The days when feature films were the cornerstones of terrestrial TV schedules, and when the announcement of the Christmas Day prime-time movie on RTÉ or BBC was a hot news story, are dead and gone. Those channels have become the funeral parlour for movies, the last stop after cinema, DVD, pay-per-view and satellite, writes Michael Dwyer.
Figures supplied by Nielsen Media Research for all four Irish terrestrial channels in 2004 show that just one movie featured in the top 20 ratings for the year - Anjelica Huston's Agnes Browne, which drew 617,000 viewers on RTÉ 1 and ranked 18th for the year, far behind the 940,000 audience achieved by the chart-topping Late Late Toy Show.
In the UK, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, a huge success at cinemas and on DVD, was the highest-rated movie in the Christmas schedules last month, but it drew only 7.9 million viewers, whereas The Mummy Returns attracted 11 million at Christmas 2002.
In Spain, the leading commercial broadcaster, Telecinco, has dropped its long-running Friday night slot for Hollywood movies. "Movies are losing TV audiences but rising in costs - they don't have a commercial logic any more," says a Telecinco executive, adding that playing a US movie now costs the same as 22 episodes of CSI. The top-rated movie on Spanish TV in 1994 was Pretty Woman with 9.2 million viewers. In 2004, it was Jurassic Park 3 with 5.4 million. No films figured in Spain's Top 30 TV shows for last year.
Isolated incident
After eight weeks of principal photography in Dublin, shooting has wrapped on Isolation, the first feature film written and directed by Billy O'Brien, who made the award-winning short film, The Tale of the Rat That Wrote. The international cast includes John Lynch (from Cal, In the Name of the Father, Best), Ruth Negga (TV series Love is the Drug, and the imminent Capital Letters and Breakfast on Pluto), Australian actress Essie Davis (Girl with a Pearl Earring), Romanian actor Marcel Iures (Hart's War) and English actor Sean Harris (Creep, 24 Hour Party People).
A contemporary horror movie, Isolation (which is a working title) is set on a lonely isolated farm in the depths of the countryside. On a fateful winter's night, five people are brought together and find themselves in a terrifying predicament. The film's Irish producer is Ed Guiney of Element Films, with funding from Film Four, the Irish Film Board and TV3.
Online Arthouse
The Rotterdam International Film Festival, which started on Wednesday, is launching an experiment next week, whereby it will distribute arthouse movies over the Internet. Initially, 20 former Rotterdam festival successes will be available for download, among them Fernando Meirelles and Nando Olival's Domesticas, Mahamat-Saleh Haroun's Abouna and Carlos Marcovich's Who The Hell Is Juliette? The site is being launched by Internet provider Tiscali, one of the main financers of the festival. The films may be downloaded for a payment of just €3 each. Rotterdam, which claims to be the first festival to distribute films online, intends the experiment to be the first step in a plan to create a vast international online library for arthouse titles. www.tigeronline.nl
Directors decide
Last Saturday, three days before the Oscar nominations were announced, Martin Scorsese's The Aviator moved a step closer to the Academy Award for best picture, when the Producers Guild of America (PGA) named it the outstanding film of 2004, shutting out fellow nominees Million Dollar Baby, Finding Neverland, Sideways and The Incredibles. Of the past 15 PGA winners, 11 have gone on to take the principal Oscar, but a more accurate barometer for measuring Scorsese's chances of collecting his first Oscar as best director comes tomorrow night when the influential Directors Guild of America (DGA) presents its major award for 2004 productions. Four of the five PGA nominees are on the DGA shortlist, where Ray director Taylor Hackford replaces Brad Bird, who helmed The Incredibles. Realistically, however, the DGA award is down to two serious contenders - Scorsese and Eastwood - and the voters may well make Clint's day. Since its inception in 1949, 50 out of the 56 DGA winners have gone on to take the best director Oscar.
mdwyer@irish-times.ie
