'Guard' nabs five prizes at Irish Awards

John Michael McDonagh's "The Guard" was the big winner at the ninth Irish Film & TV Awards on Saturday evening at Dublin's Convention Center, taking five prizes including best film.McDonagh won for director, script and the Rising Star award, while "The Guard's" Fionnula Flanagan was named best supporting actress. Flanagan also received the Lifetime Achievement Award.But "The Guard" didn't have everything its own way. Michael Fassbender took the actor prize for "Shame" ahead of Brendan Gleeson, while Ryan Gosling won the international actor award for "Drive" ahead of Don Cheadle.Saoirse Ronan was named best actress for "Hanna." Glenn Close won the international actress prize for "Albert Nobbs," which also took awards for makeup and hair, sound and original score.Best supporting actor went to Chris O'Dowd for "Bridesmaids," while "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" won the prize for best international film.Consolata Boyle nabbed the costume design award for "The Iron Lady," and Seamus Garvey won the cinematography prize for "We Need to Talk About Kevin."Feature documentary laurels went to "Bernadette: Notes on a Political Journey," while "Corp & Anam" won the special Irish language award, and "The Boy in the Bubble" won the animation prize.On the TV side, the second season of local gangster drama "Love/Hate" repeated last year's triumph with seven wins, including drama, director, writer and actor (for Aidan Gillen), supporting actor and supporting actress. Contact the Variety newsroom at news@variety.com

Casting Directors Set for Pilots From Louis C.K., 'GoodFellas' Writer

Casting Directors Set for Pilots From Louis C.K., 'GoodFellas' Writer By Daniel Lehman February 10, 2012 Photo by Starz/Chuck Hodes "Boss" Lauren Grey Casting will cast Louis C.K. and Spike Feresten's comedy pilot for CBS. The untitled project centers on an ensemble of young people who are trying to achieve their creative dreams in these tough financial times. Shoot dates are TBA.C.K. is a stand-up comic who also produces, writes, directs, edits, and stars in "Louie" on FX. Grey is the casting director for the Showtime series "Boss," and she has worked as a casting associate on feature films such as "Moneyball," "Milk," and "Tropic Thunder."Also for CBS, Sheila Jaffe and Gail Goldberg are casting the pilot for an untitled period drama based on the true story of Ralph Lamb, a former cowboy who became a longtime Las Vegas sheriff and made enemies of the mob and the Hell's Angels. The project is set in Las Vegas in the 1960s. "GoodFellas" screenwriter Nicholas Pileggi and "Without a Trace" writer Greg Walker will write and executive produce. James Mangold ("Walk the Line") will direct the pilot, which shoots in March.Jaffe has cast film and television projects since 1990. Her film credits include "Contraband," "The Fighter," "City Island," and "Observe and Report." Jaffe also cast the HBO series "Entourage," "The Sopranos," and "How to Make It In America." Goldberg's feature film casting credits include "You Again," "The Princess Diaries." and "10 Thing I Hate About You." Casting Directors Set for Pilots From Louis C.K., 'GoodFellas' Writer By Daniel Lehman February 10, 2012 "Boss" PHOTO CREDIT Starz/Chuck Hodes Lauren Grey Casting will cast Louis C.K. and Spike Feresten's comedy pilot for CBS. The untitled project centers on an ensemble of young people who are trying to achieve their creative dreams in these tough financial times. Shoot dates are TBA.C.K. is a stand-up comic who also produces, writes, directs, edits, and stars in "Louie" on FX. Grey is the casting director for the Showtime series "Boss," and she has worked as a casting associate on feature films such as "Moneyball," "Milk," and "Tropic Thunder."Also for CBS, Sheila Jaffe and Gail Goldberg are casting the pilot for an untitled period drama based on the true story of Ralph Lamb, a former cowboy who became a longtime Las Vegas sheriff and made enemies of the mob and the Hell's Angels. The project is set in Las Vegas in the 1960s. "GoodFellas" screenwriter Nicholas Pileggi and "Without a Trace" writer Greg Walker will write and executive produce. James Mangold ("Walk the Line") will direct the pilot, which shoots in March.Jaffe has cast film and television projects since 1990. Her film credits include "Contraband," "The Fighter," "City Island," and "Observe and Report." Jaffe also cast the HBO series "Entourage," "The Sopranos," and "How to Make It In America." Goldberg's feature film casting credits include "You Again," "The Princess Diaries." and "10 Thing I Hate About You."

