Father Geek here with a great Euro report for this week... I saw "800 Balas" at the Sitges Film Fest in Spain a few weeks ago... TWICE... in Spanish, with NO English subtitles. Its that good! The camera work, the expressions, the emotions, the music, the action, the acting are sooooo good that I didn't need the words... didn't miss them at all. Harry and I agreed... it was the best film we saw there! Fun-fuckin-tastic!!! I can't wait to see it again... and again... and again. Now here's Robert in Rome...

Hi people. Even if the italian critics dismissed it, Pinocchio keeps on grossing a lot of money in my country (25 millions euros in the third week of release). It seems that the world of mouth is... it's not so bad as I expected...

Anyway, if you want to begin to have an opinion about it, let's take a look at these two clips and the italian trailer.The clips are very interesting. The first one sees Pinocchio coming back in the Blue Fairy's house in chains and trying to find an excuse with the Blue Fairy, telling that he was at school, that he learnt the alphabet and that he was successfully examined by his teacher (of course, he's lying and his nose starts growing up). The second one sees Pinocchio meeting for the first time the Cat and the Fox. They are laughing at him when he tells them he's rich now. But when they get he's not joking, they follow him and introduce themselves. In both these clips, you can admire the incredible work done by the late production designer Danilo Donati and you can also hear Benigni's voice, quite different than his usual one. You can find everything here: Just Click Now

Then, let's start with the usual column. Our great Ethan has two reviews for us (Dagon and Jean-Claude Van Damme latest flick Derailed), our new spy from Spain describes us the latest effort by Alex de la Iglesia and then there's a strange french movie called Animaliers. Enjoy...

Two Towers Ad

Naquercio, a reader of our site sent me a very cool ad for the Canon printers with the main characters from TTT.

You can see it by clicking here: The Cooooooooolness is Right Here Waiting For You

Then, click to the small pic at the right of the page under the line "La pubblicità della Canon" and you'll see a larger version of the ad. The sentence of the ad tells: "Lord of the Rings - The Two Towers. Included in the confection of the Canon S200x, i320 and MPC400 you'll find the Lord of the Rings Activity Studio"

News from Screendaily

Screendaily has this very useful page (http://www.screendaily.com/story.asp?storyid=9973) with the official candidates for the Best Foreign movie at the Oscars 2003. There are already the contenders, among others, from France (8 Women - François Ozon), Belgium (The Son - Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne), Russia (House Of Fools - Andrei Konchalovsky) and Sweden (Lilja 4-ever - Lukas Moodysson), movies that were very well received in the latest editions of Berlin, Cannes and Venice Film Festivals. Of course, many countries didn't select their contenders yet...

Red Dragon scares up international box office revenues

UIP's Red Dragon launched in 10 new territories over the weekend taking $7.1m - towards its total weekend gross of $8.9m from its current 17 markets. More info here

Two more Fox projects to be backed by German fund

20th Century Fox's thriller The Clearing and the family comedy Catch That Girl have been added to the projects to be financed by Ideenkapital's Mediastream III fund, due to investor demand. Click to learn more

Sander has news about a mysterious french movie. Do you know something about it?

Hi Robert,

Love AICN, love your Europe-posts, etc. etc. Now cut to the business:

I'm currently backpacking through South East Asia and now I'm in Cambodia. Visited Angkor today, the place where they partially shot Tomb Raider. There was a film crew preparing a shoot today, for a film to be shot there on 29, 30 and 31 October and November 1st. It's called - as far as I could find out - "Animaliers", a French film, produced by Pathé. Since it was mostly Cambodian workers and some French-speaking guys working there, dressing up the temple (Preah Khan for the people who know and care), I couldn't find out much of it. IMDb doesn't list this film, but - once again - I'm not sure this is the title, but it was printed on a sheet in one of the trucks I peeked in ("Pathé Films - ANIMALIERS")

Hope you can do something with it and if not - take care,

Sander

"I was a teenage filmaker" loved 800 Balas, the new movie by the crazy spanish director Alex De La Iglesia...

Torn between the decission of choosing between "Los Lunes al Sol", "Insomnia" and "800 Balas", I finally decided to check the de la Iglesia's new film first, and let me said that it is something I'll never regret.

