Latest – Page 595
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Reviews
Once
Dir/scr: John Carney. Ireland. 2007. 88mins. The revelation of Sundance, John Carney's poetic third feature Once is a sublime and beautiful work that mediates feeling and desire. It's lyrical though substantial, beholden to the spirit and manner of the French New Wave, achieving a loose, spontaneous style that impressively binds ...
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Reviews
Padre Nuestro
Dir. Christopher Zalla. US. 2007. 105mins.The issue of illegal immigration from Mexico goes beyond the epithets in Padre Nuestro, the tale of a son crossing a border from one squalid place to another to find the father whom he's never met. The twist in this grippingly realistic drama is that ...
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Reviews
Ex Drummer
Dir: Koen Mortier. Bel. 2007. 101mins. The most controversial film to have emerged from Belgium since Man Bites Dog, Koen Mortier's Ex Drummer is an exercise in Flemish shock tactics. Adapted from a novel by Herman Brusselmans, the film strives hard to be as provocative as possible. Its tone varies ...
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Reviews
Blood And Chocolate
Dir: Katja Von Garnier. UK-Ger-Rom-US. 2007. 98mins. Blood And Chocolate is a werewolf love story with no bite and not much romance. Based on the popular American teen novel by British-born author Annette Curtis Klause, the Lakeshore Entertainment production may find an initial audience in the younger female demographic that ...
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Reviews
Epic Movie
Dir: Jason Friedberg, Aaron Seltzer. US. 2007. 86mins. A painful regurgitation of memorable moments from recent Hollywood blockbusters, the spoof film Epic Movie is almost entirely devoid of laughs. No matter your opinion of hits such as Pirates Of The Caribbean or The Chronicles Of Narnia, most will agree that ...
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Reviews
Four Sheets To The Wind
Dir/scr: Sterlin Harjo. US. 2007. 85mins.In Sterlin Harjo's debut feature, Four Sheets To The Wind, detailing the emotional and interior journey of a young, somewhat confused Native coming to terms with the death of his father, the young film-maker has carved out a limited though intoxicating piece of American regional ...
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Reviews
Waitress
Dir/Scr: Adrienne Shelly. US. 2007. 104minsThe third and final feature by Adrienne Shelly, who was murdered last aUTUMN, Waitress is a bittersweet, pungent reminder of the formidably smart and gracious touch she possessed in front of and behind the camera. The story of a small town pregnant woman who charmingly ...
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Reviews
My Kid Could Paint That
Dir. Amir Bar-Lev. US. 2007. 81mins.My Kid Could Paint That addresses the sceptical notion that has dogged painting ever since art ceased to depict a pure likeness of its subject - that abstract art often looks like it could have been painted by a child. Amir Bar-Lev's documentary then zooms ...
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Reviews
Dedication
Dir: Justin Theroux. US. 2007. 112mins.After playing a malevolent director in David Lynch's Mulholland Drive, actor Justin Theroux takes the plunge down the rabbit hole with Dedication, bringing an electric charge and furious energy to the story of a misanthropic writer of children's books whose professional pairing with a beautiful ...
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Reviews
Slipstream
Dir: Anthony Hopkins. US. 2007. 110mins.Anthony Hopkins' first film as a director since 1996's August is arambling, sporadically engaging experiment which attempts to illustratea man's descent into madness through stream-of-consciousness visualsand distorted, overlapping narratives.Although David Lynch has proved time and again that there is a limitedtheatrical audience and potential cult ...
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Reviews
A Very British Gangster
Dir: Donal MacIntyre. UK. 2006. 97mins.Donal MacIntyre's first feature is a documentary portrait of DominicNoonan, a working-class British gangster who is the head of Manchester's biggest crime family. Both a study in the politics of crime and a fascinating insight into a large poverty-stricken community which defers to gangland rules ...
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Reviews
The Aerial (La Antena)
Dir: Esteban Sapir. Arg. 2007. 90mins.Esteban Sapir's second feature is an intriguing and beautifully-made oddity - a largely silent, black-and-white fantasy that seems inspired in equal measure by Fritz Lang's Metropolis, FW Murnau's The Last Laugh, 1920s surrealism and Charlie And The Chocolate Factory. Made for a reported budget of ...
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Reviews
Expired
Dir/scr: Cecilia Miniucchi. US. 2007. 110mins. 'I'm the most hated person in the world,' Samantha Morton's shy, emotionally withdrawn parking meter enforcer says at the opening of Expired, a title that proves unfortunately apt. The movie proves exhausting, obliterating patience, understanding or emotional conviction in its portrait of female desire, ...
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Reviews
Catch And Release
Dir: Susannah Grant. US. 2007. 110mins.An ambitious romantic comedy-drama that tries to find love and humor amidst the tragedy of death, Catch And Release is a jumble of tones searching for a consistent rhythm. In her directorial debut, Oscar-nominated screenwriter Susannah Grant touches on sombre subject matter rarely addressed in ...
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Reviews
Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten
Dir: Julien Temple. Ire-UK. 2007. 123minsJulien Temple is the film chronicler of British punk music, first with The Great Rock And Roll Swindle (1979) and twenty years later with the much more accomplished The Filth And The Fury (1999). Temple is still on the upswing with Joe Strummer: The Future ...
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Reviews
Son Of Rambow
Dir: Garth Jennings. UK-Fr. 2007. 94mins.An immensely satisfying comedy about childhood friendship, Son Of Rambow is one of those rare British films which is at once culturally specific but directed with such confidence and visual panache that it should enjoy worldwide distribution. The work of hot UK director/producer team Jennings ...
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Reviews
Trade
Dir: Marco Kreuzpaintner. US. 2007. 113mins.While unconvincing as a muck-raking look at how a network of foreign sex-slave traffickers can operate within the US, Trade often works as a gritty, sordid thriller due to the pulsating, viscerally kinetic direction by German director Marco Kreuzpaintner. Working in Mexico City and the ...
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Reviews
Grace Is Gone
Dir/scr: James C Strouse. US. 2007. 92mins.The strengths and limitations of Grace Is Gone exist in conjunction with each other. Intimately conceived and scaled, the work gathers a cumulative emotional power in the plaintive, sharply muted performance by John Cusack as a Midwestern everyman who struggles to find the proper ...
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Reviews
Year of the Dog
Dir/Scr: Mike White. US. 2007. 98mins. Mike White's outre wit and malicious satirical imagination is shown to sometimes spectacular effect in Year of the Dog. It is an alternately strange, puzzling and highly peculiar directing debut about a woman whose private trauma, coupled with her professional failure and romantic disappointment, ...
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Reviews
The Savages
Dir/scr: Tamara Jenkins. US. 2007. 113mins. The story of a brother and sister forced to care for their mentally diminished father, Tamara Jenkins's second feature The Savages examines with sensitivity, intelligence and jolting observation the vicissitudes of suffering, loss and human frailty. It's a serious work sharpened by prickly humour, ...