Latest – Page 628
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Reviews
C.R.A.Z.Y.
Dir: Jean-Marc Vallee.Can. 2005. 127mins.Recently selected asCanada's submission for the best foreign language Oscar, the family saga C.R.A.Z.Y.emerges as both the quintessence of contemporary cinema from Quebec and a talethat seamlessly taps into a universal zeitgeist.The travails, sexualawakening and socio-political turmoil of the 1970s, as seen through the eyes ofthe ...
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Reviews
The Wild Blue Yonder
Dir: Werner Herzog.Ger-Fr-UK. 81mins.At times in WernerHerzog's docu-drama The Wild Blue Yonder, as the glittering-eyed BradDourif rants at the camera, audiences could be forgiven for thinking that theyare being buttonholed by an extra-planetary version of Samuel TaylorColeridge's Ancient Mariner.Dourif plays an alien fromAndromeda who has been stranded on Earth for ...
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Reviews
Into The Blue
Dir: John Stockwell. US.2005. 110mins.Hot bods and cool underwater cinematography partially make up for a tiredplot and annoying tone in Into The Blue, a lightweight action/adventureabout sexy young things diving for shipwrecks off the Bahamas.Given that the two lead bodsbelong to Jessica Alba - especially hot after Fantastic Four and ...
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Reviews
The White Masai (Die Weisse Massai)
Dir: Hermine Huntgeburth.Ger. 2005. 132mins.Hermine Huntgeburth's TheWhite Masai (Die Weisse Massai) is much less good than it shouldhave been. True, it's handsomely and expensively mounted, beautifully andrigorously shot in an extremely photogenic Kenya, and has a political andcultural heart that is decidedly in the right place. But at two hours-plus ...
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Reviews
Shooting Dogs
Dir: Michael Caton-Jones.UK-Ger. 2005. 114mins.Yes, it is poor timingfor Shooting Dogs, arriving in the wake of the international tour deforce that was Hotel Rwanda and HBO title Sometime In April. Butthere's room for more than one film to be made about the 1994 genocide - or atleast for as long ...
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Reviews
Mrs Harris
Dir: Phyllis Nagy. US.2005. 94mins.Written and directed bynoted playwright and first-time film-maker Phyllis Nagy, Mrs Harris, atleast in its first third, is a jangly, stylised onslaught on sensibilities thatwill alienate many and intrigue just as many others.However, once you becomeused to its anti-rhythms and purposeful edginess - and, truth to ...
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Reviews
Wassup Rockers
Dir/scr: Larry Clark. US.2005. 111mins.In Wassup Rockers,Larry Clark has produced the sweetest, most loving and lovable film he's evermade - and consequently the most boring. If kids (now 10-years-old) wasdeplorable, frightening, and, to some, even degrading, it was always excitingand its hateful, rapacious teenage male lead endlessly fascinating.In his latest ...
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Reviews
Beowulf And Grendel
Dir: Sturla Gunnarsson.Can-UK-Ice. 2005. 103mins.Beowulf And Grendel is a handsomely mounted retelling of the ancientAnglo-Saxon classic from the early Middle Ages, the period in which a nascentChristianity was attempting to establish itself among the warring pagan tribesof northern Europe.It appears that littleexpense was spared, and the cast boasts the likes ...
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Reviews
River Queen
Dir: Vincent Ward. NZ-UK.2005. 114mins.Long before Peter Jacksonbecame the Lord of the Kiwis, Vincent Ward was the leading light of New Zealandcinema. After disappointing Hollywood ventures and aborted projects, Wardfinally returns home for River Queen, a labour of love period drama thatemerges virtually unscathed from a difficult, fractured production history.The ...
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Reviews
Dreamer: Inspired By A True Story
Dir/scr: John Gatins. US.2005. 104mins.Horseracing often has thereputation of being a sport ruled by, and mainly for, the wealthy - thoseunencumbered by the pesky constraints of regular, office-bred employment. Asthe recent critical and crossover screen success of Seabiscuit proved,though, the same general rules of other underdog movies apply to tales ...
