Latest reviews – Page 496
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Reviews
South West 9 (SW9)
Dir: Richard Parry. UK. 2001. 90 mins.South West 9 is aimed squarely at the kids from the British clubbing scene who made a huge hit out of 1999's Human Traffic, also produced by Fruit Salad Films (which, hoping to reproduce that success, has also taken over the distribution of the ...
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Reviews
Escape To Paradise
Dir: Nino Jacusso. Switzerland. 2001. 90 mins. The outstanding feature of this well-meaning but utterly predictable melodrama about a Kurdish family seeking political asylum is the zesty, touching and thoroughly convincing performances from a cast of mainly non-professionals playing heightened versions of themselves (a strategy which the film's credits pretentiously ...
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Reviews
Iron Monkey
Dir: Yuen Wo Ping. Hong Kong. 1993. 87 mins. Made in 1993 by Hong Kong action masters Tsui Hark and Yuen Wo Ping, Iron Monkey is considered a modern classic by many martial arts movie aficionados. Miramax's release in North and South America of a spruced up version of the ...
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Reviews
All About Lily Chou Chou
Dir: Shunji Iwai. Japan. 2001. 146 mins.If you thought Tim Blake Nelson's O was an edgy high school movie, take a look at Shunji Iwai's latest film All About Lily Chou Chou - a harrowing portrait of contemporary teenagers in a Japanese school where casual violence, pimping, rape and murder ...
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Reviews
Elling
Dir: Petter Naess. Norway. 2001. 90 mins. Playing in the Zabaltegi (New Directors) programme at San Sebastian, this sweet-tempered comedy about two eccentrics carving an unusual niche for themselves in society is a modest audience-pleaser which won the Youth Jury award by a comfortable margin and was given a Special ...
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Reviews
Thirteen Conversations About One Thing
Dir Jill Sprecher. US 2001. 102 mins.Poignant, touching, and in moments unabashedly philosophical, Thirteen Conversations About One Thing, Jill Sprecher's sophomore effort, very much fulfils the promise she showed in her 1997 Sundance-premiered debut, Clockwatchers. Interweaving five contemporary stories into a single narrative, the film deals with the profound, often ...
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Reviews
Max Keeble's Big Move
Dir: Tim Hill. US. 2001. 80 mins. Disney's latest live-action family film is a kid-centric and pleasantly rambunctious junior high school comedy that delivers its life lessons without losing its sense of fun. Pre-teens and parents should give the film a decent start at the box-office - perhaps more than ...
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Reviews
Bandits
Dir Barry Levinson. US 2001. 122 min.Following his minor, disappointing comedy, An Everlasting Piece (which DreamWork barely released last year), Barry Levinson is back on terra firma with the crime comedy Bandits, a hybrid of a movie that blends to almost satisfying results the norms of classic screwball comedy ...
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Reviews
Work In Progress (En Construccion)
Dir: Jose Luis Guerin. Spain 2001. 125 mins. A humorous and poetic chronicle of the impact on a working-class neighbourhood of a major construction project, Work In Progress was one of San Sebastian's most original discoveries. Screened to a packed auditorium of over 1000, the film held the audience's attention ...
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Reviews
Stranded
Dir: Luna. Spain. 2001. 101 mins. The undisputed talking point of San Sebastian for all the wrong reasons, this $4.5m English-language space opera is a spectacular misfire on virtually every level. Its first press screening, in the New Directors section, unfolded in stunned silence punctured by incredulous laughter, but the ...
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Reviews
Ghislain Lambert's Bike
Dir: Philippe Harel. France/Belgium. 2001. 115 mins. A lively mock biopic of a failed Belgium racing cyclist, Ghislain Lambert's Bike (Le Velo De Ghislain Lambert) is a broad but entertaining comedy with excellent prospects in French-speaking markets and anywhere where cycling is a national obsession. Care will be needed to ...
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Reviews
The Man From Elysian Fields
Dir: George Hickenlooper. US. 2001. 105minsThe trials and tribulations of an underachieving novelist provide the basis of The Man From Elysian Fields, a modern morality tale that sustains a dry, playful wit and tight narrative for its first hour before beginning to unravel. Conventional closing stages fail to deliver on ...
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Reviews
Let's Get Skase
Dir: Matthew George. Australia. 2001. 100 mins.The recent death from cancer and emphysema in Majorca of Christopher Skase, fugitive Australian businessman and would-be media mogul (he nearly owned MGM in the 80s), has not stopped the wide local release (October 18, 110 screens) of this loud and rumbustious action comedy ...
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Reviews
The Navigators
Dir Ken Loach. UK-Germany-Spain-Italian-French. 95 mins.Propagating the cause of the working class, Ken Loach's politics are in the right place - but that doesn't necessarily result in powerful film-making, as is evident from The Navigators, his latest foray into left-of-centre ideology, which this time examines the privatisation of the British ...
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Reviews
Mike Bassett: England Manager
Dir: Steve Barron. UK. 2001. 89 mins The British passion for football has never quite translated into an appetite for football films. When Saturday Comes (1995) failed to make much of an impression and A Shot At Glory (2000) is only just limping into a limited release two years after ...
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Reviews
Taxi Para Tres (A Cab For Three)
Dir: Orlando Lubbert. Chile. 2001. 90 mins. The unexpected winner of the Golden Shell for best film in San Sebastian, A Cab For Three (Taxi Para Tres), a black comedy about a taxi driver drawn into a life of crime, continues the festival's current preference for South and Central American ...
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Reviews
Dog Days (Hundstage)
Dir Ulrich Seidl. Austria 2001. 120 min. Dog Days, Austrian director Ulrich Seidl's astonishing feature directorial debut, is a dark, probing, truly disturbing exploration of angst, anomie, and alienation, as they manifest themselves in Vienna's upscale suburbs. Easily the most provocative movie in this year's Venice ...
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Reviews
Luna Rossa (Red Moon)
Dir: Antonio Capuano. Italy. 2001. 117mins. "The only way you can control people", says the Mafia boss, "is if they know you can kill them anytime you want". This upbeat moral epigram could provide the poster tag for Antonio Capuano's new film, which screened in the main competition at Venice. ...
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Reviews
Zoolander
Dir Ben Stiller. US 2001. 90 min.Profoundly silly but sporadically entertaining, Ben Stiller's Zoolander is an extremely slight and goofy farce of the fashion industry, this time around targeting male rather than female models. Based on the character that Stiller and MTV Movie Awards writer/producer Drake Sather created for the ...
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Reviews
Don't Say A Word
Dir: Gary Fleder. US. 2001. 111mins.As generic as its title suggests, Don't Say A Word is a routine psychological thriller, elevated by Michael Douglas' strong presence and expert acting as an eminent yuppie shrink whose eight-year-old daughter is kidnapped by a British villain. Lacking in-depth characterisation or any feeling for ...