At
the moment in New York City, there are three faces that are impossible
to escape; Jennifer Lopez, Ricky Martin and Austin Powers. All three
adorn every (and I do mean every) glossy magazine cover, billboard,
newspaper feature, all seemingly in rotation.
Lopez, best known (until
now) for her steamy performances in movies such as Steven Soderberg's
'Out Of Sight' and Oliver Stone's 'U-Turn', has just released her
debut album, 'On the 6', which is riding high in the Top 10, and
the first single, 'If You Had My Love' is sitting pretty at Number
One in the Billboard Hot 100. Lopez stopped traffic (literally)
last week when she made an appearance to sign copies of her album
in the Virgin Megastore in downtown Union Square. A native of the
Bronx, Lopez made it very clear that she wishes to continue with
her acting career while also pursuing her music career.
Ricky Martin has been
massively popular for several years among the Latin community with
his repetitive, uneventful Salsa rhythms. His new self-titled album
(his first in English), has sold phenomenally well, and the single
'Livin La Vida Loca' is receiving more radio play than any other
track since Celine Dionís ëMy Heart Will Go Oní. Martinís boyish
good looks have been cleverly marketed towards teenage girls who
simply cannot get enough of him.
Mike Myers' character
Austin Powers, I was surprised to discover, is a huge icon in the
US. This amazed me because I was aware of the fact that the original
movie was only a mild theatrical hit here. The power of home video
is not to be underestimated though; the movie found its audience
via this medium, and has apparently been in the Top 20 sell through
videos since its release. The returns from the video revenues, surprisingly
enough, are on a par with those from its theatrical run. The sequel,
entitled 'The Spy Who Shagged Me' opened in theatres last Friday,
and believe it or not, it had the third highest three-day opening
of ALL TIME, raking in $55 million and knocking the gargantuan Star
Wars from the top slot. The Austin Powers marketing and publicity
campaign is quite unlike anything I have ever seen: it's scale is
just breathtaking. Tie-ins with Virgin Airlines (or Virgin Shaglantic,
as they have temporarily renamed themselves), Heineken Beer, toy
manufacturers, TV and radio stations and omnipresent advertising
have raised the level of anticipation to fever pitch. Amusingly,
the first VIP screening of the movie last Monday in a Manhattan
theatre had to be cancelled. Bomb scare? Nope. Fire Alarm? Nuh-huh.
Believe it or not, the theatre's air conditioning went on the blink,
and as New York has been suffering a heat-wave for the past two
weeks, the entire star-studded, seated audience were sent home without
one second of the movie having been screened.
In the meantime, Star
Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace continues to smash box-office
records, the most recent being fastest film to reach the $250 million
mark, a record previously held by Titanic. Industry-ites are positive
that Star Wars cannot match Titanic's final box-office total of
over $600 million, a theory I fully subscribe to having seen the
movie last week. The Ziegfeld cinema is a huge, refurbished art-deco
single screen theatre in Midtown Manhattan which was filled almost
to capacity on Sunday night with a relatively excited audience (some
of whom brandished plastic light sabers, $5 dollars outside the
theatre) who cheered loudly only when the recognisable characters
(Yoda, R2-D2, C3PO) appeared on screen. The final audience response
was lukewarm, to put it mildly. The movie is a misconceived jumble
of ideas, none of which are fully fleshed out, all of which are
deeply uninteresting. It's not without it's redeeming features,
however. Some of the set pieces are quite breathtaking and Neeson
is occasionally impressive as Qui-Gon Jinn. The frenzy surrounding
the movie is surprisingly non-existent; sure, it's all over the
media (particularly the trades) and the merchandise fills the windows
of every second store, but nobody is buying it. Nobody is talking
about this movie. They're buying their tickets for it in droves,
but New York seems to be 'Star Wars'-ed out.
