Euro Aint-it-cool-news

Father Geek here with Edgard's 1st report upon returning to the Paris office of Euro-AICN, this is the first report I've posted for our Euro-office since returning from Spain myself. Had a great time saw lots of beautiful art, buildings and people while I was there, including DARTH BOND in Madrid. Yes, Harry and I had a nice visit with our Paris Co-editor our last night in that wonderful city. We also visited the set of Del Toro's new flick THE DEVIL'S BACKBONE which was filming on the outskirts of Madrid. We were there into the wee morning hours of an exciting "Night Shoot" and witnessed fires, chases, and bloody bodies over a five hour period, can't wait to see the finished motion picture. Now to the 1st of 2 reports Edgard has prepared for us today...

Hi folks... Edgard here... back from travelling around... back in the Euro AICN offices here in cloudy Paris... after being almost 4 weeks away, I don't know where to start... we got so many messages... First I would like to thank all of you who kept sending us news (and sorry for our slow replies); and second I would like to send a big thank you to Ozymandias who kept informing AICN readers on European news... (you will find here below a bunch of news from our Irish Offices). I hope I will not repeat what was said before, but here it is anyway.... All our Summer messages... GERMANY

Two German readers sent us some info on a new film based on a HP Lovecraft story, here it is...

* From David : I've just read over at cinescape.com that there's a new picture produced based on H.P. Lovecraft's "The Haunter of the Dark". Seems to be an independently produced film. As it is put together in Germany, I thought this might be something for Euro-AICN. It's pretty cool, cause I haven't seen any good Lovecraft pic out there so far. Except maybe the Stuart Gordon flicks, but ya know, they don't have really much to do with Lovecraft and Lovecraftian atmosphere. As the filmmakers of The Haunter of the Dark announced they try to do a really faithful adaptation of one of HPL's stories. Hope, they'll get it right. So, check it out. I got their site at haunterofthedark.com

* From Frank : As I have some German friends who are really into that gothic thing, they told me there's a new film produced from a story by H.P. Lovecraft. It's put together in Germany and they heard about it, as the production is looking for a number of extras. It's supposed to stay faithful to the original work, so it's gonna be set in 1930s New England, but I guess they are gonna recreate it in Germany. One of the actors was also in Schindler's List, but I don't think, it's a major production. At their official site it says to be an independently produced film.

* Mister W sent us the official casting for the second Astérix film : ASTERIX & OBELIX AU SERVICE DE CLEOPATRE (if you read French you can check directly on his website at : http://www.mistice.com/misterw/dernieresnewz1.html). Christian Clavier and Gerard Depardieu will play again the two heroes. Monica Bellucci (DOBERMANN) will be Cleopatre, Jamel Debouze (very popular French comedian doing one-man shows and TV in France) will be the Egyptian architect. For the rest, the director Alain Chabat (DIDIER) has decided not to use the same actors from the first film. So he will play himself Julius Cesar; and will be joined by Dominique Farrugia, Chantal Lauby, Gérard Darmon, Zinedine Soualem, Claude Berri, Claude Rich, Dieudonné, Valérie Lemercier, Edouard Baer, Pierre Tchernia, Liberatore and Joey Starr !! Hopefully this casting should work better than for the first movie (which was filled with "has-been" - Roberto Benigni excepted)

