Latest – Page 620
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Reviews
Vitus
Dir: Fredi M Murer. Switz. 2006. 120mins.From an opening that suggests a feelgoodchildren's fantasy, Vitusturns into a much odder confection - an intelligent, spiky, sometimes movingcomedy-drama with a satirical eye turned on the Swiss bourgeoisie.Directed by Helvetic veteran Fredi M. Murer, best known for his 1985 Alpine Fire, Vitusis an ...
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Reviews
Puccini For Beginners
Dir/scr: Maria Maggenti. US. 2006. 82mins.Woody Allen famously observed that the greatadvantage of being bisexual was that it doubled your chance of a date on aSaturday night. Maria Maggenti's second feature, thesexual screwball farce Puccini For Beginners, appends the template of Allen's romanticcomedy landmark, Annie Hall, to thefluid, destabilising sexual ...
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Reviews
The Free Will (Der Freie Wille)
Dir: Matthias Glasner. Ger.2006. 163mins.Even audiences inured to the rigors of snail-pacedEuropean introspection face a grueling ride in Matthias Glasner'sdrama about a rapist in search of redemption.Digitallyphotographed by the director himself in murky shades, The Free Will mostly eschews incident for sombrecontemplativeness. But, in the odd moments when Glasnercranks up ...
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Reviews
Requiem
Dir: Hans-Christian Schmid.Ger. 2005. 92mins.The thinking man's The Exorcism Of Emily Rose, Requiem offers a deliberatelyunderstated take on the real-life events which inspired that commerciallysuccessful courtroom horror yarn.Director Schmidand scriptwriter Lange are only marginally interested in the hoary theme of Emily Rose - the tussle between religiousfaith and scientific reason. ...
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Reviews
Find Me Guilty
Dir/scr: Sidney Lumet. US. 2006. 123mins.Now in his eighties, veteran director Sidney Lumet shows no signs of slowing down - and mob courtroomdrama Find Me Guilty proves that hehas lost none of his ability to turn out a slick, well- crafted product.But it's a product that,like many of the director's ...
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Reviews
Subject Two
Dir/scr Philip Chidel. US. 2006.92mins.Philip Chidel's secondfeature Subject Two begins with ataut, suggestive title sequence of two men battling for possession of a gun; asmart, sharp opening that provides a chilling introduction to the highly assuredand impressively staged low-budget horror film that follows.It conforms enough to thedemands of the form, ...
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Reviews
1:1
Dir: Annette K Olesen. Den. 2005. 90mins.1:1is nothing if not timely, addressing the ethnic and religious tensions inDenmark highlighted by the recent furore over anewspaper cartoon of the Prophet Mohammed.Annette K Olesen's follow-up to InYour Hands comes across as a passionate, socially concerned cri de coeur, albeit one executedin a ...
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Reviews
Final Destination 3
Dir: James Wong. US. 2005.92mins.With its original writers and director back at thecontrols, the Final Destinationfranchise cruises efficiently but not very excitingly through its third outing,a cartoonishly gory horror romp with an all-new castof little known young actors. The franchise has proved surprisingly profitablefor New Line: the first film grossed ...
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Reviews
Offside (Sweden, 2006)
Dir: Jafar Pahani. Iran. 2006. 88mins.Destined to be referred to as a Farsi Bend It Like Beckham, Jafar Panahi's football story Offside is his most approachable filmsince The White Balloon, which puthim on the map in 1995.Essentially a realistcomedy, this digital ensemble piece is also bitterly outspoken about thetreatment of ...
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Reviews
The Comedy Of Power (L'Ivresse Du Pouvoir)
Dir: Claude Chabrol. Fr. 2006. 110mins.A sleek, hand-tooled, extremely sophisticatedpackage, A Comedy OfPower is a very grown-up entertainment that artfully walks a line betweenmoral comedy and political thriller. A deluxe cast of French actors, headed byIsabelle Huppert in winningly brittle form, bring distinction to a complexdrama about corruption and intrigue.It ...
