OK, here is the fifth of our Euro-AICN Columns straight from Paris, France, and ol' Father Geek and AICN Headquarters feel our boys on the continent have been doing a Hell of a job not only on the weekly column, but with all those special reports they've filed in between. Make sure to help them out by sending them all your Euro-scoops, press-pacs, screening passes, etc...
Greetings people. Yes! you guessed it; it's time once again for your weekly dose of news from Euro-la-la-land, straight from EuroAICN HQ in Paris, France, it's..
EuroAICN #5
By Edgard and Darth Bond
YUGOSLAVIA
YUGOSLAVIA
To kick off this weeks report here is Dima who brought us this interesting report from Yugoslavia :
Let me tell you first about how we cover movies in Yugoslavia. We have cinemas and current slate includes `American Beauty`, `The World is Not Enough` and `Talented Mr. Ripley`. Not much of a slate but we also have bootleg videos that bring us new US releases ten days after their US theatrical premiere. That's why we're so up to date. The next big event will be the theatrical release of `The Matrix` on the 13th of April. I hope that `The Matrix` will do well although even I have my own private bootleg copy at home. I am a fan so I`ll see it a couple of times in cinema anyway.
The latest domestic release is the movie named `Sky Hook` (on www.imdb.com it is listed as `Nebeska Udica`).It is a family melodrama set against the recent NATO bombings of my fatherland. Authors use basketball as catharsis for the characters. Their concept of the beautiful game is related to Yugoslav national fondness of basketball. First of all I must say that the understanding of the game is much better than in Spike Lee's `He Got Game` and melodramatic elements are quite consequential. The movie features the roles of Yugoslav most competent actors. I would emphasise Ana Sofrenovic who did a great job. You can also see her in Van Damme`s worst movie `Legionnaire`. Let's just hope she gets a better opportunity the next time she gets to star in American movies. `Sky Hook` participated in this year's Berlin Film Festival. The reception of the movie in Yugoslavia was ambivalent. It got both rave reviews and extremely bad ones. Most of the reviews were heavily influenced by political reasons because the wounds made by the bombings are still fresh. I guess people abroad will like this movie a lot.
The most anticipated movie of this year is `TT Sindrom` a slasher horror pic made by the great hope of Yugoslav cinema-young director Dejan Zecevic. I've read the script but since it has twists and elements of `whodunit` I won't tell you a thing. I`ll just say it is going to be fun and I`ll tell you that I hope that the movie will be seen abroad because it will bring you the horror directly from the country which is well-known for atrocities, mass murders and all kinds of brutality. The movie named `Dorcol-Menhetn` is also very much anticipated. You can check the full profile of this movie on www.imdb.com .It is a very funny comedy which is primarily made for the audience of sophomores and people who are older than that. It can be best described as The Farrelly's meet Woody Allen. The movie tells funny stories of two couples who find their salvation from the unpleasantness of the NATO bombings through sex. The word Menhetn in the name of the movie is the Serbian transcription of the word Manhattan. The movie has this name because one couple lives in the part of Belgrade named Dorcol while the other couple lives on Manhattan. The release date is not yet set but the preview screening I attended seems promising. That`s all for the first report from Yugoslavia.
God bless!
Dima
FRANCE
-Mister W gave us more info on the French VIDOCQ movie which will be shot from May. If you don't remember this will star Gérard Depardieu and Guillaume Canet (The Beach) and will be directed by French SFX master Pitof. Most important this should be the first movie (before Star Wars 2) to be made with a digital camera. If you want to know more and see the first poster, go to HERE.
-Festival de Cannes news : Philippe Noiret will receive the Festival Award. Noiret is one the best and most famous French actor. He played also in Italian movies like CINEMA PARADISIO or more recently IL POSTINO. If you want to know more about the Cannes Festival, check the daily updates on their site.
UK
-This is old news for most you but still is important to repeat in this Euro column : AMERICAN BEAUTY director Sam Mendes is going back to London to direct a theatre play in the Donmar Warehouse. After working with Nicole Kidman on "The Blue Room", he would like to convince her to play in his adaptation of Shakespeare's "Kings Night". Dreamworks will financially contribute to the development of his theatre.
GERMANY
-Wim Wenders received three nominations for the German Film Awards (over 7 categories): best film and best director for THE MILLION DOLLAR HOTEL, best documentary for BUENA VISTA SOCIAL CLUB.
-Macedonian director Milcho Manchevski (BEFORE THE RAIN, Golden Lion in Venice in 1995) started two weeks ago in New York his second movie : DUST, with Joseph Fiennes (Shakespeare in Love), David Wenham (Dark City), Adrian Lester (Primary Colors) and Anne Brochet (Cyrano de Bergerac). Shooting will go from New-York to Macedonia, with a stop in Munich's studios.
Scythe here with some info from the land where David Hasselhoff is able to sell CD's and where the information this week was short..
-Kati Witt seems to have passed on "The Hollywood Sign", the first american movie by German director Soenke Wortmann. It looks like her schedule is too full to take the part of the drug-dealer. No idea who will be the replacement.
