Latest – Page 646
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Reviews
Frozen
Dir: Juliet McKoen.UK-Den. 2004. 90minsWintry and melancholic, writer-director Juliet McKoen'sdebut feature is a mood piece, exploring loss and obsession. Despite somestarkly beautiful imagery, it's a strangely cumbersome affair which soon beginsto sink under the weight of its own symbolism.McKoen has an eye for apoetic shot but is dragged down by ...
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Reviews
Red Dust
Dir: TomHooper. UK-S Africa. 2004. 100mins.While itssubject matter is almost identical to John Boorman's Country Of My Skull,the feature debut from UK TV director Tom Hooper proves far superior to thebigger budgeted Berlin competition entry, delivering a tighter and better-actedthriller drama. Itproves neither controversial nor edgy, but rather plays everything ...
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Reviews
Yes
Dir/scr: Sally Potter.UK-US. 2004. 99mins.Sally Potter can never beaccused of avoiding risks. From the magnificent Orlando on down, she hassought to push back the borders of 'acceptable' film practice, allthe while engaging herself autobiographically in the most contentious socialand political issues of the day.That noteworthy and welcometradition continues with the ...
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Reviews
The Bridesmaid (La Demoiselle d'Honneur)
Dir. Claude Chabrol.Fr-Ger. 2004. 110mins.By now veteran film-makerClaude Chabrol should be able to deliver a film like The Bridesmaid (LaDemoiselle d'Honneur) with his hands tied behind his back - so comfortableand familiar and comfortable is he with the troubled, frayed fringes of theFrench bourgeoisie and their efforts to disguise themselves ...
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Reviews
The Incredibles
Dir/scr:Brad Bird. US. 2004. 121 mins.Thesixth - and probably penultimate - Disney/Pixar collaboration is a technicallybrilliant piece of CG animation that also manages to introduce muscular actionand real family drama to a genre known mostly for bubbly fun. Not that TheIncredibles isn't also fun; it's just that in this, his ...
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Reviews
Bridget Jones: The Edge Of Reason
Dir: Beeban KidronUK-US-Fr 2004 107minsBridget Jones is back, as fretful and neurotic as ever,in an expertly crafted (if rather soulless) sequel which is likely to hit allthe right buttons for Working Title. Renee Zelwegger again excels as the podgy,thirtysomething London singleton with the ineffably messy love life. She is fedplenty ...
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Reviews
The Grudge
Dir: Takashi Shimizu. US.2004. 90mins.The second Hollywoodremake of a J-horror movie after blockbuster hit The Ring, The Grudgehas confirmed the wide appetite for this kind of unsettling chiller with a $40mopening weekend in North America.Domestic distributorColumbia Pictures positioned the film to perfection, scoring a teen-friendlyPG-13 rating, creating intriguing TV spots ...
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Reviews
The Polar Express
Dir: Robert Zemeckis. US.2004. 92mins.Only Hollywood couldproduce a film as lavish and technologically ground-breaking as The PolarExpress, and Warner Bros is banking on that fact to entice millions offamilies around the world into their seasonal heartwarmer.The film brings to lifeChris Van Allsburg's classic US kids' book using a new animation ...
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Reviews
Bullet Boy
Dir: Saul Dibb. UK. 2004.91minsA low-budget blackBritish film with energy and attitude, Bullet Boy is among the moreinvigorating UK movie debuts of recent years. In his first feature, directorSaul Dibb (best known as a documentary maker) uses his north London locationsin eerie, atmospheric fashion and manages to deal with gun ...
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Reviews
A Very Long Engagement (Un Long Dimanche De Fiancailles)
Dir: Jean-Pierre Jeunet.France. 2004. 134mins.A flamboyant mixture ofbattlefront spectacle, home front romance, revenge drama, and detective story 'Jean-Pierre Jeunet's first film since Amelie is all this and more.Cinematically bigger and dramatically richer than that phenomenally successful2001 monument of whimsy, A Very Long Engagement confirms Jeunet as amaster showman who has ...
