Michael Dwyeron film
Cinema release schedules here are so crowded that more and more movies featuring high-profile talent on both sides of the camera are going directly to DVD. Such is the fate of Reservation Road, a contemporary thriller from Irish writer-director Terry George ( Hotel Rwanda), starring Joaquin Phoenix, Mark Ruffalo, Jennifer Connelly and Mira Sorvino.
There's no sign of an Irish opening for three well- regarded movies released by Harvey Weinstein in the US: The Great Debaters, directed by and starring Denzel Washington; Grace Is Gone, featuring John Cusack as a widower whose wife died in the Iraq war; and The Hunting Party, with Richard Gere and Terrence Howard as TV journalists on the trail of a Bosnian war criminal.
Battle in Seattle, Stuart Townsend's directing debut, drew a packed house at the Dublin International Film Festival this year and was playing all over France last month, but there's no news of an Irish release. Ditto with the most controversial film at Toronto last September, Nothing in Private, the directing debut of American Beautyscreenwriter Alan Ball.
There was a long queue for Starting Out in the Eveningwhen I saw it in New York last November. The film received rave reviews for its cast, led by Frank Langella, Lili Taylor and Lauren Ambrose, but hasn't a distributor on this side of the Atlantic. It's a thoughtful, subtle and articulate adult drama.
Perhaps that's the problem.
Can Peter fill Giles's boots?
Lampooned by Gary Cooke on Après Match, John Giles is played as a younger man by another Irish actor, Peter McDonald (from I Went Downand When Brendan Met Trudy) in The Damned United, now in production.
The focus of the film is on Brian Clough (Michael Sheen) during his turbulent 44-day tenure as Leeds manager in 1974. Actors joining the team include Stuart Graham ( This Is England) as Leeds captain Billy Bremner, Mark Cameron ( Coronation Street) as Norman Hunter, Martin Compston ( Doomsday) as John O'Hare, and Joe Dempsie ( Skins) as Duncan Mackenzie.
Timothy Spall plays Clough's right-hand man Peter Taylor, with Colm Meaney as Clough's predecessor and nemesis Don Revie, and Jim Broadbent as Derby County chairman Sam Longson.
Peter Morgan ( The Last King of Scotland, The Queen) scripted The Damned United, which marks the cinema debut of TV director Tom Hooper ( Longford).
Dublin shoot for Willows biopic
Bruce Beresford, the Australian director of the Oscar-winning Driving Miss Daisy, will direct Banking on Mr Toad, which is set to shoot in the Dublin area early next year. Casting is under way for this biopic of author Kenneth Grahame, best known for The Wind in the Willows.
"We have the inside story of Kenneth and his wife Elspeth," declares Toadproducer Timothy W Haas. "He was a heroic and tragic figure. His life was truly unconventional. His story is astonishing."
Beresford's many credits include Don's Party, Breaker Morant, Black Robeand Evelyn, which was set and shot in Dublin.
Pedro spurns Guardian blame
Pedro Almodóvar took such exception to a recent article on the Guardianwebsite that he has written a response. In a preview of the London Spanish Film Festival, headlined "The curse of Almodóvar", writer Paul Julian Smith began: "The Spanish film industry churns out up to 100 features a year. Of these we in the UK get to see perhaps four or five. And as far as famous Spanish directors go - well, there's really just the one: Pedro Almodóvar, currently in Lanzarote shooting his 17th feature."
He added: "Ironically, it seems, one super-sized name can capsize a national film industry by monopolising international interest."
Saying that he was "shocked" and felt "unjustly abused" by the article, Almodóvar described it as "deeply unfair and also rather silly". He continued: "The UK market leaves no room for the British public to discover films being made in other languages. Do you seriously believe I can be held accountable for that!?"
The complete correspondence is on www.guardian.co.uk/film
The views of a visitor
US writer-director Tom McCarthy will discuss his appealing new film, The Visitor, with the audience after its 6.30pm preview screening at Light House Cinema in Dublin next Wednesday.
McCarthy, who won the 2004 Bafta original screenplay award for The Station Agent, is also a prolific actor on television (as Kevin Riley in Boston Publicand as Scott Templeton in The Wire) and in movies ( Flags of Our Fathers, Syriana). www.lighthousecinema.ie
