THE latest movies from Woody Allen, Abel Ferrara, Newell, Clint Eastwood and Alan J. Pakula are all on the release schedules of Irish cinemas between now and the end of next month. Due next Friday are Milos Forman's controversial The People Vs Larry Flynt and the second reissue in the Star Wars: Special Edition trilogy, The Empire Strikes Back.
Abel Ferrara's new movie, the intense gangster saga, The Funeral, opens on April 18th, as does his previous production, The Addiction, and both feature the sublime Christopher Walken. Opening on the same day are Woody Allen's delightful musical, Everyone Says I Love You and Philip Noyce's The Saint, starring Val Kilmer (as Simon Templar) and Elisabeth Shue.
The third Star Wars movie, Return Of The Jedi, arrives on April 25th along with the Welsh Twin Town and the Australian Love And Other Catastrophes, and to be confirmed, the restored version of Alfred Hitchcock's magnificent Vertigo - though sadly not on 70mm as there is no longer a 70mm screen in Dublin.
May gets off to a lively start with Mike Newell's excellent Donnie Brasco, starring Al Pacino and Johnny Depp, and the current US hit comedy Liar Liar, with Jim Carrey as a lawyer forced to tell the truth for 24 hours. Opening on May 9th are Alan J. Pakula's controversial The Devil's Own with Brad Pitt (as a Provo on the run in New York) and Harrison Ford; the endearing Oscar winning Czech movie, Kolya; the portrait of the US artist, Basquiat, played by Jeffrey Wright; and the Irish made Moll Flanders, starring Robin Wright, Morgan Freeman, Stockard Channing, John Lynch and Brenda Fricker.
Another Irish made movie Space Truckers, set in 2196 and starring Dennis Hopper and Stephen Dorff, opens on May 23rd, as do the Tim Allen comedy Jungle 2 Jungle, John Turturro in Tom DiCillo's Box Of Moonlight, and, perish the thought, Beavis & Butthead Do America.
The month ends with the release of Clint Eastwood's Absolute Power, which is tipped to close, Cannes this year and co stars its director and Gene Hackman Stanley Tucci and Campbell Scott's first directing outing with the commendable Big Night; and Maggie Cheung in the anagramatically titled Irma Vep.
Among, the other movies likely to open in May are the Kurt Vonnegut adaptation Mother Night; Whoopi Goldberg in Eddie; the horror movie, The Relic; Sophie Marceau and Sean Bean in Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina; and Muhammad Ali and George Foreman in the fascinating Oscar winning documentary When We Were Kings.
FIVE short film projects have been selected in the latest round of commissions for Short Cuts, jointly funded by RTE and Bord Scannan na hEireann. They are Bolt (writer director David Caffrey, producer Jack Armstrong), Racing Homer (writer director Peter McKenna, producer Jennifer McCrohan), Quando (writer director Declan Recks, producer Liam O'Neill), A Basket Full Of Wallpaper (writer Robert John Quinn, director Joe Lee, producer Seamus McInerny) and My Dinner With Oswald (writer Donald Clarke, director Paul Duane, producer Lisa Ruddy).
My Dinner With Oswald is also among the seven projects to receive funding in the first round of The Arts Council's film and video awards for 1997, announced yesterday. The top award of £11,000 went to Eve Mornson's docu drama, Forgotten Voices. Three awards of £10,000 were made to Arnold Fanning for the short drama, Still Rain; Emily Hourican for an experimental work, Manu De Dios; and My Dinner With Oswald.
Two awards were made in the category of community video: £5,000 to the Irish Deaf Society for Angry Silences, and £2,000 to Fergal O'Hanrahan for Clasp. An award of £2,000 was made to Marc Ivan O'Gorman for an experimental project on "social misfits in our society".
THE Irish Czech and Slovak Society presents five films by the Czech surrealist film maker, Jan Svankmajer, at the IFC in Dublin on Sunday at .5 p.m. The programme includes his very first production, The Last Trick Of Mr Schwarzewalde And Mr Edgar, made in 1964, along with Dimensions Of Dialogue, Virile Games, Down To The Cellar and The Flat.
As part of the Pinter 97 Festival in Dublin, the IFC will screen seven films scripted by Harold, Pinter, beginning next Friday with, Joseph Losey's The Servant, and continuing with two further Losey films, The Go Between and Accident, along with The French Lieutenant's Woman, The Pumpkin Eater, Reunion and The Comfort Of Strangers.
Next Friday also sees the opening of a German Film Week at the IFC, starting with Doris Dorrie's, Nobody Loves Me and including Gotz George's The Death Maker, Margaretha von Trotta's The Promise and another Doris Dorrie movie, Men.
IRISH and Irishmade movies from Man Of Aran and Miser Eire to Michael Collins and Trojan Eddie are showcased in Green on the Screen, a two week season which opened at the Barbican in London last night with Last Of The High Kings. Feature films screening also include Korea, The Eliminator, Some Mother's Son, In The Named Of The Father, The Bishop's Story, Ryan's Daughter and The Quiet Man. Documentaries and short films will be featured, and there will be a screening of Irish Destiny, with live accompaniment by the Irish Chamber Orchestra conducted by Micheal O Suilleabhain, on the afternoon of April 12th.
THE versatile actor, writer and director Billy Bob Thornton, an Oscar winner last week for his Sling Blade screenplay, has been signed for one of the leading roles in the Mike Nichols movie of the satirical political novel, Primary Colors. Thornton will play the campaign staff member based on, James Carville. The characters based on Bill and Hillary Clinton in Primary Colors will be played by John Travolta and Emma Thompson, and the cast also includes Adrian Lester, Kathy Bates and Maura Tierney.
IN Spain, Pedro Almodovar is coming towards the end of shooting Live Flesh based on a Ruth Rendell novel and dealing with a paraplegic former policeman who captains a wheelchair basketball team. The cast features Javier Bardem, Liberto Rabal, Pepo Sancho, Angela Molina and Francesca Neri.
THE terribly serious British monthly film magazine Sight & Sound, carried, a short piece on the section 35 investment incentives in its March 1997 issue. To explain such complex matters, the piece began: "The recent renaissance of the Irish film industry did not fall from the skies nor was it prompted by a visit from the Pope. Just fancy that.
