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April 30, 2006

Dead by Dawn - Day Four - The End

Day Four marked the final day for the Dead by Dawn Horror Film Festival, and it was an early start. Having managed to fall into my bed somewhere after midnight, the alarm awoke me at 3:30am for a quick shower and a race into town to catch the first showing...

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Dead by Dawn - Day Three

I've finally caught up with all the reviews for the Dead by Dawn Horror Film Festival this year, so here's a quick run down of day three, the penultimate day of the festival. Day three luckily began at 4:30pm, so I had time to have a lie in. Wrong. I...

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Casino Royale Poster

The poster for the film Casino Royale has been found and it's looking good. Portraying a darker image of James Bond than we're used to (no I don't mean the hair), it looks more like a scene from the movie Munich than it does traditional Bond. Not sure where Solace...

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Neighborhood Watch

Film One Star
This marked the last film that I would manage to see at this years Dead by Dawn, although it was far from the last on show. The combined factors of lack of sleep, impending Monday work, and the need to write all this up were just too much to be...

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Zombie Jieitai

Film Two Stars
What a great choice for 7:30am after some bacon and egg rolls, struggling for sleep on the all nighter for Dead by Dawn...a blood filled Zombie movie. Quite frankly zombie films don't really move me that much. They tend to be over formulaic and soaked with cliches and impossibilities. Yet...

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April 29, 2006

Invincible trailer with Wahlberg and Kinnear

Invincible is the latest film for Mark Wahlberg and is a typical small guy turns hero story, but this one has a twist, it really happened. Wahlberg is playing a teacher\bartender in his thirties who is a huge sports fan and loves his local team the Philadelphia Eagles. He decides...

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Timberlake ignores Edison critics

Justin Timberlake is saying he doesn't care that critics aren't enjoying his film Edison that much, and he's concentrating on his future roles, of which there seem to be many. At Starpulse News Blog they have the story and a few quotes: The film has been described as a "a...

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Golden Gate suicide film

A film called The Bridge tells the stories of just six of the twenty four men and women who committed suicide on the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco during 2004. It interviews friends, families and witnesses and tries to find out why these people jumped and what they've left...

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Historical accuracy in films

A previous discussion about the first 9/11 movie, United 93, brought up a number of quite relevant points. First we discussed if it was too early, and we turned to the example of films coming out from World War II, and that turned us to talk about modern War films...

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April 28, 2006

Cannonball Run and Gumball Rally for real

Remember that great movie The Cannonball Run? Well the real thing looks set to come to DVD pretty soon. From Luxist comes the news: ...will take place July 29 – Aug 4, 2007. Four hundred cars will start from four cities, Atlanta, Miami, New York and Washington DC, and drive...

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One Last Thing trailer

Okay everyone, I know it's cheesey and a bit twee, but the whole premise of One Last Thing... is kinda cool, it's what each of us guys would think about asking for, and you just know how it's going to end, sad and yet happy. Unless there's some miracle cure...

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Alias for teenagers from Disney

The book with the amazing title I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have to Kill You is about a teenage female spy who hides her secret life from those around her, who is trying to find out who killed her CIA Agent Father. Sound similar? As an...

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Motley Crue movie in development

unbelievably there's a Motley Crue film in the works. Taken from the book written by the band members called The Dirt: Confessions Of The World's Most Notorious Rock Band a screenplay has already been written. According to Empire Online: Paramount...is talking to former Seinfeld writer Larry Charles about directing it....

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Favreau directing Iron Man and Marvel update

The latest news for the much maligned Iron Man is that John Favreau is set to direct. With John Carter of Mars on hold to allow the Star Trek movie to progress, the film version of Iron Man opened up for him and he's agreed. From The Hollywood Reporter through...

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Oldboy director says no to Metal Gear Solid

Apparently the director of the stunning Oldboy, Chan-wook Park, was asked to direct the Metal Gear Solid movie...and he said no. Joystiq have the news and some interesting comments: Anyone familiar with Oldboy will recall the exaggerated fight scene shot entirely from the perspective of a classic side-scrolling brawler. This...

