Latest reviews – Page 474
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Reviews
Final Destination 2
Dir: David R Ellis. US. 2003. 97mins. Teen horror franchises usually take a while to get around to jokey self-parody. New Line's sequel to its mid-level 2000 hit Final Destination speeds up the process by adding a string of comically over-the-top death scenes to a plot shamelessly recycled from the ...
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Reviews
What Alice Found
Dir: A. Dean Bell. US. 2003. 96mins.A well-matched combination of intelligent drama and understated performances, What Alice Found is a gem. Much more than the sum of its parts, it explores the emotional dynamics of a young woman who thinks she's found the ideal mother and then discovers she's not ...
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Reviews
Camp
Dir: Todd Graff. US. 2002. 115mins.Of all the films in dramatic competition at this year's Sundance Film Festival, none was as full of undiluted pleasures as Todd Graff's directorial debut Camp. A deliriously good-natured romp through the lives of a bunch of precocious kids attending a summer camp for actors, ...
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Reviews
Capturing The Friedmans
Dir: Andrew Jarecki. US. 2003. 107minsCapturing The Friedmans walked away with this year's Sundance grand jury prize for best documentary and deservedly so. An engrossing, troubling and, in the end, profoundly ambiguous re-examination of a child molestation case that tore one upper-middle class family apart on New York's Long Island ...
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Reviews
Remember Me (Ricordati Di Me)
Dir: Gabriele Muccino. It-Fr-UK. 2003. 100mins.Remember Me, Italian golden boy Gabriele Muccino's fourth film, exposes the terrifying moral and intellectual void at the heart of modern Italy. Unfortunately, it's not trying to - at least not very hard. Rather than channelling the emptiness to make a point about today's TV-fed, ...
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Reviews
The Recruit
Dir: Roger Donaldson. US. 2003. 115mins. Ireland's Colin Farrell proves that he has warranted Hollywood's grooming in The Recruit, a slick, improbable thriller driven by his charismatic movie star presence which even puts Al Pacino in the shade. Farrell has already demonstrated his considerable talent in Tigerland, Hart's War and ...
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Reviews
Confidence
Dir: James Foley. 2002. US. 98minsJames Foley's con-thriller, Confidence, tries to be as clever as the word play in its title, but this attempt at a clever-clever heist story fails due to a slack script and so-so performances. Despite some snappy dialogue, twists and turns and toying with the linear ...
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Reviews
Noi The Albino (Noi Albinoi)
Dir: Dagur Kari. Ice-Ger-UK-Den. 2003. 95mins.Noi The Albino, the debut feature of young Icelandic director Dagur Kari, is one of those films that seem absolutely of their own place and yet curiously cosmopolitan. With its characteristically Nordic comic melancholia and strikingly photographed scenery, it could not have been made anywhere ...
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Reviews
Owning Mahowny
Dir. Richard Kwietniowski. Can-UK. 2003. 107mins.A low-key character study of an extraordinary man, Owning Mahowny tells the true story of a nebbish Canadian bank employee who embezzled millions from his employers to feed his addiction to gambling. Directed with austerity by Richard Kwietniowski and played by the riveting Philip Seymour ...
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Reviews
The Station Agent
Dir: Tom McCarthy. 2002. US. 90minsAs often at Sundance, the real winners are to be found among the recipients of the audience award and not the Grand Jury Prize. This year was no exception as newcomer Tom McCarthy's crowd-pleaser, The Station Agent, proved the talk of Park City all week, ...
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Reviews
All The Real Girls
Dir: David Gordon Green. USA. 2002. 105 mins. Young writer-director David Gordon Green lives up to the poetic promise shown by his acclaimed but little-seen first feature, George Washington, with this exquisite dissection of young heartbreak that is similarly set amid the gorgeously-shot industrial decay of North Carolina. An art-house ...
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Reviews
American Splendor
Dir: Shari Springer Berman & Robert Pulcini. US. 2003. 105 mins. American Splendor tells the true story of Harvey Pekar, the writer of the American Splendor comic book series which depicts the inanities of Pekar's humdrum life. A sort of celebration of ennui, or triumph of the nerd saga, the ...
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Reviews
Pieces Of April
Dir: Peter Hedges. US. 2003. 80 mins. Sweet, neat and oh-so-slight, Pieces Of April marks another triumph for InDigEnt, the digital film-making initiative behind Personal Velocity, Tadpole, Tape and Chelsea Walls. Budgeted at some $150,000, the film looks good and hits all the same buttons you would expect from a ...
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Reviews
Fear X
Dir: Nicolas Winding Refn. Denmark-UK. 2002. 91mins.Abandoning the mean streets of the Copenhagen underworld to make his first American-set feature film, Nicolas Winding Refn has crafted an intensely eerie psycho-drama that plays unnerving mind-games with the audience right through to its ambiguous and rather abrupt end. Evoking at times David ...
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Reviews
Just Married
Dir: Shawn Levy. US. 2002. 94 mins.Broad comedy, flimsy romance and some decorative European settings are the key ingredients in Just Married, a young-skewing romantic comedy from producer Robert Simonds. Grossing a surprising $34m after 10 days on US release, the $18m project has also become the film to knock ...
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Reviews
Masked And Anonymous
Dir: Larry Charles. USA. 2003. 120 min.Masked And Anonymous screened at Sundance as a work-in-progress and director Larry Charles has his work cut out for him. A mish-mash of styles, genres and cameo appearances, as it stands it will annoy every constituency it aims to entertain. As a showcase for ...
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Reviews
Thirteen
Dir: Catherine Hardwicke. US. 2002. 100minsAn impressive directorial debut by established production designer Catherine Hardwicke (Vanilla Sky), Thirteen offers a glimpse into the sex-and-drug realities of life as a teenage girl in LA. The film is particularly disquieting as it is based on both the screenplay and experiences of a ...
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Reviews
The Thirteen Steps (13 Kaidan)
Dir: Masahiko Nagasawa. Jap. 2002. 122mins.In the past, Japanese audiences have flocked to Hollywood Death Row films like Dead Man Walking and The Green Mile - and local producers have taken note. Now Masahiko Nagasawa has directed The Thirteen Steps (13 Kaidan), which tells the story of two men who ...
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Reviews
Wilbur Wants To Kill Himself
Dir: Lone Scherfig. Den-UK. 2002. 111minsA bittersweet reflection on love and death, Wilbur Wants To Kill Himself should beguile the same sophisticated audience who warmed to Italian For Beginners and also win writer-director Lone Scherfig a fresh wave of admirers. Displaying the same quirky charm and bone dry humour of ...
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Reviews
The Singing Detective
Dir: Keith Gordon. US. 2003. 107 mins. There is a point where reverence for one's source material can prove damaging. That point is reached in Keith Gordon's film of The Singing Detective which follows the late Dennis Potter's script of his own landmark TV series to the letter, resulting in ...