Latest reviews – Page 460

  • Reviews

    Monsieur Ibrahim And The Flowers Of The Koran (Monsieur Ibrahim Et Les Fleurs Du Koran)

    2003-09-24T00:00:00Z

    Dir. Francois Dupeyron. France, 2003. 94mins.Screened out of competition at Venice to celebrate Omar Sharif's Golden Lion, Francois Dupeyron's new film isn't the kind of stuff festivals dream of, and looks much better suited for commercial than art house distribution. Based on a short best-selling, auto-biographical novel by Eric-Emmanuel Schmitt, ...

  • Reviews

    Pornography

    2003-09-24T00:00:00Z

    Dir: Jan Jakub Kolski. Poland/France. 2003. 113mins.One of the most frequent Polish guests at international film competition, Jan Jakub Kolski's Venice contender once again goes back to the Second World War, in order to expose old wounds that have never quite healed. But as ambitious as it looks on paper, ...

  • Reviews

    Secondhand Lions

    2003-09-24T00:00:00Z

    Dir: Tim McCanlies. US 2003. 107minsAny film starring Michael Caine and Robert Duvall as a pair of old codgers can't be all bad, but this family comedy/drama sure tests the audience's tolerance level. Veering between overly broad humour and exaggerated cutesyness, Secondhand Lions lacks any sense of real emotion and ...

  • Reviews

    La Pelota Vasca

    2003-09-23T00:00:00Z

    Dir. Julio Medem. Spain. 2003. 115 mins.Put this down as another well intentioned, dedicated but not terribly effective attempt to open up a dialogue within the Basque discord, one of the more stubborn ongoing conflicts smouldering in the world today. With the name of Julio Medem (Sex And Lucia, winner ...

  • Reviews

    Grimm

    2003-09-23T00:00:00Z

    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 ...

  • Reviews

    Grimm

    2003-09-23T00:00:00Z

    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 ...

  • Reviews

    The Galindez File (El Misterio Galindez)

    2003-09-22T00:00:00Z

    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 ...

  • Reviews

    Suite Habana

    2003-09-22T00:00:00Z

    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 ...

  • Reviews

    The Green Butchers

    2003-09-19T00:00:00Z

    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 ...

  • Reviews

    Chill Out (Descongelate)

    2003-09-19T00:00:00Z

    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 ...

  • Reviews

    The Fighting Temptations

    2003-09-19T00:00:00Z

    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 ...

  • Reviews

    8.17pm, Darling Street (20.17, Rue Darling)

    2003-09-16T00:00:00Z

    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 ...

  • Reviews

    Sansa

    2003-09-16T00:00:00Z

    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 ...

  • Reviews

    Arimpara

    2003-09-16T00:00:00Z

    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. ...

  • Reviews

    The Soul Of A Man

    2003-09-16T00:00:00Z

    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 ...

  • Reviews

    A Little Bit Of Freedom

    2003-09-16T00:00:00Z

    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. ...

  • Reviews

    La Chose Publique

    2003-09-16T00:00:00Z

    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, ...

  • Reviews

    Mike Brant: Laisse Moi T'Aimer

    2003-09-16T00:00:00Z

    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 ...

  • Reviews

    Raja

    2003-09-16T00:00:00Z

    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 ...

  • Reviews

    The Boys From County Clare

    2003-09-16T00:00:00Z

    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. ...