Latest – Page 573
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Reviews
Lions For Lambs
Dir: Robert Redford. US. 2007. 88 mins.A talky, stagebound curio of a movie, Lions For Lambs is far from the high-octane Hollywood mega-movie its star pedigree would suggest. On the contrary, its star power - Robert Redford, who also directed, Meryl Streep and Tom Cruise - may help to draw ...
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Reviews
Dan In Real Life
Dir. Peter Hedges, USA, 2007, 99 minutes, colour, 35 mm.Dan in Real Life takes on a familiar character, the seemingly omniscient newspaper advice-giver (Steve Carell), whose family life as a widower with three daughters doesn't measure up to the wisdom of his daily columns. Dan's love life is even more ...
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Reviews
American Gangster
Dir: Ridley Scott. US. 2007. 158 minsA classy gangster epic which echoes the best crime sagas of the last 35 years from The Godfather saga to New Jack City, American Gangster marks a welcome return to form for hard-working director Ridley Scott after three disappointing films. Long but never boring, ...
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Reviews
Second Wind (Le Deuxieme Souffle)
Dir: Alain Corneau. France 2007. 148 mins. Second Wind is an ultra-stylised, garishly-tinted retro genre exercise that rambles on for two and a half hours without ever answering the question of why we need another version of Jose Giovanni's gritty novel about honour among thieves, which was inspired by the ...
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Reviews
August Rush
Dir: Kirsten Sheridan. US/Korea 2007. 111mins. August Rush opens as it means to continue - with a young boy up to his eyes in corn. But you have to hand it to director Kirsten Sheridan: the sheer dewy-eyed belief in miracles of this music-based fairy tale is persuasive, and those ...
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Reviews
Youth Without Youth
Dir: Francis Ford Coppola. Rom/Fr/It. 2007. 124minsTen years after the polished, anonymous professionalism of The Rainmaker, Francis Ford Coppola returns with an epic, magic realist tale of miraculous rejuvenation. Anyone who hoped that life might imitate art will be sorely disappointed by Youth Without Youth. This is an amateur production ...
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Reviews
30 Days Of Night
Dir: David Slade US. 2007. 117 mins.Horror thriller 30 Days of Night is like a very one-sided football match: there's not much suspense involved but at least you get to watch one team - in this case a gang of athletic and bloodthirsty vampires - beat up on the other. ...
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Reviews
Towards Zero (L'Heure Zero)
Dir. Pascal Thomas. France, 2007. 107 min.This adaptation of an Agatha Christie crime story originally published in 1944 it is a handsome, pleasant but quite conventional cinematic piece of work, that wasa surprise choice to premiere at Pusan this year. With familiar faces like Melvil Poupaud, Chiara Mastroianni, Alessandra Martinez ...
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Reviews
Epitaph
Dir. Jung Brothers. Korea, 2007. 98 min.The performance of Epitaphin Koreancinemas in August was relatively disappointing with just 600,000 admissions but much of the blame was put on the release date. However, the film itself must have something to do with it: this mystifying, often confused first filmlooks much better ...
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Reviews
Epitaph
Dir. Jung Brothers. Korea, 2007. 98 minsThe performance of Epitaph in Korean cinemas in August was relatively disappointing with just 600,000 admissions but much of the blame was put on the release date. However, the film itself must have something to do with it: this mystifying, often confused first film ...
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Reviews
The Kite Runner
Dir: Marc Forster. US. 2007. 122mins.Better at exploring the bonds of family and friendship than at articulating the societal traumas that have haunted Afghanistan over the last three decades, The Kite Runner leaps from the page to the screen full of emotion and sensitive characterization. The source material's inherently melodramatic ...
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Reviews
Things We Lost In The Fire
Dir: Susanne Bier. US. 2007. 113mins.Denmark's Susanne Bier makes a smooth transition to English-language film-making with a Seattle-set drama bristling with the intensity for which she has become renowned. Coaxing strong performances from her cast, Bier brings her trademark verite style to bear on the painful story of loss, grief ...
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Reviews
Evangelion 1.0: You Are (Not) Alone
Dir. Hideaki Anno, Kazuya Tsurumaki,Masayuki. Japan, 2007. 98 min.Pusan's closing night film is brash, loud, colourful but pretty confusing if you are not acquainted withthe ins and outs of the original 1995 anime TV series. It is already a hit in Japan where millions watched its final television episode. But ...
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Reviews
Honeydripper
Dir/scr: John Sayles. US. 2007. 123mins. Relaxed, confident and very percussive in texture and mood, John Sayles' musical fable Honeydripper is the director's strongest work since Lone Star (1996). The story of a juke joint proprietor taking whatever measures necessary to save his country roadhouse, the movie showcases the film-maker ...
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Reviews
Tribe (Tribu)
Dir. Jim Meer Libiran. Philippines, 2007. 95 min.Winner of this year's Cinemalaya top award and bound for a solid festival career around the world, Jim Libiran's vibrant debut goes back to the Manila slums, which have become lately the favourite spot for cinema in the Philippines. Thispowerful but downbeat portrait ...
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Reviews
Tribe (Tribu)
Dir. Jim Meer Libiran. Philippines, 2007. 95minsWinner of this year's Cinemalaya top award and bound for a solid festival career around the world, Jim Libiran's vibrant debut goes back to the Manila slums, which have become lately the favourite spot for cinema in the Philippines. Thispowerful but downbeat portrait of ...
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Reviews
Chouga
Dir. Darezhan Omirbaev. Kazakhstan / France, 2007. 88 Min.Darezhan Omirbayev's minimalist film takes Tolstoy's Anna Karenina from St. Petersburg and Moscow to Almaty and Astana, and from 1877 to 2007. It is an adaptation that will surprise many by the economy of means applied to one of the most effusive ...
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Reviews
881
Dir. Royston Tan. Singapore / Japan, 2007. 105 min.Oozing sweet smiles and made-up grimaces, a myriad of glittering colours, low-brow humour and an endless string of easily hummed tunes, 881 is already a major hit in Singapore. Despite the lack of any plot to speak of, Royston Tan's film is ...
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Reviews
The Assembly (Ji Jie Hao)
Dir. Feng Xiaogang. China, 2007. 125 min. Feng Xiaogang's fiercely patriotic war picture, is set to become a blockbuster at home, offering China its own Private Ryan. But while the film standards may be technically impeccable, it could do with more story and characters to carry its audience through a ...
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Reviews
Crows: Episode 0 (Kurozu 0)
Dir. Takashi Miike. Japan, 2007. 120 min. What is there left to say about Takashi Miike that hasn't been said yet, in ample detail and often in learned studies' He is, without any doubt, the most prolific filmmaker around, barely 47-years-old and credited with 85 feature films. Only ...