Latest – Page 711
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Reviews
Betelnut Beauty
Screened at Berlin (Competition) Dir: Lin Cheng-sheng. Taiwan-China-France. 2000. 106mins.Young people struggling to find a meaningful life in the urban sprawl of Asian megacities like Taipei and Beijing is not a new premisefor a film, but Lin Cheng-sheng's Betelnut Beauty is a standoutnonetheless. Fully deserving the best director award ...
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Reviews
Ignorant Fairies
Screened at Berlin (Competition).Directed by Ferzan Ozpetek. Italy/France. 2000. 105mins.The clash between cultures has been the pivotal focus in Turkish-born - but who has lived in Rome since 1978 - director Ferzan Ozpetek's work. His first feature, Hamam - The Turkish Bath (Il Bagno Turco), about a Italian man's sexual ...
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Reviews
MallBoy
Dir: Vincent Giarrusso. Australia. 2000. 85 mins.The overlit candy-coloured shopping mall where 14 year old Shaun and his aimless school-skipping friends spend a large part of their days is so shockingly familiar it might be anywhere in the developed or semi-developed world, which gives this small-scale Australian movie a genuinely ...
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Reviews
Princesa
Dir: Henrique Goldman. Italy/Germany/Brazil. 2000. 96 mins. Along with acclaimed documentary Southern Comfort and musical Hedwig And The Angry Inch, Henrique Goldman's absorbing Princesa blazed a trail at this year's Sundance Film Festival for movies with transgender heroes or heroines. Centred around a Brasilian transvestite working as a prostitute in ...
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Reviews
The Finder
Dir: Frank Shields. Australia. 2000. 90 mins.Long-time producer Phil Avalon's considerable achievement in raising enough private finance to make this Australian crime thriller from his own script would have been infinitely greater if the finished movie, launched during the American Film Market in LA, wasn't so lazily derivative.The concept is ...
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Reviews
3000 Miles To Graceland
The Tarantino effect is very much in evidence in 3000Miles To Graceland, a trashy, excessively violent action movie about a casinoheist that goes hilariously and uproariously awry. Using the iconic Elvis Presley and his ostentatiousattire as a conceit, the yarn is set against the background of the glitzy,high-energy chaos surrounding ...
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Reviews
Fat Girl (A Ma Soeur!)
Screened at Berlin (Competition). Dir: Catherine Breillat. France-Italy. 2001mins. No European director, and certainly no female European film-maker, has made a more audacious series of films than Catherine Breillat. There are times, in fact, when she seems to court controversy. In this respect, Fat Girl carries on where Romance left ...
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Reviews
The Tailor Of Panama
Brosnan too suave by halfThe Tailor Of PanamaDerek Malcolm in BerlinScreened at Berlin (Panorama). Dir: John Boorman. US-Ireland. 2001. 111mins.Rumours that the ending of The Tailor Of Panama was changed so that Pierce Brosnan's spy doesn't get killed but flies off instead towards a prosperous future hints at what is ...
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Reviews
Hannibal devoured by UK audiences
Despite Hannibal taking a large bite out of the UK box office over the weekend, four other openers faired well, no doubt owing a debt of gratitude to sell-out screenings of the UIP monster, which turned hungry audiences toward other titles. As reported on screendaily.com yesterday, Hannibal became the highest ...
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Reviews
Disco Pigs
Screened at Berlin(Panorama). Dir: Kirsten Sheridan. Ireland-UK. 2001. 94mins.First films invested with passion are not rare, but those supported by the skill to go with it are few and far between. Disco Pigs, Kirsten Sheridan's debut feature from Ireland, has moments which herald the emergence of a real film-maker of ...
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Reviews
Italian For Beginners
Screened at Berlin (Competition). Dir: Lone Scherfig. Denmark. 2000. 118mins.Judging by the applause and peels of laughter that greeted the press screenings this week for Lone Scherfig's Italian For Beginners at Berlin, a festival where such spontaneous outbursts are rare, it is clear that there is plenty of life yet ...
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Reviews
In The Bedroom
Dir: Todd Field. US. 2001. 135mins.Indie actor Todd Field makes an impressive feature directorial debut with In The Bedroom, a sharply-observed portrait of how one upper-middle-class family comes to terms with sudden tragedy. Set in New England, this meditative, multilayered drama is as much noteworthy for its accomplishments, providing a ...
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Reviews
Hannibal
(The following is an extract from a review that ran in the weekly edition of Screen International. For the full review see Screen International, Feb 9-16)Dir: Ridley Scott. US. 2001. 141mins.The dark shadow of The Silence Of The Lambs looms large over Hannibal, the eagerly-anticipated sequel to the 1991 ...
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Reviews
Mortal Transfer
Screened at Berlin (Panorama). Dir: Jean-Jacques Beineix. France-Germany. 2000. 122mins.Marking Jean-Jacques Beineix's return to theatrical features after an eight-year absence, Mortal Transfer is a disappointingly minor excursion into black comedy-cum-psycho-thriller territory. Taken at its most undemanding level of entertainment, the film's macabre farce and its cast of eccentrics are mildly ...
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Reviews
Battle Royale
Screened at Rotterdam (main programme). Dir: Kinji Fukasaku. Japan. 2000. 113mins.With its story of teenagers killing each other in a government-sponsored murder game, Battle Royale generated an unprecedented brouhaha following its December release in Japan, with members of parliament and even the minister of education decrying its ultra-violence as a ...
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Reviews
My First Mister
Screened at Sundance (Opening night premiere). Dir: Christine Lahti. US. 2001. 109mins.My First Mister, actress Christine Lahti's feature directorial debut, is a decent, mildly-engaging melodrama about the unlikely bond that develops between a rebellious high-school graduate and a sensitive, dying older man. Strong acting by both the up-and-coming Leelee Sobieski ...
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Reviews
Some Body
Screened at Sundance (Dramatic Competition). Dir: Henry Barrial. US. 2001. 80mins.Henry Barrial's Some Body is an admirable example of how a low-budget production, shot on digital video, can also be a dramatically satisfying movie. Much of the credit for that should go to Stephanie Bennett, the lead actress who also ...
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Reviews
Head Over Heels
Dir: Mark Waters. US. 2000. 110 mins. There's more than a little of There's Something About Mary (and a self-conscious touch of Alfred Hitchcock) in Head Over Heels, a bouncy but messy romantic comedy/thriller that pools the off-screen talents of Adam Sandler's regular producer Robert Simmonds, House Of Yes director ...
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Reviews
Valentine
Dir: Jamie Blanks. US. 2000. 96mins. Compared to most of today's amped up teen slasher flicks, Valentine stands out in its restraint and subtlety. The approach takes a while to pay off and may, together with the relative dearth of sex'n'gore, test the patience of some members of the target ...