Latest – Page 609
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Reviews
Inside Paris (Dans Paris)
Dir/scr: Christophe Honore. Fr. 2005. 92mins.Up-and-coming French auteur Christophe Honore shows a surprisingly light touch with Inside Paris, the follow-up to hissombre, sexually challenging Georges Batailleadaptation Ma Mere. A thoughtful butlightly-executed, often ebullient, family drama with distinct stylistic nods toearly 1960s nouvelle vague, Inside Parisboasts engaging performances all around, especially ...
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Reviews
Summer 'O4 (Sommer 04 An Der Schlei)
Dir: Stefan Krohmer. Ger. 2006. 97mins.The certainties of life are shattered bythe presence of a disturbingly mature adolescent girl in Summer 04, aconstantly engrossing tale of shifting relationships and challengedperceptions. A smartly observed screenplay places well-developed charactersinto a series of situations that never unfold entirely as the audience mighthave predicted.There'sa ...
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Reviews
Transe
Dir/scr: Teresa Villaverde. Port-Fr-It. 2006. 126mins.There are the seeds of a coherently harrowing drama about European sex traffic in Teresa Villaverde's Transe, but you have to dig deep to find them. Part road movie, part abstract essay and - as the title suggests - part free-floating hallucination, the latest film ...
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Reviews
Uro
Dir: Stefan Faldbakken. Nor. 2006. 104mins.A rogue undercover cop pursues a muddle-head path towards redemption in URO, a solidly commercial first feature from Stefan Faldbakken. Familiarity hasn't blunted the appeal of a character type that has been a fixture of police thrillers from the glory days of Sidney Lumet through ...
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Reviews
Time (Shi Gan)
Dir/scr: Kim Ki-duk. S Kor. 2006. 96minsA Kim Ki-duk film is never less than intriguing, and Time, his new feature, is no exception. His treatment of an increasingly fashionable theme, the popular use of plastic surgery to outsmart nature and relieve emotional insecurities, is in itself enough to draw attention. ...
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Reviews
Days Of Glory (Indigenes)
Dir: Rachid Bouchareb. Fr-Mor-Alg-Bel. 2006. 125mins.Best intentions are commendably delivered in Days Of Glory (Indigenes), an earnest, well-produced and thoroughly researched epic saga about those North African soldiers who served with the French Army during World War Two.Following a quartet of Algerian recruits and their sergeant through campaigns in Sicily, ...
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Reviews
Click
Dir: Frank Coraci. US. 2006. 95mins.The raunchy man-boy of Adam Sandler'searly hits has grown up to become an overworked young dad in Click, a predictable yet sneakilyeffective comedy from the writers of the similarly high-concept Bruce Almighty. Less of a departure for Sandler than Spanglish or Punch-DrunkLove, but not as ...
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Reviews
Luxury Car
Dir/scr: Wang Chao. Chi-Fr. 2006. 88minsIf Luxury Car,Wang Chao's old-fashioned Franco-Chinese melodramaabout a man looking for his son in the big city, turns out so much better thanits contents seem to promise, then it is mostly due to the gently restrainedtreatment it receives from its writer/director and a remarkable cast ...
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Reviews
12:08, East Of Bucharest (A Fost Sau N'a Fost)
Dir/scr: CorneliuPorumboiu. Rom. 2006. 89minsLittle more than a vignette, but nevertheless asuccinctly astute one at that, Corneliu Porumboiu's 12:08, East Of Bucharest is a spare, low-budget production whichhits the nail right on the head in its depiction of Romania just before thefall of the Ceausescu dictatorship. At the same time, ...
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Reviews
Superman Returns
Dir: Bryan Singer. US.2006. 150 mins. Like Sam Raimi did with Spider-man and Christopher Nolan with Batman Begins, Bryan Singer invests his new Superman movie withemotional intensity and high passions, creating a love triangle scenario whichis even more gripping than Lex Luthor's latest plot to destablise the world.Made with the ...
