Latest reviews – Page 460
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Reviews
Grimm
Dir. Alex van Warmerdam. The Netherlands, 2003. 104mins.Looking both grim and Grimm (as in the Brothers), this modern nightmarish fairytale has nevertheless enough weird humour in it to legitimately qualify as a comedy, though there is nothing funny going on throughout. The way Dutch director Warmerdam applies his wicked touch ...
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Reviews
The Galindez File (El Misterio Galindez)
Dir. Gerardo Herrero. Spain/UK/Cuba/Portugal/Italy/France. 2003. 128 min.A political thriller based on a true story that delivers its answers before it asks the questions must be some kind of novelty. Not to mention that after establishing all the facts and pinpointing all the heroes and the villains of the story without ...
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Reviews
Suite Habana
Dir. Fernando Perez. Cuba/Spain, 2003. 80 min.This well-intentioned, mostly melancholy but positive hymn of love to Havana, in the form of a pseudo-documentary, bears all the earmarks of an officially approved production that projects a more than affectionate portrait the city, notwithstanding all its shortcomings. But it is still a ...
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Reviews
The Green Butchers
Dir. Anders Thomas Jensen. Denmark. 2002. 100mins.The Green Butchers could launch a new sub-genre of black comedy: the flesh-coloured comedy. A laugh-out-loud farce bristling with cruelty, the film invites viewers into the loathsome world of two memorable losers, a pair of newly-minted butchers who stumble upon success by selling human ...
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Reviews
Chill Out (Descongelate)
Dirs: Dunia Ayaso & Felix Sabroso. Spain. 2003.It is easy to see how writer-director team Ayaso and Sabroso's new film might attract the Almodovar brothers as co-producers through their El Deseo outfit. The black humour, camp and kitschy urban aesthetic hark back to early Almodovar gems like What Have I ...
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Reviews
The Fighting Temptations
Dir: Jonathan Lynn. US. 2003. 116 mins.Pop diva Beyonce Knowles and an all-star gospel/R&B soundtrack are the main attractions of The Fighting Temptations, a pleasant but formulaic ensemble comedy from MTV Films that teams the singer with Cuba Gooding Jr and British ex-pat director Jonathan Lynn. With Beyonce's recent solo ...
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Reviews
8.17pm, Darling Street (20.17, Rue Darling)
Dir: Bernard Emond. Canada. 2003. 101minsInexplicable tragedy prompts a soul-searching quest for the meaning of life in 8.17pm Darling Street, a modestly effective but resolutely glum second feature from writer-director Bernard Emond whose debut, La Femme Qui Boit also screened in Critics' Week in 2001. Addressing the guilt of those ...
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Reviews
Sansa
Dir: Siegfried. France. 2003. 115minsSansa wants to be a profound and moving cinematic experience, perhaps something like a hyped-up tone poem. It is even called 'an essay' rather than a film. Toward that end, writer-director Siegfried employs every trick he can that is available in the panoply of the ...
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Reviews
Arimpara
Dir: Murali Nair. India-Jap. 2003. 90minsDirector Murali Nair's Throne Of Death and A Dog's Day were feted at Cannes, the former with the coveted Camera d'Or for best first feature. But Arimpara, which screened in Un Certain Regard, has not gone down so well, and it certainly has its problems. ...
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Reviews
The Soul Of A Man
Dir: Wim Wenders. Germany. 2003. 100minsWim Wenders' The Soul Of A Man, which screened earlier this year at Sundance and played at Cannes as a special screening, is the first in a series of seven films about that quintessential American art form, the blues. Other notable directors taking part are ...
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Reviews
A Little Bit Of Freedom
Dir: Yuksel Yavuz. Germany. 2003. 101minsAwell-intentioned attempt to explore the fate of Kurdish immigrants, both legal and illegal, living on the streets of Hamburg and the illusion of freedom they enjoy there, Yuksel Yavuz's second feature seeks to cover too much ground and ultimately delivers too little for its efforts. ...
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Reviews
La Chose Publique
Dir: Mathieu Amalric. France. 2003. 85minsAnd you thought they didn't make them like this any more' an old-fashioned political essay in film-on-film, the latest from director Mathieu Amalric - better known as an actor, though he does not cast himself here - wears its Godard influences proudly on its sleeve, ...
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Reviews
Mike Brant: Laisse Moi T'Aimer
Dir. Erez Laufer. Israel/France. 2002. 101mins.A natural for French markets, this account of the meteoric rise and fatal crash of Israeli performer Mike Brant, who became one of Paris's shiniest stars in the early 1970s, is more than a nostalgia piece. Instead it plays as a cautionary tale about a ...
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Reviews
Raja
Dir: Jacques Doillon. France-Morocco. 2003. 112mins.The latest excursion by the director of Ponette - which scooped a Venice Best Actress prize in 1996 for underage star Victoire Thivisol - is a prickly and at times inaccessible meditation on the nature of colonial and sexual power in present-day Morocco. Though its ...
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Reviews
The Boys From County Clare
Dir: John Irvin. Ireland/UK/Germany. 2003. 90 minsWarm in spirit but slight in terms of substance, The Boys From County Clare is a lightweight period charmer. Attractively photographed and ably performed, it is a nice little inoffensive film that lacks the bite or grit to make much headway in theatrical terms. ...
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Reviews
Twentynine Palms
Dir. Bruno Dumont. France/Germany, 2003. 119mins.It's The Brown Bunny syndrome all over again. This time, two people driving in a car instead of one, covering only a small part of Southern California instead of the entire continent. And granted, there is a lot more sex, not particularly attractive but quite ...
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Reviews
Vodka Lemon
Dir: Hiner Saleem. France/Italy/Switzerland/Armenia. 2003. 84minsThe bittersweet realities of a post-Communist world are threatening to create a mini movie genre. A good deal of the sly humour in Good Bye, Lenin! stemmed from a nostalgic longing for life before the fall of the Berlin Wall. In Vodka Lemon, a snowy, ...
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Reviews
21 Grams
Dir: Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu. USA. 2003. 124 mins.Emotionally draining but formally brilliant, the long-awaited second feature by Mexican director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu is for those of us who are passionate about cinema, and who don't mind taking a few body blows in a dark room in the process. The high ...
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Reviews
Touching The Void
Dir: Kevin Macdonald. UK. 2003. 106 minsAn extraordinary story of human survival is transformed into an exceptional human interest documentary in Touching The Void. Director Kevin Macdonald's first theatrical project since the Oscar-winning One Day In September is as dramatic and compelling as any Hollywood fiction but carries a much ...
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Reviews
The Five Obstructions (De Fem Benspaend)
Dir: Lars von Trier, Jorgen Leth. Denmark. 2003. 91 mins.This two hander by the Great Dane, Lars Von Trier, and his older colleague and compatriot Jorgen Leth, is one of the most thought-provoking slices of cinema we are likely to see this year. It is in many ways a more ...