Latest – Page 627
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Reviews
Neverwas
Dir: Joshua MichaelStern. US. 2005. 108mins.Harry Potter flies over the Cuckoo's Nest in Neverwas, a mixed-up attempt to combine a psychologicalthriller with a children's fairytale under the flawed assumption that the twogenres are not that different from each other.While the overall verdict onJoshua Michael Stern's debut feature is unlikely to ...
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Reviews
The Last Hangman
Dir: Adrian Shergold. UK.2005. 90mins.A TV movie in every respect, The Last Hangman should enjoy a highly appreciative reception inits normal habitat, but is unlikely to hold the interest of theatrical audiencesfor all of its 90 minutes.The true story of Albert Pierrepoint, the last hangman in UK before capitalpunishment was ...
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Reviews
Domino
Dir: Tony Scott. US. 2005.127mins.There's something to be said for cinema that avoidsthe comfort margins of the mainstream, and Tony Scott's effusive, edge-skating Domino - a loosely plotted biopic of thedaughter of actor Laurence Harvey, who spurned privilege and became a bountyhunter - is certainly one such offering.Far more pluckythan ...
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Reviews
The Tiger And The Snow (La Tigre E La Neve)
Dir: Roberto Benigni. It. 2005. 114mins.Strictly for those with high schmaltz threshholds, Roberto Benigni's The Tiger And TheSnow will go down well at home, but outside of Italy it isunlikely to extend the fanbase of the madcap Tuscanactor-director.Certainly this £30m ($36m) romance,set against the backdrop of the war in Iraq, ...
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Reviews
The Tin Mine (Mahalai Meung Rae)
Dir: Jira Maligool. Thai. 2005. 110mins.A picture that presents life working underground asan uplifting, character-building experience is nothing if not an oddity. Andwhile this attitude should bestow on TheTin Mine - Thailand's best foreign language Oscar submission - adistinctiveness all of its own, it is hard to guess how much ...
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Reviews
Pavee Lackeen
Dir: Perry Ogden. Ire. 2005.87mins.Perry Ogden's debut feature Pavee Lackeen, which charts the lives of Irishtravellers on the outskirts of Dublin, joins a long list of desolate portraits- including Hector Babenco's Pixote and the Dardennes' brothers' Rosetta- as a harsh and grim indictment of Western society's uncompromising treatmenttowards children.Shot on ...
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Reviews
Lie With Me
Dir: Clement Virgo. Can.2005. 92mins.Graphic sex and a voracious, predatory femaleprotagonist are the hallmarks of Lie With Me, a raw perspective of carnality that's initiallydisarming in its aggressive stance and mesmerising inits heady resolve.Belying thesensuality of The Lover or thegentleness of 9 Songs, it only beginsto falter when it abandons ...
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Reviews
The Willow Tree (Beed-e Majnoon)
Dir: MajidMajidi. Iran. 2005. 96minsWith The Willow Tree, Iranian film-maker MajidMajidi gives in to the mawkish melodramatictendencies he was always managed to keep at arm's length in past works like Colours Of Paradiseand Baran.As in Colours Of Paradise he uses blindness asan allegory, this time for a grand diatribe against ...
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Reviews
Opa!
Dir: Udayan Prasad. UK. 2005.97mins.Make no mistake, UdayanPrasad, director of such smart racial explorations as Brothers In Trouble or My SonThe Fanatic, seems to have taken a leave of absence with Opa!, a featherweight romp set in the Greek islands that squeezesthe life out of every Mediterranean recipe in the ...
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Reviews
These Girls
Dir: John Hazlett. Can. 2005. 92minsThe thrust of These Girls sounds like a dirty joke andwhile the situation explored is provocative, it's a real testament to itsfilm-makers and cast that the comedy transcends the snickering and emerges as abright, lively and intelligent entertainment. With its brash mixture of humorand frankness ...
