Latest – Page 618
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Reviews
Ten Canoes
Dir: Rolf de Heer. Aus.2006. 91mins.The Adelaide Film Festival has aninvestment fund which, with its first feature flutter last year, shrewdlybacked the critically acclaimed Look BothWays. Sarah Watt's drama about fractured lives in a big city suburb went onto play well at international festivals - it won Toronto's Discovery award ...
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Reviews
Wal-Mart: The High Cost Of Low Price
Dir: Robert Greenwald. US.2005. 95mins.The reviled and lauded US corporate behemoth Wal-Martis - depending on your viewpoint- either the end of civilisation or anillustration of the triumph of free market brilliance.The largest employer inNorth America now falls in the sights of rakish and entertaining left-wingprovocateur Robert Greenwald in Wal-Mart:The High ...
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Reviews
Orchestra Seats (Fauteuils D'Orchestre)
Dir: Daniele Thompson. Fr. 2006. 106mins.A sparkling champagne-light ensemble piece of a moviewhich showcases one of Paris's most deluxe thoroughfares, Orchestra Seats is the third successful solo outing from writer-directorDaniele Thompson.The daughter oflate comedy director Gerard Oury, with who she wroteseveral of French cinema's biggest box-office smashes back in the ...
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Reviews
You And Me (Toi Et Moi)
Dir: Julie Lopes Curval.Fr. 2006. 94mins.Writer-director Julie Lopes Curvalleapt into the front rank of promising Gallic auteur talent with her debutfeature, Seaside (Bord De Mer), a dramatic ensemble piece setin a once-fashionable seaside resort town, which won the prestigious Camera d'Or at Cannes in 2002. Three years on, she now ...
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Reviews
In Between Days
Dir: So Yong Kim. US-Can 2005.83mins.Some of the most interesting films in this year's Berlinale screened in the supposedly off-off Forum sidebar,with In Between Days - a small butmemorable teen romance - a case in point.So Yong Kim's feature is, asthe title hints, a work that takes its time getting ...
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Reviews
My Country, My Country
Dir: Laura Poitras. US. 2006. 90mins.The trouble with current affairs documentaries istheir topicality: contemporary as they may seem at the time, they lose lustreby the time they premiere.It could be an obstacle forLaura Poitras' MyCountry, My Country, about the Iraqi elections of January 2005. There islittle more she can add ...
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Reviews
Flannel Pajamas
Dir/scr: Jeff Lipsky. US. 2006. 124mins.With his reportedly autobiographical FlannelPajamas, former arthousedistribution specialist Jeff Lipsky successfully tracksthe emotional ups and downs of a relationship, moving from sublime rapture andsurrender to grim heartbreak.Guided by two excellent leadperformances and shaped by some raw writing, he reveals a finely shaded and tactilesense of ...
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Reviews
Piano 17
Dir: Manetti Bros. Italy2006. 105mins.Italy long ago lost the talent for genre film-makingthat made it such a commercial force in the 1960s and 1970s. But a few bravesouls, like the Manetti brothers, are trying to kicksome life into the old corpse. The Rome-based brothers' first feature, thetrash horror parody Zora ...
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Reviews
Conversations On A Sunday Afternoon
Dir/scr: Khalo Matabane. S Afr. 2005. 80minsFalling somewhere between a tentative documentary anda piece of home movie improvisation, Khalo Matabane's first fictional feature allows him to againexplore the many faces resident in South Africa today.The set-up is the accidentalencounter between a tormented poet Keniloe (Kgoroge) and a Somali refugee, Fatima ...
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Reviews
Four Stars (Quatre Etoiles)
Dir: Christian Vincent. Fr. 2006.100mins.A mildly entertaining French boulevard farce, Four Stars is much better suited to aswift home release than the spotlight of a festival like Berlin where itpremiered.Very much in the traditionof light Gallic comedies sustained by gags and assembly line jokes, ChristianVincent's new feature matches a pretty ...
