The young Irish actor, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, most recently seen here in Velvet Goldmine and The Governess, features on the cover of the December issue of the US monthly, Interview, which described him as "The movies' amazing new maverick". Inside are pages of pictures of Rhys Meyers photographed by Bruce Weber - and in an interview with the magazine's film editor, Graham Fuller, who begins with a eulogising introduction:
"Whatever abilities Jonathan Rhys Meyers hasn't yet acquired as a film actor, he has one quality in his favour - once he's onscreen it's impossible to take your eyes off him. The boy is electrifying, in the same way Montgomery Clift was in Red River, James Dean in Rebel Without A Cause, and Nastassja Kinski in Paris, Texas - electrifying in a way some of our most beloved stars have never been." And that's just the opening two sentences.
THE writer and director Paul Schrader is enjoying some of the best reviews of his career for his Russell Banks adaptation, Affliction, which features Nick Nolte, James Coburn and Sissy Spacek, and opens at the IFC in Dublin on Feburary 19th. Schrader's next project, which he has written and will direct is Forever Mine, which starts shooting in New York on March 1st. It will star Joseph Fiennes, the hot young star of Shakespeare In Love, with another rising talent, Gretchen Mol.
"It's an all-out love story - a 19th-century heart on a 20th-century sleeve," says Schrader. "Somebody said to me, `How can you do a love story? I told them I've been doing love stories all along. It's just that nobody ever returns these guys' love. Now I'm doing one where somebody actually loves him in return."
Meanwhile, Martin Scorsese has completed principal photography on Bringing Out The Dead, which has been adapted by Schrader from the book by Joe Connelly, a New York paramedic. Nicolas Cage plays the central character, a Hell's Kitchen paramedic who is emotionally damaged by what he witnesses in his work.
Referring to the parallels drawn between the new film and his collaboration with Scorsese on Taxi Driver, Schrader told The New York Times: "It was in Marty's interests to circle around this territory again . . . I think he needed to back to the well and drink the fresh water of his youth. I never expected to work with him again, but as soon as I read it, I understood why he thought I was the guy to do it."
Bringing Out The Dead also features Patricia Arquette (who is married to Cage), John Goodman, Ving Rhames, Tom Sizemore, and Schrader's actress wife,. Mary Beth Hurt.
Although the heavily anticipated Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace is set for US release on May 21st, audiences in Ireland and Britain will have to wait a further two months for its release here on July 16th. Meanwhile, George Lucas now says that the three-part prequel beginning with Phantom Menace will complete the series, despite ongoing speculation that a third three-part sequel would be filmed later. "I never had a story for the sequels, the later ones," Lucas told Vanity Fair. "Also, I'll be at a point in my age where to do another trilogy would take 10 years." George Lucas is 55.
A public forum on film in Northern Ireland will be held next Thursday afternoon in the David Keir Building, Queen's University, Belfast. Organised by the Northern Ireland Film Commission (NIFC), the event will examine the content and quality of Northern Ireland film production in Northern Ireland which has reached unprecedented levels over the past three years.
The first session at 2.30 p.m. will look at commissioning and editorial policies. It will be chaired by producer Margo Harkin and panellists will include Kevin Jackson, BBC NI; Philip Morrow, UTV; Tanya Greenfield, Lottery Director, ACNI; Rod Stoneman, Irish Film Board; and Richard Taylor, NIFC.
Critic Mark Cousins will chair the second session at 4 p.m., which will explore issues of content and authenticity. The panel will include writers Glenn Patterson and Ronan Bennett, producers Sally Hubbin and Andrew Eaton, director Enda Hughes, and Stephen Cleary, head of studies, Arista.
Ed Harris, who's tipped for an Oscar nomination for The Truman Show, is set to play the late American artist Jackson Pollock, in a film which Harris himself will direct. "I'm just very curious about exploring this guy and trying to understand him," he says. "Pollock put most of his feelings and a sense of purity into his work. I'm curious about tracking that down and seeing what happens to me." Pollock, who died in a drink-driving car crash in 1956 at the age of 44, has been the subject of several unrealised proposed film projects by, among others, Robert De Niro and Barbra Streisand.
Myles Connell, whose short film Uncle Robert's Footsteps was shown at the Dublin Film Festival three years ago, has finished shooting his first feature in New York. The film, The Opportunists, which Connell wrote and directed, is set in Sunnyside, Queens and tells the story of a reformed criminal and would-be family man who is lured back to his old ways by a young cousin from Ireland. Christopher Walken and Peter McDonald, the young Irish actor from I Went Down, feature in the cast with Donal Logue, Tom Noonan and singer Cyndi Lauper. The film's executive producers include Jonathan Demme, Edward Saxon and John Lyons.
