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Latest reviews – Page 397
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Reviews
El Cantante
Dir: Leon Ichaso. US. 2006. 116mins.The last time JenniferLopez collaborated with the love of her life the result was the toe-curlingembarrassment of Gigli(2003). Now, she has dared to co-produce and co-star with husband Marc Anthonyin a drama inspired by the life of 1970s salsa superstar Hector Lavoe. El Cantante is ...
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Reviews
Starter For Ten
Dir: Volker Schloendorff. Ger.2006. 104mins.Billed in the opening credits as a "ballad", Strike is based on events in the Leninshipyards in Gdansk, Poland during the early 1980s,which sparked the creation of the Solidarity movement and, ultimately, thebeginning of the end of the Cold War.Coming off as a Polish Norma Rae ...
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Reviews
Starter For Ten
Dir. Tom Vaughan. UK. 2006. 96mins.James McAvoy confirms hisposition as Britain's brightest newcomer in StarterFor Ten, a solid, rather endearing comedy, basedaround Britain'slong-running quiz show University Challenge. A period piece setin 1985-6, with all the music and haircuts to match, it is produced by TomHanks, via Sam Mendes, and, despite ...
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Reviews
Bonneville
Dir: Christopher M Rowley. US.2006. 104mins.A slushy salute to female friendship and the greatmysteries of life and death, Bonnevillehas the unmistakable feel of a TV-movie tearjerker. Filled with predictabledevelopments and heart-tugging revelations, it is bereft of surprises anddripping in syrupy sentiment. It has been a long while since an older ...
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Reviews
Macbeth
Dir: Geoffrey Wright. Aust. 2006.109mins.Shakespeare's bloodthirsty Scottish warlords are transportedto contemporary Melbourne, recent home to Mafia-style vendettas, tit-for-tat slayingsand alleged police corruption, for Geoffrey Wright's Macbeth. The result makes for a good genre fit, casting the centuries old plot in a new light with suavely dressed killers,beautiful women and a ...
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Reviews
The Optimists (Optimisti)
Dir: Goran Paskaljevic. Serb-Monaco. 2006.94mins.Eight years after his feature The Powder Keg portrayed Milosevic's Serbia self-destructing with avengeance, Goran Paskaljevicreturns for another look at his homeland with The Optimists. But although the former Serbian leader is now gone,and democracy of sorts has replaced him, Pasklajevicis not really enchanted by what ...
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Reviews
Strike (Die Heldin Von Danzig)
Dir: Volker Schloendorff. Ger.2006. 104mins.Billed in the opening credits as a "ballad", Strike is based on events in the Leninshipyards in Gdansk, Poland during the early 1980s,which sparked the creation of the Solidarity movement and, ultimately, thebeginning of the end of the Cold War.Coming off as a Polish Norma Rae ...
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Reviews
Tales From Earthsea (Gedo Senki)
Dir: Goro Miyazaki. Jap. 2006. 114mins.Hayao Miyazaki has passed the director'smantle on to his son Goro for Tales From Earthsea,Studio Ghibli's latest feature-length 2D anime. Basedon the series of books by fantasy author Ursula Le Guin,this dragon and wizard yarn is drawn - at least as far as the backdrops ...
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Reviews
The Last Kiss
Dir: Tony Goldwyn. US.2006. 105mins.A group of late twentysomethingsgingerly approaches the big 3-0 in TheLast Kiss, a tiring melodrama that coddles its immature characters.Director Tony Goldwyn has gathered an impressive cast, but Crash Oscar-winning screenwriter Paul Haggis' ponderous adaptationof the Italian hit L'Ultimo Baciostrangles the life from this ensemble picture.Starring ...
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Reviews
All The Boys Love Mandy Lane
Dir/scr: Jonathan Levine. US. 2006. 88mins.A quick $3.5m-$4m buy for The Weinstein Company atToronto, All TheBoys Love Mandy Lane proves to be a crisply-executed teen horror debut fromdirector Jonathan Levine and LA production outfit Occupant Films. It's likelyto be a smart buy, given that this genre, at its best, is ...
