Catherine Breillat's sexually explicit French drama, Romance, has been banned in Australia by the Office of Film and Literature Classification which admitted that the film is "a serious work by a serious director" but rejected it due to its "explicit depiction of actual sexual activity, an implied depiction of sexual violence and adult themes of very high intensity".
Variety reports that Breillat has written to the censors saying she is "very shocked" by their decision and noting that the film was released "in more conservative nations like Ireland and Turkey".
However, the complete version of Romance shown in Dublin last year was screened under club conditions at the IFC and the film was not submitted to the censor here. The British distributors of Romance say there will be a significant cut in the film when it goes on video shortly. To qualify for a video release here, the film must be submitted to, and passed by, the Irish censor.
More cuts: Oliver Stone - whose Natural Born Killers remains banned here and was prevented from being screened by TV3 recently - has cut 12 minutes from the European release version of his new movie, Any Given Sunday. However, these cuts all relate to American football footage.
The cuts shorten the film to two hours 30 minutes and, says Stone, "are especially for European audiences not comprehending football". He says the cuts have "enhanced the speed and hardened the clarity of the film overall".
The movie, which stars Al Pacino as a football coach and Cameron Diaz as the owner of the team, opens here on March 31st.
Boxer Barry McGuigan, former featherweight champion of the world, makes his acting debut in the recently completed thriller, Malicious Intent, written, produced and directed by Danny Patrick. The film deals with brothers on opposite sides of the law. When one of them robs a criminal gang, he incurs the wrath of the gang's leader played by McGuigan - who coached Daniel Day-Lewis for his fight scenes in Jim Sheridan's The Boxer.
Meanwhile, for his portrayal of boxer Rubin Carter in The Hurricane, Denzel Washington last Sunday added the best actor award at the Berlin Film Festival to the Golden Globe he received last month, and now looks like a formidable contender for the Oscar next month.
And two directors are on the final shortlist to direct Ali, which will star Will Smith as the young Muhammad Ali. They are Michael Mann, whose The Insider, (see Weekend 4) is up for seven Oscars, and Spike Lee.
The saga surrounding the key casting of the Silence of the Lambs sequel, Hannibal, finally looks close to a conclusion with Julianne Moore, now in final negotiations to play the role of FBI agent Clarice Starling in Ridley Scott's film of the Thomas Harris novel. When Jodie Foster, who received an Oscar for playing the role in the original, turned down Hannibal, the role was offered to Cate Blanchett, before Moore, an Oscar nominee this year for The End of the Affair, entered the frame. Anthony Hopkins will reprise his role as Dr Lecter.
Disney has agreed to spend between $130 and $135 million on the new Jerry Bruckheimer production Pearl Harbor, making it the most expensive movie ever to get the green light in Hollywood - although not the most expensive movie to be produced, given that Waterworld, which got the green light with a budget of $65m, eventually cost $175m and Titanic ended up costing twice its $100m budget.
Bruckheimer and his director, Michael Bay (The Rock, Armageddon) originally requested a budget of $180m for Pearl Harbor but cut several big battle sequences to bring costs down, and they will be personally responsible for any over-spending on the epic which starts shooting shortly. Scripted by Braveheart writer Randall Wallace, the film centres on two Tennessee fighter pilots, close friends who fall in love with the same nurse on the eve of the Japanese attack in 1941.
Tipped for the leading roles are Jim Caviezel from The Thin Red Line and American Beauty discovery Wes Bentley, with Charlize Theron as the nurse. Among those in line to feature elsewhere in the cast are Kevin Costner, Cuba Gooding Jr, Edward Burns, Renee Zellweger, Josh Hartnett, and as Franklin D. Roosevelt, Gene Hackman.