Latest reviews – Page 486
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Reviews
The Man Without A Past (Mies Vailla Menneisyytta)
Dir: Aki Kaurismaki. Finland. 2002. 97mins. Screening in CompetitionA low-life comedy-drama guaranteed to leave the viewer feeling high, the latest from Finnish director Aki Kaurismaki has all of his distinctive features: poker-faced humour, stripped-down and highly composed visuals, and a humanist romantic sensibility. All combine to make The Man Without ...
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Reviews
About Schmidt
Dir: Alexander Payne. US. 2002. 125 mins. Screened in CompetitionUnderplaying the overt social satire of Citizen Ruth and Election, Alexander Payne's remorselessly interior dramedy is centred squarely on a single character, and narrower in focus and more pessimistic in tone than either of its predecessors. About Schmidt also abandons the ...
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Reviews
REVIEW: About Schmidt
Dir: Alexander Payne. US. 2002. 125 mins. Screened in CompetitionUnderplaying the overt social satire of Citizen Ruth and Election, Alexander Payne's remorselessly interior dramedy is centred squarely on a single character, and narrower in focus and more pessimistic in tone than either of its predecessors. About Schmidt also abandons the ...
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Reviews
The Man Without A Past (Mies Vailla Menneisyytta)
Dir: Aki Kaurismaki. Finland. 2002. 97mins. Screening in CompetitionA low-life comedy-drama guaranteed to leave the viewer feeling high, the latest from Finnish director Aki Kaurismaki has all of his distinctive features: poker-faced humour, stripped-down and highly composed visuals, and a humanist romantic sensibility. All combine to make The Man Without ...
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Reviews
REVIEW: Ararat
Dir: Atom Egoyan. Canada. 2002. 115mins. Screened in CompetitionArarat is the film Atom Egoyan has been waiting to make his entire career. All the familiar Egoyan tropes are present - the obsession with mediated images, the juxtaposition of 'truth' and 'fiction', of the 'normal' and the 'foreign', - but the ...
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Reviews
REVIEW: Demonlover
Dir: Olivier Assayas. France 2002. 129mins. Screened in CompetitionDemonlover is the latest victim of the French tradition whereby a highly respected director over-reaches drastically, eliciting critical calumny and press-show booing - something that has happened in Cannes to the likes of Beineix, Carax and Kassovitz. It is a shame to ...
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Reviews
Spider
Dir. David Cronenberg, Can-UK. 2002. Screened in CompetitionDavid Cronenberg has described Spider as "pure". This is something of an understatement. An uncompromising portrait of mental disturbance, Spider makes Cronenberg's previous Competition entry Crash seem commercial; whereas the 1996 film promised attractions such as cars and sex, Spider has nothing to ...
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Reviews
Morvern Callar
Dir: Lynne Ramsay. UK. 2002. 97mins. Screened in Director's FortnightA mesmerising journey through the hidden depths of a woman's soul, Morvern Callar confirms writer-director Lynne Ramsay as one of the most audacious and uncompromising British filmmakers of her generation. Poetic, stunningly beautifully and untainted by crass commercial concerns, it is ...
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Reviews
Sweet Sixteen
Director: Ken Loach. UK. 2002. 106mins. Screened in Competition.Continuing the rich collaboration between director Ken Loach and screenwriter Paul Laverty, Sweet Sixteen puts a very human face on the plight of the socially disadvantaged in modern Britain. The heartrending tragedy of a Scottish teenager struggling for his small share of ...
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Reviews
Spider
Dir. David Cronenberg, Can-UK. 2002. Screened in CompetitionDavid Cronenberg has described Spider as "pure". This is something of an understatement. An uncompromising portrait of mental disturbance, Spider makes Cronenberg's previous Competition entry Crash seem commercial; whereas the 1996 film promised attractions such as cars and sex, Spider has nothing to ...
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Reviews
Hong Kong's Cheung and Law plan epic Story Of Ah-Toi
Hong Kong on and off-screen partners Mabel Cheung and Alex Law are planning a giant leap in budget for their next production, provisionally titled The Story Of Ah-Toi, to be set in the US and written and directed by Law with Cheung producing.Throughout their career together, Law has written and ...
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Reviews
All Or Nothing
Dir: Mike Leigh. UK-France 2002. 127 mins.After a brief detour into history (and real-life individuals) with his 1999 Gilbert and Sullivan drama, Topsy Turvy, Mike Leigh returns to more familiar terrain with this subtle, precisely observed contemporary story of ordinary South London folk. Comic but also melancholy - although it ...
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Reviews
REVIEW: Balzac And The Little Chinese Seamstress
Dir: Dai Sijie. France. 2002. 116 mins.Un Certain Regard (Opening Film)The French connection makes Balzac And The Little Chinese Seamstress, a gentle, partly autobiographical coming-of-age tale from the Paris-based Chinese director Dai Sijie, a natural choice to open Un Certain Regard although, in the event, it emerges as on the ...
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Reviews
REVIEW: Bowling For Columbine
Dir: Michael Moore. US. 2002. 120 minsThose convinced that America is the home of the crazed and the land of the trigger happy will find ample support for their views in Bowling For Columbine. Michael Moore's emotive exploration of the constitutional right to bear arms is a wide-ranging, often shockingly ...
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Reviews
REVIEW: Kedma
Dir: Amos Gitai. Israel/France/Italy 2002. 100 mins.Following films such as Kadosh and his last Cannes entry Kippur, Kedma is the latest of Amos Gitai's provocative inquiries into Israeli history and identity. Set in 1948, seven days before the creation of the state of Israel, Kedma proposes a return to historical ...
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Reviews
REVIEW: Sex Is Comedy
Dir: Catherine Breillat. France. 2002. 92 mins.Director's FortnightA welcome reprieve from the joyless intensity of such recent succes de scandale as Romance and A Ma Soeur, Sex Is Comedy allows Catherine Breillat to reveal the kind of light touch and easy humour that some critics may have thought was beyond ...
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Reviews
REVIEW: Marie-Jo And Her Two Lovers
Dir: Robert Guediguian. France. 2001. 124 mins.In CompetitionRobert Guediguian's recent work has fallen into two distinct categories: his tough social stories set in Marseilles (A La Place Du Coeur; La Ville Est Tranquille) and the lighter "contes", or fantasies (Marius Et Jeanette; A L'Attaque!) set in L'Estaque, the working-class port ...
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Reviews
The Importance Of Being Earnest
Dir: Oliver Parker. UK/US. 2002. 97 mins. Three years ago, writer-director Oliver Parker and the UK's Fragile Films re-invented Oscar Wilde's relatively obscure An Ideal Husband for the big screen, opening out the play to delightful effect and earning critical plaudits as well as some impressive box office grosses ($18.5m ...
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Reviews
Insomnia
Dir: Christopher Nolan. US. 2002. 117 mins.Christopher Nolan, the promising writer-director behind Following and Memento, makes an elegant and assured transfer to big-budget, star-driven film-making with Insomnia, one of the rare Hollywood remakes of a European film which is as good as the original. Expertly crafted and eminently intelligent, Insomnia ...
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Reviews
Star Wars: Episode II - Attack Of The Clones
Dir: George Lucas. US. 2002. 143mins.It must be thankless being George Lucas. He may be wading in money, but critics and fans have treated his new Star Wars prequels with such intense scrutiny and disappointment that he has to realise his reputation as a legendary film-maker of 1970s classics American ...