Latest – Page 671
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Reviews
16 Years Of Alcohol
Dir. Richard Jobson. UK. 2003. 102mins.Richard Jobson's first feature is an intensely felt, but often disjointed, tale of a man's desperate attempt to free himself not only from alcoholic addiction, but also to overcome his violent nature, basic mistrust in human nature and ferociously anti-social conduct. Growing up with a ...
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Reviews
Calendar Girls
Dir: Nigel Cole. UK. 2003. 108minsThe timing could not be more auspicious for Calendar Girls. A summer of under-performing one hit wonders suggests an audience that is weary of empty spectacle and hungry for old-fashioned entertainment. Calendar Girls isn't cutting edge. It can't boast state-of-the-art effects. It hasn't been inspired ...
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Reviews
S.W.A.T.
Dir. Clark Johnson. US. 2003. 116minsBacked by another stand-out performance by Colin Farrell and the best tag line of the season - 'Even cops dial 911' - this superior piece of formula film-making should blow the doors off the box office when it opens in the US this weekend (Aug ...
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Reviews
Memories Of Murder (Salinui Chueok)
Dir: Bong Joon-Ho. Korea. 2003. 129mins.Memories Of Murder is one of the most complete and compelling films to have come out of South Korea in recent years. Set up as a detective thriller, the film is by turn mysterious, dramatic, creepy and corroding - and it comes loaded with a ...
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Reviews
Le Divorce
Dir: James Ivory. US/France. 2003. 115mins.It's no coincidence that Kate Hudson's character is named Isabel Walker, a thinly disguised Isabel Archer, in Merchant Ivory's latest film Le Divorce. Diane Johnson, herself an American who has lived in Paris, wanted to update the Henry James concept of American naifs being influenced ...
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Reviews
Freaky Friday
Dir: Mark Waters. US. 2003. 97mins.An original remake sounds like an oxymoron, but the new Freaky Friday, Disney's reworking of its own 1976 film, is smart, energetic and loads of fun. Indeed, it is almost as good as The Parent Trap, a 1998 Disney re-make that, not so coincidentally, starred ...
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Reviews
Le Divorce
Dir: James Ivory. US/France. 2003. 115mins. Fans of film-makers Merchant Ivory should not fear that they have abandoned the literary classics altogether with their latest film. While Le Divorce is set in today's Paris, with hip young actors like Kate Hudson and Naomi Watts in the lead roles, it feels ...
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Reviews
Danny Deckchair
Dir: Jeff Balsmeyer. Australia. 2003. 100mins.Welsh actor Rhys Ifans created the abiding comic movie image of 1999 as Spike in Roger Michell's Notting Hill: the shaggy, skinny flatmate-from-Hell merrily posed in his underpants for photographers outside Hugh Grant's London pad. Unpredictably Ifans emerges here as a glamorously handsome Australian ...
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Reviews
American Wedding
Dir: Jesse Dylan. US. 2003. 96mins.The enthusiastic raunchiness of its gags aside, the third instalment of the American Pie franchise feels like the return of a favourite TV sitcom: the characters are enjoyably familiar and while the set up has changed a little the comedy still has energy to spare. ...
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Reviews
The Stewardess (Fai Sheung Hung Tse)
Dir: Sam Leong Tak. Hong Kong. 2002. 120mins.The Stewardess had a dismal theatrical outing in Hong Kong last year when its gross failed to break four figures. But an appearance in competition at the PiFan fantasy festival in Seoul last month could set this charmer of a black comedy back ...
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Reviews
Charlie: The Life And Art Of Charles Chaplin
Dir: Richard Schickel. US. 2003. 125minsAn admiring portrait of an artist who helped create the language of film comedy, Charlie: The Life And Art Of Charles Chaplin does an honourable job of covering the many facets of a complex and controversial figure. A straightforward mixture of talking heads and extensive ...
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Reviews
Spy Kids 3D: Game Over
Dir: Robert Rodriguez. US. 2003. 89mins.The final episode in Robert Rodriguez's family adventure series is an effective strictly-for-kids action feature which has already proved its mettle with a whopping $32.5m opening at the US box office last weekend. Set mostly within a computer game, the film was conceived and shot ...
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Reviews
Mutt Boy (Ddong-gae)
Dir: Kwak Kyung-Taek. Korea. 2003. 101 mins.Not quite slice-of-life drama, nor exactly a coming-of-age tale, Mutt Boy is a finely-crafted, but ultimately unfulfilling, chunk-of-growing-up-in-contemporary-Korea story by one of the country's most skilled directors, KT Kwak. Though it shares elements with them, Mutt Boy is drawn on a smaller scale than ...
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Reviews
Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Cradle Of Life
Dir: Jan De Bont. US. 2003. 118mins.Smarter, sexier and more stylish than its predecessor, the second film of the Tomb Raider franchise drops the video-game pretence and goes the Bond route. Dean Georgaris' screenplay gives Lara Croft more to do and more to be, and Angelina Jolie responds with a ...
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Reviews
Milwaukee, Minnesota
Dir: Allan Mindel. US. 2003. 95mins.Milwaukee, Minnesota is a typical Sundance competition movie - one of the ones you never hear about again after January - that has somehow washed up on the shores of the Riviera in the Critics' Week section. As such, this effort by first-time director Allan ...
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Reviews
Coming And Going (Vai E Vem)
Dir: Joao Cesar Monteiro. Portugal. 2003. 179minsShown posthumously at Cannes out of competition following his death from cancer in February this year, Coming And Going is the epic final testament of Portuguese actor-director Joao Cesar Monteiro, who had some claim to being European cinema's single most eccentric talent. His films, ...
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Reviews
The Rage In Placid Lake
Dir: Tony McNamara. Australia. 2002. 90mins.Let's get some misassumptions about this comedy feature debut from writer/director McNamara and Australian rockstar/actor Ben Lee out of the way. Firstly, it is not related to Fox's 1999 crocodile feature Lake Placid. And secondly, lead character Placid Lake (played by Lee himself) displays none ...
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Reviews
Father And Son (Otets Y Syn)
Dir: Alexander Sokurov. Germany. 2003. 81mins.Alexander Sokurov's new film is the second part of a trilogy that began in 1996 with the esteemed Mother And Son, which brought the director to international attention. Subsequent appearances in Cannes competition have included Moloch (1999), Taurus (2000), and Russian Ark (2002), the last ...
