Oscars and Horrors (March 2001) The 17th Annual "Festival of the Fantastic Film" will take place in Amsterdam from the 4th till the 11th of April. Locations for this extended version of the festival will be Kriterion cinema (Roeterstraat 170), Bellevue Cinerama (Marnixstraat 400), Melkweg Cinema (Lijnbaansgracht 234A) and Paradiso (Weteringschans 6-8). This is the fourth time in its history that this event will stretch over a period of a week, as opposed to the usual two-day event. A retrospective of Terry Gilliam's work is to be shown at the Melkweg cinema and the fabulous madman supreme himself will be present as honorary guest. A special treat for Gilliam Gobblers is that, besides his more renowned feature films, a selection of shorter pieces will be screened. The main program includes 21 films, among them Geoffrey Wright's "Cherry Falls," Janusz Kaminski's "Lost Souls" and Chuch Parello's "Ed Gein" (the boy whose story we all remember serving as the basis for Hitchcock's "Psycho"). Although the horror genre is developing a stronger hold in Holland than in the past, there remain a number of films which will be shown one-time only (and have as yet not been scheduled for distribution in the Netherlands). Included among these are: Michael Walker's "Chasing Sleep," "Brian Yuzna's "Faust," Lloyd Kaufman's "Citizen Toxie: The Toxic Avenger IV," Daniel Monson's "The Heart of the Warrior (El Corazon del Guerrero)," Dario Argento's "I Can't Sleep (Non Ho Sonno)," E. Elias Merhige's "Shadow of the Vampire," and Karim Hussain's "Subconscious Cruelty." Tickets for "The Night of Terror" go on sale Saturday the 24th of March at Centrum Bellevue and tickets for the full week's schedule go on sale Thursday, the 29th of March at both Kriterion and Melkweg cinemas. Other locations will also have tickets available. Further information available at www.filmevents.nl Go give yourselves a thrill!!!!!! Speaking of thrills, the Oscars will be handed out to all those well-dressed members of the cinema world on 25th of March. Glitterati everywhere and some of them holding the golden boy. No need to repeat all those up for the numerous categories when you can check it out for yourself at www.oscar.com/oscars_home.html" Once again, unfortunately, no live broadcast of the proceedings for the TV viewers of Holland; it means waking up to the news and catching the edited version a day or two later. Surely, the Dutch Film Freaks could deal with an all-nighter once a year to fulfill their hungry obsessions. Nine "TeleFilms" will be broadcast throughout the end of March and the beginning of April. These films are produced each year through co-operation of independent Dutch producers and various Dutch broadcasting systems. A full list of the broadcast titles and dates can be found under The Green Hartnett Review list under the title "TeleFilms." For those who are not within the broadcast reception area, reviews will be available on the same pages soon. A retrospective of work directed by Fons Rademakers begins in the Netherlands Dans van de Reiger photo courtesy Film Museum Filmmuseum in Amsterdam on March 22nd and runs until April 11th. Rademakers, who celebrated his eightieth birthday last year, is closely associated with his love for Dans van de Reiger photo courtesy Film Museum adapting literary works to the screen and says "film is nothing else than telling a story with people." Renowned not only for his Oscar winning ""De Aanslag" (1986), but for such films as "Max Havelaar" and "Twee Druppels Water" (1963, also known as "De Donkere Kamer van Damocles"), he is considered one of the founding fathers of the Dutch cinema, having lent his support in the past to such earlier up and coming directors as Pim de la Parra and Paul Verhoeven. Several films to be shown have been conserved by the museum in collaboration with Haghefilm in order to reproduce the original technical quality. The full program schedule is available at www.filmmuseum.nl In connection with the upcoming Tim Burton film "Planet of the Apes," the first film website with information available in 10 languages has been launched. No doubt about it, everyone will be going ape now that the story is in Tim's hands. It should give us humans all something to talk about. Check out www.planetoftheapes.com Dennis "the menacing presence of the cinematic sixties-seventies-eighties" Hopper has recently spent a week in Amsterdam being wined and dined by the art scene from gala dinner to gala opening as he installed his new exhibition in the Stedelijk Museum of modern art. Much has transpired in the development of the wide-eyed, red-haired apparition once seen behind James Dean through the time he became the gas-masked "Daddy" of David Lynch and up until this latest appearance as the actor/director/artist past the edge of the millennium. The opening almost appears to have been designed as a feeding frenzy for press and television as Hopper and Rudi Fuchs, present curator of the museum, wandered around "inauspiciously" under the glare of camera lights while hungry journalists hung upon their lips for every word. Mr. Fuchs, who has in the past few years contemplated opening a permanent Audi automobile showroom in the middle of the same museum, was so favorably impressed by Mr. Hopper's oeuvre that he insisted on having the actor's first major show put on display in the Stedelijk. The exhibition, originally scheduled as a display of photographs for last October, has expanded into a larger show, running between February 16th and April 17th, that encompasses canvases, photographs, ready-mades, multi-media pieces (including footage from "Easy Rider"), and other paraphernalia. The collection of black and white photographs retain their fascination, being pieces that are attractive not only for their subtle handling of tone, composition and content, but also often due to some of the fascinating characters that have been captured in the world Hopper inhabits. Vadim, Jane Fonda, Paul Newman, Warhol, Rauchenberg, Jasper Johns, Peter Fonda, Taylor Meade, Lichtenstein, Rosenquist, John Wayne, and Jack Smith among celebrities to be found captured in the entourage. Many of these works were displayed at three earlier exhibition tours, two running simultaneously in 1988-89 through Basel, Tübingen, Lausanne, Salzburg and Dusseldorf and the third running in 1992-94 under the auspices of the Kodak Cultural Program. These pieces, many of which are on display presently in the gallery between the ground floor and upper galleries, remain the most fascinating part of the present show. Two of the strongest portraits among the collection are that of the Levi-jacketed, tattooed biker and the fading Downtown Los Angeles wall graffiti reading "Bad Heart." The upper floor is flanked on either side by a sand-colored imitation stone wall (very similar to a piece from a movie set) and a corrugated aluminum siding attached to a fence topped with barbed wire. In the rooms between these barriers a number of works reveal the areas covered by Mr. Hopper's other abilities. There are paintings derivative of several schools that reach into the directions of Karel Appel, Willem de Kooning, Edward Hopper, Claes Oldenburg, Jasper Johns and several others without any apparent attempt to reach their level of mastery. Two of the larger pieces in the foyer (the "Mobil Man" and the "Taco Man") might remind one of the ongoing debate as to whether Jeff Koons is really the creator of pieces manufactured by others, but that remains neither here nor there and is an argument that will probably never truly be resolved. Perhaps one of the only interesting pieces is an old wooden sign with the text "HOTEL GREEN / ENTRANCE" (accompanied by a pointing hand) which Hopper lifted from a hotel in Pasadena where Marcel Duchamp was staying and brought it to the artist to have it signed. Hopper considers it Duchamp's last "ready made." More a media event than a enlightening experience, one is curious to see what the reactions of the public are after the waves of notorious notoriety from the Netherlands Hopper hype die down and the art is assessed for its content. Nevertheless, it remains an event because of Hopper's memorable place in the world of cinema. The 4th Annual Amnesty International Film Festival will take place in the Balie Theatre and Pathé City Cinema on the Leidseplein in Amsterdam from Wednesday March 28th till Sunday April 1st. Approximately 50 documentaries and feature films will be screened. A place to catch up on the latest in documentaries and exchange your thoughts with others about films and human rights. More information available at www.amnesty.nl/filmfestival © 1994-2006 The Green Hartnett