* From Screendaily : The Export-Union of German Cinema is to stage the 1st annual Festival of German Cinema in Los Angeles from Nov 3-9 presenting 16 new feature films, 15 shorts and a selection of shorts from German film students. Films screening will include: Sebastian Schipper’s Gigantic, Achim Von Borries’ England, Peter Keglevic’s Falling Rocks, Vanessa Joop’s Forget America, Peep Danquart’s Home Game, Martin Eigler’s Friends, Anno Saul’s Green Desert, Faith Akim’s In July, Christian Petzold’s The State I Am In, Joseph Vilsmaier’s Marlene, Stanislaw Mucha’s Back Home To The Reich With Bibi and Oskar Rohler’s No Place To Go. Film-makers and stars from Germany will attend the opening night event at the Villa Aurora (Foundation for American European Relations) in Pacific Palisades. Sidebars taking place throughout the week will include the European Film Academy's 3rd Annual International Filmtalk - "Next Generation Exchange" - presenting new film-makers and their producers whose films are part of the the programme with additional guests including Martin Blaney of Roadmovies and Tanja Ziegler of Ziegler Film.

FRANCE

* First there was TROIS HOMMES ET UN COUFFIN. Then came the American remake that you all know : THREE MEN & A BABY. Then there was a sequel to the American remake : THREE MEN & A LITTLE LADY. Now what ? Well French director of the original French film, Coline Serreau, decided to make a sequel to that original French film (do you follow ?). It will be called 20 ANS APRES (20 years after) and will put the three fathers in front of a sexy young girl.... I am sure you can't wait for that one... The question is : if Americans make a remake of that one too, how will they call it ?

UK

* From Screendaily : The resurgence of the traditional French thriller will be celebrated at this year’s French Film Festival in Scotland and the UK with a series of screenings including Frederic Schoendoerffer’s Scenes De Crimes and Eric Rochant’s Total Western. Other films in the series include Claude Chabrol’s Au Coeur Du Mensonge, Cannes Quinzaine entry L’Affaire Marcorelle and Alain Corneau’s Le Cousin. Other highlights include box-office successes Jet Set and Meilleur Espoir Feminin, Cannes entries Les Destinees Sentimentales and St Cyr as well as Bertrand Blier’s Les Acteurs, Claude Miller’s La Chambre Des Magiciennes and Un Pont Entre Deux Rives in which Gerard Depardieu stars and co-directs. The festival’s archive screening continues the thriller theme with a presentation of a new print of Henri-Georges Clouzot’s 1947 classic Quai Des Orfevres starring Louis Jouvet. The French Film Festival takes place in Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh, Glasgow and London from November 17-26.

OZYMANDIAS CORNER

* First off a story on how Minnie Driver wants to deal herself back inot the Bond franchise (remember her appearance as Robbie Coltrane's dancing girl in Goldeneye???? I'm sure she'd rather we didn't.....)

From ShowbizIreland.com : Hollywood actress Minnie Driver (Good Will Hunting and Circle of Friends) has dramatically pulled out of a role where she was to star opposite the world famous Irish dancer Michael Flatley in his upcoming film. Sources told ShowBizIreland.com that Driver will instead be looking at staring as Bond girl opposite Irish actor Pierce Brosnan in the next Bond movie. Flatley's film is based on his rags to riches life story will be called Lord of the Dance and will start shooting in Ireland in October and Driver was to play the rich girl that Flatley falls for. Corr's singer Andrea who stared in both Evita and The Commitments is also being mentioned to star in the movie. The film will shoot in both Dublin and Cork where the superhoofer has a multi-million pound castle called CastleHyde. The Irish leg of the movie will shoot for ten days and then move on to Chicago in the states where Flatley grew up for a further four weeks. Sources are saying that the opening scenes in the movie are going to show Michael illustrating his love for dancing by dancing around the building sites...

* And after Flately another of the world's great undiscovered thespians (!!!) has her plans too.....

From BBC Online: Singer Geri Halliwell's film project is on track to start production next year - contrary to reports the movie had been shelved, its director David Green has said. Therapy is slated to start filming in spring 2001 and casting for the two male leads begins soon, Green told BBC News Online. The director vehemently denied "fallacious" reports in the Sunday Express that the film had failed to raise enough finance to go into production. Speaking from Cannes, Green said: "We have the money and Geri is 101% behind the film." Therapy is to be her first film since making her big screen debut in Spice World: The Movie with her old group in 1997. Green, responsible for Phil Collins' 1988 movie, Buster, believes the $15m (£10m) project, which is being made by September Films, will be a "major international hit". Halliwell has been cast as Amy, a girl who turns to therapy to solve her life's problems only to discover that her therapist has fallen in love with her. Green said: "The film is fully funded and we have $15m in place. "We have not announced exact production dates yet while we wait to cast the two male leads." He added: "We did have some problems with the script but after a major re-write everybody is very happy with it." Since leaving the Spice Girls Halliwell has released her first solo album and become a UN goodwill ambassador. She is currently in the studio recording her second album. Green said Halliwell had a "unique quality" and said he wanted her to "play a role close to her own character, much like Phil Collins in Buster". "The film is very much a go - we were astonished by these reports."

* The latest on the Scooby Doo flick - bet it's the creepy handyman that gets unmasked at the end.........

From popcorn.co.uk:: There aren't many cartoon characters who have the presence and charisma to make it to the silver screen, but as screenwriter James Gunn has been telling Popcorn, Scooby Doo has got what it takes. Plans for a live-action version of the cartoon have long been in development - at one point attracting interest from Mike Myers. The project has been pretty quiet of late but Gunn has been able to fill us in on some new details.