Last week's Lincoln
Centre 'New Irish Cinema' festival included a retrospective of Neil
Jordan's work, which was shown alongside such titles as Separation
Anxiety and Pete's Meteor, neither of which have yet received an
Irish release. Jordan was present at a panel discussion last Sunday
rather unimaginatively entitled 'Whither Irish Cinema'. The panel
included, among others, filmmaker Nicholas O'Neill (Crushproof);
Paul Power, editor of Independent Film and Video magazine; Sheila
Pratschke, Director of the Film Institute of Ireland, and Sean Hinds,
filmmaker. As someone who is relatively familiar with discussions
such as this, I was prepared for the content, but curious as to
how a US audience would react and/or participate. As it turned out,
almost 50% of the audience was Irish (or seemed to be), so the arguments
remained the same. The age old question of 'how does one define
an Irish film' was the thrust behind the debate, and while occasionally
humorous (particularly on the parts of Jordan and O'Neill), the
discussion was simply a rehash of every debate that there has ever
been on this subject. The most amusing moment came when an NYU lecturer
observed that "we never discuss what constitutes an American movie":
I mean, does The Phantom Menace count? to which Nicholas O'Neill
replied "I would have thought that it was quintessentially American".
Groans and giggles from the audience. That's like me saying "I expect
to find leprechauns in every movie about Ireland countered the lecturer".
"Where else would you find leprechauns" replied O'Neill to the audiences
great amusement. Jordan was in unusually amiable form and was quite
vocal on many subjects, most notably Bord Scannan, on which he held
a seat for several years. "Nobody on the board goes to see movies,"
he said to the horror of every other Irish filmmaker in the theatre.
The festival has drummed up quite a bit of interest in Irish filmmaking
around the city, which can only be a good thing.
Another festival which
has just commenced is the New York Lesbian and Gay Film Festival,
or The New Festival as they now call themselves. The event has expanded
significantly this year, and it's programme is spread over four
venues in the space of ten days. Buzz on the festival is quite low-key
despite the presence of several major sponsors. Perhaps New Yorkers
are simply overwhelmed by the amount of events in any given week
in the city.
Woody Allen and Soon
Yi Previn have been spotted uptown several times with a stroller
(that's a pram to us) containing what the press are assuming is
an adopted child. As one paper here stated ìSoon-Yi has not had
the appearance of a pregnancy nor has she been out of sight for
long enough for people to think that Allen and Previn were the biological
parents. Hmmm.
Finally, June 16th is
the US release date for one of the most highly anticipated films
of the year. Eyes Wide Shut, Stanley Kubrick's swansong starring
Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman has been the subject of many wild rumours,
but in recent weeks, one in particular has stuck and many industry
insiders are elaborating in great detail on this rumour. It centres
around the ratings board in the US and most in the industry expected
the film to receive an NC-17 rating because of its apparently explicit
sex scenes. An NC-17 (no children under 17) rating is essentially
the equivalent of an X rating and many theatres in the US refuse
to screen NC-17 movies, and many newspapers refuse to carry ads
for such films. This rating would have been the kiss of death (box-office
wise) for this movie. Now, Kubrick, alive or dead, has final cut
on this movie, and the rumour is that Terry Semel and Bob Daly,
Warner Bros. Co-chairmen, upon seeing Kubrickís final cut of the
$65 million movie, panicked because they were certain it would get
an NC-17. They then allegedly contacted several big name directors
ranging from Spielberg to Pollack (who actually has a part in the
movie) to ask them if they would be interested in recutting some
of the steamier scenes. Warnerís deny this, but when the film recently
received an R rating (children under 17 admitted with an adult),
the industry went wild on this rumour, accusing Warner's of sabotaging
Kubrick's vision and contemptuous behaviour. Pollack also denies
that he was ever approached to re-cut some of the movie. Sounds
like one of those things that we'll just never know.
Glenn Hogarty
Glenn Hogarty is currently
in New York on a Bursary Award Scheme from Screen Training Ireland.