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Reviews
American Gun
Dir: Aric Avelino. US.2005. 95mins.A sombre portrait ofmodern American society, Aric Avelino's debut picture looks like anotherversion of Paul Haggis' Crash, realised in the shadow of Gus Van Sant's Elephant.Shot in episodic form, with each story only vaguely related to the others - ifat all - Avelino and Steven Bagatourian's ...
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Reviews
The Notorious Bettie Page
Dir. Mary Harron. US.2005. 91mins.The detachment from hersubject that Mary Harron successfully kept with her screen adaptation of AmericanPsycho (2000) is in evidence again with The Notorious Bettie Page -although the end result is less compelling.With Bret Easton Ellis'novel, Harron and co-writer Guinevere Turner delivered a chilling and darklyfunny slice ...
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Reviews
Garpastum
Dir: Alexei Guerman Jr.Russ. 2005. 118mins.With its stunnisngphotography, interminable takes, abstract narrative and metaphoric ambitions,Alexei Guerman Jr sophomore effort Garpastum cannot fail to become acritics' favourite and a must-book for any self-respecting film festival. Thatit left Venice - where it competed - without any distinction reflects more onthe juries than ...
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Reviews
Twelve And Holding
Dir: Michael Cuesta. US.2005. 90mins.A deft, nuanced drama which, while conventionally framed, still feels freshand new, Twelve And Holding is a delight. Its three child stars are allstrong, but this film will be remembered for young actress Zoe Weizenbaum'sperformance as a young girl caught between precocious childhood and the fullonslaught ...
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Reviews
Dam Street (Hong yan)
Dir: Li Yu. Chi-Fr. 1995.93mins.A persuasive, lyricalstudy of smalltown life in rural China in the 1980s and 1990s, Dam Street fullyconfirms the promise of director Li Yu's debut feature, Fish And Elephant.Like that first film, Dam Street deals with women's issues - but not ina narrow or dogmatic way. There ...
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Reviews
In His Hands (Entre Ses Mains)
Dir: Anne Fontaine.Fr-Bel. 2005. 90mins.Frenchauteur and former actress Anne Fontaine has been turning out nuanced studies ofthe hidden depravities of respectable middle-class life for a decade. Thehighpoint was 2001's How I Killed My Father, which staged a riveting,deliciously ironic encounter between a son and a father, played respectively,and brilliantly, by ...
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Reviews
Shadowboxer
DirLee Daniels. US. 2005. 93mins.LeeDaniels made history as the first stand-alone black producer of anOscar-winning film, when Halle Berry lifted the Best Actress prize for Monster'sBall in 2002. It's a shame then that the talented Daniels chose Shadowboxerfor his directorial debut: it's doubtful whether even the most experiencedauteur could have ...
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Reviews
Drawing Restraint 9
Dir/scr: Matthew Barney.US-Jap. 2005. 143mins.Matthew Barney is one ofthe superstars of the American art world. He has held exhibitions everywherefrom the Guggenheim to the Venice Biennale, and has won numerous prizes. His CremasterCycle, made between 1994 and 2002, was shown - and rhapsodised over - inboth cinemas and museums. Drawing ...
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Reviews
The Regular Lovers (Les Amants Reguliers)
Dir:Philippe Garrel. Fr. 2005. 183minsFrench director PhilippeGarrel makes unclassifiable movies that play to highly discerning tastes. Hisexquisite new feature, The Regular Lovers, a three-hour black-and-whitemeditation on love, passion and the personal and political ramifications of theevents of May 1968, is a strikingly original and challenging piece of work.Even with its ...
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Reviews
Harsh Times
Dir: David Ayer. US.2005. 119mins.David Ayer's HarshTimes is a corrosive, frequently riveting social portrait on friendship,damaged masculinity and the dread of violence. The debut feature from thetalented screenwriter of Training Day, the movie is flawed and sometimesoverreaches though it is given a propulsive kick from Christian Bale's searingMethod performance.A genre ...