All articles by Emanuel Levy

  • News

    High Crimes

    2002-04-05T16:56:00Z

    Dir: Carl Franklin. US. 2002. 112mins.After their pairing in Kiss The Girls, Ashley Judd and Morgan Freeman again demonstrate their screen chemistry in High Crimes, a middling political thriller that's neither suspenseful nor dramatic. Part marriage melodrama, part military conspiracy, part male-female buddy-buddy flick, the film occasionally assumes an air ...

  • News

    High Crimes

    2002-04-05T16:56:00Z

    Dir: Carl Franklin. US. 2002. 112mins.After their pairing in Kiss The Girls, Ashley Judd and Morgan Freeman again demonstrate their screen chemistry in High Crimes, a middling political thriller that's neither suspenseful nor dramatic. Part marriage melodrama, part military conspiracy, part male-female buddy-buddy flick, the film occasionally assumes an air ...

  • News

    The Rookie

    2002-03-28T17:52:00Z

    Dir John Lee Hancock US 2002 127minsThe Rookie is an earnest and uplifting baseball saga structured along the lines of the equally fact-based and inspirational Remember The Titans, also produced by Disney. Rendering one of his most accomplished performances yet, Dennis Quaid plays ageing Texan baseball player Jim Morris, who ...

  • Reviews

    Panic Room

    2002-03-26T18:37:00Z

    Dir: David Fincher. US. 2002. 113minsDavid Fincher is such a technically inventive and brilliant director that, even when he tackles a genre film, like his new suspense feature The Panic Room, he elevates it with his signature flourishes way above its damsel-in-distress origins. Recalling noir films about women trapped in ...

  • Reviews

    E.T. The Extra Terrestrial: The 20th Anniversay

    2002-03-22T14:57:00Z

    Dir Steven Spielberg. US. 1982. 120mins.Despite some new footage and astute digital enhancements, the 20th anniversary reissue of E.T. The Extra Terrestrial, Steven Spielberg's most beloved alien fable, shows that the film is very much a product of its times, reflecting the zeitgeist and technology of 1982. That ...

  • Reviews

    Blade II

    2002-03-22T14:34:00Z

    Dir Guillermo Del Toro. US. 2002. 117mins.Gruesome and ghastly violence, state-of-the-art special effects, fast-moving action and stylish cutting and framing can't conceal the fact that there's a big blank space at the centre of Blade II. Largely this is the fault of David Goyer's slender, meandering, and uninvolving scripting ...

  • Reviews

    Stolen Summer

    2002-03-19T19:00:00Z

    Dir Pete Jones. US 2002. 95 mins.The background story of how Stolen Summer was produced has been documented with step-by-step accuracy, healthy humour and a good deal of cynicism and self-importance in HBO's hit US TV series, Project Greenlight. Unfortunately, this high media profile overshadows and overwhelms the artistic merits ...

  • Reviews

    Showtime

    2002-03-17T15:51:00Z

    Dir Tom Dey. US 2002. 95mins.In the silly, utterly redundant, and only sporadically funny action comedy Showtime, Robert De Niro and Eddie Murphy try to have their cake and eat it, cashing in on their established screen images while at the same time spoofing and deviating from them. Cliche-ridden and ...

  • Reviews

    Harrison's Flowers

    2002-03-11T16:28:00Z

    Dir Elie Chouraqui. US/France 2000. 123mins.A stronger, more charismatic actress would have given Harrison's Flowers, the war melodrama directed by Frenchman Eli Chouraqui, a sharper dramatic focus than it gets in the hands of Andie MacDowell, an appealing actress who's more adept in light romantic comedies (Four Weddings And A ...

  • Reviews

    The Time Machine

    2002-03-11T15:03:00Z

    Dir: Simon Wells. US. 2002. 97mins.Almost from start to finish, The Time Machine, the new remake of HG Wells's classic sci-fi novel, is a poorly conceived and executed film, failing to take full advantage of the major technical changes that have improved the sci-fi-fantasy genre during the past two ...

