Latest – Page 633
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Reviews
The Adventures Of Sharkboy And Lavagirl In 3D
Dir. Robert Rodriguez.US. 2005. 94mins.A mildly engaging children's morality tale, RobertRodriguez's The Adventures Of Sharkboy And Lavagirl In 3D is the kind offilm that parents should be happy to let their kids see but which likely provetoo undemanding for anyone beyond its target age group.While the digital specialeffects are inventive ...
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Reviews
Event Horizon (L'Orizzonte Degli Eventi)
Dir:Daniele Vicari. Italy. 2005. 114mins.It's a nice idea for a film: take Italy's highest mountainoutside the Alps - the Gran Sasso - and come up with a storyline that links thehi-tech world below the mountain (which hosts the Gran Sasso National Laboratory,the world's largest underground laboratory for research into particle ...
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Reviews
Habana Blues
Dir:Benito Zambrano. Sp-Cuba-Fr. 2005. 110mins.Spanish director Benito Zambrano scored a surprise hit athome in 1999 with his first film, the intense mother-and-daughter drama Solas.Habana Blues is a very different product - a feelgood slice of raw Havanaenergy which uses its conventional but solid plot as a frame on which to ...
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Reviews
Invisible (Les Invisibles)
Dir: Thierry Jousse.France 2005. 85mins.Sound, vision and obsession mix to stylish, provocativeeffect in Invisible, the debut film from former Cahiers Du Cinema editorThierry Jousse. The latest in a long line of that magazine's critics to turn todirecting, stretching from the nouvelle vague generation to the likes ofOlivier Assayas and Pascal ...
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Reviews
Sangre
Dir/scr: Amat Escalante.Mexico-Fr 2005. 90mins.Life's existentialgrimness, Mexican style, is the subject of Sangre, a moody, taut,elliptical but ultimately rather frustrating debut by Amat Escalante. One man'squiet but troubled life caves in on him dramatically - yet somehowundramatically - in a story of finely-observed domestic and character detailthat will fascinate some ...
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Reviews
Alice
Dir/scr:Marco Martins. Port-Fr. 2005. 103mins.Anatmospheric, yearning study of loss by first-time Portuguese director MarcoMartins, Alice was one of the strongest films in this year's Quinzainesidebar at Cannes. Sombre and dark in theme and look, this unflinching look ata father's search for his missing three-year-old daughter is not aSaturday-night-at-the-multiplex experience, but ...
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Reviews
Bittersweet Life (Dal Kom Han In-Saeng)
Dir/scr:Kim Jee-woon South Korea. 2005. 115mins.An ultra-violent actionnoir by Korean director Kim Jee-woon, A Bittersweet Life is a stylishstory of a faithful underworld lieutentant who crosses his boss and ends upfighting for his life against his own gang. As in his previous genre outing,the dark psycho-horror yarn A Tale Of ...
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Reviews
Batman Begins
Dir:Christopher Nolan. US. 2005. 140 mins.LikeSam Raimi did with Spider-man,Christopher Nolan has gone back to the drawing board with the Batman characterin Batman Begins andemerged with an intensely dramatic, muscular action adventure picture whichshould be successful enough to kickstart the franchise for Warner Bros. Eradicatingany of the camp and tongue-in-cheek ...
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Reviews
Mr And Mrs Smith
Dir:Doug Liman. US. 2005. 120mins.Mr & Mrs Smith is a sleek, audacious mix ofromantic comedy, satire and action thriller boosted by the surging star powerof Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. And making the most of that 'Brangelina'appeal - the couple's alleged off-screen affair is currently the talk of thetabloids - ...
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Reviews
The Sisterhood Of The Traveling Pants
Dir: Ken Kwapis. US.2005. 119mins.Based on a wildly popular young-adult novel about fourteen girlfriends and the pair of magical blue jeans they share over the summer,The Sisterhood Of The Travelling Pants is a coming-of-age dramatailor-made for fans of the books, which with its sequels has sold 3.5m-pluscopies in the US. ...
