Small MPU – Page 509
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News
Phone film first dropped after exhibitor backlash
Italian exhibitors have stopped plans to release a full-length feature film on mobile phone just a week after its theatrical debut in the territory.The 3 Italia mobile network was this week due to offer Sidney Pollack's The Interpreter to customers for around $10.50 (nine euros) for unlimited viewings. The proposal ...
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Reviews
Zathura
Dir: Jon Favreau. US. 2005. 100mins.Family features can often fall foul to several traps.One is that they end up as showcases for bedazzling special effects thatdominate the storytelling; another is that they rely on rote bodily function humour that may be funny to a six-year-old but is indicativeof lazy and ...
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Reviews
The Headsman
Dir: Simon Aeby. Aust-Swit-Ger-Lux-Hung-U.K. 2005. 108mins.While its production values are magnificent, The Headsman is an uneven period drama,too concerned with trying to convince the audience that history is repeatingitself and investing little enough effort into its mysteriously lifelessstoryline.As such it is ofprimary interest to history buffs, although even they may ...
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News
Six films shortlisted for the Prix Louis-Delluc
France's Ile de France FilmCommission has announced a strong increase in local production for 2004, with2005 promising further success.In total, films shot for 611weeks in Paris and its environs, the regionoverseen by the Ile de France Commission, in 2004. That figure represents a 25%jump over the previous year.Shooting had fallen ...
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News
Israel's Sharanski set to close censorship board
Israel's interior minister Nathan Sharanski has announced that he plans to close the Israeli Film Censorship Board and replace it with a tougher movie ratings system based on age. The board has traditionally imposed outright bans on films thought unsuitable for Israeli audiences. However, Sharanski said he longer sees the ...
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News
Six films shortlisted for the Prix Louis-Delluc
France's Ile de France FilmCommission has announced a strong increase in local production for 2004, with2005 promising further success.In total, films shot for 611weeks in Paris and its environs, the regionoverseen by the Ile de France Commission, in 2004. That figure represents a 25%jump over the previous year.Shooting had fallen ...
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Reviews
Viva Zapatero!
Dir/scr: Sabina Guzzanti. It. 2005. 80mins.Sabina Guzzanti'santi-censorship documentary Viva Zapatero! does for Italianprime minister Silvio Berlusconi what Fahrenheit 9/11 did for George Bush: itexposes the ugly subtext that, in the film-maker's view, lies behind theairbrushed public image.Like Michael Moore, Sabina Guzzanti is no shrinking violet, and there is at first ...
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News
Six films shortlisted for the Prix Louis-Delluc
Six films have been shortlisted for the Prix Louis-Delluc,one of France's top cinematic awards.The contenders are: Philippe Collin's crime drama Aux Abois Philippe Garel's Venice entry Les Amants Reguliers Cannes laureate Cache by Michael Haneke Jacques Audiard's critical darling De Battre Mon ...
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Reviews
Be With Me
Dir: Eric Khoo. Sing. 2005.90mins.Since it opened Directors Fortnight at Cannes, Be With Me, Eric Khoo'sthird feature has galloped from one event to another (most recently Chicago andTokyo), a festival warhorse that has gathered several favourable reviews aswell as becoming Singapore's submission for best foreign language Oscar.But while it is ...
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News
Animation master Otomo begins work on live-action sci-fi
Animationauteur Katsuhiro Otomo, whose films, including Akira and Steamboy, have been widelyscreened internationally, has started production of a live-action feature. Basedon the Kodansha comic Mushishi (Mushi Master)by Yuki Urushibara, the eponymous SF fantasy is set around the turn of the 20thcentury in Japan. The"master" of the title has the ability ...
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News
Cape Town festival to crown glorious year for South Africa
A breakthrough year ofextraordinary achievement for South African cinema will culminate in the CapeTown World Film Festival starting tomorrow, and next week's Sithengi film market .This year, South Africapicked up its first Golden Bear with u-Carmen eKhayelitsha and its first Academy Award nomination for Yesterday.The fourth Cape Town festival, will ...
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News
Julio Medem to shoot new film next year
Spanish auteur Julio Medem is preparing to shoot his next film, Caotica Ana, in 2006 with backing from local powerhouse Sogecine.The film turns on a young woman fleeing her own fate after a hypnosis session allows her to glimpse parallel experiences she believes are past lives.Caotica Ana (literally, Chaotic Ana) ...
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News
Huston joins Brosnan, Neeson in Seraphim Falls
Anjelica Hustonhas joined the cast of Icon Productions' American Civil War revenge saga SeraphimFalls.As previouslyannounced Pierce Brosnan and Liam Neeson will star in the story of an armycolonel at the end of the conflict who resolves to settle a grudge with a manat whatever cost.David Von Ancken is directing based ...
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News
Strand picks up US rights to Akin's Bridge
Strand Releasinghas picked up all US rights from Bavaria Film International to Fatih Akin's CrossingThe Bridge.The picture,which premiered in official selection at Cannes this year, portrays the musicscene in Istanbul, which Akin has long regarded as his second home.CorazonInternational, the production company founded by Akin, Andreas Thiel and KlausMaeck, produced ...
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News
IFC Films acquires domestic rights to Duane
IFC Films hasacquired North American rights to Matt Mulhern's drama Duane Hopwood starring David Schwimmer and JaneaneGarofalo.Mulhern directed from his own screenplay about a casinoworker who embarks upon an emotional personal journey after an arrest for drunkdriving jeopardises his visitation rights with his two daughters.Lemore Syvan of Elevation Filmworks produced ...
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News
Spyglass in talks to buy part of Mann Theaters
Spyglass Entertainment, the two-year-old production and distribution operation that hit the jackpot last year with The Sixth Sense, is believed to be negotiating its first move into the exhibition business. In league with former exhibition and Fox Searchlight executive Jim Naify, Spyglass principals Roger Birnbaum and Gary Barber are in ...
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News
MGM commits to Blu-Ray high-definition DVD format
MGM has joinedthe Blu-ray Disc camp and plans to begin releasing film and television titlesfrom its library on the new high definition DVD format.Yesterday'sannouncement hardly came as a surprise given that Sony led the consortium thatacquired MGM and is one of Blu-ray's chief backers.Blu-ray iscurrently locked in an emerging technology ...
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News
ITVS to support international documentary film-makers
US publictelevision provider The Independent Television Service (ITVS) has launched ascheme that for the first time supports non-US documentary filmmakers whosework will be broadcast on US television.TheInternational Media Development Fund will offer production financing, as wellas distribution, promotion and educational outreach support.The aim is tosupport a dialogue between the US ...
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News
Universal buys Blink for Gaghan, DiCaprio
Universal has won out a keenly fought bidding war and acquiredfeature rights to Malcolm Gladwell's bestseller Blink: The Power OfThinking Without Thinking.The studio paid $1m forthe rights and has paid a further $2m for Stephen Gaghan to write and directthe adaptation that has Leonardo DiCaprio attached to star.Gaghan will also ...
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News
Wild Side takes two from Thailand's GMM Tai Hub
Thai production house GMMTai Hub (GTH), which attended AFM for the first time this year, has pre-sold Alone and Dorm to France's Wild Side Films during the market. Alone,unveiled at Pusan last month, is a $2.5m follow-up by directorsParkpoom Wongpoom and Banjong Pisanthanakun to their Asian box office sensationShutter. The ...