Latest – Page 657
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Reviews
Podium
Dir: Yann Moix. 2004. France-Belgium 2004. 95 mins.A mild satire on the morbid contemporary phenomenon of pop celebrity cloning, Podium owes what energy it has to its Belgian star, Benoit Poelvoorde. Directed by Yann Moix, a former journalist who published the story as a best-selling novel in 2002, the film ...
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Reviews
Hellboy
Dir: Guillermo del Toro. US. 2003. 122 mins.Their web sites have been spreading pre-release buzz for weeks and comic book geeks won't be disappointed when Guillermo del Toro's handsome and long-awaited big screen take on artist Mike Mignola's Hellboy opens in the US this weekend. Whether broad mainstream audiences will ...
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Reviews
Death In Gaza
Dirs: James Miller/ Misha Manson-Smith. UK/US. 2004. 80minsJames Miller was considered one of his generation's most observant witnesses to war. An Emmy-winning journalist who had reported from Bosnia, Lebanon and Iraq, he was shot dead by an Israeli soldier in May 2003. Miller was just 34 and had been working ...
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Reviews
Scooby-Doo 2: Monsters Unleashed
Dir: Raja Gosnell. US. 2003. 93 mins.The sequel to Warner's surprisingly powerful summer 2002 hit Scooby-Doo adds more characters and more effects to the formula first used to turn the long-running Hanna-Barbera TV cartoon into a live action feature - and it also delivers more genuine fun than its painfully ...
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Reviews
Dawn Of The Dead
Dir: Zack Snyder. US. 2003. 100mins.It may not have the intensity and satirical touch that made George Romero's original Dawn Of The Dead a modern horror classic. But this 're-envisioning' of Romero's 1979 cult favourite by commercials director Zack Snyder at least partially makes up for the lack with a ...
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Reviews
Taking Lives
Dir: DJ Caruso. US. 2004. 103 mins.Serial killer thrillers don't come slicker than this good-looking Montreal-set production from Mark Canton and Warner Bros. Boasting a stellar cast led by the larger-than-life Angelina Jolie, Taking Lives is an enjoyable studio outing in the vein of Copycat or The Bone Collector but, ...
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Reviews
The Ladykillers
Dir: Joel & Ethan Coen. US. 2004. 104 mins.After the Coen Brothers' unmemorable Intolerable Cruelty last year, The Ladykillers represents another awkward fusion of their distinctive style and studio-originated material. More suited to their sensibilities than the fizzy screwball high-jinks the brothers attempted to whip up in Cruelty, The Ladykillers ...
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Reviews
Blind Flight
Dir: John Furse. UK. 2003. 96 minsExceptional performances from Ian Hart and Linus Roache lend a compelling authority to the true story of hostages Brian Keenan and John McCarthy. Both actors get under the skin of two very different characters, capturing their individual personalities but also illuminating the common humanity ...
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Reviews
Tre Metri Sopra Il Cielo
Dir: Luca Lucini. Italy. 2004. 102 mins.Federico Moccia's novel Tre Metri Sopra Il Cielo (which translates as 'Three Steps Over Heaven') was a real teen phenomenon in Italy: first published in 1992, it soon went out of print, but high-school students continued to circulate photocopied copies of the work - ...
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Reviews
Jersey Girl
Dir: Kevin Smith. US. 2004. 103mins.It's theoretically possible, of course, that director Kevin Smith has not used every cliche associated with the domestic genre featuring guilty yuppie parents and guilting kids, but audiences will be hard-pressed to find anything missing in Jersey Girl. As attested to in an egregious 'director's ...
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Reviews
Secret Window
Dir: David Koepp. US. 2004.Johnny Depp is beloved among moviegoers for his outrageous screen characters whose exaggerated physical attributes have included wigs, facial tics and garish attire. In the tepid psychodrama Secret Window, based on a novella by Stephen King, Depp dons a frayed bath robe, big spectacles and a ...
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Reviews
Hush Hush Baby (Shouf Shouf Haibibi)
Dir: Albert ter Heerdt. The Netherlands. 2004. 88minsThe ever expanding borders of the European Union have pushed immigration to the top of the political agenda. Hush, Hush Baby touches on some of the serious global issues surrounding the topic but is generally happy to settle for broad, knockabout comedy and ...
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Reviews
Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind
Dir: Michel Gondry. US. 2004. 108minsScriptwriter Charlie Kaufman (Adaptation) and director Michel Gondry go a long way in their new film toward rehabilitating themselves after their disastrous previous collaboration, Human Nature, but the conspicuously brilliant Kaufman, especially, still seems too smart for his own good.The concept behind Eternal Sunshine Of ...
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Reviews
The Reckoning
Dir: Paul McGuigan. UK. 2001. 110mins.Paul Bettany's penchant for diverse roles spanning the eras continues in the intriguing but lethargic medieval murder mystery The Reckoning, a long finished drama shot in 2001, even before Bettany made his leap into Hollywood with A Beautiful Mind.This time Bettany is a fugitive priest ...
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Reviews
Shaun Of The Dead
Dir: Edgar Wright. UK. 2004. 100mins tbcAfter the critical debacle that was last month's Sex Lives Of The Potato Men comes Shaun Of The Dead, a film which proves that the move from small to big screen comedy does not always end in artistic failure. This romantic zombie comedy - ...
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Reviews
Don't Move (Non Ti Muovere)
Italy-Spain-UK. 2004. 121 mins.Don't Move is worth any number of seminars on the state of Italian cinema, and is ample proof that there is life in the old dog yet. The cynical might object that this is because of a standout performance by Spanish star Penelope Cruz, who does something ...
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Reviews
Starsky & Hutch
Dir: Todd Phillips. US. 2003. 100 mins.Hollywood's infatuation with the cheesy classics of 1970s American TV continues with an action comedy take on Starsky & Hutch that plays for laughs more than thrills and gets just about enough of them to, in all probability, keep the affair going for at ...
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Reviews
South Of The Clouds (Yun De Nan Fang)
Dir: Zhu Wen China. 2004. 100mins.Zhu Wen began his working life as a factory engineer before deciding, 10 years ago, that stories were his real metier. After four short story collections, a novel and two film script collaborations (he was one of three credited screenwriters on the Zhang Yuang prison ...
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Reviews
Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights
Dir: Guy Ferland. US 2004. 87 minsThe original Dirty Dancing made a star of Patrick Swayze, became one of the surprise hits of the late 1980s and grossed an $163m worldwide. Set in the Catskills in 1963, it introduced a predominantly female audiences to the catchphrase "Nobody puts Baby in ...