All Screen articles in 24 September 2004 – Page 2
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News
Star Wars box set, videogame take $115m in first day
20thCentury Fox Home Entertainment has announced that first day sales for the StarWars box set in NorthAmerica and many international territories and the Star Wars Battlefront videogame in North America have exceeded$115m.The game will be available internationally later thisweek, as will the box set in unreleased territories such as Japan, ...
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Reviews
Vital
Dir/scr/cine/prod des/ed:Shinya Tsukamoto. Japan. 2004. 86mins.Tsukamoto is one of those directors whose name on the opening credits is alwaysgreeted with applause by festival junkies. A one-man band who hates to delegateany of the headline technical jobs, Tsukamoto will probably never break out ofthe cult ghetto, unlike his Japanese compatriots, Takeshi ...
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Reviews
Kung Fu Hustle (Gungfu)
Dir: Stephen Chow. HK-Chi. 2004. 95minsThe martial arts film to end all martial arts films, Kung FuHustle makes Kill Bill look like a playground scuffle. StephenChow's affectionate salute to the era of Bruce Lee and the Shaw Brothers is ajaw-dropping mixture of blistering fight sequences, slapstick sadism anddelirious black comedy.Action ...
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ITALY 23 September
Spider-Man2 leapt straight tothe top of the Italian box office, where it earned a massive $8,993,096 in fourdays. The web slinger opened on September 16 on a wide 631 screens, and scoreda huge $12,296 per screen average for Columbia Tristar Italia.Shedding37% of its earnings, UIP's The Terminal dropped to second ...
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DeA Planeta likes look of Mirror Maze
Spanish-Italianmedia conglomerate DeA Planeta has boarded new Rioja Films thriller MirrorMaze as co-producer and local distributor.Rioja chief Jose Antonio Romero and the film's director,Guillermo Groizard, unveiled the project at the San Sebastian InternationalFilm Festival (Sept 17-25).It is oneof five feature co-productions brought to DeA Planeta by new executivepresident Alvaro Zapata ...
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Canary to sing at Tokyo FILMeX opening
The Tokyo FILMeX festival (Nov20-28) has announced its line-up for its fifth edition, with a competitionsection presenting ten features from young Asian directors.The festival's opening film will be Japanesedirector Akihiko Shinota's Canary, which receives its world premiere atTokyo FILMeX. The director of Harmful Insect, Shiota's latest featuredepicts the story of ...
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Palm buys music doc Be Here To Love Me
Chris Blackwell's PalmPictures has closed a deal to buy North American and Caribbean rights toMargaret Brown's documentary Be Here To Love Me, a profile of musician Townes Van Zandt which hadits world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival last week.The acquisition is Palm'sthird out of Toronto after Iraq war ...
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Crooner Connick Jr takes lead in Oz Boomerang
US crooner Harry Connick Jr has signed to play a disgracedcorporate cowboy who pays a street kid to help him commit suicide in BoomerangDeal, to be directed by Phillip Marzella from his own script.It will be Australian director Marzella's follow-up to Low-FatElephants, which he wrote, directed and produced in 2000 ...
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Bana teams with Hanson for Warner Bros
Eric Bana, Australian starof Hulk and Troy, has landed the lead role in Curtis Hanson's nextmovie for Warner Bros Lucky You.Bana, who is also scheduled to star in Steven Spielberg's Vengeance next year, will play Huck Cheever, the leadcharacter in the character-based drama set in the world of high-stakesprofessional poker.Eric ...
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Shanghai Story dominates at top Chinese awards
Peng Xiaolian's Shanghai Story won four awardsincluding best picture and best director at China's leading film awards, theGolden Roosters, on Sunday night despite it not having had a wide,commercial release.The film, about a family separated by the CulturalRevolution, also picked up best supporting actor for Feng Yuanzheng while thebest actress ...
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News
Gibson to get producer trophy at Hollywood Film Awards
Mel Gibson will receive theHollywood Producer Of The Year Award at the Hollywood Awards gala ceremony inLos Angeles on Oct 18.Gibson joins alineup of previously named award-winners at the show including John Travolta(lifetime achievement), Michael Mann (directing), Keira Knightley (breakthroughacting - female) and Jamie Foxx (breakthrough acting - male).'MelGibson's career ...
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Reviews
The Intruder
Dir: Claire Denis. Fr.2004. 130mins."Impenetrable" would be a generous way of describing French auteur ClaireDenis' latest feature; adjectives like "self-indulgent" and "dull" might occurto the less well-disposed critic.Not that this film is devoidof moments of visual poetry and - at least in the early stages - plot tension.But its wilful ...
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Reviews
Imaginary Heroes
Dir/scr: DanHarris. US. 2004. 112minsThe great soap opera of life is revisited once again in Imaginary Heroes,an entertaining but superficial tug at the heartstrings. The directorial debutof X-Men 2 screenwriter Dan Harris picks at the scabs of a family'semotional wounds to reveal a considerable collection of guilty secrets anddamaging deceptions.Superioracting ...
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Palm Pictures to launch Caribbean Goldeneye festival
US-UK distributor and producer Palm Pictures is launching what it claimsis the world's most exclusive film festival at company founder ChrisBlackwell's home in the Caribbean.The Goldeneye FilmFestival (Dec 8-13, 2004) will invite about 100 VIP guests to Blackwell'sIsland Outpost property -- Goldeneye -- located in Oracabessa Bay, Jamaica,where some 150 ...
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British Film Institute unveils new executive team
The British Film Institute (bfi) has unveiled its newExecutive Team under director Amanda Nevill.The team comprise figures from the world of film as well asprivate sector executives with managerial and commercial experience.The executive teamcomprises:Eddie Berg, founder and ChiefExecutive of FACT, theFoundation for Art and Creative Technology, in Liverpool, who has ...
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Barco to focus on digital cinema sector
Belgian projector manufacturerBarco, one of the leading players in the growing digital cinema sector, hassold its home cinema activities to French company TEC.The company says that theoperation, part of its media and entertainment division, was its last activityto be focused on the consumer market."As digital cinema is about todevelop in ...
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Spanish pay-TV outfit snaps up arthouse films
Spain'ssole pay-TV platform Digital Plus has signed new deals with local independentdistributors Alta Films, Wanda Vision, Vertigo, Musidora and Golem, coveringkey European arthouse hits such as Dogville, Goodbye, Lenin! and TheGirl With The Pearl Earring.The dealscover only a handful of already-released titles cherry-picked from eachdistributor, and are among the first ...
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UK 22 September
Michael Mann's Collateralhad a solid opening through UIP, taking £2.4m to secure the number one slotin the UK.It knocked Open Water,distributed through Redbus, down into second place in its second week. The lowbudget shark attack film has now taken an impressive £3.4m.Elsewhere, three Britishproduced films struggled to make a major ...
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SWEDEN 22 SEPTEMBER
In its third weekKay Pollak's local romantic drama Saa Som I Himmelen managed tooutperform Shrek 2 as it moved into the top spot with a strong $6,673screen average on its high 100 prints.In second place Shrek2 had just half that on its 159 prints, while the new release of TheBourne ...
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GERMANY 22 SEPTEMBER
It was not surprising afterall the media buzz surrounding the portrayal of Hitler's last days in thebunker that Constantin Film's release of Oliver Hirschbiegel's The Downfall(Der Untergang) should come in at number one.The $ 4.3m four-day grossfrom 405 screens was the second strongest opening for a German film this yearfollowing ...