Latest – Page 614
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Reviews
La Tourneuse De Pages
Dir: Denis Dercourt. Fr. 2006. 83mins.While it tries to wedge itself inbetween the caustic social commentary of Claude Chabroland Michael Haneke's notion of past guilt hauntingthe Western bourgeoisie, Denis Dercourt'spsychological thriller La Tourneuse De Pages sadly has neither the wit nor thedepth to play in such a lofty league.Dercourt takes ...
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Reviews
Poison Friends (Les Amitis Malefiques)
Dir: Emmanuel Bourdieu. Fr. 2006. 103mins.The theme of young male friendship gets a vigorousthough hardly ground-breaking workout in PoisonFriends, French screenwriter Emmanuel Bourdieu'ssecond directorial outing, which opened Critics' Week at Cannes. Though theprotagonists are already at university, this still qualifies as a coming-of-agemovie, which (not for the first time) shows ...
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Reviews
Bug
Dir: William Friedkin. US. 2006. 102mins.An old dogtries to show off some new tricks in Bug,as veteran director William Friedkin (The Exorcist) attempts the trickytransfer of a bizarre theatrical hybrid to the cinema screen. The back-to-basicsapproach pays dividends in terms of the intensity of the performances and thesustained sense of ...
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Reviews
The Wind That Shakes The Barley
Dir: Ken Loach. Ire-UK-Ger-It-Sp. 2006.124mins.Given the turbulent events that it portrays, The Wind That Shakes TheBarley is a curiously detached affair. For all the intelligence and craftsmanshipthe director brings to his material, the film conspicuously fails to tug at theemotions in the way that might have been expected. Ken Loach ...
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Reviews
Paris, Je T'Aime
Dirs: see credits below. Fr-Liech-Switz. 2006. 120mins.That largelyunloved genre, the portmanteau film, no doubt works best in specialised slots -such as that of the opener in the Un Certain Regardsection at Cannes. Fitting the bill as a light, generally celebratory sectioncurtain-raiser, Paris JeT'Aime is a postcard-like, sometimes genuinelycharming, whistle-stop city ...
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Reviews
Summer Palace
Dir: Lou Ye. Chi-Fr. 2006.140mins.Social upheaval and sexual liberation make for areasonably potent cocktail in SummerPalace, an ambitious attempt to convey the sweep of recent world historythrough the life and loves of a young Chinese woman. The fourth feature from Suzhou River director Lou Ye is easily hismost accessible, although ...
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Reviews
Hamaca Paraguaya
Dir/scr: Paz Encina. Fr-Arg-Hol-Par-Sp. 2006. 78mins.With a Cannesappearance (in Un Certain Regard) that makes it the first Paraguayan film to screenin the official selection of a major festival - and the only Paraguayan featureshot on 35mm in the last 30 years - HamacaParaguaya will delight those self-flagellatingcineastes who believe, like ...
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Reviews
The Da Vinci Code
Dir: Ron Howard. US.2006. 152 mins.If Dan Brown's soaraway bestseller The Da Vinci Code wasclumsily written but a page-turning guilty pleasure, Ron Howard's film versionis well-made but chronically devoid of the guilty pleasures it needs to make itsucceed as first-rate popcorn entertainment. Howard and screenwriter AkivaGoldsman have remained rigidly faithful ...
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Reviews
An Inconvenient Truth
Dir: Davis Guggenheim. US. 2006.98mins"I'm Al Gore. I used to be the next president of theUnited States... I don't find that particularly funny," former vice-presidentAl Gore declares early on in Davis Guggenheim's fascinating documentary,bounding on stage before one of his multi-media lectures about global warming.Gore is a contradictoryfigure, aloof and ...
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Reviews
Just My Luck
Dir: Donald Petrie. US.2006. 103mins.Apparently designed to help teen queen Lindsay Lohan, Just My Luck ends up feeling like a teenromantic comedy not very convincingly dressed in adult clothes. Lohan's existing fan-base may still respond to the mix oflifestyle aspiration and fairy-tale romance, and the appearance of real-lifepop-rock group McFly ...