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Lohan steps up in Sci-Fi comedy

Lindsay Lohan seems to be going from strength to strength in her Hollywood career, okay there's not that much strength in the career yet but you can see it rising. The latest news has her joining Adrien Brody no less in a romantic sci-fi comedy film called Speechless. Sci Fi...

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Michael Douglas gets Wood in comedy

I'm amazed at Michael Douglas, amazed that he keeps going and he still commands a varied career. News is out that he's starring in another comedy film alonside Evan Rachel Wood called The King of California. From Filmstew comes the blurb: First-time director Michael Cahill is in the big chair...

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April 27, 2006

The Omen 666 new trailer online

The Omen 666 has just received a new trailer, and this one has some very interesting scenes that make me look at the film in a totally different light. It's hosted over at Apple Trailers [QT:S:M:L:HD:480p:720p:1080p]. What's interesting is that there are a number of scenes shown that are almost...

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The Assassination of Jesse James teaser online

The teaser for The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford is not only competing for one of the longest titles in modern filmmaking, but it's also the new film featuring Brad Pitt, and the teaser is now online. You can see it over at Yahoo Movies in...

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Spider-Man 3 set photos

I'm surprised that there is so much being allowed out from the set of Spider-Man 3, but then I guess if you're filming in public how can you stop it? Some vigilant members of the public have been taking shots galore from the set and giving us more and more...

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United 93 Premiere reaction

The premiere of the film United 93 showed yesterday and by all accounts the showing was welcomed, but emotional. The Guardian have the coverage. According to their reporter there was a group of ninety relatives who attended the screening. The relatives were given a standing ovation after Jane Rosenthal, co-founder...

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William Hurt joins Vantage Point

Vantage Point is a film I'm looking forward to and have been for some time. It's narrative is split into five different perspectives and they all tell the tale of the attempted assassination of the President of the USA. That President has been announced and it will be William Hurt....

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The Changeling

Film Five Stars
You'll already have figured out I'm not as hardcore as some of the other crazy people that attended Dead by Dawn, I went home at midnight and grabbed a few hours sleep all ready for the early 4:50 start. One good thing is that I've managed to wash and change,...

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Blood Trails

Film Three Stars
One of the first things you notice about Blood Trails are the titles. They look great, hard screaming music to very stylish titles, in a way they are quite reminiscent of those from Se7en and work well at setting the mood before even seeing a frame or hearing a word...

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The Ghost Within

Film One Star
This Chinese film, The Ghost Within, was described as J-horror when introduced at the Dead by Dawn festival, and that wasn't a good move for me as I hate that label, what exactly does it refer to and why does it describe an entire genre? However this film really struggles...

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Last Blood

Film Four Stars
Last Blood was an interesting short from Dead by Dawn that really was dying to be something much more, but it worked really well in this format. A lone archer attacks some Predator like beasts which also suggest some vampiric tendencies. He kills them all but one, and as he...

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Three

Film Two Stars
Three is a film that stars the much gossiped about couple Billy Zane and Kelly Brook. It's a simple tale of three people marooned on an island, two of them are married and have an obvious age difference both physically and mentally, and the third member is a hot blodded...

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Craven writing Hills Have Eyes sequel

The non-surprising news is out that Wes and Jonathon Craven are tasked by the studio to write a sequel to The Hills Have Eyes remake success, but there will be no Alexandre Aja at the helm, something which does concern me as I think his directorial style helped make that...

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Mike Myers in Robot Uprising

Mike Myers is returning to our screens and this time it won't be in disguise or under make up. This time he will be a geeky techy (read: Technical Administrator) who has to research ways of keeping the growing number of robots in the world from taking over. The outline...

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One Missed Call remake

Here we go with another Japanese horror remake, this one is One Missed Call from the original Chakushin ari. IMDB carry the blurb: People mysteriously start receiving voicemail messages from their future selves, in the form of the sound of them reacting to their own violent deaths, along with the...

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Onimusha game next for Christophe Gans?

It seems that once you do one videogame film you're pigeon holed. Christophe Gans recently announced that he was working on another videogame adaptation after the Silent Hill movie, and now initial reports are claiming this is the game Onimusha. Now, I haven't seen confirmations or sources yet, just the...

