Father Geek back again with Edgard, Grozilla, Ethan and all the Euro-AICN crew of reporters. CANNES is just around the corner and these guys have got their work cut out for themselves; of course Dr. SOTHA will be there also to help cover THE cinema event of the year(until Dec.19th anyway), and our own World Geek Headquarter's chief guru Harry Knowles will be joining all the Cannois for this year's festivities and.... a long awaited closeup look at LORD OF THE RINGS. Buuuuut for now here's Edgard and the latest from Euro-AICN's offices in beautiful Paris, France...
EURO AICN
Hello everyone... Edgard here with the EURO AICN column and some food for thought...
A few days ago I was walking in the streets of Paris and saw a movie poster for a film I never heard from before... it was called "AMERICAN GIRLS"... when I read the poster more carefully I saw in little "Bring it On"... so that's how it has been translated here in France... from "Bring it on" to "American Girls". The funny thing is that 10 years ago the French government was limiting the use of English words in movie title... the result was quite funny... DIE HARDER became "58 minutes pour vivre" ("58 minutes to live"); HOME ALONE became "Maman, j'ai raté l'avion !" ("Mom, I missed the plane !") and - the best one - FINAL ANALYSIS became "Sang chaud pour meurtre de sang froid" (literally "Warm blood for cold blooded murder" or something). Today English words are "in" again... so much it's used everywhere to give a "young and hip" feeling... hence these "American Girls" or a TV show called "Loft Story" (the French answer to "Big Brother"... very bad as you can guess). At least when they were translating the titles in French, it was funny...
Does "perfection" exist ? I am not talking here in a philosophical way (although if you feel up to it, let's discuss that) but does a "perfect" movie exist ? Is there one film you can watch a billion of times and still be amazed at every frame ? still be touched by the story ?... well I never asked myself that question until I saw today the new Jean-Pierre Jeunet film AMELIE IN MONTMARTRE...and I think I just saw the first perfect movie ever...
For the rest, it's the usual... news from Ireland (Reign of Fire, Gangs of NY), UK (Bond rumours), France (Final Fantasy, Amélie)... and Ethan's review of the Van Damme film REPLICANT....
FRANCE
* Grozilla reviews for us a few minutes of FINAL FANTASY :
Yesterday, I was in Paris for a John Boorman’s junket. As usual, just before screening the film (By the way, "Tailor of Panama" is a very smart one), Coulmbia showed us some of their new trailers. Nothing very new : Short and long one for "A knight’s tale" (Queen’s We will rock you on knights jousting, images, weird but very efficent idea), long one for "Evolution", and, tadaaaa : an entire sequence from "Final Fantasy" ! Some guy from the marketing told they received those 12 minutes the day before. Here’s what we saw : some female doc on a ground of a post-apocalyptic town looking for life and founding one flower in a devastated church, then some soldiers save her from strange aliens, take her on a spaceship. Then she recognizes one of the military : one of her formerly love crush. The ship lands on a futuristic New-York, protected by huge walls of glass. She talks with an older man, some scientist who bewares her of the danger to believe on some old theories in a new world. The doc and the crew goes on another mission on ground, looking for other humans. Aliens attack ! They escape, but she falls unconscious. On the medical lab on the ship, the old doc says there’s only one way of bringing her back to life : transfer the spirit of the old crush in her body (at last the explaination of the title, Spirit within). He awakes in a dream of her. Then I guess we jump to another scene, where he and her must escape from a base, she pilots a spaceship as he shots aliens, before jumping on the ship... That’s all.
And it’s surely impressive. Not only because of the character design but above all because of its feeling of real direction. Some shots seems to be really hand-held, some others are very well edited. More than the characters, the sets are amazing : the devastated city and that vision of a New York between a mix of modern and old style are amazingly superb. Let’s talk on the "human texture" of the characters : some things really work (wind in hair, body parts like hands) others don’t (most of the faces, especially the eyes, and quite all moves which seem kind of floating as if one dimension was missing). The most beautiful thing are those aliens : imagine creatures between Urotsukidoji’s and Starship trooper’s ones but all translucid. The way they litteraly extract soul from the victim are as horryfing than beautiful to watch. These 12 minutes got really some James Cameron’s touch. Months ago, I was just intrigued by this project, now I can’t wait to see it...
Grozilla
* E.T. here, in France , there is a lot of fuss going on about "The Wonderful Destiny of Amelie Poulain" , and in all this 'small talks' articles , I've read that Amelie will be shown in an improvised in-air theater during the Cannes Film Festival , and I can tell all the 'Cannois' (people of Cannes) that it will be free. Cool. But even though "Amélie" is not in the competition, it has just won the "Grand Prix de la Fondation Martini" on April 3rd.
