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Latest reviews – Page 424
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Reviews
Riviera
Dir/scr:Anne Villaceque. Fr. 2005. 94mins.Emotionaldysfunction, repressed sexuality and Southern sunshine make a potentlydisturbing combination in Riviera, second feature by French directorAnne Villaceque. In her 2000 debut Petite Cherie, Villaceque establishedtroubled female sexuality as her key theme, and she returns to it with avengeance in this subtly intense portrayal of a ...
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Reviews
20 Centimetres (20 Centimentros)
Dir/scr: Ramon Salazar.Sp-Fr. 2005. 113mins.A bawdy, picaresque Spanish yarn about a transvestite whoyearns for a sex change operation (she has 20cm she wishes to dispense with -hence the title), Ramon Salazar's second feature carries obvious echoes of theearly work of Pedro Almodovar. There is the same irreverent humour, a sharedfascination ...
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Reviews
What A Wonderful Place (Eize Makom Nifla)
Dir/scr: EyalHalfon. Is-Ger. 2005. 104mins.Eyal Halfon's WhatA Wonderful Place, about the plight of foreign workers in Israel is a grim,angry and uncompromising drama. Three inter-related plots leading to violentfinal clash offer the bitterly ironic conclusion that Israel - or any othersupposedly liberal western country that treats its economic migrants in ...
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Reviews
The Rising: The Ballad Of Mangal Pandey
Dir: Ketan Mehta. India.2005. 150minsThe story of the IndianMutiny gets a swashbuckling spin, complete with musical numbers, in TheRising, a film that director Ketan Mehta originally planned to make in1988.The presence of Aamir Khan -star of Lagaan, one of the few Bollywood films to achieve a healthydegree of non-niche prominence ...
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Reviews
Transporter 2
Dir: Louis Leterrier. France.2005. 87 min.After the ill-judged mixtureof mawkish sentimental drama and martial arts mayhem of Glasgow-based Dannythe Dog/Unleashed, writer-producer Luc Besson returns to the pure actionvein with this sequel to his 2002 hit, The Transporter. With hissurrogate Louis Leterrier again handling directing chores, Transporter 2is a wholly derivative ...
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Reviews
The Dukes Of Hazzard
Dir: Jay Chandrasekhar.US. 2005. 102 mins. Itwould have been easy just to make fun of The Dukes of Hazzard, the supremely corny early eighties US TV seriesabout Bo and Luke Duke, two young buck good ole boys from deep in the heart ofGeorgia. Surprisingly though, this Warner Bros/Village Roadshow big ...
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Reviews
On A Clear Day
Dir: Gaby Dellal. UK2005. 99mins.British cinema has alwaysloved its underdogs. Gaby Dellal's big-hearted debut feature is yet anotheryarn about a small-timer fighting back against a society that marginalises him.In this case, the protagonist is a 55-year-old newly unemployed Glaswegian whostrives to redeem his life by swimming the English Channel.Confidently directed, ...
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Reviews
Stealth
Dir:Rob Cohen. US. 2005. 119mins.RobCohen's latest big-budget B-movie has the cheesiness of the director's XXXand The Fast And The Furious but none of the saving graces that helpedturn those two outings into entertaining as well as widely appealing summerhits. An airborne action adventure with a US military setting and the ...
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Reviews
Sky High
Dir: Mike Mitchell. US2005. 90mins.Withmore than a passing nod towards Harry Potter, Spy Kids, TheIncredibles and X-Men, new superhero feature Sky High is setin a school for kids who are just coming into their paranormal powers - as ifteenage angst was not enough already.Given its mild, frequentlycorny, humour and the ...
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Reviews
The Skeleton Key
Dir: Iain Softley. US.2005. 104mins.Iain Softley'sLouisiana-set The Skeleton Key is a horror film which does not alwaysseem to know which doors it is trying to unlock. The film is at once apsychological chiller in similar vein to Amenabar's The Others, a ratheroverwrought and inadvertently comic slice of Southern Gothic, and ...