* Tom Ripley sent us also pictures and more news on THE OTHERS : After its press presentation in Spain, Alejandro Amenabar's "The Others", which will be next movie to be produced by Cruise/Wagner Prods., will start filming next week for four months, all in Spanish locations in Madrid and Santander. The whole cast will be formed by only six actors including Cruise's wife Nicole Kidman. The other names will be Christopher Eccleston ("Elizabeth", "Gone in Sixty Seconds") , Elaine Cassidy ("Felicia´s Journey") and Fionnula Flanagan ("Some Mother's Son", "Waking Ned Devine") playing her servants, and two children without any experience in front of a camera, as Nicole's character sons named James Bentley and Alakina Mann. The last one was selected for her similarity in character and presence with Kidman. Budget was officially confirmed to be $20 M., with Nic's salary drastically reduced to adjust it. With Miramax rights for distribution in English markets for a fully , and Weinstein Bros., in executive production, the play described as an artfully crafted mixture of horror and mystery without any SFX, may seem Oscar contender for 2002 Edition of the Academy Awards, as "Il Postino" or "Life is Beautiful" were. The story, as far as has been known, involves a woman named Grace retired with her two sick sons to a mansion placed on an island near the English Coasts, towards the end of the Second World War, where she's waiting for her husband to come back from the battle. They will live alone there with oppressive, strange and almost religious rules, until she needs to hire a group of servants for them. Their arrival will accidentally begin to break the rules with unexpected consequences... All shoots in decorations will be made in Madrid, and all exts are set in El Palacio de Hornillos, a house palace by-the-sea in Santander, in the most absolute secret. with no reports or visits allowed in the set. Kidman declared during the press conference, she read the script in only one weekend, and then Cruise decided to produce it, accepting her the role of Grace, the most brilliant feminine one, she had seen in a lot of time. "I'm trying out to find my character's heart, without judging her ethics." Talking about the director she maintained her opinion on Amenabar's talented direction, praising him to carry a piece of Hollywood to his country. "He has the ability to create suspense and he's not afraid of darkness on the screen," she said. "He is completely original and as an actor that's what you look for." Amenabar, whose latest film "Abre los Ojos" ("Open your Eyes"), starring Penelope Cruz and Eduardo Noriega, has become a cult sci-fi movie, told among any other things, he's searching for primal fears, even looking for a reference in tales of horror. "It's my most worked out script", said "which doesn't necessary mean the best one". "The star of this film is not the actor, but the character", added showing no fear to have a Hollywood star among the cast. Cruise went surprisingly to the end of the press conference, just in time to show up for the photo sessions, with the actress, director and other producers. Tom Ripley P.S. The secrecy of the film is not so accurate because sketches of Kidman's costumes are now showed in magazines, as you can see in these photographs.

* Here are some picture's of Guy Ritchie's Snatch (now almost certainly called that, as opposed to Snatch'd), taken from the new edition of UK film mag Hotdog (www.hotdogmagazine.com). They show:

2) Brad filming the big finale fight scene (better perhaps than Raging Bull says the article: written by someonewho worked on the film, hmm),

The 'final fight' scene pic shows the shoot happening underwater: apparently this is part of a special effect I THINK, and the fight does not take place under water per se. Check out the cool lighting, and the bubbles on the left hand side (presumably you won't be able to see the bubbles, with the way the shot is framed, in the final film). The shot of Vinnie shows him with a mullet, as it is in flashback: back to when his character got his name, 'Bullettooth'. (spoiler: he gets his teeth shot out, then replaces them with the bullets). In the present day, his character has a shaved head, much more like his look in 'Lock Stock and 2 Smoking Barrels': only even meaner. Check out that period suit, too. An overview of the article can be found at their website (see above), but without the cool pics (they only have a couple of uninteresting ones). Incidentally, they gave the film 4/5.

* Harry Potter locations has been fixed: Hogwarts will be Gloucester Cathedral. Check this out at : This Site

* Trevor Morgan is only 14-years-old but he's already starred with Hollywood heavyweights like Bruce Willis, in 'The Sixth Sense', and Mel Gibson, in 'The Patriot', and he's been telling Popcorn about his latest celebrity co-star, William H Macy. The young actor has just nabbed a role in the forthcoming 'Jurassic Park 3', playing Macy's son. Morgan says the script is currently going through rewrites but can drop a few hints about the plot. According to Trevor, his character "is going to be trapped on an island with all the dinosaurs and William H Macy is going to be the dad, so it's going to be really fun." Filming is due to begin in Hawaii on August 28 for about four weeks before the production moves back to Los Angeles to do green screen work. In keeping with the 'Jurassic Park' franchise Morgan is going to play the bright kid (there's always one) who "knows a lot about dinosaurs and knows all about these fossils that he finds, like bones and he loves dinosaurs." Morgan's relationship with his on-screen dad is also going to be strained to start with but as the actor explains "he comes to try and sort of save me in the jungle, so it sort of makes out relationship grow a whole lot more."

* Suzi 9mm passed this on to me - a look at this year's Festival of Fantastic Films!

