Small MPU – Page 567
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Reviews
Revolver
Dir/scr: Guy Ritchie. Fr-UK. 2005. 110mins.After the fiasco of Swept Away there wasnowhere to go but up for writer/director Guy Ritchie. Retreating to the safeterritory of gangland squabbles, dirty deeds, diamond geezers and hardcoreviolence must have seemed like a good idea but Revolver is such aconvoluted, risibly overwrought muddle of ...
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Reviews
Oliver Twist
Dir: Roman Polanski.Fr-UK-Czech Rep. 2005. 128mins.Roman Polanski made thisnew version of Oliver Twist for his children, but it's hard to imaginekids anywhere warming to his austere, colourless treatment of the story.Oliver Twist here evokes both Polanski's traumatic childhood andthe Wladyslaw Szpilman character in The Pianist - a blameless humandesperate to ...
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News
Rumley's Home Of The Dead cranks up in UK
Volcano Entertainment andVita Pictures have started principal photography on psychological drama TheLiving in the Home of the Dead in Wiltshire, southern England. Simon Rumley, whopreviously directed Club Le Monde, The Truth Game, and StrongLanguage, is writing and directing with Nick O'Hagan producing. O'Haganpreviously co-produced Young Adam and was an associate ...
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Reviews
Tideland
Dir: Terry Gilliam. UK-Can.2005. 121mins.Terry Gilliam has spent hisentire career celebrating the power of the imagination to transcend the awfulrealities of life and death. He has described Mitch Cullin's Tideland as"Alice In Wonderland meets Psycho" and it sounds like idealmaterial for him.Unfortunately, thismacabre, longwinded fantasy is closer in tone to ...
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News
RESFEST kicks of global tour in New York this week
The 9th RESFEST touring festival willkick off its global tour of 35 plus cities with a launch at New York City'sTribeca Performing Arts Center from September 15-18. This year's RESFEST willoffer the world premiere of Doug Pray's graffiti documentary Infamy aswell as retrospectives devoted to musician Beck, the label XL ...
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News
Corraface named president of Thessaloniki festival
Greek-French actor George Corraface(Giorgos Chorafas) has been named president of the Thessaloniki InternationalFilm Festival.The post has been vacant forfive months following film-maker Pandelis Vougaris' resignation as president inMay, just one month after he was appointed to takeover from fellow film makerTheo Angelopoulos.Corraface will work closelywith artistic director Despina Mouzaki.Corraface's nomination ...
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News
Meadows cranks up This Is England
Shane Meadows will startshooting his fifth feature, tentatively titled This is England, onlocation in Nottingham and Grimsby starting on Wednesday. The dark comedy is a coming-of-age story set in northern England duringsummer 1983, when an 11-year-old boy, Shaun, mourns the loss of his father andfalls in with a group of ...
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News
Nayar's The Thread unspools in India, UK
Supernatural thriller The Thread has started shooting inIndia this week, where it will continue through the rest of September beforemoving to the UK. Mahesh Mathai (Bhopal Express) is directingfrom a script by Randall Fontana, based on a story by Harris W. Freedman.Deepak Nayar, who previously produced Bride and Prejudice and ...
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News
New Zealand boosts production with $10m fund
New Zealand's prime minister Helen Clark has put aside $10.8m (NZ$22m) for a feature film production fund, a huge commitment for a country with a population of less than four million people. It is envisaged that the fund will assist about 10 films at the rate of two or three ...
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News
Sweeney's American Venus set for November shoot
Vancouver-basedBrightlight Pictures is set for a November shoot on writer-director BruceSweeney's American Venus. The$3.8m production will be produced by Brightlight co-presidents Shawn Williamsonand Steve Hegyes.Telefilm Canada, Corus' Movie Central, Astral's The MovieNetwork and CHUM are backing the project and Montreal-based TVA has picked upall Canadian rights. Hegyes told Screen International ...
