Latest reviews – Page 472
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Reviews
Forest (Rengeteg)
Dir. Benedek Flieghauf. Hungary. 2003. 95mins.With a First Film award and the Gene Moskovitz prize at the Hungarian Film Week and a slot in the Berlin Forum, Benedek Flieghauf's debut feature looks set to be a regular on this year's festival circuit. Rough, gritty, quite plotless and using non-professional actors ...
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Reviews
The United States Of Leland
Dir: Matthew Ryan Hoge. US. 2003. 108mins.First-time director Matthew Ryan Hoge delivers a highly questionable first feature in Sundance dramatic competition entry The United States Of Leland, a star-studded independent ensemble about upset affluent people which comes close to being offhand in its treatment of the murder of an autistic ...
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Reviews
Mortadelo & Filemon: The Big Adventure (La Gran Aventura De Mortadelo Y Filemon)
Dir: Javier Fesser. Spain. 2003. 105mins.Mortadelo & Filemon: The Big Adventure (La Gran Aventura De Mortadelo Y Filemon) broke local records on its opening weekend in Spain and, fuelled by a hefty promotion effort, shot into the number three ranking of all-time top grossers after just three weekends, behind Alejandro ...
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Reviews
The Grudge
Dir: Takashi Shimizu. Japan. 2003. 92mins.The Grudge (Juon), the scare-a-minute hit by newcomer Takashi Shimizu, is the latest Japanese horror film to join the Tokyo-to-Hollywood parade, with Sam Raimi's Ghost House Pictures picking up the remake rights and hiring Shimizu to direct the US version. It is hardly surprising, given ...
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Reviews
Tears Of The Sun
Dir: Antoine Fuqua. US. 2003. 118mins Will they or won't they' Sony Pictures is denying a report in the Los Angeles Times that, due to the unusually high level of anti-American sentiment around the world, the studio plans to delay the international release of its new military-themed action/drama, Tears Of ...
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Reviews
Spare Parts (Rezervni Deli)
Dir: Damjan Kozole. Slovenia. 2003. 87 mins.Three films in competition at this year's Berlin dealt with the trade in illegal immigrants towards the European Union: Michael Winterbottom's Golden Bear winner In This World; FIPRESCI prize winner Distant Lights (Lichter), by German director Hans-Christian Schmid; and this small but well-crafted Slovenian ...
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Reviews
Babij Jar
Dir. Jeff Kanew. Germany-Belarus, 2003. 108mins.Babij Jar is the kind of entry that festivals will find hard to reject, but once accepted, will tear their hair out trying to find a slot for. Devoting a fictional film to one of the most barbarous massacres of WW2 is a praiseworthy initiative ...
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Reviews
You Can't Stop The Murders
Dir: Anthony Mir. Australia. 2003. 97mins.Miramax Australia's first local distribution purchase since upgrading its Sydney office is, bravely, a gentle humanistic comedy from a director making his "first film ever of any kind". Anthony Mir is a local stand-up comedian, and his feature debut, You Can't Stop The Murders is, ...
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Reviews
Minor Injuries (Petites Coupures)
Dir. Pascal Bonitzer. France/UK. 2002. 95mins.The old cliche of the French intellectual in crisis, talking himself silly as he rambles from one encounter or affair to the next, receives another lease of life in the third directorial effort from Pascal Bonitzer, the first of his films to be accepted in ...
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Reviews
Bringing Down The House
Dir: Adam Shankman. US. 2003. 105mins.Built around the odd-couple pairing of Steve Martin and Queen Latifah, Bringing Down the House is a black/white culture-clash comedy with some broad - and a couple of quite sharp - laughs but an old-fashioned, at times even complacent feel. However, the formula has worked ...
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Reviews
Monsieur N
Dir: Antoine de Caunes. Fr-UK-South Africa. 2003. 129mins.French TV presenter and sometime journalist Antoine de Caunes takes on Napoleon, with decidedly mixed results for the historical thriller Monsieur N. The made-for-co-production story straddles two cultures, but despite this, Monsieur N will not easily sell to the English-speaking territories it hopes ...
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Reviews
Zhou Yu's Train
Dir: Sun Zhou. China. 2003. 96 mins.Comparisons will inevitably be made between Chinese mainland romance Zhou Yu's Train and Wong-Kar Wai's In The Mood For Love. The photography is stunningly painterly, the narrative has the same suspended, timeless feel and Gong Li changes her skirt almost as often as Maggie ...
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Reviews
Cradle 2 The Grave
Dir: Andrzej Bartkowiak. US. 2003. 99mins.Having successfully applied the formula first in Romeo Must Die and then in Exit Wounds, producer Joel Silver and director Andrzej Bartkowiak reassemble many of the talents from those two $50m-plus domestic hits for another slick yet moderately budgeted package of hip-hop/martial arts action for ...
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Reviews
Jagoda In The Supermarket
Dir: Dusan Milic. Serb-Ger-It. 2003. 82mins.Produced by Emir Kusturica (who has the briefest cameo in the film as a police chief), this oddball siege comedy has many of the Greater Serb's traits: a goofball surreal-symbolic take on Balkan tragedies, characters that slip in and out of caricature, and a delirious ...
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Reviews
The Soul Keeper (Prendimi L'Anima)
Dir: Roberto Faenza. Italy-France-UK. 2003. 97mins.Italian director Roberto Faenza's first English-language film spins a historical romance out of a footnote in the history of psychoanalysis. By turns involving and frustrating, it demonstrates the danger of a many-handed script which was only translated into English at a fairly late stage. But ...
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Reviews
18 Years Later (18 Ans Apres)
Dir: Coline Serreau. France. 2003. 90 minsWith 18 Years Later, Coline Serreau has made a surprisingly bland follow-up to her 1985 comedy, Three Men And A Cradle, which mushroomed from sleeper into one of the most successful French films ever, registering 10.25m admissions and taking around $71.75m by today's standards, ...
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Reviews
The One And Only
Dir: Simon Cellan Jones. UK 2002. 91mins. Spectacularly misnamed, The One And Only is anything but exceptional. Instead, it is a feeble cookie cutter comedy which represents a real disappointment given the considerable previous achievements of the talent involved: producer Leslee Udwin (East Is East), writer Peter Flannery (the BBC ...
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Reviews
Neither For, Nor Against (Quite The Contrary (Ni Pour, Ni Contre (Bien Au Contraire)
Dir: Cedric Klapisch. Fr. 2002. 112minsAfter the success of Europudding, the Barcelona-set youth comedy which was the fourth biggest French film at home last year (where it took $16.6m), Cedric Klapisch had a tough act to follow. He does so with Neither For, Nor Against, another ensmeble piece, but ...
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Reviews
Comandante
Dir: Oliver Stone. US. 2003. 99mins.For his first documentary, filmmaker Oliver Stone has chosen, in typically Stone fashion, a controversial subject: Cuban dictator Fidel Castro. Commandante provides a fascinating look at the man behind the iconic beard and cigar. But the subject is the only controversial thing about the film. ...