Latest – Page 674
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Reviews
Gozu
Dir: Takashi Miike. Japan. 2003. 129minsAudiences never know quite what to expect from the indefatigably prolific Japanese oddball Takashi Miike: sometimes a couple of wildly inspired sequences will leaven a routine film, sometimes he relentlessly beats you into submission. With the barely-describable Gozu, however, Miike's crazed imagination delivers the goods ...
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Reviews
The Last Customer/Il Grido D'Angoscia Dell'uccello Predatore 20 Tagli D'Aprile
Dir: Nanni Moretti. Italy 2003. 23/27minsSometimes a short work from a major film-maker can give more pleasure than an epic feature from a lesser talent. That is certainly the case with Nanni Moretti's The Last Customer, a warm-hearted salute to a family pharmacy business that had become an institution in ...
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Reviews
The Fog Of War
Dir: Errol Morris. US. 2003. 95minsErrol Morris's latest documentary/essay, The Fog Of War, is a brilliant, nuanced examination of the career of Robert S McNamara, who served as secretary of defence in the US cabinet during the Vietnam War. Owing to its intellectual, moral and political complexity, the film, which ...
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Reviews
The Mother
Dir: Roger Michell. UK. 2003. 112minsA finely-shaded performance from veteran British actress Anne Reid is the shining centre of The Mother, a shrewd and believable portrait of an older woman's belated revolt against a life of quiet desperation. A thoughtful companion piece to the kind of themes previously explored in ...
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Reviews
Purple Butterfly
Dir: Lou Ye. China. 2003. 126minsAfter the Cannes Competition screening of Purple Butterfly, the long-awaited third film from Chinese director Lou Ye, some of the best critical minds of our generation - plus the present reviewer - stood outside the Salle Bunuel, arguing about the plot. Everyone had a slightly ...
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Reviews
Finding Nemo
Dir: Andrew Stanton. US. 2003. 100mins.Pixar Animation Studios has made some of the best American features during the last decade in the two Toy Story films and Monsters Inc; Finding Nemo, which is released in the US on May 30, the first time a Pixar feature has been released in ...
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Reviews
Bruce Almighty
Dir: Tom Shadyac. US. 2003. 102minsThe triumvirate of actor Jim Carrey, director Tom Shadyac and screenwriter Steve Oedekerk struck box office gold with their first film together, 1994's Ace Ventura: Pet Detective. Ever since they have worked together in various combinations (for example Shadyac and Carrey with Liar, Liar). Finally ...
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Reviews
La Petite Lili
Dir: Claude Miller. France. 2003. 104minsBetter forget all about Chekhov before you go to see this. Though a free adaptation of The Seagull, one more among so many, Claude Miller's film has none of the subtle, sensitive intelligence of the great Russian playwright. Instead, it is a clever but blunt ...
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Reviews
James' Journey To Jerusalem
Dir. Ra'anan Alexandrowicz. Israel. 2003. 85mins.The first fiction feature by documentary film-maker Ra'anan Alexandrowicz, James' Journey To Jerusalem is a dark satire that confronts the black market labour and moral bankruptcy of the once idealistic Israeli society. Originally planned as part of a TV drama series called Voices From The ...
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Reviews
Mystic River
Dir: Clint Eastwood. US. 2003. 137 minsAnyone seeking lessons in the graceful art of the selfless auteur need look no further than Clint Eastwood. The producer, director and composer on Mystic River, Eastwood serves the story rather than indulges his ego and creates the framework for a fine ensemble cast ...
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Reviews
Kitchen Stories (Salmer Fra Kjokkenet)
Dir: Bent Hamer. Norway, 2003. 95minsA charmingly glum, low-key audience-pleaser, Norwegian comedy Kitchen Stories was always likely to be one of the sweeter features on offer at Cannes. Although its drily reserved Nordic humour never approaches the harder edges of, say, Aki Kaurismaki's comedies, it should appeal to anyone with ...
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Reviews
Since Otar Left (Depuis Qu'Otar Est Parti)
Dir: Julie Bertuccelli. France-Belgium. 2003. 102minsThe modest but solid debut of French film-maker Julie Bertuccelli, Since Otar Left should be considered closely by festivals looking for a film that connects with audiences while admirably resisting every temptation offered by its touching story to plunge into bathos by over-plucking the heartstrings. ...
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Reviews
At Five In The Afternoon (Panj E Asr)
Dir: Samira Makhmalbaf. Iran-France. 2003. 106minsAlthough dialogue-heavy longueurs that are endemic to Iranian cinema will make Samira Makhmalbaf's film - which won the Jury Prize at this year's Cannes - trying for some, adepts will welcome it with open arms. It is filmed in traditional Makhmalbafian family style, in which ...
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Reviews
Elephant
Dir: Gus Van Sant. US. 2003. 81minsIn recent years Gus Van Sant's erratic career has had all the hallmarks ofan amnesiac desperately seeking clues to his true identity. He has assumedthe ill-fitting personalities of Hitchcock imitator (Psycho) and Dogme-styleexperimenter (Gerry) and even appeared to try cloning himself with a GoodWill ...
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Reviews
Who Killed Bambi' (Qui A Tue Bambi')
Dir: Gilles Marchand. France. 2003. 126minsStrip away the veneer of sophisticated film technique and the delusions of artistic merit and Who Killed Bambi' is just another crude scary movie. Best known as the co-writer of the Hitchcockian delight Harry, A Friend Who Is Happy To Help, Gilles Marchand displays an ...
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Reviews
That Day (Ce Jour-La)
Dir: Raoul Ruiz. France-Switzerland. 2003. 105minsLong-term followers of the maverick Raoul Ruiz - or indeed, viewers who discovered him through his unlikely 2001 box-office hit Time Regained - are used to expecting the unexpected. But the Swiss-set That Day (Ce Jour-La) is unpredictable largely for being uncharacteristically predictable, even mechanical. ...
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Reviews
Strayed (Les Egares)
Dir: Andre Techine. France. 2003. 95minsTender and tasteful, Strayed (Les Egares) takes a conventional approach to what will seem familiar material to most international audiences. Set amid sun-dappled vistas of rural France, it captures the conflicting emotions and underlying tensions of a lyrical interlude stolen from the chaos of wartime ...
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Reviews
Strayed (Les Egares)
Dir: Andre Techine. France. 2003. 95minsTender and tasteful, Strayed (Les Egares) takes a conventional approach to what will seem familiar material to most international audiences. Set amid sun-dappled vistas of rural France, it captures the conflicting emotions and underlying tensions of a lyrical interlude stolen from the chaos of wartime ...
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Reviews
Belleville Rendez-Vous (Les Triplettes De Belleville)
Dir: Sylvain Chomet. France-Canada-Belgium. 2003. 80minsTrailing great advance word of mouth ahead of its Out Of Competition screening at Cannes, and heralded as a new departure for French animation, Belleville Rendez-Vous turns out to be a hugely inventive, visually-striking and often delightful story. However, it is let down by a ...
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Reviews
The Hours Of The Day (Las Horas Del Dia)
Dir: Jaime Rosales. Spain. 2003. 110mins.Spanish film-maker Jaime Rosales' The Hours Of The Day (Las Horas Del Dia) marks a confident debut feature, and one which should have no trouble finding a niche on the festival circuit - as its acceptance in Directors' Fortnight at Cannes testifies. It may also ...