Latest – Page 615
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Reviews
Conversations On A Sunday Afternoon
Dir/scr: Khalo Matabane. S Afr. 2005. 80minsFalling somewhere between a tentative documentary anda piece of home movie improvisation, Khalo Matabane's first fictional feature allows him to againexplore the many faces resident in South Africa today.The set-up is the accidentalencounter between a tormented poet Keniloe (Kgoroge) and a Somali refugee, Fatima ...
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Reviews
Four Stars (Quatre Etoiles)
Dir: Christian Vincent. Fr. 2006.100mins.A mildly entertaining French boulevard farce, Four Stars is much better suited to aswift home release than the spotlight of a festival like Berlin where itpremiered.Very much in the traditionof light Gallic comedies sustained by gags and assembly line jokes, ChristianVincent's new feature matches a pretty ...
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Reviews
You And Me (Toi Et Moi)
Dir. Ma Liwen. China. 2005.85mins.You And Me is one of thoseheartwarming, inter-generational dramas that the Chinesedo so well that is, alas, not one of the more accomplished examples of the genre.Opening the Kinderfilmfest Plus 14 section at theBerlinale, it seemed to play well enough to its targetaudience, young teens and ...
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Reviews
The Peter Pan Formula (Peterpan-eui Gongsik)
Dir/scr: Cho Chang-ho. S Kor. 2005.108mins.Teenage angst has rarely felt seemed more decorous ormore downbeat than in the hands of South Korean director ChoChong-ho in his debut The Peter Pan Formula. A moody, atmospheric coming-of-age film witha perverse streak of eroticism, it explores the emotional links betweenmourning and sexuality in ...
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Reviews
Tough Enough (Knallhart)
Dir: Detlev Buck. Ger.2005. 98mins.Mixing references from early Ken Loach to La Haine to Mean Streets, Tough Enough is German actor-director DetlevBuck's hard man act after a string of dry, slightly surreal comedies - thelast, Bundle Of Joy, dating back to2000.It's a powerful and oftenviolent film, uncritically but movingly wrapped ...
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Reviews
Rampage
Dir/scr: George Gittoes. Aus. 2005. 118mins.Though it needs to be cut drastically, Rampage is a power-packed documentarywith lots of potential. Set mostly in one of the worst black ghettoes in Miami,the film, which was shot over the course of several years by Australianfilm-maker George Gittoes, is lively, insightful andeven shocking.Festival ...
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Reviews
The Shaggy Dog
Dir: Brian Robbins. US.2006. 92mins.Disney's latest update of one of its vintagelive-action family comedies pairs SantaClause star Tim Allen with that reliably popular screen character, thecutely anthropomorphised canine. It's predictable and only mildly amusingstuff; but it's also the kind of innocuous entertainment that sometimes lures asizeable family audience, if not ...
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Reviews
Failure To Launch
Dir: Tom Dey. US. 2006. 92mins.Verging on the preposterous, Tom Dey'sFailure ToLaunch relies on attractive stars to overcome its lacklustreexecution. Opening on March10 in the US - and later in the month throughout Europe - it seeks to capitalise on the success of other recent date movies that useda lover-with-a-hidden-agenda ...
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Reviews
The Hills Have Eyes
Dir: Alexandre Aja. US. 2006. 107mins.Whether it's ironic or just emblematic of a generallack of imagination is open to debate, but everything old is new again inHollywood - or at least as it applies to the current trend of updated andrefashioned horror properties. The latest is The Hills Have Eyes, ...
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Reviews
Lucy
Dir\scr: Henner Winckler. Ger. 2006.92mins.The second feature from German director Henner Winckler, Lucy is a psychologically lucid,beguiling portrait of teenage restriction given a startling jolt of recognitionand star-making turn by German actress Kim Schnitzer.The story examines theemotional and personal consequences of the title character, eight-month-old Lucy(Hauschild), on her emotionally ill-equipped ...
