Latest – Page 613
-
Reviews
The TV Set
Dir: Jake Kasdan. US. 2006. 87mins.One of the early highlights of the Tribeca Film Festival, Jake Kasdan'sThe TV Set is a short, sharpinsider's view of US network television. Boasting a fine cast led by David Duchovny and Sigourney Weaver, the latter giving a tastyturn as the atrociously manipulative network president, ...
-
Reviews
Mission: Impossible III
Dir: JJ Abrams. US. 2005. 125mins.The Mission:Impossible franchise comes full circle and returns to its TV origins withthe frenetic third film directed by small-screen icon JJ Abrams,whose series like Lost and Alias have resuscitated longform drama on the US networks. Like a souped-up $150m episode of Alias, the film is ...
-
Reviews
The Groomsmen
Dir/scr: Edward Burns. US. 2006. 93minsEdward Burns delivers anotherbitter-sweet romantic comedy with TheGroomsmen - but whatever freshness marked him out as a promising newcomerin The Brothers McCullen(1995) seems to have pretty much evaporated by now.What's left is anotherroutine job relying on well-established formulae, with Burns again taking leadrole and embarking ...
-
Reviews
The Bridge
Dir: Eric Steel. US. 2006.93mins.Somewhere between a painful human issue piece and acalculated gamble as regards its potential to touch a large audience, EricSteel's debut documentary The Bridgetreads dangerous ground.Inspired by an article in The NewYorker about the pull of the Golden Gate Bridge for would-be suicides,Steel stationed two cameras ...
-
Reviews
Times And Winds (Bes Vakit)
Dir/scr: Reha Erdem. Turk.2006. 110mins.Looking every inch the festival warhorse, Times And Winds,Reha Erdem's contemplativeobservation on life in a remote Anatolian village, is the kind of picture criticswill adore and film events queue for.Subdued, low key andpractically plotless - it is reminiscent of both Ki-duk'sSpring, Summer, Fall, Winter' And Spring,if ...
-
Reviews
Times And Winds (Bes Vakit)
Dir/scr: Reha Erdem. Turk.2006. 110mins.Looking every inch the festival warhorse, Times And Winds,Reha Erdem's contemplativeobservation on life in a remote Anatolian village, is the kind of picture criticswill adore and film events queue for.Subdued, low key andpractically plotless - it is reminiscent of both Ki-duk'sSpring, Summer, Fall, Winter' And Spring,if ...
-
Reviews
Tirante El Blanco: The Maidens' Conspiracy
Dir. Vicente Aranda. Sp-UK-It. 2005. 122mins.One of Spain's most revered classics - it is sometimescompared to Don Quixote in importance - Tirante El Blanco(or Tirant lo Blanc in its original Valencian), has been transferred to the screen by Vicente Aranda for a big, handsome period production.Unfortunately,the 15th-century Byzantine sets and ...
-
Reviews
Middletown
Dir: Brian Kirk. UK-Ire. 2006.90mins.The feature debut of Northern Ireland-born TV andcommercials director Brian Kirk, Middletownis a melodramatic brew of family rivalries and religious fervour set in anisolated Irish village in the 1960s. The film is marked out by some strongacting, and its theatrical prospects will certainly be boosted by ...
-
Reviews
Akeelah And The Bee
Dir: Doug Atchison. US.2006. 112mins.The story of a young girl's unlikely journey from anunder-funded school to the National Spelling Bee finals, Akeelah And The Bee is an inspirational dramapowered by template familiarity and an abundance of earnestness. The winner ofthe 2000 Nicholl Fellowship, a screenwriting competitionsponsored by the Academy Of ...
-
Reviews
Silent Hill
Dir: Christophe Gans. Can-Fr. 2006. 127 mins.Apparently designed to appeal both to fanboys and to a slightly older, mixed-gender crowd, videogame adaptation Silent Hill comes offas an atmospheric but disappointingly dull horror thriller. Interest fromhorror and game aficionados should be strong enough for the Sony-distributed chiller, produced by Samuel Hadidaand ...
