Latest – Page 662
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Reviews
Paycheck
Dir: John Woo. US. 2003. 119 mins.Representing a comeback opportunity for both director John Woo and star Ben Affleck, Paycheck is a sci-fi action thriller that offers glimpses of Woo at his elegant best before it disintegrates into hackneyed genre silliness. Paramount's Christmas Day US release will be watched closely ...
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Reviews
Monster
Dir: Patty Jenkins. US. 2003. 110 mins.Two documentaries by Nick Broomfield may have told the Aileen Wuornos story vis a vis the American justice system and media, but Patty Jenkins tells the human story of the woman in her dramatization Monster, a low-budget character study which was released domestically at ...
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Reviews
Zelary
Dir: Ondrej Trojan. Czech Republic. 2003. 150mins.Ondrej Trojan, the producer of Czech hits Divided We Fall and Pupendo, returns to directing with Zelary, a sweeping World War II story set in a remote mountain community where a resistance worker takes refuge from the Nazis. One of those lilting, long films ...
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Reviews
Not On the Mouth (Pas Sur La Bouche)
Dir: Alain Resnais. France-Switzerland. 2003 115 mins.Alain Resnais and humour make strange bedfellows and his new film is grounds for divorce: Not On The Mouth is a glossy but charmless adaptation of a comic operetta and the best argument do date for Resnais, the erstwhile icon of solemn art house ...
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Reviews
Stuck on You
Dirs: Bobby Farrelly, Peter Farrelly. US. 2003. 118 mins. Are the Farrelly brothers, the original kings of gross-out comedy, going soft' It often seems that way in this potentially outrageous comedy that in fact shows off the brothers' sweet side to some effect but delivers little of the bracingly over-the-top ...
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Reviews
Details (Detaljer)
Dir: Kristian Petri. Sweden. 2003. 112mins.Although this theatrical adaptation is very much a minority sport, it did not quite deserve to drop out of sight at the Swedish box office in the two weeks after its October 10 release. Its potential has been confirmed at MIFED, where the film attracted ...
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Reviews
Warriors Of Heaven And Earth
Dir: He Ping. China. 2003. 119 mins.He Ping, best known internationally for Red Firecracker, Green Firecracker, is better known in China as the pioneer of the so-called Chinese western like Sun Valley and Swordsman Of Double Flag Town which are set in the vast and unpopulated western territories. Warriors Of ...
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Reviews
Peter Pan
Dir: PJ Hogan. 2003. US. 104 minutesThis umpteenth revisiting of the familiar children's story, first mounted on the London stage a century ago, is always thoroughly competent, even generally engaging, but rarely soars. Universal, happy to have hijacked the property's profile from Disney, has obviously expended a great deal of ...
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Reviews
A Touch Of Spice (Politiki Konzina)
Dir. Tassos Boulmetis. Greece. 2003. 108 mins.A natural crowd pleaser and by far the most successful Greek picture of the year (where it has outgunned the likes of Pirates Of The Carribean with 1m admissions since it opened in late October), this ode to traditional Balkan cuisine and its Ottoman ...
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Reviews
Mona Lisa Smile
Dir: Mike Newell. 2003. US. 117mins.Mona Lisa Smile is a not-bad movie that is, alas, fatally at war with itself. On the one hand, it's a well-acted, convincingly-mounted period piece set in smug, elitist Wellesley College in 1953 that takes up, far more seriously than anyone had a right to ...
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Reviews
Something's Gotta Give
Dir: Nancy Meyers.US. 2003. 123mins.In this terrific new romantic comedy, writer-director Nancy Meyers (The Parent Trap, What Women Want) has given Jack Nicholson the Christmas present of a lifetime. Turning to her (and his) advantage the actor's off- and on-screen persona as skirt-chaser who specialises in younger women, Meyers ...
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Reviews
Cheaper By The Dozen
Dir: Shawn Levy. US. 2003. 98 mins. Holiday movies don't come much more undemanding than this. Sugary one moment and slapstick the next, Steve Martin's return to family comedy is ideally suited to its Christmas Day US release slot and could - thanks also the presence of tween star Hilary ...
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ReviewsThe Lord Of The Rings: The Return Of The King
Dir: Peter Jackson. US / New Zealand. 2003. 201 mins.
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Reviews
Cold Mountain
Dir: Anthony Minghella. US. 2003. 157 mins. There are a number of coups which writer/director Anthony Minghella has scored with his long-awaited film of the best-selling novel Cold Mountain, not least of which is to soften the focus on the American Civil War - a period in history which has ...
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Reviews
When The Right One Comes Along (Wenn Der Richtige Kommt)
Dirs. Stefan Hillebrand and Oliver Paulus. Switzerland/Germany, 2003. 78mins.If this largely improvised, shoestring budget production finds its place on the festival and art house circuit, as it rightly should, it will not be because of its glamour or production values, of which it has none, but its immediate spontaneity and ...
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Reviews
Sea Of Silence (Verder Dan De Maan)
Dir: Stijn Coninx. Neth/Belg. 2003. 100 minsAn endearing, old-fashioned coming of age drama, Sea Of Silence travels a well worn road with care and craft. An episodic account of a family's joys and sorrows, it views the world through the eyes of a grave-faced, God-fearing little girl. A poised, mature ...
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Reviews
In The City (En La Ciudad)
Dir. Cesc Gay. Spain, 2003. 110mins.Pleasant, handsome, urbane but quite vacuous, Cesc Gay's second feature film resembles, to a certain extent, the choral dramas of French director Claude Sautet, minus the dynamics and the depth. Revising the thirtysomething formula of American television into an European version shot entirely in Barcelona, ...
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Reviews
Loving Glances
Dir. Srdan Karanovic. UK/Serbia, 2003. 97mins.Film-maker Srdan Karanovic, a star of the golden age in Yugoslav cinema, makes a well-deserved comeback with this gentle, surreal romance. Absent from the screen for too long, he has left so much unsaid in the 12 years he has been absent that it almost ...
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Reviews
Ong-Bak: Muay Thai Warrior
Dir. Parchya Pinkaew. Thailand, 2003. 105 min.Hollywood producers would do well to note the names on the credits before they embark on their next multi-million dollar action franchise. Just as Hong Kong's Yuen Wo Ping brought a different kind of kinetic energy to The Matrix series (as well as ...
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Reviews
The Last Samurai
Dir: Edward Zwick. US. 2003. 154minsTom Cruise rides into the East in Warner Bros' stirring, beautifully mounted dramatic release, directed by Ed Zwick (Glory, Legends Of The Fall), refreshingly set in 1870s Japan. Though its plot and structure, as well as it characters, sometimes perilously skirt cliche, the end result ...