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Reviews
All The Boys Love Mandy Lane
Dir/scr: Jonathan Levine. US. 2006. 88mins.A quick $3.5m-$4m buy for The Weinstein Company atToronto, All TheBoys Love Mandy Lane proves to be a crisply-executed teen horror debut fromdirector Jonathan Levine and LA production outfit Occupant Films. It's likelyto be a smart buy, given that this genre, at its best, is ...
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Reviews
Breaking And Entering
Dir/scr: Anthony Minghella. UK. 2006. 119mins.Anthony Minghella's firstcontemporary London-set film since Truly MadlyDeeply in 1991, Breaking And Enteringis an ambitious but disappointing affair revolving around middle class folkfrom North London in crisis. Although handsomely produced and featuring one ortwo noteworthy performances, it is hijacked by a surprising lack ofplausibility, both ...
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Reviews
Perfume: The Story Of A Murderer (Parfum: Die Geschichte Eines Morders)
Dir: Tom Tykwer. Ger-Fr-Sp. 2006. 140mins.Tom Tykwer pulls out allthe stops with his sumptuous English-language adaptation of Patrick Suskind's novel Perfume,making for a daring and imposing achievement that is likely to leave audiencesstunned and somewhat exhausted rather than truly dazzled.With its dark tone, wilfullymorbid subject matter and antipathetic protagonist, it ...
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Reviews
Black Sheep
Dir/scr: Jonathan King. NZ. 2006. 87mins.A canny mix of splatter-movie aesthetics, nationaldread and ecological warning, Jonathan King's debut feature Black Sheep is a riotously funny,gleefully overdone horror exercise that more than hints at the influence of earlyPeter Jackson like Meet The Feebles, Braindead and BadTaste.Swift andentertaining, though at times too ...
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Reviews
Bugmaster
Dir: Katsuhiro Otomo. Jap-US. 2006. 130mins.Japanese anime director Katsuhiro Otomomakes a curiously subdued, poetic foray into live-action cinema with his latestfeature, Bugmaster.Though the story's setting in the late Meiji era and its "invisible bug"infestation theme initially suggest a period horror along the lines of ShinyaTsukamoto's Gemini, the meditativepace, lonely but ...
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Reviews
10 Items Or Less
Dir/scr: Brad Silberling. US. 2006. 82mins.The unpredictable career of Brad Silberlingtakes another left turn after the big budget spectacle of Lemony Snicket's A SeriesOf Unfortunate Events (2004) with his new feature 10 Items Or Less. More of a character-basedchamber piece than anything else, this virtual two-hander finds thewriter-director straying into ...
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Reviews
Antonia
Dir: Tata Amaral. Br. 2006. 90mins.The third feature from film-maker TataAmaral, Antoniatakes a well-sung genre - the rap group from the wrong side of the tracks whotry to make it big in the face of ruptured friendships - and gives it theunique flavour of a Sao Paolo favela.It is further ...
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Reviews
The Missing Star (La Stella Che Non C'e)
Dir: Gianni Amelio. It-Fr-Switz. 2006. 107mins.Gianni Amelio treads waterwith The Missing Star, an anti-hero quest moviethat has moments of emotional engagement but is marred by its genrefence-sitting and the muddiness of its final message. It's one of those filmswhose fascination lies not so much in the drama, whichis structured like ...
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Reviews
Rob-B-Hood
Dir: Benny Chan. HK-Chi. 2006. 135mins.Jackie Chan returns to the broad Hong Kong comedyaction of earlier films like Meals On Wheels with the enjoyably ramshackle, fast-pacedbabysitting-crook yarn Rob-B-Hood.Laced with some classic stunts - a couple of them as inventive as anything Chanhas ever done - and action set-pieces, and canny ...