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Reviews
The Great Match (La Gran Final)
Dir: Gerardo Olivares. Sp-Ger.2006. 88mins.A surprisingly enjoyable ethno-romp, The Great Match is both a celebration ofthe global reach of football mania and a sly send-up of worthy anthropologicalepics like Himalaya. The threeinterleaved stories - about tribal soccer fans in remote parts of the globe whoare desperate to see the 2002 ...
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Reviews
Family Law (Derecho De Familia)
Dir: Daniel Burman. Arg-It-Fr-Sp.2005. 100mins.Cinema would be a less interesting place if directorsdidn't mine their obsessions, but this is the third time in six years thatDaniel Burman has cast Daniel Hendlerin a comedy-drama about a young Argentinian Jewishman called Ariel who is oppressed by the suspicion that he is not ...
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Reviews
Opal Dream
Dir: Peter Cattaneo. Aus-UK. 2005. 88mins.A sentimental fable about imagination and wonder, Opal Dream should strike a nerve withkids who understand its fragile emotional terrain and how they can create a fantasyworld to improve on their everyday existence.Following the misfire thatwas Lucky Break, Peter Cattaneo's new feature marks something of ...
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Reviews
Longing (Senhsucht)
Dir:Valeska Grisebach. Germany.2006. 88 mins Astory of ordinary love in a defiantly non-glamorous mode, Valeska Grisebach's Longing packs a formidable emotional punch, all the moreso for its spare aesthetic and sure-footed restraint. The director's secondfeature, following 2001's acclaimed Be My Star (Mein Stern), thrives on elliptical storytelling andundemonstratively subtle ...
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Reviews
A Soap (En Soap)
Dir: Pernille Fischer Christensen. Denmark. 2006. 104mins.A woman's picture by definition, ASoap, Pernille Fischer Christensen's auspiciousdebut, should play well with female audiences who will appreciate its intimatesensitivities.Portraying a woman who breaks out of a stagnating relationship and hertranssexual neighbour, the script has the earmarks of the TV soaps it emulates,while ...
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Reviews
Container
Dir: Lukas Moodysson. Sweden. 2006. 74mins. Wilfully obscure and defiantly strange, Lukas Moodysson'sblack-and-white film is as much visual art as cinema. Moodysson would havelittle patience with such subjective categories; but distributors are notoriouslysubjective, and few will touch a film that lacks even the narrative or shock ofMoodysson's previous departure from ...
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Reviews
Candy
Dir: Neil Armfield. Australia.2006. 108minsAlternately dazzling andflashy, affecting and mannered, this impressive debut from feted Australiantheatre director Neil Armfield is lifted to the verge of excellence byoutstanding performances from Heath Ledger and Abbie Cornish as a pair ofheroin addicts in love. If it doesn't quite scalethe final peak, it's because ...
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Reviews
The Road To Guantanamo
Dirs: Michael Winterbottom, Mat Whitecross. UK. 2006.95mins Michael Winterbottom's reputation as afiercely enterprising and provocative film-maker gets another boost from TheRoad To Guantanamo, co-directed with Mat Whitecross, his editor on 9 Songs.Thedigitally-shot film is a docudrama-style reconstruction of the fate of a groupof young British Muslims who went to Afghanistan ...
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Reviews
Freedomland
Dir: Joe Roth. US. 2006.113mins. Trying to streamline andilluminate Freedomland, Richard Price's panoramic 1998 novel,studio executive Joe Roth is working beyond his range, temperament andsensibility.Unlike other directors whohave adapted the works of Price Martin Scorsese, Spike Lee, Philip Kaufman,John McNaughton Roth is not a natural or ...
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Reviews
V For Vendetta
Dir:James McTeigue UK-Ger. 133mins.Thelatest Alan Moore graphic novel adaptation, after From Hell and The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen, V for Vendetta has A for Auxiliarywritten all over it.It allstarts promisingly enough, with sombre chords and a vintage, black-and-white WarnerBros logo ushering us into a dark vision of a totalitarian Britain ...