Vicky Cristina Barcelona

[MacGuffin]

Love and intrigue at centre of new Allen film

Love and intrigue reportedly lie at the heart of the new Woody Allen film which the veteran US director has begun shooting with a star-studded cast.

According to Catalan newspaper El Periodico, the plot, which Allen, 71, has kept carefully under wraps to date, involves a tryst between a painter, his ex-fiancee and two American tourists.

Allen has said only that the new flick will be a "love letter to Barcelona," adding that filming in Spain -- aside from Barcelona some scenes will also be shot in the northern region of Asturias -- will be "a dream come true."

El Periodico says it has learned the movie will be a "romantic and touristic comedy" based on the two US women who come to Barcelona to learn Catalan culinary secrets as well as on a seductive artist and his jealous ex, played by Spanish star Penelope Cruz.

According to the journal, Spanish actor Javier Bardem will play the artist and US starlets Scarlett Johansson and Rebecca Hall have been cast in the roles of the tourists.

As well as keeping mum on the plot details Allen has not been forthcoming on the title, although El Periodico suggested the provisional title was "Wasp 2007," standing for "Woody Allen Spanish Project 2007".

The paper said it had information the script had undergone certain modifications at the suggestion of some of Allen's colleagues in order to make it "closer to the current reality" of life in the region of Catalonia, of which Barcelona is the capital.

Bardem was, for example, originally to have played a bullfighter, rather than an artist.

Although Barcelona does host bullfighting contests, there is widespread opposition to the pastime locally and city authorities threatened three years ago to abolish the tradition.

Security guards last Monday had to hold back curious sunbathers as Johansson and Hall joined Bardem and Cruz to begin shooting on a beach just outside the city centre.

[Kal]

spanish artist? or bullfighter? damn thats original... way to go woody.

i think he should stay doing films in new york... europe doesnt work for him

[MacGuffin]

Some Barcelona residents resent Allen's 'love letter'
Source: Los Angeles Times

BARCELONA, Spain -- Director Woody Allen has promised that his new movie, starring Scarlett Johansson, will be a "love letter to Barcelona, and from Barcelona to the world" in the same way that "Manhattan" was to New York. But Barcelona's people are not so keen to be helping foot the bill for the movie, which local media have called the biggest public investment in the history of Spanish cinema.

Ten percent of the budget for "The Barcelona Project" -- Allen's working title -- is being paid by the taxpayers of the city and the region of Catalonia, about $2 million.

"He [Allen] must think we're quite a stupid society," said an editorial in the Catalan daily El Periodico. Seventy-five percent of Catalans polled by the paper thought the public investment was "excessive."

Although some officials say the investment is worthwhile to promote Barcelona to the world -- the same way "The Lord of the Rings" helped New Zealand -- the row has aggravated artistic tensions in the region where the first official language is not Spanish, but Catalan.

"The problem is they say there is no money for Catalan films, and they even put obstacles in the way of awarding subsidies to films made in the Spanish language," said Alberto Fernandez Diaz, leader of the opposition right-wing Partido Popular.

Barcelona's mayor, Jordi Hereu, said it would be well worth the investment: "It's a huge advertisement for the city that will be seen all over the world."

Many within Spain's film industry think the project is actually no bad thing for them either.

"The director might be American but everyone from the art director to the technicians is Spanish, so this is actually a Spanish film and will give our industry a huge boost," said Pedro Perez, president of FAPAE, the Spanish Assn. of Film Producers. And the movie also features Spain's top movie stars, Penélope Cruz and Javier Bardem.

[MacGuffin]

Woody Allen's Barcelona Problem
Source: Time

Woody Allen was engulfed by adoring fans in mid-June when he came to Barcelona to scout locations along the city's famed artery, Las Ramblas. The director returned the ardor, promising the movie he has since started filming there would be "a love letter to Barcelona." Alas, the romance may not survive the summer. Weeks of roadblocks and a dispute over subsidies have made some Barcelonans regret letting the American cinematic icon use their city as a movie set.

The film, reportedly called Midnight in Barcelona and slated for a September 2008 release, stars Scarlett Johansson as an American tourist caught in a love triangle with a local painter (Javier Bardem) and his jealous ex-girlfriend (Penélope Cruz). Given Allen's trademark of turning the cities in which he shoots into distinct characters (Manhattan; the London of Match Point), Barcelona can expect a loving portrayal of its ancient streets and charming port restaurants.

