Reel News

The other film stories of the day...

So, just how big is Kevin Smith?

Kevin Smith's not thatoverweight. Is he? The question is not entirely gratuitous. It has emerged that Smith, director of Clerksand a dozen other slacker entertainments, got bumped from a Southwest Airlines flight because, the authorities said, his weight constituted a health risk. The airline later apologised, but Kev wasn't having it. "Once again: I know I'm fat. The point of all this? I'm not too fat for Southwest Air, yet someone deemed me so," he wrote on his blog. Again, to be fair, he's really not that enormous.

Gallic hardman descends on Cork

Christopher Lambert, archetypal Gallic hardman, is to attend the 21st Cork French Film Festival when it kicks off on February 28th.

At the programme launch on Tuesday, it was also revealed that Nouvelle Vague’s Mark Collin will perform live accompaniment to the silent classic Man with a Movie Camera.

Forgotten cinema festival for Bray

A rather delicious sounding film festival is to take place in Killdruddery House near Bray from March 11th. Dedicated to celebrating lost, overlooked and forgotten cinema, the festival will feature outings for Michael Powell’s great

I Know Where I'm Going, Satyajit Ray's Deviand Bob Quinn's imperishable Budawanny. Among the more recent releases is Terence Malick's The New World. Somewhat overlooked on its release in 2005, the picture is slowly being accepted as an ignored classic. www. killrudderyfilmfestival.com

Taxi Driver 2 rumours abound

There's no question as to what the craziest story doing the rounds at the Berlin Film Festival is. Various "rumours" and smidgeons of "gossip" suggest that Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro are to team up with Lars Von Trier to deliver a sequel or prequel (or something else) to Taxi Driver. Reel News would be very peeved if this occurred. We asked Marty about future dealings with De Niro just last week and he never mentioned such an intriguing prospect.

Oscar gushes can now go on forever

It’s difficult to know what to make of the Academy’s new attempt to cut down on those lengthy “thank you, thank you” monologues at the upcoming Oscars. The winners will now be invited to deliver two speeches: a concise 45-seconds on stage and another more gushy one to a “thank-you camera” backstage. The latter will be available online. On the one hand, it will be bliss not to sit through all that crawling to agents. At the same time, if you won an Oscar you’d quite like to thank your mum live. Wouldn’t you? Of course you would.

Biting the Disney hand that feeds it

More on that interesting dispute between British cinemas and Walt Disney. The Odeon, Vue and Cineworld chains – which, between them, run some 95 per cent of the UK's screens – have threatened to boycott Tim Burton's upcoming Alice in Wonderlandunless Disney cancels its scheme to cut the window between theatrical and DVD releases from 17 weeks to just 12 weeks. Would they really turn down such a potentially lucrative picture? We'll keep you informed.

Daily coverage of the Jameson Dublin International Film Festival begins today in the Arts section of The Irish Times