First, because they played the trailer of my most anticipated film of 2003... No, it's not Return of the King, The Matrix (Reloaded or Revolution), X-Men 2, The Hulk, Daredevil or whatever you may think Hollywood has to offer. I'm talking about Javier Fesser's "La Gran Aventura de Mortadelo y Filemón". An awesome trailer in a born-to-be blockbuster in Spain. But I have to wait till February...

And second because Alex de la Iglesia - that fat man than can rival Guillermo del Toro and Harry Knowles in weight - has done it once more! Here I go:

800 Balas (800 Bullets) **** 1/2

by Alex de la Iglesia with Sancho Gracia, Angel de Andrés López, Carmen Maura, Eusebio Poncela and Luis Castro.

OK, people. Here's the "Scream" of the Western genre. Only it is not set in America, but in the fake America in Spain where masterpieces as Lawrence of Arabia and The Good, The Bad and The Ugly were shot. And it is not set in the XIXth Century but in 2.002. And everything is fake, the mirage of times already past.

Alex de la Iglesia's career is truly awesome. His first short, "Mirindas Asesinas" (*****) was hailed by many critics as the BEST spanish short film EVER. Then Pedro Almodóvar himself financed de la Iglesia's film debut, "Acción Mutante" (*** 1/2), a science-fiction terrorist comedy that open new possibilities for spanish film industry. Then he changed his producer to "Belle Epoque" producer Andrés Vicente Gómez, who financed his later films: the legendary "Day of the Beast" (*****), "Perdita Durango" (*****) - the movie that de la Iglesia choose to make instead of "Alien Resurrection" - "Muertos de Risa" (**** 1/2) and "La Comunidad" (**** 1/2). A truly awesome career, in my opinion. His trademark wild and surreal humor, grotesque violence and the social subtext of almost all of his movies makes him one of the most extraordinary and unique "auteurs" worldwide.

No wonder that besides "Talk to Her", the most anticipated film in Spain of 2002 was "800 Balas". Did he - once more - deliver the goods? Yes. A big YES.

The plot: Carlos (Luis Castro) the nasty 11 years old - more or less - son of Laura (Carmen Maura) an executive of a construction company discovers - thanks to his dead father's mother (the great Terele Pávez) that his grandfather is alive and escapes from home to find him in Almería's Hollywood. The situation when he arrives is not good. The Western Hollywood stunt attraction is all that survives from the golden past that that land saw in the 60's, the land where Clint Eastwood, David Lean and George C. Scott made great movies (spaghetti westerns, Lawrence of Arabia and Patton: yes, they were shot in Spain!). A land where the last important shooting was Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade - and so it's kept a photograph of both Spielberg and Lucas at the entrance of the theme park.

Carlos' grandfather, Julián (Sancho Gracia) is the shadow of the man he once was. He plays his usual stunt unconvincingly along with his fellows, including Cheyenne (Angel de Andrés López) with whom he fights at the saloon entrance in a very bad western style. When Julián learns that Carlos is his grandson, guilt resurrects as he's partially to blame of his son's death when playing a stunt many years ago. But things can only get worse when Laura finally finds where is her son.

And I will stop here. I don't want to spoil the fun for you. And yes, I know that this is set for drama, not for comedy. How the situation develops is outstanding. Meet the people of the "theme park". Meet their families. Meet the muslim immigrants. Meet the whores. Meet the Guardia Civil. Meet the Police. Bring 800 bullets, and alcohol, and drugs, and The Pogues' "Fiesta". And you have another de la Iglesia's wild ride to the darkest spanish spirit.

Making sutile references to a lot of westerns and taking even a couple of shots from "Seven Samurai" - which we can admit is some kind of western - de la Iglesia's direction is bizarre, daring, grotesque, strong, and ultimately, unique. And the same can be said of the cast and their performances. Sancho Gracia and Angel de Andrés López are simply awesome in their roles. Some of you may remember Angel de Andrés López from Almodóvar's "What have I done to deserve this?" and "Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown" (althought his part in this one was very small, as a cop)... but both are two of the most underrated spanish actors. In exchange, Carmen Maura is one of the most known spanish actresses - and one of the best - and it may surprise many that her part is not the starring one... The whole supporting cast is great, and even the kid, Luis Castro, who has a very funny sex initiation sequence with a whore (R rating for sure in the USA!) is really funny (when the movie ! starts, he is playing alone disguised as an islamic terrorist!). Add to this Roque Baños homage to classic western music at the score, a great cinematography and art direction, stunts, and a nostalgic feeling mixed with a riot and you have one of the best spanish movies of the year, althought some - lesser - pacing problems prevent me of giving the "Masterpiece" rating.

