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All articles by Allan Hunter – Page 62
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Reviews
McDull, Prince De La Bun (Makdau Boloyau Wongchi)
Dir: Toe Yuen. Hong Kong.2004. 73minsMove over Babe, there's anew pig in town. If the Oscar-winning Chris Noonan film was still current, thatmight have been one way to market McDull, Prince De La Bun, a sequel tothe 2001 Hong Kong animation hit My Life As McDull, which sold all overAsia.The ...
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Reviews
Yasmin
Dir: Kenny Glenaan. UK-Ger.2004. 87minsThree years ago, GasAttack won the Michael Powell Award at Edinburgh and marked out KennyGlennan as a promising new directorial talent. Yasmin confirms hisstatus as a social realist with an ability to focus on the human element in anyheadline-grabbing dramatic situation.Sensitively observed andeconomically staged, Yasmin tells ...
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News
Festival debut for Book Group director
AnnieGriffin, the writer and director of award-winning UK TV show The Book Group,will make her feature debut with Festival, an ensemble comedy set duringthe annual Edinburgh Festival.Daniella Nardini, Clive Russell, Deirdre O'Kane, ChrisO'Dowd and Stephen Mangan head the cast of the £1.8m feature which is financedby the UK Film Council ...
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News
Edinburgh announces festival programme
Boasting six world premieres and 40 UK premieres, theEdinburgh International Film Festival has launched a 2004 programme aiming todefend its position as the premiere UK Festival for British cinema.Facingcompetition from a revitalised London Film Festival and the recent Londonscreenings, Edinburgh will host premieres of Shane Meadows gritty ganglandthriller Dead Man's ...
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Reviews
Hotel
Dir/scr: Jessica Hausner.Austria. 2004. 82minsHotel is the kind of shaggy dog story that might have madean effective short but feels too insubstantial and enigmatic to measure up as afull-length film. The second feature from LovelyRita writer-director Jessica Hausner is only a partially successful attemptto inject some fresh ideas into the ...
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Reviews
Taegukgi (Taegukgi Hwinalrimyeo)
Dir: Kang Je-gyu. Korea.2004. 148 minsIs Kang Je-Gyu becoming theMichael Bay of Korean cinema' The director made a persuasive claim to the titlewith the slick conspiracy thriller Shiri (Swiri) which grabbedthe Korean box-office crown in 1999. Now, he moves into Pearl Harborterritory with Taegukgi, a sweeping wartime epic that combines ...
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Reviews
Los Muertos
Dir/prod/scr/ed:Lisandro Alonso. Argentina. 2004. 78minsBewareof promising beginnings bearing false hopes. That would seem to be the lessonto be drawn from Los Muertos, the second feature from Argentiniandirector Lisandro Alonso. Alonso's debut feature was the memorably stultifying LaLibertad (2001), which lovingly covered the working life of a ruralwoodcutter. Los Muertos signals ...
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News
Edinburgh faces up to studio boycott threats
Edinburgh Film Festival managingdirector Ginnie Atkinson reacted swiftly to weekend press reports thatthis year's event might be damaged by a boycott from three major Hollywoodstudios.Articles suggested thatDisney, Universal and 20th Century Fox would boycott the event in protest atthe city's poor record on combating piracy.An Edinburgh market atIngliston is notorious ...
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Reviews
Los Muertos
Dir/prod/scr/ed:Lisandro Alonso. Argentina. 2004. 78minsBewareof promising beginnings bearing false hopes. That would seem to be the lessonto be drawn from Los Muertos, the second feature from Argentiniandirector Lisandro Alonso. Alonso's debut feature was the memorably stultifying LaLibertad (2001), which lovingly covered the working life of a ruralwoodcutter. Los Muertos signals ...
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Reviews
The Hook (Je Suis Un Assassin)
Dir: ThomasVincent. France. 2004. 110minsThe moralconsequences of murder provide the basis for a solid psychological thriller in TheHook. Director-writer Thomas Vincent created a few waves with his grittycharacter piece Karnaval (1999) and this follow-up marks a move towardsmore mainstream fare.Adapted from aDonald Westlake novel, it is intriguingly set up and ...
