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Latest reviews – Page 346
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ReviewsIl Seme Della Discordia
Dir: Pappi Corsicato. Italy. 2008. 84mins.Neapolitan director Pappi Corsicato conjures up the spirit but little of the dramatic and thematic depth of his acknowledged master Pedro Almodovar in this bright but lightweight comedy-melodrama. But though its afterglow is short-lived, Corsicato’s amusing little film still came as ...
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ReviewsRockNRolla
Dir/scr: Guy Ritchie. UK. 2008. 114mins.RocknRolla returns Guy Ritche precisely to the world that made his name; the low-level underworld of Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels (1999) and Snatch (2000) which were in turn the inspiration for a UK geezer subgenre (Sexy Beast, Layer Cake, ...
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ReviewsPasschendaele
Dir: Paul Gross. Canada. 2008. 114minsAnyone confronting the horrors of trench warfare in the First World War has to acknowledge the long shadows cast by seminal classics All Quiet On The Western Front and Paths Of Glory. Paul Gross’s ambitious Passchendaele doesn’t try to compete. Instead, ...
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ReviewsInland (Gabbla)
Dir: Tariq Teguia. Algeria-France. 2008. 145mins.For anyone with the strength to sit through the whole 145 minutes of this sadistically-paced cinematic reflection on the state of contemporary Algeria, there are a few small compensations: some moments of visual poetry, particularly in the final desert scenes, and ...
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ReviewsThe Sky Crawlers
Dir: Mamoru Oshii. Japan. 2008. 122mins.Mamoru Oshii’s most meditative feature-length animation to date tells the story of a group of genetically modified eternally-young fighter aces in a world where war has become a company-sponsored reality game. Like the Peter-Pan ‘Kildren’ that it depicts, The Sky Crawlers ...
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Reviews
Bangkok Dangerous
Dir: Danny Pang and Oxide Pang. US-Thailand. 2008. 100mins.The remake by Danny and Oxide Pang of their own imaginative 1999 directorial debut sacrifices the grit and inventiveness of the original in favour of a Hollywood-style loner-assassin drama with a Hollywood star in an exotic location. This version of Bangkok Dangerous ...
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Reviews
Intrusions
Dir: Emmanuel Bourdieu. 2008. Fr. 96mins.A moody psychological thriller deftly spun around blackmail and humiliation, Intrusions is taut and slyly entertaining for almost its entire running time. Co-screenwriter/director Emmanuel Bourdieu's follow-up to his delectable Poison Friends skewers the petty annoyances of maintaining appearances among the rich and powerful while exploring ...
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ReviewsA Country Teacher
Dir: Bohdan Slama. Czech-Ger-Fr. 2008. 113mins.A bittersweet comedy about a gay teacher hiding out in a country school, Bohdan Slama’s follow-up to his award-winning Something Like Happiness feels slightly old-fashioned, going over ground that has already been dealt with in other films. The kind of gay ...
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ReviewsTeza
Dir-scr: Haile Gerima. Ethiopia-Germany-France. 2008. 140mins.Haile Gerima ambitiously attempts to put his native country’s tragic recent history into context in the sprawling Teza, which follows an Ethiopian intellectual through exile in Germany and return to his home village during the turbulent early years of the Marxist ...
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ReviewsMilk (Sut)
Dir: Semih Kaplanoglu. Turkey-France-Germany. 2008. 111mins.Painfully slow but at the same time a resonant, elegiac coming of age story, the second installment in Turkish arthouse director Semih Kaplanoglu’s Yusuf trilogy shows him to be something of a magic-realist Terence Davies. But with its overlong shots in ...
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ReviewsVegas: Based On A True Story
Dir: Amir Naderi. US. 2008. 102mins.Vegas: Based on a True Story feels like Vegas: A Shooting Experiment. Iranian director Amir Naderi - living in the US for the last 20 years - has wrapped an interesting story in a drab,DV format, framed mostly in long and ...
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ReviewsGoodbye Solo
Dir: Ramin Bahrani. US. 2008. 91mins.An odd-couple relationship fuels a slow-burning but ultimately moving emotional and spiritual journey in Ramin Bahrani’s third feature. As in the well-received festival faves Man Push Cart and Chop Shop, the US director of Iranian origins unspools a story set among ...