The Truly Amazing Wife Start Searching: Meet Will's Brothers and sisters!

Josh Charles Will Gardner (Josh Charles) remains obtaining a tough number of several days round the Good Wife. First, he got left with the adoration for his existence, Alicia. Then, he was indicted having a grand jury for judicial bribery. And very soon, he'll face possibly losing his law license. Fortunately, there's help round the strategies by the kind of moral - through the looks of things, musical - support from his brothers and sisters, carried out by Nurse Jackie's Merritt Wever and Nadia Dajani (The Big C). Watch full cases of The Truly Amazing Wife Inside the March 4th episode, titled "Following a Fall," Wever steps to the role of Will's youthful, irresponsible and fun-loving sister, Audra and Dajani may have his bossy, Type-A older sister Sara. Who understood that Chicago's 16th most qualified bachelor could play guitar? Maybe he's practicing an affection song to sing to Alicia? (We kid, we kid. This really is really the great Wife, not Glee, ultimately). Really the only alarming factor about these pictures? The re-emergence of casual Will. Is his inadequate business attire made to signify the disbarment proceedings don't go perfectly? Or possibly is he just finally discovering how to possess a break? The title "Following a Fall" doesn't give to us much comfort. The Truly Amazing Wife airs Sundays at 9/8c on CBS. Are you currently presently excited to fulfill Will's brothers and sisters?

New viral site for your Amazing Spider-Guy

If you're anything like us, you will have spent lots of yesterday beaming being an idiot inside the new trailer for your Amazing Spider-Guy. However, among your excitement over Peter Parker's new adventure, perhaps you have place the hidden message within the finish in the teaser?In the event you visit again a clip below, you will notice a very faint message written on one of the metallic bars when the film's release date is proven. It's round the two:28 mark, towards the end left-hands corner in the screen.Attempt to put it, below... What read "Mark in the Spider-Guy." Nothing thrilling relating to this, it may seem, except if you add .com round the finish, you obtain rerouted with this brand-new viral site.Now, at this time there's nothing online except a sextet of screens showing static interference, and Spidey's aforementioned symbol. However, we'd wager that some footage can make itself apparent on people screens sooner or later.Preserve checking the web site inside the future and inform us if you place things. The Astounding Spider-Guy will open inside the Uk on 4 This summer time 2012.

First teaser poster for Resident Evil: Retribution

Carrying out a recent relieve the film's first official trailer, The brand new the new sony have consolidated their Resident Evil: Retribution publicity drive while using relieve a preliminary teaser poster.In some manner, the studio have handled to address cramming each of their latest products to the completely new one-sheet (start to see the first twenty seconds roughly in the trailer if you don't know very well what we mean), towards sheer, unadulterated carnage.The film's tagline is "Evil goes global", which motto is borne within the poster, which shows global landmarks for instance Large Ben and Moscow's Red-colored-colored Square laid lower the sink with the latest zombie outbreak.Meanwhile, the ominous logo design design in the Umbrella Corporation looms large over proceedings, it being their deadly T-virus that has transformed our world in to a playground for your living dead.There's no symbol of the catsuit-clad Milla Jovovich for the reason that one, but we'd bank on her behalf account returning in many her latex glory when the next poster arrives. Resident Evil: Retribution will open inside the Uk on 14 September 2012.

