jean-pierre jeunet Tagged Articles at Cinematical

What did you do on Saturday night? The Weinstein Co. was busy, closing three deals at the American Film Market (AFM), according to ScreenDaily.com. They picked up US distribution rights to films represented by French company Wild Bunch.

• Dorothy Mills stars Carice Van Houten, who gave an incredible performance in Paul Verhoeven's Black Book and has since been rumored as a Bond Girl and signed for biopic Smoke and Ochre, Bryan Singer's Valkyrie, Body of Lies with Leonardo DiCaprio and Russell Crowe, and Repossesion Mambo with Jude Law. (Whew!) Dorothy Mills was directed by Agnès Merlet (Artemisia) and is described as a mystery thriller. Van Houten plays a grieving psychiatrist assigned to help a teenage girl accused of strangling a baby.
  

• Dante 01 represents the solo directing debut of Marc Caro, who previously made Delicatessen and The City of Lost Children with Jean-Pierre Jeunet. The film is set in a "space prison," where dangerous criminals become unwilling participants in medical experiments. The prisoners begin resisting; the arrival of a mysterious convict brings everything to a head. It's due for release in France on January 2, 2008.
  

• Martyrs is a horror flick from writer/director Pascal Laugier. It starts in the 1970s with the discovery of Lucie, a young girl who'd gone missing the year before and has no memory of what happened. Hospitalized, she suffers from nightmares of torture, but slowly recuperates with the help of another young patient. Fifteen years pass and she turns up at a house in a forest with shotgun in hand. (Cineuropa has the details.)
  

No word yet on whether the Weinsteins plan theatrical releases, though Dorothy Mills is the most likely to get one. AFM continues through November 7 in lovely, seaside Santa Monica, California.

There aren't too many movies that necessitate sequels. Unless a movie is part of a pre-proposed series or is an adaptation of a series of books, it should probably be able to stand alone. But a lot of sequels come from movies that are perfect by themselves -- sometimes the sequels compliment nicely; sometimes they are easily ignored; occasionally they actually take away from the previously regarded original.

It isn't often that a movie screams out for a sequel, but I think I've come up with seven that at least whisper a request for one. Two actually have source sequels that they would be adapted from. One has a lot of history to mine material from. Three of them have been discussed at length at different points in time by makers of the original(s). The problem is that none of these sequels is likely to ever grace your DVD player let alone your local theater. For whatever reason, they simply have too much against them in the minds of studio execs. For now, though, we can dream.

1. The Restaurant at the End of the Universe (sequel to The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy)

Even with the incredible cast and the surprisingly faithful-enough script, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy was not the epic that I was hoping for. It also wasn't the blockbuster that Disney was hoping for. The filmmakers, Garth Jennings and Nick Goldsmith (aka Hammer and Tongs) and the necessary actors had signed on for the sequel, to be adapted from Adam's follow-up, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, but it appears to be dead in the water. Despite my few reservations with the first film, I would love to see the sequel, as well as the rest of the series (they could end before The Salmon of Doubt, I guess). I remember being bored with some of the prehistoric Earth sequences in Restaurant, but I think they'd make for great cinema. In any event, I think Martin Freeman and Mos Def were a great duo in the original, and they alone should have been propelled to stardom following its release. Maybe they can appear in something else together.

After disappointing comic book fans everywhere with Catwoman, the mono-monikered director Pitof should have gone back to his day job. He is a terrific special effects man, particularly for his work with Jean-Pierre Jeunet on such films as Delicatessen and Alien: Resurrection. But for all his recognition for the effects work, he's going to be best known for guiding Halle Berry through one of the lamest movies of the 2000s (it 'won' four Razzies including Worst Picture, Worst Director and Worst Actress). While he hasn't given up his day job yet (he's back with Jeunet for The Life of Pi and he's working on the next Astérix and Obélix movie), he's also not giving up on directing. His follow-up to Catwoman has just been announced as an independent crime thriller called Only in New York, starring Jim Caviezel.

Caviezel has some problems of his own coming on to this project, as he does with any project these days. Many of us will forever associate the actor with his role as Jesus in The Passion of the Christ, despite the fact that he hasn't physically resembled that role in anything since. I don't know if Hollywood also sees the difficulty with such a connection, but in looking at his IMDb listing I noticed that since The Passion he doesn't seem to be getting as much work as he had been before. Of course, it could be that Caviezel is the one keeping low, staying away from the city he calls "a cesspool piece of crap." Or it could be that producers want to avoid the kind of accidental humor that showed up in Deja Vu. Either way, I could only think of the possible religious elements when reading the description of Only in New York, which the Hollywood Reporter says is about, "a recently paroled street hustler looking for a new life and seeking redemption."

As if Pitof's and Caviezel's involvements weren't enough trouble for the production, Only in New York will be marked by an ironic and bogus title. It seems the film can't be shot only in New York, because it begins filming in Toronto in June. The whole production would probably be better off aborting this project and getting to work on self-parodic shorts for YouTube. Anyone interested in seeing Catwoman vs. Jesus?

My love of cinema originally came about through my love of production design, particularly for science fiction and fantasy films. As I grew up, one of my dream careers was art director, and some my early heroes were Dante Ferretti and Bo Welch. Naturally, then, a lot of my favorite filmmakers have been those who display creative art direction in their movies. Terry Gilliam has always been at the top of my list.