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April 26, 2006

First HD-DVD and DVD combo disc

This is great news for those worrying about the new formats. Over at Warner Brothers they have announced the first new generation disc to contain both the new format and the existing DVD format of a film on each side of the disc. That's great news for those wanting to...

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Captain America, Hulk 2 and Iron Man stall?

Avi Arad has been talking about the Marvel film production deal and what's due on the slate, and the word is that what he wanted isn't what's happening. From Business 2.0 through SuperheroHype comes the news that the priorities are changing somewhat. Arad had wanted Captain America as the first...

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Fincher talks Zodiac

This time this really is the right Zodiac film from David Fincher, the one about the serial killer from San Francisco who murdered seemingly randomly during the 1960's and 1970's and left cryptic unsolved messages. I didn't pick up on this before, but the film is going to focus on...

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Police Squad on DVD

Oh I am so excited at the news that Police Squad will be released - I am tempted to say loudly IN COLOR! - on DVD! Police Squad is the series that began the whole Naked Gun franchise, and although it had a short run it was superb and hilarious....

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April 25, 2006

Le Bourreau des innocents

Film Four Stars
This short film, Le Bourreau des Innocents was a lot of fun and had the entire Dead by Dawn audience in fits of laughter. Strange that so many of these shorts were so funny. This is the tale of a young, good looking girl out for a camping trip in...

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R.I.P. - Repose en paix

Film Five Stars
Dead by Dawn hit us with another animation short film in this second series of competition shorts. This was entitled and had the coolest looking Frankenstein type monster you can imagine. Simply put, the monster comes into a house and attempts to murder the sleeping man. Unfortunately for the creature,...

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Schattenkind

Film One Star
One good thing about most of these shorts in the Dead by Dawn Horror festival is the comic element, most of them seem not to take themselves too seriously, and Schattenkind (Shadow Kid) is no exception....

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Cultivation

Film Three Stars
Continuing this series of shorts in the Dead by Dawn competition is this Asian entry shot on handheld digital. I find it really hard to describe this film, because I didn't fully understand it, but it centers around a man who is trying to bury a corpse, eats an hallucinogenic...

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Butterflies

Film Four Stars
The short film Butterflies slows down the pace and also the mood of the series of shorts at Dead by Dawn. Based on an Ian McEwan story it's very strong on characters and dialogue but light on the actual horror which is left to a growing fear. The main character...

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Lucky

Film Four Stars
Lucky was a superb short film and hugely enjoyed by the audience. It opens in close and cramped circumstances with the bound hands of a man inside some small container, you watch his escape out of his confines and to the outside environment where his situation suddenly seems even more...

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Abrams says Star Trek will be new story

Apparently some news sources were reporting that J.J. Abrams was to revive the old script idea for the young Kirk in his days at Star Feel Academy, well Abrams has put those stories to rest, it will be an original script. Quite rightly the story Filmstalker had from Screen Rant...

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Tarantino to direct Hendrix movie?

The news that Quentin Tarantino has signed to direct a Jimi Hendrix biopic sounds like a bizarre marriage, yet the more you think about it the more interesting the idea becomes. The rumour comes from Starpulse News Blog and reports that Tarantino... ...is huge fan of the script of the...

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Pacino joins Ocean's Thirteen!

Wow, the news that Al Pacino is set to star in Ocean's Thirteen has pretty much knocked me over. I had thought this was a job for the boys until now, and despite Pacino's slightly faded gravitas, it's still a huge sign up for the film. According to Variety through...

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Joker casting rumours

The casting for the Joker in the next Batman movie is as confusing as any casting rumours we've heard of late, and actually if I'm being honest, becoming a little tiresome. Over at IGN they have some latest gossip from Batman on Film that turns the whole thing on its...

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The Chronicles of Narnia franchise

Walden Media are the company behind the Narnia film franchise, well the single film so far, and they've been speaking about their plans for their trilogy...yeah, trilogy for now. The interesting thing is the order that the series is taking. The story from Entertainment Weekly through Coming Soon is that...

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MTV Movie Awards 2006 Nominees

The nominees for the MTV Movie Awards 2006 have been announced and the full list is over the page. Have a look and see what you think, and you can even head over to MTV and vote, should you so desire. The show, according to 700WLW, will film on June...

