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Latest reviews – Page 433
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Reviews
Robots
Dir: Chris Wedge, CarlosSaldanha. US. 2005. 85mins.In the modern cinematic age, animation has become abehemoth sub-genre of its own and - if done right - a virtual licence to printmoney, as Disney's lucrative, if waning, partnership with Pixar and DreamWorks'successful joint ventures with PDI have helped prove.Of course, given the ...
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Reviews
Mongolian Ping Pong (Lu Caodi)
Dir: Ning Hao. China.2005. 102mins.A worthwhile addition tothe yurt-flick genre that has included the likes of Urga, MongolianPing Pong is one of those ethnic features that allows audiences to getinside an alien landscape and culture from the comfort of their own cinemaseat. Beautifully-shot, the film is a paean to the ...
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Reviews
Hostage
Dir: Florent Siri. US. 2005. 115mins.Hostage, the new vehicle for Bruce Willis,survives an occasionally overcomplicated plot to provide consistently solid, ifnot particularly novel, entertainment. While there is very little that is newhere, the familiar characters, story, situation and iconography of theSWAT-team genre are crisply and engagingly delivered by French director ...
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Reviews
Hostage
Dir: Florent Siri. US. 2005. 115mins.Hostage, the new vehicle for Bruce Willis,survives an occasionally overcomplicated plot to provide consistently solid, ifnot particularly novel, entertainment. While there is very little that is newhere, the familiar characters, story, situation and iconography of theSWAT-team genre are crisply and engagingly delivered by French director ...
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Reviews
The Pacifier
Dir:Adam Shankman. US. 2005. 97mins.Itworked for Arnold Schwarzenegger, so it's not surprising that Vin Diesel tooshould now take a career diversion from action into family comedy. ThePacifier, from Spyglass, Disney and Bringing Down The House directorAdam Shankman, puts the XXX muscle man together with some unruly kidsand a supporting cast ...
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Reviews
Man Of The House
Dir: Stephen Herek. US.2005. 100mins.A dispiriting tale abouta group of cheerleaders who observe a murder and then must be protected, ManOf The House is a colourless concept comedy without much else going for itoutside of concept; an artificial crowd-pleaser that throws a few feeblecharacter types at the screen and then ...
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Reviews
The Ballad Of Jack And Rose
Dir/scr: Rebecca Miller. US. 2005. 111mins.An extremely emaciated Daniel Day-Lewis sets the tonefor Rebecca Miller's eerie family drama The Ballad Of Jack And Rose as aman who rails against the inhumane consumerist world while encroaching cancerforces him to push his teenage daughter into modern society.He's seething with anger and has ...
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Reviews
Look Both Ways
Dir/scr: Sarah Watt.Aust. 2004. 100minsShrewdly commissioned bythe Adelaide Film Festival's own Investment Fund, writer-director Sarah Watt'sthoughtful and sobering debut made a big impression at the 2005 festival'sopening night, as might be expected.But this strong hometownreception should not detract from Look Both Ways many qualities. Whilearthouse prospects at home are excellent ...
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Reviews
Game 6
Dir. Michael Hoffman. US.2005. 87mins.Despite an engagingperformance by Michael Keaton, this dramatic comedy lacks an emotional heft tomatch its sophisticated premise and milieu. Exploring the existential crisis ofa Broadway playwright and baseball fanatic, Game 6 goes to interestingplaces but never gels as a whole. Screening at Sundance in the Premieressection ...
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Reviews
Be Cool
Dir: F Gary Gray. US.2005. 115 mins.Imperturbablemobster-turned-movie-producer Chili Palmer tries his hand at the music biz in BeCool, the long-awaited sequel to Barry Sonnefeld's deftly funny 1995 ElmoreLeonard adaptation Get Shorty. In musical terms, the sequel doesn'tswing like the original did and neither does it ever quite find a more ...
