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Latest reviews – Page 340
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ReviewsTelstar (2007)
Dir. Nick Moran. UK, 2008. 114 mins.There’s a lot in the Telstar credits to attract the viewer - or at least the UK viewer. Nick Moran’s directorial debut (an adaptation of his stage play with Hicks); Kevin Spacey in a small but substantial role; its setting ...
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Reviews
The Other End of The Line
Dir James Dodson. US. 2008. 106 mins Indian-American joint venture The Other End Of The Line demonstrates the pitfalls of creative globalisation even as it makes globalisation a backdrop for its frothy romantic comedy. Produced by Ashok Amritraj's Hyde Park and Bollywood giant Adlabs, this piece of cross-cultural cuteness will ...
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Reviews
Role Models
Dir: David Wain. US. 2008. 99 mins.A superbly-cast comedy, Role Models manages to locate and till fresh ground in the ascendant guys-behaving-badly sub-genre of American studio comedies. Both Paul Rudd (Anchorman, The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Knocked Up) and Seann William Scott (the American Pie films) are best known as ensemble comedic ...
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Reviews
The Human Contract
Dir/Scr: Jada Pinkett Smith. US. 2008. 106minsA seriously-intended dramatic study of erotic obsession, jealousy and violence, Jada Pinkett Smith's debut feature The Human Contract is a messy and frequently furious entwining of the sacred and the profane. Despite some entertaining stretches and compensatory observations about contemporary Los Angeles, the work ...
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Reviews
Franklyn
Dir/scr. Gerald McMorrow. UK 2007. 95 minsIt's unusual in the current film-making climate to see an independent director making such an ambitious debut as Gerald McMorrow's Franklyn. He aims high, visually and conceptually, but a more experienced director would have trouble finding the right tone to pull this intricate plot ...
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ReviewsBronson
Dir. Nicolas Winding Refn. UK, 2008. 92 mins.With Bronson, Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn (the Pusher trilogy) takes his first director-for-hire job and makes an indelible stamp on it. Bronson is about the UK’s most violent prisoner, Charles Bronson, born Michael Peterson, but it’s in no way a biography. This ...
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Reviews
Troubled Water
Dir: Erik Poppe. Norway-Sweden. 2008. 90 mins.A sensitive, slow-build script, original directorial vision and bravura performances turn what might have been just another high-concept melodrama centring on the death of a child into a highly-charged ride that is both gritty and poetic. Eric Poppe's third film is by no means ...
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Reviews
When A Man Comes Home (En Mand Kommer Hjem)
Dir. Thomas Vinterberg. Denmark-Sweden. 2007. 96mins.Thomas Vinterberg's artsy, bittersweet comedy, repped by Celluloid Dreams, is only now making its international bow after a disappointing Danish run a year ago. With Teodora Film set to open Italy in December, this funny Festen bowed to a warm audience at the Rome Film ...
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Reviews
The Past Is A Foreign Land (Il passato è una terra straniera)
Dir: Daniele Vicari. Italy. 2008. 120 mins.Italian director Daniele Vicari's latest outing is uneven but compellingly-dark. Shot, scored and directed with terrific command of atmosphere, this study of the relationship between a conflicted law student from a good family and the dangerous but attractive working class card-sharp he takes up ...
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Reviews
Opium War
Dir/scr Siddiq Barmak. Afghanistan-Japan-Korea-France. 2008. 92 mins.There could be a good film hiding somewhere behind Afghan director Siddiq Barmak's tragicomic parable about his country's two main industries - war and opium. But it's not up there on the screen. This Best Foreign Film Oscar candidate is a misguided, amateurish attempt ...
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Reviews
The Man Who Loves (Uomo che ama, L')
Dir: Maria Sole Tognazzi. Italy. 2008. 97 mins.Maria Sole Tognazzi's second feature, which opened this year's Rome Film Festival, has the merit of offering a rarely-seen woman's take on a man's experience of love. But behind the smokescreen of its play with the audience's gender expectations and its tricksy (but ...
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Reviews
Passengers
Dir: Rodrigo Garcia. US. 2008. 93 mins.A handful of eerily-staged scenes and a surfeit of passably evocative production design can't save the otherwise muddled Passengers, in which Anne Hathaway stars as a grief counsellor assigned to help survivors of a fiery plane clash. In trying to tick a wide variety ...
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Reviews
Saw V
Dir: David Hackl. US. 2008. 92 mins.Halloween staple Saw's serial killer Jigsaw died two episodes ago, so Saw V is forced to move supporting characters to centre stage and supply new twists to events that occurred in previous films, making it mostly of interest to franchise fans. In some ways, ...
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Reviews
Rio International Film Festival
Should Nothing Else Work Out (Se Nada Mais Der Certo)Brazil. 2008. 120 mins. Director: Jose Eduardo Belmonte. Production company: Film Noise. International sales: Film Noise (+ 55 11 2589-2098). Screenplay: Jose Eduardo Belmonte, Luis Carlos Pacca. Main cast: Caua Reymond, Caroline Abras, Joao Miguel, Luiza MarianeCuriously pertinent in light of ...
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Reviews
High School Musical 3: Senior Year
Dir: Kenny Ortega. US. 2008. 109 mins.Testing the maxim that happiness can't be contrived, High School Musical 3: Senior Year sets off a joy bomb, and attempts to charm tween audiences through an explosion of primary colours, bright production design and sheer, indefatigable force of will. The first film in ...
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Reviews
Max Payne
Dir: John Moore. US. 2008. 100 mins.As shiny and hollow as its used shell cases, Max Payne doesn't have much to offer beyond a recycled noir attitude and a progressively violent story that plays out rather predictably. Based on the popular video game of the same name, this action-thriller starring ...
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