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Latest reviews – Page 418
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Reviews
All The Invisible Children
Dirs: Mehdi Charef, Emir Kusturica, Spike Lee, KatiaLund, Jordan and Ridley Scott, Stefano Veneruso, John Woo. It. 2005. 131mins.Portmanteau films arelike chocolate assortments: pretty boring once all the coffee creams have gone.The latest multi-director outing to test international audiences' limitedappetite for the genre, All The Invisible Children is a worthy ...
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Reviews
Shinobi
Dir: Ten Shimoyama. Jap.2005.101mins.Already sold to 14foreign territories and with strong remake potential, Ten Shimoyama's Shinobiresembles recent Japanese period epics like Red Shadow, SamuraiResurrection and Azumi in its computer game-like structure andtargets their teen audiences accordingly.But in telling his story oftwo warring ninja clans, Shimoyama also aspires to the epic, ...
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Reviews
A Little Trip To Heaven
Dir:Baltasar Kormakur. Ice. 2005. 98mins.For his latest feature A Little Trip To Heaven,Icelandic film-maker Baltasar Kormakur takes audiences on a modest littleadventure in the other direction as well and the familiar hellish genre of themodern neo-noir. This time however the focus is not on some disaffected,world-weary flatfoot and his cheating, ...
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Reviews
The House Of Sand (Casa De Areia)
Dir: Andrucha Waddington.Braz. 2005. 103mins.No, this isn't 2003's HouseOf Sand And Fog after the mist has lifted but Brazilian director AndruchaWaddington's first feature since his well-regarded Me You Them (2000),which won the top prize at Karlovy Vary.Set in northern Brazil'sforbidding state of Maranhao, now a conservation zone, it begins in ...
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Reviews
3 Needles
Dir/scr: Thom Fitzgerald.Can. 2005. 123mins.A film with sweeping emotional heft and extensive geographical remit - fromSouth Africa to China and Montreal via three separate AIDS-themed stories -Thom Fitzgerald's 3 Needles ultimately falls victim to its own ambition.While it conveys enormoussympathy to both subject and locations shoots it is likely to ...
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Reviews
Sunflower (Xiangrikui)
Dir: Zhang Yang. Chi-HK.2005. 128mins.With SunflowerZhang Yang (The Shower, Quitting) returns with anotherconfrontational saga between father and son, this time in the shape of alargely autobiographical tale that runs from the eve of the Cultural Revolutionup until the present day.Focusing on a single familywhose history is supposed to reflect on ...
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Reviews
C.R.A.Z.Y.
Dir: Jean-Marc Vallee.Can. 2005. 127mins.Recently selected asCanada's submission for the best foreign language Oscar, the family saga C.R.A.Z.Y.emerges as both the quintessence of contemporary cinema from Quebec and a talethat seamlessly taps into a universal zeitgeist.The travails, sexualawakening and socio-political turmoil of the 1970s, as seen through the eyes ofthe ...
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Reviews
The Wild Blue Yonder
Dir: Werner Herzog.Ger-Fr-UK. 81mins.At times in WernerHerzog's docu-drama The Wild Blue Yonder, as the glittering-eyed BradDourif rants at the camera, audiences could be forgiven for thinking that theyare being buttonholed by an extra-planetary version of Samuel TaylorColeridge's Ancient Mariner.Dourif plays an alien fromAndromeda who has been stranded on Earth for ...
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Reviews
Into The Blue
Dir: John Stockwell. US.2005. 110mins.Hot bods and cool underwater cinematography partially make up for a tiredplot and annoying tone in Into The Blue, a lightweight action/adventureabout sexy young things diving for shipwrecks off the Bahamas.Given that the two lead bodsbelong to Jessica Alba - especially hot after Fantastic Four and ...
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Reviews
The White Masai (Die Weisse Massai)
Dir: Hermine Huntgeburth.Ger. 2005. 132mins.Hermine Huntgeburth's TheWhite Masai (Die Weisse Massai) is much less good than it shouldhave been. True, it's handsomely and expensively mounted, beautifully andrigorously shot in an extremely photogenic Kenya, and has a political andcultural heart that is decidedly in the right place. But at two hours-plus ...