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Reviews
Cold Showers (Douches Froides)
Dir: Antony Cordier. Fr.2005. 100mins.The debut fiction feature from young French directorAntony Cordier, Cold Showers may not score heavily in terms of novelty:it is, after all, a small-town coming-of-age story trimmed with edgy teenagesex. Nevertheless, his rites-of-passage feature, which screened in Directors'Fortnight at Cannes, brings an unshowy, observation intelligence to ...
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Reviews
Cinema, Aspirins And Vultures (Cinema, Aspirinas E Urubus)
Dir:Marcelo Gomes. Braz. 2005. 99mins.Odd, really, that up to now, nobody has ever thought ofmaking a film about a travelling aspirin salesman in north-eastern Brazil inthe early 1940s. First-time director Marcelo Gomes has not only come up withthe definitive movie on the subject - he also provided us with one ...
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Reviews
Down In The Valley
Dir/scr: David Jacobson.US. 2005. 125mins.Hailed as the De Niro ofhis generation, Edward Norton finally has a chance to remind us why in DownIn The Valley. After a string of supporting roles and odd career choices (TheItalian Job, The Score, Kingdom Of Heaven etc), he once againtakes centre stage with a ...
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Reviews
The League Of Gentlemen's Apocalypse
Dir: Steve Bendelack. UK2005. 90mins.The League Of Gentlemen, rubber-faced Britishexponents of grotesque TV comedy, make a bravely eccentric cinema debut with TheLeague of Gentlemen's Apocalypse, a macabre farce that mixes theirdistinctive character playing with Hammer ghoulishness, movie-buff in-jokes andlashings of existential paradox in a Charlie Kaufman vein.The team - protean ...
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Reviews
The Death Of Mr Lazarescu (Moartea Domnului Lazarescu)
Dir: Cristi Puiu. Rom.2005. 154mins.It's got to be one of the hardest sells there is: atwo-and-a-half-hour film about an incontinent old man in Bucharest who is takenill one evening, calls an ambulance, and is shuttled from hospital to hospitalin search of a diagnosis, a scan, and a free bed.But The ...
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Reviews
Lords Of Dogtown
Dir: Catherine Hardwicke.US. 2005. 105mins.Based on the same true story that spawned the effortlesslycharismatic 2002 documentary Dogtown And Z-Boys, director CatherineHardwicke's Lords Of Dogtown offers forth an entertaining but relativelyimpressionistic look at the sweaty, counter-cultural explosion of streetskateboarding that took place in the late 1970s on the crookedly tapered, blackasphalt ...
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Reviews
The Moustache (La Moustache)
Dir:Emmanuel Carrere. Fr. 2005. 86mins.What seems like a merewhisker of a premise yields surprising results in The Moustache, aneconomical but impressive fiction debut by French director-writer EmmanuelCarrere.Originally known as ajournalist and novelist - his works were adapted by Claude Miller and NicoleGarcia as Class Trip and L'Adversaire respectively - Carrere ...
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Reviews
Quo Vadis, Baby'
Dir: Gabriele Salvatores.It. 2005. 98mins.Gabriele Salvatores has taken a step back from thedramatic intensity of I'm Not Scared with Quo Vadis, Baby', arambling contemporary noir set in Bologna.Based on the same-name novelby Grazia Verasani, the film is worth a look chiefly for its atmospheric HDcinematography and for its original private ...
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Reviews
Cinderella Man
Dir:Ron Howard. US. 2005. 144mins.Beautifullycrafted and emotionally uplifting, Cinderella Man reunites ABeautiful Mind star Russell Crowe and director Ron Howard to tell the trueDepression-era story of underdog American boxing champ Jim Braddock. It's aprime example of the kind of rousing melodrama that Hollywood, when it's nottrying to lure teens with ...
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Reviews
Merry Christmas (Joyeux Noel)
Dir/scr: Christian Carion.France. 2005. 115minsThe miracle of aChristmas truce in the trenches of World War One is transformed into apolished, pan-European heartwarmer in Merry Christmas. Refreshinglytraditional in comparison with many competition titles, it places its faith inthe virtues of straightforward storytelling, handsome production values and atouching real life incident. It ...