-I recently catched a screening of "Harte Jungs" (Hard Boys), a movie I told you about some weeks ago. I was very uncertain what to think of it until I saw it. You can say that this one of those movies where it doesn't really matter if you've seen them or not. The movie tells the story of Florian, a 15-year old boy who wakes up one morning and finds out that his penis is talking to him. Suddenly he sees naked girls everywhere and starts to feel strange. Everytime he sees a hot young girl his penis makes a remark. As he doesn't know how do live with that situation he talks to his parents, who give him very little advise because they're even too shy to call his dong "penis", his sport-teacher, who thinks that he's homosexual, and to his best friend Red Bull, named after a famous drink. Red Bull gives him several advises who are all a little bit embarassing, e.g. they watch his neighbours through binoculars, he takes him to a prostitute, he explains to him how bra's are opened etc. Needless to say that in the end everything is going to be alright. Florian grabs the right girl, his nemesis shits his pants and Red Bull talks to his penis, too. This film is not very noteworthy except for some scenes which surely are worth the money. There's a scene where Florian fights his nemesis Kai with a large dildo. Kai also grabs a dildo and they turn their things on. They start to glow an engage in a saberfight just like "Star Wars". Terrific! At the end of the movie the boys and some girls are on stage, playing "Romeo & Juliet". There are several good ideas in there. One is where Kai, the asshole of the movie, has eaten some chocolade that the boys prepared before. When Kai tries to bring his monologue he starts to fart and shits his pants. The audience in the movie laughs and Kai goes off. (You have to see this scene. It sounds stupid but it's actually quite funny.) So, that's my review for those who are interested.
-"Nick Knatterton", the famous comic-book character, will be back on the big screen in January 2001. Filming wrapped at the end of 1999 and post-production is underway. Nick Knatterton, the man with the remarkeble trousers and his standard phrase "Kombiniere" is played by Jens Schaefer, who resembles the character quite a bit. This action-comedy-fantasy movie is one of the most expensive movies made in Germany, which doesn't mean a lot these days. This movie and the new Otto movie each cost about 17 Million German Marks (about $8,5 Million). And from what I've heard about the script this movie will suck a lot, at least to everyone who knows the original. It deals with Knattertons arch-nemesis Virginia Peng, who plans to rob all of Germany's gold reserves so that she can make a serum that will give her eternal youth.
-"Wolkenstein", a story about the knight Oswald von Wolkenstein, is scripted by Johannes Betz, one of the authors of "Nichts als die Wahrheit" (After The Truth). The story follows the knight as he makes a deal with the devil so that his beloved king is rescued from his enemies.
-"Dark Blue World" is the new project of the "Kolya"-makers Zdenek and Jan Sverak. They won an Oscar for "Kolya" a several years ago. It a story about two pilots that escape from the Nazis in Czechoslovakia during 2nd World War. They join the Britisch Air force and fall in love with the same woman. (Is it me or does it sound like "Pearl Harbour"?!) It will hit theatres in early 2001.
-"Rainer Zufall" ("Pure Chance" would be the translation, but it's also a wordplay with a name) is a movie about a woman named Eve who bumps into a guy who calls himself "Rainer Zufall". Eve gets more and more interested in him as he tells her, that he has been the fifth Beatle and stood in the balcony with JFK when he visited Berlin. As "Rainer Zufall" tells her about his life it seems that he has been on every interesting location in the history of Germany. Filming will start this year. [sounds like a Forrest Gump rip-off to me -DB]
-As I've written before Annaud and his crew will begin shooting in Cottbus next weekt on "Enemy At The Gates". Sources tell me that there is a complete open cast mining facility that has been flooded for the scenes on water. Several ships were flown in, too. (This movie will rock! Annaud is great as is the story.)
-"Der tote Taucher im Wald" (The Dead Diver in the woods) is a movie about a man who discovers the dead body of a burned diver in a forest. The man has his suit on and the next lake is quite a bit away! This movie is the debut of Marcus Rosenmueller and features a list of big names from Germany, e.g. Dieter Pfaff, Axel Milberg. The title track of the soundtrack is "Thank you" from Faithless. The rest of the music is from Roland Heil, the guy who made the music to "Run, Lola, Run" Start: April 6th.
-"Heavy Metal F.A.K.K. 2" hits the theatres on May 5th. It's about a guy who finds the key to immortality in a mine, but as he touches it he becomes evil and destroys the good planet Eden.....
-"2001: A Space Travesty" is now called "2001 1/2: A Space Travesty". It hits theatres in Germany on October 26th.
So, I guess that's enough for this week. If there's more I'll get back to you...... have fun!
Scythe
SPAIN
-More info on Capitan Trueno: Juanna Bajo Ulloa (who filmed Alas de Mariposa and Airbag) will shoot the film version of the famous comic book hero (created by Victor Mora and Ambros in the 50's) during the year 2001 The main concern will be casting the right person as the captain. The director is excited about what he feels will truly be an "American-style action movie". The following, site is set to open with more info.
Thanks to Angel.
Darth Bond here with my: pick of the week, Il Postino
Il Postino is a small but poetic Mediterranean movie, made all the more interesting by lead actor Massimo Troisi's subsequent death. There is very little to the plotting: Michael Radford (an English director at home among the thick Italian lexicon) creates an ode to friendship between soulful, love-struck but idle postman (Troisi) and real-life exiled Chilean poet Pablo Neruda (Philip Noiret). Neruda lectures his forlorn student in the ways of poetry. Beautifully shoot, and with a heart warming story this makes for a great date movie.
Question of the week:
Easy one this week: What actress was in the last two Oscar winning foreign movies? Slap your answer on talk back. ClitSmurf got the last answer right, well done, you're a genius.
Remember that you can send all your Euro-related-scoops, premier tickets, info, offers of set visits, premier dates, comments, and flames to EuroAICN@yahoo.com.
'till next week, CYL
