All articles by Mike Goodridge – Page 67
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News
Film Movement buys North American rights to Antares
Larry Meistrich's theatricaldistribution and subscription DVD service Film Movement has acquired NorthAmerican rights to Austrian drama Antares at the Toronto International Film Festival.The controversial film directedby Gotz Spielman tells three stories of passion, jealousy and violence on thesame impersonal housing estate."Antaresis the type of work Film Movement was created to ...
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Vitagraph acquires US theatrical to Los Angeles doc
Vitagraph Films has acquiredUS theatrical rights to Thom Anderson's documentary Los Angeles Plays Itself at the Toronto International Film Festival.The film had alreadypremiered in the US for a two-week engagement in New York on July 28 and hasnow qualified for consideration for a 2004 documentary feature Academy Award.The deal was ...
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News
Sky is high but maybe not the limit with $16.2m opening
Maybeit was the devastation of Hurricane Ivan in the southeastern US, maybe the lackof interest in the new product but box office was slow this weekend in NorthAmerica, down some 27% from the same period last year.Theindependently financed Sky Captain And The World Of Tomorrow debuted top of the charts ...
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Reviews
Sideways
Dir: Alexander Payne. US.2004. 124 mins.Alexander Payne entersthe very top rank of American auteurs with his fourth film Sideways, ablissfully enjoyable meditation on masculinity and loneliness which willdelight adult audiences and should be a significant contender in theend-of-year awards race. Fox Searchlight Pictures, which fully financed thefilm, is releasing it ...
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News
Fine Line acquires Yao Ming doc in Toronto
Fine Line Features kept the buying momentum going in the finaldays of Toronto yesterday, picking up worldwide rights to The Year Of Yao, the documentary about basketball starYao Ming which had its world premiere here.The company is planning a 2005 release for the film which followsthe Chinese player Yao Ming ...
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News
Williamson gets senior vp stripes at Warner International
David Williamson has beennamed senior vice president, finance, at Warner Bros Pictures International.He will increase his currentfocus on the financial reporting for the division's expanding local productionactivities and will oversee its implementation of the SAP system worldwide inaddition to assuming responsibility for complying with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act.He will continue to ...
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News
Tao, Emery promoted at Hurd's Valhalla Motion Pictures
Stephen Tao has beenpromoted to senior vice president, development, and Stephen Emery has beenpromoted to vice president of production/development at Gale Anne Hurd'sLA-based Valhalla Motion Pictures.Tao will oversee production,development and acquisitions of all projects including Valhalla's currentproject Aeon Flux starringCharlize Theron and Frances McDormand. Tao will work in collaboration withEmery ...
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News
Travolta, Berney, Braff, Mann among HFA honourees
More honorees have beennamed at this year's Hollywood Film Awards on Oct 18. John Travolta willreceive the Hollywood Lifetime Achievement Award, distributor Bob Berney hasbeen named winner of the Hollywood Leadership Award and Zach Braff will receivethe award for Hollywood Breakthrough Director of the Year award.Michael Mann was namedHollywood director ...
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Moore's Sicko gathers buyer heat
An outline of Michael Moore's next documentary has been sentout to international distributors by Moore's agency Endeavor - and isgenerating heat amongst major buyers at the Toronto Film Festival.Entitled Sicko, it is his much-discussed study of thehealthcare system in the United States and Moore recently explained his agenda in making ...
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Reviews
Being Julia
Dir: Istvan Szabo. Canada/UK/Hungary. 2004. 105mins.Older adults will find many pleasures in IstvanSzabo's cheerful period comedy Being Julia which plays like DangerousLiasions-light in the world of 1930s London theatre. Dominated by astupendously entertaining performance from Annette Bening, which covers overmany of the cracks in the film's lumpy structure, it is ...
