‘Darkness,’ ‘Promises’ on Toronto top 10
The News Review:
- ‘Darkness,’ ‘Promises’ on Toronto top 10
- The stars of 2007
- Thompson gets Flint’s top job
- Algerian bomb blasts linked to al-Qa’ida
- Poor crowds at Aussie films
- Home Prices Drive Migration
‘Darkness,’ ‘Promises’ on Toronto top 10
Hollywood Reporter – Dec 12, 2007
‘Darkness,’ ‘Promises’ on Toronto top 10 December 12, 2007 Denys Arcand’s “The Age of Darkness” and David Cronenberg’s “Eastern Promises” on Tuesday landed on the Toronto International Film Festival’s top 10 list of Canadian films for 2007. The Toronto festival list encompasses home-grown films that opened in 2007, or appeared in a Canadian festival. “Both the top 10 features and shorts demonstrate the exceptional vitality and the cinematic achievements of our industry,” said Piers Handling, director and CEO of the Toronto International Film Festival Group. Subscribe to the Hollywood Reporter and see the entertainment industry from its best angle: the inside looking out. Complete access to real-time news and exclusive analysis that goes behind the scenes from film to television, home video to digital media… Accessing this information requires a subscription to HollywoodReporter. ‘Darkness,’ ‘Promises’ on Toronto top 10 December 12, 2007 Denys Arcand’s “The Age of Darkness” and David Cronenberg’s “Eastern Promises” on Tuesday landed on the Toronto International Film Festival’s top 10 list of Canadian films for 2007. The Toronto festival list encompasses home-grown films that opened in 2007, or appeared in a Canadian festival. “Both the top 10 features and shorts demonstrate the exceptional vitality and the cinematic achievements of our industry,” said Piers Handling, director and CEO of the Toronto International Film Festival Group. Subscribe to the Hollywood Reporter and see the entertainment industry from its best angle: the inside looking out. Complete access to real-time news and exclusive analysis that goes behind the scenes from film to television, home video to digital media.
The stars of 2007
The Age – Dec 12, 2007
In Melbourne, whereSeven hasn’t won since 1976, it won 32 weeks to Nine’s five, andtied with Nine for three weeks. The success has come on the back of a range of local andimported programs. Among the home-grown winners, spanning a rangeof genres, are Kath & Kim, Border Security,The Force, Dancing with the Stars, CityHomicide, Australia’s Got Talent, The Rich Listand It Takes Two. Seven has also been enjoying good value from its Americandistribution deals. While Nine bled every last drop from theCSI franchise and other productions from the Bruckheimerstable, Ten relied largely on the appeal of House andNCIS. Meanwhile, Seven had an array of popular programsincluding Desperate Housewives, Bionic Woman,Grey’s Anatomy, Ugly Betty, Heroes,Brothers and Sisters and Lost… However, one of Ten’s few initiatives paid off with Rove’smove to Sunday night producing a tighter show and improvedratings. Dramatic revivalLike local comedy, home-grown drama has for the past few yearssuffered a drought, but 2007 saw some hopeful signs ofregeneration. Following the axing of the long-running BlueHeelers last year, Seven successfully launched a new copshow. City Homicide, a 13-part ensemble series written by JohnHugginson and John Banas and starring Shane Bourne, DanielMacPherson, Nadine Garner, Aaron Pedersen, Damien Richardson andNoni Hazlehurst, premiered strongly and held its audience throughits first season, auguring well for the second one the networkcommissioned. Also moving to a second season is Nine’s naval drama, SeaPatrol, which also started well but didn’t hold its audience assuccessfully, dropping 700,000 viewers through its run. Nine alsoannounced the end of McLeod’s Daughters, which will ride offinto the sunset after eight seasons.
Thompson gets Flint’s top job
mlive.com – Dec 12, 2007
The district currently has an acting chief financial officer and acting executive director overseeing human resources. “Who’s going to come into a district that doesn’t have a superintendent, when your very existence depends on that superintendent,” Thompson said. A home-grown administrator, Thompson, 52, has worked for the district 31 years in several roles, working her way up the ranks from teacher to assistant principal to principal to central administrator. Some, such as Michele Stinson, acting president of United Teachers of Flint, said Thompson’s varied district experience and Flint roots will be a positive for the school system. “For a change, we will have a superintendent who does not have to learn the culture of the Flint schools before they can start to implement their vision,” she said. Washington Elementary School Principal Maria Hope, who addressed the board before its vote, echoed similar sentiments in her support of Thompson for the permanent job.
Algerian bomb blasts linked to al-Qa’ida
The Independent – Independent – Dec 12, 2007
“This will be their third attack in the space of a year, and it only goes to prove that the Algerian authorities are not in control of the situation. ” The last time al-Qa’ida’s north African wing struck was in April, when a triple suicide bombing at a police station and the prime minister’s office in Algiers, killed 33 people. Like yesterday’s attack, it also took place on the 11th of the month, which some Algerians see as a way for the home-grown militants to pay homage to the September 11 attacks. A source at Algeria’s Health Ministry told Reuters that at least 67 people had died in yesterday’s bombings, with scores more wounded. The casualties included pupils on a school bus. One of the explosions blew the front off the UN refugee agency office and severely damaged another building housing the UN Development Programme. “There was a massive blast.
Poor crowds at Aussie films
NEWS.com.au – Dec 12, 2007
article-tools –> Alyssa Braithwaite December 12, 2007 12:12pm NEVER mind the quality of Australian cinema in 2007 – filmgoers just weren’t that interested in going to the movies during the year. If the success of a movie is judged by its box office takings, then the past year has been a disappointing one for home-grown filmmakers. It was a year in which the immigrant experience of Australia was explored in movies like Romulus, My Father, Lucky Miles and The Home Song Stories. Richard Roxburgh’s directorial debut of Raimond Gaita’s critically acclaimed memoir, Romulus, My Father, was the most successful of all the local releases. The screenplay, written by Nick Drake, follows the efforts of two European immigrants to rural Australia trying to bring up their nine-year-old son in the 1960s. It was the big winner at this year’s Australian Film Institute (AFI) awards, named the best Australian film of 2007, while its stars Eric Bana, Marton Csokas and 11-year-old Kodi Smit-McPhee all won acting awards for their roles.
Home Prices Drive Migration
thestreet.com – Dec 12, 2007
The report is full of sweeping generalizations like the following:
At a time when most of America has grown more traditionally conservative, more dismissive of big government command-and-control policy prescriptions, and more economically prosperous, the heavily-unionized, economically exhausted, industrial Northeast has edged ever further to the left. Polls and statistics do not support these statements. The Republican Party has diminished, not grown, over the past few years, and fewer people have expressed interest in reducing the size of government. A bigger factor than taxes and labor policy in recent migration trends is home prices. We can survey historical prices in states that Laffer and Moore find are winners and losers in the “war” between states over migration… Golfing year-round sounds great to me. Washington has also long attracted migrants fleeing California. But home prices there started to increase faster in the 1990s when MicrosoftMSFT starting spewing out millionaires at a rapid pace. This accelerated after former Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan lowered rates in 2001 and 2002. Old manufacturing states such as Michigan, Illinois and Ohio might come closer to describing the phenomenon Laffer and Moore discuss. But lumping all the losers in together defeats their central point about high taxes and labor laws. And, you will notice that home prices remain more expensive in those states than in Arizona or Texas.