Latest – Page 192
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Reviews
Nerakhoon (The Betrayal)
Dir: Ellen Kuras and Thavisouk Phrasavath, US, 2008, 87mins.Even by the standards of independent documentaries, Ellen Kuras's Nerakhoon is the ne plus ultra of ultra-marathons. For her directorial debut, the cinematographer spent 23 years with the family of her co-director, Thavisook Phrasavath (Tavi), as Laotions settled in New York ...
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Reviews
Momma's Man
Dir: Azazel Jacobs. US. 2008. 94 mins.Azazel Jacobs' highly personal Momma's Man was a major discovery at this year's Sundance Film Festival. Artfully tracking the internal breakdown of a thirtysomething man, the film is both lyrical in its near wordless storytelling and humorous in its warm observation of human ...
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Reviews
The Wackness
Dir: Jonathan Levine. US. 2008. 110 mins.Having shown that he is a dab hand at teen horror in Toronto 2006 hit All The Boys Love Mandy Lane, Jonathan Levine proves that he can handle character-driven drama, albeit still of the teen variety, in his second film The Wackness. The audience ...
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Reviews
Assassination of a High School President
Dir: Brett Simon. US. 2008. 98mins.Brett Simon's Assassination of a High School President is a small and pleasant surprise. It's a mostly energetic satire of the sexual, social and political hierarchies of contemporary high school reconceived, like Rian Johnson's Brick, as a postmodern noir. Its throwaway accessibility makes it go ...
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Reviews
The Brøken
Dir/scr: Sean Ellis. UK/France. 2008. 88mins.In his second feature The Brøken the talented British director Sean Ellis (Cashback) traffics in a melange of styles and historical references that range from the poetic horror works of Jean Cocteau (Orpheus) to the social malaise and extreme alienation of Roman Polanski (The Tennant), ...
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Reviews
The Deal
Dir: Steven Schachter. Canada. 2008. 98mins.Completing an informal trilogy of Sundance titles about the making of movies (following Michel Gondry's Be Kind Rewind and Barry Levinson's What Just Happened'), Steven Schachter's The Deal is erratic and paper thin. Not a moment of it rings particularly true, and it never gathers ...
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Reviews
Where In The World Is Osama Bin Laden'
Dir: Morgan Spurlock. US. 2008. 93minsIn Where In The World Is Osama Bin Laden', Morgan Spurlock super-sizes the scope of the one-man quest for truth and goes global, searching around the Middle East for the Al Qaeda leader with a $25 million price on his head. After sitting down with ...
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Reviews
Cloverfield
Dir: Matt Reeves. US. 2008. 84 mins.An exercise in guerrilla-style genre filmmaking that reframes a classic monster movie conceit as a post-September 11 allegory of big city trepidation, new Internet sensation Cloverfield emerges from the cocoon of its pre-release hype as thrilling piece of terror tailor-made for our times. Skilfully ...
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Reviews
Mad Money
Dir: Callie Khouri. US. 2007. 104 mins.A relentlessly upbeat all-women heist comedy along the lines of How To Beat The High Cost Of Living and Fun With Dick And Jane, Mad Money is inoffensive star-driven entertainment which might capture the imagination of female audiences in theatres, before heading for a ...
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Reviews
One Missed Call
Dir: Eric Valette. US. 2008. 87mins.Generic and thematically uninspired, One Missed Call, the US remake of Takashi Miike's 2003 J-horror tale, flounders withitsliteral and ill-advised approach to its supernatural material. This Warner Bros. January castoff will lure fright fans uninterested in the season's award contenders and holiday leftovers, but even ...
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Reviews
27 Dresses
Dir: Anne Fletcher. US, 2008. 111minsWell cast, slickly produced and performed with enough spirit to counterbalance its frequently stupendous lack of originality and plausibility, 27 Dresses pulls all the right levers for (mostly female) diehard romantic comedy audiences looking for just a pinch of wistfulness to go alongsidestray wish-fulfillment scenarios.Having ...
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Reviews
National Treasure: Book Of Secrets
Dir: Jon Turteltaub. US. 2007. 124mins.The first National Treasure reaped sizable international box-office fortunes with a loopy gee-whiz amalgam of Indiana Jones derring-do and Mission: Impossible-style set pieces. Three years later, the inevitable sequel, dubbed Book Of Secrets, is as derivative of its sources as it is of the first ...
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Reviews
St Trinian's
Dirs: Oliver Parker & Barnaby Thompson UK. 2007. 101 minsA modern make-over may have worked wonders for James Bond but it fails to rejuvenate another great British institution in the lacklustre return of Ronald Searle's unruly schoolgirls. The St Trinian's films were a commercially viable franchise for twenty-five years until ...
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Reviews
The Great Debaters
Dir: Denzel Washington. US. 2007. 125 minutes.A strong and similarly emotionally resonant follow-up to his 2002 debut behind the camera, Antwone Fisher, Denzel Washington's second directorial effort is a familiarly structured but extremely effective drama. Lacking pretense and guile, The Great Debaters tells the true story of an African-American college ...
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Reviews
P.S. I Love You
Dir: Richard LaGravenese. US. 2007. 126minsThe lightweight Ghost-meets-Bridget Jones dramedy of Irish novelist Cecelia Ahern's PS, I Love You turns into forced romantic comedy in this miscast and largely Americanized screen version starring Hilary Swank and Gerard Butler. Interest in the film's theatrical release will come mostly from avid chick ...
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Reviews
The Water Horse: Legend Of The Deep
Dir: Jay Russell. US. 2007. 113mins.Part gentle coming-of-age story, part whimsical animal flick, The Water Horse: The Legend Of The Deep tells the story of a young Scottish boy who serves as both friend and parent to a mysterious newborn creature that he eventually has to return to nearby Loch ...
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Reviews
Garage
Dir: Leonard Abrahamson. Ireland-UK. 85minsThe remarkably assured second film from Lenny Abrahamson, Garage offers a portrait of village life in rural Ireland far removed from welcoming tourist-board cliches. Boasting a superb central performance by Pat Shortt, the film revolves around garage attendant Josie, a slow-witted, almost childlike individual whose marginal ...
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Reviews
The Bucket List
Dir: Rob Reiner. US. 2007. 93 mins.It's never less than entertaining to watch Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman spar with each other even if the vehicle they have chosen to do it in is a soft-centred Hollywood life lesson about old fellas battling cancer. As directed by Rob Reiner, whose ...