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Latest reviews – Page 413
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Reviews
The Hawk Is Dying
Dir: Julian Goldberger. US. 2006. 112mins.The second featurefrom Julian Goldberger after his 1999 work Trans,The Hawk Is Dying is an admirable thoughfailed effort to graft the film-maker's poetic aesthetic to the demands of narrativefilm-making.A meditation on the thin veneer between obsession and madness, it has somesharp visual interludes and neat ...
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Reviews
A Guide To Recognizing Your Saints
Dir/scr: Dito Montiel. US.2006.103mins.Adapting his 2003 memoir of the same title, debut writer-directorDito Montiel reveals himselfas a promising new voice in American cinema with A Guide To Recognizing Your Saints, a featurethat summons the sting of memory, evoked in moments simultaneously fond, joyous,bitter, sad and tragic.Despite a problematic start -a ...
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Reviews
Unfolding Florence
Dir: Gillian Armstrong. 82mins.Aus. 2006.Feature director Gillian Armstrong (Charlotte Grey, Oscar And Lucinda) makes a successfulswitch to factual film-making with Unfolding Florence, her packed and perceptivedocumentary about the "many lives" of feisty high society proto-feminist,opportunist and self-reinventor Florence Broadhust.The project - originallyplanned as a one-hour TV documentary until Armstrong signed ...
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Reviews
The Science Of Sleep
Dir: Michel Gondry. Fr. 2006. 105mins.For his third feature The Science Of Sleep, French directorMichel Gondry leaves behind Charlie Kaufman, whowrote his first two films, and finds a droll, eccentric voice all his own. Amadcap surreal comedy set in Paris and shot in English and French, it doesn'thave the emotional ...
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Reviews
Lucky Number Slevin
Dir. Paul McGuigan. US.2006. 104mins.Anuncomfortable mixture of light banter and extreme violence, Lucky Number Slevinfalls somewhere between Guy Ritchie's Revolverand David Burke's still unreleased Edisonin its reliance on shock value over character development and narrativeheft. A likeable performance by Josh Hartnett carries the film for a long way,but a third ...
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Reviews
The Night Listener
Dir: Patrick Stettner. US. 2006. 90mins.Robin Williams' great talent for mimicry,improvisation and change of pace has yielded some resourceful and inspired performancesin his comically inflected films. But in recent years his work has turned inward,with results that have been bluntly predictable and mannered: witness hisappearances in Insomnia, One Hour Photo ...
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Reviews
Little Miss Sunshine
Dirs: Jonathan Dayton & Valerie Faris. US. 2006. 100mins.The first big hit of the 2006 SundanceFilm Festival, sold the night after its first screening last Friday to FoxSearchlight for over $10m, Little MissSunshine is a genuinely delightful comedy about a family of misfits on a roadtrip to a beauty pageant.Playing ...
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Reviews
Friends With Money
Dir/scr: Nicole Holofcener. US. 2006. 88mins.Nicole Holofcener's thirdfemale-skewed ensemble piece confirms her as a distinctive, urbane commentatoron the life of (affluent) women in America today. An incisive snapshot ofcontemporary values as grappled with by four Los Angeles women, Friends With Money is only her thirdfilm, but stints on episodic television ...
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Reviews
The Illusionist
Dir.Neil Burger. US. 2005. 110mins.Magic is the artof distraction. The Illusionistsucceeds because writer-director Neil Burger has his audience concentrate onEdward Norton's title character while Paul Giamatti'sfoil bustles around the picture providing the drama. The resulting periodromantic thriller is an attractive after-dinner treat which not only tastesdelicious but lingers on the ...
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Reviews
Underworld: Evolution
Dir: Len Wiseman. US. 2005.106mins.The mostly young male horror fans who turned 2003vampires-vs-werewolves saga Underworld into a surprise hit will probably find what they'reafter in this sequel: plenty of gory action, some cool effects and even a bit ofsex.Broader audiences won't havemuch patience with the tediously convoluted plot and unvarying ...
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Reviews
Last Holiday
Dir: Wayne Wang. US. 2006.111mins.Queen Latifah came of age,as an actress, in 2002's Chicago (whichtook $306m worldwide) and the following spring's Bringing Down The House (a global $162m), which collectively helpedlaunch her film career into more rarified air.From her earliestdays, though - whether on her platinum-selling rap albums or in ...
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Reviews
Gitmo
Dirs: Erik Gandini,Tarik Saleh. 78mins. Den-Swe. 2005.There is something Kafka-esqueabout the Guantanamo Bay prison camp in Cuba. Despitebeing part of the War On Terror, prisoners detainedhere in their strident orange suits are not given "Prisoner Of War" status butare treated as "Unlawful Combatants." Many have been left in limbo for ...
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Reviews
KZ
Dir/sc: Rex Bloomstein. UK.2005. 97mins.Initially KZ,Rex Bloomstein's harrowing documentary, appears tocover seemingly familiar territory. His subject is the former concentrationcamp of the title, located at Mauthausen in UpperAustria, and the last of the Nazi death camps to be liberated after the war.Thousands of men, women and children from more than ...
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Reviews
Running Scared
Dir/scr: Wayne Kramer. US-Ger. 2006. 122mins.Film-maker Wayne Kramer follows up hisOscar-nominated film noir The Cooler withRunning Scared, a hyper-charged,ultra-violent thriller that opens in frantic fashion and never slows down.While Kramer succeeds insetting a relentless narrative pace and shows plenty of flair for stagingbloody set-pieces, his sledgehammer approach has obvious drawbacks. ...
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Reviews
Tristan & Isolde
Dir: Kevin Reynolds. UK-Ger-CzRep. 2005. 125mins.It's not the Wagner opera but the original Tristan& Isolde legend that gets the Hollywood treatmentin this period romance from 20th Century Fox and Scott Free Entertainment. Inthe hands of Kevin Reynolds (director of RobinHood: Prince Of Thieves) the Dark Ages legendbecomes a tragic love ...
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Reviews
Day Watch (Dnevnoy Dozor)
Dir: Timur Bekmambetov. Russ. 2006. 135mins.A solid piece of escapist entertainment, Day Watch, the sequel to Night Watch, again demonstrates howRussia is capable of making special effects-laden fare on a par with Hollywoodproductions.While its main audienceis likely to be fans of the first film, returns at home especially will behelped ...
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Reviews
Glory Road
Dir: James Gartner. US. 2006. 115mins.Playing out like Remember The Titans for basketball fans,Glory Road is yet another would-beinspirational true story which follows Hollywood sports-movie conventions somechanically that it feels more generic than stirring.Opening on January13 in the US, the same weekend that the hoops-themed Samuel L Jackson feature Coach ...
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Reviews
BloodRayne
Dir: Uwe Boll. US. 2006. 94mins.If there is an Ed Wood working in Hollywood todaythen surely it is film-maker Uwe Boll, who over thepast few years has made several critically panned videogame film adaptationsthat have floundered at the box office but done little to dent his career.His latestfeature, the avenging ...
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Reviews
A New Day In Old Sana'a
A classic star-crossed-romance-cum-travelogue set in thealluring capital of Yemen, Bader Ben Hirsi's A New Day In OldSana'a skims over the lives of a doomed couple in a restrictive society.Fascinating forits glimpses into the lives of women in one of the Arab world's poorestcountries, it may prove too light for pure ...