All articles by Mike Goodridge – Page 93
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Reviews
American Splendor
Dir: Shari Springer Berman & Robert Pulcini. US. 2003. 105 mins. American Splendor tells the true story of Harvey Pekar, the writer of the American Splendor comic book series which depicts the inanities of Pekar's humdrum life. A sort of celebration of ennui, or triumph of the nerd saga, the ...
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Reviews
Pieces Of April
Dir: Peter Hedges. US. 2003. 80 mins. Sweet, neat and oh-so-slight, Pieces Of April marks another triumph for InDigEnt, the digital film-making initiative behind Personal Velocity, Tadpole, Tape and Chelsea Walls. Budgeted at some $150,000, the film looks good and hits all the same buttons you would expect from a ...
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News
Summit, Intermedia team for international sales super-company
The international businesswas transformed on Friday as two of its market leaders Intermedia and SummitEntertainment formed a sales, marketing and distribution joint venture calledIS Film Distribution which instantly becomes the biggest seller in the marketplace.As a result, Intermedia andSummit will transfer all their distribution and marketing staff into IS.Intermedia's distribution ...
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News
Slamdunk honours Zero Day, Seven Songs
The Slamdunk Film Festival which ran from Jan 19 to 22 awarded Ben Coccio's Zero Day the best film and best actor prizes. Zero Day is a digital film which follows the video diary of two high school students who are planning a Columbine-style shooting of their classmates. Andre Keuck ...
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News
Noah Cowan launches Global Film Initiative
Former distribution executive and festival programmer Noah Cowan has formed a new US-based non-profit foundation called The Global Film Initiative to promote cross-cultural understanding through film. Cowan, a well-known face on the festival circuit, is executive director of the foundation which he unveiled at the Rotterdam Film Festival over the ...
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News
Confidence to open Philadelphia Film Fest, Laurel Canyon to close
The Philadelphia Film Festival will open on April 3 with James Foley's Confidence and close on April 17 with Lisa Cholodenko's Laurel Canyon. The festival this year changes its name from Philadelphia Festival Of World Cinema to Philadelphia Film Festival.Philadelphia Film Society board chairman and artistic director Raymond Murray announced ...
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News
Assisted Living wins top prize at Slamdance
Elliot Greenebaum's dark comedy Assisted Living about a janitor in a nursing home for the elderly who spends his time getting high with the residents won the Grand Jury Award at the Slamdance Film Festival on Friday night in Park City. Slamdance runs concurrent with the Sundance Film Festival and ...
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News
Spice Factory options Ondaatje's Forgotten Games
UK production outfit Spice Factory has optioned the rights to The Forgotten Games, an original screenplay by David Ondaatje based on the true story of the British Olympic ice hockey team's controversial participation in the 1936 Winter Olympics in Nazi Germany. Ondaatje also plans to direct the film which is ...
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News
United Artists clinches Pieces Of April for $3.5m
United Artists (UA) closed the biggest deal of the Sundance Film Festival yesterday, beating competitors including Fox Searchlight and Focus Features to worldwide rights to fest favourite Pieces Of April. The price paid was $3.5m.The film once again comes from the digital video production powerhouse InDigEnt and backer IFC Productions, ...
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News
Arclight takes international on Dentists
Gary Hamilton's Arclight Films has picked up international rights to Alan Rudolph's The Secret Lives Of Dentists which screens this week in the premiere section of the Sundance Film Festival after its world premiere at Toronto last September.Manhattan Pictures has domestic rights to the film which was produced by Holedigger ...
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News
Buffalo Soldiers provokes fury at Sundance
The Sundance Film Festival reached a half way mark yesterday (Tuesday) with a startling incident at the screening of Buffalo Soldiers. The controversial film bought for North American distribution by Miramax Films in Sept 2001 - but only set to be released this spring - had just finished screening at ...
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Reviews
The Singing Detective
Dir: Keith Gordon. US. 2003. 107 mins. There is a point where reverence for one's source material can prove damaging. That point is reached in Keith Gordon's film of The Singing Detective which follows the late Dennis Potter's script of his own landmark TV series to the letter, resulting in ...
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News
Sony Pictures signs up Garnett to production deal
Sony Pictures Entertainment (SPE) has entered into a first-look production deal in the UK with Tony Garnett and John Heyman's London-based World Productions, a further move in its expansion into non-US film production. Garnett and Heyman co-founded World in 1990 and have focused principally on TV series with a ...
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Reviews
Levity
Dir: Ed Solomon. US. 2003. 100mins.From its portentous title to its lofty themes, Levity reeks of a self-importance which is rarely justified. The ambitious directorial debut of Ed Solomon, the screenwriter of Men In Black and the two Bill And Ted films, was the opening night film of the Sundance ...
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News
Chicago, The Hours strike Gold at the Globes
Miramax Films' Chicago was the big winner at the 60th annual Golden Globe, picking up three statuettes at last night's ceremony that was held amid tight security and wildly divergent Oscar predictions at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Los Angeles. The musical, which grossed a stunning $8m over the weekend, ...
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News
Sundance: Women Make Movies acquires domestic rights to Love & Diane
30 year-old film non-profitorganization Women Make Movies (WMM) has acquired North American distributionrights to the documentary Love & Diane which world premiered at the Locarno Film Festival last year, winningthe Golden Leopard, and played at the New York Film Festival before itsAmerican Spectrum screenings at this week's Sundance Film Festival.Directed ...
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News
Sundance: a foreign affair'
For foreign buyers, the Sundance Film Festival has never been easy to navigate, let's face it. Intrepid acquisitions executives not only have an epic trip trekking to its home in the ski resort of Park City. Once there they are also faced with a raft of unknown films, struggle to ...
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News
First Run takes US rights to Garrone's The Embalmer
US independent First RunFeatures has acquired US theatrical, TV and home video rights to MatteoGarrone's The Embalmer (L'Imbalsamatore) which world premiered in Directors Fortnight atCannes last year.The film was produced byDomenico Procacci's Fandango and is based on a tabloid case in Rome inthe 1990s about a provocative love triangle between ...
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News
Hart Sharp launches US video distribution arm
John Hart andJeff Sharp's New York-based Hart Sharp Entertainment, the productioncompany behind Boys Don't Cry and You Can Count On Me, has launched a stand-alone US home entertainment companyHart Sharp Video (HSV) to be run by the key staff of former USA Films divisionUSA Home Entertainment (USA HE).Joe Amodei,former president ...
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News
Cooper quits Artisan, relaunches Landscape
Robert Cooper isleaving his post as CEO of Artisan Pictures and vice chairman of parent companyArtisan Entertainment after just 15 months at the company. Cooper, who mergedhis Landscape Entertainment with Artisan in Sept 2001, is to relaunch LandscapePictures as an independent vehicle to produce films and TV programming.Cooper is acquiringthe ...