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Reviews
Shooting Dogs
Dir: Michael Caton-Jones.UK-Ger. 2005. 114mins.Yes, it is poor timingfor Shooting Dogs, arriving in the wake of the international tour deforce that was Hotel Rwanda and HBO title Sometime In April. Butthere's room for more than one film to be made about the 1994 genocide - or atleast for as long ...
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Reviews
Mrs Harris
Dir: Phyllis Nagy. US.2005. 94mins.Written and directed bynoted playwright and first-time film-maker Phyllis Nagy, Mrs Harris, atleast in its first third, is a jangly, stylised onslaught on sensibilities thatwill alienate many and intrigue just as many others.However, once you becomeused to its anti-rhythms and purposeful edginess - and, truth to ...
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Reviews
Wassup Rockers
Dir/scr: Larry Clark. US.2005. 111mins.In Wassup Rockers,Larry Clark has produced the sweetest, most loving and lovable film he's evermade - and consequently the most boring. If kids (now 10-years-old) wasdeplorable, frightening, and, to some, even degrading, it was always excitingand its hateful, rapacious teenage male lead endlessly fascinating.In his latest ...
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Reviews
Beowulf And Grendel
Dir: Sturla Gunnarsson.Can-UK-Ice. 2005. 103mins.Beowulf And Grendel is a handsomely mounted retelling of the ancientAnglo-Saxon classic from the early Middle Ages, the period in which a nascentChristianity was attempting to establish itself among the warring pagan tribesof northern Europe.It appears that littleexpense was spared, and the cast boasts the likes ...
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Reviews
River Queen
Dir: Vincent Ward. NZ-UK.2005. 114mins.Long before Peter Jacksonbecame the Lord of the Kiwis, Vincent Ward was the leading light of New Zealandcinema. After disappointing Hollywood ventures and aborted projects, Wardfinally returns home for River Queen, a labour of love period drama thatemerges virtually unscathed from a difficult, fractured production history.The ...
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Reviews
Dreamer: Inspired By A True Story
Dir/scr: John Gatins. US.2005. 104mins.Horseracing often has thereputation of being a sport ruled by, and mainly for, the wealthy - thoseunencumbered by the pesky constraints of regular, office-bred employment. Asthe recent critical and crossover screen success of Seabiscuit proved,though, the same general rules of other underdog movies apply to tales ...
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Reviews
American Gun
Dir: Aric Avelino. US.2005. 95mins.A sombre portrait ofmodern American society, Aric Avelino's debut picture looks like anotherversion of Paul Haggis' Crash, realised in the shadow of Gus Van Sant's Elephant.Shot in episodic form, with each story only vaguely related to the others - ifat all - Avelino and Steven Bagatourian's ...
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Reviews
The Notorious Bettie Page
Dir. Mary Harron. US.2005. 91mins.The detachment from hersubject that Mary Harron successfully kept with her screen adaptation of AmericanPsycho (2000) is in evidence again with The Notorious Bettie Page -although the end result is less compelling.With Bret Easton Ellis'novel, Harron and co-writer Guinevere Turner delivered a chilling and darklyfunny slice ...
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Reviews
Garpastum
Dir: Alexei Guerman Jr.Russ. 2005. 118mins.With its stunnisngphotography, interminable takes, abstract narrative and metaphoric ambitions,Alexei Guerman Jr sophomore effort Garpastum cannot fail to become acritics' favourite and a must-book for any self-respecting film festival. Thatit left Venice - where it competed - without any distinction reflects more onthe juries than ...
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Reviews
Twelve And Holding
Dir: Michael Cuesta. US.2005. 90mins.A deft, nuanced drama which, while conventionally framed, still feels freshand new, Twelve And Holding is a delight. Its three child stars are allstrong, but this film will be remembered for young actress Zoe Weizenbaum'sperformance as a young girl caught between precocious childhood and the fullonslaught ...