Latest – Page 700
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Reviews
2001: The Film Year in Review
There were few great films in 2001, but enough good ones by new (Todd Field), developing (Peter Jackson,Baz Luhrmann), and veteran (Lynch, Altman) directors, to make the year moreagreeable. With most studio releases slipshod and slapdash, the interestingfilms were easily evident on first viewing. Hence, choosing the best was notdifficult, ...
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Reviews
Vanilla Sky
Dir Cameron Crowe. US 2001. 136 mins.Cameron Crowe's Vanilla Sky provides a classic case study of what happens when a mainstream studio, Paramount, and a major Hollywood star, Tom Cruise, take a terrifically-executed Spanish thriller, Open Your Eyes, and turn it into a spectacularly glossy, big-budget, effects-ridden star vehicle that's ...
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Reviews
Iris
Dir Richard Eyre. UK-US.2001. 90 mins.Viewers expecting to get illuminating insights about the literary genius, eccentric philosophy, and complex sexuality of Iris Murdoch, the British celeb of letters who died in 1999, will be disappointed with Richard Eyre’s Iris, a minor, rambling film, almost made-to-order for the dictates of the ...
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Reviews
Women Talking Dirty
Dir: Coky Giedroyc. UK-US. 1999. 97mins. Although a long time in the works for the talent involved (it is Rocket Pictures' first production to hit the screens since the company was founded five years ago and director Coky Giedroyc's follow-up to her noted 1997 debut, Stella Does Tricks), Women Talking ...
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Reviews
Mean Machine
Dir: Barry Skolnick. UK. 2001. 99 mins. A loose remake and Anglicisation of Robert Aldrich's 1974 prison drama staring Burt Reynolds (released in some territories as The Longest Yard), Mean Machine is aimed at the same audience as Ska Films' most notable hits to date, Guy Ritchie's 1997 Lock, Stock ...
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Reviews'The Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring': Review
Dir Peter Jackson. US.2001. 179 min.Visually striking, thematically grave, and morally weighty, Peter Jackson’s The Lord Of The Rings: The Fellowship Of The Ring, is a miracle of a movie: a three-hour fantasy-action-adventure that not only faithfully captures the spirit of its respectable source material, the ...
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Reviews
Ocean's Eleven
Dir Steven Soderbergh.US. 2001. 116 min.Steven Soderbergh's astonishing artistic renewal, that began three years ago with Out Of Sight and The Limey, and reached anunprecedented height last year with Erin Brockovich (for which he received a directing Oscar nomination) and Traffic (which landed him the coveted prize), begins to show ...
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Reviews
Mad Love (Juana La Loca)
Dir: Vicente Aranda. Sp-It-Port. 117mins. A costume drama driven by lead Pilar Lopez de Ayala's impacting central performance, Mad Love (Juana La Loca) is Spain's official entry for the foreign language Oscar nominations, having beaten out sexier options such as Penelope Cruz film No News From God and Julio ...
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Reviews
The 51st State
Dir: Ronny Yu. UK/Canada. 2001. 92minsA lurid, laddish, bad ass romp, 51st State is so primed and pumped up that It's almost laughable. A wild-eyed enthusiasm for the delights of bloodshed, body fluids and expletive-filled banter should hit the mark with a target audience of young males who like their ...
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Reviews
Behind Enemy Lines
Dir: John Moore. US 2001. 105 mins The US military couldn't have asked for a more effective recruitment tool than this rousing, high-concept action feature about a young navy pilot trapped behind enemy lines in Bosnia, who must outwit and evade his legion of pursuers until the Marines can arrive ...
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Reviews
The Affair Of The Necklace
Dir. Charles Shyer. US 2001. 117mins.Much of the dramatic juice and historical intrigue has been drained out of The Affair Of The Necklace, an old-fashioned costume drama that suffers from being stiff, stuffy and banal. In her first major role after a well-deserved Best Actress Oscar for Boys Don't ...
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Reviews
Betty Fisher And Other Stories
Dir: Claude Miller. France-Canada. 2001. 102minsVeteran director Claude Miller brings a calm control and authority to the elaborately plotted Betty Fisher Et Autres Histoires, a demanding blend of psychological thriller and ensemble melodrama. Slow-burning but always absorbing, the film ambitiously attempts to cover a wide range of characters and developments ...
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Reviews
Black Knight
Dir: Gil Junger. US. 2001. 93 mins. After the commercial disappointment of his team-up with Danny DeVito in What's the Worst That Could Happen', Black Knight sees comedian Martin Lawrence returning to the kind of solo shtick that turned his 2000 vehicle Big Momma's House (another Regency Enterprises production for ...
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Reviews
The Simian Line
Dir: Linda Yellen. USA 2000. 106mins The cast members in this uneven ensemble comedy might as well be in different pictures; in fact, it's a pity they're not since the film starring Lynn Redgrave is worth watching, while the one featuring William Hurt and Samantha Mathis is not. Given that ...
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Reviews
The Royal Tenenbaums
Dir Wes Anderson. US 2001. 108mins.The same distinctive sensibility that informed Wes Anderson's first two innovative films, Bottle Rocket and Rushmore, is very much in evidence in his new serio-comedy, The Royal Tenenbaums, except that the scope is more ambitious, the budget bigger and the cast more glamorous. With ...
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Reviews
Seafood (Haixian)
Dir: Zhu Wen. China. 2001. 84mins. This idiosyncratic and extremely personal debut film by the poet-novelist Zhu Wen won't be to all tastes, but its offbeat sensibility and intriguing glimpses of a little-seen side of contemporary China earned it the Special Prize in the Cinema of the Present competition at ...
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Reviews
Shallow Hal
Dirs: Bobby and Peter Farrelly. US 2001. 113mins.Bobby and Peter Farrelly, masters of the outrageous and gross-out comedy (Dumb And Dumber, There's Something About Mary) take an artistic step backwards with Shallow Hal, a soft, disappointingly sentimental comedy about the true nature of beauty, or the gap between physical surfaces ...
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Reviews
Gosford Park
Dir Robert Altman. UK-US 2001. 138mins.Content and style converge smoothly and brilliantly in Robert Altman's Gosford Park, a luxuriant period drama that applies the Agatha Christie murder mystery format to a rigorous analysis of English society during the early 1930s. This terrifically accomplished film, easily Altman's best work ...
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Reviews
Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone
Dir: Chris Columbus. UK-US 2001. 152mins.JK Rowling's Harry Potter books have become such a global literary and cultural phenomena (over 100 million copies sold in more than 46 languages) that it's almost impossible to treat the franchise's first film without disregarding the juggernaut hype that has touted it as the ...
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Reviews
Smell Of Camphor, Fragrance Of Jasmine
Dir: Bahman Farmanara. Iran. 2001. 93mins. Bahman Farmanara's first film in 20 years is a semi-autobiographical meditation on death and art whose mordant comic tone is an acquired taste but still a rather elegant one. With the way already paved by international festival acclaim, the film's immediate appeal will be ...