The other film news stories of the week in brief...
First rule of Athy film club is...
The Co Kildare town of Athy will be home to an innovative new film club from next Tuesday. Michael D Higgins, indestructible champion of the arts, will be the guest speaker, and the first feature is to be Eran Kolirin's Israeli comedy The Band's Visit. Other films to be screened at the club, whose home is Athy College on the Monasterevin Road, include Hunger, Let the Right One Inand The Counterfeiters. athyfilmclub.com
The Secret of Kells is out
The Secret of Kells– the Sergey Bubka of Irish film – has picked up yet another deserved award. Last week Tomm Moore's film won best European animated feature at the British Animation Awards. There are few kingdoms left to conquer for Tomm and his team.
An inglorious mix-up?
Some 300,000 DVDs of an obscure Italian film named Quel Maledetto Treno Blindatohave been sold in the UK and Ireland over the past few weeks. How is that possible? Well, the film's English-language title (displayed prominently) is Inglorious Bastards. So, how many punters thought they were buying Tarantino's less-well-spelled war epic? We may never know.
Germaine and Fellini, up a tree
A lot of thoughts (mostly sleepy) passed through one's head while watching the recent musical Nine, but the notion that Germaine Greer might be the model for one of the slinky female characters was not among them. Yet it has transpired that Greer, veteran feminist and admirably mouthy pontificator, had an affair with Federico Fellini – model for Daniel Day Lewis's character in that film – way back in 1975.
"Sexual athletes are tuppence a dozen," the greatest living Australian mused in her Guardiancolumn. "Fellini was a many-sided genius. I do not hope to meet his like again."
Liz: step away from the aisle
It’s official. Elizabeth Taylor is not getting married. Even for somebody who has gone up the aisle as often as Liz, this does not sound like a proper news story. But a rumour had been doing the rounds that she was to marry her manager, Jason Winters.
Admirably wired to the zeitgeist, Taylor (single since 1996, surprisingly) used this Twitter thingummy to issue her denial. “The rumours regarding my engagement simply aren’t true,” she tweeted. “Jason is my manager and dearest friend. I love him with all my heart.”
Quentin’s muse and other guff
Now for the news about stuff that will probably never happen. Quentin Tarantino was so impressed by Lindsay Lohan's turn in Robert Rodriguez's Machetethat he has elected to write her a part in some film he may or may not make. Li-Lo is the next Travolta.
In other non-news, Ridley Scott is to produce a TV epic based on Robert Harris's Pompeii, a study of the last days of that doomed city. It's the next I, Claudius. And Paul Verhoeven is to direct a film based on his own book telling the story of Jesus Christ. It's the next Passion of the Christ.
Actually, Verhoeven being so reliably barmy, that last one is almost certain to happen.
