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Latest reviews – Page 440
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Reviews
The Grudge
Dir: Takashi Shimizu. US.2004. 90mins.The second Hollywoodremake of a J-horror movie after blockbuster hit The Ring, The Grudgehas confirmed the wide appetite for this kind of unsettling chiller with a $40mopening weekend in North America.Domestic distributorColumbia Pictures positioned the film to perfection, scoring a teen-friendlyPG-13 rating, creating intriguing TV spots ...
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Reviews
The Polar Express
Dir: Robert Zemeckis. US.2004. 92mins.Only Hollywood couldproduce a film as lavish and technologically ground-breaking as The PolarExpress, and Warner Bros is banking on that fact to entice millions offamilies around the world into their seasonal heartwarmer.The film brings to lifeChris Van Allsburg's classic US kids' book using a new animation ...
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Reviews
Bullet Boy
Dir: Saul Dibb. UK. 2004.91minsA low-budget blackBritish film with energy and attitude, Bullet Boy is among the moreinvigorating UK movie debuts of recent years. In his first feature, directorSaul Dibb (best known as a documentary maker) uses his north London locationsin eerie, atmospheric fashion and manages to deal with gun ...
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Reviews
A Very Long Engagement (Un Long Dimanche De Fiancailles)
Dir: Jean-Pierre Jeunet.France. 2004. 134mins.A flamboyant mixture ofbattlefront spectacle, home front romance, revenge drama, and detective story 'Jean-Pierre Jeunet's first film since Amelie is all this and more.Cinematically bigger and dramatically richer than that phenomenally successful2001 monument of whimsy, A Very Long Engagement confirms Jeunet as amaster showman who has ...
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Reviews
Alfie
Dir: Charles Shyer. US.2004. 103mins.Charles Shyer, whosecredits include the bland remake of Father Of The Bride and the periodmisfire The Affair Of The Necklace, takes another bath with his insipidremake of 1966 classic Alfie. Systematically eliminating any of thecruelty which made Alfie such an iconic figure of his day, he ...
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Reviews
Around The Bend
Dir/scr: Jordan Roberts.US. 2004. 85mins.For his directorialdebut, screenwriter Jordan Roberts (who was uncredited for his work on RoadTo Perdition) delivers a small, heartfelt family drama in which four malegenerations make a reluctant road trip through America's Southwest and scalethe rocky emotional terrain of their shared past.Around The Bend may fail ...
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Reviews
Infection/Premonition (Kansen/Yogen)
Infection Dir: MasayukiOchiai. Jap. 2004. 98mins.PremonitionDir: Norio Tsuruta. Jap. 2004. 95 mins.In January 1998 twohorror films, both based on novels by Koji Suzuki, were released as a doublebill in Japan. The Ring (in Japanese: Ringu) and The Spiral (Rasen)became hits: the former especially launched the worldwide "J Horror" boom and ...
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Reviews
Cafe Lumiere (Kohi Jikou)
Dir:Hou Hsiao-Hsien. Japan. 2004. 92mins.One of the most consistently interesting of Far Easternarthouse directors, Hou Hsiao-Hsien has a dedicated following on the festivalcircuit and a tiny film-buff fanbase in the real world. It's telling that not asingle Region 2 DVD of any of the Taiwanese director's films is currentlyavailable on ...
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Reviews
The World (Shijie)
Dir. Jia Zhang-Ke.China-Japan. 2004. 140mins.China's censorship boardhad previously banned the work of film-maker Jia Zhang-Ke - that is until hislatest film, The World, which is as subversive and critical as any ofhis earlier features.While some board members mayhave chosen to regard it as a travelogue selling the charms of Beijing'sgigantic ...
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Reviews
Low Life
Dir: Im Kwon-Taek.South Korea. 2004. 99 mins.Veteran South Korean filmmaker Im Kwon-Taek spotlights aturbulent period in the history of his country in this fast-paced saga, whichscreened in competition at Venice. But all that history is the film's mainproblem: international audiences, few of whom have a firm grasp of thepolitical landscape ...
