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Latest reviews – Page 365
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Reviews
Caramel
Dir: Nadine Labaki. Lebanon-France. 2007. 96mins. Nadine Labaki's debut feature is an assured and wonderfully engaging romantic comedy. At times, its storytelling is soft-centred and self-indulgent, but there is enough barbed humour and ironic observation here to counterbalance the more syrupy moments. Caramel's status as festival crowd pleaser was quickly ...
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Reviews
The Bucket List
Dir: Rob Reiner. US. 2007. 93 mins.It's never less than entertaining to watch Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman spar with each other even if the vehicle they have chosen to do it in is a soft-centred Hollywood life lesson about old fellas battling cancer. As directed by Rob Reiner, whose ...
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Reviews
Kill Them All (Matar a Todos)
Dir: Esteban Schroeder. Uruguay, Argentina, Chile. 2007. 97mins. In Kill Them All, Esteban Schroeder plumbs the unstable political landscape of fledgling democracies in the South America of the early '90s. His confident, dynamic investigation of the complicity of governments that succeeded the juntas in countries like his native Uruguay, Argentina, ...
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Reviews
I Am Legend
Dir: Francis Lawrence US. 2007. 100mins.Will Smith makes up what is essentially the one-man cast of I Am Legend, a darkly intense sci-fi/horror drama based on the classic Richard Matheson novella and directed, with the same kind of flair he brought to 2005's Constantine, by Francis Lawrence. Genre afficionados should ...
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Reviews
Vasermil
Dir: Mushon Salmona. Israel. 2007. 95minsClosely related to the socially-engaged films of Ken Loach and Shane Meadows, Mushon Salmona's debut compensates for his lack of experience with a healthy dose of anger and frustration. Set in the provincial town Beer Sheba where he grew up, Salmona situates his three interwoven ...
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Reviews
El Greco
Dir. Yannis Smaragdis. Greece / Spain / Hungary, 2007. 107minsHaving picked up the Greek cinema State Award on top of the Audience Award at Thessaloniki, this is undisputedly this year's favourite Greek film, racking over 600,000 admissions and still going strong. An historical pageant adapted from a fictional biography by ...
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Reviews
The Golden Compass
Dir: Chris Weitz US/UK 118minsA more well-tooled and expertly crafted beginning to a winter franchise is hard to imagine, yet it's this very gleaming perfection that may leave The Golden Compass open to accusations of soullessness and artifice. The perceived Americanisation of the greatest British children's publishing phenomenon since Harry ...
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Reviews
Charlie Wilson's War
Dir: Mike Nichols. US. 2007. 97 mins.In a year when big-name Hollywood talent has plunged headlong into films about war, terrorism and politics, Charlie Wilson's War is both refreshing and disappointing. Refreshing, because it tells its story with such brisk narrative skill and wit. Disappointing, because it assiduously avoids taking ...
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Reviews
Look
Dir: Adam Rifkin. US. 2007. 102 mins.Shot to give the impression its action was entirely captured by the surveillance cameras that are becoming ever present in modern life, Look is a cleverly made curio that's as entertainingly watchable as the soaps and tabloid TV shows it often resembles. Whether its ...
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Reviews
Hitman
Dir: Xavier Gens. US. 2007. 100mins.In the annals of renowned cinematic assassins, Jason Bourne needn't fear any challenge to his legacy from Agent 47, the bald-headed killing machine of Hitman. Though stylish shot and occasionally exciting in its frenetically-edited action sequences, this adaptation of the popular video game can only ...
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Reviews
There Will Be Blood
Dir: Paul Thomas Anderson US, 2007. 158minsThere Will Be Blood is a vivid, sprawling parable about greed and moral corrosion. Set in the majestic American Southwest circa 1900, Paul Thomas Anderson's film will ride to the box-office largely on Daniel Day Lewis's volcanic performance as Daniel Plainview, the monstrous rags-to-riches ...
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Reviews
Starting Out In The Evening
Dir: Andrew Wagner. US, 2007. 105minsA superb performance by Frank Langella anchors the exceedingly literate, engrossing Starting Out In The Evening, a richly drawn and for the most part artfully understated portrait of an aged novelist struggling with the flickering flame of creativity's muse. Mainstream breakout potential is highly unlikely ...
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Reviews
Mr Magorium's Wonder Emporium
Dir: Zach Helm. US. 2007. 94mins.Shunning the wised-up attitude and frenetic humour of so many other kids movies, Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium may occasionally strain too hard for magical whimsy, but there's no disputing the film's sweetness or poignancy. Anchored by a deft performance from Natalie Portman as a young ...
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Reviews
The Mist
Dir: Frank Darabont. US. 2007. 127mins. Frank Darabont and Dimension Films go back to the Stephen King well for The Mist, an enjoyably old school horror outing - with sci-fi undertones and some CG beasties - based on a vintage yarn by the mega-selling author. Though it probably won't match ...
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Reviews
Love In The Time Of Cholera
Dir: Mike Newell. US/Colombia. 2007. 138minsMike Newell delivers a respectable movie adaptation of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's beloved 1985 novel, which because of its structural and temporal challenges has often been dubbed unfilmable. Newell and screenwriter Ronald Harwood remain faithful in a very literal sense to the narrative of the novel, ...
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Reviews
P2
Dir: Franck Khalfoun. US. 2007. 98mins.Alexandre Aja and Gregory Levasseur, the French horror auteurs behind Haute Tension (aka Switchblade Romance), cut back on the gore and turn up the suspense for P2, a streamlined US thriller they wrote for Haute Tension-actor-turned-director Franck Khalfoun. The paucity of gory details and the ...