGM so I suppose it is their property. Hill was close to MGM at thentime of SUPERNOVA. In the meantime they probably had lots of trouble. Yet I hope studio isn`t as personalized as it was during the villainous Irving G. Thalberg reign. And I pray that someone is reading this out there. Faithful remake of EMPEROR OF THE NORTH POLE could as well be something that could truly resurrect MGM. Let me remind you that MGM needs both financial and spiritual resurrection. Financial resurrection may be achieved by stupid high-grossers like HANNIBAL. Yet spiritual resurrection will be achieved when you enter the cinema, see Leo roar and expect something that could match stuff they made before.

Renny Harlin is the great victim in the current state of Hollywood. Eighties are definitely over. Harlin used to be Joel Silver`s protege. Joel Silver sold out and his only redeeming feature is the relationship with Wachowskis and Zemeckis. His other projects are Bartkowiak hip-hop stupidities where brilliant action stars perform in ethnic melodramas. Disgusting. Silver has nothing to offer to Harlin. If he didn`t offer him SWORDFISH which looks like a Shane Black kind of entertainment then it is hard to believe that Harlin and Silver would work together anytime soon. Harlin has no star connections and he has no franchise in his pocket. He can`t blackmail studios. On the other hand studios are enslaved by franchises and hipster fakers like Steven Soderbergh. Films like DIE HARD 2: DIE HARDER, CLIFFHANGER, CUTTHROAT ISLAND or THE LONG KISS GOODNIGHT can`t be made in current studio climate. Yet Harlin does pretty expensive stuff. He`s been in the 60 million $ game for too long and he can`t back up easily. So he turns to Elie Samaha and does DRIVEN. I think that Elie Samaha`s productions have no studio input. This is great because studios usually dumb up movies. Sometimes studio interferrence brings some fruit too. For example, if DRIVEN was a studio picture it would`ve had a much better script. DRIVEN is a movie made without a script. It is the movie made out Sly`s emotion. I guess that only writing on the set was Sly`s diary where he rambled about car-races, emotions, friensdship, love, ex-girlfriends,... Harlin managed to make a movie out of this. We must congratulate him on it because I`ve never seen a reasonable movie made out of sheer Sly emotion. And believe it or not but DRIVEN never bored me. Scenes with no races surely made me laugh but when Harlin turned on the engines it was great fun. Anyway, sporadically fun projects aren`t something Renny should do. He must make action masterpieces. God destined him to that. Projects like DRIVEN may destroy Harlin because I think that he fell victim to Sly`s and Elie`s very own private ulterior motives. The ulterior motive beneath this one is Sly`s wish to visit Formula One races and have fun with groupies. And he made a movie out of that. I would do the same if I were Sly. But I`m not. I`m a geek and I worry about Harlin`s future.

When I saw DRIVEN, the Ayrton Sena biopic springed to mind. I`d like to make it. I`d cast Eduardo Noriega as Sena. It would be a thriller about his mysterious car crash. Monica Bellucci would star as his sweetheart. Plot would be factual and sickly conspirative. Of course there is a question of whether should anyone treat Sena`s death like movie subject. I guess Sena is the pop-icon like Elvis. Thus we have every right to believe he had a larger than life destiny.

God bless, Ethan

That's it for this week... if you're in Cannes or if you have just some info to pass, send it to the Euro AICN offices in Paris at euroaicn@yahoo.com