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Depp playing Hutchence in INXS film?

The idea of Johnny Depp playing Michael Hutchence, the original lead singer of INXS isn't such a bizarre one once it's in your head. The news from The Hollywood News via Omar at JoBlo is out of the blue and sounds quite a good choice. Not only that but they're...

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Garcia's Lost City faces ban

We saw the unfinished trailer for Andy Garcia's movie The Lost City, which he wrote and directed, a little while ago, and I was fascinated, as I always am with his screen presence. Now the news is that some parts of South America are banning the film with some festival...

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Big Trouble in Little China meets South Park

I love the film Big Trouble in Little China - I was born ready - and I've visited the cool site The Wing Kong Exchange before, it's a great fan site with loads of clips, downloads, even some cool T-Shirts. Now though they've got the coolest thing, the main scenes...

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How to create your own Audio Commentary

Remember we talked about downloading fan made audio commentaries for your DVD? Well now there's a free tool that allows you to create your own commentaries. According to Pan and Scan the software is pretty good: The player is designed to let you not only play the commentary, but also...

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April 24, 2006

Angel Dust

Film Four Stars
Second in the short series for the third day of Dead by Dawn is Angel Dust by writer, editor and director Guillaume Foresti. This is the tale of...well...the strange deaths of residents of a hotel and the revelation of what is behind it all. It is indeed, very strange!...

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Los Ojos de Alicia

Film Four Stars
So to the beginning of day three (for me anyway) and another round of shorts, these represent first or second time Directors and represents one of the three sets of audience voting from Dead by Dawn. Los Ojos de Alicia opens on a bound woman secured in a locked white...

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Which Star Trek film is the best?

After a discussion about how Star Trek could ever work again I began to think about which films did work and why, and that sparked that age old debate, which Star Trek film is the best, and why? I think it's an age thing, so my Dad will tell you...

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Dead by Dawn - First two days

Dead by Dawn is in it's thirteenth year and I've only just heard about it. The guys from Twitch asked me to cover it for them and they're all the way over in Canada (well some of them are), however I was delighted to and especially as I knew they...

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Spiderman 3 set shots - Sandman?

Looks like these could be shots of Sandman from the movie Spiderman 3, although very much in his sand form. There's nothing too special about these shots from the set of Spiderman 3, but they are showing us Sandman in his evil sandy form. You can see the two set...

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Uwe Boll keeps going with Far Cry

Amazingly, despite the tax break changes in Germany, Uwe Boll is continuing creating movies, either he really is turning a profit or he really does believe he's doing good work. Currently going into production is the film of the videogame Far Cry. Far Cry is the story of a mercenary...

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Pena and Wahlberg in The Shooter

Michael Pena, who we last saw in his excellent role in Crash, is set to star opposite Mark Wahlberg in a coming film called The Shooter. The film sounds like the first 24 plot, I think it was the first, but what it does boast is Antoine Fuqua as director....

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Silent Hill and United 93 reviews

No, I'm not reviewing them just yet, but the reviews of both Silent Hill and United 93 are extremely revealing to date, and they are both reaching interesting scores over at RottenTomatoes. The Silent Hill reviews are coming in with quite negative results and it's sitting at 29% overall at...

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French farce Bond - OSS 117

I never realised that in France they had a series called OSS 117 which is a Bond-esque spy drama containing a fair bit of comedy, that has run to over 90 novels, with over 75 million copies sold. OSS 117: Le Caire nid d'espions (OSS 117: Cairo - Nest of...

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Win a full sized Dalek from Dr Who!

The BBC are enlisting the help of Dr Who fans everywhere to try and find old missing episodes of the series. From the BBC's Blue Peter site comes the plea. The BBC are missing some of the older episodes of Doctor Who from way back when and in the past...

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April 23, 2006

Lake House Trailer - Reeves and Bullock

Back together again, Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock star in The Lake House which is the remake of Il Mare. Now I haven't seen the original, but I did read about it through Twitch some time ago and it sounds a moving and emotional film. However can the Speed duo...

