![Benjamin Kramer Headshot Photo Credit_CAA[40][40]](https://d1nslcd7m2225b.cloudfront.net/Pictures/274x183/6/6/4/1455664_benjaminkramerheadshotphotocredit_caa4040_107707.jpeg)
Latest reviews – Page 382
-
Reviews
The Invisible
Dir: David Goyer. US. 2007. 102mins. Caught in a state of bodily limbo, a teenager must try to unravel his own death in The Invisible, an evocatively gloomy, elliptical drama of redemption that captures the palpable disconnection of youth. Much more a character-rooted, sustained mood piece than a commercially geared ...
-
Reviews
Nobel Son
Dir: Randall Miller. US. 2007. 107mins.A twist on the father-son conflict, and on the hostage drama, Nobel Son brings gore and some surprising humour to the dysfunctional family potboiler as it skewers academic propriety. The gag-filled comedy, which flaunts its quirkiness and improbable situations, could draw on the audience for ...
-
Reviews
Wind Chill
Dir: Gregory Jacobs. US. 2007. 91mins. It isn't hard to see why Wind Chill is getting left out in the cold in the US theatrical market. As messy and confusing as it often is, however, this misfit horror thriller - produced, originally for Revolution Studios, by the UK's Blueprint Pictures ...
-
Reviews
Taxi To The Dark Side
Dir. Alex Gibney. US. 108mins.Taxi To The Dark Side is a troubling look into torture practiced by the US military, beginning with the beating and murder in December 2003 of an Afghan taxi driver in the wrong place at the wrong time, and ending with a probe into how torture ...
-
Reviews
Next
Dir: Lee Tamahori. US. 2007. 96mins.A promising Philip K Dick premise gets spun out to middling effect in Next, a sort-of-sci-fi thriller with Nicolas Cage playing the reluctant hero and Lee Tamahori directing. The Initial Entertainment/Revolution Studios production may get lost in the summer crowd theatrically, but Cage's star power ...
-
Reviews
Destiny (Kader)
Dir/scr: Zeki Demirkubuz. Turk. 2006. 104mins. International film festivals should have another look at Zeki Demirkubuz' latest offering Destiny, which has been on the circuit since last year. Flawed it may be, but it has enough merit to deserve a niche of its own, certainly compared to some of the ...
-
Reviews
Adam And The Devil (Adem'in Trenleri)
Dir. Baris Pirhasan. Turk, 2007. 103mins. Cute, corny, folksy, but also heart-warming and crowd pleasing, Baris Pirhasan's feature Adam And The Devil deserves to do well, not only as an entertaining festival vignette but also as a pleasant nostalgic breath of home for Turkish audiences abroad. The story of a ...
-
Reviews
The Condemned
Dir: Scott Wiper. US. 2007. 113mins.Criticising the dumbing-down of entertainment culture while shamelessly catering to the lowest-common denominator, The Condemned gets points for chutzpah but little else. The result, an action film about a hyper-violent reality contest, quickly devolves into a series of hand-to-hand combat scenes that become monotonous since ...
-
Reviews
Spider-Man 3
Dir: Sam Raimi. 2007.US. 140mins.The financial reasons for making Spider-Man 3 require no explanation; the artistic reasons are a little harder to discern. Taking some inspiration from Superman 3, director Sam Raimi has chosen to explore the dark side of his superhero. Burdening Peter Parker/Spider-Man with endless personal issues and ...
-
Reviews
My Brother Is An Only Child (Mio Fratello E' Figlio Unico)
Dir: Daniele Luchetti. It-Fr. 2007. 108mins. The signature of screenwriting duo Rulli and Petraglia has become a sort of appelation controllee quality mark for recent Italian cinema products. They've even invented a sub-genre of films, which we might define 'retro-modern': period studies that repackage the tribes and the traumas of ...
-
Reviews
In The Land Of Women
Dir/scr: Jonathan Kasdan. US. 2007. 99mins. A first feature about a romantically failed young writer whose ideas and attitudes about women are dramatically shaken by a beautiful older woman and her daughter, Jonathan Kasdan's In the Land Of Women shows promise and ambition, abetted by strong acting and colourful writing. ...
-
Reviews
Vacancy
Dir: Nimrod Antal. US. 2007. 97mins. Hungary's Nimrod Antal, who made an international impression with his stylish Kontroll in 2003, makes a satisfying Hollywood debut with this tight, intense genre thriller that should be a tidy earner for Sony Pictures. The pitch - a couple finds themselves imprisoned in a ...
-
Reviews
Perfect Stranger
Dir: James Foley. 2007. US. 109minsPerfect Stranger is perfect trash, crafted with all the costly polish and production values that Hollywood can muster. A throwback to lurid sex thrillers from the 1990s like Disclosure, Jade and Colour Of Night, it is the ultimate guilty pleasure, compulsively watchable, even when the ...
-
Reviews
Fracture
Dir: Gregory Hoblit. US. 2007. 113mins. Dramatic thriller Fracture has a taut script and an attractive look, but what really elevates it above the genre norm are tasty performances from Anthony Hopkins and Ryan Gosling as, respectively, a clever murderer and the cocky young attorney assigned to put him behind ...
-
Reviews
Disturbia
Dir: DJ Caruso. US. 2007. 105mins. A smart teen thriller that ably mixes suspense and adolescent melodrama, Disturbia boasts an articulate script and nuanced performances. Though Rear Window's voyeuristic premise provides the inspiration, this Paramount/DreamWorks release adds hints of Kubrick-ian chills and nicely understated insights into the tumultuous lives of ...
-
Reviews
Provoked: A True Story
Dir: Jag Muhndra. India-UK. 112mins. Provoked is based on the true story of Kiranjit Ahluwalia, a Punjabi woman living in London who, in 1989, killed her abusive husband and was imprisoned for murder. Her battle for freedom eventually ended in the British legal definition of 'provocation' being re-defined in the ...
-
Reviews
Sunshine
Dir: Danny Boyle. UK-US. 2007. 107mins. The sun is dying. Eight astronauts, 55 millions miles from Earth, are on a mission to re-ignite it and thereby save humanity. Thus begins Danny Boyle's highly impressive sci-fi thriller Sunshine, a work that combines eye-popping visuals with an eco-conscious screenplay and several striking ...
-
Reviews
One Hundred Nails (Centochiodi)
Dir/scr: Ermanno Olmi. It. 2007. 92mins. Veteran Italian filmmaker Ermanno Olmi is a devout Catholic, and his work has long had a spiritual agenda. But even in such obvious parables as The Legend Of The Holy Drinker (which won a Golden Lion in Venice in 1988), the message is generally ...
-
Reviews
Meet The Robinsons
Dir: Stephen Anderson. US. 2007. 94mins. Walt Disney Feature Animation's second computer-animated outing is a hyperactive mix of retro sci-fi, physical comedy and family drama. As zippy and colourful as it is, though, Meet The Robinsons is not as entertaining or endearing as the division's CG feature debut Chicken Little. ...
-
Reviews
Grindhouse
Dirs: Robert Rodriguez/Quentin Tarantino. US. 2007. 192mins. Intended as an enthusiastically grimy, collagist tribute piece to low-budget, ultra-violent and offbeat exploitation flicks of yore, Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino's Grindhouse delivers an uneven mixture of patchwork, sugar-rush thrills.Consisting of two discrete features strung together by a series of fake trailers ...