Here's another mid-week report from Ozymandias. He sent this Euro-AICN update to ol' Father Geek to post for all of you Euro-geek out there...

About Adam (Due to be released in the US by Miramax on March 2nd) - Review by Ozymandias

According to Irish moviemaking legend there's a dusty list hidden in the bowels of a secret office building somewhere in the heart of Dublin that reads like this:

 The General

 Guns

 Drugs

 Drug lords

 Drug dealers

 Alcoholics

 Priests

 Drug dealing, alcoholic, gun toting priests

 The IRA

 The North

 The Northside

 Settings before the 50s

 Toothless gombeens

 Famous American actors massacring Irish accents

 Stephen Rea

Apparently if you have enough of them in your Irish film you get a big, fat grant from the Film Board. or at least in recent years it's seemed that way. On release this weekend is Gerry Stembridge's gorgeous, sexy new Dublin comedy About Adam which relies on pretty much none of the above. Hallelujah!

In it, Howth hunk Stuart Townsend plays Adam, a guy who appears out of nowhere into the life of sassy, sexy, cynical Dublin waitress Lucy (Kate Hudson). She serves him, their eyes meet, they exchange phone numbers and faster than you can say "I'll text message ya!" he's being dragged over to meet Mum Peggy (Rosaleen Linehan), dowdy, brainy older sister Laura (Frances O'Connor), married oldest sis Alice (Charlotte Bradley) and 'unlucky in love' brother David (Alan Maher).

Lucy falls more and more for the mysterious Adam, his classic Jag, Temple Bar penthouse and invisible means of support (Maybe he's a secret drug dealer. Never thought of that!) until one evening, at her Mum's birthday party she asks him to marry her and he accepts. They get married and live happily ever after, end of story. Well, eh, no because that wouldn't make a very interesting movie now would it?

Right after Lucy's proposal we head back to the day Adam meets the family and follow the story of Laura's affair with Adam, head into the story of Alice's furtive fondling with the fiancé and keep an eye on Adam's schtupping of David's sexually shy girlfriend. Ya see what I mean about this not being a traditional Irish movie?

Stuart Townsend is right on the money with a character that needs to be all things to all people (not such an easy job) and the supporting cast are mostly great too. Rosaleen Linehan's wise matriarch is radiant, Charlotte Bradley's maritally unhappy sexbomb smoulders and Tommy Tiernan sharply parodies his real life gig playing Lucy's manic depressive stand up comedian ex-boyfriend.

Then there are the two leading ladies. I'm usually one of the most vocal opponents of American/British/Scottish/Australian/whatever actors and actresses playing Irish characters on the big screen. Brad Pitt in The Devil's Own anyone? Richard Gere in The Jackal? Jon Voight, Kevin Spacey, Linda Fiorentino, Minnie Driver, Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman, Winona Ryder as Veronica Guerin next year!!!!?!?!? Surely the UN has to step in for human rights abuses against the Irish accent at some point!

However I am willing to accept that for every rule there are exceptions and Kate Hudson is a great big beautiful one. Her Lucy is so spot on that I actually had to check my press notes after about 10 minutes of the film just to make sure that this really was Goldie Hawn's daughter and the star of Cameron Crowe's upcoming Almost Famous. Yup, she is, but you wouldn't know it. And don't get me started on Frances O'Connor! I was out the cinema, on the train and halfway home before I realised that she's Australian!!!!

About Adam is sexy, slick, fun, witty, (did I say sexy already?), cool, intelligent, hip, makes Dublin look like just about the trendiest place on Earth and is pretty much the most fun 90 minutes of Irish cinema in ages and ages. Director Gerry Stembridge shows a deft comic touch and a real Quentin Tarantino grasp of how to tell four separate stories with interweaving characters and settings (and sometimes even the same scenes shot from a different perspective!) while always keeping all the plates spinning at the same time and never losing his grasp of your attention.

So as far as I see it the choice for the Irish moviegoer is a stark one. Get up off your lazy Sunday morning backside, toddle over to the phone and book a couple of seats at About Adam for you and the one you love (or a few seats if, a la Adam, you love two or three or four - whatever your bag is baby!) and have a bloody good night out at the flicks supporting a truly original Irish movie. Either that or next year Hollywood will make 6 films all about the General, all starring Sylvester Stallone. Don't say I didn't warn ya.

Here's a bit of news about it.....

The Irish actor Stuart Townsend (Resurrection Man and The Venice Project) is set to miss this Thursday's premier of his first major Hollywood film About Adam after being called to Hollywood to take on the lead role in the follow up to Interview with a Vampire. Sources close to the Irish actor have confirmed that Towsend will miss the premier due to the fact he has to fly to LA to do voice-overs for his new film The Queen of the Damned...

Full Story: Right Here

Empire Online have confirmation today of the new Guy Ritchie flick - and it sounds trés interesting:

After exploring gangland violence and bare-knuckle boxing in East End crime films Lock, Stock and Snatch Guy Ritchie seems to have gotten in touch with his soft and fluffy side and has voiced plans to direct a children's film for baby son Rocco.

Yes, it would appear that marriage to Madonna has caused Ritchie to cast aside shotguns and spree-killings in favour of a slightly more pre-school-friendly subject matter. "Having a child has a profound effect on you and I am much happier and more secure now than I have ever been," Ritchie told The Mirror. "And as I get drawn more and more into a child's world with Rocco, I'll get more and more interested in making a child's movie."

While Ritchie's take on the kiddie-flick may be on the cards, don't expect to see Barney's Big Vendetta hitting the screens just yet, Guy won't be planning any films for his son until Rocco's just that little bit older. "At the moment he's at the stage where he can't tell the difference between me and a dog, so it's not really worth thinking about yet."

