THE chic ethic in Hollywood nowadays is that green is good, but the most conspicuous green element at Cannes is recycling, with so many remakes and sequels for sale in the festival market. Here's a sample.
Fahrenheit 9/11:Michael Moore was plugging a sequel to his Palme d'Or-winning documentary. "Maybe
I'll call it Bush Be Gone," Moore said at a Cannes reception.
Point Break Indo:Keanu Reeves returns for this sequel set in Singapore 20 years after Patrick Swayze's character, Bodhi, disappeared.
The Bad Lieutenant:Nicolas Cage and Werner Herzog replace Harvey Keitel and Abel Ferrara as star and director for what seems an entirely superfluous reworking of the 1992 crime thriller once banned in the Emerald Isle.
Brighton Rock:Rowan Joffe, who co-wrote 28 Weeks Later, will direct this Graham Greene adaptation, originally made in 1947 with Richard Attenborough as hoodlum Pinkie Brown.
King Lear:The umpteenth screen treatment will star Anthony Hopkins, Gwyneth Paltrow and Keira Knightley. No word yet on the third sister.
Islands in the Stream:Tommy Lee Jones will direct and star in the film of Ernest Hemingway's novel first filmed in 1977. It's quite unlikely Tommy Lee will use the Dolly Parton/Kenny Rogers song of that title over the credits.
Welcome to the Sticks (Bienvenue Chez les Ch'tis):A massive hit in France this year (and opening in Dublin next Friday), this comedy is being developed by Will Smith for a US remake.
St Trinians:The naughty schoolgirls return for another romp.
Dorian Gray:Having unimpressively mined Oscar Wilde for An Ideal Husband and The Importance of Being Earnest, producer-director team Barnaby Thompson and Oliver Parker plan a "horror" spin starring Ben Barnes (Prince Caspian in the Narnia movies) as the man with a portrait upstairs.
The Descent 2:Survivor Sarah (Shauna McDonald) tries to find her friends, perhaps because the low- budget original was a hit.
Day-Lewis to show off his singing
Adventurous as ever, two-time Oscar winner Daniel Day-Lewis is in talks to star in the musical Nine, which has been generating much excitement at Cannes. He's poised to play a famous film director experiencing personal and creative crises as he tries to deal with all the women in his life: his mother (Sophia Loren), wife (Marion Cotillard), lover (Nicole Kidman), protege (Penelope Cruz) and agent (Judi Dench). The film will be directed by Rob Marshall, who made the Oscar- winning musical Chicago. Originally staged on Broadway, Nine was inspired by Federico Fellini's 1963 classic, 8½.
Babelgum award for Irishman
Irish writer-director Brian Deane was among the seven winners when the awards of the first Babelgum Online Film Festival were announced in Cannes by jury chairman Spike Lee. The event received over 1,000 entries from 86 countries. Deane won the Babelgum Social/Environment Award for Without Words, which deals with a young man's suicide. A native of Cork, Deane is a recent graduate of the Huston School of Film and Digital Media in Galway.
His plans include making a short musical in the west of Ireland. See his film on www.babelgum.com
Dub-ya subtitle for thicks of Europe
Two-page ads have been running in the trade press at Cannes for W, Oliver Stone's movie on the present incumbent on the White House. For us thick Europeans, the ads carry a phonetic pronunciation of the title - dub-ya - and the subtitle, The Improbable President. The film, which has started shooting in Louisiana, features Josh Brolin as George W Bush, with James Cromwell and Ellen Burstyn as his parents, Elizabeth Banks as his wife, Scott Glenn as Donald Rumsfeld, Thandie Newton as Condoleeza Rice, Jeffrey Wright as Colin Powell, Toby Jones as Karl Rove and Ioan Gruffudd as Tony Blair.
Lily shows her Cannes-do spirit
Singer Lily Allen helped out her dad, actor-director Keith Allen, in Cannes this week to promote his work-in- progress documentary There Are Dark Forces. It deals with the aftermath of Princess Diana's death.
Do we really need yet another documentary on that? Yes, says Allen Sr, claiming his film proves that "the monarchy is a corrupting force" and that "the media sold a story before the truth even had its boots on". We'll see.
From Spielberg with love
Where does Casino Royale (the one with Daniel Craig and not the feeble 1967 spoof) figure in the pantheon of James Bond movies? "It's the best since From Russia With Love, Steven Spielberg declared at his Cannes press conference this week.
Jury duty is bad for your health
As anticipated in Reel News last Friday, the French smoking ban was ignored by members of the Cannes jury. It happened even before the official opening of the film festival, when the jury met the media. First to light up was Persepolis director Marjane Satrapi, who bizarrely cited "medical reasons", followed closely by jury president Sean Penn and French actress Jeanne Balibar.
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