'Idol' Alum Constantine Maroulis Heading To Broadway

NY (AP) An old "The American Idol ShowInch contestant is going to Broadway having a character who, it's reliable advice, is really two-faced.Constantine Maroulis will have the title dual role inside a revival of the musical "Jekyll & Hyde" that's slated arrive at NY in spring 2013 following a 25-week national tour that begins in San Diego on March. 2, Nederlander Presentations Corporation. introduced Sunday.Maroulis, who had been a finalist around the 4th season of "American Idol," were built with a three-year run in Broadway's "Rock of Age range" and received a best actor Tony nomination along with a Drama League nomination for his performance. Younger crowd performed the role of Roger Davis inside a recent national tour of "Rent."Maroulis made his Broadway debut in "The Marriage Singer" and it is presently within the title role of "Toxic Avenger" in the Alley Theatre in Houston. His debut album, "Constantine," was launched by himself label, Sixth Place Records."Jekyll & Hyde" includes a story and lyrics by two-time Oscar champion Leslie Bricusse and music by Frank Wildhorn, who co-created the musical. It will likely be directed and choreographed by Shaun Calhoun.Additional cast and inventive team, in addition to tour metropolitan areas, is going to be introduced later.Wildhorn has already established trouble on Broadway lately, with back-to-back implies that have unsuccessful. His show this spring known as "Wonderland," an up-to-date telling of "Alice's adventures in wonderland," was poorly examined and the "Bonnie & Clyde" lately closed early this year.InchJekyll & Hyde" made its Broadway debut in 1997 with your tunes as "This is actually the Moment," ''A New Existence" and "You,Inch generating four Tony nominations. It informs the storyline of the London physician who accidentally sets loose his evil alternate personality in his mission for stopping his father's mental illness.Robert Cuccioli performed charge, and Sebastian Bach and David Hasselhoff later required over. After 1,543 performances, the production performed its final performance on Jan. 7, 2001.Copyright 2012 Connected Press. All privileges reserved. These components might not be released, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. By Mark Kennedy The month of january 30, 2012 Constantine Maroulis NY (AP) An old "The American Idol ShowInch contestant is going to Broadway having a character who, it's reliable advice, is really two-faced.Constantine Maroulis will have the title dual role inside a revival from the musical "Jekyll & Hyde" that's slated arrive at NY in spring 2013 following a 25-week national tour that begins in North Park on March. 2, Nederlander Presentations Corporation. introduced Sunday.Maroulis, who had been a finalist around the 4th season of "The American Idol Show,Inch were built with a three-year run in Broadway's "Rock of Age range" and received a Tony nomination along with a Drama League nomination for his performance. Younger crowd performed the role of Roger Davis inside a recent national tour of "Rent."Maroulis made his Broadway debut in "The Marriage Singer" and it is presently within the title role of "Toxic Avenger" in the Alley Theatre in Houston. His debut album, "Constantine," was launched by himself label, Sixth Place Records."Jekyll & Hyde" includes a story and lyrics by two-time Oscar champion Leslie Bricusse and music by Frank Wildhorn, who co-created the musical. It will likely be directed and choreographed by Shaun Calhoun.Additional cast and inventive team, in addition to tour metropolitan areas, is going to be introduced later.Wildhorn has already established trouble on Broadway lately, with back-to-back implies that have unsuccessful. His show this spring known as "Wonderland," an up-to-date telling of "Alice's adventures in wonderland," was poorly examined and the "Bonnie & Clyde" lately closed early this year.InchJekyll & Hyde" made its Broadway debut in 1997 with your tunes as "This is actually the Moment," ''A New Existence" and "You,Inch generating four Tony nominations. It informs the storyline of the London physician who accidentally sets loose his evil alternate personality in the mission for stopping his father's mental illness.Robert Cuccioli performed charge, and Sebastian Bach and David Hasselhoff later required over. After 1,543 performances, the development performed its final performance on Jan. 7, 2001.Copyright 2012 Connected Press. All privileges reserved. These components might not be released, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Biz wide-eyed over narrowcasting

