All articles by John Hazelton – Page 15
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News
Amy Israel joining Paramount Classics
Former Miramaxacquisition executive Amy Israel is joining Paramount Classics as executivevice president of production and acquisitions. The appointment is one of thefirst made by John Lesher, named president of the Paramount specialty label twomonths ago. Israel worked atMiramax for eight years during the nineties and was responsible for theacquisition and ...
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News
Jon Stewart to host Academy Award ceremony
JonStewart, best known as host of US political satire series The Daily Show, has been set to hostthe 78th Academy Awards ceremonyand TV presentation on March 5.Stewarttakes over the job from Chris Rock, who made his first appearance as Oscar hostlast year.Besideshosting cable channel Comedy Central's acclaimed Daily Show, Stewart ...
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News
Oliveira to head Twentieth Century Fox Australia
MarcosOliveira, long-standing managing director of Twentieth Century Fox Brazil, hasbeen appointed managing director for Fox - Australia and will relocate toSydney later this month. Patricia Kamitsuji, currently sales director in theBrazil office, will replace Oliveira as Fox - Brazil's managing director.Announcingthe appointments, Fox International co-head Paul Hanneman said that in ...
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News
US writers and producers announce nominations
Brokeback Mountain, Capote,Crash and Good Night, and GoodLuck have all been nominated forawards by both the US producers' and writers' guilds. The 40 Year-Old Virgin, meanwhile, got a surprise nomination from thewriters' organization.The big four Hollywood guildsall announce their award nominees this week, with the Producers Guild ofAmerica (PGA) and ...
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News
North American box office down 4% for 2005
TotalNorth American box office was down 4% to $8.83bn in 2005, according tofigures released on Tuesday by Nielsen EDI - not quite the disastrousslump feared earlier in the year, but still the lowest overall domestic tallysince 2001.Amongdistributors, Warner Bros, last year's number two domestically, earned braggingrights with a $1.38bn total ...
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News
Liberty's Starz launches movie download service
Liberty Media's StarzEntertainment Group is launching Vongo, a new US video download subscriptionservice that delivers movies from studios including Disney and Sony for viewingon Windows-based devices such as PCs, laptops and portable players. Vongo subscribers will pay$9.99 a month for unlimited broadband Internet access to around 1,000 new andlibrary movies ...
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Reviews
Hoodwinked
Dir: Cory Edwards. US.2005. 81mins.Written and directed by a trio of virtually unknownfilm-makers, computer animated family comedy Hoodwinked feels like a cheap and cheerful cross between Shrek and Looney Tunes. The cheapness - mostlyexposed in relatively rudimentary CG work - makes Shrek-level theatrical successunlikely; but the cheeriness of this sassy ...
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Reviews
Aeon Flux
Dir: Karyn Kusama. US. 2005. 92mins.A cult animated MTV series from the early 1990s getsa disappointingly dull live-action makeover in sci-fi thriller Aeon Flux, directed by Sundanceaward-winner (for her debut film Girlfight) Karyn Kusama.Teenage fanboysand their slightly older brothers will be the primary audience, and with Charlize Theron wearing the ...
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Reviews
The White Countess
Dir: James Ivory. US. 2005.135mins.The finale to director James Ivory's longcollaboration with producer Ismail Merchant (who diedlast May, just as the film was being completed), The White Countess is an intimate period romance given historicalsweep by a script from The Remains Of TheDay novelist Kazuo Ishiguro.The tentative love affair atthe ...
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Reviews
Syriana
Dir/scr: Stephen Gaghan. US. 2005. 123mins.Writer-director Stephen Gaghan'sSyrianasets out to do for the global oil industry what Steven Soderbergh'sTraffic - which Gaghanscripted - did for the international drug trade. But while Traffic managed to mix affecting drama with its big picturegeopolitics, Gaghan's provocative new study worksbetter as a stimulant for ...
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Reviews
Derailed
Dir: Mikael Hafstrom. US. 2005. 108mins.Representing a fairly low profile debut for a highprofile operation, The Weinstein Company's Derailedis a sharp, nicely cast neo-noir thriller that loses some of its edge over thecourse of its twisting and turning plot.Swedish director Mikael Hafstrom - whose Evil (Ondskan)was a best foreign language ...
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Reviews
Chicken Little
Dir: Mark Dindal. US. 2005. 80mins.For its first fully computer-animated feature, WaltDisney has turned the fable of ChickenLittle into a warm and funny comedy-adventure with an appealing energy, atouching thread of family drama and a surprising dose of War Of The Worlds-style sci-fi. After thedisappointment of some of Disney's recent ...
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Reviews
The Legend Of Zorro
Dir: Martin Campbell. US.2005. 126mins.Family matters take up as much time as swashbucklingin the belated sequel - reuniting Antonio Banderasand Catherine Zeta-Jones with director Martin Campbell, but missing co-starAnthony Hopkins - to 1998 adventure romp TheMask Of Zorro. The sequel recreates some of the enjoyable Saturday matineeaction that helped turn ...
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Reviews
Stay
Dir: Marc Forster. US. 2005.103mins.After the mainstream success of his charmingtearjerker Finding Neverland,Monster's Ball director Marc Forstergoes dark and edgy again with Stay, apsychological thriller infatuated with its themes of death, identity, realityand illusion.Forster makes the most ofhis newly earned creative freedom and delivers a stylish, visually inventivefilm that takes ...
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Reviews
The Fog
Dir: Rupert Wainwright. US.2005. 100mins.More turns out to be less in Revolution Studios'overly busy and insufficiently scary remake of John Carpenter's lean 1980horror yarn The Fog. With two youngTV actors starring and British actor-turned-director Rupert Wainwright at thehelm, the remake adds a lot of plot background and a bit of ...
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Reviews
Into The Blue
Dir: John Stockwell. US.2005. 110mins.Hot bods and cool underwater cinematography partially make up for a tiredplot and annoying tone in Into The Blue, a lightweight action/adventureabout sexy young things diving for shipwrecks off the Bahamas.Given that the two lead bodsbelong to Jessica Alba - especially hot after Fantastic Four and ...
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Reviews
Flightplan
Dir:Robert Schwentke. US. 2005. 93mins.Germandirector makes a promising US debut with Flightplan, a taut suspensethriller that gets good use out of its transatlantic airliner setting and, fora while at least, produces some real emotional resonance too.Withthe very selective Jodie Foster starring, the Imagine/Touchstone productionshould be capable of strong box office ...
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Reviews
Cry Wolf
Dir: Jeff Wadlow. US.2005. 90mins.There are more twiststhan jolts in Cry_Wolf, the teen thriller whose script helped debutantfeature director Jeff Wadlow take first prize - a $1m production grant - in theChrysler Million Dollar Film Festival.Wadlowproves himself a worthy winner of the competition (created by Doug Liman'sproduction outfit Hypnotic and ...
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Reviews
A Sound Of Thunder
Dir: Peter Hyams.US/Germany/Czech Republic/UK. 2005. 101 mins. Emerging in themarketplace almost three years after it was made, A Sound of Thunder turns a vintage Ray Bradbury short story into acheesy and unconvincing big budget B-movie. With its sub-par effects, uninspiredperformances and unfocused narrative, this sci-fi thriller, left over from theglory ...
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Reviews
The Cave
Dir:Bruce Hunt. US. 2005. 96mins.US-backedbut utilising international above- and below-the-line talent and locations, TheCave is an efficient yet routine horror thriller with what would normallyseem like a novel underground exploration setting. Unfortunately, the settingis shared with recent British caving chiller The Descent - so in theinternational marketplace at least, The ...