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Latest reviews – Page 409
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Reviews
The Shaggy Dog
Dir: Brian Robbins. US.2006. 92mins.Disney's latest update of one of its vintagelive-action family comedies pairs SantaClause star Tim Allen with that reliably popular screen character, thecutely anthropomorphised canine. It's predictable and only mildly amusingstuff; but it's also the kind of innocuous entertainment that sometimes lures asizeable family audience, if not ...
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Reviews
Failure To Launch
Dir: Tom Dey. US. 2006. 92mins.Verging on the preposterous, Tom Dey'sFailure ToLaunch relies on attractive stars to overcome its lacklustreexecution. Opening on March10 in the US - and later in the month throughout Europe - it seeks to capitalise on the success of other recent date movies that useda lover-with-a-hidden-agenda ...
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Reviews
The Hills Have Eyes
Dir: Alexandre Aja. US. 2006. 107mins.Whether it's ironic or just emblematic of a generallack of imagination is open to debate, but everything old is new again inHollywood - or at least as it applies to the current trend of updated andrefashioned horror properties. The latest is The Hills Have Eyes, ...
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Reviews
Lucy
Dir\scr: Henner Winckler. Ger. 2006.92mins.The second feature from German director Henner Winckler, Lucy is a psychologically lucid,beguiling portrait of teenage restriction given a startling jolt of recognitionand star-making turn by German actress Kim Schnitzer.The story examines theemotional and personal consequences of the title character, eight-month-old Lucy(Hauschild), on her emotionally ill-equipped ...
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Reviews
News From Home/News From House
Dir/scr: Amos Gitai. Is. 2006. 96mins.Israelis, Palestinians and others who follow MiddleEast politics closely will find little new, either conceptually or historicallyspeaking, in News From Home/News From House,the third instalment in Amos Gitai's documentarytrilogy about the Arab-Israeli conflict. But audiences around the world,especially at festivals, will appreciate the powerful feelings ...
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Reviews
Ask The Dust
Dir/scr Robert Towne. US. 2005. 117mins.Robert Towne returns with an evocative, nuancedadaptation of John Fante's Depression-era novel Ask The Dust, avisually lustrous and imaginatively staged film that is given piercing depth offeeling from leads Colin Farrell and Salma Hayek.Fante's autobiographical 1939 work was a dominant literaryinfluence on Towne's greatest achievement, ...
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Reviews
4:30
Dir: Royston Tan. Sing-Jap.2005. 93mins.There are few 93-minute films as long as 4:30, Royston Tan's study of youth that feelslike a tribute to Tsai Ming Liang - or, for thatmatter, Eric Khoo, one of the film's executive producers.Nothing like15, Tan's over-the-top and similarlythemed work, it is meticulously shot in spare ...
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Reviews
Heaven's Doors
Dirs: Swel and Imad Noury. Morocco. 2006.132mins.With their powerful, if flawed, debut feature Heaven's Doors, twentysomethingbrothers Swel and Imad Noury demonstrate an abundance of talent. Made on theproverbial shoestring budget, with mum (Pilar Cazorla) producing and dad (director Hakim Noury) in one of the key roles, it overflows with anambition ...
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Reviews
The Red Cockatoo (Der Rote Kakadu)
Dir. Dominik Graf. Ger. 2006.128mins.Sharply pitched between funny, rueful memory andcautionary tale about compromise and lost promise, DominikGraf's The Red Cockatoo confronts thetime when sex, art and American rock and roll collided with crude ideologicalpolitics.The latest production from XFilme Creative Pool, it conflates the themes andstyle of its two internationally ...
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Reviews
Another Morning (Sobhi Digar)
Dir/scr: Nasser Refaie. Iran. 2006. 89minsA study in grief and solitude verging on theexperimental, Nasser Refaie's second feature Another Morning is a tough nut to crackfor all but the most dedicated students of Iranian cinema.It's not as if the messagehe wishes to deliver is that obscure or difficult to unravel; ...
