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Latest reviews – Page 345
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ReviewsMiracle at St. Anna
Dir. Spike Lee; US/Italy. 2008. 166 mins.After enjoying the biggest commercial success of his career with the tightly disciplined genre film Inside Man, Spike Lee returns to his freewheeling ways in Miracle At St Anna, an Italy-set World War II story which plays like a jazz ...
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Reviews
Everlasting Moments (Maria Larssons eviga ögonblick)
Dir:Jan Troell. Denmark/Sweden, 2008. 130 mins.Discreet, old fashioned, traditional and altogether admirable, this is Jan Troell in what he does best, a period drama about a woman photographer living in Sweden at the turn of the last century. Paying minute attention to the smallest details, taking its time but never ...
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ReviewsGenova
Dir. Michael Winterbottom. UK. 2008. 94minsA family’s struggles with loss, grief and guilt form the basis of a frustratingly insubstantial drama inGenova.Michael Winterbottom’s latest effort is commendable for its refusal to indulge in easy sentimentality but the pricefor that is an elusive, low-key tale that keeps ...
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ReviewsHeaven On Earth
Dir. Deepa Mehta.Canada 2008. 106 min.The yearnings and travails of an Indian emigre bride, a subject recently given a pictorial, naturalistic treatment inBrick Lane, gets a grittier, more mystical workout in Deepa Mehta’s slow-burning and quietly potentHeaven on Earth.The seventh feature of the Toronto-based director opened ...
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ReviewsNick and Norah's Infinite Playlist
Dir. Peter Sollett. US. 2008. 89mins.The highly anticipated second feature of the New York-based independent Peter Sollett (Raising Victor Vargas) valiantly attempts to both enliven and subvert the tendencies and predictability of the teenage romantic comedy - although the whole never quite registers as forcefully as ...
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Reviews
Dir. Mark AbrahamUS. 2007. 119 mins.Marc Abraham's debut feature about an inventor battling the Ford Motor Company, which steals and markets Robert Kearns's window-wiper invention, puts new mileage on the David-Goliath model. Sentimental but remarkably compelling, the saga of a little man's victory over a corporate giant will ensure that ...
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ReviewsRain (Lluvia)
Dir: Maria Govan. The Bahamas. 2008. 93 mins.One of the first indigenously produced films to come out of the Bahamas, Maria Govan’s Rain shows a different side to Nassau where, in the shadows of luxury resorts and ocean liners, lives a subset of islanders battling the ...
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ReviewsDean Spanley (2008)
Dir. Toa Fraser. New Zealand/UK. 2008. 99mins.New Zealand director Toa Fraser’s Dean Spanley overcomes an uncertain and sketchy opening section to register as a moving and visually wondrous evocation of magic and imagination. The movie’s tonal shifts are fairly abrupt and the first third is frustratingly ...
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ReviewsGhost Town
Dir: David Koepp. USA. 2008. 103 mins.A minor studio comedy notable as the first Hollywood starring vehicle for UK comic Ricky Gervais, Ghost Town takes a formulaic story about a curmudgeon learning to love and spices it up with some Gervais-style sarcasm and smartass dialogue. Making ...
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ReviewsSauna
Dir: Antti-Jussi Annila. Finland. 2008. 83mins.Finnish director Antti-Jussi Annila (Jade Warrior) invokes slavishly two masters, Andrei Tarkovsky and Stanley Kubrick, with this intensely baroque and religion-inflected period horror movie. The severely grotesque atmosphere and mannered style suffocate the promising ideas and results in a dramatically incoherent ...
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ReviewsThe Secret Life Of Bees
Dir: Gina Prince-Bythewood. USA. 2008. 110 minsInspirational life lessons abound in The Secret Life Of Bees, a wholesome, heartwarming version of the Sue Monk Kidd bestseller. The mixture of personal heartache and social history is handled with tender loving care, but is so sentimental and sermonising ...
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Reviews
Queens Of Langkasuka (Puen-Yai-Jom-Sa-Lad)
Dir: Nonzee Nimibutr. Thailand. 2008. 133mins.A big-budget Thai period epic that mixes pirates, magic, martial arts action and a kneejerk eco-pacifist subtext, Queens Of Langkasuka is good to look at but clunky in pretty much every other department. Those in the mood for a chaste action-laced love story with dazzling ...