I've been to a "meeting" in the sense that I was there with a few hundred persons... so this meeting with JP Jeunet !! it was so cool!! so , during about an hour we talked about various things, AND he also said: "THE AMERICANS (the studios) LOVED THE FILM SO MUCH THAT THEY HAVE RECONTACTED ME TO DO ANOTHER FILM THERE" so I thought I'd tell you guys , especially when you know that he was at a time contacted to do THE DALTONS (as in Lucky Luke - the famous french comic book)... I think he turned down that offer... but you never know
Also A.I is being pushed back in the USA for at least 3 weeks (!!), it could come out on Jun 29th
Universal WILL in fact distribute "Le Pacte des Loups" (The Brotherhood of the Wolves) in the US , this distribution deal , marks the first arrangenment between LeStudioCanal and Universal, which are already partners since Vivendi bought both of them. AND "Le Pacte.." which has already gathered 250 Million Francs (7Fr = 1$) , make a special return to the big screen in France on July 11th, in a Special Director's Cut Version...
If you are interested, check E.T.'s own movie website at This Location
* From Screendaily, some financial news on one of the French biggest major : Beleaguered French major, Gaumont announced plans to produce some ten films over the next 18 months as it concentrates its efforts on production and distribution. But two of its big productions forced the company into massive losses for last year. Gaumont announced net losses of $60.1m (FF437m) compared with a profit of $7.98m (FF58m) in 1999. The company blamed flops Les Visiteurs En Amerique and Vatel for its troubles. The reduced 1999 problems were attributed to a weak exhibition market. Turnover in 2000 amounted to $214m (FF1.56bn) compared with $253m (FF1.84bn). The film division saw its turnover drop from $116m (FF846m) to $81.3m (FF591m) as Vatel’s failure failed to outweigh the success of Les Rivieres Pourpres. The division recorded losses of $60.4m (FF439m) compared with a profit of $23.5m (FF171m). The exhibition circuit, which saw an 8% increase in business, is now being merged with that of Pathe to form EuroPalaces. The company said that J’Ai Faim, a first film by Florence Quentin is now scheduled for delivery in the autumn and that it is now in production on Djmal Bensalah’s Le Raid and Ion Sherman’s English-language film I Am With Lucy. The current year has had one notable success, some 5.3 million spectators for Francis Veber’s The Closet (Le Placard). Gaumont shares dropped 6% to Euros38.5, at which the company is valued at $142m.
IRELAND
As every week, here're a few news brought to you by Showbiz Ireland :
* Matthew McConaughey, currentlty shooting Reign of Fire in Dublin stepped out at the weekend to act as assistant boxing trainer for Jim Rock. At ringside Matthew's new 'Do' shocked onlookers - no longer sporting his trademark blonde locks Matthew had his head completely shaved aswell as a rough beard... No doubt this look is to fit his character in Reign of Fire and not a ploy to impress the Dublin ladies? Christain Bale also attended the fight...
* Reign of Fire cast members John Hurt, Matthew McConaughey, and Christian Bale showed up at the premier of Captain Corelli's Mandolin sporting their less than glamorous images they have adapted for their parts in the movie. Onlookers barely recognised the stars currently filming the Disney 60 million epic being filmed here in Ireland. Facial hair and a general rough appearance of both Bale and McConaughey will give us an idea of how their characters will look in the actual movie...
Pics and story: Are Right Here
* Irish actor Brendan Gleeson talks to ShowBizIreland.com about filming Gangs of New York with Martin Scorsese in Italy and about his current role in The Tailor of Panama with Pierce Brosnan and his upcoming new film with Kurt Russell.
Gleeson has just returned from filming the epic with the famous director... : "It was fantastic I haven't seen any footage yet but you just know when your on a film set that things are going to be great. I can't see a thing like the Gangs happening again. That amount of people and that amount of talent put together. I was very surprised to work with a cast that fantastic. It was brilliant but very painstaking. Very layered with so many things going on and every frame is a number of frames in one. He's fantastic to work with just like the rest of the cast. When you get to this stage of working with people like that there is no nonsense... There was no nonsense on the set, no jokes or tricks. It was all just professional and just getting the job done. Everyone really respected Scorsese so there was no question of there being anything else except work. It was a challenge for everybody. Nobody wanted to let the side down in any sense. It didn't feel I was in any stunning line up or anything like that. It felt like we were doing a job."
Talking about working with fellow Irish actor Pierce Brosnan in his current hit The Tailor of Panama, Gleeson said, "Well the plus to working with Pierce was working with John Boorman which I love and we get on well. It was a big jump for me in terms of the actual part itself. But, I got the brown contact lens's and it worked out great."
