Hi there... Father Geek here, bringing you the Euro-AICN column with Edgard, Grozilla, Cafeman, and the rest of our Euro-crew... annnnnnnd yes... there IS non-Cannes Euro news, not alot, but there is some and Edgard lays it all out for you to see below along with Grozilla's wrap-up of The Cannes Film Festival... Enjoy!

EURO AICN

Hi folks... Edgard here, back from a little trip up North where I had the chance to meet my better half (and work too... less fun)... Sorry for the delay but the post-Cannes activity is slowing down everything...

Not much news in your menu this time... more reviews and reports... First is Grozilla closing his Cannes adventures by some comments on the results and AVALON (and I take again the opportunity to thank Grozilla, Solamen, and all the other who contributed to the Cannes reports); then some news from Ireland, Denmark and France (check the AMELIE IN MONTMARTRE soundtrack... great stuff); and we finish with two reviews : the first look of a non-French on BROTHERHOOD OF THE WOLVES and also a European review of FREDDY GOT FINGERED...

So here it is... and enjoy

FESTIVAL DE CANNES -

GROZILLA'S LAST REPORT

So Cannes is over for this year. It wasn't difficult to decipher the speech Liv Ullman, president of the jury, gave before giving the awards. Saying that the jurors didn't get along to deliberate seems to be an understatment. Anyway you'll find below the results. No big surprise, except the prize given to Benoît Magimel, whose part is kind of short in The Piano Teacher and , even if he acts it very well, other actors were far greater in other films, like Billy Bob Thornton in The Man Who Wasn't There or as I 've been told by most of the journalists here, Michel Piccoli in Manoel de Oliveira's Coming Home. Three awards for Michael Haneke's film... Looks like kind of diplomatic way. Here's my opinion : most of the jurors wanted to give the golden palm to The Piano Teacher (which is not a so great film but one of the few seen here which was daring, which stayed in mind days after its screening) but make a politic choice by giving it to Moretti's movie. Not only because Morreti came for the fourth time in competition and would surely have erupted with anger in the press if he didn't get the supreme award, but also because last year, most of the press argued with the festival scheduler to reject any Italian entry and also maybe to protest by this prize, against the latest election of Silvio Berlusconi as Italian prime minister. Berlusconi is the symbol of lousy culture and trash tv over there. Now he rules the country, he will surely extend it and makes Italian political culture one of the poorest in world. So even if I found The Son's Room, one of the borest films seen, I guess this is a not so bad choice.

I just hoped that Late Marriage, a very dark Israelian comedy won the Camera d'or. This first film about an organized wedding for a thirtysomething Israelian guy is very smart. Begin as a truly funny comedy before going in more dark territories, and being very provocative against the rules of this conservative culture. Seeing unfaithful man, full frontal nudity and even some crude sex scene is very unorthodox for this country's cinema. Even more to see some film that dares going against the sacred values of family. Late Mariage is in fact a political film disguised in a comedy. I'm very interested to get the reaction when it'll be released in its homeland.

Let's finish those cannes reports with Avalon, the very expected Mamoru Oshii's film. French press reject it strongly, saying this story of virtual reality was childish. Curious, all those people who told me they are huge fans of Matrix, which is to me what they thought of Avalon. I can't say this was the masterpiece I expected, true, it's sometimes confusing, but Avalon has very deep meaning in its purpose on this new religion that virtuality is. In fact it's kind of intellectual Matrix or more a Videodrome to the use of the videogame generation. As many of recent japanese films and series (Ring, Kairo, lain, serial experiments), Avalon asks about the future of the relationship between man and media, and gets the same kind of warning as David Cronenberg's film has twenty years ago. True this reflection is sometimes here clumsy but always enthralling.

Now the Riviera can go to its slow pace living that grabs him all year until next year's festival. And guess what will do festivalgoers until then ? Just thinking about what films they'll see here in may 2002. I've already heard some last night betting that The Tulse Luper case, the next Peter Greenaway and the second film of The Lord of the Things could open and close this next edition...

Golden palm "Son's Room" de Nanni Moretti

Jury's Grand prize The Piano Teacher" de Michael Haneke (Austria)

Best actress Isabelle Huppert in "The piano teacher"

Best actor Benoît Magimel in "The piano teacher"

Best directing Joel Coen "The Man Who Wasn't There" and David Lynch "Mulholland Drive"

Best script No Man's Land" de Danis Tanovic

Caméra d'or (best first film) "Atanarjuat,the fast runner" de Zacharias Kunuk

Technical prize Tuu Duu-Chih, sound engineer for"Millenium Mambo" and "What time is it there ?"

