Large MPU – Page 830
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News
Diesel's kid comedy flattens the competition with $30.2m opening
Disney and Spyglass Entertainment's family comedy The Pacifier opened top over the weekend on anestimated $30.2m, beating MGM's caper sequel Be Cool into second place on $23.5m and defyingpredictions of a reverse-order finish.The only other new release that made it into the top 10 was WarnerIndependent Pictures' psychodrama The Jacket, ...
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Disney, Spyglass enjoy BO smash with The Pacifier
Disney and Spyglass Entertainment's family comedy The Pacifier opened top over the weekend on anestimated $30.2m, beating MGM's caper sequel Be Cool into second place on $23.5m and defyingpredictions of a reverse-order finish.The only other new release that made it into the top 10 was WarnerIndependent Pictures' psychodrama The Jacket, ...
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Flintstones, Frequency can't sink U-571
Universal's family comedy The Flintstones In Viva Rock Vegas grossed $10.8m in its first three days at the box office over the weekend but was unable to beat U-571, also from Universal, in its second weekend. The submarine thriller grossed $12.3m, bringing its total to $38.2m after two weekends. Viva ...
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Sony's Hitch explodes into 25 markets with $21m weekend
Hitchwas the number one international release of the weekend with an estimated $21mhaul on 2,955 screens in 25 markets through Sony Pictures ReleasingInternational (SPRI), while DreamWorks International's Meet The Fockers passed $200m following another strongweekend.Sony's romantic comedy raised its international running total to$29.1m, powered by a superb $9m number one ...
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Hart/Lunsford finishes debut feature with Langhella
Newly formed production company Hart/Lunsford Pictures hasannounced completion of its debut feature, How You Look To Me, starring Frank Langhella and LauraAllen.The Kentucky-based storycentres on the efforts of an English professor who helps three young men asthey approach adulthood. Television director J Miller Tobin made his featuredirectorial debut based on ...
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Applause chief to direct $10m musical in Shanghai
Peter Ho-sun Chan's $10mmusical Perhaps Love startsshooting in Shanghai next month with a hot pan-Asian cast and backing frombroadcasters TVB and Astro. A co-production between Chan'sApplause Pictures and the Ruddy Morgan Organisation (RMO), the film is directedby Chan and stars Takeshi Kaneshiro (House Of Flying Daggers) and leading Chinese actress ...
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Sony names foreign chief to lead it out of slump
Sony has named Howard Stringer as its new chairman andchief executive, handing the reins of the struggling conglomerate to aforeigner for the first time. Sony's board agreed to appoint Stringer - the Welsh-bornhead of its U.S. operations and entertainment division - at an extraordinarymeeting in Tokyo on Monday morning. Current ...
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South African Drum takes top African fest prize
South African director Zola Maseko's Drum has wonthe top prize at Africa's leading film festival, Fespaco, in Burkina Faso'scapital Ouagadougou. Drum, a film about apartheid set amid the jazzclubs of 1950s Johannesburg, was awarded the Golden Stallion of Yennenga and acash prize of $20,000 at the closing ceremony on Saturday ...
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Denmark's NatFilm Festival to open with 11 hour epic
The 16th edition ofCopenhagen's NatFilm Festival (April 1-17) will kick off with a screening of Edgar Reitz's11-hour long Heimat 3 - A Chronicle of Endings and Beginnings,the latest film in the director's trilogy about Germany.Starting on the dayof the fall of the Berlin Wall and ending on the eve of ...
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Malaga festival unveils market initiatives
The Spanish Film Festival of Malaga (April 22-30) will hostfour industry-oriented markets this year, adding two new three-day events toits calendar of activities.On top of the now established feature film Market Screeningsfor international buyers (April 24-26) and documentary market Mercadoc (April24-26), the festival has unveiled a new TV Market (April ...
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Reviews
Robots
Dir: Chris Wedge, CarlosSaldanha. US. 2005. 85mins.In the modern cinematic age, animation has become abehemoth sub-genre of its own and - if done right - a virtual licence to printmoney, as Disney's lucrative, if waning, partnership with Pixar and DreamWorks'successful joint ventures with PDI have helped prove.Of course, given the ...
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Reviews
Mongolian Ping Pong (Lu Caodi)
Dir: Ning Hao. China.2005. 102mins.A worthwhile addition tothe yurt-flick genre that has included the likes of Urga, MongolianPing Pong is one of those ethnic features that allows audiences to getinside an alien landscape and culture from the comfort of their own cinemaseat. Beautifully-shot, the film is a paean to the ...
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Reviews
Hostage
Dir: Florent Siri. US. 2005. 115mins.Hostage, the new vehicle for Bruce Willis,survives an occasionally overcomplicated plot to provide consistently solid, ifnot particularly novel, entertainment. While there is very little that is newhere, the familiar characters, story, situation and iconography of theSWAT-team genre are crisply and engagingly delivered by French director ...
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UK's Film Council sets aside $16m for bigger films
The Film Council, the UK government's newly-created film superbody, has launched a $16m (£10m) annual fund for commercial films as part of its debut package of public support measures, the Council announced today.The commercial fund, titled the Premiere Production Fund, sits alongside a hefty fund of $8m (£5m) a year ...
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Reviews
Hostage
Dir: Florent Siri. US. 2005. 115mins.Hostage, the new vehicle for Bruce Willis,survives an occasionally overcomplicated plot to provide consistently solid, ifnot particularly novel, entertainment. While there is very little that is newhere, the familiar characters, story, situation and iconography of theSWAT-team genre are crisply and engagingly delivered by French director ...
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News
Cannes launches project workshop for young directors
In a new initiativeCannes is to launch the "Atelier Du Festival" a project workshop designed tohelp young film-makers get their films off the ground.The festival willthrow a large amount of resources at the Ateliers to help match the 18 projectsinitially selected with financiers and distributors."They will be given a personalised ...
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News
ShoWest Awards watch: Drew Barrymore
Drew Barrymore will receive the ShoWest Distinguished Decade of Achievement in Film award at the closing night ceremony in Las Vegas on Mar 17."Barrymore is a successful actress who, since her feature film debut at the age of three, has been captivating movie audiences for more then two decades," Mitch ...
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Dream teams with Motley Crue on Disaster!
LosAngeles-based Dream Entertainment has scored a promotional tie-in deal withlegendary rock band Motley Crue on its upcoming satirical claymation picture Disaster!Each show on the recentlyreformed Crue's upcoming Red White & Crue world tour will begin with aspecially made claymation short featuring band members saving the world fromimminent destruction.Highlights fromRoy Wood's ...
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here! picks up gay horror pic HellBent
here! Films haspicked up worldwide rights from Sneak Preview Entertainment to Paul Etheredge-Ouzts'horror picture HellBent,which is scheduled to open in North America in June in association with RegentReleasing.HellBent is billed as one of the firsthorror/slasher projects to feature lead gay characters, who must fight forsurvival amid the backdrop of a ...
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News
Strauss named president of Skoll's Participant
Production and marketingveteran Ricky Strauss has been named president of Participant Productions, thecompany founded by eBay pioneer and philanthropist Jeff Skoll.Reporting directly to Skoll,Strauss will be responsible for overseeing production, marketing and businessdevelopment, and working closely with studio and production partners on titlesthat further Participant's mandate of making pictures that ...