Next up for the big fella is a film with Hollywood star Kurt Russell. "The film is called Plague Season with Ron Shelton directing it and Kurt Russell is starring in it as the lead. It's basically set in the LA police around the time of the Rodney King trials and I play a cop in it."
* Just when the Irish pop princess Samantha Mumba thought she was getting the hang of the acting business, disaster has struck at the set of her LA movie The Time Machine. The sexy star has been forced to re-shoot all her scenes after director Stephen Spielberg decided to change the storyline. Sam and her 11-year-old brother Omero have been in the US for a month filming with Guy Pearse and the Irish-based actor Jeremy Irons. The film is now a month behind schedule. Sam explained: "He decided that he wanted to change a few things so now we've got to re-shoot everything. Everything has gone back to square one but its all for the best I suppose. Both Omero and I were initially gutted because we had worked so hard. But we're all in it together and everyone wants to get the movie back on track."
Sam has consoled herself with a series of shopping sprees in LA. She said: "I just can't get enough of the shops here. The clothes are amazing and I even saw a dog the other day that was irresistible but it was far too expensive. When I get time off filming I head straight off to the shops and go crazy. I'm spending far too much money to be honest, but it helps fill up the free afternoons I get when we're not filming." Sam shouldn't worry about her bank balance though. With another two movie roles in the offing and countless modeling contracts she's set to be making big bucks for years to come.
Full Stories & Pics: Click Here
UK
* From www.empireonline.co.uk, a very cool rumour... I think it could be actually a good direction for Bond, but... we'll see : Despite having taken a pledge earlier this week not to add to the mounting pile of ridiculous Bond casting stories that are littering the world's press, Empire Online simply couldn't resist this little gem. Interviewed in this month's Empire magazine (out 1 May 2001), Christian Bale throws his name into the ring of possible Bond candidates, and then immediately ruins his chances by comparing 007 to the psychotic killer he played in American Psycho. 'I suppose there are actually a number of character traits that are similar between Bond and Patrick Bateman,' drawls Bale, 'a complete lack of remorse in killing people, both are utter misogynists.' As for whether he'd consider any overtures from Eon Production to play the role, Bale says; 'I've only thought of it because a couple of people have mentioned it since American Psycho...Certainly if I was going to do it, it wouldn't be for a long time.'
ETHAN'S REVIEW
REPLICANT
There are two great contemporary Belgians - AICN`s very own Edgard and Jean Claude Van Damme. Edgard is at his peak right now but his compatriot needs a big come back movie. REPLICANT feels like the real thing. Ringo Lam`s flick is Van Damme`s greatest work so far and I sincerely hope that it will be seen by sufficient audience. John Woo`s HARD TARGET was probably Van Damme`s best movie until REPLICANT was released. Still, HARD TARGET was more about Woo than Van Damme while REPLICANT is all about Van Damme.
Ringo Lam brought his gritty, realistic touch into the story. REPLICANT echoes the FACE / OFF - THE CELL storyline because it centers on the tough detective Jake (Michael Rooker) that partners with the clone of the serial killer Torch (Van Damme) in order to track the villain down. This story is pure thriller with a couple of great realistically shot action sequences. The killer character is intriguing and his motives are precise and smart. Villain`s character always pushes the story forward and keeps the audience involved. This kind of competent direction is rarely seen in recent serial killer flicks.
As I previously said REPLICANT is all about Van Damme. This is his greatest part ever. For the first time authors used him and his broken English in the right way. The clone is silent for the most of the movie while the killer is expected to talk in a kinky manner. Ringo Lam`s masterful direction even made me feel compassion for the clone and I must admit that this is the first time I felt compassion for some Van Damme`s character.
Michael Rooker is brutal and cool as always. Still, the problem of his statement-less eyes persists. Michael Madsen would have been the right choice for this project. Rooker`s involvement is adequate and it smartly referrs to Ahnuld`s THE SIXTH DAY. REPLICANT is way better than THE SIXTH DAY.
Action and suspense scenes are full of nihlism. The hospital showdown is magnificent. It is a little reminder on Woo`s HARD - BOILED. Of course, it isn`t as baroque but is as brutal and over-the-top. You rarely see such rampage in gutless Hollywood cinema. Lam`s gritty style improves those scenes with each viewing and if the movie gets a thetrical release I hope that those great scenes will remain uncut.
I live in Yugoslavia and I`ve seen this on bootleg video. IMDB has no info on release patterns of this work. I advise geeks to support this movie because REPLICANT is the big FUCK YOU for the system that feeds us with dumb buzz and PG-13 actioners. By supporting this movie you will show that you are not some guys that like kung fu because Tarantino told them to. This movie is the geek landmark. If you dig this movie you will show that you are not a corporate souvenir bitch but a true and respectful geek. Give Ringo Lam a chance!