But at what cost? Citizens and opposition political leaders alike are complaining about the toll the project is taking on the local community. To accommodate recent shoots, for example, the city's Socialist government shut down part of Las Ramblas, obstructing the locals' morning stroll and blocking access to many restaurants. That might be a tolerable burden, except that Barcelona has paid for the privilege: roughly 10% of the film's budget, it is now known, comes from the pockets of taxpayers in the city and its region, Catalonia. "It's not just the money, and we don't have any problem with the movie," says Alberto Fernández of the opposition conservative Popular Party. "It's the attitude the city government has toward Allen. They give him privileges as if he were a visiting dignitary or head of state, while they don't treat Spanish and Catalan movie projects that way."

While the municipal government acknowledges putting more than $1.3 million into the film, "the money is an investment made through a private capital risk company — it's not a subsidy," says Carles Puig, spokesperson for the mayor. "If the film makes a profit, then so does the city government." But that doesn't settle the issue, according to Jaume Ciurana, the main opposition party Convergence and Union's representative to the city's Institute of Culture. "The private risk society [BCN Ventures] is legitimate, but it was created by the city government to support young, innovative, struggling artists — not world-renowned filmmakers like Woody Allen. It was irresponsible for city hall to invest so much public money without first seeing a business plan or the film's total budget."

As for traffic congestion and other problems caused by the film's production, "Allen's film is no different than any big budget project," notes Steven Guest, also with the mayor's office. "Pedro Almodóvar's All About My Mother shut down Ferran Street a couple of years ago, and television shoots close streets every day. The only complaints I've seen have been in the media." For now, Barcelona's relationship with Allen can cool off a bit. On Monday, cast and crew began shooting in Oviedo, the less cosmopolitan capital of the region of Asturias, eight hours to the west. That city's spokesperson, Pilar Ávila, hasn't heard any complaints about Allen's shoot here so far: "Just the opposite — people are delighted," she says. Perhaps this is because Oviedo, unlike glamorous and popular Barcelona is happy to bask in a little international attention. Or it may be, as Ávila notes, because Oviedo's investment in the film so far amounts to "not a single euro."

[Ravi]

"These pretzels are making me thirsty!"

[Pubrick]

"¡Estos pretzels están dándome sed!"

[cron]

fucking catalans are idiots.

[MacGuffin]

Allen tames Spain in Euro love letter
Director brings Barcelona to bigscreen
By TODD MCCARTHY; Variety

"WOODY ALLEN is all over Barcelona," we learned last week at dinner in Mallorca with friends who had just arrived from the Spanish city.

They had seen him at the Arts Hotel, an architecturally striking waterfront hostelry so posh and heavily staffed that beautifully groomed young ladies circulate through the lobby offering you drinks even if you're just pausing before heading out.

The Woodman had finally started shooting his long-planned Spanish-set feature -- a romantic comedy purportedly titled "Midnight in Barcelona" -- in July after a considerable postponement and recent local controversy over the financial contribution by the city and Catalonia of $1.3 million, considered an exorbitant sum by those who feel such amounts should go to native filmmakers rather than established foreign helmers.

FOR HIS SELF-ADVERTISED love letter to the city, Woody evidently surveyed many of its most decorous neighborhoods and artistic sights as potential locations. But early on, shooting had created considerable inconvenience on the celebrated La Rambla promenade and the producers had trouble securing permission to film at the street's legendary produce market La Boqueria, as the demands of a film production promised to be too disruptive to the frenzied sale of every manner of edible produce known to humankind that is always taking place there.

"You're bound to run into him," our friends concluded. "He's everywhere."

Still, Woody Allen, as well as his film's stars, Scarlett Johansson and Penelope Cruz, never even entered my mind once we arrived in the massively photogenic city last weekend. So I scarcely anticipated the sight that awaited us as, accompanied by the tolling of the sonorous bells of the city's central Gothic cathedral, we opened the shutters of our room at the Hotel Colon on Monday morning to behold beneath us eight large trucks in the middle of the cathedral square that were unmistakably of the sort used in film production.

It didn't take a moment to deduce that our friends' confident prediction of a Woody sighting was about to come true. There was no resisting it. My wife, who shares the filmmaker's Dec. 1 birthday, and daughter headed out first and returned to report that Woody and the crew were working down a little side street along the edge of the cathedral.

My son and I soon followed suit, easily locating the director, sporting his trademark frumpy fisherman's hat, rumpled clothes and chest-caving slump, confering with a man bearing a pronounced resemblance to Harvey Weinstein. The small group of gawkers, my son and I included, was restrained from getting too close by tough Spanish guards and portable metal fences, and was quickly pressed back up against a wall when Johansson suddenly appeared and bounded purposefully past us to report for work. At this point the barrier, and the growing throng of tourists, was pushed much further down the street, making continued voyeuristic surveillance of the scene impossible; when I approached a young and obviously American production factotum and politely asked if he would pass a note to someone I knew inside, I was greeted with the sort of dismissive I'm-so-busy-and-important-why-do-you-dare-even-speak-to-me attitude that has unfortunately always afflicted certain levels of the film business.