Golden parm for short films "Bean Cake" David Greenspan

Special Prize "Daddy's Girl" Irvine Allan

Jury's prize "Pizza Passionata" de Kari Juusonen (Finland)

IRELAND

Two news brought to you by Showbiz Ireland

* The Dublin actor and star of A Love Divided, Liam Cunningham has just landed his first big Hollywood role and is now set to follow in the footsteps of his two best friends Gabriel Byrne and Brendan Gleeson. Speaking to ShowBizIreland.com exclusively last night Liam said filming was due to start in Thailand over the next two weeks. "I'm flying to Thailand to the place where The Beach was filmed to star in the lead role in a new version of the Swiss Family Robinson in which I play Mr Robinson. We start filming at the end of May for four months and it's being filmed by the director Charles Beeson. So, I got to drag my three kids and wife Colette to Thailand for all that time. It's hard this actors life."

* The Irish actor Stewart Townsend has left the epic The Lord of the Rings which was set ot be the biggest film of his career so far. He has described his short involvement with LOTR as "a nasty experience." Townsend, who stars with Kate Hudson in the romantic comedy About Adam, landed the role of Aragorn, the rightful king of Middle Earth in the trilogy, which is filming in New Zealand. But after only a few days he was replaced by actor Viggo Mortensen because of what the film studio New Line called "creative differences" between Townsend and the director, Peter Jackson. "It's a long story," Dublin-born Townsend tells the Los Angeles Times. "Like any experience, good or bad, it was a lesson. Although you may not have a map through life, there is a plan somewhere. As you get older you learn to let things go." Townsend has just finished filming his role as the Vampire Lestat in Anne Rice's The Queen of the Damned and will next co-star with Charlize Theron and Courtney Love in the thriller 24 Hours.

Full stories : http://www.ShowBizIreland.com

FRANCE

* E.T here, I've posted on my site (www.notrecinema.fr.fm) some really cool pictures from Jason X, the promotionnel poster of Ghost Rider

PLUS You can find on the FNAC Stores web site (a kind of Virgin Megastore) pieces of the beautiful score from "Le Fabuleux Destin D'Amelie Poulain", known in the US as AMELIE FROM MONTMARTRE !!!! Just Click Here

DENMARK

* From Screendaily : Germany’s Concorde has joined Studiocanal and USA Films in backing the 3-6 picture Zentropa Zhillers slate from Denmark's Zentropa. Produced by the company's international arm, Zentropa Internationale, the films are budgeted around $5m. The first, Saying Goodbye To Mr Welcome, is set to shoot in Oct on location in Scotland and Denmark. Based on an original script by Scottish recluse Brendan Somers, it tells the story of the disappearance of a small girl in a run down seaside town. Upcoming Zhillers scripts include Sweden’s Elisabeth Gilek’s Unburied and UK’s Michael Baker’s Double Vision, and the producers hope to attract new talent as directors and scriptwriters. "We are not going to make teenage slashers like the I Know What-films, but aim at a more adult audience with dramahorror in the style of Sixth Sense," says Lars Sund Duus, creative producer at Zentropa Internationale. "We have no intention of doing special effects driven films. Our films will have parapsychological and supernatural elements, but the drama and the characters are the most important, because Zhillers are as much human tales as they are haunted tales." Zentropa Internationale, headed by Lene Borglum, Ole Søndberg and Lars Sund Duus, began operating in Jan last year, as a division for developing, financing and producing international features. The films will be handled internationally by Trust Film Sales.

REVIEWS

The Brotherhood of the Wolf (Le Pacte des loups)

By Cafeman

**** (out of 5 *)

Written by Stephane Cabel and Christophe Gans; Directed by Christophe Gans

As I was sitting in the theatre watching the movie, I tried and tried my damnedest to find the art in the sequence of events that took place. I failed, time after time. After hearing people sing praises about this movie, three words roamed around my mind: Big Fuckin` Deal. What I didn`t know is that Gans masterfully did the following: he presented to us the historical facts about the story, the characters and the relationships which took an hour and then some, then, he said, OK, so far we did history, now we`re doing speculation and art and he proceeded to unravel his vision of the events adding more and more layers to the story we already saw and thought meant nothing, leaving us speechless. He made a great period drama in the first hour and made a mystical art piece in the next hour. Brilliant way of setting things up.

In 18th century France, "La Bête", "The Beast" appeared and started killing people. Since there were no connections between the murders, no apparent reason for killing those people and because of the teeth and claw marks, they concluded it was some kind of a wolf and, naturally, a personification of The Devil. Sent to examine the Beast post-mortem (even though it had yet to be caught) was Grégoire de Fronsac, a naturalist and mainly a botanist at that (how`s that for a hero?) along with his blood brother, Mani. Mani is a Native American, or Indian, if you will, that Grégoire brought with him from America. Among the more notable other characters, we have the diabolical, one-armed hunter fresh out of Africa, Jean-François de Morangias and his sister, Marianne, Gregoire`s love interest as well as their host`s son, Thomas and an expensive Italian prostitute named Sylvia.

