Magic mushies make a movie

DIRECTOR Paddy Breath- nach is turning to the horror genre - and to the recently topical subject of magic mushrooms - for his fifth feature film, which is set to start shooting shortly.

Shrooms follows five American college students who, while camping in Ireland, partake of magic mushrooms and see ghostly visions that may or may not be real. The cast includes Cameron Douglas (son of Michael and grandson of Kirk), Jack Huston (nephew of Anjelica and grandson of John) and Lindsey Haun (daughter of Air Supply guitarist Jimmy Haun).

The screenplay is by Pearse Elliott, who also scripted Breath-nach's Man About Dog. The producers are Robert Walpole and Paddy McDonald, who raised the finance from the Irish Film Board, the Northern Ireland Film and Television Commission, Nordisk Film, and Ingenious Media.

Cross-dressing woes for Lee

It's been a difficult week for quite a few film people in the US. Lee Tamahori, the New Zealander who directed Once Were Warriors and Die Another Day, was arrested in Hollywood and charged with prostitution after he, while dressed as a woman, allegedly solicited an undercover cop.

Meanwhile, in Florida, Joe Pesci was questioned by police after he allegedly punched a 24-year-old student taking photos of him at a shopping centre. A paparazzo has lodged a criminal complaint against Mark Ruffalo after an incident at Chris Penn's funeral when Ruffalo allegedly snatched the memory card from the photographer's digital camera. And German director Werner Herzog came to the rescue of Joaquin Phoenix when the brakes failed on the actor's car on a canyon above Sunset Boulevard. The car overturned but Phoenix survived unscathed.

Taking on Tinseltown

David Cronenberg will follow A History of Violence with Maps to the Stars, a darkly comic drama dealing with Hollywood excess and intrigue.

"You could say it's a Hollywood film because the characters are agents, actors and managers," explains Cronenberg, "but it is not a satire like The Player. Hollywood is a world that is seductive and repellent at the same time, and it is the combination of the two that makes it so potent. I won't fall back on some cliches or simplistic sloganeering, because the culture and what it reveals about western culture and the rest of the world is very complex."

BV's McCaul honoured

Congratulations to Brendan McCaul, vice-president and general manager of Buena Vista International (Ireland), who will receive the lifetime achievement award at the annual RAAM Management film industry conference in Glasgow next week. "To many, Brendan is responsible for the success and growth of the Irish cinema market over the past 25 years," says conference chairman Tony Meehan. "A tireless worker and outspoken critic of what he considers bad practice, he is the champion of all that is good and positive."

There was more good news for Buena Vista as The Chronicles of Narnia became its highest grossing Irish release to date, ahead of Toy Story 2 and Veronica Guerin.

Writers go for Brokeback

Brokeback Mountain added to its trophies haul last weekend when Larry McMurtry and Diana Ossana received the Writers Guild of America (WGA) award for best adapted screenplay. This completes an impressive hat-trick for the film, which also won the Directors and Producers guilds awards, affirming its status as the front-runner for next month's Oscars, where it has eight nominations.

The WGA award for best original screenplay went to Paul Haggis and Bobby Moresco for Crash, which has six Oscar nominations.

Mountain takes the mickey

Some months ago Reel News noted the very witty re-editing of footage from The Shining to produce a trailer for what seems like a warm-hearted comedy.

Now there are several variations on the theme of Brokeback Mountain, using material from other movies with the Brokeback Mountain music playing on the soundtrack. The funniest of them is Brokeback to the Future, which re-edits scenes from Back to the Future. There are also reworkings of Top Gun, Heat and Rush Hour along the same lines. All are online at www.tian.cc