Euro-AICN may want to know about the films being shown at the 11th Festival of Fantastic Films in Manchester over 8th-10th September, because there's a lot of premieres of new British sci-fi and horror flicks, and other stuff from around Europe.

DARK LIGHT (dir. Andrew Harrison) - the search for a military special forces unit gone AWOL from a biological research establishment

TOTAL ECLIPSE (dir. Jonty Acton and Adam Mason) - a girl whose father went on a killing spree 15 years ago starts to hear voices in her head

FOILED (dir. Henry Burrows) - four students must defend themselves against a pizza delivery man with superpowers

24 HOURS IN LONDON (dir. Alex Finbow) - in the year 2009 a paramilitary police force must protect a vital witness against powerful London gangsters

DIAGNOSIS (dir. Johannes Roberts) - a horror story set in a mental hospital where something is taking over people

BLOOD (dir. Charly Cantor) - a genetically created girl has blood which is a narcotic, and the scintist who made her becomes addicted to it

BABY DOLL (dir. Christopher Finn) - a short film about a woman who buys a doll instead of a baby but starts to believe that it's real

THE CHILDREN OF LIR (dir. Harry Hamill) - a 3D computer-animated short about a mythical Irish warrior whose children are cursed

NARCISSUS (dir. Francis Poltera) - a short film about a man haunted by mysterious entities

THE BALLAD OF KIM AND JOE (dir. Christian Theede) - short cross between a road movie, a fairy tale and a western

THE LAST DREAM (dir. Emmanuel Jespers) - short about a cinema projectionist struck by a heart attack whose reality starts to change

PENALTY (dir. Davide Balbi) - short about how a penalty can change a man's life.

JUST CALL HIM JESS (dir. Carles Prats) - feature-length documentary about Jess Franco

THE NAMELESS (dir. Jaume Balaguero) - the premiere of the English-dubbed version of the horror hit LOS SIN NOMBRE

PSYCHO BEACH PARTY (dir. Robert Lee King) - spoof on old beach party movies and modern slasher flicks

CARNIVORE (dIr. Kenneth Mader) - government-created experimental monster gets on the loose in a haunted house

SANCTIMONY (dir. Uwe Boll) - yuppie serial killer taunts police (the director is German)

DIONYSUS LOST (dir. Jens Pilegaard) - short about a man who gets a chance at redemption for his sins.

LES SIAMOISES (dir. Isabelle Hayeur) - Siamese twins are held in a psychoexperimental establishment

EL TRIANGULO DEL LAGO (dir. Mauricio Calderon) - the first ever Bolivian sci-fi feature film, about a man who experiences weird phenomena after his wife disappears

The festival is also screening plenty of archive films, including two undocumented discoveries: a Vincent Price short called YOUR GHOST BELONGS TO ME and a version of THE TELL-TALE HEART directed by Steve Carver (LON WOLF McQUADE) as his degree project in 1971. The festival's guests include directors Brian Clemens, Val Guest and Antonio Margheriti, and actress Martine Beswicke. The site is at www.fantastic-films.com. The Festival of Fantastic Films is the UK's leading event for fans of sci-fi, fantasy and horror films, and has been running for 11 years now. I thought readers of Euro-AICN would be interested to know about it.

* The BBC have details about this years Deauville Film Festival - remember AICNers if any of you plan to be there mail us if you're interested in doing a few reports!

Move over Cannes, Venice, Toronto and Sundance, American film-makers have taken a liking to Deauville, a small town in France. The resort in Normandy will host a glitzy gathering of Hollywood's greatest talents when the Deauville Film Festival of American Cinema kicks off next month.

This year's event plays host to Clint Eastwood, Harrison Ford, Nick Nolte, Morgan Freeman, Samuel L. Jackson, Jessica Lange, James Garner, Donald Sutherland, John Singleton, Paul Verhoeven and Tommy Lee Jones.

Deauville, population 5,000, has made a serious effort in the last few years to catch up with its big brother on the Riviera, Cannes. Clint Eastwood is to be honoured with a lifetime achievement award. From humble beginnings as a gathering for enthusiasts showing a few long-released, scratchy films, it has become a major launchpad for US cinema in Europe. Deauville has been increasingly successful in attracting A-list Hollywood actors who are turned off by Cannes' traditional preference for world and arthouse movies. Running from 1-10 September, the festival features a string of major US studio releases alongside a Panorama section of independent and low-budget films. Films showing in Europe for the first time include Hollow Man, Space Cowboys, What Lies Beneath and Scary Movie.