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Reviews
News From Home/News From House
Dir/scr: Amos Gitai. Is. 2006. 96mins.Israelis, Palestinians and others who follow MiddleEast politics closely will find little new, either conceptually or historicallyspeaking, in News From Home/News From House,the third instalment in Amos Gitai's documentarytrilogy about the Arab-Israeli conflict. But audiences around the world,especially at festivals, will appreciate the powerful feelings ...
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Reviews
Ask The Dust
Dir/scr Robert Towne. US. 2005. 117mins.Robert Towne returns with an evocative, nuancedadaptation of John Fante's Depression-era novel Ask The Dust, avisually lustrous and imaginatively staged film that is given piercing depth offeeling from leads Colin Farrell and Salma Hayek.Fante's autobiographical 1939 work was a dominant literaryinfluence on Towne's greatest achievement, ...
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Reviews
4:30
Dir: Royston Tan. Sing-Jap.2005. 93mins.There are few 93-minute films as long as 4:30, Royston Tan's study of youth that feelslike a tribute to Tsai Ming Liang - or, for thatmatter, Eric Khoo, one of the film's executive producers.Nothing like15, Tan's over-the-top and similarlythemed work, it is meticulously shot in spare ...
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Reviews
Heaven's Doors
Dirs: Swel and Imad Noury. Morocco. 2006.132mins.With their powerful, if flawed, debut feature Heaven's Doors, twentysomethingbrothers Swel and Imad Noury demonstrate an abundance of talent. Made on theproverbial shoestring budget, with mum (Pilar Cazorla) producing and dad (director Hakim Noury) in one of the key roles, it overflows with anambition ...
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Reviews
The Red Cockatoo (Der Rote Kakadu)
Dir. Dominik Graf. Ger. 2006.128mins.Sharply pitched between funny, rueful memory andcautionary tale about compromise and lost promise, DominikGraf's The Red Cockatoo confronts thetime when sex, art and American rock and roll collided with crude ideologicalpolitics.The latest production from XFilme Creative Pool, it conflates the themes andstyle of its two internationally ...
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Reviews
Another Morning (Sobhi Digar)
Dir/scr: Nasser Refaie. Iran. 2006. 89minsA study in grief and solitude verging on theexperimental, Nasser Refaie's second feature Another Morning is a tough nut to crackfor all but the most dedicated students of Iranian cinema.It's not as if the messagehe wishes to deliver is that obscure or difficult to unravel; ...
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Reviews
Close To Home (Karov La Bayit)
Dir/scr: Dalia Hager, Vidi Bilu. Israel. 2005. 90mins.A modest, low-budget feature that shows the rarelyexplored routines of female soldiers in Israel, Close To Home was one of the more pleasant surprises from Israellast year.A theatrical debut for itstwo directors, it follows two 18-year-old girls, Smadar(Smadar Sayar) and Irith (Naama Schendar),new ...
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Reviews
John & Jane
Dir: Ashim Ahluwalia. India. 2005. 83mins.Tracing a fine line between fact and fiction, John & Jane, AshimAhluwalia's documentary about workers in Bombay callcentres, is an intriguing, understated meditation on the new hi-tech slavery.It follows, in relay sequence, the lives of six workers in a facility run by aUS company which ...
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Reviews
Princesas
Dir/scr: Fernando Leon de Aranoa. Sp. 2005. 113mins.Princesas, FernandoLeon De Aranoa's latest slice of social realism, isalmost a total gender switch from the ultra-masculine unemployed dockyard saga Mondays In The Sun, which vaulted himonto the international stage in 2002.A beautifully acted storyabout the friendship between two prostitutes in Madrid, Princesas ...
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Reviews
Big Bang Love, Juvenile A (46 Oku Nen No Koi)
Dir: Takeshi Miike. Jap. 2006. 84mins.The softening of Takeshi Miike- after the loopily tender Zebraman, and Box, his operatically stylised contributionto the Three Extremes anthology- continuesapace with this bizarre gay prison yarn.With shades of Gohatto (Taboo) and early German expressionistcinema, Big Bang Love, Juvenile A beginsintriguingly as a sort of ...