All articles by Allan Hunter – Page 68
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Reviews
City Of Ghosts
Dir: Matt Dillon. US. 2002. 116 minsA redundant throwback to the foreign climes, B-move thriller cliches of the 1950s, City Of Ghosts marks a competent but entirely conventional directorial debut from actor Matt Dillon. Fifty years ago, this might have served as a Robert Mitchum second feature with a sultry ...
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News
Scotland loses a studio but gains a film fund
After years of feasibility studies and grand designs, Scottish Enterprise has concluded that there is insufficient demand within the Scottish film industry to justify the construction of a large-scale film studio. Instead, the organisation intends to commit $1.6m (£1m) of public funding to a more modest $4.7m (£3m) studio ...
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Reviews
Pure
Dir: Gillies MacKinnon. UK. 2002. 96 minsAn exceptional performance from child actor Harry Eden provides the heart and soul of Pure, an unflinching portrait of the unbreakable bond between a drug-addicted mother and her loving son. Returning to territory familiar from his work on award-winning television projects like Needle and ...
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Reviews
AUTO FOCUS
Screened at Toronto (Special Presentation)Dir: Paul Schrader. US. 2002. 104minsDirector Paul Schrader mixes a potentially lethal cocktail of sex, celebrity and scandal in Auto Focus, a solid, absorbing but far from completely compelling biography of troubled 1960s TV star Bob Crane. Greg Kinnear does a fine job of capturing the ...
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Reviews
Antwone Fisher
Dir: Denzel Washington. US. 2002. 117minsAn assured directorial debut from double Oscar-winner Denzel Washington, Antwone Fisher is an inspirational true story of one man's struggle to overcome the legacy of an abused childhood. It may sound like the subject matter of countless TV-movies dramas but, handled with discretion and sensitivity, ...
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Reviews
Phone Booth
Director: Joel Schumacher. US. 2002. 80minsA slick, Twilight Zone-style premise is stretched to the limit of narrative credibility in Phone Booth, a trim, trashy little thriller that reunites the Tigerland team of director Joel Schumacher and star Colin Farrell. A compelling central performance and energetic direction serve to distract from ...
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Reviews
11' 09' 01
Directors: various. France. 2002. 135minsTrailing controversy and accusations of a vicious anti-American sensibility, portemanteau production 11'09''01 proves to be a much more measured, wide-ranging and humanist response to the events of September 11, 2001. Commissioned to make a short film, eleven directors of international standing have created a collection ...
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Reviews
In America (Working Title)
Director: Jim Sheridan. Ire-UK. 2002. 103 minsA heart-warming portrait of an Irish family's life and death struggles, In America marks another uplifting human drama from writer-director Jim Sheridan. Beautifully acted by the entire cast, its sure-footed mixture of laughter and tears is on the sentimental side but should win over ...
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News
Toronto: A Festival Of Quiet Americans
Last year at Toronto, the events of September 11 pushed everything else into numbed insignificance. This year, the Festival offered a comforting sense of business as usual - Miramax and Lion's Gate cherrypicked the top titles, celebrity-spotting recaptured the front pages and the old, familiar debate resumed over whether the ...
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News
Toronto Comment - The British Are Screening!
It is just 20 years since screenwriter Colin Welland held an Oscar aloft and famously declared: "The British are coming!" Chariots of Fire was the Oscar Cinderella story that year, Gandhi was waiting in the wings and filmmakers as diverse as Bill Forsyth and Peter Greenaway were about to leave ...
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Reviews
The Four Feathers
Director: Shekhar Kapur. US-UK. 2002 125minsThe question of whether the world really needs another version of The Four Feathers is convincingly answered by Shekhar Kapur's stirring approach to the venerable tale of Empire and honour. Boasting a strong cast of rising young stars and handsomely captured locations, the classic adventure ...
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Reviews
The Four Feathers
Director: Shekhar Kapur. US-UK. 2002 125minsThe question of whether the world really needs another version of The Four Feathers is convincingly answered by Shekhar Kapur's stirring approach to the venerable tale of Empire and honour. Boasting a strong cast of rising young stars and handsomely captured locations, the classic adventure ...
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Reviews
The Quiet American
Director: Phillip Noyce. US-UK. 2002. 101minsThe fatal global consequences of blundering American naivety are brought into sharp focus by Phillip Noyce's elegantly understated adaptation of the Graham Greene novel. First published in 1955, Greene's spare, prophetic fiction told of America's misguided adventures in the politics of Indo-China through a love ...
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Reviews
The Quiet American
Director: Phillip Noyce. US-UK. 2002. 101minsThe fatal global consequences of blundering American naivety are brought into sharp focus by Phillip Noyce's elegantly understated adaptation of the Graham Greene novel. First published in 1955, Greene's spare, prophetic fiction told of America's misguided adventures in the politics of Indo-China through a love ...
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Reviews
The Good Thief
Director: Neil Jordan. UK-Fr-Ire. 2002. 108minsA loose-limbed, shaggy dog reworking of 1955 French crime classic Bob Le Flambeur, The Good Thief (previously known as Double Down) is writer-director Neil Jordan's most enjoyable and commercial feature for several years. Subverting the conventions of the heist caper with sly humour and a ...
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Reviews
The Good Thief
Director: Neil Jordan. UK-Fr-Ire. 2002. 108minsA loose-limbed, shaggy dog reworking of 1955 French crime classic Bob Le Flambeur, The Good Thief (previously known as Double Down) is writer-director Neil Jordan's most enjoyable and commercial feature for several years. Subverting the conventions of the heist caper with sly humour and a ...
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Reviews
The Magdalene Sisters
Dir: Peter Mullan. UK-Ireland. 2002. 118minsShocking true events are transformed into a powerful and moving human drama in The Magdalene Sisters. The second feature from writer-director Peter Mullan, the film is an angry cry from the heart rendered all the more effective by its restraint and burning sense of injustice ...
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News
Scottish Screen appoints new Chair
Ray McFarlane has been appointed as the new Chair of Scottish Screen.Currently senior director of business banking at the Bank Of Scotland, she replaces James Lee whose four year term of office ended in May. McFarlane has been a member of the Scottish Screen Board since its inception in 1997 ...
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Reviews
The Last Great Wilderness
Dir: David Mackenzie. UK. 2002. 90minsAn idiosyncratic combination of stalled road movie and psychological drama, The Last Great Wilderness marks a promising feature debut from director David Mackenzie. The dry, dark wit and unpredictable nature of the narrative reveal it to have more in common with the sensibility of early ...
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News
UK documentary scheme emerges from Edinburgh
A proposed pilot scheme to boost UK theatrical audiences for documentaries was unveiled at Edinburgh during the closing weekend of the Film Festival.Inspired by the Docuzone initiative in the Nederlands and growing figures for the Sheffield Touring Festival, the scheme, titled Docuspace, is ultimately intended to devise a dedicated exhibition ...