"The script is on the second draft," Gunn tells us. "It just went into Warner Bros two weeks ago."

The screenwriter is confident the project will finally get the go-ahead, explaining, "it looks like it's going to happen, there's a lot of momentum behind the film."

With Myers' name long since removed, rumours have been circulating that Britain's very own Rhys Ifans was about to nab the role as Scooby's best pal Shaggy. But, explains Gunn, "that's a false rumour."

He does admit, though, that "he'd be a great choice for the role" and that it "could be true in the future". But for now no one has been cast, which would go against recent rumours that Jennifer Love Hewitt had been offered the role of Daphne.

Gunn also promises that the film's special effects are going to be spectacular: "I've been looking at the special effects, the way we're going to deal with Scooby Doo. I promise it will be the most interesting special effects anyone has ever seen." That's fighting talk!

* Review : THERE'S ONLY ONE JIMMY GRIMBLE (by Ozymandias)

It seems to be the season for tales of youth and sport in Northern Britain. Billy Elliot is, of course, leading the way, Mark Herman’s upcoming Purely Belter is at the other end of the scale and somewhere in the middle is the oddly titled There’s Only One Jimmy Grimble…

It’s a simple little fairytale of the type you used to watch when you were a kid — the sort of flick that was made by the Canadian Kids Movie Foundation or whatever it was that they called themselves. Lewis McKenzie is the eponymous teenager who makes the zero to hero transition when he finds some magic football boots that take him and his team to the verge of the Manchester schools cup final on the hallowed ground of City’s Maine Road. The difference between Jimmy Grimble and a BBC early evening kids drama is that this particular fairytale is made with one eye on the grown ups in the audience. It boasts a strong adult cast in the twin towers of the excellent Robert Carlysle and Ray Winstone (and neither of them offs anyone during the entire movie!!! Astonishing!) and a gorgeous music box score pumped up with a fine bevy of tracks from Fatboy Slim, Echo & The Bunnymen, The Happy Mondays, The Charlatans and the like. All in all Jimmy Grimble is a gorgeous little tale of self-belief and redemption in a British cinematic world of kitchen sink despair and gangster aggression. I know the plot may seem a bit twee at times but, after all, this is a fairytale…

L8r,

Ozymandias

Euro AICN Ireland/UK Office, Penthouse Suite, Ozymandias Towers, Dublin, Ireland.

If you're involved in the Irish or UK movie industries I want to hear from you!

Mail me at ozymandias@dublin.com

******************

Review : CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON (by Edgard)

Distribution is weird sometimes... On one side, you have to wait for months before getting a movie here in France (we were among the last to get EPISODE 1, almost 6 months after the US, meaning we had a long time to read and hear all the possible spoilers; and this week was released here... GALAXY QUEST !!! Almost a year after its American release... The DVD Zone 1 was available for weeks in store); but on the other side sometimes we get lucky. After being among the first to get O BROTHER... at the end of August, now it's time to get CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON, Ang Lee's new wonderful film (still we never had a chance here to see RIDE WITH THE DEVIL... I told you distribution has its weird ways).

Anyway..... CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON (let's call it CT,HD) is certainly one of the best movie I saw this year. But please, forget about the trailer, forget that it's sold as a Kung-Fu movie because it's much much more than that. If you go expecting 2 hours of crazy fights, you will be disappointed. Not that the fights are bad (they're fucking great). Not that there're not many fights (they fight a lot). But it's just because the fights are not the heart of the movie, instead it's a movie about feelings. Think SENSE & SENSIBILITY made in China. Think Emma Thompson and Kate Winslet who would fight better than they express their own feelings. Because that's what it is all about : not being able to express your feelings in a society where honor, duty, tradition and respect are more important. There're four main characters : Li Mu Bai (Chow Yun-Fat, impressive as always), a legendary fighter; Yu Shu-Lien (Michelle Yeoh, mixing strength and beauty like few western actresses could do), a woman warrior; Jen (Zhang Ziyi, look at her carefully : a new star is born !), a rih girl dreaming of adventures and Lo (Chang Chen), a thief living in the desert. The film follow these four characters linked by two love stories : Li Mu Bai and Yu Shu-Lien love each other but can't express it to each other (honor and duty first); Jen and Lo are lovers (their story is told through a beautiful flashback shot in the Gobi Desert) but Jen is supposed to marry another one... As Moriarty already reported, there's a beautiful sequence with Chow-Yun Fat and Michelle Yeoh drinking tea... where everything is really quite, you hear the wind blowing in the tree, and the two hold each other's hands... Nothing more but it's enough to feel a true love there. And you know that Ang Lee really worked on this "feeling" line".

Throw in the middle a legendary sword and a revenge plot, then you get reasons for them to fight until the dramatic climax. These fights are pure eye-candy... I mean, forget about the laws of physics : people fly, run on water, climb walls, walk on trees... there's something really magical about all this. Like a danse. But it's also violent and quick. When the DVD will come out, I know many people who will play these sequences over, and over again...

Add to this beautiful landscapes and a beautiful music, and you know you have there one of the true best movie of the year already... Can't wait to see it again !!

Well that's it for this week's edition of Euro AICN.... Don't forget to send us also your reviews, news, scripts, festival passes, comments... to the Euro AICN offices in Paris at euroaicn@yahoo.com