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Reviews
You And Me (Toi Et Moi)
Dir. Ma Liwen. China. 2005.85mins.You And Me is one of thoseheartwarming, inter-generational dramas that the Chinesedo so well that is, alas, not one of the more accomplished examples of the genre.Opening the Kinderfilmfest Plus 14 section at theBerlinale, it seemed to play well enough to its targetaudience, young teens and ...
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Reviews
The Peter Pan Formula (Peterpan-eui Gongsik)
Dir/scr: Cho Chang-ho. S Kor. 2005.108mins.Teenage angst has rarely felt seemed more decorous ormore downbeat than in the hands of South Korean director ChoChong-ho in his debut The Peter Pan Formula. A moody, atmospheric coming-of-age film witha perverse streak of eroticism, it explores the emotional links betweenmourning and sexuality in ...
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Reviews
Tough Enough (Knallhart)
Dir: Detlev Buck. Ger.2005. 98mins.Mixing references from early Ken Loach to La Haine to Mean Streets, Tough Enough is German actor-director DetlevBuck's hard man act after a string of dry, slightly surreal comedies - thelast, Bundle Of Joy, dating back to2000.It's a powerful and oftenviolent film, uncritically but movingly wrapped ...
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Reviews
Rampage
Dir/scr: George Gittoes. Aus. 2005. 118mins.Though it needs to be cut drastically, Rampage is a power-packed documentarywith lots of potential. Set mostly in one of the worst black ghettoes in Miami,the film, which was shot over the course of several years by Australianfilm-maker George Gittoes, is lively, insightful andeven shocking.Festival ...
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Reviews
The Shaggy Dog
Dir: Brian Robbins. US.2006. 92mins.Disney's latest update of one of its vintagelive-action family comedies pairs SantaClause star Tim Allen with that reliably popular screen character, thecutely anthropomorphised canine. It's predictable and only mildly amusingstuff; but it's also the kind of innocuous entertainment that sometimes lures asizeable family audience, if not ...
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Reviews
Failure To Launch
Dir: Tom Dey. US. 2006. 92mins.Verging on the preposterous, Tom Dey'sFailure ToLaunch relies on attractive stars to overcome its lacklustreexecution. Opening on March10 in the US - and later in the month throughout Europe - it seeks to capitalise on the success of other recent date movies that useda lover-with-a-hidden-agenda ...
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Reviews
The Hills Have Eyes
Dir: Alexandre Aja. US. 2006. 107mins.Whether it's ironic or just emblematic of a generallack of imagination is open to debate, but everything old is new again inHollywood - or at least as it applies to the current trend of updated andrefashioned horror properties. The latest is The Hills Have Eyes, ...
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Reviews
Lucy
Dir\scr: Henner Winckler. Ger. 2006.92mins.The second feature from German director Henner Winckler, Lucy is a psychologically lucid,beguiling portrait of teenage restriction given a startling jolt of recognitionand star-making turn by German actress Kim Schnitzer.The story examines theemotional and personal consequences of the title character, eight-month-old Lucy(Hauschild), on her emotionally ill-equipped ...
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Reviews
News From Home/News From House
Dir/scr: Amos Gitai. Is. 2006. 96mins.Israelis, Palestinians and others who follow MiddleEast politics closely will find little new, either conceptually or historicallyspeaking, in News From Home/News From House,the third instalment in Amos Gitai's documentarytrilogy about the Arab-Israeli conflict. But audiences around the world,especially at festivals, will appreciate the powerful feelings ...
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Reviews
Ask The Dust
Dir/scr Robert Towne. US. 2005. 117mins.Robert Towne returns with an evocative, nuancedadaptation of John Fante's Depression-era novel Ask The Dust, avisually lustrous and imaginatively staged film that is given piercing depth offeeling from leads Colin Farrell and Salma Hayek.Fante's autobiographical 1939 work was a dominant literaryinfluence on Towne's greatest achievement, ...