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Latest reviews – Page 388
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Reviews
Because I Said So
Dir: Michael Lehmann US. 2007. 100mins. Diane Keaton leads a multi-generational female ensemble in Because I Said So, a mostly frothy and predictable romantic comedy that occasionally gets serious on subjects including mother-daughter relationships and even female sexuality. The cast and viewpoint could be enough to pull in a fairly ...
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Reviews
The Signal (La Senal)
Dirs/Writers: David Bruckner, Jacob Gentry, Dan Bush. 99 minutes. U.S. 2006.A low-budget horror picture filmed in high-definition video to look ultra-realistic, The Signal has mind-numbingly brutal gore and violence that could catch on with extremist horror buffs because of its unusual structure and fast-moving nature. The picture appeared at Sundance ...
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Reviews
The Ten
Dir: David Wain. USDavid Wain's The Ten, a mildly heretical iteration of Mel Brooks or Monty Python style satire, strains very hard to find shock value though it is less renegade than nasty and somewhat repugnant. Aside from two standout contributions, this scattershot effort to illustrate, in a comic vernacular, ...
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Reviews
Chapter 27
Dir/Writer: Jarrett Schaefer. 100 minutes. US.Pointless and confusingly acted by a purposely hefty Jared Leto, this self-indulgent portrait of an insane Mark David Chapman in the three days before he assassinated John Lennon lacks insight or drama. Lindsay Lohan's supporting role as an excitable Lennon fan who befriends Chapman is ...
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Reviews
Joshua
Dir: George Ratliff. 105 minutes. U.S. A tense, stylish and satisfyingly adult psychological thriller about the bad side of having children, George Ratliff's Joshua benefits from fine writing and acting - especially by Vera Farmiga - but is marred by a final act that lacks a revelatory climax worthy of ...
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Reviews
Black Snake Moan
Craig Brewer: US: 2007Craig Brewer's third feature Black Snake Moan is about the redemption of sleaze, though it plays closer to a shotgun marriage of Baby Doll and Boxing Helena. Even more than Hustle & Flow, Brewer's new work is designed as a deliberate provocation that mixes like a Molotov ...
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Reviews
Teeth
Dir/Writer: Mitchell Lichtenstein. 87 minutes. USWriter/director Mitchell Lichtenstein's, Teeth could have been just another bloody gross-out horror comedy with a gimmick - a teen virgin discovers she has a toothed vagina. But the sexuality angle, as well as the luminous presence and naturalistic performance of Jess Weixler as that girl, ...
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Reviews
Under The Same Moon (La Misma Luna)
Dir: Patricia Riggen. US. 2007. 109 mins.Patricia Riggen's first feature film La Misma Luna (The Same Moon) is a road movie which starts off as one of those earnest movies which 'wears its heart on its sleeve' and ultimately, irretrievably, descends into cliche and sentimentality. Centred around a Mexican boy ...
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Reviews
Summer Rain (El Camino De Los Ingleses)
Dir: Antonio Banderas. Spain. 2007. 118 mins.A dreamlike and seductive second feature from Antonio Banderas, Summer Rain follows a group of young men and women in Malaga in the 1970s as they struggle to transition into adulthood. A nostalgic exercise of sorts for Banderas, himself born and raised in Malaga, ...
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Reviews
Crazy Love
Dir: Dan Klores, US, 2007, 91 minutes, color, SONY HD-cam. Love is blind, or so it turned out in the romance of ambulance-chasing lawyer Burton Pugach, who hired thugs to throw a caustic chemical into the face of his girlfriend Linda Riss when she refused to marry him ...
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Reviews
Interview
Dir: Steve Buscemi. US. 2007. 86 mins.Interview, Steve Buscemi's American adaptation of the 2003 Theo van Gogh film of the same name, offers a polished but tamer version of the original, coming at its subject without van Gogh's rough raunchy edges. Yet the performances, especially Sienna Miller's, are an asset ...
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Reviews
Clubland
Directed by Cherie Nowlan. Australia. 2007. 108 mins.Clubland, Cherie Nowlan's first film since Thank God He Met Lizzie in 1997 is a rambling but likeable movie which continues the Ozzie tradition of blending offbeat comedy and high melodrama, a campy feelgood cocktail familiar from Muriel's Wedding, Strictly Ballroom, The Adventures ...
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Reviews
The Pool
Dir: Chris Smith. US. 2007. 106mins.In his second narrative feature The Pool, documentary film-maker Chris Smith (American Movie) considerably expands his range and thematic concerns. Working in Hindi, telling a low key, resonant story about an 18-year-old Indian boy's quest to break free of his disadvantaged origins, Smith is working ...
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Reviews
The Mark of Cain
Dir: Marc Munden. UK. 2007. 90mins Moral dilemmas both public and personal form the core of The Mark of Cain, a gripping and very timely drama about British forces in Iraq. Written by playwright and TV screenwriter Tony Marchant (Kid in the Corner, Holding On), a specialist in bringing political ...
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Reviews
Snow Angels
Dir. David Gordon Green. US. 2007. 106mins. Snow Angels takes director David Gordon Green out of the American South, and it takes his film-making away from atmospheric meditation and into dense storytelling. His wintry small-town tale, adapted by Green from Stewart O'Nan's 1994 novel, examines a warm teenage relationship that ...
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Reviews
Once
Dir/scr: John Carney. Ireland. 2007. 88mins. The revelation of Sundance, John Carney's poetic third feature Once is a sublime and beautiful work that mediates feeling and desire. It's lyrical though substantial, beholden to the spirit and manner of the French New Wave, achieving a loose, spontaneous style that impressively binds ...
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Reviews
Padre Nuestro
Dir. Christopher Zalla. US. 2007. 105mins.The issue of illegal immigration from Mexico goes beyond the epithets in Padre Nuestro, the tale of a son crossing a border from one squalid place to another to find the father whom he's never met. The twist in this grippingly realistic drama is that ...
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Reviews
Ex Drummer
Dir: Koen Mortier. Bel. 2007. 101mins. The most controversial film to have emerged from Belgium since Man Bites Dog, Koen Mortier's Ex Drummer is an exercise in Flemish shock tactics. Adapted from a novel by Herman Brusselmans, the film strives hard to be as provocative as possible. Its tone varies ...
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Reviews
Blood And Chocolate
Dir: Katja Von Garnier. UK-Ger-Rom-US. 2007. 98mins. Blood And Chocolate is a werewolf love story with no bite and not much romance. Based on the popular American teen novel by British-born author Annette Curtis Klause, the Lakeshore Entertainment production may find an initial audience in the younger female demographic that ...
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Reviews
Epic Movie
Dir: Jason Friedberg, Aaron Seltzer. US. 2007. 86mins. A painful regurgitation of memorable moments from recent Hollywood blockbusters, the spoof film Epic Movie is almost entirely devoid of laughs. No matter your opinion of hits such as Pirates Of The Caribbean or The Chronicles Of Narnia, most will agree that ...