All articles by Allan Hunter – Page 51
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Reviews
Jumper
Dir: Doug Liman. US. 2008. 88mins.A cool, high concept science-fiction premise is executed with breezy, facile insouciance in Jumper. Director Doug Liman's first feature project since Mr And Mrs Smith (2005), is a globe-trotting, action packed thriller where the spectacle and special-effects easily overwhelm the broad brushstrokes storytelling.Comparisons with The ...
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Reviews
Definitely, Maybe
Director/Scr: Adam Brooks US/UK. 2008. 111 minsAn unusually soulful and appealing romantic comedy, Definitely, Maybe is the perfect antidote to the raucous lowbrow vulgarity that has come to define the genre in the 21st century. There is none of the wild profanity or bad taste humour of the Farrelly brothers ...
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Features
Awards Countdown - BAFTA nominations - BAFTAs strike a serious tone
The blizzard of nominations for Atonement, There Will Be Blood and No Country For Old Men suggests a year in which the Orange British Academy Film Awards were devoid of surprises.Atonement for one always seemed destined for BAFTA glory. It has the literary pedigree that BAFTA voters like in a ...
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Features
In focus - Bafta nominations - Big year for UK talent
The organisers of the Orange British Academy Film Awards, Bafta, are confident the February 10 event will not be caught up in the WGA strike turmoil."Neither Bafta nor our broadcaster (the BBC) is in dispute with the Writers Guild of America; while we hope for the sake of the whole ...
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News
BAFTA Analysis: Atonement's glory expected, but where's Sweeney Todd'
Atonement has always seemed destined for BAFTA glory (it leads with 14 nominations). It has the kind of literary pedigree that BAFTA voters have responded to in Best Picture winners like The English Patient, ThePianist and The Lord Of The Rings.
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Reviews
St Trinian's
Dirs: Oliver Parker & Barnaby Thompson UK. 2007. 101 minsA modern make-over may have worked wonders for James Bond but it fails to rejuvenate another great British institution in the lacklustre return of Ronald Searle's unruly schoolgirls. The St Trinian's films were a commercially viable franchise for twenty-five years until ...
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Features
European Film Awards - The Glories of Europe
Generalising about European cinema is a fool's errand. Countless films never cross national borders. Many films only have a theatrical life on the festival circuit. Some of the continent's biggest box-office hits (Les Bronzes 3, Natale A New York, and (T)Raumschiff Surprise - Periode 1 for example) barely register on ...
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News
Awards Count Down BAFTA - A night at the opera
Bafta has become a master of reinvention. In just a few years, it has elevated the UK's prime awards show into a global attraction. Anyone looking for evidence of its importance as a bellwether for the Oscars should note that eight of this year's major winners went on to repeat ...
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News
Hallam Foe tops BAFTA Scotland nominations
Hallam Foe leads the nominations for the 2007 BAFTA Scotland Awards which will be presented in Glasgow on November 18. David Mackenzie's tale of a disturbed teenager coming to terms with the death of his mother has been nominated for Best Film, Best Screenplay, Best Actor for Jamie Bell and ...
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Reviews
Youth Without Youth
Dir: Francis Ford Coppola. Rom/Fr/It. 2007. 124minsTen years after the polished, anonymous professionalism of The Rainmaker, Francis Ford Coppola returns with an epic, magic realist tale of miraculous rejuvenation. Anyone who hoped that life might imitate art will be sorely disappointed by Youth Without Youth. This is an amateur production ...
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News
Seachd producer withdraws from BAFTA over Oscar snub
Award-winning Scottish producer Chris Young has resigned from the British Academy of Film and Television Arts in protest at the academy's refusal to submit any British film in the foreign language category. Young's Gaelic-language feature Seachd-The Inaccessible Pinnacle was thought to be a front runner for the British submission. BAFTA ...
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Reviews
Reclaim Your Brain (Free Rainer-Dein Fernseher Lugt)
Dir. Hans Weingartner. Germany . 2007. 132 minsAnyone who has ever railed against the pernicious poison of reality television should derive a scattering of wry chuckles from Reclaim Your Brain, a Capra-esque call to arms from writer/director Hans Weingartner. Taking aim at some obvious targets, it is slow to warm ...
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Reviews
Cleaner
Dir: Renny Harlin US . 2007. 92 minsTen years have passed since the combination of Samuel L Jackson and director Renny Harlin was a guarantee of lively box-office action. Think The Long Kiss Good Night (1996) and Deep Blue Sea (1999). Harlin has steadily surrendered his A-list status and Jackson ...
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Reviews
Just Like Home (Hjemve)
Dir Lone Scherfig Denmark . 2007. 97 minsFive years after her admired English-language debut Wilbur Wants To Kill Himself, writer-director Lone Scherfig makes an eagerly awaited return to her native Denmark for Just Like Home, an idiosyncratic ensemble comedy depicting a community in crisis. A slight, slow-burning tale, it lacks ...
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Reviews
Reservation Road
Dir: Terry George USA. 2007. 102 minsA respectable, well-intentioned exploration of grief, guilt and the instinct for revenge, Reservation Road boasts some fine performances but tries too hard to pass itself off as a weighty, tear-stained Oscar contender. A plot heavily reliant on coincidence may have worked on the page ...
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Reviews
Death Defying Acts
Dir: Gillian Armstrong UK/Australia. 2007. 97 mins.The period romance is back in style if the UK success of Atonement is anything to go by, but Death Defying Acts is so corny and old-fashioned that only diehard romantics are likely to consider it magical. The relationship between famed escapologist Harry Houdini ...
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Reviews
Run, Fat Boy, Run
Dir: David Schwimmer UK . 2007. 101minsSimon Pegg is fast becoming Britain 's king of comedy. He seems to have found the secret of reaching levels of box-office success denied to fellow British television graduates like Mitchell and Webb (Magicians (2007)) and Ant and Dec (Alien Autopsy (2006)). Run, Fat ...
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Reviews
Before The Rains
Dir: Santosh Sivan US/India. 2007. 98minsA bittersweet journey from blinkered loyalty to rueful independence, Before The Rains captures the crumbling of British rule in 1930s India through a doomed love affair and its tragic consequences. In its more obvious moments it strays perilously close to the conventions of romantic fiction ...
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Reviews
A Jihad For Love
Dir: Parvez Sharma USA/UK/France/Germany/Australia. 2007. 81minsFilmed over six years in twelve countries, A Jihad For Love compiles personal stories that illuminate the bitter struggles of lesbians andgay men to reconcile their homosexuality with their Muslim faith. The film presents itself as a modest first step in attempting to foster a ...
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Reviews
Battle in Seattle
Director/Scr: Stuart Townsend. US, Canada. 2007. 100minsA labour of love for actor turned director Stuart Townsend, Battle In Seattle is an uneven but ultimately impassioned recreation of the riots at the 1999 World Trade Organization meeting in Seattle . Documentary footage and fictional drama scenes make for initially uneasy bedfellows ...