Regards, Ivan
Posted on 01/19/2003 2:42:04 AM PST by MadIvan
A PLAY by Joe O’Connor, the novelist brother of pop star Sinead, is to be filmed in Los Angeles with a mainly British cast. The makers of Red Roses and Petrol say it is cheaper to make most of the movie in America and add Irish locations afterwards. The producers wanted to make the entire movie in Dublin but could not get backing in Ireland.
Four weeks of shooting begin next month on the film, which producers believe could be the Irish equivalent of My Big Fat Greek Wedding. That €5m film raked in €230m last year, making it the biggest grossing independent film of all time. All the interior scenes for Red Roses and Petrol, which will cost about €3m, will be shot in a house in Los Angeles. A few days of location work will follow in Dublin.
“In America there was more interest in financing an Irish film than there was in Ireland, which I thought was funny but interesting,” said Tamar Simon Hoffs, the director, whose daughter Susanna was lead singer with The Bangles.
“I certainly had hoped to (film it in Ireland) and I was committed to that. I was really surprised that the welcome mat was not exactly ready for us.
“I never could imagine that work by such a great young Irish writer would not be considered something very special to the Irish Film Board.”
Pierce Boyce of Abú Media in Galway, the Irish producer, said: “The film board doesn’t have a lot of money. Getting a project accepted is always a hard battle.”
Red Roses and Petrol will star Malcolm McDowell, the veteran British actor best known for A Clockwork Orange, as Enda Doyle, a poet and librarian at University College Dublin.
His sudden death brings together his dysfunctional family. The movie’s proceedings take place mainly in the living room of the family home as Moya, Enda’s wife and their three children Catherine, Medbh and Johnny prepare for the funeral and wake. While his wife reminisces about her life with Enda, the children discover a photograph of a young woman they believe to be their father’s mistress. She turns out to be his illegitimate daughter.
Hoffs believes the movie will resonate with audiences around the world and not just with Irish people. “It’s such a universal theme. When I saw the play I felt it was about every man’s family. The story is about what happens when a man passes away and his family unites for the funeral.
“So many people in America who have read the screenplay say this is comparable in its power to affect people to My Big Fat Greek Wedding. It’s like Our Big Fat Irish Funeral — it has some of that same kind of wonderful thing where it doesn’t matter who you are. We’ve all been through this.”
Susan Lynch, who played Nora Barnacle in Nora and won an Irish Film and Television award last week for her role as Stevie in the RTE drama Any Time Now, plays Catherine, the eldest daughter. She comes home from New York, where she has been working as a waitress but pretending to work for a law firm.
Max Beesley, a British actor who dated former Spice Girl Mel B and starred alongside Mariah Carey in the movie Glitter, plays Johnny, the youngest sibling and black sheep of the family. His character has a fondness for cocaine and harbours a deep-rooted hatred of his father.
Heather Juergensen — an American who wrote and starred in the hit indie American film Kissing Jessica Stein — plays Medbh, the sensible daughter.
The role of Tom, Catherine’s boyfriend, will be played by Greg Ellis, another English actor. Sean Lawlor, an Irishman who starred in Braveheart, will play Professor Thomson.
Hoffs said recent films such as Gangs of New York and Road to Perdition which featured Irish characters had helped him to get backing for a film based around an Irish family: “People recognise, especially this year with the phenomenon of the Greek Wedding, that people are very interested in other cultures.”
O’Connor did not write the screenplay for the film but was consulted about it and will get a share of any profits it makes.
Neil Jordan, the Irish director, is planning another European epic, although funding for his Borgia project has fallen through. According to Screen Daily, a London-based production company is finalising a deal for the production which has been set up with Uberto Pasolini, the producer best known for The Full Monty.
Odysseus’ Returns is billed as a big budget sword and sandals epic dealing with what happens when the mythological Greek hero returns home from the 10-year odyssey that he embarks on after the fall of Troy. The project is understood to be ready to shoot this year, pending financing.
A finance deal for Jordan’s Borgia project, the story of the infamous renaissance family, fell apart after pre-sales to independent distributors were hit by a European pay-TV crisis.
Regards, Ivan
Ah yes...I'll always remember the palm trees of Ireland.
Bill Clinton should make a cameo appearance to crack jokes about how the Irish spend so much time in bars. It didn't seem to offend them too much when he said it a few years ago.
That's because it's true! *L*
Ireland has a pub-culture, we're not ashamed of it.
I actually like Joe O'Connor, he's written some funny stuff. And he's not kooky like Fr. Sinead! *L*
And it's worth noting that he penned a short letter to the Pope, apologizing for his sister's appearance on Saturday Night Live, where she ripped a picture of the Pope in half, shouting, "Fight the real enemy!"
Wow, I didn't know that. Sinead is certainly knitting with one needle. But Joe is certainly the more talented sibling. His collection of articles 'The Secret World of the Irish Male' is a damn good read. :-)
Big Plus. Many in the Boston/Cape area seem to feel obligated to talk with what they think is some sort of Irish Brogue and wear funny tweed hats and such, anyway.
Filming in Massachewedshitts would alleviate two other problems:
1) assure an adequate supply of extras who look and talk like they are on their way to a Ted Kennedy/IRA Fundraiser,
and more important, 2) would tie up thousands of BSVs (Boston Summer Visitors), keeping them out of Maine for a peaceful summer. They don't seem to bring much money when they come and quite a few even bring their own beer from Boston in giant coolers. If they were otherwise occupied, they wouldn't frighten away visitors from other states, either, ennabling our tourist industry to make real money.
So I am all for these Irish movie makers, whether their sisters have shaved heads and anti-american attitudes, or not. They are good for Maine.
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