The subject of wild rumours and prophecies of doom as its budget escalated over an extended production period, James Cameron's hugely ambitious epic, Titanic, proved to be a powerful and moving experience when it was given its press screening in Dublin on Wednesday morning.
There is a time machine quality about this meticulously detailed production, assembled on the grand scale. It operates on one level as a passionate love story played to the hilt by Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet, and overhung with a chilling sense of impending doom, and on another as a horrific catastrophe which claimed 1,500 lives.
Defying all the predictions that it could never hope to recoup its vast budget of over $200 million, Titanic is powering away at the US box-office where it has already taken over $156 million after just 16 days on release - an all the more remarkable achievement as the movie is restricted to two shows a day at most cinemas because of its three-and-a-quarter-hour running time. Titanic goes on release in Ireland a fortnight from today.
Neil Jordan's The Butcher Boy has been selected for competition at next month's Berlin Film Festival. Seven other entries which have been confirmed are Barry Levinson's Wag The Dog, Gus Van Sant's Good Will Hunting, Alfonso Cuaron's Great Expectations, Michael Winterbottom's I Want You, Walter Salles' Central Do Brazil, Alain Resnais' On Connait La Chanson and Clint Eastwood's Midnight In The Garden Of Good And Evil. The festival runs from February 11th to 22nd. Meanwhile, The Butcher Boy opens in Ireland on February 20th and in Britain on March 13th.
Paramount Pictures chairman Sherry Lansing has committed to financing the film version of Frank McCourt's Pulitzer Prize-winning bestseller, Angela's Ashes, and has put the project on the company's "fast track". The screenplay adaptation is by Laura Jones, the Australian writer who adapted Janet Frame's autobiographies for An Angel At My Table and Henry James's The Portrait Of A Lady for Jane Campion. Jones also adapted the imminent movies of Jane Smiley's A Thousand Acres and Peter Carey's Oscar And Lucinda, and she is adapting E. Annie Proulx's The Shipping News for the screen.
Eighteen Irish productions have been selected from 130 entries for the Celtic Film and Television Festival, which takes place in Tralee from April 1st to 4th. Category by category, these are shortlisted entries. Documentary: The Joy - In The Female Prison, Dole Eireann, Leargas: Mise Agus Connor, Ar Imeail An Eiger and Ceol Na Talun- Samhradh. Feature-length drama: All Souls' Day. Drama series: Ros Na Run and Making The Cut. Short drama: Gort Na gCnamh, The Freesia Of Eden and Flying Saucer Rock'n'Roll. Current affairs: Leargas: Ni Tir Go Talamh and The Road To Drumcree. Entertainment: Aris. Young People: Ulster Unearthed. Children: Kevin and Muintir Na Darach. Animation: Midnight Dancer.
Who are the power players in the Irish film industry? A end-of-year report in the trade paper, Screen International, yielded quite a few suprising inclusions and omissions. Under the heading The Establishment, the top five are - in order - Neil Jordan, Jim Sheridan, Noel Pearson, Morgan O'Sullivan and Arthur Lappin. But there's no mention of Bord Scannan chief executive Rod Stoneman or chairman Louis Marcus, nor of BBC Northern Ireland head of drama Robert Cooper. Listed under Top 5 Directors are, in order, John Boorman, Pat O'Connor, Paddy Breathnach, David Keating and Trish McAdam - but not Cathal Black. The Top 5 Producers are listed from one to five as Tim Palmer and Alan Moloney of Parallel Films, Robert Walpole of Treasure Films, Ed Guiney of Temple Films, Martha O'Neill, and Liam O'Neill. Two very conspicuous ommissions here are the prolific David Collins and Little Bird supremo, James Mitchell.
Pierce Brosnan heads the Top 5 Actors, followed by Gabriel Byrne, Brendan Gleeson, Brenda Fricker and Maria Doyle Kennedy - but, amazingly, Liam Neeson, Stephen Rea and Colm Meaney don't figure. And the five to watch in 1998 are, we are told, writer Conor McPherson, director David Caffrey, actress Gina Moxley, director Frank Stapleton and producer James Flynn. But where are the hot young Irish actors, Stuart Townsend and Peter McDonald, busy young producers Ronan Glennane and Nicholas O'Neill, and the accomplished young Irish lighting cameraman, Seamus McGarvey?
Juliette Binoche, Liam Neeson and Kevin Spacey are among the actors taking to the stage in forthcoming productions by the Almeida theatre in London. Binoche will star in Nicholas Wright's new version of Pirandello's Naked, which opens on February 18th and also features Ben Daniels, Oliver Ford Davies and the Irish actress, Anita Reeves.
Liam Neeson will play Oscar Wilde in the new David Hare play, The Judas Kiss, an Almeida production which opens at the Playhouse Theatre on March 19th. Lord Alfred Douglas will be played by Tom Hollander, with Peter Capaldi as Robbie Ross. The production will be directed by Richard Eyre.
Kevin Spacey will play Hickey in Eugene O'Neill's The Iceman Cometh at the Almeida from April 14th. Rupert Graves will play Paritt and Clarke Peters has been cast as Joe Mott, with Howard Davies directing.
The American comedian, Chris Farley, died at the age of 33 in the week before Christmas. Early reports said he suffered a heart attack. Born in Chicago, Farley was, like the late John Belushi, an alumnus of the acclaimed Second City improvisational troupe. His television career took off when he joined the Saturday Night Live team in 1990 and he stayed there for five years and parodied such figures as Mama Cass, Newt Gingrich and Meat Loaf. He featured in films such as the two Wayne's World movies, The Coneheads and Airheads before landing his first starring role in the 1995 comedy Tommy Boy, followed by Black Sheep and Beverly Hills Ninja. His final film, Almost Heroes, is set for a US release in April.
Ernst Lubitsch's 1940 romantic comedy, The Shop Around The Corner, which starred James Stewart and Margaret Sullavan, is to get the remake treatment in You Have Mail which will reunite the team of Tom Hanks, Meg Ryan and director Nora Ephron, who all worked on Sleepless In Seattle, itself a remake of An Affair To Remember.
Before working on You Have Mail, Meg Ryan has joined Sean Penn, Kevin Spacey, Holly Hunter, Tom Sizemore, Chazz Palminteri and Robin Wright Penn in Tony Drazan's film of the David Rabe play, Hurlyburly, now filming in San Fransisco.
Meanwhile, the 1990 French film, Force Majeure, is being remade by Sleeping With The Enemy director, Joseph Ruben. The story deals with three friends who travel to a Third World country and the dilemma facing two of them when the third is unjustly sentenced to death. The remake stars Vince Vaughn, Anne Heche and Joaquin Phoenix. The new screenplay is by Bruce Robinson and Wesley Strick.
Pity poor Quentin Tarantino who fell victim to the bad weather in Dublin last weekend. Before he was stricken with the bug, the wunderkind was out on the town with his constant companion, Mira Sorvino - she and Willem Dafoe were in Dublin for a few days filming on Paul Auster's movie, Lulu On The Bridge. Tarantino and Sorvino were, however, the centre of attention on Saturday night when they went to the Stag's Head for drinks.
