Latest – Page 607
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Reviews
The Fountain
Dir: Darren Aronofsky. US. 2006. 96mins.Something of a feature-length New Age doodle, The Fountain will alienate many of thosewho were turned on to indie director Darren Aronfosky by his quirky debut Pi and its follow-up, the drug-fuelled cinematic opera Requiem For A Dream. Threading its epiclove story through three time ...
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Reviews
The Queen
Dir: Stephen Frears. UK2006. 97mins.The British have been making films about their RoyalFamily almost since cinema began. What is so distinctive about Stephen Frears' brilliant new feature The Queen is that it is unfolds only a few years ago - in 1997 atthe time of Princess Diana's death - and ...
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Reviews
Black Book (Zwartboek)
Dir: Paul Verhoeven. Neth-Bel-Ger-UK.140mins.The prodigal son of Dutch cinema comes home from Hollywood with the budget,production values and the epic nonchalance of the American Way packed in his suitcase. Black Book, Paul Verhoeven'sfirst European film for more than 20 years, is not a particularly original pieceof cinema but it is ...
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Reviews
Private Fears In Public Places (Coeurs)
Dir: Alain Resnais. Fr-It. 2006. 120mins.Now well into his eighties, Alain Resnaisis firmly established as one of cinema's all-time masters and has no need toprove anything to anyone. It means that with Private Fears In Public Places he can againallow himself the luxury of adapting an Alan Ayckbourncomedy of manners, ...
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Reviews
The Banquet (Yeyan)
Dir: Feng Xiaogang. Chi-HK. 2006. 131mins.Announced as China's opulent version ofShakespeare's Hamlet and originallyexpected to surface at Cannes, Feng Xiaogang's TheBanquet finally emerges three months later as an out of competition screeningat Venice. Though the plot is definitely indebted to the Bard - and to Macbeth as well as Hamlet ...
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Reviews
Children Of Men
Dir: Alfonso Cuaron. US-UK. 2006. 108mins.Unwrap the fascinating dystopian visionof the near-future in Alfonso Cuaron's Children Of Men- based on the sci-fi novel by British literary baroness PD James - and youfind a fairly ordinary movie with stock characters. But if its backdrop andstory never quite coalesce into a satisfying ...
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Reviews
Infamous
Dir/scr: Douglas McGrath. US 2006. 117mins.To make another TrumanCapote biopic may be regarded as a misfortune; to make another Truman Capotebiopic about exactly the same period of the writer's life looks likecarelessness. But this classic industry no-no could play out, paradoxically, infavour of Douglas McGrath's nuanced take on the US ...
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Reviews
Syndromes And A Century (Sang Sattawat)
Dir/scr: Apichatpong Weerasethakul. Thai-Fr-Aust. 2006. 105mins.Unconventional enough toplease fervent admirers of his previous work like Blissfully Yours and TropicalMalady, Apichatpong Weerasethakul'sSyndromes And ACentury is, even more than its precedents, a visual notebook that resistsall temptation to opt for a narrative, instead staying faithful to itsenigmatic title.Divided into almost equalhalves and ...
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Reviews
The Wicker Man
Dir: Neil La Bute.US. 2006. 97mins.When will they ever learn'Despite the evidence of everything from Psycho(1998) to The Omen (2006), sensiblefilm-makers still cannot resist the foolish temptation of remaking the iconicfilms of their youth. Neil La Bute's version of The Wicker Man is particularlyill-judged, diluting, distorting and demeaning virtually all ...
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Reviews
A Few Days In September (Quelques Jours En Septembre)
Dir/scr: Santiago Amigorena. Fr-It. 2006. 110mins.After some 30 odd scripts for French cinema and fournovels of his own, Argentinian writer Santiago Amigorena has finally movedbehind the camera and treated himself to a peach of a screenplay. A smartly writtenspy yarn built around 9/11, A Few Days InSeptember has the look ...
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Reviews
The US Vs John Lennon
MIME-Version: 1.0Content-Location: file:///C:/1E88C64E/johnlennon.htmContent-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printableContent-Type: text/html; charset="us-ascii"Dirs: David Leaf/John Scheinfeld.US. 2006. 99mins.Despite its provocative title, David Leaf and John Sch=einfeld'sdocumentary The US Vs John Lennon isas much a friendly portrait of the late Beatle as political activist as anexpose of early 1970s White House efforts to deport him for that activism. ...
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Reviews
The US Vs John Lennon
Dirs: David Leaf/John Scheinfeld.US. 2006. 99mins.Despite its provocativetitle, David Leaf and John Scheinfeld's documentary The US Vs John Lennon is as much a friendly portrait of the lateBeatle as political activist as an expose of early 1970s White House efforts todeport him for that activism. But it fails to clearly ...
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Reviews
The Black Dahlia
Lee Marshall in VeniceDir: Brian De Palma. US.2006. 121mins.A stylish, steamy genre exercise with a solid castand a cluttered storyline, The BlackDahlia matches director Brian De Palma with hard-boiled LA crime writerJames Ellroy with entertaining, if not whollysatisfying, results.Working closely withcinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond,set designer Dante Ferretti and composer Mark Isham, ...
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Reviews
Life & Lyrics
Dir: Richard Laxton. UK.2006. 99 mins.Easily pitched as 8Mile with a British sensibility, Life& Lyrics moulds every musical genre clicheknown to humankind into a wearily familiar, entirely predictable tale of rivalrap crews, star-crossed lovers and a dynamic slamming competition finale.Slickly made but bereft of originality, it seems more at ease ...
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Reviews
Life & Lyrics
Dir: Richard Laxton. UK.2006. 99 mins.Easily pitched as 8Mile with a British sensibility, Life& Lyrics moulds every musical genre clicheknown to humankind into a wearily familiar, entirely predictable tale of rivalrap crews, star-crossed lovers and a dynamic slamming competition finale.Slickly made but bereft of originality, it seems more at ease ...
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Reviews
Sweet Mud (Adama Meshuga'at)
Dir/scr: Dror Shaul. Is-Ger-Fr-Jap.2006. 100minsDror Shaul's Sweet Mud features the obligatorydisclaimer at the end of the credits about how none of the characters nor events are based on real-life. But it does not take agenius to figure out that it is an intensely personal settling of accounts, anangry and bitter ...
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Reviews
Material Girls
Dir: Martha Coolidge. US.2006. 110mins.US teen icon Hilary Duff may never have exhibited theacting chops of, say, Lindsay Lohan, but she does atleast usually project some sort of likeable presence on screen. The problem' Duff is the same presence in every film that she'sever been in - and it's never ...
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Reviews
London To Brighton
Dir/scr: Paul AndrewWilliams. UK. 2006. 86mins.The gritty traditions of British social realist dramaare deftly combined with the dark violence of a gangland thriller in London To Brighton,an accomplished first feature from writer/director Paul Andrew Williams.Distinguished by its sharpcompositions, heartfelt performances and unexpected tenderness, it unfolds as acompelling tale in which ...
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Reviews
Snakes On A Plane
Dir: David R. Ellis. US.2006. 106mins.After all its pre-release hype, Snakes On A Plane is as wondrously sillyand ruthlessly unrelenting as one could hope. Though by no means a stellarpiece of cinema, this late-summer thriller is an entertaining B-movie gleefullystuffed with bad tough-guy dialogue, obvious stock characters, cheaptitillation and lots ...