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Reviews
Alfie
Dir: Charles Shyer. US.2004. 103mins.Charles Shyer, whosecredits include the bland remake of Father Of The Bride and the periodmisfire The Affair Of The Necklace, takes another bath with his insipidremake of 1966 classic Alfie. Systematically eliminating any of thecruelty which made Alfie such an iconic figure of his day, he ...
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Reviews
Around The Bend
Dir/scr: Jordan Roberts.US. 2004. 85mins.For his directorialdebut, screenwriter Jordan Roberts (who was uncredited for his work on RoadTo Perdition) delivers a small, heartfelt family drama in which four malegenerations make a reluctant road trip through America's Southwest and scalethe rocky emotional terrain of their shared past.Around The Bend may fail ...
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Reviews
Infection/Premonition (Kansen/Yogen)
Infection Dir: MasayukiOchiai. Jap. 2004. 98mins.PremonitionDir: Norio Tsuruta. Jap. 2004. 95 mins.In January 1998 twohorror films, both based on novels by Koji Suzuki, were released as a doublebill in Japan. The Ring (in Japanese: Ringu) and The Spiral (Rasen)became hits: the former especially launched the worldwide "J Horror" boom and ...
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Reviews
Cafe Lumiere (Kohi Jikou)
Dir:Hou Hsiao-Hsien. Japan. 2004. 92mins.One of the most consistently interesting of Far Easternarthouse directors, Hou Hsiao-Hsien has a dedicated following on the festivalcircuit and a tiny film-buff fanbase in the real world. It's telling that not asingle Region 2 DVD of any of the Taiwanese director's films is currentlyavailable on ...
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Reviews
The World (Shijie)
Dir. Jia Zhang-Ke.China-Japan. 2004. 140mins.China's censorship boardhad previously banned the work of film-maker Jia Zhang-Ke - that is until hislatest film, The World, which is as subversive and critical as any ofhis earlier features.While some board members mayhave chosen to regard it as a travelogue selling the charms of Beijing'sgigantic ...
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Reviews
Low Life
Dir: Im Kwon-Taek.South Korea. 2004. 99 mins.Veteran South Korean filmmaker Im Kwon-Taek spotlights aturbulent period in the history of his country in this fast-paced saga, whichscreened in competition at Venice. But all that history is the film's mainproblem: international audiences, few of whom have a firm grasp of thepolitical landscape ...
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Reviews
A Good Woman
Dir: Mike Barker. UK-It.2004. 93minsA light souffle of a film, AGood Woman takes a decent stab at transferring Oscar Wilde's enduring play LadyWindermere's Fan from Victorian England to 1930s Italy. The crisp wit andsly social satire are a little lost in translation and the stellar cast are notalways at ease ...
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Reviews
Stray Dogs (Sag-Haye Velgard)
Dir. MarziyehMeshkini. Iran. 2004. 93mins.Put this one downalongside Bunuel's Los Olvidados, de Sica's Sciuscia or Babencos'Pixote as yet another devastating portrait of human folly and what itdoes to its most defenceless victims, its children.Shot on theoutskirts of Kabul, in Afghanistan, by Marziyeh Meshkini, whose 2000 Venicedebut, The Day I Became ...
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Reviews
Arsene Lupin
Dir. Jean-PaulSalome. Fr-UK-Spain-It. 2004. 132mins.At Euros 23m, ArseneLupin is one of the most expensive French films of the year, with sumptuoussets, lavish costumes, picturesque locations and spectacular camerapyrotechnics. But there is little else to recommend it: certainly not thescreenplay, which never quiet makes up its mind what it wants to ...
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Reviews
Butterfly (Hu Die)
Dir: Yan Yan Mak, HongKong. 2004. 124minsA well-crafted butpainfully earnest lesbian coming-of-age drama, Hu Die attempts inunconvincing fashion to combine the personal and the political. Using flashbackand newsreel footage, it makes constant reference to the protests leading up tothe massacre in Tiananmen Square in 1989, when students stood up against ...