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Reviews
Close To Home (Karov La Bayit)
Dir/scr: Dalia Hager, Vidi Bilu. Israel. 2005. 90mins.A modest, low-budget feature that shows the rarelyexplored routines of female soldiers in Israel, Close To Home was one of the more pleasant surprises from Israellast year.A theatrical debut for itstwo directors, it follows two 18-year-old girls, Smadar(Smadar Sayar) and Irith (Naama Schendar),new ...
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Reviews
John & Jane
Dir: Ashim Ahluwalia. India. 2005. 83mins.Tracing a fine line between fact and fiction, John & Jane, AshimAhluwalia's documentary about workers in Bombay callcentres, is an intriguing, understated meditation on the new hi-tech slavery.It follows, in relay sequence, the lives of six workers in a facility run by aUS company which ...
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Reviews
Princesas
Dir/scr: Fernando Leon de Aranoa. Sp. 2005. 113mins.Princesas, FernandoLeon De Aranoa's latest slice of social realism, isalmost a total gender switch from the ultra-masculine unemployed dockyard saga Mondays In The Sun, which vaulted himonto the international stage in 2002.A beautifully acted storyabout the friendship between two prostitutes in Madrid, Princesas ...
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Reviews
Big Bang Love, Juvenile A (46 Oku Nen No Koi)
Dir: Takeshi Miike. Jap. 2006. 84mins.The softening of Takeshi Miike- after the loopily tender Zebraman, and Box, his operatically stylised contributionto the Three Extremes anthology- continuesapace with this bizarre gay prison yarn.With shades of Gohatto (Taboo) and early German expressionistcinema, Big Bang Love, Juvenile A beginsintriguingly as a sort of ...
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Reviews
The Feast Of The Goat (La Fiesta Del Chivo)
Dir. Luis Llosa. Spain/UK. 2006. 135mins.In The Feast Of The Goat, action specialist Luis Llosa(Sniper, Anaconda) moves decisively from his Hollywood assignments to somethingmore personal and troubling. Adapting from the novel by his cousin Mario VargasLlosa, it results in a wrenching and awkward study aboutthe monstrous political reign of Dominican ...
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Reviews
16 Blocks
Dir: Richard Donner. US. 2006. 113mins.A grizzled Bruce Willis and a wisecracking Mos Def play the odd couple at the centre of 16 Blocks, a not very convincing yetstill quite likeable cop thriller from LethalWeapon franchise director Richard Donner.Though there are echoes of Donner's late-1980s buddy cop classics in the ...
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Reviews
Milarepa
Dir. Neten Chokling. Bhutan, 2005. 96mins.Milarepa is a glossy,lovely movie from Bhutan that details the life of Tibetan Buddhism's most reveredsaint, who was born as Thopaga in the eleventh century.Whilesomewhat slow-moving at times - although would one want a life-transforming awakeningaccompanied by MTV-style editing'- its stateliness, deep spirituality, gorgeous mountainscenery ...
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Reviews
Bye Bye Berlusconi
Dir: Jan Henrik Stahlberg. Ger. 2006. 88mins.It's easy to see why the Berlinaleprogrammed this tricksy political satire in itsPanorama sidebar: dealing as it does with the controversial figure of Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi,it comes with guaranteed news cachet. But although it has some hilariousmoments, the German-produced, Italian-language Bye Bye ...
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Reviews
Hotel Harabati (De Particulier A Particulier)
Dir: Brice Cauvin. Fr. 2005. 94mins."Sublimely enigmatic" is one way to describe Hotel Harabati;for many viewers, "maddeningly inscrutable" will becloser to the mark. Either way, Brice Cauvin'steasing debut will keep audiences arguing long after its unexpectedly beatificending.Personably spikylead performances, a willfully fractured narrative and a defiantly provocativeattitude to viewer expectations ...
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Reviews
Absolute Wilson
Dir/scr: Katharina Otto-Bernstein. US-Ger. 2006.105mins.Absolute Wilsonmight not be not be quite 'absolute' in the sense of 'definitive', but Katharina Otto-Bernstein's documentary is certainly anexhaustive introduction to the life and work of Robert Wilson, American theatrevisionary extraordinaire.The Texan-borninnovator has worked at a frenzied pace since his arrival on the avant-gardetheatre scene ...