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News
KWA takes on international sales for Galan's Editor
Spanish sales outfit KevinWilliams Associates (KWA) has picked up international rights on a handful ofnew Spanish and Latin American films including San Sebastian special screener Pablo G.del Amo: Editor Of Illusions. The documentary from DiegoGalan, the former director of the Donostia- San Sebastian International FilmFestival, tracks the career of one ...
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News
Bauer Martinez to herd Lau's Flock into Louisiana
Andrew Lau's The Flock, which had been due to go intoproduction in New Orleans later this autumn, may still shoot in Louisiana inspite of the devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina. Philippe Martinez, CEOof Bauer Martinez Studios (BMS), told ScreenDaily.com that the plan nowis to see if it will be feasible ...
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News
Webber's Young Hannibal lines up for Prague shoot
PeterWebber's Behind The Mask: Young Hannibal is to start shooting on October10th in Prague. Dinoand Martha De Laurentiis, Tarak Ben Ammar of Quinta Communications and Britishco-producers Chris Curling and Phil Robertson of Zephyr Films will produce thefilm with Petr Moravec of Czech production company, Etic Films.Bestselling novelist Thomas Harris has ...
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Reviews
Breakfast On Pluto
Dir: Neil Jordan. Ire-UK. 2005. 135mins.Neil Jordan comes over all Almodovar in BreakfastOn Pluto, a sprawling, picaresque account of a young transvestite's epicodyssey in search of his mother. Jordan has a patchy record with broad comicmaterial (High Spirits, We're No Angels etc) and this reunionwith Butcher Boy writer Patrick McCabe ...
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News
Video Island acquires Scandinavia's Brafilm
UK online DVD rental serviceVideo Island is to acquire Brafilm, a company Video Island says is the largestplayer in Scandinavia. The deal follows on from theUK acquisitions of DVDs365 in June 2005 and ScreenSelect.co.uk in August 2004.It forms part of VideoIsland's plans to become the number one online rental operator ...
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News
Roban joins Stone Village as COO, head of business affairs
Michael Roban (pictured) has joined Los Angeles-based StoneVillage Pictures as head of business affairs and chief operating officer.Roban will oversee production financing and all business and legalaffairs for the company, as well as heading up all business affairs for thecompany's literary management arm Intellectual Property Group.Reporting to Stone Village chiefs ...
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News
Intermedia, Kadokawa extend co-production pact
Intermedia Film EquitiesUSA and Kadokawa Pictures USA have extended their agreement and signed amulti-picture deal to develop, finance and produce up to six Intermedia picturesto be made in 2006 and 2007.The new deal is a significant step in Intermedia Film Equities USAparent company Internationalmedia's foray into genre production.The expanded deal ...
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News
Searchlight smokes, Paramount fumes in rights duel
Thank You For Smoking producer and the head of Room 9 Entertainment DavidO Sacks has declared that Fox Searchlight Pictures is the sole owner of thefilm and that, while negotiations had taken place with Paramount Classics, nodeal had been closed with that studio.Paramount Classics co-headDavid Dinerstein said that he stood ...
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News
Fantastic Factory ready for chopsocky action
Spanish mini-studio The Filmax Group is developing an "Asian-style action movie" for its Fantastic Factory genre film division, according to Factory co-producer and director Brian Yuzna. "The money we would usually put into effects we'll put into stunts," Yuzna said. Filmax plans to bring in Asian talent to further develop ...
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News
Schrader commits to Adam Resurrected
Paul Schrader has signed onto direct the Holocaust epic Adam Resurrected for Ehud Bleiberg'sfledgling Los Angeles-based Bleiberg Entertainment.Bleiberg will commencecasting immediately and is eyeing a summer 2006 start date in Germany, Romania and Israel.Noah Stollman adapted thescreenplay from Yoram Kaniuk's novel about a former circus entertainer andHolocaust survivor who inhabits ...