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Latest reviews – Page 390
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Reviews
The Monastery: Mr Vig & The Nun
Dir Pernille Rose Gronkjaer. Den. 2006. 84mins A slow burning, lovingly crafted documentary with a melancholy undertow, The Monastery benefits from a wonderfully eccentric protagonist. JorgenLauersen Vig is an 82-year-old Dane whose last goal in life is to turnhis castle into a monastery. If Spike Milligan and Andrei ...
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Reviews
Falafel
Michel Kammoun turns in a freshly confident feature debut with Falafel, which won second prize at the recent Dubai International Film Festival late last year. Set during one night in present-day Lebanon - imagine an Arabic-language After Hours - it's funny and energetic, dispensing insights without preaching them. Centred around ...
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Reviews
Smokin' Aces
Dir: Joe Carnahan. US-UK-Fr. 2006. 109minsThe body count stacks up like gambling chips in a high-stakes poker game in Smokin' Aces, a gleefully bloody, wickedly outrageous crime thriller set mostly in a Lake Tahoe casino hotel. Directed with Vegas-like flash by Joe Carnahan, the film is a giddy triumph of ...
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Reviews
Happily N'Ever After
Dir: Paul J. Bolger. US-Ger. 2006. 87mins.The animated subversion of fairytale conventions kick-started by Shrek continues in Happily N'Ever After, a thinly imagined, satirical retelling of the classic story of Cinderella that runs aground on the shoals of cheekiness courtesy mainly of an awkwardly forced irreverence.A wide release and some ...
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Reviews
Freedom Writers
Dir/scr: Richard LaGravenese. US. 2006. 122 minutes.Set against a backdrop of interracial, mutually destructive gang warfare, Freedom Writers is a passionately pitched if decidedly formulaic story of idealistic uplift, inspired by a true story in which Long Beach teenagers put their angst to paper in the charged years following the ...
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Reviews
Wolfhound (Volkodav)
Dir/scr: Nikolai Lebedev. Russ. 2006. 136mins.Russia's first proper foray into Tolkien-style fantasy film-making, Nikolai Lebedev's Wolfhound proves to be something of a mixed bag. On the one hand this holiday release feels formulaic, derivative and uneven in terms of acting and pacing; on the other it has enough novelty in ...
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Reviews
4 Elements
Dir/scr: Jiska Rickels. Neth. 2006. 89mins.Jiska Rickels' makes an impressive debut with feature-documentary 4 Elements, a self-consciously poetic film essay that has limited narration and little in the way of dialogue. Consisting of four self-contained segments, each representing one of the four elements - fire, water, earth and air - ...
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Reviews
Factory Girl
Dir: George Hickenlooper. US. 2006. 90mins.Sienna Miller does more than effectively capture doomed but beautiful 1960s pop art icon Edie Sedgwick with Factory Girl, George Hickenlooper's portrait of the Andy Warhol-anointed superstar that also conveys the elegant grunginess of the era.In the US, where Factory Girl enjoys a one-week Oscar-qualifying ...
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Reviews
Miss Potter
Dir: Chris Noonan. UK-US. 2006. 93mins.A period feature about a popular children's writer enduring a traumatic life, Chris Noonan's Miss Potter may follow in the footsteps of Shadowlands (about CS Lewis) and Marc Forster's Finding Neverland (about JM Barrie), but it lacks the emotional depth of either. Very handsomely crafted, ...
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Reviews
Dragon Tiger Gate (Lung Fu Mun)
Dir: Wilson Yip. HK. 2006.94mins.Adapted from a popular comic book, Dragon Tiger Gate is a slick butsuperficial martial arts adventure that boasts tremendous fight sequences(choreographed by co-star and co-producer Donnie Yen), colourful productiondesign and appealing central performances that cannot mask the flimsy andderivative storytelling.The film has already openedrobustly in Asia ...
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Reviews
Rocky Balboa
Dir/scr: SylvesterStallone. US. 2006. 100mins.Sixteen years since the last installment,multi-hyphenate Sylvester Stallone delivers RockyBalboa, a stirring and pleasingly grounded tale of an erstwhileunderdog-turned-champion coming to terms with his ownageing. The most emotionally resonant film in the iconic series since theOscar-winning 1976 original, it also showcases by far Stallone'sbest performance in ...
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Reviews
Eragon
Dir: Stefen Fangmeier. US. 2006. 103mins.Lord Of TheRings-lite it may be. But Eragon, based onthe hugely successful young adult novel by Christopher Paolini,still manages to deliver some involving fantasy and brisk adventure in itssword-and-sorcery tale of a feisty dragon and her hunky young rider.Lacking the dramatic heft ofthe Rings films, ...
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Reviews
The Painted Veil
Dir: John Curran. US-Chi.2006. 125mins.Adapted from W Somerset Maugham's novelabout an idealistic newlywed British couple living in turbulent 1920s China, JohnCurran's The Painted Veil is apalpably alive and heart-rending romantic drama about the extremes -geographic, sexual and emotional - travelled in a struggling marriage. Far morethan an attractive literary period-piece, ...
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Reviews
The Good Shepherd
Dir: Robert De Niro. US. 2006. 165mins.Robert De Niro's secondfeature The Good Shepherd is afrequently absorbing, fascinating work that achieves its power through itsdeliberate sense of contradiction. Traversing 20th-century American foreignpolicy and Cold War politics, it refracts historical tensions through a singleperspective; the complex, emotionally harsh life of spymaster Edward ...
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Reviews
Charlotte's Web
Dir: Gary Winick. 2006.97mins.While no live-action/CGI-hybrid about talking animalsis ever likely to match or surpass Chris Noonan's Babe (1995), the film adaptation of Charlotte's Web proves itself a pleasant and engaging addition tothe genre.Since its publication in1952, EB White's classic tale of friendship has been translated into 23languages and has ...
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Reviews
Letters From Iwo Jima
Dir: Clint Eastwood. US.2006. 141mins.Clint Eastwood's twilight career renaissancecontinues and only further deepens with LettersFrom Iwo Jima,his second film in two months about the best known Pacific battle duringWorld War Two. Shot back-to-back with its companion piece Flags Of Our Fathers, it focuses more explicitly on the conflictand its human ...
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Reviews
Notes On A Scandal
Dir: Richard Eyre. UK-US.2006. 91mins.Judi Dench's superbperformance galvanises Notes On A Scandal, Richard Eyre's impressive and acutelyobserved adaptation of the Booker-nominated novel. Probing away relentlessly atsuch uncomfortable issues as paedophilia, class envy, sexual jealousy andblackmail, it is a film that has the same queasy, claustrophobic feel as such 1960sBritish films ...
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Reviews
Home Of The Brave
Dir: Irwin Winkler. US.2006. 107mins.The first Hollywood film to directly address theemotional and political repercussions of the USoccupation of Iraq,Irwin Winkler's Home Of The Brave isa particularly blunt instrument that never satisfies as entertainment,effective storytelling or moral inquiry.Didactic and politicallyincoherent, its complex and emotionally risky scenariois the return of several ...
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Reviews
The Pursuit of Happyness
Dir: Gabriele Muccino. US. 2006. 117mins.Playing against type, Will Smith finds a role wellsuited to his talents in the true-life drama The Pursuit Of Happyness.Though a conventional "inspirational" tale of a saintly underdog findinghard-earned success through sheer will, it stays afloat thanks largely toSmith's effortless charm.In a crowded holidayfilm season, ...