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Reviews
Fresh Air (Friss Levego)
Dir: Agnes Kocsis. Hung. 2006. 109mins.Critics and arthouseaudiences should welcome Fresh Air, adeliberately slow and sombre study from first-time Hungarian director Agnes Kocsis. It will strike many as more than a littlereminiscent of Keren Yedaya'sOr, which won the Camera d'Or at Cannes in 2004 when it played in Un Certain ...
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Reviews
Anche Libero Va Bene
Dir: Kim Rossi Stuart. It. 2006.104mins.Though it breaks no new ground, Anche Libero VaBene, Italian actor Kim Rossi Stuart'sdirectorial debut, restates the child's eye-view of family strife with suchemotional truth that it feels fresh.The film spends little timetrying to look pretty, and its kitchen-sink aesthetics, together with its deliberately untouristy ...
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Reviews
Fifty Pills
Dir: Theo Avgerinos. US, 2006.90mins.Fifty Pills is a low-budgetindependent cousin of broad college comedies from the studio world like Road Trip or Van Wilder. Instead of a lush California campus, the indie version has grimy street-bound New York. Instead ofcheating in exams or losing one's virginity, the challenge is to ...
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Reviews
Boy Culture
Dir: Q Allan Brocka. US. 2006. 88mins.A slick slice of gay American life which begins incynical posturing and ends in sweet romance, Boy Culture is already one of the gay festival season's talkingpoints. Filled with the hot guys and wise-ass dialogue that are customary intoday's knowing same-sex celluloid, it has ...
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Reviews
Over The Hedge
Dirs: Tim Johnson, KareyKirkpatrick. US. 2006. 87mins.Cute animals and energetic slapstick make up for anoverly generic storyline in Over The Hedge, DreamWorks Animation's entry in this year'scrowded field of computer-animated family movies. Younger kids should certainlyrespond to the impressively realised creatures and the rambunctious physicalcomedy, but teens and parents (even ...
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Reviews
Hoot
Dir: Wil Shriner. US. 2006. 88mins.Parents craving wholesome children's entertainmentthat promotes environmental conservation might find Hoot acceptable summer fare for the little ones. But this blandfamily film, which is released in the US on May 5, never generates muchinterest in either its human or animal participants.Strategicallypositioned between the mid-April release ...
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Reviews
The Night Of The White Pants
Dir: Amy Talkington. US. 2006. 90mins.Dallas native Amy Talkingtonmakes a largely entertaining feature debut with The Night Of The White Pants, a frenetic dysfunctionalfamily comedy whose best shot at attracting commercial attention is through itslikeable cast.Set during one night inDallas, it does not cohere as tightly as this brand of ...
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Reviews
Walker Payne
Dir: Matt Williams. US. 2006. 113mins.Like a lovingly-crafted curio from another era, Walker Payne is a leisurely-paced perioddrama which defies current storytelling trends to remain resolutely classicalin style and form. Coming off like a cross between Hallmark Hall Of Fame and Amores Perros, if that can be imagined, it faces ...
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Reviews
Confetti
Dir: Debbie Isitt. UK.2006. 100mins.A good-natured but uneven farce, Debbie Isitt's Confettipokes fun at the marriage industry, using a mockumentarystructure borrowed from Christopher Guest's BestIn Show - but with engaged couples instead of dogsin the limelight. Meanwhile, the deadpan humour and low-key acting style aredistinctively British, with a cast that ...
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Reviews
Lonely Hearts
Dir/scr: Todd Robinson. US. 2006. 100mins.Martha Beck and Raymond Martinez, otherwise known asthe "Lonely Hearts Killers", return foranother adaptation of their sex, murder and mayhem saga, which delighted theAmerican tabloids during the late 1940s before their eventual executions in1951. Neither as shocking nor as decadent and perverse as its two ...