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Reviews
Cave Of The Yellow Dog (Die Hohle Des Gelben Hundes)
Dir: Byambasuren Davaa. Mon-Ger. 2005. 93mins.After the extraordinary success of The Story Of The Weeping Camel, whichshe co-directed with her fellow Munich Film School student Luigi Falorni, Byambasuren Davaa returns to Mongolia for her second film The Cave Of The Yellow Dog, which hasbeen named the official Mongolian entry for ...
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Reviews
Two For The Money
Dir: DJ Caruso. US. 2005.120minsSavvy gamblers shouldn't bet the house on the new high-stakes drama TwoFor The Money in which Al Pacino plays devilish mentor to MatthewMcConaughey (not too dissimilar to his role with Keanu Reeves in Devil'sAdvocate). A cross between Any Given Sunday (which also starredPacino) and Wall Street's ...
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Reviews
Allegro
Dir. Christoffer Boe.Den. 2005. 88mins.Christoffer Boe returnsto themes that he explored in his 2003 Camera D'Or winner Reconstructionwith Allegro, a science-fiction feature that focuses on how a person canwipe away their past while still be reliant on trust and faith.A visually enticing picture,its best chances lie at home in Denmark, ...
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Reviews
Two For The Money
Dir: DJ Caruso. US. 2005.120minsSavvy gamblers shouldn't bet the house on the new high-stakes drama TwoFor The Money in which Al Pacino plays devilish mentor to MatthewMcConaughey (not too dissimilar to his role with Keanu Reeves in Devil'sAdvocate). A cross between Any Given Sunday (which also starredPacino) and Wall Street's ...
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Reviews
All The Invisible Children
Dirs: Mehdi Charef, Emir Kusturica, Spike Lee, KatiaLund, Jordan and Ridley Scott, Stefano Veneruso, John Woo. It. 2005. 131mins.Portmanteau films arelike chocolate assortments: pretty boring once all the coffee creams have gone.The latest multi-director outing to test international audiences' limitedappetite for the genre, All The Invisible Children is a worthy ...
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Reviews
Shinobi
Dir: Ten Shimoyama. Jap.2005.101mins.Already sold to 14foreign territories and with strong remake potential, Ten Shimoyama's Shinobiresembles recent Japanese period epics like Red Shadow, SamuraiResurrection and Azumi in its computer game-like structure andtargets their teen audiences accordingly.But in telling his story oftwo warring ninja clans, Shimoyama also aspires to the epic, ...
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Reviews
A Little Trip To Heaven
Dir:Baltasar Kormakur. Ice. 2005. 98mins.For his latest feature A Little Trip To Heaven,Icelandic film-maker Baltasar Kormakur takes audiences on a modest littleadventure in the other direction as well and the familiar hellish genre of themodern neo-noir. This time however the focus is not on some disaffected,world-weary flatfoot and his cheating, ...
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Reviews
The House Of Sand (Casa De Areia)
Dir: Andrucha Waddington.Braz. 2005. 103mins.No, this isn't 2003's HouseOf Sand And Fog after the mist has lifted but Brazilian director AndruchaWaddington's first feature since his well-regarded Me You Them (2000),which won the top prize at Karlovy Vary.Set in northern Brazil'sforbidding state of Maranhao, now a conservation zone, it begins in ...
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Reviews
3 Needles
Dir/scr: Thom Fitzgerald.Can. 2005. 123mins.A film with sweeping emotional heft and extensive geographical remit - fromSouth Africa to China and Montreal via three separate AIDS-themed stories -Thom Fitzgerald's 3 Needles ultimately falls victim to its own ambition.While it conveys enormoussympathy to both subject and locations shoots it is likely to ...
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Reviews
Sunflower (Xiangrikui)
Dir: Zhang Yang. Chi-HK.2005. 128mins.With SunflowerZhang Yang (The Shower, Quitting) returns with anotherconfrontational saga between father and son, this time in the shape of alargely autobiographical tale that runs from the eve of the Cultural Revolutionup until the present day.Focusing on a single familywhose history is supposed to reflect on ...