-
Reviews
The Sentinel
Dir: Clark Johnson. US.2006. 108mins.One of the biggest challenges facing contemporary UScinema is the high quality of homegrown TV drama, beit The West Wing, The Shield or The Sopranos or so-called "procedurals" like Law And Order or CSI. It is why a movie like TheSentinel, a White House-set thriller about ...
-
Reviews
United 93
Dir/scr. Paul Greengrass. US-UK. 2006.110mins.Gut wrenching and chilling, Paul Greengrass' United 93is a visceral recreation of the September 11 terrorist attacks that sharplydraws on the film-maker's documentary background. The result is a searingcollage, couched in sorrow and conjuring up mournful chaos and dread.Features of this scaleclearly are neither made nor ...
-
Reviews
The Wedding Director (Il Regista Di Matrimoni)
Dir/scr: Marco Bellocchio. It. 2006. 102mins.After the compelling Red Brigade psycho-drama Good Morning, Night, Italian auteurMarco Bellocchio has returned to the hermetic,dreamlike mode of The Hour Of Religionwith his latest effort, in which a leading arthousedirector is talked into shooting a Sicilian wedding video. Occasionally comic,undeniably evocative, at times simmering ...
-
Reviews
The Wedding Director (Il Regista Di Matrimoni)
Dir/scr: Marco Bellocchio. It. 2006. 102mins.After his compelling Red Brigade psycho-drama Good Morning, Night, Italian auteurMarco Bellocchio returns to the hermetic, dreamlikemode of The Hour Of Religion with hislatest effort, The Wedding Director, inwhich a leading arthouse film-maker is talked intoshooting a Sicilian matrimonial video.Bellocchio is a profoundly visual director, ...
-
Reviews
The Unforgiven (Yongseobadji Mot-hanja)
Dir/scr: Yoon Jong-bin. S Kor. 2005. 126mins.The traumas of masculinity and themilitary life are sensitively and obliquely probed in The Unforgiven, the debut feature fromKorean writer-director Yoon Jong-bin. Despitecurrents of menace and brutality, it lies at the more contemplative end ofSouth Korea's cinema spectrum, its elliptical, two-strand structure making itakin ...
-
Reviews
The Wild
Dir: Steve "Spaz" Williams.US. 2006. 84mins.The wilderness may be unmanageable and out ofcontrol, but Disney's The Wild is very much a beast offamiliarity, albeit a somewhat colorful one. Disney's rift with animationpartner Pixar now healed, it will be June release Cars that gets the bigger promotionalpush and is most likely ...
-
Reviews
Election 2 (Hak Sewui: Yi Wo Wai Gwai)
Dir:Johnnie To. HK. 2006. 93mins.The second part of Johnnie To's contemporary gangster saga, Election 2 will be atreat for fans of last year's original, eager for more from its black-as-pitch Hong Kong triad family.But this exposition-heavy sequel is unlikely to draw in a new audience. Slow tobuild a head of ...
-
Reviews
American Dreamz
Dir: Paul Weitz. US. 2006. 107mins.A comedy attempting to have fun at the expense ofseveral contemporary US institutions - George Bush and reality TV among them - American Dreamzis a disappointingly lame follow-up by director Paul Weitzto the pleasantly understated In GoodCompany. Too broad and obvious to rate as satire, ...
-
Reviews
Alien Autopsy
Dir: Jonny Campbell UK.2006. 95minsFitfully entertaining, but undermined by its owninanity, Alien Autopsy is muddled anduneven fare which shows yet again how difficult it is for the best Britishcomic talent to make the transition to the big screen. Its stars Ant McPartlin and Declan Donnelly, hugely popular TVpersonalities in the ...
-
Reviews
Come Early Morning
Dir: Joey Lauren Adams. US.2006. 97mins.Response was mixed at the Sundance Film Festival inJanuary to Joey Lauren Adams' directorial debut Come Early Morning, but away from the hot-house atmosphere of ParkCity, the film will surely get a favourable second look from critics anddistributors.A small, unpretentiouscharacter piece notable for an outstanding ...