Latest – Page 595
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Reviews
Alice's House
Dir. Chico Teixeira. Braz. 2007. 90mins. Alice's House , documentarian Chico Teixeira's first fictional feature, is a look inside a middle-class family in Sao Paolo seen largely through the eyes of Alice, a frustrated fortyish manicurist. Teixeira shows us infidelity, love affairs, sibling rivalry and ageing through a cold lens ...
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Reviews
Tekkonkinkreet
Dir: Michael Arias. Jap. 2007. 112mins. The first feature-length Japanese anime to be directed by a foreigner, the impressive Tekkonkinkreet has cult animation written all over it. It's a streetwise Spirited Away, darker, moodier and more adult-oriented than Miyazaki's masterwork, with an apocalyptic undercurrent that reminds one of the dark ...
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Reviews
The Number 23
Dir: Joel Schumacher. US. 2007. 94mins. Jim Carrey continues his beseeching petition of dramatic film fans with The Number 23, a stylish if somewhat murky thriller about one man's downward descent into geometric fixation and madness. The film intriguingly flits around the edges of loopy susceptibility that go hand in ...
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Reviews
Poor Boy's Game
Dir: Clement Virgo. Can. 2007. 104mins. If you haven't had your fill of motivational boxing movies, here's one with a twist. Clement Virgo's Poor Boy's Game is a Canadian fight feature. In Nova Scotia, an ex-con enters the ring to pay a moral debt and escape the dead-end of Halifax's ...
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Reviews
Good Morning, Mister Grothe (Guten Morgen, Herr Grothe)
Dir: Lars Kraume. Ger. 2007. 90mins Despite promising, tense beginnings, classroom tensions fail to provide much in the way of social or emotional revelation in Good Morning, Mister Grothe. Despite strong lead performances, this story of a teacher and a problem pupil going head to head finally veers uneasily between ...
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Reviews
Here's Looking At You, Boy
Dir/scr: Andre Schafer. Ger-Neth. 2007. 90mins. Billed as a documentary about 'the coming-out of queer cinema', and destined mostly for TV and DVD formats after further festival action, Here's Looking At You, Boy ticks most of the right boxes in its interviews-plus-film clips survey of the years when queer cinema ...
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Reviews
The Last Mimzy
Dir: Bob Shaye. US. 2007. 94mins. What on paper looked suspiciously like a vanity directing project by New Line supremo Bob Shaye turns out to be a quirky, New Age, eco-aware kids' sci-fi movie that plays well with young audiences - at least if the upbeat reaction from the Berlinale ...
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Reviews
La Leon
Dir: Santiago Otheguy. Arg-Fr. 2007. 85mins. A ravishing portrait of loss and nature set in the evocative, strange Parana Delta wetlands near Buenos Aires, Santiago Santiago Otheguy's La Leon is a very impressively piece visually though marred by its prosaic storytelling. Shot in beautifully sculpted black and white widescreen, the ...
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Reviews
Angel
Dir: François Ozon. Fr-UK-Bel. 2007. 137mins They don't make 'em like this any more - but just try telling that to François Ozon, whose Angel is a determinedly old-fashioned English costume melodrama of the sort that once would have been a cast-iron vehicle for the likes of Bette Davis. Based ...
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Reviews
I Served The King Of England (Obsluhoval Jsem Anglickeho Krale)
Dir: Jiri Menzel. Czech Rep-Slovak. 2007. 119mins. A likeable comic underdog saga that follows the life and loves of a Chaplinesque waiter in pre- and post-war Czechoslovakia, I Served the King of England represents veteran Czech director Jiri Menzel's most marketable feature for some time. The film's little-big-man protagonist and ...
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Reviews
Bordertown
Dir/scr: Gregory Nava. US. 2007. 112mins.In Bordertown, directed by Gregory Nava, Jennifer Lopez plays a Chicago reporter who speaks no Spanish, but goes undercover as a Mexican worker in a Juarez sweatshop to investigate the brutal murders of hundreds of women. If you can believe this, you can believe much ...
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Reviews
Ghost Rider
Dir/scr: Mark Steven Johnson. US. 2007. 108mins. Another lesser-known Marvel superhero gets his big-screen break in Ghost Rider, a silly but serviceable comic book adaptation with Nicolas Cage starring for Daredevil writer-director Mark Steven Johnson. The Columbia/Crystal Sky project could work well as a stopgap for those hardcore comic fans ...
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Reviews
Bridge To Terabithia
Dir: Gabor Csupo. US. 2007. 95mins. Walden Media's latest take on a children's literature classic, Bridge To Terabithia is an understated, touching and largely faithful version of Katherine Paterson's pre-teen novel. With animation artist Gabor Csupo making his live-action directing debut, the fantasy-adventure nicely captures the spirit of Paterson's boy-girl ...
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Reviews
Lost In Beijing (Ping Guo)
Dir. Li Yu. China. 2007. 112mins. A social satire with strong sexual undertones in its early reels, which switches as it progresses into a darker melodrama, Li Yu's new film offers another variant on the surrogate mother dilemma. Despite some hesitancies in the second half, it pulls through thanks to ...
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Reviews
Hallam Foe
Dir: David Mackenzie. UK. 2007. 96mins. In Hallam Foe, Jamie Bell continues to slough off the shadow of Billy Elliot, while director David Mackenzie (Young Adam) gets back on confident form after his unsteady psychodrama Asylum. But while it has panache to spare, this very Scottish coming-of-age story suffers from ...
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Reviews
Don't Touch The Axe (Ne Touchez Pas La Hache)
Dir: Jacques Rivette. Fr-It. 2007. 137mins Elegance, austerity, high seriousness, barbed wit: this heady combination might not be to everyone's taste, but anyone susceptible to literary costume drama at its most intellectually substantial will be bowled over by Don't Touch The Axe, Jacques Rivette's surprisingly faithful adaptation of Balzac's novel ...
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Reviews
Desert Dream (Hyazgar)
Dir. Zhang Lu. Kor-Fr. 2007. 123mins. The joint efforts of a Chinese director, a Franco-Korean production team and Mongolian locations results in Desert Dream, a kindly, well intentioned but over-extended allegory which spreads itself thinly over slightly more than two hours. Zhang Lu's follow-up to his festival hit Grain In ...
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Reviews
Yella
Dir/writer: Christian Petzold. Germany 2007.89 minsFor some, existential business-world drama Yella will be the proverbial mystery wrapped within a riddle wrapped within an enigma. But for audiences with a taste for intellectual stimulation, Christian Petzold's film will be an invigorating tease: its sheer originality and stylistic confidence certainly hit the ...
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Reviews
Beaufort
Dir: Joseph Cedar. Is. 2007. 120mins Based on an award-winning, best selling documentary book by journalist Ron Leshem about the last stand of an Israeli unit in Southern Lebanon before their retreat in 2000, Joseph Cedar's painful and highly relevant film adaptation, while not addressing directly last summer's renewed outbreak ...