CSI creator and executive producer Anthony E. Zuiker, left, and MediaLink chairman-CEO Michael Kassan discuss niche channels at CES. It wasn't quite tea and a madeleine, but last week's Entertainment Matters/YouTube keynote at the Consumer Electronics Show conjured remembrances of things past. One thing, anyway.Robert Kyncl, YouTube's VP of global content, painted a picture of myriad channels tailored to narrow interests. Noting there are 17 million yoga enthusiasts in the U.S. and twice that worldwide, he said, "I guarantee within a year or two you will find a wonderful yoga channel on YouTube delighting viewers on a global basis and providing smart, innovative brandholders the reach of an audience that is incredibly targeted and incredibly passionate."In the panel that followed, "CSI" creator Anthony Zuiker said, "The ability to tell stories on a categorical niche makes possible not just the future of entertainment but possibly the extinction of TV as we know it."Their ideas bounced off the previous day's keynote at the Variety Entertainment Summit by Jonathan Miller of News Corp., who said, "I think we're at the beginning of the video age," saying increasing bandwidth and proliferating high-quality video screens, including on mobile devices, will drive more video consumption. "That's good news for television producers," he said, "but it's not limited to TV. I think we're going to see the channelization of the web, I think that's going to be a big 2012 event -- there'll be really good channelization of the web."I came out of the event duly impressed and enthusiastic, but then, as I settled in with a hot drink and a snack, a single word from the depths of memory surfaced: narrowcasting.If you're a certain age, that word may bubble up in your memory, too. "Narrowcasting," niche programming and niche channels, was the promise of cable TV, remember?In 1972, Dick Burgheim, director of CATV program projects for Time-Life Broadcast, wrote in Variety, "Clearly, the awesome gaps left by American broadcasting can be filled by, to use the catchword, cable 'narrowcasting.' Channels will be available and production costs will theoretically be normal enough to allow access to all the interests priced out of over-the-air TV."Ethnic groups and the inner city can speak to themselves in their own vernacular. The deaf can use sign language. A man who is not rich can wage an election campaign. Cable can, in short, lesson the alienation of the blacks, the disaffection of the young, the feeling of powerlessness and anomie of all citizens."Burgheim was unduly optimistic about elections, but much of that promise was actually fulfilled. Today, we have Turner Classic Movies, a plethora of sports channels including dedicated networks for several major sports leagues, Black Entertainment Television, networks in numerous foreign languages, and more.Yet many niche channels on cable have been diluted. Syfy has sci-fi, yes, but it tried a food show and has a reality competition show. The former Learning Channel became TLC and is only vaguely connected to learning anything. The History Channel last week showed "The Outlaw Josey Wales" (Hey, it's set in the past, and it was made in the past, so it's historical, right?). American Movie Classics became plain ol' AMC and now thrives with "The Walking Dead" and "Mad Men." There's lots of niche programming, but niche channels are under pressure to diversify in pursuit of ratings.It turns out that slots in the cable channel lineup are still dear, and it's hard to get carriage. Running a cable channel is expensive, and programming may be cheaper and easier to make than it was in 1965, but professional looking programs still don't come cheap. So there's a certain drift away from narrowcasting.I searched the Variety archives for "narrowcasting." The term pops up as early as 1950, as FM radio came in, with the same promise of niche programming. FM was very niche-oriented when it was new, but it's a lot less so now.So will web video go the same way: niche-oriented when it's new but drifting toward broad-aud blandness as it succeeds? Or will we really get our narrowcast channels this time?I spoke to the moderator of the panel at the Entertainment Matters keynote, Medialink CEO Michael Kassan, about why narrowcasting might really become a reality. He noted the lower barrier of entry -- anybody can create a YouTube channel for free and get instant global distribution -- and added, "People like Anthony Zuiker who historically have worked with much larger budgets can produce quality content at a much lower cost."And the gatekeepers are no longer the three network heads or the four network heads. The gatekeeper is the public," Kassan said. "Let the consumer decide. The consumer's going to decide everything else these days. Why not let them decide what they want to watch and what's going to be this year's hit, rather than have somebody telling them?"Kassan added, "The sky's the limit. Right now we can blow this stuff in ways we never anticipated in our wildest imagination. I hate to