All articles by Mike Goodridge – Page 25
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News
John Hart teams with Smuggler Partners to form Smuggler Films
Veteran independent film producer John Hart has teamed up with Patrick Milling Smith and Brian Carmody of commercial and music video outfit Smuggler Partners to form Smuggler Films, a production company designed to produce content in film, theatre, television and other media.With offices in New York, Los Angeles and London, ...
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News
Opinion: the troubled star system in the tabloid era
If movie stars are what sells movies, movies might be in trouble. The coverage of celebrities not just in the tabloids but in the mainstream media and the unregulated online universe has now become so relentless that any actor who steps out of line in public runs the risk of ...
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ReviewsDragonball Evolution
Dir: James Wong. US. 2009. 85 mins.A Hollywood film version of the Japanese manga phenomenon, Dragonball Evolution is puerile childrens’ sci-fi of a strictly B-movie standard.Produced by Hong Kong film-maker Stephen Chow Sing-chi but entirely missing his inventive stamp, the film is essentially a bland Hollywood dumbing-down of the books ...
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News
France bangs the drum for new tax incentive in Hong Kong
The French consul general for Hong Kong and Macau declared on Monday that the future ‘belonged to co-production between Europe and Asia’ and urged Asian producers to look at shooting films in France. He made the comments at an information session outlining the new 20% tax rebate for international productions ...
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Comment
Opinion: the changing face of acquisitions
International sellers and producers going into Cannes will encounter a severely depleted troupe of acquisitions executives from the US studios and their specialised divisions.
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Reviews
Duplicity
Reviewed by Mike Goodridge Dir: Tony Gilroy. US. 2009. 122 mins. A high-tech romantic thriller set in the little-seen world of corporate espionage, Tony Gilroy's second feature is sophisticated adult entertainment which puts the lazy Ocean's films to shame with its clever writing, lively direction and visual panache. An old-fashioned ...
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News
Opinion: taking superheroes seriously
The global opening of Watchmen last weekend - $55.7m in North America through Warner Bros and $27.5m in 45 territories through PPI - was strong, but considered by many commentators to be disappointing.This, after all, was the most-hyped superhero movie since Iron Man and The Dark Knight last summer and ...
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News
Reviews - Race to Witch Mountain
'Reimagining' of Disney's classic 1975 action favourite.US. 2009. 98mins. Director Andy Fickman Production companies Gunn Films, Walt Disney Pictures International distribution Walt Disney Studios Producer Andrew Gunn Screenplay Matt Lopez and Mark Bomback, from the book by Alexander Key Cinematography Greg Gardiner Main cast Dwayne Johnson, AnnaSophia Robb, Alexander Ludwig, ...
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News
Tony Gilroy on Duplicity's important complications
Tony Gilroy has been working in Hollywood since 1986 when he sold his first script as a vehicle for Chuck Norris. Although that film was never made, he fast became one of the biggest names in screenwriting, clocking up credits such as Dolores Claiborne, Armageddon and the three Bourne movies.He ...
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News
Costa-Gavras to receive film-maker focus at COLCOA in April
Costa-Gavras will be the subject of this year's 'Focus On A Film-maker' at the 13th annual City Of Lights, City Of Angels (COLCOA), the annual showcase of new French cinema in Los Angeles which this year takes place April 20-26.The director's latest film Eden Is West, which closed Berlin this ...
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News
Zack Snyder: filming the unfilmable of Watchmen
The January courtroom battle between Warner Bros, which was the lead studio backing the new movie Watchmen, and Twentieth Century Fox, the studio which claimed it still had distribution rights to the property under a 1994 turnaround agreement with producer Larry Gordon, threatened to derail what promises to be one ...
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News
Opinion: UnderstandingIndia beyond Slumdog
The triumph of Slumdog Millionaire this week at the Academy Awards as well as its enormous success at the domestic and the global box office has directed the world's attention to India, its talent - such as composer and music star AR Rahman - energy, locations and the narrowing gap ...
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News
Andrew Bujalski: 'Mumblecore doesn't mean much for me'
If Andrew Bujalski never heard the word 'mumblecore' again, he'd be quite happy. 'I'm tired of hearing about it,' he explains from Austin, Texas, days after his latest film, Beeswax, had its world premiere in Berlin. 'I'm tired of the reduction inherent in it. It's designed to take a lot ...
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News
The Wrestler named best feature, actor at Independent Spirit Awards
The Wrestler was named best feature and won the best actor award for Mickey Rourke and the best cinematography award for Maryse Alberti at the 2009 Film Independent Spirit Awards which took place today (Saturday) in Santa Monica.The annual event, which honours films embodying independence and 'who dare to challenge ...
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News
Opinion: Going back to basics
It wasn't just the critics who were gloomy at Berlin this year. Most of those attending the European Film Market (EFM) were facing some hard realities: buyers and sellers were shaking their heads trying to figure out the numbers, which no longer seemed to make sense. The mood was set ...
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NewsWill Cannes 2009 deliver on high expectations?
With Berlin over, selectors at the Cannes film festival (May 13-24) are facing a deluge of films from the world’s greatest auteurs - so many, in fact, some big names could end up being excluded from official selection.Pedro Almodovar’s Broken Embraces opens in Spain on March ...
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News
Kloiber's TMG extends US deal with Augsberger for three years
Herbert Kloiber's Tele Muenchen Group (TMG) has extended its exclusive US representation deal with Thomas Augsberger's LA-based Eden Rock Media for the next three years.The extension follows a busy Berlin for TMG during which Augsberger acquired German rights to Robert Redford's The Company You Keep and Terry Gilliam's Zero Theorem ...
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News
A dog's path to glory: The ups and downs of financing and producing Slumdog Millionaire
The UK's Film4 rarely buys a book without a production company involved, but chief Tessa Ross did just that when she first read Q&A by Vikas Swarup, the source novel for Slumdog Millionaire. 'It had a fantastic landscape, a clever plot and a way of telling the story of a ...
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