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Reviews
A Common Thread (Brodeuses)
Dir: Eleonore Faucher. Fr.2004. 88minsAssured and tenderly felt, ACommon Thread (Brodeuses) announces a promising new talent inwriter-director Eleonore Faucher. The story of a rural teenager coming to termswith her pregnancy and her future has some affinities with Agnes Varda's Vagabondeand the Dardennes brothers Rosetta. ACommon Thread doesn't share their gritty ...
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Reviews
Somersault
Dir/scr: Cate Shortland.Australia. 2004. 106 minsA haunting little story ofsex, guilt, love and all the confusion in between, Somersault marks aquietly impressive feature debut from writer-director Cate Shortland after astring of award-winning shorts. The interaction between a number of complex,interestingly developed characters is set against the unusual beauty of remoterural ...
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Reviews
Nobody Knows (Daremo Shiranai)
Dir/scr: Kore-edaHirokazu. Japan. 2004. 141mins.A nightmare scenario ofparental neglect is rendered as a plaintive neo-realist ode to childhood inthis long-gestating project from writer-director Kore-eda Hirokazu. Inspired bya true event from the late 1980s, NobodyKnows offers a closely-observed portrait of four youngsters seeking tomaintain some semblance of normality after their mother ...
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Reviews
Aftermath (Lad De Sma Born)
Dir: Paprika Steen.Denmark. 2004. 100 minsAn award-winning presence in a string of Dogme films (Festen, Mifune,Open Hearts etc), actress Paprika Steen takes a very different stylisticapproach in her assured directorial debut. Aftermath is a polished, mournfulexamination of grief distinguished by its careful compositions, deeply feltperformances and rigid avoidance of sentimentality.Its ...
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Reviews
Exiles (Exils)
Dir/scr: Tony Gatlif.France. 2004. 103minsDirector Tony Gatlif'syearning to return to the land of his childhood is the guiding motivationbehind Exiles, a polished road movie journey of self-discovery thattakes place between France and Algeria. Unfortunately, it is the local colour,vibrant locations and use of music that linger in the memory rather ...
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Reviews
The Life And Death Of Peter Sellers
Dir: Stephen Hopkins. US. 2004. 129 minsA tour de forceperformance from Geoffrey Rush is the star attraction and saving grace of The Life And Death Of Peter Sellers, aflashy, highly selective biography of the late comedian. Sellers signaturecharacter was the defective detective Inspector Clouseau but Chance in Being There appears ...
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Reviews
2046
Dir/scr: Wong kar-wai. HongKong. 2004. 128 minsThe title may suggest aspace age drama but Wong Kar-Wai's long-awaited 2046 proves to be anelaborate, languorous continuation of In The Mood For Love that revisitsthe Tony Leung character as he once again struggles with the impermanence andimpossibility of true love. The restraint and ...
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News
Motorcycle revs up embattled Cannes
Last month, festival programmer Thierry Fremaux promised thatCannes 2004 would be a festival of Confirmations and Discoveries. TheFestival's reputation depended on it after widespread criticisms of the eventin 2003. It has been touch and go at times but the competition titles have justabout delivered on his promise.Walter Salles' stirringly compassionate ...
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Reviews
Look At Me (Comme Une Image)
Dir/scr:Agnes Jaoui. France. 2004. 110minsFiveyears after her hugely successful directorial debut Le Gout Des Autres,Agnes Jaoui rewards her impatient admirers with Look At Me (Comme UneImage), a wise and witty ensemble exploration of individuals attempting toovercome their own insecurities and the wounding tyranny of other people'sexpectations. Reminiscentof vintage Woody Allen, ...
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Reviews
The Assassination Of Richard Nixon
Dir:Niels Mueller. US. 2004. 103minsLastyear at Cannes, Mystic River marked out Sean Penn as an early best actorOscar contender. This year, The Assassination Of Richard Nixon doesexactly the same. Currently in the prime of his career, Penn adds to his recentrun of outstanding work with a performance that captures every ...