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All articles by Geoffrey Macnab – Page 190
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News
Joseph joins Udwin's Revolution
Francesca Joseph (TomorrowLa Scala) has been confirmed as director of Mrs Ratcliffe's Revolution,the latest feature from East Is East producer Leslee Udwin.Scripted by Peter Straughan and Bridget O'Connor, the film is a bittersweetcomedy based on the true story of an ardent Marxist from the north of Englandwho takes his family ...
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News
London Film Festival to launch 'mini-market'
The Times bfi London Film Festival (Oct 20-Nov 4) is set tostage its own, unofficial mini-market.Fortissimo,Celluloid Dreams, Wild Bunch, Bavaria Film and Trust are among theinternational sales agents already confirmed to attend the festival, which willbe organising industry screenings at London's Curzon Soho from Oct 25- 27. Thesales agents, all ...
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Reviews
Bride And Prejudice
Dir: Gurinder Chadha.UK-India-US. 2004 111mins.Bollywood spectacle andBritish comedy of manners collide head on in Gurinder Chadha's Bride AndPrejudice, an entertaining if wildly uneven updating of Jane Austen'snovel.Chadha throws Indian,English and American characters into the mix, cheerfully trading in allavailable national stereotypes as she goes. Much grates. The direction is oftensurprisingly ...
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Chomet readies Tati screenplay for Scottish shoot
Oscar-nominated Sylvain Chomet (The Triplets OfBelleville) is to direct an animatedversion of a screenplay by legendary French comedian Jacques Tati.Called The Illusionist,it will be produced in Edinburgh - where Chomet recently set up shop -by Mark Cousinsof 4Ways Films. Sally Chomet will co-produce through Studio Django.Other partners include Les Films ...
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News
4Way lines up Western Story
4Way Pictures, the UK-based company co-run by Antonia Bird,Mark Cousins, Robert Carlyle and Irvine Welsh, has announced details of ahandful of new projects.The company has now boarded A Western Story, an epicUS coming-of-age love story scripted by Naomi Wallace (Lawn Dogs). Birdwill direct the film, which will be a UK/US ...
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Reviews
Wimbledon
Richard Loncraine, UK/US 2004, 97 minsRichard Curtis maynot have written Wimbledon but hisinfluence is evident in almost every scene of the film. As in Notting Hill and Four Weddings, a charming but stuttering Brit (in this case, ajourneyman tennis player) falls in love with a tougher, more worldly wiseAmerican. We're ...
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News
Pinewood confirmed for Malick's New World
In recent years, severalbig-name US auteurs have beaten a path to Britain. Robert Altman shot Gosford Park in the Home Counties. WoodyAllen has recently completed a film in London. Now, Terrence Malick (The Thin Red Line, Badlands, Days Of Heaven)is UK-bound.A spokesperson forPinewood Studios has confirmed that Malick has booked ...
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London cherrypicks festival favourites for 2004 line-up
"They don't openthe London Film Festival with films like Vera Drake...but they donow!" Mike Leigh, fresh from his Golden Lion triumph in Venice, quippedyesterday at the official launch of this year's Festival programme.Speaking on the stage ofthe Odeon West End in Leicester Square, Leigh said he had been coming to ...
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Miike cooks up Soup as English debut
Cult Japanese director Takashi Miike - who unveiled hislatest bloodcurdling epic Izo in Venice last week - is to make the jumpinto English-language film-making.Miike hassigned up to direct Dragon's Fin Soup, an adaptation of the novella byThai writer S.P. Somtow for Paris-based production and distribution outfit, DesFilms. The film is ...
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News
Nair develops Namesake project
In Venice for the festival screening of Vanity Fair, Mira Nair has revealed details of her next project, an adaptation of Jhumpa Lahiri's 2001 Pulitzer Prize winning novel, The Namesake.The novel tells the story of a Calcutta family who leave India to come to Cambridge, Massachusetts, in the US in ...
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Robbins speaks out against Bush at the Biennale
In Venice for the festival screening of Embedded Live (the film version of his play about the US march to war in Iraq), Oscar-winning actor-director Tim Robbins has again launched a ferocious attack on the Bush administration. Speaking yesterday to the international press, Robbins expressed his fears that George W. ...
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Reviews
Vanity Fair
Dir: Mira Nair US/UK2004 140 minsAdapting classic Nineteenth Century novels for the screenis invariably a thankless task. If filmmakers are too brutal paring down bookswhich run to hundreds of pages, they risk straining out the wealth of detailand description which makes the originals memorable in the first place. Ifthey're not ...
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News
Jayanti to direct Ellroy's Killer On The Road
Award-winning filmmaker Vikram Jayanti (Deep Blue, WhenWe Were Kings) is to direct a movie version of one of James Ellroy's mostgruesome novels, the gay serial killer/buddy novel, Killer On The Road.The film, scripted by former critic Chris Peachment, is dueto shoot next spring. It is being co-produced by Tartan Films ...
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Tartan adds five films to release slate
Prolific UK distributorTartan Films has picked up a string of films in advance of the early autumnfestival season.Titles Claire Denis's newfilm The Intruder (due to screen in Venice); Three...Extremes,the portmanteau horror picture featuring segments by Miike Takashi, Fruit Chanand Park Chan-Wook; horror pictureThe Eye 2 - the sequel/prequel to thePang ...
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Blackwell's Palm funds epic music documentary
Ondi Timoner (pictured), director of Sundance Jury GrandPrix documentary winner Dig!, is todirect a "History Of Jamaican Music" for Chris Blackwell's Palm Pictures. Theepic documentary, which will encompass dub, ska and reggae, will be given atheatrical release.As the founder of Island Records, Jamaican-based Blackwellowns the rights to Bob Marley's music ...
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News
McDull embarks on martial arts extravaganza
McDull,the clumsy but lovable piglet first seen in hit Hong Kong animated feature, My Life As McDull, is to take up kungfu.Pre-productionhas already begun on martial arts extravaganza, McDull - Wudang, the third animated feature showcasing the pink-snoutedhero.Thenew project sees McDull travelling to China with his mother, Mrs McBing, awould-be ...
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Glenaan readies football project
Scottish director Kenny Glenaan (whose new feature Yasmin premieres in competition inLocarno today, prior to its screeningat the Edinburgh Film Festival) is shortly to go into pre-production on a filmabout the exploitative, cut-throat world of football agents.Ducain's Boys, asthe film is titled, will tell the story of agents who scour ...
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Chadha looks to cast $90m Jeannie
Anglo-Asian director Gurinder Chadha is shortly to start casting on Jeannie, her first big-budget studio film. An Arabian Nights-style fantasy adventure which is also a prequel to the long-running TV series, I Dream Of Jeannie, the film is set in Persia in 200 BC and in the contemporary US.The central ...
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Reviews
The Village
Dir/sc: M. NightShyamalan. US 2004. 107 minsOstensibly setin the late 19th Century (though the precise period is not specified until latein the final reel), The Village is anarch and eccentric affair. M. Night Shyamalan's craftsmanship and originalityare not in doubt, but his attempts to combine Blair Witch-like horror with ScarletLetter-style ...