The Null Device

2001/6/25

A consortium consisting of a US property developer, one of the remaining San Francisco new media companies and the makers of the Spice Girls movie are reviving the Ealing Studios brand; the consortium seek to cash in on the trademark, by using it to make "quirky British" films, which probably involves dialect-coached American lead actors and market-tested feel-good formulae, in the finest Hollywood/Working Title tradition.

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Strange bedfellows: In one of the more unusual geopolitical love-ins of recent times, the Vatican and several conservative Islamic nations, including Iran, Syria, Libya and Pakistan, have joined forces in opposition to a UN AIDS treaty, because the treaty includes specific measures to help homosexuals, prostitutes and drug users, and thus would "legitimise their status and offend moral standards". Curiously enough, John Howard's Australia hasn't opposed the treaty yet; though we can probably expect them to follow after George W. Bush comes out against it.

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