So, an advice: go rent "Day of the Beast" and "Perdita Durango" (Dance with the Devil). If you love or simply like these movies, you'll enjoy "800 Balas"... if you hate them, go check something else.

So, that's all for now!

I was a teenage filmmaker.

Last but not least, our beloved movie critic from Serbia, Ethan...

DERAILED

DERAILED is the latest Jean-Claude Van Damme flick which hit pretty hard on the direct-to-video market. It was produced by Avi lerner, the guy behind Nu Image and Nu Millennium labels. This is the guy who produced the greatest Van Damme flick EVER REPLICANT by Ringo Lam which was overlooked and underestimated even by the self-pronounced admirers of Hong Kong cinema like Harry Knowles and the rest.

Lerner is one of the coolest producers around. He did UNDISPUTED this season and he is up to different cool projects next year including Ringo Lam`s next THE MONK. He is obviously into exploitation and into serious arthouse so it`s a pity that no one supports him. I guess guys like Harry need Tarantino to point them to some cool titles.

DERAILED is not the cool title. I even wonder if I could recommend it. But heck, it delivers a cool Van Damme performance whose acting was never something to look up to. Well, now the guy is doing drugs or some other shit so he looks hardboiled and he rarely smiles. But even if you don`t trust me, you`ll have Laura Herring who was part of David Lynch`s arty whoredom MULHOLLAND DRIVE. Now, that`s something we can count on.

The film was shot in Bulgaria which is fine with me since BLADE 2 and XXX were shot at Prague and were heavily underbudgeted. Well, this one is extremely underbudgeted and script lacks the focus to pull it all the way so the film goes into by-the-numbers slam bang early on and slam bang can`t be done when you`re stranded with no money in Bulgaria, right?

Bob Misiorowski is the guy who did SPANISH ROSE, a pretty sleazy slice of B-extravaganza with Michael Pare and Michael Ironside made in 1993. But in this one, he does a decent job considering the obligatory cliches, budgetary concerns and the cast involved. He does a lot of De Palma on this one with a couple of suave moves when Van Damme tracks the girl or when he does a fight in split screen!

This is not the best movie Avi Lerner produced. But how can you see the great ones like UNDISPUTED and REPLICANT unless you see them all. Only for Van Damme completists and those seeking a second hand hard on with Herring around.

DAGON

DAGON is one of the greatest horror movies ever made and certainly the greatest adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft`s literature. See, Lovecraft is one of the toughest writers to crack because his obssessions are so dark and vivid that the cinematic horror overcomes the basic suspense and becomes a surreal nightmare. This is why deadpan adaptation by Corman and Curtis Hanson didn`t cut it with DUNWICH HORROR and Stuart Gordon`s RE-ANIMATOR worked on another level which had nothing to do with Lovecraft`s original concept. Stuart Gordon is very near to solving the case in DAGON. Even though this isn`t actually the film Lovecraft would authorize, it`s pretty damn close. The story of two contemporary civilans meeting the strange breed of marine god worshippers is done with unmatched energy. This film grips you and never lets go. It even never misses to be spot-on when it comes to measuring the number of accents and inteludes. The main thing about this film is Gordon`s direction. He perfectly controls the style of this film. It sure does get funny at times but it ain`t because of attempted humour. To the contrary, it gets funny because it is to scary to actually scare you. It makes you look for the bright side, as if when you get into trouble and try to be optimistic. The acting is top-notch. The main role was obviously tailor made for Jeffrey Combs but he is too old now and Ezra Gooden made it as good as Combs would. The whole point with this cast of mostly unknowns is that these characters are not presented by performers. You don`t get distracted by all the movies you detect when you see actor`s face. You don`t get distracted by their virtousity. It`s just that acting is so good that DAGON feels like a stylish documentary. Brilliant. Gordon`s framing is perfect and he not only gets the most out of the moderate budget but he also manages to make this budget look perfectly fitting. Because the more expensive movie would be studio controled and cut. This one can be released on whatever format and still make enough money to repay itself. This is why Spanish labels Filmax and Fantastic Factory pretty much rule my world.

God bless, Ethan

That's all for today See you next week

rob.bernocchi@caltanet.it

http://www.caltanet.it/2003/index.php?id_arg=2003&desc=CINEMA