sound dramatic, but I think truly we're watching the dawn of a new era."I'm inclined to think he's right, but we've heard these promises before, and they've never entirely come true. I can't help but wonder if some Variety columnist in 2052 will be writing about the promise of direct neural interfaces and their ability to bring narrowly tailored, niche-oriented experiences to consumers' brains, finally relieving us from the dispiriting sameness of broadcast, cable and Internet programming.Bits & BytesAt last week's Moody Gardens Digital Cinema Symposium, Qube Cinema demonstrated a digital cinema server delivering 4K 3D (that is, 3D with 4K resolution for each eye) off a single Digital Cinema Package. It was the first public demo of 4K 3D off a single server. The setup used two Barco 4K projectors and an 80-foot-wide screen. Demo included content shown at 24, 48 and 60 frames per second. Testronic Labs is hosting the round-robin test for the Blu-ray industry today and tomorrow at Testronic's Burbank facility. The annual Hollywood Post Alliance Tech Retreat has been set for Feb. 14-17 at the Hyatt Grand Champions Resort in Indian Wells, Calif. Deluxe subsidiary Company 3 and Mumbai-based post facility Futureworks have pacted to give commercial clients in India access to Company 3 artists based in Santa Monica, Atlanta or London. 3D technology provider Cameron Pace Group has opened an office in Melbourne, Australia. It's the first CPG office outside the U.S. Andrew Wight, who produced the 3D feature "Sanctum" with CPG co-topper James Cameron, will run the new CPG office.NewTek has named Carter Holland executive VP, worldwide marketing. Holland is a former marketing VP at Avid. Hollywood Center Studios has tapped Jerry Cole as director of visual and broadcast services, a new position. He will oversee virtual production services for webcasts, broadcast and TV production. Cole was most recently head of business development at Hayden Studios in Culver City.Panasonic has received a Technology & Engineering Emmy for its removable solid-state media for video camera/recorders and their creation of the P2 video recording format. Cinedeck is shipping its Cinedeck RX rack-mountable recording system with solid-state memory. All Mobile Video in Gotham has installed the system. Cinedeck has also made changes to its exec team. Alan Hoff has left the CEO post, though he will remain a board member. Co-founder Charles Dautremont is acting CEO. Robert Stacy, CEO and co-founder of Asia Media Products is now Cinedeck's VP. Jane Sung has been promoted to director of operations. The reboot of "Dallas" is using MTI Film's Remote Control Dailies.D-Box has announced some of the titles that will use the motion-seat tech in early 2012: "The Grey," "Journey 2: The Mysterious Island," "Act of Valor," "John Carter" and "The Hunger Games." Cinedigm Digital Cinema has passed 10,000 screens in its digital cinema deployment in North America. Eventually it will deploy almost 1/3 of all North American digital cinema screens. Cinedigm has also llied with Independent Cinemas Assn. of Australia (ICAA) for D-cinema deployment in Australia and New Zealand. D-cinema integrator Beyond All, LLC, has signed a letter of intent with 15 Brazilian exhibitors for digital cinema deployment on about 1,000 screens. The Virtual Print Fee agreements will expedite the deployment of d-cinema. Beyond All's partners include Cinedigm for technical services and MKPE for negotiation.The Siggraph computer graphics conference will return to Anaheim, Calif., in 2013 and to Vancouver, Canada in 2014. Last year's Vancouver confab marked the first time Siggraph was held outside the United States, and according to the show's parent org the event broke all conference attendance records. Creatasphere's Digital Asset Management conference will be at the BevHilton Feb. 22-23.U.S.C. has joined forces with Vicon Technologies to upgrade the motion capture system at the Robert Zemeckis Center for Digital Arts. System originally had 20 cameras when installed in 2006. Now it has 46 cameras on a 1,700-square-foot stage. School is already eyeing another expansion of the mo-cap facility.E-on software has shipped Vue 10 RenderNodes for Linux, the company's first Linux-basd rendering solution. DreamWorks Animation is already using the software. Assimilate has shipped version 6.1 of its Scratch digital intermediate finishing tool. New version includes support for the new RED SDK 4.2 and Tangent's Element control panel, as well as a new SDI output architecture.Post facility Incendio has purchased two Image System Nucoda Film Masters with Precision panels for their creative color and finishing pipeline. Sky Deutschland's new Sky Sport News HD channel has equipped his studio using Vitec Videocom brands for automated production. Net is using a robotic camea system with six Vinten Radamec Fusion FP-188 robotic pedestals and two Telemetrics cameras controlled by a Vinten Radamec HDVRC. Studio is equipped with Litepanels LED lighting. Contact David S. Cohen at david.cohen@variety.com