Latest – Page 632
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Reviews
Sleeper (Schlafer)
Dir/scr: BenjaminHeisenberg. Austr-Ger. 2005.100mins.The latest co-productioninvolving dynamic Austrian/German directors' collective Coop99 (Darwin'sNightmare, The Edukators), Sleeper is an austere,thought-provoking post-9/11 drama about a German scientist who allows himselfto be talked into spying on a North African colleague.Perhaps a little too dourand drabbly-shot to reach much of an international audience outside offestivals, ...
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Reviews
The King
Dir: James Marsh. US.2005. 105mins.Last year Gael GarciaBernal was the face of Cannes, with his contrasting performances in BadEducation and The Motorcycle Diaries. This year, he extends hisrange even further, smouldering with bad boy sex appeal as a prodigal son in TheKing, an English-language Gothic drama set in the American ...
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Reviews
War Of The Worlds
Dir:Steven Spielberg. US. 2005. 116 mins. It'salmost as if there are two Steven Spielbergs behind the camera on thiscontemporary version of H G Wells' classic sci-fi story about an alien invasionof Earth: one delivers a thrilling action adventure with just the right mix ofhumanity and effects; the other produces a ...
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Reviews
Crossing The Bridge: The Sound Of Istanbul
Dir/scr: Fatih Akin. Ger.2005. 90mins.Following on the heels ofhis Golden Bear win for Head-On at last year's Berlin Film Festival,Turkish-German filmmaker Fatih Akin shows a different side of his artisticpersonality in Crossing The Bridge: The Sound Of Istanbul, a lovingmusical homage to that glorious city straddling Asia and Europe.Though it ...
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Reviews
The President's Last Bang (Geuddae Geu Saramdeul)
Dir. ImSangsoo. S Kor. 2005. 102mins.The mostambitious feature yet from director Im Sangsoo (A Good Lawyer's Wife),his fictionalised telling of the assassination of South Korean President ParkChung-hee was released only after the late statesman's daughter had documentaryfootage removed on the grounds that the film was not accurate.But then ThePresident's Last ...
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Reviews
Northeast (Nordeste)
Dir/scr: Juan Solanas.Fr-Sp-Bel-Arg. 2005. 104mins.A woman's selfish questto adopt a baby becomes an eye-opening journey into the heart of Argentina in Northeast,a first feature from director Juan Solanas that contrasts the beauty of thecountry with the ugliness of what happens there.The personal story is thekey to a political statement as ...
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Reviews
Factotum
Dir: Bent Hamer.Nor-US-Ger. 2005. 93mins.Following the modest butreal arthouse success of Kitchen Stories (which premiered, in 2003, inDirector's Fortnight at Cannes), Norwegian auteur Bent Hamer is back with Factotum,a small but droll and, in its own way, quietly powerful film based on a novelby America's poete maudit, Charles Bukowski.To this ...
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Reviews
La Petite Jerusalem
Dir/scr: Karin Albou. Fr.2005. 96mins.Karin Albou's LaPetite Jerusalem purports to deal with the femininity of its two youngParisian sister protagonists, Laura (Valette) and Mathilde (Zylberstein), eachattempting to make peace between her respective beliefs and desires.But in truth this debutfeature amounts to little more than another impossible romance where true loveis ...
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Reviews
Orlando Vargas
Dir/scr:Juan Pittaluga. Uru-Fr. 2005. 80mins.JuanPittaluga was associate producer and sound man on Jonathan Nossiter's fortunatewine documentary Mondovino, and Nossiter has returned the favour byassociate producing the Uruguayan director's first feature, Orlando Vargas.But although it is has moments of visual poetry and a certain atmosphericforce, this wilfully obscure film, which screened ...
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Reviews
The Magician
Dir/scr: Scott Ryan. Aust.2005. 88minsThis year's Sydney Film Festival was noticeably shorton new Australian movies. The UK feature My Summer Of Love played theopening night, usually reserved for a local premiere, and three Aussiemicro-budget independents seemed tucked away at the smallest festival venue.Surprisingly, The Magician, a gangster mockumentary chilling andhilarious ...
