BATTLE ROYALE
Pitch Big Brother meets Lord Of The Flies. Background As part of a government drive to eradicate teenage hooliganism in Japan. a class of school children are shipped off to a remote island '.‘.l.'l(:l‘3 they are forced to kill each other until there’s one student left standing. Not so much eye for an eye. rather tackling crime by way of an extreme example.
Smash This one's laden with controversy. which should secure a r:ro'.'/d. It even had the censorship- phobii: Japanese government calling for a ban. Bomb Kids killing each other is a pretty sensitive topic, \‘fiill Brits be able to take it’?
MOULIN ROUGE
Pitch Bax Luhrn‘iann superimposes disco Culture on 1899Paris.
Background Liihrinann does for flamboyant. decadent turn-of—the last century Paris what he did for Shakespeare in Romeo And Juliet. Part backstage Hollywood musical, part lewd comedy. part postmodern pop culture fantasy. MOU/in Fiouge casts Ewan McGregor as an idealistic poet and Nicole Kidrnan as a Montmartre nightclub singer. But in this club the MC acts out MadOnna's 'Like A Virgin' as homoerotic frolic.
Smash Luhrinann has once again created a pharitasmagoric fantasy. kitsch. camp and brez’ithtakingly inventive.
Bomb Word on audience reaction from Cannes is it neatly bisects them: younger than 40 love It. oldsters hate it.
Nicole Kidman in decadent 19th century Paris
(-.I M (>l 'I l :l MONTH
AMELIE
Pitch The director of Delicatessen and The City Of Lost Children is back with a new visionary fantasy after five years.
Background Amelie is a naive. good-natured yOung girl living in Paris who helps those around her
and eventually discovers love. Cheesy you say? Well.
what begins innocently enough flowers into a full- blown fantasy with astonishing special effects and a surreal ending.
Smash It‘s likely to be the most original and imaginative film you see all year by a long shot. Bomb Jean-Pierre Jeunet's last film. Alien: Resurrection, was dire. But then that was his one experience of working in Hollywood.
BLOCKBUSTER OF THE MONTH
A.I. ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE Pitch Spielberg takes over what was to be the late great Kubrick's final film.
Background This adaptation of British science fiction writer Brian Aldiss' short stay concerns a robot boy with artificial intelligence (Haley Joel Osment) who is separated from his ‘parents' and goes on a quest to find humanity within himself. En route he meets Jude Law's male model robot. Smash Apart from Spielberg obviously being box office gold. a genuine spectacle is promised. A./. 's futuristic America is largely underwater; marvel at New York City submerged.
Bomb Plot-wise it sounds mawkish. and Spielberg ladles his sentiment on thick.
THE CENTER OF THE WORLD
Pitch Erotic. explicit drama featuring ‘lollipop Iove'. Background Molly Parker again, here playing a drummer in a band who makes her living dorng lap dances. One day she meets a dot.com nerd who offers her 81 0.000 to spend a weekend having sex with him in Las Vegas. She agrees on two conditions: no kissrng, no penetration. But everything else. Smash With Wayne Wang (Smoke. Blue In The Face) directing you can be Sure this is no cheap soft porn action. Bomb But does the cinema-going public like its sex hard-core?
ORIGINAL SIN
Pitch Heartthrobs Antonio Banderas and Angelina Jolie 'at it'.
Background Blimey. more sex. Though here it's distinctly Hollywood glossy. partnering as it does gorgeous heartthrob Antonio Banderas with gorgeous heartthrob Angelina Jolie. Beguiled by Jolie. Banderas follows her femme fatale into a world
i ‘ . it:
We have been waiting for Amelie
Jude Law goes under ' I water l
\ I
of intrigue. murder. etc. but finds that her heart is always and mysteriously beyond his grasp.
Smash There's more to Original Sin than first sight would suggest. thanks in part to rt being an adaptation of a novel by pulp crime writer Cornell Woolrich. Bomb Still, it smacks of 9f 2 l'tr’eeAs. Jade and other soft porn stinkers.
STORYTELLING
Pitch Black comedy boy genius Todd Solondz's follow-up to Happiness.
Background Two. unrelated stories. actually. A short one about a sexual liaison between a creative writing student and her tutor, and a longer one about a girl who becomes the subject of an exploitative reality TV-style r‘lOCumentary. The marvellously geeky Heather Matarazzo from Solondz's debut. Welcome To The Dollhouse. is back. while the soundtrack is scored by Scotland's own Belle And Sebastian. Smash No one challenges audiences with Iaugher and disturbing drama the way Solond/ does.
Bomb The SUDJGCI matter may be too much for many: remember. one of the main characters in Happiness was a paedophile.
SWORDFISH
Pitch MlSS/OIT.’ ImposSih/e meets Face/Off. Background Top spy John Travolta is hired by the CIA (Don Cheadlel to coerce recently-paroled criminal superhacker Hugh Jackman (aka Wolverine in X-lt/fen) into helping them steal SBbillion in unused government funds. Halle Berry prowdes the required feminine charms for this OTT blockbuster action flick directed by Dominic Sena (Gone ln Sixty Seconds). Smash Clever script 7+ gobsmacking opening sequence + no Sign of a film taking itself seriously : big fun. Bomb Travolta's been steadily ruining his post-Pulp Fiction career comeback wrth trash like Battlefield Earth. Does he again have the kiss of box office death?
Also opening in September
The big screen version of the Edinburgh Fringe hit Disco Pigs . . . high octane action thrills With Gir/fight star Michelle Rodriguez in The Fast And The Furious
. . . Liverpool drugs thriller, The 5 73! State, starring Samuel L. Jackson and Robert Carlyle . . . Ji Lee martial actioner Kiss Of The Dragon . . . Peter Cattaneo aims to top his Full Monty With Lucky Break . . . Kathy Burke and Lee Evans in The Martins (hilariously titled Tosspol in the US) . . . friendship and betrayal between romantic poets Coleridge and Wordsworth in Pandemonium . . . Eddie Murphy is the outer space nightclub owner in Pluto Nash . . . more mock-mock horror film laughs in Scary Meme 2 . . . and Ashley Judd is the newspaper columnist who hates men in Someone Like You.
7—21 Jun 2001 THE LIST 25