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Latest reviews – Page 402
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Reviews
Scoop
Dir: Woody Allen. UK/US. 2006. 96 mins. After a surge of sortswith last year's Oscar-nominated Match Point, Woody Allen's topsy-turvycareer slumps again with the featherweight Scoop. Having successfullypulled off a dark, Patricia Highsmith-esque thrillerset in London with Match Point, he applies the dizzy slapstick comedy ofThe Curse Of The Jade ...
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Reviews
The Music Box (Lifashi)
Dir:Chen Yifei. China. 2006. 104mins.Lushly photographedhistorical romances from mainland China are not exactly in short supply intoday's film market, but The Music Boxdistinguishesitself with its meticulously illuminated visual polish. Yet although this taleof a hairdresser's grand adventures, both amorous and political, is set againstthe turmoil of modern China's mid-20th century, ...
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Reviews
Crazy Stone (Feng Kuang De Shi Tou)
Dir:Ning Hao. China. 2006.100mins.The commercialpotential for modestly budgeted, audience-oriented films in China's filmindustry may be more theoretical than fully realised -but Ning Hao's Crazy Stone is a model exampleof how it can work, combining as it does box-office appeal with strongproduction values and a jazzy contemporary sensibility.New Chinese cinema is ...
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Reviews
The Destiny (El Destino)
Dir: Miguel Pereira. Arg-Sp. 2006. 102mins.An allegory about the rape of Latin America throughforeign intrusion, Destiny has justthe kind of political message that will appeal to liberal festival and arthouse audiences. The addition of spectacular landscapesand generous splashes of local colour should help usher it to events around theworld.But while ...
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Reviews
Monster House
Dir: Gil Kenan. USA. 2006.89mins.Seemingly every neighbourhoodhas a house or two whose spooky reputation derives either from an owner neverglimpsed or else an atmosphere unnervingly caustic and weird. The animatedmovie Monster House takes this impressionto the extrapolated extreme in a slick, wholly rousing family adventure aboutthree pre-teens banding together to ...
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Reviews
You, Me And Dupree
Dir: Anthony and Joe Russo. US.2006. 110mins.The married couple at the centre of You, Me And Dupreemust endure an obnoxious new housemate - and their agony may be shared by manyaudiences in Anthony and Joe Russo's ungainly and largely unfunny comedy.Opening on July14 in the US before working its way ...
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Reviews
Reprise
Dir: Joachim Trier. Nor. 2006. 105mins.First-time director Joachim Trier makes a bright, frenetic and agile debut with Reprise, the story of two would-be Norwegiannovelists in their early twenties, trying to make it in the worlds of bothliterature and adulthood.The picture's main qualityis the immediacy of performances from a mostly non-professional ...
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Reviews
Winter Journey (Winterreise)
Dir: Hans Steinbichler.Ger. 2006. 95mins.Diving into the depths of manic-depressive gloom withFranz Schubert's heartbreaking song cycle Winterreise as company is a toughassignment - while Hans Steinbichler's Winter Journey falls short, it does atleast rate some recognition for its courage.Following a sixtysomething businessman driven to bankruptcy as he losescontrol over his ...
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Reviews
Beauty In Trouble (Kraska v Nesnazich)
Dir: Jan Hrebejk. Czech Rep. 2006. 110mins.Film-maker Jan Hrebejkreturns with Beauty In Trouble,another chronicle about the morality of his Czech compatriots as they crossfrom the vestiges of their recent totalitarian past to the best of the West.Inspired by a Robert Graves poem about a beauty saved by an angelic presence, ...
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Reviews
Fish Dreams (Sonhos De Peixe)
Dir/scr: Kirill Mikhanovsky. Braz-Russ-US.2006. 105mins.Russian-born Kirill Mikhanovsky makes a promising debut with Fish Dreams, which may be set in an impoverishedfishing village in Brazil but is heavily indebted to Italian neo-realism in itsreliance on non-professional actors and real locations. More specifically it recallsVisconti's masterpiece La Terra Trema (1948) in much ...
