Latest – Page 645
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Reviews
It's All Gone Pete Tong
Dir/scr: Michael Dowse.Can-UK. 2004. 90minsCanadian writer-directorMichael Dowse first came to attention with the quirky heavy metal comedy Fubar(2002), but with It's All Gone Pete Tong (rhyming slang for "it's allgone wrong") he turns his sights on DJ producer-performers.The result is a tuneful,spirited rag tag of a movie with an obvious ...
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Reviews
Christmas With The Kranks
Dir: Joe Roth. US. 2004.98minsThe holiday-themed comedyChristmas With The Kranks sees itself a big-hearted, slightly sappymovie about family and community, shared values, good cheer and the true spiritof the season. But the story's Stepford Wives-like emphasis ontraditional values and communal approval is enough to make one queasy.Considering the cultural climate ...
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Reviews
Alexander
Dir: OliverStone. UK-Fr-Neth. 2004. 165mins.Alexander is a magnificent mess of a movie, a wildly ambitiousold-style epic filled with as many moments of greatness as creative mis-steps.The first feature film in five years from Oliver Stone, produced and financedindependently to the tune of $160m by Moritz Borman and Intermedia, Alexandercertainly won't ...
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Reviews
Closer
Dir:Mike Nichols. US. 2004. 98mins. Adouble love story with a brutally forthright view of modern relationships, thescreen version of British writer Patrick Marber's acclaimed stage play Closer,incisively directed by stage-to-screen expert Mike Nichols, is not a film forthe faint hearted. And that may prove to be a mixed blessing at ...
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Reviews
Childstar
Dir:Don McKellar. Can. 2004. 98minsFollowingup on his auspicious directorial debut Last Night, Don McKellar plungesinto a movie about movies focusing on a 12-year-old star and his circle offamily, reps and general hangers-on. While the territory has considerablepotential both dramatically and in humorous insights, McKellar fails to plumbits depths. The film ...
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Reviews
National Treasure
Dir: Jon Turteltaub. US.2004. 131minsWalt Disney Picturesexperiments with a PG-13-rated adventure movie for all the family in NationalTreasure delivered by the studio's in-house stalwarts producer JerryBruckheimer and director Jon Turteltaub. The result is an efficientlycrowd-pleasing, wholesome popcorn picture short on violence and long onmystery, although it is also short on ...
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Reviews
Rolling Family (Familia Rodante)
Dir/scr: Pablo Trapero.Arg-Braz-Fr-Ger-Sp. 2004. 103mins.Put Robert Altman's TheWedding on wheels, give it an Argentine passport and send it rolling1,000km out of Buenos Aires - and it would look pretty much like PabloTrapero's latest feature Rolling Family.While it may be less flashyand more populist than Altman's work, it still has a ...
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Reviews
The Hidden Blade
Dir/Scr Yoji Yamada.Jap. 2004. 131 mins. Best known in Japan for his 48 Tora-san films about a wandering peddler who is forever falling inlove, Yamada has scripted or directed several other successful series for theShochiku studio -- and single-handedly saved it from the financial brink. Two years ago Yamada released ...
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Reviews
Seed Of Chucky
Dir:Don Mancini. US. 2004. 87mins.Poor old Jennifer Tilly. She was turned into a doll in Bride Of Chucky,the 1998 revival of the Child's Play horror franchise, and now shesuffers even worse indignities in the follow-up. It wouldn't be so bad - forTilly or the audience - if Seed of Chucky, ...
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Reviews
La Confiance Regne
Dir: Etienne Chatiliez.Fr. 2004. 98mins.Perhaps because his featurecomedies are few and far between, French film-maker Etienne Chatiliez has notreally developed anything resembling a coherent film style.Sadly it shows with LaConfiance Regne, a weak, one-joke comedy farce about a pair of larcenoushouse servants on the make in provincial northern France.The disappointment ...