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Reviews
Change Of Address (Changement D'Adresse)
Dir/scr: Emmanuel Mouret. Fr. 2006. 85mins.As light and frothy as a Feydeau farce, ChangeOf Address (Changement d'Adresse) is aParisian romantic comedy whose charm is all in its peppy performances and deft,old -school take on one of the oldest genres in the book. Halfway in tonebetween a Gallic take on the ...
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Reviews
Komma
Dir: Martine Doyen. Bel-Fr. 2006. 90mins.A mystery within a riddle wrapped in an enigma, orperhaps just your averagely cryptic existential romance, Komma is an initially tantalisingdream-like oddity that doesn't sustain its interest. A story of two traumatisedoddballs getting together in a subtly unreal Brussels, this debut from multipleshorts prize-winner Martine ...
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Reviews
To Get To Heaven First You Have To Die (Bihisht Faqat Barqi Murdagon)
Dir/scr: Djamshed Usmonov. Fr-Ger-Switz-Russ. 2006. 93mins.Narratives rarely come crisper and more to the pointthan To Get To HeavenFirst You Have To Die - and audiences rarely get taken on suchsubtly unpredictable rides. The new film from DjamshedUsmanov, the Tajik director of Angel On The Right, begins as adeceptively gentle, tragic-comic ...
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Reviews
Nacho Libre
Dir: Jared Hess. US. 2006.90mins tbc.Mostly an interminable journey through corny accentsand gross sight gags, Jared Hess' lowbrow Mexican-wrestling comedy Nacho Librecomes alive only when Jack Black frees himself from its puerile screenplay andromps in all his wild-haired, flabby-tummy glory.In such moments,which are too infrequent and mostly come at the ...
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Reviews
The Bothersome Man (Den Brysomme Mannen)
Dir: JensLien. Nor-Ice. 2006. 95mins.A darkly comicNorwegian fable, The Bothersome Manimagines the after-life as a vacuous Scandinavian social democracy: it's theglossy dystopia of The Truman Showtransported to the land of designer sofas, 30-hour weeks and sweet blonde girlscalled Ingeborg. Lien's debut, the similarly quirky Johnny Vang,did only modest box office ...
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Reviews
Exterminating Angels (Les Anges Exterminateurs)
Dir/scr: Jean-Claude Brisseau.Fr. 2006. 100mins.One audience's erotic fantasy is another's cold shower in Exterminating Angels (Les Anges Exterminateurs), the latest overcooked psychodrama fromveteran writer/director Jean-Claude Brisseau. Theconcept of a fifty-something male filmmaker exploring transgressivefemale behaviour may sound like a venture into Catherine Breillatterritory but here it seems like a fig ...
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Reviews
Honor De Cavalleria
Dir/scr: Albert Serra. Sp. 2006. 112mins.Don Quixoteand his faithful servant Sancho Panzaare intriguingly lost in La Mancha in Honor De Cavalleria,Albert Serra's ultra-minimalist take on Cervantes'enduring classic, which allies itself militantly with an older generation of arthouse masters: Bresson, Pasolini, Olmi. Sadisticallyslow, the film demands a patience, which few at ...
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Reviews
The Fast And The Furious: Tokyo Drift
Dir: Justin Lin. US. 2006. 104mins.An efficient butpummeling ride, the latest entry in TheFast And TheFurious franchise is an entertaining vehicle that doesn't have quite enoughin the tank in terms of plotting or characters. Nevertheless, it proves a solidshowcase for its up-and-coming director Justin Lin and star Lucas Black.Lessa continuation ...
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Reviews
Suburban Mayhem
Dir: Paul Goldman. Aus. 2006.89mins.A sassy but uneven slice of youth-oriented Australiana, SuburbanMayhem is worth seeing chiefly for its memorable main character, sexy,wilful and amoral suburban vamp Katrina, who is brought to vivid life by Kiwiactress Emma Barclay.But although it is carriedforward by a driving energy as loud as its ...