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Reviews
The Magician
Dir/scr: Scott Ryan. Aust.2005. 88minsThis year's Sydney Film Festival was noticeably shorton new Australian movies. The UK feature My Summer Of Love played theopening night, usually reserved for a local premiere, and three Aussiemicro-budget independents seemed tucked away at the smallest festival venue.Surprisingly, The Magician, a gangster mockumentary chilling andhilarious ...
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Reviews
Land Of The Dead
Dir/scr: George A Romero.US. 2005. 94mins.Film-maker George ARomero did not invent the idea of the dead returning to life, but he did helppopularise it with his seminal genre films, starting with 1968's Night OfThe Living Dead and continuing with its two sequels, Dawn Of The Deadand Day Of The Dead. ...
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Reviews
Herbie: Fully Loaded
Dir: Angela Robinson. US.2005. 95mins.The latest in a gradualrecycling programme of Disney's back catalogue (after Flubber, The ParentTrap, Freaky Friday), Herbie: Fully Loaded is an effective familypicture which will be a big hit for the studio in the US - where it opens onJune 22 - and one likely to ...
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Reviews
Housewarming (Travaux, On Sait Quand Ca Commence')
Dir: BrigitteRouan. Fr-UK. 2005. 95mins.Actor turneddirector Brigitte Rouan turns in the French cinematic equivalent of the'chick-lit' novel in Housewarming, a breezily disposable comedy about anindependent professional woman whose life goes into a chaotic spin. Builtaround an elegant but rather stiff central performance by Carole Bouquet, thefilm is an unexpectedly fluffy ...
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Reviews
The Buried Forest (Umorgei)
Dir: Kohei Oguri. Japan.2005. 94mins.Stuck seductively in itsown dreamtime, Japanese arthouse director Kohei Oguri's Directors Fortnightcontender The Buried Forest is a slow waltz of stories and images thatonly reluctantly offers itself up to rational analysis. Set in a rural Japanesevillage that has an a historical, magical realist feel, this demanding ...
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Reviews
Bewitched
Dir: Nora Ephron. US.2005. 98 mins.Sony's eagerly awaited movie of the beloved 60s TV series Bewitched has to be one of the most featherweight summerblockbuster prospects in recent memory. Although it's stuffed with A-listtalent from stars Nicole Kidman and Will Ferrell down, co-writer and directorNora Ephron has delivered a romantic ...
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Reviews
Russian Dolls (Les Poupees Russes)
Dir/scr: Cedric Klapisch,Fr-UK. 2005. 125mins.We last saw Xavier(Romain Duris) five years ago at the end of L'Auberge Espagnole,literally running away from his new life as a civil servant. After the youthfulexuberance of his time in Barcelona chronicled in that film, who'd want tomeasure out their life with coffee spoons' Not ...
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Reviews
Adam's Apples (Adams Aebler)
Dir/scr:Anders Thomas Jensen. Den. 2005. 92mins.How do you persuade a neo-Nazi to bake an apple pie' Thisis the droll challenge that powers the third feature to be directed byubiquitous Danish screenwriter Anders Thomas Jensen.Adam'sApples isa curious genre mix, part black comedy, part serious good-and-evil moralitytale. Though it does not always ...
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Reviews
Crying Fist (Jumeoki Unda)
Dir: RyooSeung-wan. South Korea. 2005. 132mins.One of noless than six South Korean features to be invited to Cannes this year, FIPRESCIprize-winner Crying Fist is a better film than its generally downbeatreviews at home might suggest. The latest addition to the boxing genre, CryingFist is more conventional in one way than ...
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Reviews
Peekaboo! (Cache Cache)
Dir:Yves Caumon. Fr. 2005. 91mins.Amodern rural fable teetering halfway between country-house ghost story andslapstick silent comedy, Peekaboo is a lightweight but originaldivertissement that will amuse Gallic audiences without knocking them sideways.Playing entertainingly with the back-to-nature impulses, and phobias, of theurban bourgeoisie, the film is carried by the wordless central performance ...