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Latest reviews – Page 416
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Reviews
The Whispering Of The Gods (Germania No Yoru)
Dir: Tatsushi Omori. Jap. 2005. 107mins.An unblinking plunge into depravity, blasphemy andviolence, set in the idyllic confines of a Catholic monastery, Tatsushi Omori's debut feature The Whispering Of The Gods falls squarelyinto the love-it-or-loathe-it category.Screened in competition atthe Tokyo International Film Festival, it evoked fervent praise from some -Japanese film ...
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Reviews
The Myth (Sen Hua)
Dir. Stanley Tong. HK-China.2005. 118mins.The Myth is a misfire from three stalwarts of the martial arts genre: JackieChan, his long-time collaborator, director/screenwriterStanley Tong, and co-scenarist Wang Hui-ling,screenwriter of Crouching Tiger, HiddenDragon. An enthusiastic attempt at the Indiana Jones model, it has neither the pace, the tone nor the dialogue to ...
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Reviews
Riding Alone For Thousands Of Miles (Qian Li Zou Dan Ji)
Dir: Zhang Yimou. HK-Chi-Jap. 2005. 108mins.The opening film at the Tokyo International Film Festival,Riding Alone For Thousands Of Miles isa departure for director Zhang Yimou from the big-budgetperiod spectacles he has been making of late and a return to the themes and ruralsettings some of his most-acclaimed earlier work.But instead ...
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Reviews
Kissed By Winter (Vinterkyss)
Dir: Sara Johnsen. Nor. 2005. 84mins.A bereaved mother tries to come to terms with heranguish by seeking refuge in a snowbound northern village. There, she discoversunsuspected affinities with the local population, as well as finding romanceand becoming embroiled in a troubling mystery.As the above synopsissuggests, this year's official Norwegian submission ...
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Reviews
Bam Bam And Celeste
Dir. Lorene Machado. US. 2005. 85mins.Film-maker Lorene Machado and screenwriter Margaret Cho misfire with Bam Bam And Celeste, a featurefound wanting in too many departments, and potentially too offensive to many,to succeed.US theatrical prospects mightsee it pick up play at midnight theatres, especially on gay circuits, but fewaudiences are likely ...
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Reviews
Chicken Little
Dir: Mark Dindal. US. 2005. 80mins.For its first fully computer-animated feature, WaltDisney has turned the fable of ChickenLittle into a warm and funny comedy-adventure with an appealing energy, atouching thread of family drama and a surprising dose of War Of The Worlds-style sci-fi. After thedisappointment of some of Disney's recent ...
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Reviews
The Ice Harvest
Dir. Harold Ramis. US. 2005. 88mins.After the fairly impersonal work he delivered on hisrecent studio assignments (Analyze That, the Bedazzledremake), Harold Ramis returns to the offbeat,anti-social observational humour his talent thrives on with The Ice Harvest.Told in a clipped, rakishstyle and suffused in a low-key sleaze, it makes for an ...
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Reviews
The War Within
Dir. Joseph Castelo. US.2005. 100mins.The War Within is amilestone in many ways. It's the first dramatic film production from a businessmodel hatched by 2929 Entertainment that may shape the way movies are exploitedin the future. Shot entirely in high-definition, it was released in the USsimultaneously in theatres and on high-definition ...
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Reviews
Winter Passing
Dir: Adam Rapp. US. 2005. 98mins.A well-written and literate, if not very original,drama, Winter Passing would have themakings of an auspicious debut feature from director-writer Adam Rapp, were itnot for the over-conventional cinema language that it employs.Rapp shows himself to be astrong writer with his piece about a young New ...
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Reviews
Jarhead
Dir. Sam Mendes. US. 2005. 120mins.Technically strong and well performed,the visually accomplished Jarhead isa complex, mournful meditation on war and its consequences that director SamMendes also manages to inject with a bracing emotional immediacy.For Mendes himself it alsoanswers some of the criticisms he drew with RoadTo Perdition, regarded by some ...
