All Screen articles in 17 September 2004 – Page 5
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News
Ryder, Lehmann reteam on stoner comedy Weed
Winona Ryder is reuniting with her Heathers director MichaelLehmann on a new comedy called Weed which Sideways producer Michael Londonwill produce. International sales agent Arclight Films is talking the film upto buyers at Sundance; Cinetic Media is handling domestic rights.The movie is a hip comedy with the same cult trappings ...
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First Look takes on Cold & Dark horror
British horror film Cold& Dark has found itself a USdistribution berth with First Look.The deal was brokered byHilary Davis of the London-based sales arm of Australia's Beyond Films.Previous sales included those to Japan's Gaga Communications, Mexico'sCine, Video Y Television and Russia's Beliven Enterprises.Directed by Andrew Goth andstarring former boy band ...
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Element X take on international sales to Clara Law doc
UK sales company Element Xhas picked up international rights to Letters To Ali, the first documentary by Australian-Chinese directorClara Law.The film is a personalisedexamination of Australia's uniquely brutal policy of mandatory prison-campdetention for political asylum seekers a policy which extends to children. Itfollows the letters sent between an Afghani ...
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Seville joins Haut Et Court in Cantet's South
Montreal-based SevillePictures has signed on as Canadian copoducer of Laurent Cantet's long-delayed HeadingSouth (Vers Le Sud), joining France's Haut et Court. Work on theproject, announced at Cannes 2003, has been held up by political upheaval in its key location of Haiti.International sales agent Hengameh Panahi of Celluloid Dreams told ScreenInternational ...
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Fall, Clark, Pereira join Fortissimo's sales canon
Jim Fall, director of Trick and The LizzieMaguire Movie, has signed on to direct the English-language remake of1999 Thai comedy 6IXTYNIN9. International sales are handled by FortissimoFilm Sales, which has also boarded the next pictures by Larry Clark and Spain's Manuel Gomez Pereira.The $10m film is to be produced by ...
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Latido sells key territories on Cabrera thriller
Massimo Saidel'sMadrid-based sales outfit Latido has sold sexy Columbian-Spanish thriller TheArt Of Losing (Perder Es Questo De Metodo) to a slew of territories as a result of its world premiere as a midnightscreening in Venice and an official competition entry at the Montreal festival.The film by Sergio Cabrera,which stars Martina ...
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Toronto buying spree kicks off with Crash to Lions Gate
In a deal closed late Saturday night, Lions Gate Films ponied upclose to $4m for North American rights to Paul Haggis’ red-hot Toronto ensembledrama Crash. Easilythe biggest deal of both Venice and Toronto so far, the Crash negotiations took place after the Fridayafternoon public screening and Saturday morning press and ...
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Italy's Moviemax looks to tap cult Asian, US films
One ofRome's newest distributors, one-year-old Moviemax, aims to tap into a lucrative nichereleasing American and Asian cult and genre films which usually have troublefinding distribution in Italy.Moviemaxhas picked up Italian rights to 2001 film Donnie Darko: The Director'sCut, which iscurrently screening at the Venice Film Festival, and has never been ...
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Irvine Welsh adaptation joins Fast Forward shortlist
An Irvine Welsh adaptationof a book by Morvern Callarauthor Alan Warner, a moon expedition comedy, and a Scottish Deliverance are amongst the projects shortlisted for the FastForward initiative run by Scottish Screen, the BBC and ContentFilm.The partners will developthe ten projects into treatment, when six will go forward to first ...
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Kay Armatage to leave Toronto festival after 24 years
Kay Armatage,the veteran Toronto International Film Festival programmer, is leaving theorganization after 24 years. "This is my last year," Armatage told ScreenInternational. Of her departure, she said, "This wasn't my choice." She saidshe learned at the beginning of this summer that her seasonal contract wouldnot be renewed. "At the time, ...
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Reviews
Shark Tale
Dirs:Vicky Jenson, Bibo Bergeron, Rob Letterman. USA. 2004. 90mins.Afterbugs and monsters, the DreamWorks versus Disney/Pixar tit-for-tat animationgrudge match has moved on to fish. The latest blow to be struck by theDreamWorks camp, Shark Tale is a colourful, fast-paced, jive-talkingseabed caper that continues the scattershot, kids-and-adults targeting of muchmajor studio animation ...
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Reviews
Howl's Moving Castle (Hauru No Ugoku Shiro)
Dir: Hayao Miyazaki.Japan. 2004. 117mins.Japanese animation geniusHayao Miyazaki's follow-up to the international critical and box-office hit SpiritedAway is as visually inventive and unremittingly charming as itspredecessor. By turns funny, exhilarating and touching, it lacks only onething: the spiritual and metaphysical depth that made Spirited Away sucha haunting experience.While this will ...
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Reviews
Layer Cake
Dir:Matthew Vaughn. UK 2004. 100minsTrue,the directing debut of Matthew Vaughn - who made his name as producer of GuyRitchie's crime capers - is indeed a British gangland thriller. But it carriesfew traces of the saloon-bar jokiness that was Ritchie's trademark in Lock,Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch. Although slick ...
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News
Sony ready to roar with MGM buyout
87-year-old Kirk Kerkorianis poised to sell Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer for the third time in his see-sawinghistory as a studio proprietor after agreeing "in principle" to a $4.84bntakeover bid from a consortium led by Sony. The MGM board will meet to sanctionthe deal tomorrow (Tuesday).By raising its bid overthe weekend to $12 per ...
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Resident Evil sequel roars to the top of the box office
The shock of a new seasonfound two premiering thrillers scaring up business with Resident Evil:Apocalypse leading the way forScreen Gems with an estimated $24.2 million and New Line's Cellular trailing with about $10.5 million.However, overall businesswas soft and the weekend tally is unlikely to generate more than $78 million inticket ...
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Reviews
Resident Evil: Apocalypse
Dir: Alexander Witt. US/Canada/UK. 2004. 94 mins.More zombies, more screen time for Milla Jovovich and the addition ofsome crucial characters from the games themselves are the draw in this sequelto 2002 video game adaptation ResidentEvil. The new elements may not add many non-gamers to the audience for whatis otherwise a ...
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HONG KONG 13 September
M. NightShyamalan's The Village, distributedby Buena Vista's local partner Intercontinental Film Distributors, narrowlybeat local production Six Strong Guysto the top of the chart with US$506,626 from 27 screens.Filmko's Six Strong Guys grossed US$488,264 from30 screens. Directed by Barbara Wong Chun-chun, the film is a comedy about theproblems that confront modern, ...
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NEW ZEALAND 13 September
The Villageconvincingly outsold Dodgeball whenthey both launched last weekend, but the 20th Century Fox comedy turned thetables on its BVI competitor second time around. Dodgeball took NZ$275,743 from 50 screens to top the charts and The Village took NZ$234,410 from 56screens.To add insult to injury, TheVillage could only claim fourth ...
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AUSTRALIA 13 September
The only two openers in the chart were 20th Century Fox's Dodgeball and UIP's Terminal and both were among the top five films of the weekend. DodgeBall took A$2,343,763 from 255screens to lead the chart with an impressive screen average of A$9,191 and Terminaltook A$1,275,197 from 205 screens to come ...
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Venice: from the sublime to the ridiculous
The 61st edition of the Venice film festival proved to be anunmitigated fiasco from the organisational point of view, with films running upto two hours late and Al Pacino unable to get a seat at the official screeningof The Merchant of Venice (starring Al Pacino).The final straw came when theprojectionist ...