Latest – Page 679
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Reviews
The Soul Keeper (Prendimi L'Anima)
Dir: Roberto Faenza. Italy-France-UK. 2003. 97mins.Italian director Roberto Faenza's first English-language film spins a historical romance out of a footnote in the history of psychoanalysis. By turns involving and frustrating, it demonstrates the danger of a many-handed script which was only translated into English at a fairly late stage. But ...
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Reviews
18 Years Later (18 Ans Apres)
Dir: Coline Serreau. France. 2003. 90 minsWith 18 Years Later, Coline Serreau has made a surprisingly bland follow-up to her 1985 comedy, Three Men And A Cradle, which mushroomed from sleeper into one of the most successful French films ever, registering 10.25m admissions and taking around $71.75m by today's standards, ...
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Reviews
The One And Only
Dir: Simon Cellan Jones. UK 2002. 91mins. Spectacularly misnamed, The One And Only is anything but exceptional. Instead, it is a feeble cookie cutter comedy which represents a real disappointment given the considerable previous achievements of the talent involved: producer Leslee Udwin (East Is East), writer Peter Flannery (the BBC ...
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Reviews
Neither For, Nor Against (Quite The Contrary (Ni Pour, Ni Contre (Bien Au Contraire)
Dir: Cedric Klapisch. Fr. 2002. 112minsAfter the success of Europudding, the Barcelona-set youth comedy which was the fourth biggest French film at home last year (where it took $16.6m), Cedric Klapisch had a tough act to follow. He does so with Neither For, Nor Against, another ensmeble piece, but ...
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Reviews
Comandante
Dir: Oliver Stone. US. 2003. 99mins.For his first documentary, filmmaker Oliver Stone has chosen, in typically Stone fashion, a controversial subject: Cuban dictator Fidel Castro. Commandante provides a fascinating look at the man behind the iconic beard and cigar. But the subject is the only controversial thing about the film. ...
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Reviews
Angst (Der Alte Affe Angst)
Dir. Oskar Roehler. Germany. 2002. 91mins.Too much navel-gazing and too little perspective will make Oskar Roehler's formulaic psycho-drama a hard sell, at home as well as abroad. Unlike his earlier, award-winning Nowhere To Go, which put the tragedy of a disillusioned woman writer in a larger socio-political context, the demise ...
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Reviews
Facing Windows (La Finestra Di Fronte)
Dir: Ferzan Ozpetek. It/UK/Turkey/Port. 2003. 105mins.Ferzan Ozpetek is one of the few contemporary Italian directors who manages to straddle the arthouse-commercial divide. Born in Turkey, the director drew strongly on Anatolian themes in his first two films, The Turkish Bath (1997) and Harem Suare (1999), but with his last, 2001's ...
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Reviews
Gods And Generals
Dir. Ronald F. Maxwell. US. 2003. 216mins. If it were only two hours long, Gods And Generals would be a trial. But there then follows a further 100 minutes to prolong an experience as dull as it is earnest. Ronald Maxwell, who adapted and directed the well-regarded Gettysburg, is in ...
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Reviews
Party Monster
Dir: Fenton Bailey & Randy Barbato. US. 2003. 98mins.Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato, the documentary film-makers behind The Eyes Of Tammy Faye and prosperous production outfit World Of Wonder, made a film in 1998 called Party Monster, about the notorious club promoter Michael Alig who created the Club Kid scene ...
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Reviews
Yes Nurse, No Nurse! (Ja Zuster, Nee Zuster)
Dir: Pieter Kramer. The Netherlands. 2002. 100mins.Busby Berkeley comes to Amsterdam in all-singing, all-dancing Dutch-language musical Yes Nurse, No Nurse!. Relentless innocence and Mary-Poppins optimism may bore the more cynical before the end, but it contains enough visual style and sheer kookiness to carry the majority through to the inevitable ...
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Reviews
Off The Map
Dir: Campbell Scott. US. 2003. 108mins.World premiered at the Sundance Film Festival last month, Off The Map feels like a magical realist novel: it is sweet, languorous and full of small, poignant pleasures. But Off The Map does not quite make it as a film. Whereas it might have worked ...
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Reviews
Distant Lights (Lichter)
Dir: Hans-Christian Schmid. Germany. 2003. 106mins.The winner of the FIPRESCI prize at this year's Berlin Film Festival, Lichter plays like a German Short Cuts. If Altman's cinematic short story collection was given unity by its origin in Raymond Carver's dark fables of the disempowered American male, then Distant Lights - ...
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Reviews
The Principles Of Lust
Dir: Penny Woolcock. UK. 2003. 105mins.A dark moral tale with a steely eye for life's nastier side, The Principles Of Lust is a compelling and discomforting narrative with intellectual ambitions only too rare in UK cinema. Its visual rawness, distinctly European feel and provocative subject matter will no doubt make ...
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Reviews
His Brother (Son Frere)
Dir: Patrice Chereau. France. 2003. 89mins.Patrice Chereau's bleak and uncompromising new film about terminal illness and fraternal love is one of the director's most austere and least commercial works to date. Intimacy, to be sure, was not an easy ride for audiences, but it had more focus and structure to ...
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Reviews
National Security
Dir: Dennis Dugan. US. 2002. 90mins. The interracial cop comedy has not looked too healthy of late, but National Security suggests there may still be life in the genre. Well designed for its star and executive producer Martin Lawrence, the reliably funny, action-spiked buddy caper has taken $35m after four ...
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Reviews
Alexandra's Project
Dir. Rolf de Heer. Australia. 2002. 103mins.Whether the portrait of a husband victimised by his vindictive and possibly disturbed wife, or a fiercely feminist tract on male insensitivity, this new addition to Rolf de Heer's track record of eccentric speculations, is certainly a skilful exercise - if not a ...
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Reviews
Blind Shaft (Mang Jing)
Dir: Li Yang. China-Ger. 2003. 92 mins.For most festival-goers at Berlin, the two first-time directors in competition were George Clooney and an unknown Chinese director. In the end, however, it was the latter who won the recognition, for Li Yang 's Blind Shaft is a solid, impressive debut. A watchable, ...
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Reviews
Daredevil
Dir: Mark Steven Johnson. US. 2003. 102mins.Take that, Batman! Finally comes a comic book adaptation which really does dare to go where Tim Burton and co merely flirted - into the dark realm. Daredevil, as brought to the screen by writer - director Mark Steven Johnson, brings real violence and ...
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Reviews
Infernal Affairs
Dir. Andrew Lau, Alan Mak. Hong Kong. 2002. 98mins.A smart Hong Kong action thriller, Infernal Affairs stands to prove as much of a hit on the international market as it has done at the box office at home. With both a prequel and sequel already in the works, Warner Bros, ...
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Reviews
Traces Of The Dragon: Jackie Chan And His Lost Family
Dir: Mabel Cheung. China-HK. 2003. 94mins.This homage to Hong Kong action hero Jackie Chan, which opened the Panorama Documentary section at Berlin, was commissioned by Chan himself as a "family souvenir". But in the hands of director Mabel Cheung (known until now for features such as The Soong Sisters or ...