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Reviews
When Will I Be Loved'
Dir/scr: James Toback. US. 2004. 81mins.A risky title is likely to provoke a cynical responsein When Will I Be Loved', as American auteur James Toback offers anexasperating fusion of sex, lies and self-indulgence. Thriller elements in theplot might suggest that Toback is working in a more commercial vein but thefilm-noir ...
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Reviews
Jiminy Glick In Lalawood
Dir. Vadim Jean. Canada-US. 2004. 90 mins.To the immense credit of star and creator MartinShort, Jiminy Glick In Lalawood almostworks. To the discredit of Short the writer, the film falls short of thecomedian's vision because of a script that is unwilling to push the boundariesthe character does. Like most outgrowths ...
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Reviews
Return To Sender
Dir: Bille August.Den-UK. 2004. 103minsLike some fine wines,director Bille August doesn't seem totravel well. A universally admired European master for Cannes Palme D'Orwinners Pelle The Conqueror and Best Intentions, he has beenrather less admired for such ropey English-language international ventures as TheHouse Of The Spirits and Smilla's Sense Of Snow.Set ...
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Reviews
Keane
Dir/scr: LodgeKerrigan. US. 2004. 90mins.After a hiatusof six years following his not very well-received second film Claire Dolan,American independent director Lodge Kerrigan is back with Keane, an intense tale of obsession that recalls the triumph of hisdebut film, Clean, Shaven (1993).Like that earlierfilm, Keane focuses relentlessly andclaustrophobically on a single ...
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Reviews
After The Sunset
Dir: Brett Ratner. 2004.US. 93mins.Brett Ratner's capercomedy After The Sunset is a plodding, lifeless affair set on a Bahamasresort island that aspires to the level of To Catch A Thief but barelymusters the cultivated glitz of star Pierce Brosnan's Thomas Crown Affairremake.Instead it serves up anexotic Caribbean locale and two ...
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Reviews
Surviving Christmas
Dir: Mike Mitchell. US2004. 92minsAnybody hoping that thecomedy Surviving Christmas might resuscitate Ben Affleck's falteringcareer will be sorely disappointed. The very fact that DreamWorks did notrelease Mike Mitchell's feature in the heart of the season suggests they werehoping for some early holiday good cheer from audiences to buoy its chances.Sadly ...
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Reviews
Kings And Queen (Rois Et Reine)
Dir. Arnaud Desplechin.France, 2004. 150mins.Arnaud Desplechin'sstatus as a hero of the French intelligentsia, whose charms remain largelyunfathomable to the rest of the world, continues with Kings And Queen,which is as delightful and infuriating as his previous work.For two-and-a-half hours hespins two parallel tales that eventually converge to become one. Along ...
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Reviews
An Italian Romance (L'Amore Ritrovato)
Dir. Carlo Mazzacurati.It-Fr. 2004. 108mins.Two of Italy's hottestyoung stars combine with one of the country's most talented directors for AnItalian Romance (L'Amore Ritrovato), a disappointing melodrama whosefuture depends exclusively on their names; without them, it could not hope foranything better than a straight-to video release.As it is, the glamour ofStefano ...
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Reviews
A Way Of Life
Dir: AmmaAsante. UK. 2004. 91mins.A bruisingdrama in social realist mode, writer-director Amma Asante's A Way Of Lifetackles racism and anti-Muslim prejudice in a deprived town in South Wales.Asante's protagonists are disaffected teenagers, badly educated, strugglingwith poverty and unemployment, who blame a Turkish neighbour for theirpredicament.The film beginsin brutal fashion, with ...
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Reviews
As It Is In Heaven (Sa Som I Himmelen)
Dir/scr: Kay Pollak.Sweden-Denmark. 2004. 130minsSweden's entry in theforthcoming Academy Awards, As It Is In Heaven is an accomplishedcrowd-pleaser, and surely a front runner for this year's Film Most Likely To BeRemade By Hollywood.A tragi-comic musical romancethat shamelessly but efficiently tugs the heartstrings, the determinedlymiddle-brow offering represents a comeback for veteran ...