  • Reviews

    Skins

    2002-03-05T17:50:00Z

    Dir: Chris Eyre. US. 2002. 86minViewers looking to Native American director Chris Eyre for a buoyant follow-up to his 1996 indie smash Smoking Signals will come away disappointed with Skins, a film that like his feature debut, examines life at a dilapidated Indian reservation from the inside, but lacks the ...

  • Reviews

    Pumpkin

    2002-03-05T17:49:00Z

    Dirs: Adam Larson Broder, Tony R Abrams. US. 2002. 122min.Too rambling and diffuse for its own good, Pumpkin, Adam Larson Broder and Tony R Abrams feature directorial debut, is a youth comedy that suffers from an uncertain tone and conflicting intentions. Christina Ricci, one of the most audacious actresses of ...

  • Reviews

    40 Days And 40 Nights

    2002-03-04T17:23:00Z

    Dir: Michael Lehmann. US. 2002. 95mins.Stripping the military uniform that he valiantly wore in his last two screen roles (Pearl Harbor and Black Hawk Down) for sexier civilian clothes in his new romantic comedy proves to be a good idea for broadening the appeal of fast-rising star Josh Hartnett among ...

  • Reviews

    Coastlines

    2002-02-26T17:57:00Z

    Dir Victor Nunez. US. 2002. 116min.Coastlines, Victor Nunez's latest film to be set on the unique landscape of Florida's unfamiliar coast, should be regarded as an instalment in his Panhandle trilogy, a follow-up to the poetic Ruby In Paradise (1993) and character-driven Ulee's Gold (1997), which featured Peter Fonda in ...

  • Reviews

    Dragonfly

    2002-02-25T19:10:00Z

    Dir Tom Shadyac. US. 2002. 104min.The Mothman Prophecies meets Patch Adams in Dragonfly, a preposterously plotted, highly sentimental supernatural thriller that lacks suspense or credibility even on its own terms. A star vehicle for Kevin Costner, who has not had a decent role in a long time, this manipulative hokum ...

  • Reviews

    We Were Soldiers

    2002-02-25T19:09:00Z

    Dir: Randall Wallace. US. 2002. 140min.The war genre, vigorously energised with such seminal films as Spielberg's Saving Private Ryan and Ridley Scott's visually impressive Black Hawk Down, takes several steps backwards with We Were Soldiers, an old-fashioned, moralistic Vietnam war movie that pays tribute not just to the soldiers in ...

  • Reviews

    Secretary

    2002-02-19T18:11:00Z

    Dir: Steven Shainberg. US. 2002. 112min.Audacious, offbeat and darkly humorous, Steven Shainberg's Secretary, based on Mary Gaitskill's critically acclaimed novella Bad Behaviour, tells an utterly bizarre love story between an enigmatic attorney and his highly insecure secretary. Maggie Gyllenhaal renders an exquisite performance as the troubled young woman ...

  • Reviews

    Queen Of The Damned

    2002-02-18T18:47:00Z

    Dir Michael Rymer. US 2002. 100 min.A new star is born in Queen Of The Damned, the horror picture based on Anne Rice's The Vampire Chronicles and a follow-up to Neil Jordan's Interview With The Vampire, which was also produced by Warner Bros. Assuming the role of Lestat ...

  • Reviews

    Crossroads

    2002-02-18T18:47:00Z

    Dir Tamra Davis. US 2002. 95 min.Naive and amateurish in both the positive and negative sense of these terms, Crossroads, Britney Spears' feature screen debut, provides a decent showcase for the pop icon and youth symbol, who seems to be everywhere this month. As a coming of age yarn, ...

  • Reviews

    Hart's War

    2002-02-13T22:57:00Z

    Dir: Gregory Hoblit. US. 2002. 127mins.Nationality, politics and race clash in an intriguing and unexpected manner in Hart's War, Gregory Hoblit's old-fashioned but extremely deftly directed and acted prison drama set toward the end of the Second World War. Although Bruce Willis gets star billing, and his name and face ...