Latest – Page 562
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Reviews
Redbelt
Dir: David Mamet . US. 2008. 99mins.Clearly a David Mamet film from its first line of dialogue, Redbelt exhibits many of the tenets of the playwright-film-maker's earlier efforts, although they find a novel new setting in the world of mixed martial arts. Some of Mamet's techniques have certainly lost their ...
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Reviews
Deception
Dir: Marcel Langenegger. US. 2008. 107 mins.The spirit of Joe Eszterhas and Adrian Lyne is revived to disappointing results in Deception, a slick, cat-and-mouse thriller that unfolds with sharply-diminishing plausibility. Polished production values and star names will have a limited effect in trying to counteract the old-hat nature of the ...
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Reviews
The Objective
Dir: Daniel Myrick. 2008. USA. 90 mins.Daniel Myrick co-directed the indie commercial sensation The Blair Witch Project with Eduardo Sanchez in 1999. It's nearly a quantum leap from three student campers lost in rural Maryland in 1994 to a gaggle of U.S. Special Ops in an arid, remote section of ...
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Reviews
Summer Book (Tatil Kitabi)
Dir:Seyfi Teoman. Turkey , 2008. 92 mins.Winner of Best Film in the national section at Istanbul, Seyfi Teoman's small-scale but poetic evocation of summer in a small provincial Turkish town will elicit a warm response both from festival programmers and Turkish communities abroad. The quiet, peaceful beauty of its landscape ...
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Reviews
Pathology
Dir. Marc Schoelermann, US, 2008, 93 minutesPathology is a cut-em-up thriller that follows a young physician into a snarl of medical residents who make sure that they always have a steady supply of freshly-killed bodies to examine, no matter what it takes. If your taste runs to sawed-open chests and ...
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ReviewsThe Children Of Huang Shi
Dir. Roger Spottiswoode, 2008, China/Australia/Germany, 125 minutes.The Children of Huang Shi is the epic tale of a journalist seeking adventure who leads an orphanage of Chinese boys to safety from Japanese invaders in the late 1930’s. Yet the real test of endurance is on the shoulders of an audience challenged ...
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Reviews
Baby Mama
Dir: Michael McCullers . US. 2008. 98 mins.A smart comedy for adults, Baby Mama is a consistently funny pleasure, filled with charismatic performances and a nicely understated emotional element. Though superficially an Odd Couple-style look at two mismatched women - one hired to carry the other's child to term - ...
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Reviews
The Chicken, The Fish And The King Crab ((El Pollo, El Pez Y El Cangrejo Real))
Dir: Jose Luis Lopez-Linares. Spain. 2008. 87mins.Jose Luis Lopez-Linares'nuanced documentary is at once an enjoyable satire on the modern cult of the top-flight chef and a telling human story about shattered illusions and personal growth. Following its late slot at the Berlinale - where the film managed to lift and ...
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Reviews
The Forbidden Kingdom
US/China. 2008. 113mins Anticipated both for its Jackie Chan-Jet Li star pairing and its East-meets-West production approach, The Forbidden Kingdom attempts to put top-flight Asian martial arts together with family friendly fantasy in an English-language action adventure package. The elements of this well crafted and good-looking US/China co-production should attract ...
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Reviews
Prom Night
Dir: Nelson McCormick. US. 2008. 88mins.One of the most memorable nights in a teenager's young life is grist for a pretty unmemorable movie in Prom Night, a tame horror entry that follows conventions to the letter. Though besting opening-weekend expectations, the film fails to offer many thrills as its attractive ...
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Reviews
Flashbacks Of A Fool (2007)
Dir. Baillie Walsh. UK. 2008. 104mins.Flashbacks Of A Fool nails one of its main selling points early on: James Bond's naked bottom is viewed through a glass distortedly throughout the entire title sequence. Before a word has been uttered, and to the sounds of Scott Walker's Sons Of The Father, ...
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Reviews
Dangerous Parking
Dir Peter Howitt. UK. 2007. 109mins.There's a limit to how far this film can go, even in a best-case scenario: it's an 18 cert in the UK and for at least half that restricted audience Dangerous Parking will be hate at first sight. For those who tenaciously cling on, however, ...
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Reviews
A Complete History Of My Sexual Failures
Dir. Chris Waitt. UK. 2007. 89mins.A Complete History Of My Sexual Failures is funny. The more viewers are charmed by Chris Waitt, the funnier they will find this low-budget documentary. But he's not overwhelmingly charming, even to his long-suffering mother, and doubts linger at the end as to whether he's ...
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Reviews
Harold & Kumar Escape From Guantanamo Bay
Dirs: Jon Hurwitz & Hayden Schlossberg . US. 2008. 101 mins.2004's Harold & Kumar Go To White Castle was such a pleasant surprise - a witty stoner comedy with some depth and genuine laughs - that it was perhaps too much to hope that the sequel could retain the original's ...
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Reviews
Street Kings
Dir: David Ayer. US. 2008. 107 mins.A violent thriller about police corruption in Los Angeles, Street Kings retreads territory already covered by director David Ayer in Training Day and Dark Blue, which he wrote, and Harsh Times which he wrote and directed. Everything here is predictable, from the tired plot ...
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Reviews
Nim's Island (2007)
Dirs: Mark Levin & Jennifer Flackett. US. 2008. 96 mins.A smart and lively family film boasting star draws in Abigail Breslin, Jodie Foster and Gerard Butler, Nim's Island is destined to have a long life on multiple platforms over many years. Young children of both genders and, importantly, their parents ...
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Reviews
Forgetting Sarah Marshall
Dir: Nicholas Stoller. US. 2008. 112 mins.The Judd Apatow comedy machine reaches new heights with this instant classic from director Nicholas Stoller, star/writer Jason Segel and producer Apatow. Consistently funny, remarkably tender and absolutely contemporary in its depiction of young twentysomethings, their social mores and concerns, Forgetting Sarah Marshall is ...
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Reviews
Superhero Movie
Dir: Craig Mazin. US. 2008. 86 mins.For the most part a dispiriting, tedious send-up of superhero story cliches, Superhero Movie starts out with a full head of steam but quickly flags, struggling to fill out both its costume and its running time. Like the worst of its downmarket, quick-buck spoof ...
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Reviews
Leatherheads
Dir: George Clooney. US. 2008. 113 mins.Part screwball romance, part sports comedy, George Clooney's third film behind the camera, the period piece Leatherheads, goes back to the early days of American professional football. Loose-limbed, loquacious and exceedingly affable, the movie finally comes unglued in the final third, when forced to ...
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Reviews
Grandmother's Flower
Dir: Mun Jeong-hyun. South Korea. 2007. 90mins.The political is transformed into the intensely personal in South Korean documentary Grandmother's Flower, a powerful first-person family essay by Mun Jeong-hyun. Mun's technique is sometimes shoddy and his aesthetic decisions questionable, but the content proves so absorbing and miraculous that it overrides the ...