If hip-hop revue like EXIT WOUNDS earned over 50 million in US then REPLICANT should earn three times more because it is a much better movie. I can`t believe that Joel Silver backed EXIT WOUNDS while projects like REPLICANT struggle for a theatrical release. AICN community must support this movie not just because it is a great flick but also because Ringo Lam must get established as a premier Hollywood filmmamker. We must save great Hong Kong authors from the wrath of Communist China.
God bless, Ethan
EDGARD'S REVIEW
LE FABULEUX DESTIN D'AMELIE POULAIN (aka AMELIE IN MONTMARTRE)
Directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet
Website (a must see also !) : Just Go Here
As it is said in the trailer... "Amelie is going to change your life...". Well for once, the trailer doesn't lie to you. AMELIE is part of a very very small groups of films that can change your life, in a way that it will make you happy... happy... happy... More than 8 hours after watching this film I am still smiling like an idiot, and the worst is that I feel so good about that...
To be honnest I was a bit worried before seeing AMELIE this morning... I only read wonderful reviews (with the word "masterpiece" coming back again and again...); I only heard great things about it (with the words "great" and "must see" coming back again and again...); I only saw great bits on TV... Usually it builds your expectations to a point when you can only be disappointed... (we could call that the "Episode 1" factor)... well AMELIE is not your usual film, and I fell in love with it from the first image... the first sound of it... And I don't worry about building even higher expectations for you : you too will fall for AMELIE, you too will smile like an idiot after, you too will feel like a little bee on a sunny Spring day... (in case you don't like it, you're a bitter person !).
Anyway I will not get back on the story in details as this film was reviewed before on AICN, but in a nutshell : Amelie is a lonely young girl, living in Paris and in her fantasy world... unable to really connect with people she decides to help other people to be happy... she's going to change their life, her life and - as I wrote before - yours...
To make a good movie, you need 3 things : a solid story, a talented director and great actors... Here these three factors are all perfect. Story first : the first a trap that Jeunet and his scripwriter have avoided well... The movie is in fact a serie of little scenes, little stories put together with many different characters... with this kind of structure it's unfortunately easy to fall in a unbalanced result... Not the case here, Jeunet manages to keep the story tight and the movie seems really to make a whole... the characters are well connected to each others and - except Amelie and Nino, the one she loves - no one is more important than the others. And everything is well paced... actually the film goes very fast, once you're in, just sit and relax...
The direction... well it's Jean-Pierre Jeunet after all... I know that there're many debate about his ALIEN opus... I have already expressed my opinion on it... I love ALIEN IV... except the last 15 minutes (among the worst of the worst ending in movie history) but I will not blame Jeunet for it... Argue with that if you want. His work on AMELIE is purely amazing... every single image of the film could be hanged on your wall... there's a complete work on every level : balance of the elements in the frame, light, colours, effects... and the best is you don't feel it. It's not like in EPISODE 1 for example where you have the feeling it's too much... here it just feels right, perfect... What strikes me is the way he recreated a fantasy Paris from the real one... never Paris looked so beautiful and for those of you who know and love this city (like I do), this film is a real gift... it makes you want to walk all over the streets of Paris looking for your Amelie... The first 20 minutes of the film are also marvellous, I haven't laughed so much in a very long time...
Last but not least, the actors... Audrey Tautou plays Amelie, and I bet that half of the viewers of this film will directly fall in love with her... Like all the actors, she plays her role in a totally natural way... you feel she IS Amélie... (I often have the problem with French films that some actors are playing like if they were in a theatre play...). There's something very 'Edward Scissorhands' about her character's loneliness and fantasy world... maybe because Tim Burton and JP Jeunet have similar - yet very different - universe... Next is Matthieu Kassovitz as Nino... not only a talented director (LA HAINE, CRIMSON RIVERS) Kassovitz proves here again he's a talented actor... here too he becomes litteraly Nino... All the characters around are perfectly chosen for their faces, this is also one of Jeunet's many talents : chosing the right face for the right part !!
I think I could go on and on about this... masterpiece (I had to use the word myself), but there's no way I can make you feel the magic there's in it so my only advice is go see it yourself, live this experience, let Amelie takes possession of your heart... I think Jeunet should get a statue in every movie theatre of the world... he just made the ultimate magic film... the ultimate "feel-great" movie... the ultimate love fantasy... This is why I love movies so much, because once in a while you get to live this kind of feelings... Thank you Monsieur Jeunet. Thank you Amélie. And see you soon again... and again... and again...