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Reviews
Saw II
Dir: Darren Lynn Bousman. US. 2005. 97mins.A rushed-through-production sequel to the scream hitof last Halloween, Saw II has thejoint benefit and millstone of lowered expectation. It would be easy for thishorror sequel to be nothing more than a series of goosing, contrived deathsequences - which it is for the bulk ...
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Reviews
The Legend Of Zorro
Dir: Martin Campbell. US.2005. 126mins.Family matters take up as much time as swashbucklingin the belated sequel - reuniting Antonio Banderasand Catherine Zeta-Jones with director Martin Campbell, but missing co-starAnthony Hopkins - to 1998 adventure romp TheMask Of Zorro. The sequel recreates some of the enjoyable Saturday matineeaction that helped turn ...
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Reviews
A Woman In Winter
Dir/scr: Richard Jobson.UK. 2005. 100mins.Once pitched as "Solarismeets Last Year At Marienbad",A Woman in Winter is a soulful,metaphysical love story that exhibits the same virtues and shortcomings aswriter/director Richard Jobson's critically admireddebut feature 16 Years Of Alcohol.Jobson's third feature also makes the most of its modestbudget, adopting a radical, digital ...
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Reviews
The Weather Man
Dir. Gore Verbinski. US. 2005.102mins.TheWeather Man is clearly a transitional work for director Gore Verbinski, a modestly budgeted, comically inflected dramamore alert to writing, character detail and social portrait than the stylisedvisual flamboyance and mannered comic performances of the likes of Pirates Of TheCaribbean.Starring Nicolas Cage as aman attempting to ...
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Reviews
Doom
Dir: Andrzej Bartkowiak. US. 2005. 101mins.Just as knowing one's own intellectual limitations isits own form of intelligence, so it is wise for a film to have a keen sense ofboundary and mission. Sometimes economy is the smartest choice, as Doom, the surprisingly enjoyable newadaptation of the wildly popular first-person videogame ...
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Reviews
Stay
Dir: Marc Forster. US. 2005.103mins.After the mainstream success of his charmingtearjerker Finding Neverland,Monster's Ball director Marc Forstergoes dark and edgy again with Stay, apsychological thriller infatuated with its themes of death, identity, realityand illusion.Forster makes the most ofhis newly earned creative freedom and delivers a stylish, visually inventivefilm that takes ...
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Reviews
St Jacques' La Mecque
Dir/scr: Coline Serreau. Fr. 2005. 112mins.Comedy writer-director ColineSerreau came a cropper two years ago with 18 Years After, a pointless anduninspired sequel to Three Men And A Baby, her 1985 sleeper smash that definitivelyturned the tide for Hollywood's remake industry. Now Serreauattempts to return to the social comedy that is ...
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Reviews
Doom
Dir: Andrzej Bartkowiak. US. 2005. 101mins.Just as knowing one's own intellectual limitations isits own form of intelligence, so it is wise for a film to have a keen sense ofboundary and mission. Sometimes economy is the smartest choice, as Doom, the surprisingly enjoyable newadaptation of the wildly popular first-person videogame ...
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Reviews
Prime
Dir/scr: Ben Younger. US. 2005. 105mins.It's doubtful that Prime, Ben Younger's bittersweet comedyabout the age-gap love affair between an older woman and a younger man, willgenerate as much interest as the recent nuptials of DemiMoore and Ashton Kutcher.Neither as broadly comic noras sophomorically crude as Meet The Parents, it mines ...
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Reviews
The Quiet
Dir: Jamie Babbit. US. 2005. 91mins.Put DesperateHousewives on a double dose of Benzedrine and you have a roughapproximation of Jamie Babbit's The Quiet, an overheated and lurid, if beautifully mounted,American indie melodrama that verges on guilty pleasureterritory for all the wrong reasons.While Desperate Housewives, with its drooling tales of adultery ...