Latest – Page 606
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Reviews
Seraphim Falls
Dir. David Von Ancken. US. 2006 115mins.Had it been made 50 years ago, Seraphim Falls might now be considered aclassic western. But the intervening years have warped and reshaped the genreso many times that an effort like this seems besidethe point. Unlike John Hilcoat's savagely post-modernThe Proposition, which screened atToronto ...
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Reviews
Wedding Daze
Dir/scr: Michael Ian Black.US. 2006. 90mins.Those foundations of the romantic comedy, sentimental faith andoptimism, are mocked and blown wide open in ThePleasure Of Your Company, Michael Ian Black's clever and engagingly piecethat unfortunately fails to sustain its free-floating, comic riffs right to theend.Black has an extensivebackground in TV and theatre ...
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Reviews
Vince Vaughn's Wild West Comedy Show: 30 Days And 30 Nights - Hollywood To The Heartland
Dir. Ari Sandel. US, 2006.110mins.The odd thing about Vince Vaughn's Wild West Comedy Show is that itson-screen success has little to do with Vaughn himself. The US actor may be theimpresario behind the comedy show, which was inspired by Buffalo Bill'straveling festival and played in 30 cities across America over ...
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Reviews
The Namesake
Dir: Mira Nair. USA. 2006. 122minsMira Nair's best films have shown an optimism aboutlife and an affection for the flaws and failings of her characters, and shebrings a similar sense of compassion to TheNamesake, her adaptation of the novel by Pulitzer prize-winner Jhumpa Lahiri. A sweeping saga ofculture clashes and ...
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Reviews
Born And Bred (Nacido Y Criado)
Dir: Pablo Trapero. Arg-It-UK.2006. 100mins.The first 10 minutes of Born And Bred seem indicate that Pablo Trapero'snew film will contain the some of the same gentle touches prevalent in hisprevious feature Rolling Family. Butthen the picture's true theme kicks in and any expectations that we are aboutto watch a story ...
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Reviews
The Dog Problem
Dir: Scott Caan. US. 2006. 98mins.Told with a casual poignancy and unpredictability,Scott Caan's TheDog Problem is loose, funky and impressively original. Taking its titlefrom a quotation by playwright Edward Abbey, it's a detailed comedy of mannersabout the strange and complicated emotional odyssey that the title animal sparksin a struggling young ...
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Reviews
These Encounters Of Theirs (Quei Loro Incontri)
Dir/scr: Jean-MarieStraub and Daniele Huillet.It. 2006. 68mins.A profoundly uncommercialpiece of avant-garde filmmaking, Jean-Marie Straub and DanieleHuillet's TheseEncounters Of Theirs divides 10 non-professional actors into couples, thenhas them take turns in declaiming the DialoguesWith Leuco, Cesare Pavese's abstract, philosophical work. The result isfeature that has something of a cleansing (some would ...
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Reviews
Prague (Prag)
Dir: Ole Christian Madsen. Den.2006. 92mins.Danish film-maker Ole Christian Madsen plunges onceagain into the darker recesses of marital life for Prague, a powerful drama in which his strong direction and the overwhelmingperformances that he draws smooth over some of the script's inconsistencies.Madsen, whose earlier drama Kira's Reason (2001) dealt with ...
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Reviews
Death Of A President
Dir. Gabriel Range. UK. 2006. 93mins.The blurring of reality and fiction takes anintriguing step sideways in Death Of APresident, a mock documentary that posits the assassination of George WBush and the political shockwaves such an event would surely generate. Nosurprise, the film, which world premiered at Toronto and won the ...
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Reviews
The City Of Violence (Jjak-pae)
Dir: Ryoo Seung-wan. S Kor. 2006. 93mins.Action film-maker Ryoo Seong-wan takes a comparative step backwards from thepsychological complexity of last year's CryingFist with The City OfViolence, his latest outing, which pegs a series of appetisingly choreographedfight sequences onto a threadbare script.Co-produced by Korea's mainmartial arts school, the film seems more ...