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Worst Case Scenario

I was looking forward to the promotional piece for Worst Case Scenario, the film in development that showed us its first teaser of those Nazi Zombies walking out of the sea, they looked fantastic. Well as part of Dead by Dawn this year we were treated to the Director Richard...

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Haze

Film Three Stars
I'm a big Asian film fan, I really enjoy the subtler side of their cinema and the way they understand the art of putting the viewer at unease, something in Western cinema we seem to have lost the art of, preferring big visuals and loud bangs. So I was interested...

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Haunted Boneyard

Film Two Stars
This short film is a product of the BFI 48 Hour Short Film Competition, now that's pretty self explanatory, you have 48 hours to make a short film, that simple. Adele, the Festival Director, isn't a big fan of these and you can understand why. Under such restrictions the race...

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April 22, 2006

Severed

Film One Star
Then came the disappointment of the schedule change, Severed was moved in order to allow for enough time for the film Grim Prairie Tales to arrive from wherever it wasn't supposed to be. Not that I was disappointed about that, I believe I'll still get to see the film late...

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El Desafio a la Muerte (The Challenge to Death)

Film Four Stars
Just when I thought the shorts were completed on day two of Dead by Dawn, a short arrived before the next main feature. El Desafio a la Muerte, or The Challenge to Death, is a four minute clay\plastacine animated film which provided much hilarity in the screening. Interestingly the film...

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La Guerra

Film Five Stars
Still on the second day of Dead by Dawn but the last in the grouped shorts for the day, I had originally thought I'd be struggling with these but it had all turned out to be rather good in the end, and this last film proved to be the best...

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The Hidden Face (Het Verborgen gezicht)

Film Three Stars
Day two, third short film. I was already surprised at how much I was enjoying these shorts, so often I don't find that they have much depth to them, but these were proving me very much wrong, and going to show the great programming that had gone into the Dead...

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Shame

Film Two Stars
The second short film on day two of Dead by Dawn was Shame, a short film which tells the very simple tale of a woman who is ashamed of a part of her body, so ashamed that she hides it away...the question is why? Interestingly there's no mention of this...

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When Nobody is Looking (Cuando nadie nos mira)

Film Three Stars
On the second day of Dead by Dawn we were treated to four short films one after the other, the first was a fourteen minute short film from Spain and writer\director Pau Atienza. I'm always unsure about watching short films because I find they can be extremely hit and miss....

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John Carpenter's Cigarette Burns

Film Four Stars
I've been up since 7:30am this morning, and it's the start of a long afternoon and evening, already I'm tired and I doubt I'll see Dawn. Here we are on the start of the second day and once again the cinema is heaving (that's a technical Scottish term meaning very...

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April 21, 2006

J.J. Abrams directing Star Trek

I can hardly believe the news that J.J. Abrams has been snapped up to not only direct the next Star Trek movie, but also to write it and produce it! That means he's having one huge amount of creative control over a Star Trek film that hasn't seen this sort...

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Norton's Illusionist clips online

The latest film starring Edward Norton, The Illusionist, has just surfaced online with a few clips strung together and some stills. It's already looking quite nice and after seeing the clips I'm starting to get really interested. You can see the clip hosted over at Variety [WMV:Embed] which was found...

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Transformers Cast grows

More Transformers movie casting news with a few rumours about who is going to fill those previously touted roles in the casting call. According to the cool guys at IGN: Jon Voight is in talks...Keller as the U.S. Secretary of State... ...Michael Clarke Duncan, is closing in on the role...

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Li and Statham on Rogue

I liked the film The One with Jason Statham and Jet Li, but then I like both actors anyway, particularly Statham, and love action films. So despite its flaws it was fun. So the set visit report to the latest Li and Statham movie Rogue provides some exciting titbits for...

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Dead by Dawn 2006 opens

...and it opened with the film Hard Candy (review). Boy, that was a good opener. The lineup is over the page, and I'm trying to see a whole heap, and for that a big thanks goes out to my Boss, Adele at Dead by Dawn, and Todd over at Twitch...

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Hard Candy

Film Four Stars
This was my first attendance at Dead By Dawn, and I have to say it was a very strong opener. Film one, night one, began with a little introduction speech by the founder and Director who informed us how hard a job she had this year trying to find good...

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April 20, 2006

An American Haunting