Small MPU – Page 186
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Reviews
Bangkok Dangerous
Dir: Danny Pang and Oxide Pang. US-Thailand. 2008. 100mins.The remake by Danny and Oxide Pang of their own imaginative 1999 directorial debut sacrifices the grit and inventiveness of the original in favour of a Hollywood-style loner-assassin drama with a Hollywood star in an exotic location. This version of Bangkok Dangerous ...
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News
Pandora, Warner show literary bent
Pandora Pictures, the new Los Angeles incarnation of what was formerly Paris-based Pandora Cinema, has unveiled the first two films to come through its co-financing arrangement with Warner Bros. Both are literary adaptations that represent a significant step up in budgets for the company.The White Oleander, a $17m female ensemble ...
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News
Abu Dhabi Media Company announces $1bn film investment
The Abu Dhabi Media Company has launched a $1bn investment in feature film and digital content.It has formed a subsidiary - imagenation Abu Dhabi - to develop, finance and produce content for both regional and international markets. Its intial aim is to make eight films a year.The company will look ...
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ReviewsPasschendaele
Dir: Paul Gross. Canada. 2008. 114minsAnyone confronting the horrors of trench warfare in the First World War has to acknowledge the long shadows cast by seminal classics All Quiet On The Western Front and Paths Of Glory. Paul Gross’s ambitious Passchendaele doesn’t try to compete. Instead, ...
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ReviewsDean Spanley (2008)
Dir. Toa Fraser. New Zealand/UK. 2008. 99mins.New Zealand director Toa Fraser’s Dean Spanley overcomes an uncertain and sketchy opening section to register as a moving and visually wondrous evocation of magic and imagination. The movie’s tonal shifts are fairly abrupt and the first third is frustratingly ...
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ReviewsGhost Town
Dir: David Koepp. USA. 2008. 103 mins.A minor studio comedy notable as the first Hollywood starring vehicle for UK comic Ricky Gervais, Ghost Town takes a formulaic story about a curmudgeon learning to love and spices it up with some Gervais-style sarcasm and smartass dialogue. Making ...
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News
Film Consortium gets greenlight to continue
UK National Lottery franchise The Film Consortium has secured lottery funding for another three years after it cleared a mid-term review by film super body the Film Council.Although some Council board members were highly critical of the consortium, the Council said that it accepted that the operation had performed below ...
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ReviewsNick and Norah's Infinite Playlist
Dir. Peter Sollett. US. 2008. 89mins.The highly anticipated second feature of the New York-based independent Peter Sollett (Raising Victor Vargas) valiantly attempts to both enliven and subvert the tendencies and predictability of the teenage romantic comedy - although the whole never quite registers as forcefully as ...
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News
Richard Eyre's The Other Man to open San Sebastian
San Sebastian has announced that British director Richard Eyre's romantic drama The Other Man will open the festival in official selection, out of competition, and US director Rian Johnson's The Brothers Bloom will be the closing film.The Other Man is a romantic tale involving a love triangle between Antonio Banderas, ...
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ReviewsSauna
Dir: Antti-Jussi Annila. Finland. 2008. 83mins.Finnish director Antti-Jussi Annila (Jade Warrior) invokes slavishly two masters, Andrei Tarkovsky and Stanley Kubrick, with this intensely baroque and religion-inflected period horror movie. The severely grotesque atmosphere and mannered style suffocate the promising ideas and results in a dramatically incoherent ...
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ReviewsThe Secret Life Of Bees
Dir: Gina Prince-Bythewood. USA. 2008. 110 minsInspirational life lessons abound in The Secret Life Of Bees, a wholesome, heartwarming version of the Sue Monk Kidd bestseller. The mixture of personal heartache and social history is handled with tender loving care, but is so sentimental and sermonising ...
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News
Metrodome, Rialto team for McKellan's King Lear
Metrodome Distribution has taken UK, Ireland and Australia/New Zealand rights to Trevor Nunn and Chris Hunt's new adaptation of King Lear, starring Ian McKellen.The stage-to-screen Royal Shakespeare Company production was recorded in high definition at Pinewood Studios.The deal was negotiated between Metrodome CEO Peter Urie, general manager distribution Sara Frain ...
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News
London Film Festival to close with Boyle's Slumdog Millionaire
The Times BFI London Film Festival will close its 52ndedition with the European premiere of London-based director Danny Boyle's Slumdog Millionaire.The closing night gala film, which Boyle shot in India, is about an 18-year-old orphan in Mumbai who is suspected of cheating on a game show. The cast features Dev ...
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News
Venice eyes slightly later start for 2009 festival
The Venice film festival may start slightly later for its 2009edition. While not officially announced, Biennale president Paolo Baratta and artistic directorMarco Mueller told foreign journalists over lunch that next year's schedule might shift slightly.Venice could potentially kick off Weds., Sept 2, 2009.Venice traditionally opens the Wednesday after the last ...
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News
Momentum takes UK rights to Let The Right One In
Momentum Pictures has secured all rights for the UK and Ireland to Tomas Alfredson's Swedish vampire romance Let The Right One In from sales agent Bavaria Film International.Based on the bestselling novel by Swedish author John Ajvide Lindqvist, the crossover hit has been sold to all major territories including France ...