All articles by Mike Goodridge – Page 43
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News
Toronto's financing forum recruits 36 international producers
36 Canadian and international producers have been lined up to take part in the second annual International Financing Forum (IFF) organised by the Ontario Media Development Corporation (OMDC) in partnership with TIFF.The selected producers will have one-one-one brokered meetings and round tables with producers, executives and financiers during the event ...
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Features
United States - The Film's The Thing
I was at pains to try and make this not feel like a playwright's movie," says David Auburn, the award-winning playwright of Proof, whose directorial film debut The Girl In The Park has its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival this week. "I wrote it for the screen. ...
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Reviews
The Brave One
Dir: Neil Jordan. US. 2007. 122 mins.Jodie Foster delivers a performance far superior to her material in Neil Jordan's self-consciously provocative and largely absurd vigilante drama - which has its world premiere as a Special Presentation in Toronto. Attempting to hit the same hot buttons as other audacious studio movies ...
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News
Maximum and Fortissimo strike Canadian-Asian partnership
Robert Lantos' new Toronto-based distribution and sales company Maximum Films has created an unusual partnership with Hong Kong-based Fortissimo Films whereby Maximum will distribute Fortissimo's films in Canada and Fortissimo will represent the sale of Maximum's projects in Asia. The deal, for an initial term of two years, was unveiled ...
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News
Bartkowiak signs to direct Hyde Park's Street Fighter
Andrzej Bartkowiak has signed to direct the live action feature film of video game Street Fighter for Ashok Amritraj's Hyde Park Entertainment and games publisher Capcom Co Ltd. The film based on Capcom's Street Fighter game property will begin production pre-strike in early 2008 in Asia and North America, and ...
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News
Publicist Robert Garlock dies in New York at 41
Robert Garlock, the well-known New York-based publicist has died at the age of 41 of complications from non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. He was most recently head of the talent division at 42West where he represented clients including Penelope Cruz, Hugh Grant, Clive Owen, Uma Thurman, Sigourney Weaver, Hilary Swank and Kate Winslet,Garlock ...
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News
Lumina sells German-speaking Europe on Donkey Punch to Universum
London-based Lumina Films has sold German-speaking rights to Olly Blackburn's British thriller Donkey Punch to Universum Film.The film, produced by Warp X, is now in post-production and is scheduled for a summer 2008 release in the UK by Optimum Releasing.Produced by Angus Lamont, Mark Herbert and Robin Gutch, the film ...
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Reviews
Into The Wild
Dir: Sean Penn. US. 2007. 148mins.Sean Penn's fourth feature as a director is as exhilarating as it is unwieldy, a sprawling hymn to nature, humanity and personal freedom which firmly establishes the much-feted actor as a film-maker of vision. Shining an affectionate light on the drifters and counter-culturalists living in ...
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Features
Master of Spices
Indian director Santosh Sivan based his new film Before The Rains, which has its world premiere as a Special Presentation in Toronto next week, on the Israeli short film Red Roofs, one of Dan Verete's Desert Trilogy (2001). But, Sivan says, it really only served as a stepping off point ...
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News
Bring on the class action
After a summer in which most of the films had the number three after them, the Hollywood studios and their specialised divisions are preparing for the deluge of prestige movies that comprise the so-called awards season - high-profile, director-led features which are being carefully groomed for prime positions in the ...
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News
Chasing The Long Tail: Mike Binder
For Mike Binder, the 2001 comedy The Search For John Gissing remains something of a bittersweet experience. The film-maker, who scored critical success with The Upside Of Anger (2005) and this year's Reign Over Me, financed the film independently 'with a lot of my own money and that of family ...
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Reviews
The Invasion
Dir: Oliver Hirschbiegel. US. 2007. 100mins The latest remake of Jack Finney's 1955 novel The Body Snatchers is a success if viewed as a slick thriller from mainstream producer Joel Silver but a disappointment as the US debut of Germany's Oliver Hirschbiegel (Downfall, The Experiment) starring Nicole Kidman. Completed, reportedly, ...
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News
HFPA gives grants totalling $1.2m to film schools and non-profits
The Hollywood Foreign Press Association today (Thursday) today held its annual installation luncheon in Beverly Hills and presented $1.2m in financial grants to 28 film schools and non-profit organizations.
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News
Breaking the language barrier
Sony Pictures Entertainment's local-language activities have been consolidated under the newly minted International Motion Picture Production Department, with a new president in Deborah Schindler. Mike Goodridge spoke to Schindler and the group's godfather Gareth Wigan about new moves into Russia and India. Gareth Wigan and Deborah Schindler have just concluded ...
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Reviews
Stardust
Dir: Matthew Vaughn. US-UK. 2007. 125mins.A fairy tale based on Neil Gaiman's four-part DC Comics book from 1997, Stardust is an ambitious high-concept adventure which is one of the few non-sequels, non-toy or non-TV adaptations to arrive in theatres this summer. But although entertaining, ribald and clever, it might fall ...
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News
Screen, Hollywood Film Festival re-team for Hollywood World Award
Screen International is teaming up for the fourth consecutive year with the Hollywood Film Festival and the Hollywood Awards to present the Hollywood World Award, a prize for the best in world cinema which will be presented at the Hollywood Awards ceremony at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills ...
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Features
Vietnam - Stepping Into The World
In 1981, Fay Kanin, the then president of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences (Ampas), took Cyd Charisse and other Hollywood luminaries on a trip to China.Films including Charisse-starrer Singin' In The Rain were screened and meetings were held with representatives of the Chinese film industry. The trip ...
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News
Sundance Directors Lab: a mountain of work
The Sundance Directors Lab, which took place this month at the Sundance resort in the Utah mountains, has opened its doors to a new wave of international film-makers. Mike Goodridge visited the lab and met some of the writer-directors being put through their paces. A fair amount of legend has ...
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Reviews
Harry Potter And The Order Of The Phoenix
Dir: David Yates. US/UK. 2007. 138 mins.The choice of celebrated UK TV director David Yates to take on the fifth in the Harry Potter series proved a wise one for producer David Heyman and Warner Bros. Yates ramps up the adrenalin and menace while adding new layers of emotional anguish ...
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News
Katz named head of production at The Film Department
Robert Katz has joined Mark Gill and Neil Sacker in their new independent venture The Film Department as president of production.While executive vice president of production for The Yari Film Group, Katz was in charge of production on 18 films including Crash, The Illusionist, Prime, The Matador, Hostage and The ...