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Latest reviews – Page 393
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Reviews
L'Aria Salata
Dir: Alessandro Angelini. It. 2006. 88mins.Tight and tense, this debut feature by documentarydirector Alessandro Angelini is the first local buzztitle to have emerged from the inaugural Rome Film Fest. Telling the story of ayoung prison counsellor who discovers that his latest charge - a convictedmurderer - is the man who ...
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Reviews
The Legacy (L'Heritage)
Dirs: Gela Babluani, Temur Babluani. Fr-Geor.2006. 80mins.Hotly tipped since his sensational debut feature, 13 (Tzameti), won prizes at Veniceand Sundance and excited remake interest in the US, 28-year-old Paris-based Gela Babluani returns to hisnative Georgia for The Legacy. Butthe result is a poorly acted and only spottily effective drama, as ...
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Reviews
Flushed Away
Dirs: David Bowers, Sam Fell. US. 2006. 86mins.It may lack the handmade charm anddeeply English quirkiness of Oscar winner Wallace& Gromit: The Curse Of The Were-Rabbit, but Flushed Away, AardmanFeatures' first computer animated film and its third project with DreamWorksAnimation, is still lively enough to stand out from this year's ...
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Reviews
Running With Scissors
Dir: Ryan Murphy. US.2006. 122 mins.Ryan Murphy, the Hollywood wunderkind whose Nip/Tuck is one of the most cutting edge series on US TV atthe moment, turns his caustic sensibilities to Running With Scissors, the film version of Augusten Burroughs' popularmemoirs. As one might expect from the creator of Nip/Tuck, Murphy ...
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Reviews
Eternal Summer (Sheng Hsia Guang Nian)
Dir: Leste Chen. Taiwan. 2006. 95mins.A far cry from his horror film debut Heirloom, which broke box-office recordsin Taiwanlast year, Leste Chen's new film Eternal Summer is an intimate coming-of-age love triangle,whose gay theme gradually emerges until it takes over by the end. Sensitivelydirected and performed with sincere emotion by ...
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Reviews
My Friend And His Wife (Naeui Chingu, Geueui Anae)
Dir/scr: Shin Dong-il. S Korea. 2006. 116mins.After the hospitable reception for Host And Guest, his two-hander debut, lastyear, writer-director Shin Dong-il extends hishorizons to a full trio of characters with MyFriend And His Wife, an often fascinating if ultimately overlongexploration of an unusual relationship between two men and a woman.The ...
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Reviews
Dasepo's Naughty Girls (Dasepo Sonyo)
Dir. Lee Jyong. S Kor 2006. 103mins.Going to see Lee Jyong's latestventure on the strength of his previous work Untold Scandal, a highly stylised periodrelocation of Dangerous Liaisons, is a serious mistake. Dasepo's Naughty Girls, a high-school romp, is a world away from thebeautifully-shot historical pageant which toured the world ...
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Reviews
Nightmare Detective (Akumu Tantei)
Dir/scr: Shinya Tsukamoto. Jap. 2006. 107mins.By now a brand name whose body of work has its ownband of dedicated and faithful followers, Shinya Tsukamoto sticks to form with Nightmare Detective, a brutal, violent,and nerve-racking slasher feature that blurs allborders between fantasy and reality. Assailing the audience from the start withblazes ...
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Reviews
Traces Of Love (Gaeulro)
Dir. Kim Dai-seung. S Kor. 2006. 112mins.A perfect choice to promote South Korea's natural beauty, Pusan's official opener is an easily watchablebut unabashed sentimental melodrama, swimming in a sea of decorous tears andclassical music warhorses. Traces Of Love revolves around a real-life 1995 disaster in Seoul, when a departmentstore collapsed ...
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Reviews
The Prestige
Dir: Christopher Nolan. US. 2006. 128mins.Sometime superheroes Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale play obsessively feudingVictorian magicians in The Prestige,a classy thriller, with a Gothic sci-fi twist, from writer-director ChristopherNolan. Coming off last year's comic book blockbuster Batman Begins, Nolan this time turns intricate literary materialinto an atmospheric and intriguing - ...