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Reviews
Must Love Dogs
Dir:Gary David Goldberg. US. 2005. 9s7mins.With itscyber-dating-driven plot and plays on modern romantic mores, Must Love Dogssets itself up as a contemporary take on the time-honoured search for love.Deep down, though, this resolutely lightweight romantic comedy is just tootradition-bound and familiar seeming to be very effective. It is only perked ...
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Reviews
Bad News Bears
Dir. Richard Linklater.US. 2005. 114mins.To a generation ofAmericans, Michael Ritchie's 1976 comedy Bad News Bears was a culturaltouchstone, a rough-around-the-edges feature that celebrated an underdogbaseball team as it battled against adversity.The problem with RichardLinklater's remake is that the style of films made by Hollywood in the 30 yearssince. Bad News ...
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Reviews
The Devil's Rejects
Dir/scr: Rob Zombie. US.2005. 108mins.A lot of horror movies self-profess to be brutal andout-there, but most modern genre pictures actually reveal themselves to belittle more than communal vehicles of squeamish discomfort. In the finalanalysis, their pursuit of as many pan-demographic dollars as possible ensuresthat they don't really want to cross ...
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Reviews
Little Fish
Dir: Rowan Woods. Aus.2005. 114mins.Cate Blanchett laststarred in an Australian film with Gillian Armstrong's Oscar And Lucinda(1997), in which her 19th-century heiress harboured dreams of building a glasschurch in the Outback.She returns to Australianfilm-making eight years later - and with a Best Supporting Actress Oscar - toplay another dreamer in ...
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Reviews
The City Of The Sun (Slunecni Stat Aneb Hrdinove Delnicke Tridy)
Dir. Martin Sulik. CzRep-Slovak. 2005. 99mins.At the start Martin Sulik's feature about four unemployedCzech men promises some sort of a social comment on the collapse of EastEuropean industry, with its images of violent clashes between management and redundantworkers.But before long The CityOf The Sun settles into the predictable patterns of ...
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Reviews
Charly (L'Avion)
Dir: Cedric Kahn. Fr-Ger.2005. 100mins.Making a family film thatappeals to young and more sophisticated audiences is not that easy - but it isa task that film-maker Cedric Kahn mostly succeeds in with Charly.Though no less than fivescreenwriters were involved, Kahn's feature tells the simple and well-wornstory of a young boy ...
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Reviews
Piccadilly Jim
Dir. John McKay. UK.2004. 97mins.John McKay's sophomorefeature Piccadilly Jim is one of those all-too common happenings incinema: a film that barely misses the mark when aiming at greatness, therebyinfuriating those who notice its failings and thus bringing the film down tothe level of 'having potential".Adapted by Oscar winnerJulian Fellowes (Gosford ...
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Reviews
Festival
Dir/scr: Annie Griffin.UK. 2005 107mins.Festival is a deceptive affair. Early on, as we're introduced to agallery of aspiring comedians and actors, Annie Griffin's debut feature looksset to turn into a grating celebration of the Edinburgh Festival (the largestarts festival in the world) in all its full carnivalesque glory. There issomething ...
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Reviews
Guy X
Dir: Saul Metzstein.UK-Can-Ice. 2005. 94mins.One would love to like afilm that was one of the few survivors from the British film funding crunch inFebruary 2004. But despite some enjoyable satire along the way, Guy X,the second feature from Scottish director Saul Metzstein, never adds up to thesum of its parts.Set ...
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Reviews
Unveiled (Fremde Haut)
Dir: AngelinaMaccarone. Ger-Aust. 2005. 97mins.Using the premiseof a woman passing herself off as a man for political purposes, Unveiledmakes for an earnest and well-meaning, if at times rather humourless and lessthan imaginative, feature from film-maker Angelina Maccarone.Closer in spirit toa didactic lecture rather than a dramatic experience, it follows a ...