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Reviews
The Way I Spent The End Of The World (Cum mi-am petrecut sfarsitul lumii)
Dir: Catalin Mitulescu. Rom-Fr. 2006. 106mins.More like a quick guide to recent history rather thana fully rounded first feature, Catalin Mitulescu's debut TheWay I Spent The End Of The Worldpaints a disturbing realistic, if often disorganised,portrait of Romanian life during 1989, the last year of the Ceausescu era.Blending childhood pranksand ...
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Reviews
The Way I Spent The End Of The World (Cum mi-am petrecut sfarsitul lumii)
Dir: Catalin Mitulescu. Rom-Fr. 2006. 106mins.More like a quick guide to recent history rather thana fully rounded first feature, Catalin Mitulescu's debut TheWay I Spent The End Of The Worldpaints a disturbing realistic, if often disorganised,portrait of Romanian life during 1989, the last year of the Ceausescu era.Blending childhood pranksand ...
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Reviews
Pirates Of The Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
Dir: Gore Verbinski. US. 2006. 151mins.Coming three years after the originalride-turned-movie dug up a hoard of summer box office gold, the second voyageof Disney and Jerry Bruckheimer's PiratesOf The Caribbean franchise is bigger, longer and more spectacular than itspredecessor but at the same time less breezily entertaining. The novelty value ...
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Reviews
First Love (Hatsu-Koi)
Dir: Yukinari Hanawa. Jap. 2006. 114mins.Teenage rebellion, social history andtrue crime merge together in tenderly anaemic fashion in First Love,based on a quasi-autobiographical novel by MisuzuNakahara. The first feature in 10 years by Tokyo Skin director Yukinari Hanawa, First Lovehas struck a slight chord with audiences in Japan - where ...
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Reviews
Inside Paris (Dans Paris)
Dir/scr: Christophe Honore. Fr. 2005. 92mins.Up-and-coming French auteur Christophe Honore shows a surprisingly light touch with Inside Paris, the follow-up to hissombre, sexually challenging Georges Batailleadaptation Ma Mere. A thoughtful butlightly-executed, often ebullient, family drama with distinct stylistic nods toearly 1960s nouvelle vague, Inside Parisboasts engaging performances all around, especially ...
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Reviews
Summer 'O4 (Sommer 04 An Der Schlei)
Dir: Stefan Krohmer. Ger. 2006. 97mins.The certainties of life are shattered bythe presence of a disturbingly mature adolescent girl in Summer 04, aconstantly engrossing tale of shifting relationships and challengedperceptions. A smartly observed screenplay places well-developed charactersinto a series of situations that never unfold entirely as the audience mighthave predicted.There'sa ...
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Reviews
Transe
Dir/scr: Teresa Villaverde. Port-Fr-It. 2006. 126mins.There are the seeds of a coherently harrowing drama about European sex traffic in Teresa Villaverde's Transe, but you have to dig deep to find them. Part road movie, part abstract essay and - as the title suggests - part free-floating hallucination, the latest film ...
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Reviews
Uro
Dir: Stefan Faldbakken. Nor. 2006. 104mins.A rogue undercover cop pursues a muddle-head path towards redemption in URO, a solidly commercial first feature from Stefan Faldbakken. Familiarity hasn't blunted the appeal of a character type that has been a fixture of police thrillers from the glory days of Sidney Lumet through ...
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Reviews
Time (Shi Gan)
Dir/scr: Kim Ki-duk. S Kor. 2006. 96minsA Kim Ki-duk film is never less than intriguing, and Time, his new feature, is no exception. His treatment of an increasingly fashionable theme, the popular use of plastic surgery to outsmart nature and relieve emotional insecurities, is in itself enough to draw attention. ...
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Reviews
Days Of Glory (Indigenes)
Dir: Rachid Bouchareb. Fr-Mor-Alg-Bel. 2006. 125mins.Best intentions are commendably delivered in Days Of Glory (Indigenes), an earnest, well-produced and thoroughly researched epic saga about those North African soldiers who served with the French Army during World War Two.Following a quartet of Algerian recruits and their sergeant through campaigns in Sicily, ...