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Reviews
Everybody's Hero
Dir: Christopher Reeve, Daniel St. Pierre, ColinBrady. US. 2006. 85mins.It's easy to see why Christopher Reeve,who died during the making of animated children's film Everybody's Hero (directing duties were assumed by Daniel St Pierreand Colin Brady), was attracted to the material. The story of a young boy whofinds the strength ...
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Reviews
Everyone's Hero
Dir: Christopher Reeve, Daniel St. Pierre, ColinBrady. US. 2006. 85mins.It's easy to see why Christopher Reeve,who died during the making of animated children's film Everyone's Hero (directing duties were assumed by Daniel St Pierreand Colin Brady), was attracted to the material. The story of a young boy whofinds the strength ...
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Reviews
Cashback
Dir/scr: Sean Ellis. UK. 2006.90mins.A wistful, endearing slip of a romantic comedy, Cashback marks anassured feature debut from writer/director Sean Ellis. An expansion of hisOscar-nominated short, it strains to fill the bigger canvas of a feature butany reservations are balanced by the unusual lyricism of Ellis's approach tothe genre, the ...
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Reviews
El Cantante
Dir: Leon Ichaso. US. 2006. 116mins.The last time JenniferLopez collaborated with the love of her life the result was the toe-curlingembarrassment of Gigli(2003). Now, she has dared to co-produce and co-star with husband Marc Anthonyin a drama inspired by the life of 1970s salsa superstar Hector Lavoe. El Cantante is ...
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Reviews
Starter For Ten
Dir: Volker Schloendorff. Ger.2006. 104mins.Billed in the opening credits as a "ballad", Strike is based on events in the Leninshipyards in Gdansk, Poland during the early 1980s,which sparked the creation of the Solidarity movement and, ultimately, thebeginning of the end of the Cold War.Coming off as a Polish Norma Rae ...
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Reviews
Starter For Ten
Dir. Tom Vaughan. UK. 2006. 96mins.James McAvoy confirms hisposition as Britain's brightest newcomer in StarterFor Ten, a solid, rather endearing comedy, basedaround Britain'slong-running quiz show University Challenge. A period piece setin 1985-6, with all the music and haircuts to match, it is produced by TomHanks, via Sam Mendes, and, despite ...
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Reviews
Bonneville
Dir: Christopher M Rowley. US.2006. 104mins.A slushy salute to female friendship and the greatmysteries of life and death, Bonnevillehas the unmistakable feel of a TV-movie tearjerker. Filled with predictabledevelopments and heart-tugging revelations, it is bereft of surprises anddripping in syrupy sentiment. It has been a long while since an older ...
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Reviews
Macbeth
Dir: Geoffrey Wright. Aust. 2006.109mins.Shakespeare's bloodthirsty Scottish warlords are transportedto contemporary Melbourne, recent home to Mafia-style vendettas, tit-for-tat slayingsand alleged police corruption, for Geoffrey Wright's Macbeth. The result makes for a good genre fit, casting the centuries old plot in a new light with suavely dressed killers,beautiful women and a ...
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Reviews
The Optimists (Optimisti)
Dir: Goran Paskaljevic. Serb-Monaco. 2006.94mins.Eight years after his feature The Powder Keg portrayed Milosevic's Serbia self-destructing with avengeance, Goran Paskaljevicreturns for another look at his homeland with The Optimists. But although the former Serbian leader is now gone,and democracy of sorts has replaced him, Pasklajevicis not really enchanted by what ...
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Reviews
Strike (Die Heldin Von Danzig)
Dir: Volker Schloendorff. Ger.2006. 104mins.Billed in the opening credits as a "ballad", Strike is based on events in the Leninshipyards in Gdansk, Poland during the early 1980s,which sparked the creation of the Solidarity movement and, ultimately, thebeginning of the end of the Cold War.Coming off as a Polish Norma Rae ...