All Screen articles in 29 July 2008 – Page 3
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Features
The Critical View - War of words
The argument about possessory credits and the creative heft of the screenwriter is almost as old as the film industry itself.It predates the squabble between Herman Mankiewicz and Orson Welles over the writing credit on Citizen Kane - which the director wanted all for himself; it underpinned the on-set ...
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News
Profile:UK director Tom Hooper
In terms of scale, Tom Hooper may never top his recent feat of directing the nine-hour HBO mini-series John Adams.The historical epic shot for 110 days on a budget of $110m, with more than 200 speaking parts. 'It's like my Lord Of The Rings, except I don't have to do ...
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News
US distribution - Seismic shift in specialty landscape
Some independent players see it as a 'healthy correction', others as a 'turning point'. One company chief recently suggested, in a Los Angeles Film Festival speech whose words have ricocheted around the indie community, 'the sky really is falling'.However you describe it, what has happened to the US independent industry ...
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Features
Online Distribution - The trouble with downloads
Opinion may be split on whether online downloads are the future of home entertainment but everyone agrees on the key limiting factor to the expansion of downloads: bandwidth."What we're waiting for is broader, more reliable, more ubiquitous bandwidth," says US analyst Roger Kay. "Video as a data type is as ...
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Features
United States - Docs Under The Microscope
Cara Mertes, director of the Sundance Institute Documentary Film Program (DFP), is an award-winning former executive producer of PBS's documentary showcase P.O.V. who knows only too well how unforgiving the non-fiction arena can be. For every Michael Moore, Morgan Spurlock and Alex Gibney there are thousands of film-makers whose stories ...
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Features
New Projects - Graphic encounters
Iron Man 2Marvel Studios and Paramount return in 2010 with Robert Downey Jr as Tony Stark/Iron Man and Jon Favreau once again at the helm. Downey Jr has also signed to play Sherlock Holmes, in a project based on a graphic novel, for Warner Bros.The AvengersNo relation to the 1998 ...
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Features
Italy/United Kingdom - It takes three to fandango
New Italy-UK sales outfit Fandango Portobello Sales made a splash in Cannes this year with Matteo Garrone's Naples-set Mafia drama Gomorrah. The title won the Grand Prix, was one of the most coveted films in the Marche, and one of the few Italian films in recent years to sell worldwide.Overseeing ...
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News
In Focus:A hero's welcome
Modern Hollywood has had a thing for spandex tights and alter egos ever since Christopher Reeve launched into the Manhattan skyline in Warner Bros' 1978 hit Superman.While subsequent superhero adventures have met with varying degrees of success, there is a level of accomplishment and ambition in recent years that suggests ...
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News
Screen opinion: The future is unwritten
A journalist on one of those pretentious radio programmes that podcasts have brought back into the mainstream was this week interviewing a pointy-headed intellectual about the nature of inevitability.The intrepid hack, clearly out of his depth, threw in what he imagined would be a trump card - that old maxim ...
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News
New York DocuWeek announces first annual lineup of films
The Betrayal (Nerakhoon), War Child and Flow are among a 14-film lineup that will screen at the International Documentary Association's (IDA) inaugural New York showcase DocuWeek.The event is inspired by DocuWeek's successful and ongoing run in Los Angeles and will give documentaries a chance to qualify for the Oscars. Academy ...
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News
The Bat lands in major markets including UK, Italy
The Dark Knight will have to contend with the first wave of launches for Fox International's The X-Files: I Want To Believe this weekend but should have the muscle to come out on top.The comic book adaptation could sweep past $100m this weekend through Warner Bros Pictures International (WBPI) as ...
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News
Morgan Spurlock signs with CAA for representation
Morgan Spurlock has signed with CAA for representation in all areas.Spurlock's second feature Where In The World Is Osama Bin Laden opened in limited release earlier in the year and follows his 2004 Oscar nominated Super Size Me.He is managed by The Arlook Group and attorney John Sloss of Sloss, ...
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News
Darren Aronofsky on board to remake Robocop for MGM
MGM has confirmed the rumour circulating Hollywood last week that Darren Aronofsky will direct and David Self will write its RoboCop remake, which is being fast-tracked for a 2010 release.Phoenix Pictures' Mike Medavoy, Arnold Messer, Brad Fischer and David Thwaites will produce and MGM's executive vice president of production Cale ...
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Reviews
Angus, Thongs And Perfect Snogging
Dir. Gurinder Chadha. 2008. UK . 100 mins.Relighting Sixteen Candles in the UK for a new generation, Gurinder Chadha's Angus, Thongs and Perfect Snogging is an amiable if fairly anodyne teen outing which will face a tough challenge breaking out from its girlie demographic. This target audience, however, will be ...
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Reviews
Step Brothers
Dir: Adam McKay . US. 2008. 95 mins.Playing like an overlong DVD version of one of his earlier, funnier, PG-13 films, the R-rated Step Brothers finds Will Ferrell diving into raunchier, coarser terrain, resulting in a movie that feels helplessly in thrall to its own foul language and sex jokes. ...
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News
Hong Kong's Media Asia takes back Infernal rights
Hong Kong's Media Asia has announced that it has retrieved rights to seven films it had previously licensed to UK-US distributor Tartan Group, including its hugely successful Infernal Affairs trilogy. In a legal notice, the Hong Kong company said that, as of July 4, it has terminated all licence agreements ...
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News
Melbourne fest's financing market and fund to continue
The government of the Australian state of Victoria brought a smile to the faces of filmmakers attending the opening of the Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF) tonight, by pledging $2.3m (A$2.4m) to extend the life of the festival's investment fund and financing market. 'We were not certain that funding would ...
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News
Naked Of Defenses picks up top prize at Japan's Pia fest
Japanese director Masahide Ichii's Naked Of Defenses won the Grand Prix at the 30th edition of the Pia Film Festival (PFF), which ran from July 19 to 25 in Tokyo's Shibuya district. A total of 15 films, both feature-length and shorts, were selected to screen in competition from 601 submissions ...
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News
Venice Days premieres include Aprahamian's Broken Lines
Czech director Bohdan Slama's A Country Teacher (VenkovskyUcitel) will have its international premiere at this year's Venice Dayssidebar, which is heavy on European and Eastern European films in thisyear's edition.A Country Teacher, sold by Wild Bunch, tells the story of a brilliantprofessor who moves to the Bohemian countryside in order ...
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News
Council of Europe sponsors Sarajevo's main award
The Council of Europe has become the partner of the Sarajevo Film Festival and sponsor of the 'Heart of Sarajevo' award for the best feature film.Since 1988, the European Support Fund for the Co-production and Distribution of Creative Cinematographic and Audiovisual Works, or Eurimages, has worked within the Council of ...