Next up for Ritchie though, he confirmed to The Mirror, is a budget-heavy 16th century epic set during the Great Siege in Malta in 1565. "It's a magnificent story with so many interesting elements - the Ottoman empire. Islam versus Christianity. The two religions are really singing the same song, just different verses, and the vindictiveness of one against the other has always amazed me."

Ah, just what the world needs! Another film about Dublin druglords!!!!!?!?!? This one has been doing the rounds for the last couple of years - now it looks like Winona is to tread where Joan Allen so miserably failed....

Showbizireland.com reports today:

Hollywood starlet Winona Ryder, who spent the summer in Ireland with boyfriend Beck, may be back in the Emerald Isle to make a new version of the Veronica Guerin story. Guerin was an Irish journalist who was gunned down by drug lords in 1996 after writing about them. Hollywood's biggest producer Jerry Bruckheimer has bought the rights to the film.

The producer who is behind films such as Top Gun, The Rock and Beverly Hills Cop will call the movie Chasing the Dragon. The film will be based on Veronica exposing the Dublin crime barons before being gunned down in her car in August 1996.

Jerry hopes to start filming in Ireland next May. He said of the film "Veronica made a difference everyone can identify with that."

He continued "The ambiguities in her character make her more appealing with that. Why would a woman who has a husband and a young son and who gets shot, still keep going? What drives her? Did she take the threat seriously?"

Oscar nominee Joan Allen played Guerin last year in one film about her life called When the Sky Falls (We reviewed it in Euro AICN #16 - JUST CLICK - OZ) which was written by Michael Sheridan a friend and fellow journalist in the Sunday Independent where she worked.

Currently alleged gang boss John Gilligan is on trial for her murder.

Jeez!! Empire Online (HTTP://WWW.EMPIREONLINE.CO.UK) are up and running this week too! All I want to know about this one is does she get to uncross her legs?!?!?!?!? ;-)

Nicole Kidman is set to play Victoria Woodhull-Martin, a 19th century woman who lived an extremely varied and colourful life on both sides of the Atlantic. Woodhull-Martin was born in America and was a pioneering feminist, spiritualist and a keen advocate of free love, all of which angered the establishment of the day and earned her the nickname Mrs. Satan. She later moved to England, where she lived in the small village of Bredon's Norton in Worcestershire, and devoted herself to charitable works.

The director most closely linked to the £50 million project, which is being backed by Tom Cruise, is Basic Instinct director Paul Verhoeven. And villagers in Bredon Norton are concerned that his take on Woodhull-Martin's life would focus rather more on the free love than the good deeds. Owen Stinchcombe told the Daily Express "I am sure it will make for a saucy and exciting film but it is not good history".

Kidman has recently finished filming The Others for Spanish director Alejandro Amenábar.

Like this one too on the new Ridley Scott.....

Trainspotting star Ewen Bremner has been cast in Ridley Scotts' next movie, the military drama Black Hawk Down. The Edinburgh-born actor, who can currently be seen in Harmony Korine's low-budget schizophrenia-themed dogme effort, Julien Donkey-Boy, will play a supporting role alongside Tom Sizemore (Saving Private Ryan) and Josh Hartnett (The Virgin Suicides) in Scott's follow up to next month's Hannibal.

And, while Black Hawk Down is being co-produced by the king of the high concept blockbuster, Jerry Bruckheimer, don't expect the $75 million film to be a formulaic popcorn crowd-pleaser. "Black Hawk Down is a serious film about US involvement in Somalia," Bremner told the Sunday Herald yesterday (14 January). "I don't know if you'd call it an action film. It's got lot's of action but none of it gratuitous."

The film is based on journalist Mark Bowden's book, 'Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War', an account of the real life events surrounding the Battle of Mogadishu during the Somalian Civil War in 1993. The film will focus on a US army mission which attempted to capture two Somalian lieutenants but went disastrously wrong, resulting in hundreds of American and Somalian casualties. Filming is scheduled to start in March with a Stateside release set for 2 November 2001.

Before that, Bremner will be seen in another Bruckheimer production of another true-life war story, which coincidentally, also stars Josh Hartnett: this summer's guaranteed money-spinner, Pearl Harbor. "Doing a commercial film is good for your career," Bremner admitted to the Sunday Herald with regard to his more high profile choice of film roles. We think he's stating the obvious, just a little bit.

And they have some funky pix (including one of a bleeding Angelina!!!?!?!?!?) and plot details (so yes, SPOILER ALERT!!!!!) at Their Site

There's also a little more flesh on the Hopkins/Red Dragon rumour from popcorn.co.uk:

Anthony Hopkins has reportedly been offered the chance to play Hannibal Lecter for the third time. The Sunday Times claims that the Welsh actor has been offered $20m to play the serial killer in a remake of 'Red Dragon', the first instalment in Thomas Harris's trilogy of books about the cannibalistic serial killer.

Because Hopkins would have to 'go back in time' to play a younger version of Hannibal, producer Dino De Laurentiis is said to be planning to use a new form of computer technology - called Erasure - that will make the actor appear younger by reducing his weight and adding hair to his thinning pate.

'Red Dragon' was previously filmed as 'Manhunter', and starred another British actor, Brian Cox, in the role of Hannibal Lecter. Michael Mann's film was a huge flop, though, and played down the prominence of Lecter. According to producer De Laurentiis, "This new version has elements of the 'Red Dragon' novel that were not in the first film, so it will feel very new and exciting."

L8r, Ozymandias

Ain't It Cool News - Ireland/UK Office, Penthouse Suite, Ozymandias Towers, Dublin, Ireland.