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Reviews
A Good Woman
Dir: Mike Barker. UK-It.2004. 93minsA light souffle of a film, AGood Woman takes a decent stab at transferring Oscar Wilde's enduring play LadyWindermere's Fan from Victorian England to 1930s Italy. The crisp wit andsly social satire are a little lost in translation and the stellar cast are notalways at ease ...
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Reviews
Stray Dogs (Sag-Haye Velgard)
Dir. MarziyehMeshkini. Iran. 2004. 93mins.Put this one downalongside Bunuel's Los Olvidados, de Sica's Sciuscia or Babencos'Pixote as yet another devastating portrait of human folly and what itdoes to its most defenceless victims, its children.Shot on theoutskirts of Kabul, in Afghanistan, by Marziyeh Meshkini, whose 2000 Venicedebut, The Day I Became ...
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Reviews
Arsene Lupin
Dir. Jean-PaulSalome. Fr-UK-Spain-It. 2004. 132mins.At Euros 23m, ArseneLupin is one of the most expensive French films of the year, with sumptuoussets, lavish costumes, picturesque locations and spectacular camerapyrotechnics. But there is little else to recommend it: certainly not thescreenplay, which never quiet makes up its mind what it wants to ...
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Reviews
Butterfly (Hu Die)
Dir: Yan Yan Mak, HongKong. 2004. 124minsA well-crafted butpainfully earnest lesbian coming-of-age drama, Hu Die attempts inunconvincing fashion to combine the personal and the political. Using flashbackand newsreel footage, it makes constant reference to the protests leading up tothe massacre in Tiananmen Square in 1989, when students stood up against ...
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Reviews
Brides (Nyfes)
Dir:Pantelis Voulgaris. Gr. 2004. 128minsGreekveteran Pantelis Voulgaris takes audiences on a long, slow voyage in Brideswhich, while mostly shot in English, is unlikely to travel far from its homeport for overseas markets.WithBarbara De Fina and Martin Scorsese as producer and executive producerrespectively, the film might attract international attention, but distributorswill ...
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Reviews
Saint Ralph
Dir/scr:Michael McGowan. Canada. 2004. 98minsThebroad strokes of Saint Ralph (the last production from AllianceAtlantis' production arm) suggest an absurdist comedy. The title character, agangly 14-year-old attending a Catholic school, decides to run and win theBoston Marathon and in so doing create the sort of miracle that will bring hismother - ...
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Reviews
Shall We Dance
Dir: Peter Chelsom. US.2004. 106mins.Plenty gets lost intranslation in Miramax Films' well-appointed US remake of Masayuki Suo'sbeloved 1996 Japanese comedy Shall We Dance' but director Peter Chelsomand his megawatt star cast generate sufficient charm to win hearts anew andscore a mid-sized end-of-year hit around the world.The glitzy teaming of post-Chicago ...
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Reviews
Team America: World Police
Dir: Trey Parker. US.2004. 98mins.Gung-ho Americans,turbaned terrorists and Hollywood peaceniks - they're all fair comedic game forTrey Parker and Matt Stone's Team America: World Police, a raunchyaction movie satire with the weird distinction of being performed by a cast oftraditional Thunderbirds-style puppets. Parker and Stone - best known,of course, as ...
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Reviews
Taxi
Dir: Tim Story. US. 2004.97 mins.Luc Besson's French franchise-starter Taxi certainly seems like a goodcandidate for a US makeover: like its two hugely successful sequels, the hit1998 original was essentially, after all, a Hollywood action comedy with aGallic spin. Whatever potential there may have been, however, is squandered bythis bland ...
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Reviews
Five Children And It
Dir: John Stephenson. UK. 2004. 89mins.A well-produced children's film based on the novel by Railway Childrenwriter E Nesbit, Five Children And It feels out of sync with theentertainment tastes of today's family audiences. Relentlessly pleasant anddevoid of any tension in the plot, it deliberately flies in the face ofcontemporary culture ...