WHILE WE HUNG AROUND, my nine-year-old son, whose taste in comics includes the greats and near-greats -- Chaplin, Keaton, the Marx Brothers and the Three Stooges -- began asking me who Woody Allen is and why he hadn't seen any of his films. Well, you have, I said, remembering our one dismal attempt a couple of years back to introduce the kids to Allen with "Sleeper," only to discover in it such unremembered highlights as the Orgasmatron and other sexual interludes that provoked more questions than we felt like answering during a movie screening, and that taught us all that what was PG in 1973 is now more like PG-13 or R.

While we couldn't get anywhere near enough to Woody, Harvey or anyone else to catch their attention, we did strike up a conversation with a nice older Spanish woman whose companion was a strikingly unidentifiable type of black-and-white terrier. She told us that Woody Allen had noticed the dog and decided he wanted to use it in the film, and would she wait until 2:30 so it could make its movie debut? With nothing special to do, she agreed.

When we prepared to leave the next morning, the trucks were still in the plaza, and extra effort had clearly been expended to protect from view the central makeup and wardrobe vans where Johansson, Cruz and the other stars spent much of their time. From our fourth-floor window, however, we had an unobstructed view of all of them in their various states of readiness.

I'll look forward to seeing them all -- and to how Allen depicts this seldom-seen city onscreen -- when the film comes out in a year. But I'll be paying particular attention to whether or not the dog makes the cut.

[children with angels]

What a bizarre article.

what was PG in 1973 is now more like PG-13 or R.

Surely this is the opposite of truth?

[Ravi]

Remember the gratuitous breast shot in Airplane!?  That movie was PG.

[MacGuffin]

Allen's Barcelona pic has a name or two
Source: Hollwood Reporter

MADRID -- Woody Allen's Barcelona project now has a title, "Vicky Cristina Barcelona," Spanish production house Mediapro said Thursday.

"Vicky" stars Scarlett Johansson, Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem in a film the director described only as a "love letter to Barcelona."

A co-production between Gravier and Barcelona-based Mediapro, with collaboration by Spanish broadcaster Antena 3, the film is set for release in Spain in fall 2008.

Mediapro chief Jaume Roures said in September that he has an oral agreement with Allen to co-produce two more projects.

[MacGuffin]

Woody Allen quits Spain in film funds row
Source: The Guardian

When Woody Allen arrived in Barcelona in July to start making his latest film, he was greeted with open arms. Just how open those arms were has become the cause of a dispute that has led to the cancellation of the director's plans to film in Spain.

The president of Mediapro, the Catalan production company behind Allen's new film Vicky Cristina Barcelona, has announced that two future projects will be made "neither in Catalonia nor in Spain", as had been previously planned.

Jaume Roures blamed what he said was the "small-minded attitude" of local politicians and press, who complained Allen received special treatment in Barcelona.

The controversy began when it was revealed that 10% of the budget for the film, starring Scarlett Johansson, Penélope Cruz and Javier Bardem, would come from Barcelona city hall and Catalan regional taxpayers. Barcelona provided €1m (£700,000) of funding for the film, which the city expects to recoup from the film's profits. Regional authorities added another €500,000 to the film's budget.

Roures denied that there was anything out of the ordinary about this funding, but local film-makers complained that Barcelona city hall had bent over backwards to help Allen, rerouting traffic whenever the director wanted, besides providing the kind of funding they would never expect to receive. Producer Quique Camín told the daily Periódico de Catalunya: "I'm thinking of giving my company a name that sounds foreign... maybe that way I'll get [some money]."

[cinemanarchist]

Source: www.Slashfilm.com

Men everywhere rejoice - Scarlett Johansson filmed a "steamy lesbian sex scene with Penelope Cruz" for Woody Allen's new star-filled film Vicky Cristina does Barcelona. A source tells the NY Post that the scene is "extremely erotic" and that "people will be blown away and even shocked." Apparently, Penelope and Scarlett go at it in a red-tinted photography dark room, and "it will leave the audience gasping." The duo later have a threesome with No Country For Old Men star Javier Bardem, who plays Penelope's husband. I'm guessing that scene might be more creepy than hot.

Vicky Cristina Barcelona tells the story of a painter who enters a relationship with two American tourists, but conflict begins with the painter's jealous ex-girlfriend. The film which also stars Patricia Clarkson, Rebecca Hall, Kevin Dunn and Chris Messina, has completed filming and will likely hit theaters in late-2008.

[hedwig]

there's your four star ebert review right there.

[MacGuffin]

Trailer