Week Ending 9th December, 2001	Page 2 1
It's Only A Movie, Takako...	posted 9 Dec 2001
This is probably the saddest case of fandom-gone-mad that I've ever come across... On Nov 15, police in Minnesota came across the body of Japanese woman Takako Konishi. Apparently, she had died while searching for a buried cache of money. She was convinced that it was in the area because she had seen it buried there in the movie Fargo... (Thanks to James for this link)
The Merchant of Auckland	posted 9 Dec 2001
BBC Online reports that the The Merchant of Venice has been turned into the first Maori-language film of a Shakespeare play. The production, which remains faithful to the 16th Century Venetian setting, is also notable for the fact that the director Don Selwyn specifically chose many of the cast and crew from the ranks of young Maoris who'd been on the wrong side of the law. His hope was that the skills they acquired might help them break out of the cycle of violence and crime.
The Guardian's Monthly Round-Up Of The Best Cyber-Cinema	posted 9 Dec 2001
I wasn't aware that this existed before - but it's certainly a worthwhile, if belated, find!... Every month, since April this year, the Guardian has been doing a round-up of the best film, animation and quirky interactive works on the Web. Here are their picks for December, which include a short doco of interviews with eyewitnesses of the Queens air-crash, a conversation between discarded film characters who've ended up on the cutting room floor, a stuff-Elvis-till-he-explodes game, and - because it's Christmas - the obligatory animation involving Santa in a punch-up.
The Juggernaut Begins To Rumble : Early LOTR Reviews	posted 9 Dec 2001
Harry Potter fans be warned! Your beloved boy wizard is about to have his arse kicked out of the park by the Lord Of The Rings juggernaut!... Or at least, that's what will have to happen if New Line Cinema are to avoid bankruptcy; so great has been their investment in this epic trilogy which has become the most expensive film production of all time. (The three films cost a whopping $700 million!) So the big question now is : can Peter Jackson pull it off? In a little under two weeks, we'll start to find out. Early signs, however, are good with the first batch of reviews talking about Fellowship in almost epoch-defining terms! (Sure, there are some misgivings but even the more critical reviewers give it 3 and 1/2 stars.)
Who Wants To Be A Millionaire When You Can Be An Astronaut!	posted 9 Dec 2001
This idea was floated earlier this year when Dennis Tito became the world's first space tourist; now it's finally a reality - a gameshow on which the first prize is a trip into space! A European media company has secured two seats on forthcoming Soyuz flights to the International Space Station and is giving one of them away on a planned gameshow called Ancient Astronauts. If you're interested in becoming a contestant, you can email them at contestant@imageworldmedia.com
Make Yourself Translucent With... The Sonic Flashlight!	posted 9 Dec 2001
Traditionally, doctors have relied on x-ray photos or imagery on screens when they wished to get a non-surgical glimpse inside a patient's body. Now, an engineer at the University of Pittsburgh has developed an ultrasonic device that makes flesh translucent thus allowing a doctor to look directly into the body... I can't wait for this to get fitted into the lighting rigs at dance parties!
IMDB Decides To Test Market Gullibility	posted 9 Dec 2001
In an attempt to cash in on its popularity, the Internet Movie Database has launched a "professional edition" of its site called IMDBPro, which is available only to subscribers who are prepared to fork out US$12.95 a month. And what do you get for that?... A tarted-up lay-out with more stats, more useless info and some graphs with names like MOVIEmaker(TM) and STARmeter(TM)... Don't waste you money, folks.
So Much For Digital Actors...	posted 9 Dec 2001
All that Final Fantasy inspired nonsense about digital actors one day replacing the real thing has turned out to be just that... In the wake of the film's failure to recoup costs at the box office, the company that produced Final Fantasy has announced that it will sell off its state-of-the-art movie production unit.
Sunny Day, Everything's AOK	posted 9 Dec 2001
I bet Kofi Annan wishes that the problems of the UN's member nations were as easy to resolve as the issue of who gets to sing the alphabet song on Sesame Street... That's what the UN Secretary General was called upon to do when he made a guest appearance on a recently filmed episode of the show. And how did he defuse this volatile situation? By suggesting an interim power-sharing regime that would allow everyone to sing the song together.
New Look FTO Site, Usual Regional Tokenism	posted 8 Dec 2001
The NSW Film & Television Office has revamped its site and, in the press release that made it on to the Filmnet newsletter, specific mention was made of the Regional Cinema Section that supposedly 'contains a broad range of information designed to assist and support regional communities interested in starting cinema activities in their town'... When I looked, all I could find was a blurb and an invitation to shell out 23 bucks for more information... In contrast, the sections devoted to flogging this State to the world (ie the guides to locations and Sydney-based services) had gallerys of JPEGs and comprehensive search engines... Bloody typical...
NSW Net Censorship Bill Put On Hold	posted 8 Dec 2001
You may remember the insidious NSW Internet Censorship Bill, which threatened to reduce online content in this state to the level of sanitised pre-teen chit-chat, from a posting on Film Cement a couple of weeks ago. Well, the good news is that pressure from concerned parties has forced a rethink of this legislation by NSW Attorney-General, Bob Debus. It's now being referred to a Standing Committee on Social Issues who will hopefully recommend either discarding it totally or coming up with a more well thought out redraft... Fingers crossed...
The Lion, The Witch, The Wardrobe and The Crocodile Hunter	posted 8 Dec 2001
Here's a couple of upcoming productions that caught my attention... In a totally unsurprising attempt to cash in on the current fantasy film fad, it has been announced that a film version of the first of C.S. Lewis' Narnia Chronicle novels, "The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe" is under development... Meanwhile, Steve Irwin, the man who has done more than anyone else to warp American perceptions of Australians, is planning to produce a movie based on his "Crocodile Hunter" TV series.
Page 2 1