The festival, now in its 26th year, is organising special tributes to Clint Eastwood, Samuel L. Jackson and Susan Sarandon, as well as the Italian producer Dino de Laurentiis. Also appearing at the festival are English director Stephen Frears, Japanese actor and auteur Takeshi Kitano, and the Chinese-American director of The Ice Storm, Ang Lee. Musical stars such as Joel Grey, Gregory Hines, Leslie Caron and the legendary child actor Mickey Rooney - now 79 - are also attending as part of a tribute to Broadway and screen musicals.

* Empire Online http://www.empireonline.co.uk has been abuzz the last couple of days - our first story is one to make El Cosmico drool with anticipation.....

With X-men recording the highest opening for a July film ever, the planned sequel now looks inevitable. All the cast have signed on for at least one more film but a question mark still hangs over the return of director Brian Singer. "I haven't talked about that," Singer told Empire, "But I don't see why not." He also hinted at some work he'd already started doing for the DVD, which could include a few missing scenes. "Just little things," he claimed, "like Sabretooth and Wolverine on the head of the statue, a scene with Patrick, with Jimmy and Famke and Hugh, everybody's got a little bit extra. There's a speech Magneto gave which kind of took away from the speech he gave to Rogue... I wouldn't call it the director's cut — the movie is the director's cut. It's just a cut that's got some extra things in it that I didn't think were necessary in telling the story but once you know the story you might have fun seeing those things." Creative partner Tom De Santo also claimed, "we actually planted the seeds in this for the next two." Which suggests there's actually a third sequel in the pipeline as well. And added that Gambit and Beast were likely to make appearances. Beast was one of the last characters to be cut from the shooting script, but De Santo said, "That's one character that God willing we'll be able to explore in the sequels."

They've also got details of the Snatch site (new Guy Ritchie flick with Brad Pitt and Vinnie Jones) which is online since today with the teaser trailer at www.snatch-themovie.com

And news of Pierce Brosnan staying on as Bond???? Rumours of Pierce Brosnan hanging up his 007 spurs may have been greatly exaggerated, in an exclusive Public Access interview with Empire Magazine Brosnan expressed a certain unwillingness to leave the role. When questioned on a possible end to the immortality of Blighty’s top spy Brosnan quickly protested: "I don’t want to kill him off — I just bought a new house, I want to pay off the bloody mortgage!"

The longevity of Bond has seen the spy fail to age despite almost 40 years on Her Majesty’s secret service and, as far as Brosnan is concerned, 007 is far from past his prime. "I don’t think Bond is ever going to die. He’s come this far, and he can go on into the next millennium". The full interview is in the always excellent Empire magazine which hit the stores here in the last few days!

* Like this one - particularly the first line of the second paragraph - what's that all about?!?!?!?!?

From the PA: The 11-year-old grandson of a Hollywood screen legend is to audition for the part of Harry Potter in the movie of J K Rowling's The Philosopher's Stone. Sean Flynn's grandfather was the swashbuckling Errol Flynn, who starred in such classic movies as The Adventures of Robin Hood and the Charge of the Light Brigade. Now Sean aims to follow him into the film world by reading for the Potter part where, if successful, he would play one of Potter's three character ages.

Sean, who admits to being addicted to the books, has just finished a film with Kirstie Alley and has already appeared in numerous television commercials, the Mail on Sunday reports. Although he lives with his parents in Los Angeles, Sean spends his summers in Britain and used to live in Oxfordshire. His mother Rory is Errol Flynn's daughter, while his father Gideon Amir is an Israeli-American film producer. Rory said: "He's just like my father. It's uncanny to see how the camera loves him because he has charisma, like Dad." According to his mum, Sean has been reading the Potter books since the first one came out and has been learning magic tricks for the last nine years. "I feel like Harry's my friend. I believe I could do him on film because I really know him. When I read the books I go into that world, it's like my world," Sean said.

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

That's it for now... remember you can send all your Euro News, questions, reports, complains to our Euro offices in Paris at euroaicn@yahoo.com and let the world know. Edgard out