Large MPU – Page 1033
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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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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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In The Animation Vanguard: John H Williams on Space Chimps
Space Chimps, which opened in the US through Twentieth Century Fox last weekend, taking $7.4m, is the second CG-animated film financed independently by Vanguard Animation.An initiative of Shrek producer John H Williams and his Vanguard Films, the unit was founded to make a modestly budgeted ($40m), high-quality CG film every ...
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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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Emperor kicks off $100m film push with Highbinders
Emperor Group CEO Gordon Chan is to put his directing career on hold while he powers up the wealthy Hong Kong company's $100m drive into film. Chan and Emperor president Albert Yeung plan to develop a slate of quality Asian movies that play well in both Asia and the international ...
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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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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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Features
United Kingdom - Mother Care
Shane Meadows' Somers Town, after much praise at the Berlinale and awards at Tribeca and Edinburgh, has had an unusual path to screen. The genesis of the project was not with a seasoned writer or director, but from famed advertising agency Mother.Ad legend Robert Saville, one of the founders of ...
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Features
Production - Armenia - The apricot revolution
For more than a century, Armenia's main export has been its people: men like MGM investor Kirk Kerkorian, who fled oppression and settled in Russia, France and North America. The country of 3.2 million people began post-Soviet independence in the early 1990s in the throes of a devastating earthquake and ...
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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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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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Home Entertainment: A bolt from the Blu'
When Toshiba announced in February it would stop developing high-definition DVD players, it marked the end of a format battle that looked like it might rival the VHS vs Betamax videotape war of the 1970s and 1980s.Toshiba's announcement cleared the way for Sony's Blu-ray to take the next generation of ...
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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
The American stream - Leading download sites in the US
Amazon UnboxThe big beast of internet shopping stepped into the movie downloading business when it set up Unbox in late 2006. It now boasts more than 5,000 movies for US users to rent or buy, though customers need to download its video-playing software. Rentals are mostly $3.99 and most purchases ...
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Features
International - Cliff scales the heights
Nine new entries wrestled their way into Screen's international chart this week, with Japan, South Korea, India, Germany, China and France providing new films alongside the big Hollywood blockbusters.Japanese films continue to make their mark with two further entries opening in their home territory this week.Ponyo On The Cliff - ...
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Korea's Cinema Service makes sales debut
One of Korea's largest producer-distributors, Cinema Service, is making its market debut as a film seller this week with a slate of nine pictures including local box office hit Bichunmoo.The $5m martial arts romance has scored 2.3 million admissions at the Korean box office. Shot in Shanghai with a Chinese ...
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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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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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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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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 ...