Latest – Page 197
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Reviews
Across The Universe
Dir: Julie Taymor USA 2007. 129mins.The post-Chicago boom in screen musicals takes a novel twist with Across The Universe, a concept album-style love story set against the social upheavals of the 1960s and largely told through the songs of The Beatles. This ambitious Julie Taymor project veers between the soaring, ...
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Reviews
Eastern Promises
Dir: David Cronenberg US/UK/ Canada , 2007. 96minsA brutal, yet surprisingly tender thriller about Russian gangsters in London, Eastern Promises sees David Cronenberg once again displaying the sign of a true auteur - someone who can take seemingly uncharacteristic material and make it entirely his own. Written by Steve Knight, ...
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Reviews
Elizabeth: The Golden Age
Dir: Shekhar Kapur UK, 2007. 114 minsIt seemed an impossible hope that The Golden Age could match the achievements of its illustrious predecessor. Elizabeth (1998) was a huge international success that earned 7 Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, and confirmed the radiant star-quality of Cate Blanchett. That's a tough act ...
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Reviews
Before the Devil Knows You're Dead
Dir: Sidney Lumet, 2007 , US , 123mins.Sidney Lumet is back on familiar territory with this caper gone awry. This time it's a plot by two desperate adult brothers, Andy and Hank (Philip Seymour Hoffman and Ethan Hawke), to rob their parents' suburban jewellery store, which ends up killing their ...
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Reviews
Disengagement
Dir. Amos Gitai. France / Israel / Germany / Italy , 2007. 115 mins.Amos Gitai's systematic chronicle of modern Israeli history reaches one of its more sensitive and inevitable points in this dramatised version of the recent crisis generated by the unilateral decision, taken by the Sharon government, to dismantle ...
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Reviews
Margot At The Wedding
Director/Scr: Noah Baumbach US . 2007. 91minsBaumbach's ambitious follow-up to the much admired The Squid And The Whale (2005) has echoes of Rohmer and vintage Woody Allen in its depiction of the affairs of the heart but lacks the laser-like precision, economy and easy approachability of his earlier hit. A ...
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Reviews
The Brave One
Dir: Neil Jordan. US. 2007. 122 mins.Jodie Foster delivers a performance far superior to her material in Neil Jordan's self-consciously provocative and largely absurd vigilante drama - which has its world premiere as a Special Presentation in Toronto. Attempting to hit the same hot buttons as other audacious studio movies ...
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Reviews
The Brothers Solomon
Dir: Bob Odenkirk. US. 2007. 94mins.Coming only three months after another mainstream R-rated comedy revolving around an impending birth, The Brothers Solomon will likely enjoy neither the critical accolades nor the bountiful box-office that greeted the arrival of this summer's Knocked Up. Though not without its screwball charm and occasionally ...
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Reviews
Gone Baby Gone
Dir: Ben Affleck. US. 2007. 114mins.In Gone Baby Gone, an earnest but inexperienced young man plunges headfirst into deep waters, only to discover how much he still has to learn. That description could apply to the film's main character, a headstrong private detective hunting for a missing child, but it ...
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Reviews
The Hunting Party
Dir: Richard Shepard USA 2007. 100mins A textbook study in the dangers of trying to have one's cake and eat it, The Hunting Party mixes earnest sentimentality and black comedy in an unlikely yarn about the search for a Bosnian Serb war criminal by a maverick TV news crew. On ...
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Reviews
Halloween
Dir: Rob Zombie US 2007 110mins Rob Zombie's're-imagining' of the original Halloween replaces the atmospheric suspense of John Carpenter's 1978 slasher classic with plodding gonzo horror that offers plenty of blood but not much of the rocker-turned-filmmaker's usual gory flair. Still, the combination of Zombie with one of the horror ...
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Reviews
Into The Wild
Dir: Sean Penn. US. 2007. 148mins.Sean Penn's fourth feature as a director is as exhilarating as it is unwieldy, a sprawling hymn to nature, humanity and personal freedom which firmly establishes the much-feted actor as a film-maker of vision. Shining an affectionate light on the drifters and counter-culturalists living in ...
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Reviews
Redacted
Dir: Brian De Palma, US, 2007. 90minsDesigned to resemble an American's soldier video blog from Iraq , with additional footage from a French-language pseudo-documentary, YouTube clips and reports from local TV crews, Brian de Palma's attempt to reveal some of the expurgated truth behind the media coverage of the war ...
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Reviews
Ben X
Dir: Nic Balthazar, Belgium - Netherlands, 2007, 90 mins.A galvanizing portrait of autism and its profound impact on both the autistic person and their families and community, Ben X boldly melds virtual reality with live-action verite style and docudrama to create what may be a new film grammar. Inspired by ...
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Reviews
Lust, Caution (Se Jie)
Dir. Ang Lee. China/US, 2007. 156 mins. One of the main attractions in Venice this year, Ang Lee's new film promises much more than it actually delivers. Lavishly handsome and elegant, possibly too much so for its own good, this sprawling adaptation of a short story by Eileen Chang risks ...
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Reviews
Shoot 'Em Up
Dir: Michael Davis. US. 2007. 87mins.Merrily amoral, shamelessly watchable and outlandishly funny, Shoot 'Em Up is not for all tastes, but those with a dark sense of humour and a penchant for knowingly excessive violence will have a ball. Short enough so that its thin premise doesn't run out of ...
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Reviews
Balls Of Fury
Dir: Robert Ben Garant. US. 2007. 90mins. A rather shockingly enervated treatment of a colourful, wilfully silly concept, Balls of Fury looks to disappoint both those expecting the bawdy underdog tale of a make-good loser and those seeking something a bit more offbeat from its creators, the creative team behind ...