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Reviews
Cursed
Dir: Wes Craven. US.2005. 95minsThe release date of 2005tells one side - perhaps the official one - to Cursed, the new werewolfpicture from Dimension, the in-house genre arm of Miramax that revitalised themodern horror landscape with the self-aware yet scary Scream picturesfrom what now seems like eons ago. Almost every ...
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Reviews
Sacred Heart (Cuore Sacro)
Dir: Ferzan Ozpetek. Italy. 2005. 117 minsFerzan Ozpetek serves upa cringingly sentimental tale of managerial altruism for the multiplexgeneration: and yet another great white hope of Italian cinema falls by thewayside. The Turkish-born, Italian-trained Ozpetek is, alongside fellow Medusaregular Gabriele Muccino, the director who most ably occupies the middle-groundbetween commercial ...
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Reviews
Night Watch (Nochnoy Dozor)
Dir: Timur Bekmambetov.Russia. 2004. 114mins.One of the mostimpressive things about Night Watch is the fact that such a stylish andtechnically polished fantasy movie - which can teach Hollywood a trick or twoabout squeezing a great look out of a tight budget - is it is 100% made inRussia. But, as ...
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Reviews
Mad Hot Ballroom
Dir: Marilyn Agrelo. US.2005. 114mins.An upbeat, feelgooddocumentary about kids from three New York public elementary schools whocompete in a citywide ballroom dancing competition, Mad Hot Ballroom isthis year's Spellbound, if with a less an ironic take on its subjectsthan the spelling-bee documentary and gutsier motivational verve.One of the hot tickets ...
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Reviews
Stranger (Ono)
Dir:Malgosia Szumowska. Ger-Pol. 2005. 98mins.Thesecond full-length feature by Polish film-maker Malgosia Szumowska, Strangeris infused with the spirit of Kieslowski. But this slow, measured film about anunmarried girl who decides to go ahead with an unplanned pregnancy does notfeel derivative.Unsentimental,emotionally intelligent, it gets under the skin, adding up to more than ...
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Reviews
Kekexili: Mountain Patrol (Kekexili)
Dir: LuChuan. Chi-HK. 2004. 90mins.Chinesefilm-maker Lu Chuan, who made a lively debut with The Missing Gun in2001, confirms his promise and extends his range with Kekexili: MountainPatrol, which screened in Forum at Berlin after successful outings at Tokyoand Sundance (it also beat Wong Kar-wai's's 2046 to the best film prizeat ...
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Reviews
The Works ties up Berlin deals
The Works licensed PawelPawlikowski's My Summer Of Love to Brazil's Europa. Tara Road was soldto Svensk for Scandinavia, Cinearts bought festival title Tickets forBenelux, while Dongsong bought it for Korea. Israel's Orlando Films boughtcompetition film The Sun for Israel. Off market title The AlzheimerCase was sold to Media Soso for ...
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Reviews
U-Carmen eKhayelitsha
Dir. Mark Domford-May. SAfr. 2004. 120mins.Bizet's Carmen,arguably the most popular grand opera written and certainly the one mostfrequently adapted to the big screen, enjoys another outing, this time to SouthAfrica, for U-Carmen eKhayelitshaMark Domford-May's updatedversion is set in the present day, performed by local talents, sung in Xhosaand shot in ...
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Reviews
The Wayward Cloud (Tian Bian Yi Duo Hun)
Dir/scr: Tsai Ming-Liang.Fr-Tai. 2005. 111mins.Taiwan auteur TsaiMing-Liang revisits all his favourite themes in The Wayward Cloud, hiseighth feature. There's his water obsession - here figured in a nationwidewater shortage, which leads to a run on mineral water and watermelons. There'shis exploration of lonely characters lost in a big but strangely ...
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Reviews
Peacock (Kong Que)
Dir: Gu Changwei China.2005. 161mins.If further proof wereneeded of the technical and emotional maturity of the New Chinese cinema, then Peacocksupplies it. The story of three siblings in a provincial Chinese town at thetail end of the Cultural Revolution, this sensitive, deceptively simple filmtakes a while to establish its authority, ...