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News
Deal-making gets going at Toronto for Focus, Newmarket
The deals kept on closing yesterday as Focus Features picked upmultiple territory rights to Pawel Pawlikowski's My Summer Of Love and Newmarket Films bought NorthAmerican rights to Lukas Moodysson's highly controversial A Hole In My Heart.Meanwhile Fine Line Features and HBO Films confirmed that theywould be teaming to release Lucrecia ...
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News
Jackson, Borde, Doban team up for US distribution venture
Susan Jackson, Mark Borde and Mike Doban have teamed up to form anew LA-based theatrical distribution and marketing company Freestyle Releasing.The company will first release Stephen King's Riding The Bullet on Oct 8 followed by James Redford's Spin on Oct 15.Jackson'scompany Turtles Crossing will merge with Borde's Innovation Film Group ...
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News
TLA Releasing honours Honore's Ma Mere
TLA Releasing picked up USDVD and TV rights to Christophe Honore's erotic drama Ma Mere atToronto. Starring Isabelle Huppert, the film is adapted from the novel byGeorges Bataille about a woman leading her teenage son into a world of drugs,alcohol and sex-drenched debauchery. TLA director of acquisitions Richard Wolffnegotiated for ...
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News
New Friend for Mrs Palfrey
RupertFriend, the hot British newcomer who can be seen later this week in romanticclinch with Johnny Depp in The Libertine, has landed the lead male roleopposite Joan Plowright in Dan Ireland's latest comedy Mrs Palfrey At TheClaremont.Scriptedby Ruth Sacks from the popular 1971 English novel by Elizabeth Taylor, the filmstarts ...
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News
Celluloid Dreams scares up sales on Marebito
Celluloid Dreams has pickedup worldwide sales rights to Marebito, the latest horror picture fromTakashi Shimizu, and immediately closed a deal for the US and UK with HamishMcAlpine's Tartan Films.Shimizuis the director of cult Japanese horror film The Grudge and its sequelas well as the US remake starring Sarah Michelle Gellar ...
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News
Zhang Yimou teams with Japan's Ken Takakura on next film
Chinese movie legend ZhangYimou, in Toronto to promote his latest martial arts spectacle House OfFlying Daggers, is returning to morepersonal drama for his next film which will be a starring vehicle for Japanesefilm veteran Ken Takakura.Takakura, the 75 year-oldactor famous as the "Japanese Clint Eastwood", is well-known to westernaudiences from ...
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News
Ryder, Lehmann reteam on stoner comedy Weed
Winona Ryder is reuniting with her Heathers director MichaelLehmann on a new comedy called Weed which Sideways producer Michael Londonwill produce. International sales agent Arclight Films is talking the film upto buyers at Sundance; Cinetic Media is handling domestic rights.The movie is a hip comedy with the same cult trappings ...
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News
Toronto buying spree kicks off with Crash to Lions Gate
In a deal closed late Saturday night, Lions Gate Films ponied upclose to $4m for North American rights to Paul Haggis’ red-hot Toronto ensembledrama Crash. Easilythe biggest deal of both Venice and Toronto so far, the Crash negotiations took place after the Fridayafternoon public screening and Saturday morning press and ...
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Reviews
A Hole In My Heart (Ett Hal I Mitt Hjarta)
Dir: LukasMoodysson. 2004. Sweden/Norway. 98mins.Sweden's LukasMoodysson takes an astonishing journey to the dark heart of humanity in hisfourth feature A Hole In My Heart. Audaciously expressionistic andcinematically experimental, it will be one of Toronto's talking points andprompted plenty of walkouts at the first screenings.Set almostentirely in a dingy apartment in ...
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Reviews
Enduring Love
Dir: Roger Michell. 2004. UK. 100 mins. After spinningan intense yarn with Hanif Kureishi in TheMother, UK film-maker Roger Michell turns to the ultimate British master ofthe dark side Ian McEwan for his latest film Enduring Love. The result is the most effective film adaptation ofMcEwan to date. Faithful to ...