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Latest reviews – Page 358
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Reviews
Vantage Point
Dir: Pete Travis. US. 2008. 90 mins.Although it's a thriller based around a familiar, Rashomon-style concept, Vantage Point ratchets up its intensity so effectively that the film's lack of originality hardly matters. The assassination of the US president is told through the perspective of different eyewitnesses, with each variation offering ...
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Reviews
Drifting Flowers (Piao Lang Qing Chun)
Dir: Zero Chou. Taiwan, 2007. 97 mins.Following on from last year's Spider Lilies and seemingly catering for the same market - gay festivals and specialised distribution - Zero Chou's episodic drama about unrequited love through childhood, adolescence and old age is another step in her 'Rainbow Colours' project about finding ...
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Reviews
Motherland (La Terramadre)
Dir: Nello La Marca. Italy. 2008. 120mins.Italian director Nello La Marca's first narrative feature Motherland (La terramadre) is a neorealist drama about economic disenfranchisement that explores the intertwined fates of two radically different people trying to survive in the dirt-poor southern Sicilian city of Palma di Montechiaro .La Marca has ...
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Reviews
Before The Fall (3 Dias)
Dir: Francisco Javier Gutierrez. Spain 2008. 93 mins.The buzz surrounding this Spanish sci-fi thriller at Berlin was fuelled by both the co-production involvement of Antonio Banderas and the news that Euro genre giant Filmax had picked up international rights. It's difficult to see what all the fuss is about: for ...
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Reviews
Everything is Fine (Tout est parfait)
Dir: Yves Christian Fournier. Canada. 2008. 118mins.Quebec director Yves Christian Fournier's first feature, Everything is Fine, is a sombre, frequently moving portrait limning the emotional and social aftermath of a tragedy. Fournier's reach sometimes exceeds his grasp, but his complicated and nuanced study of sorrow and loss is sharpened by ...
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Reviews
Jerusalema
Dir/scr: Ralph Ziman. South Africa. 2008. 118mins.The third feature of Ralph Ziman, the new South African action movie Jerusalema is reportedly drawn from actual events. More accurately it is inspired from the watching of a lot of movies, combining and cannily poaching parts of the original Scarface, Superfly, GoodFellas, New ...
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Reviews
Heart Of Fire (Feuerherz)
Dir: Luigi Falorni. Germany/Austria. 2008. 94 mins.Inspired by the memoir of the same name by Senait G Mehari, Luigi Falorni's Heart Of Fire is valuable as a document illustrating the absurdity of using child soldiers in any conflict as well as a glimpse into the specific struggle for liberation in ...
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ReviewsI've Loved You So Long... (Il Ya Longtemps Que Je T'aime...)
Dir: Philippe Claudel. France/Germany. 2008. 110 mins.
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Reviews
Restless
Dir: Amos Kollek. Israel/ Canada/ Germany/ France/ Belgium, 2007. 100 mins.Back home in Israel after many years of self-imposed exile in Manhattan, Amos Kollek presents Restless as his most personal film to date. With a reputation as an American independent specializing in portraits of anti-social dropouts, he has apparently decided ...
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Reviews
Another Love Story (Mare, Nossa Historia de Amor)
Dir: Lucia Murat. Brazil/France/Uruguay. 2008. 105 mins.'It's the West Side Story of the Brazilian favelas'. Indeed - but for all the energy, goodwill and rhythmic drive of this colourful teen musical, what sounds great on the poster is less convincing on the screen. Though some of the dance sequences are ...
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Reviews
Beautiful
Dir: Juhn Jaihong Korea, 2007. 88minsBeautiful, whose original title in Korean is the mellifluous 'Arumbdabda', is often confused and sometimes, especially near the end, even downright silly, but it's never wholly without interest. Its first-time 30-year-old director, Juhn Jaihong, is a protege of Kim Ki-duk, the prodigiously productive and internationally-known ...
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Reviews
Wild Combination: A Portrait of Arthur Russell
Dir: Matt Wolf. US. 2008. 70mins.A long-neglected cult musician gets his well-deserved moment in the limelight in Wild Combination: A Portrait of Arthur Russell, a moving, celebratory documentary that will turn many viewers on to its subject's strange, compelling sounds. Expect neither myth-making nor music-biz scandal from this level-headed, informative ...
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Reviews
Step Up 2 The Streets
Dir: Jon Chu. US. 2008. 98minsA fresh slate of young performers, combined with energetically staged and photographed sequences that convey the cathartic joy of dance, easily outweigh some of the more predictable rhythms of formulaic storytelling in Step Up 2 the Streets, a fun, flirty and engaging teen drama and ...
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Reviews
Our Mother (Kabei)
Dir: Yoji Yamada. Japan 2007. 132 minsIn Kabei - Our Mother, Yamada's 80th film to date, the veteran Japanese director offers a sweet, gentle, weepy recollection of Japan on the eve of the Second World War (1940-41), based on the autobiographical story by Teruyo Nogami.An out-and-out melodrama, the picture tells ...
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Reviews
Filth and Wisdom
Dir: Madonna. UK. 2008. 81 minsContrary to billing, there's not much filth and precious little wisdom in Madonna's directing debut. Even so, you have to applaud her for daring to get behind a camera, given that her career in front of it has been strewn with clunkers. While Filth And ...
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Reviews
Jumper
Dir: Doug Liman. US. 2008. 88mins.A cool, high concept science-fiction premise is executed with breezy, facile insouciance in Jumper. Director Doug Liman's first feature project since Mr And Mrs Smith (2005), is a globe-trotting, action packed thriller where the spectacle and special-effects easily overwhelm the broad brushstrokes storytelling.Comparisons with The ...
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Reviews
What No One Knows (Det Som Ingen Wed)
Dir. Soren Kragh-Jacobsen. Denmark/Sweden, 2008. 95minsNow 61, Danish director Soren Kragh-Jacobsen has only made a handful of films in the last thirty years, and while they have done well in Denmark , they haven't left much of a mark elsewhere. The well-known exception was Mifune (1999) which enjoyed the distinction ...