Irish flicks could do with a few laughs

2000AD, the Irish production company based at Ardmore Studios, has been urged by a "well-known studio in Los Angeles" to seek out amusing comedy scripts by domestic writers. Adrian Devane of 2000AD sounds as if he's getting desperate. "I have read over 40 scripts in the last three years from Irish-based writers," he says. Three were good, but "none of them are writing good comedy."

Devane seeks a correctly formatted script of between 90 and 100 pages. "To break the trend in Irish film-making, it should be funny, commercial and be able to be made for between $8 million and $10 million" (€6.6 million-€8.3 million). For information, see www.2000adproductions.com

Down Under films in Dublin

Jane Scott, the producer of such notable Antipodean features as My Brilliant Career, Strictly Ballroom and Shine, was in the capital earlier this week to launch the impressive programme for the upcoming Dublin Australian Film Festival. The event, which runs at the Irish Film Institute from April 21st to 27th, opens with Sarah Watt's Look Both Ways, a drama of middle age that cleaned up at the recent Australian Film Institute Awards. Other highlights include David Bradbury's Blowin' in the Wind, a documentary on the use of depleted uranium in recent conflicts, and Scott Ryan's eccentric crime comedy The Magician.

Details of the festival, which is sponsored by Wolf Blass wine, can be found at the IFI's website, www.ifi.ie

Classic 'grindhouse' on DVD

The sober, thoughtful films of François Truffaut and Ingmar Bergman are about to be cast among some distinctly unsavoury company. Tartan Films, the British distributor responsible for issuing those respected directors' flicks on DVD, has just announced the establishment of a label aimed at supplying disgusting low-budget features to blood-thirsty nutters. Tartan Grindhouse will seek out classics in the exploitation genre, bundle them together in pretty two-disc sets and offer them to the public for the not unreasonable sum of £19.99.

Titles already scheduled for release include such gems as Last House on Dead End Street, Black Sun: Nanking Massacre and Jess Franco's irresistible Dracula vs Frankenstein. We can't wait. The first effusions of this commendable enterprise will squelch into shops in May.

Ocean, Gigolo followups

The Ticket was more tolerant of Ocean's Twelve than most other publications, but we still don't see the great need for a third heist from Steven Soderbergh's glamorous hoodlums. Well, it looks as if Pitt, Clooney, Damon, Garcia and the rest think differently.¨ Ocean's Thirteen, which stars all those fellows, but neither Ms Roberts nor Ms Zeta-Jones, is set to begin shooting in July. Perhaps they all just fancied a holiday.

More intriguing dispatches from Follow-up Central relate that Paul Schrader is set to write and direct an "unofficial sequel" to his glossy 1980 classic American Gigolo. Photography on The Walker, which stars Woody Harrelson, Willem Dafoe and the indomitable Lauren Bacall, begins in the UK next week. The notion of scruffy Woody stepping into Richard Gere's soft loafers is, in itself, sufficiently bizarre to justify any ticket price.

Quaid wants more dosh

Randy Quaid appears to be making an early pitch for meanie of the year. The burly character actor, brother of the more pulchritudinous Dennis, is suing the producers of Brokeback Mountain for misleading him as to that film's commercial prospects. The respected star of The Magical Legend of the Leprechauns claims he was persuaded to work for less than his usual fee because Brokeback was "a low-budget, arthouse film, with no prospect of making any money." The gay shepherd tragedy has so far taken over $80 million (€66.5 million) at the box office.

Considering Mr Quaid's litigious leanings, we should clarify that the remarks above regarding his appearance were all meant in jest. He's actually gorgeous.

Online rabbits outact stars

Want to see The Exorcist re-enacted by bunnies? Of course you do. This week we've has been distracted by the Angry Alien website, which features hilarious parodies of movies starring deranged rabbits. The 30-Second Bunnies Theatre Library can be found at www.angryalien.com. The Brokeback Mountain pastiche caused hot beverages to gush from our noses.

dclarke@irish-times.ie