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Latest reviews – Page 399
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Reviews
Still Life (Sanxia Haoren)
Dir: Jia Zhankg-Ke. Chi. 2006. 107mins.The decision of the Mostradel Cinema to screen Jia Zhankg-Ke'sStill Life in the prestigioussurprise competition film slot at Venice - and then slap its two press andindustry screenings on at 11pm and midnight respectively - is not going to dothe director nor his film many ...
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Reviews
Bobby
Dir/scr: Emilio Estevez. US.2006. 119mins.Actor-director Emilio Estevez makes a convincing return to featuredirection with Bobby, an all-starchoral drama set in Los Angeles' Hotel Ambassador on the day Democraticcandidate Robert Kennedy was assassinated there. True, it is not one of those auteurist multi- strand films like Magnolia that provokes and challenges ...
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Reviews
Falling
Dir/scr: Barbara Albert.Austria. 2006. 85mins.An ensemble piece exploring the existential crisises of five thirtysomething women,Barbara Albert's Falling plays like acoded conversation between its writer/director and her female cast to which therest of us are not privy. A secretive film-maker who likes her audiences to digaround and supply the details suggested ...
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Reviews
Paprika
Dir: Satoshi Kon. Japan2006. 90mins.Satoshi Kon proves againwith the teen- and adult-oriented feature Paprikajust why he is one of the most interesting anime Japanese directors right now.On the evidence here it's easy to see why his work, rather than the more conventionalTales Of Earthsea - directed by HiyakiMiyazaki's son Goro ...
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Reviews
The Hottest State
Dir/scr: Ethan Hawke. US. 2006. 116mins.Films about first love are a bit like films aboutdrugs: they risk being more interesting for those involved than for theaudience. But The Hottest State -which screened in Horizons at Venice - has the grace and resilience to charm audiences,grounding its potentially self-indulgent tale into ...
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Reviews
The Untouchable (L'Intouchable)
Dir/scr: Benoit Jacquot. Fr. 2006. 82mins.Resembling a vehicle for upcoming young French star Isild Le Besco, The Untouchable, the latest feature fromveteran writer/director Benoit Jacquot, follows anactress who leaves Paris for India to locate her lower caste biological father.A modest production in everyrespect that would have been better suited to ...
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Reviews
Venus
Dir: Roger Michell. UK. 2006. 95mins. The team behind TheMother - director Roger Michell, writer Hanif Kureishi and producer KevinLoader - reunites for Venus, anotherportrait of an old character being revitalised by love for a younger. In thiscase, the relationship - between a septuagenarian and a teenager - is even ...
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Reviews
The Fountain
Dir: Darren Aronofsky. US. 2006. 96mins.Something of a feature-length New Age doodle, The Fountain will alienate many of thosewho were turned on to indie director Darren Aronfosky by his quirky debut Pi and its follow-up, the drug-fuelled cinematic opera Requiem For A Dream. Threading its epiclove story through three time ...
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Reviews
Children Of Men
Dir: Alfonso Cuaron. US-UK. 2006. 108mins.Unwrap the fascinatingdystopian vision of the near-future in Alfonso Cuaron's Children Of Men - based on the sci-fi novel by British literarybaroness PD James - and you find a fairly ordinary movie with stock characters.But if its backdrop and story never quite coalesce into a ...
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Reviews
The Last King Of Scotland
Dir: Kevin Macdonald. UK. 2006. 121mins.Kevin Macdonald has proved himself to be an expertdocumentary film-maker with films like OneDay In September and in his last feature Touching The Void he melded documentaryand drama into a heart-stopping narrative. Now, in his first dramatic feature,he tells a fictional story against the real-life ...
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Reviews
I Don't Want To Sleep Alone (Hei Yanquan)
Dir: Tsai Ming Liang. Tai-Fr-Aust. 2006. 115mins.Tsai Ming Liang is anacquired taste: either you like what he does or you don't and there are no twoways about it. If you do, then you will not be surprised by I Don't Want to Sleep Alone's static shots, absence of anyvisible narrative, ...
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Reviews
The Fountain
Dir: Darren Aronofsky. US. 2006. 96mins.Something of a feature-length New Age doodle, The Fountain will alienate many of thosewho were turned on to indie director Darren Aronfosky by his quirky debut Pi and its follow-up, the drug-fuelled cinematic opera Requiem For A Dream. Threading its epiclove story through three time ...
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Reviews
The Queen
Dir: Stephen Frears. UK2006. 97mins.The British have been making films about their RoyalFamily almost since cinema began. What is so distinctive about Stephen Frears' brilliant new feature The Queen is that it is unfolds only a few years ago - in 1997 atthe time of Princess Diana's death - and ...
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Reviews
Black Book (Zwartboek)
Dir: Paul Verhoeven. Neth-Bel-Ger-UK.140mins.The prodigal son of Dutch cinema comes home from Hollywood with the budget,production values and the epic nonchalance of the American Way packed in his suitcase. Black Book, Paul Verhoeven'sfirst European film for more than 20 years, is not a particularly original pieceof cinema but it is ...
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Reviews
Private Fears In Public Places (Coeurs)
Dir: Alain Resnais. Fr-It. 2006. 120mins.Now well into his eighties, Alain Resnaisis firmly established as one of cinema's all-time masters and has no need toprove anything to anyone. It means that with Private Fears In Public Places he can againallow himself the luxury of adapting an Alan Ayckbourncomedy of manners, ...
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Reviews
The Banquet (Yeyan)
Dir: Feng Xiaogang. Chi-HK. 2006. 131mins.Announced as China's opulent version ofShakespeare's Hamlet and originallyexpected to surface at Cannes, Feng Xiaogang's TheBanquet finally emerges three months later as an out of competition screeningat Venice. Though the plot is definitely indebted to the Bard - and to Macbeth as well as Hamlet ...
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Reviews
Children Of Men
Dir: Alfonso Cuaron. US-UK. 2006. 108mins.Unwrap the fascinating dystopian visionof the near-future in Alfonso Cuaron's Children Of Men- based on the sci-fi novel by British literary baroness PD James - and youfind a fairly ordinary movie with stock characters. But if its backdrop andstory never quite coalesce into a satisfying ...
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Reviews
Infamous
Dir/scr: Douglas McGrath. US 2006. 117mins.To make another TrumanCapote biopic may be regarded as a misfortune; to make another Truman Capotebiopic about exactly the same period of the writer's life looks likecarelessness. But this classic industry no-no could play out, paradoxically, infavour of Douglas McGrath's nuanced take on the US ...
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Reviews
Syndromes And A Century (Sang Sattawat)
Dir/scr: Apichatpong Weerasethakul. Thai-Fr-Aust. 2006. 105mins.Unconventional enough toplease fervent admirers of his previous work like Blissfully Yours and TropicalMalady, Apichatpong Weerasethakul'sSyndromes And ACentury is, even more than its precedents, a visual notebook that resistsall temptation to opt for a narrative, instead staying faithful to itsenigmatic title.Divided into almost equalhalves and ...