Since the last passage sums up the first hour of the movie, I`ll concentrate on the second part that brings meaning to this whole story. In case you haven`t seen the movie, you might not want to read this part, as I`m going to go into analyzing the movie a little bit and that means including major spoilers. By far the most interesting thing about this movie is the character of Mani, played to perfection by the action movie star Marc Dacascos in the role of his life. He plays the silent, wise Indian that is looked down on by the nobles because of his race. "A savage, a wild man" A wild man is the only person able to kill a wild beast. The whole movie has a lot of biblical references, with Mani as the Christ figure. He`s not Christian, and neither was Christ. He doesn`t talk much, but when he does, he speaks wisely. Another biblical reference is the motif of a prostitute in service of God, which brings Mary Magdalene to mind. Other similarities are those to Conrad`s "Heart Of Darkness" and Golding`s "Lord Of The Rings" concerning the painted face as a mean of throwing away the civilization`s rules and boundaries and becoming the primal hunter, reverting back to the basic human, in touch with nature and himself. As I said, it takes a wild man to kill a wild beast.

The cast effort is terrific. Seeing as there were many young actors involved, they wrestled the task incredibly well and also the already proven actors, such as Cassel and Bellucci, lived up to the expectations. In case you`re having doubts after the first hour of the movie, just stick around and I doubt you`ll be disappointed, except if you were looking for a medieval French version of Matrix or Hong Kong movies, which the trailer might lead you to believe. The cinematography is great...it`s just an all-round great movie.

Freddy Got Fingered

By Cafeman

***** (out of 5 *)

Written by Tom Green and Derek Harvie; Directed by Tom Green

A long time ago, two guys in Spain got together and made a short movie that most people didn`t understand and therefore hated. One of them was later quoted as saying that he had to fill his pockets with rocks in order to protect himself from those that wanted to harm him for making this movie. That movie was "Un Chien Andalou" or in English, "Andalusian Dog" and those two guys in Spain were Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali, fathers of surrealism. Though comparing Tom Green with those two might be preposterous, it is not beyond the realm of comparison. Tom Green should thank God for the development of civil rights, or I imagine hw would be walking around with his pockets full of rocks right now.

Surrealism is back, with a bullet. I`ve been a fan of Tom Green ever since I laid my eyes on the show. No, actually I haven`t. At first, I only watched it just to see how many stupid things he`d do. And then I just kept watching and I haven`t been disappointed since. Then came that episode with Monica Lewinski and I saw the genius that Tom Green is. When I heard a movie was in the process of making and that Green got creative freedom over it, saying I was overjoyed would be an understatement.

Gord Brody is an animator. Well, not quite. He does draw cartoons and his drawings are great, but everyone thinks they`re stupid. They`re funny to him, but not to anyone else. He refuses to get a normal job and leave his parents`s home, even though he`s 28. So far, this is pretty much Green`s autobiography. He lives with his middle class family, his Dad thinks he needs a "real" job, not drawing, his Mom is an emotionally battered woman, soft-speaking and always nice and the last member of the family is the Freddy of the title, his younger brother.

What this movie does is, it shows how Gord is so much happier in his life with himself and what he likes doing and how pathetic people that do what they must and never dare dream are. Freddy works in a bank and he always comes to his parents`s house for breakfast. This is an excerpt that speaks better about what this movie`s about than a million reviews:

FREDDY : You`re older than me and you still live at home. I have a job, you know. I pay my own way.

GORD : You work in a bank. Am I supposed to be dazzled?

FREDDY : Well, at least I don`t live at home.

GORD : Yeah, you live in a tiny little shithole and you can`t afford breakfast so you come here and eat it for free.

FREDDY : Yeah, whatever. Listen, I`m off to work now. Me and dad have jobs, we`re doing something with our lives. It`s time for you to grow up.

How many times have all of us artistic types heard this speech? "Get a real job" "Go to a real school" "Movies? Can`t you go to a law school or a med school or something?" This is a big "Fuck You" to people that think small. Pursue your dreams. If Tom Green can make a movie and jack off both a horse and an elephant and earn millions of dollars doing that, why couldn`t you?

On another note, even if this movie didn`t have social messages, it also does a great job of making fun of tired movie clichés. Gord skates his way through the mall, jumping over people, doing tricks, not stopping for anything on his way...until the door. He slams into the door, stops and opens it. In most movies, the door will open for him somehow. We see a diagram of Gord`s trip from Oregon to LA, a map of a sort. Did we need to see that? No, we didn`t, but we keep seeing it in movies, most recently in "Joe Dirt".

Whichever way you might feel about this movie or Tom Green, I doubt you`ll ever get to see a movie quite like this one. Movies like these give me hope that American auteur movie isn`t dead and that someone still can make a controversial movie in a big studio. This movie is bound to disgust many, but nothing is exactly what it seems. It`s just there to present the character of Gord, which is the same as the character of Tom Green .You can`t make a movie about an insane guy without having the insane guy be truly insane.

If you wish to read more reviews from Cafeman, get to his website at cineserb.8k.com

Well that's it for this week... Cannes is over now, Summer can arrive quietly... it's blockbuster time all over the world, but if you have any review or news to share with us, send it to the Euro AICN offices in Paris at This Address and we'll post it up.