Other fans of Gilliam will agree with me that no other living director is more deserving of recognition by the Art Directors Guild. In fact, I'm surprised that he wasn't the first choice to receive the guild's Outstanding Contribution to Cinematic Imagery Award when it was originally given in 1998 (to Norman Jewison instead). Other filmmakers that I expect to see honored in the future include Tim Burton, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Peter Jackson and Guillermo del Toro.

Gilliam will receive the award at the Art Director's Guild Awards on February 17, when the guild also names the winners of its prizes for excellence in production design for 2006. Like other guild awards, the ADG's honors recognize distinct categories for its field. Nominated films are separated into three groups: period piece; contemporary; and fantasy (you may remember these are the same categories for the Costume Designer Guild Awards).

Well, this whole "Peter Jackson is off The Hobbit" story finally hit the trades today, arriving in Variety and The Hollywood Reporter. CNN also managed to throw something up about it too. Personally, it reminds me of some big nasty divorce battle, with MGM playing the part of the little kid who just wants the bickering to end so they can go live with Dad (played by Peter Jackson). And New Line has taken on the part of sadistic mother (note: not all mothers are sadistic, just the one in this scenario) -- a force hell-bent on keeping the luxurious home (ie: The Hobbit) all three once shared together.

Regardless, MGM still owns the distribution rights, so they will remain involved with this for now. And, like a typical kid, insist the Peter Jackson saga is not over ... yet. They remain optimistic, and I'm sure will do what they can to get mom and dad on the same page. However, like with most divorces, it's all about money -- and one can expect New Line not to budge even a tiny bit. In fact, they might already have a substitute dad in line to replace Jackson. According to Cinema Blend, they've received a few emails from different people who claim Jean-Pierre Jeunet (Amelie) is at the top of the "How the f*ck do we replace Peter Jackson?" list. Granted, this is also the guy who brought us Alien: Resurrection (why do I feel as if some major LOTR fan just threw something at their computer). Yes, these are only rumors coming from anonymous people who may or may not have a clue -- but it's certainly a start.

Perhaps we should address the question: Who do you get to replace Peter Jackson?

• Of the five features that Jean-Pierre Jeunet has directed, three place high on my list of favorite films. Therefore I am very happy to hear that he has just been knighted by France's Legion of Honor. The ceremony took place on Wednesday, where Culture Minister Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres called Jeunet, "an atypical, unusual filmmaker, who created more than just a style -- an entire universe."

• Two-time Oscar-winner Olivia de Havilland is being honored this evening with a tribute by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. The actress, who will be 90 on July 1, is the last surviving star of Gone with the Wind and was named Best Actress by the Academy for To Each His Own and The Heiress. She will be only the fourth person to be given such a tribute.

• Neil Simon will be awarded the Mark Twain Award for humor by the Kennedy Center in a ceremony on October 15. The Center's officials cited Simon as America's foremost playwright, but the honor will also be in recognition of his contributions to film and television. Proving himself still funny at age 78, Simon joked about the award by saying, "It makes up for my losing the Samuel Clemens Prize." Simon was one of my idols in high school, when I was writing my own semi-autobiographical plays and performing in scenes from his works, such as The Prisoner of Second Avenue. We could use more writers like him on Broadway and in Hollywood.

• It may not be an award, but I would call it an honor to be named head of the jury for The Venice Film Festival (Aug. 30 - Sept. 9), and Catherine Deneuve is the person given that honor this year. The actress is familiar to the fest, as she starred in the 1967 Golden Lion winner Belle de Jour and won the Volpi Cup Award for Best Actress in 1998 for Place Vendrôme. American filmmakers in competition might hope for the best from Deneuve, as she was on the Cannes jury in 1994 that awarded Pulp Fiction the Palme d'Or.

 

• The Call Of Cthulhu - The H.P. Lovecraft Preservation Society, a group of dauntless fans that created the brilliant, Cthulhu-themed musical, A Shoggoth On The Roof, have created the ultimate fan film, an incredible tribute to the writer whose work seeded modern horror favorites like Re-Animator and From Beyond. Shot like a 1920's era silent film, the 47-minute feature is technically amazing, shot (in black-and-white), lit and performed like an authentic film of the period would have been (although it would have horrified people of the time right into Arkham Sanitarium.) Considered Lovecraft's most famous story, the story of a man who inherits a collection of documents detailing the ghastly Cthulhu Cult, it is very faithfully adapted, not to mention super-efficient. The title cards are in the viewer's choice of an astonishing 24 different languages, and the lush, symphonic score can be played in hi-fi and the kitschy-fun, lo-fi "Mythoscope". A skillful build and an extremely satisfying payoff (think creature design King Kong '33 style) add up to one of the smartest horror films of recent memory.

Some of us have been waiting an eternity for Delicatessen to appear on DVD in this country. The delay seemed baffling. The other culty film directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet and Marc Caro, City of Lost Children, has been available on DVD since 1999. I hoped that the success of Jeunet's more recent film, Amelie, would lead to interest in his 1991 film. But no. Miramax sat on this release (Miramax sit on a release? Perish the thought!) and about the time rumors surfaced that Jeunet was helping Miramax prepare a U.S. DVD, the Weinstein/Disney split occurred and the release seemed to be in limbo.

At last, Buena Vista has announced that the DVD will be released on May 2, although no information on extras is yet available. I saw Delicatessen in theaters when it was originally released in this country and loved every inch of its dark post-apocalyptic humor. I can't wait to buy the DVD and inflict it on other people.

[via Twitch]