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Reviews
The Prestige
Dir: Christopher Nolan. US. 2006. 128mins.Sometime superheroes Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale play obsessively feudingVictorian magicians in The Prestige,a classy thriller, with a Gothic sci-fi twist, from writer-director ChristopherNolan. Coming off last year's comic book blockbuster Batman Begins, Nolan this time turns intricate literary materialinto an atmospheric and intriguing - ...
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Reviews
Hoax
Dir: Lasse Hallstrom. US. 2006. 115mins.As struttingly confident asits main character, true-life literary fraudster Clifford Irving, The Hoax is far and away Lasse Hallstrom's best Americanfilm yet. Featuring a Richard Gere who has finallycast off his mid-term career doldrums to reveal himself as an actor ofMachiavellian charisma and authority, it ...
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Reviews
The Grudge 2
Dir: Takashi Shimizu. 2006. 102mins.The hairy ghost andher bug-eyed little boy work overtime in TheGrudge 2, Japanese director Takashi Shimizu's busy but less effectivesequel to his hit American remake of his franchise-starting J-horror chiller Ju-On.Thoughoriginal star Sarah Michelle Gellar makes only a brief appearance this timeout, the sequel has already ...
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Reviews
Napoleon And Me (Io E Napoleone)
Dir: Paolo Virzi. It-Fr-Sp. 2006. 110mins.The latest Eurozone attemptto find a new angle on the Napoleon story finally, Napoleon And Me allows Daniel Auteuil to pitch into a role which seems to have been cutout for an actor of his professional and physical stature. But this - and onesteamy love ...
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Reviews
The Grudge 2
Dir: Takashi Shimizu. 2006. 102mins.The hairy ghost andher bug-eyed little boy work overtime in TheGrudge 2, Japanese director Takashi Shimizu's busy but less effectivesequel to his hit American remake of his franchise-starting J-horror chiller Ju-On.Thoughoriginal star Sarah Michelle Gellar makes only a brief appearance this timeout, the sequel has already ...
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Reviews
The Sugar Curtain (El Telon De Azucar)
Dir/scr: Camila Guzman Urzua. Fr-Sp. 2006. 80mins.A classic portrait of a dream gone wrong, Camila Guzman Urzua's personaland intimate Cuba documentary The SugarCurtain is as fierce an indictment of the Castro regime as any academicanalysis of it.The daughter of expatriateChilean film-maker Patricio Guzman, whosedocumentaries on Pinochet's military coup are textbookmaterial ...
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Reviews
The Sugar Curtain (El Telon De Azucar)
Dir/scr: Camila Guzman Urzua. Fr-Sp. 2006. 80mins.A classic portrait of a dream gone wrong, Camila Guzman Urzua's personaland intimate Cuba documentary The SugarCurtain is as fierce an indictment of the Castro regime as any academicanalysis of it.The daughter of expatriateChilean film-maker Patricio Guzman, whosedocumentaries on Pinochet's military coup are textbookmaterial ...
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Reviews
The Post Modern Life Of My Aunt (Yi Ma De Hou Xian Dai Sheng Huo)
Dir: Ann Hui. Chi. 2006. 113mins.A slapstick comedy opening leads to a melancholy and melodramaticending in Ann Hui's The Post Modern Life Of My Aunt, which is tailoredto please home audiences and Chinese communities abroad but will hold limitedinterest beyond that. Conceived as an episode piece that shifts from a ...
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Reviews
Flags Of Our Fathers
Dir: Clint Eastwood. US.2006. 131mins.Rarely do words as stark as "heroism" get parsed infilm-making - but that's just what Clint Eastwood's World War II feature Flags Of OurFathers does. A diffuse and demanding picture that, as with most Eastwoodfilms, takes a while to find its stride, it should nevertheless see ...
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Reviews
The History Boys
Dir: Nicholas Hytner. UK.2006. 112mins.It is hard to begrudge a film as wellwritten and acted as The History Boys.Nicholas Hytner's screen adaptation of Alan Bennett'sacclaimed play is buoyed by some tremendous performances, one or two of whichlook very likely to be nominated for major awards. The writing is superb. Nonetheless,in ...