Latest – Page 634
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Reviews
On A Clear Day
Dir: Gaby Dellal. UK2005. 99mins.British cinema has alwaysloved its underdogs. Gaby Dellal's big-hearted debut feature is yet anotheryarn about a small-timer fighting back against a society that marginalises him.In this case, the protagonist is a 55-year-old newly unemployed Glaswegian whostrives to redeem his life by swimming the English Channel.Confidently directed, ...
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Reviews
Stealth
Dir:Rob Cohen. US. 2005. 119mins.RobCohen's latest big-budget B-movie has the cheesiness of the director's XXXand The Fast And The Furious but none of the saving graces that helpedturn those two outings into entertaining as well as widely appealing summerhits. An airborne action adventure with a US military setting and the ...
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Reviews
Sky High
Dir: Mike Mitchell. US2005. 90mins.Withmore than a passing nod towards Harry Potter, Spy Kids, TheIncredibles and X-Men, new superhero feature Sky High is setin a school for kids who are just coming into their paranormal powers - as ifteenage angst was not enough already.Given its mild, frequentlycorny, humour and the ...
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Reviews
The Skeleton Key
Dir: Iain Softley. US.2005. 104mins.Iain Softley'sLouisiana-set The Skeleton Key is a horror film which does not alwaysseem to know which doors it is trying to unlock. The film is at once apsychological chiller in similar vein to Amenabar's The Others, a ratheroverwrought and inadvertently comic slice of Southern Gothic, and ...
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Reviews
Must Love Dogs
Dir:Gary David Goldberg. US. 2005. 9s7mins.With itscyber-dating-driven plot and plays on modern romantic mores, Must Love Dogssets itself up as a contemporary take on the time-honoured search for love.Deep down, though, this resolutely lightweight romantic comedy is just tootradition-bound and familiar seeming to be very effective. It is only perked ...
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Reviews
Bad News Bears
Dir. Richard Linklater.US. 2005. 114mins.To a generation ofAmericans, Michael Ritchie's 1976 comedy Bad News Bears was a culturaltouchstone, a rough-around-the-edges feature that celebrated an underdogbaseball team as it battled against adversity.The problem with RichardLinklater's remake is that the style of films made by Hollywood in the 30 yearssince. Bad News ...
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Reviews
The Devil's Rejects
Dir/scr: Rob Zombie. US.2005. 108mins.A lot of horror movies self-profess to be brutal andout-there, but most modern genre pictures actually reveal themselves to belittle more than communal vehicles of squeamish discomfort. In the finalanalysis, their pursuit of as many pan-demographic dollars as possible ensuresthat they don't really want to cross ...
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Reviews
Little Fish
Dir: Rowan Woods. Aus.2005. 114mins.Cate Blanchett laststarred in an Australian film with Gillian Armstrong's Oscar And Lucinda(1997), in which her 19th-century heiress harboured dreams of building a glasschurch in the Outback.She returns to Australianfilm-making eight years later - and with a Best Supporting Actress Oscar - toplay another dreamer in ...
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Reviews
The City Of The Sun (Slunecni Stat Aneb Hrdinove Delnicke Tridy)
Dir. Martin Sulik. CzRep-Slovak. 2005. 99mins.At the start Martin Sulik's feature about four unemployedCzech men promises some sort of a social comment on the collapse of EastEuropean industry, with its images of violent clashes between management and redundantworkers.But before long The CityOf The Sun settles into the predictable patterns of ...
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Reviews
Charly (L'Avion)
Dir: Cedric Kahn. Fr-Ger.2005. 100mins.Making a family film thatappeals to young and more sophisticated audiences is not that easy - but it isa task that film-maker Cedric Kahn mostly succeeds in with Charly.Though no less than fivescreenwriters were involved, Kahn's feature tells the simple and well-wornstory of a young boy ...
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Reviews
Piccadilly Jim
Dir. John McKay. UK.2004. 97mins.John McKay's sophomorefeature Piccadilly Jim is one of those all-too common happenings incinema: a film that barely misses the mark when aiming at greatness, therebyinfuriating those who notice its failings and thus bringing the film down tothe level of 'having potential".Adapted by Oscar winnerJulian Fellowes (Gosford ...
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Reviews
Festival
Dir/scr: Annie Griffin.UK. 2005 107mins.Festival is a deceptive affair. Early on, as we're introduced to agallery of aspiring comedians and actors, Annie Griffin's debut feature looksset to turn into a grating celebration of the Edinburgh Festival (the largestarts festival in the world) in all its full carnivalesque glory. There issomething ...
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Reviews
Guy X
Dir: Saul Metzstein.UK-Can-Ice. 2005. 94mins.One would love to like afilm that was one of the few survivors from the British film funding crunch inFebruary 2004. But despite some enjoyable satire along the way, Guy X,the second feature from Scottish director Saul Metzstein, never adds up to thesum of its parts.Set ...
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Reviews
Unveiled (Fremde Haut)
Dir: AngelinaMaccarone. Ger-Aust. 2005. 97mins.Using the premiseof a woman passing herself off as a man for political purposes, Unveiledmakes for an earnest and well-meaning, if at times rather humourless and lessthan imaginative, feature from film-maker Angelina Maccarone.Closer in spirit toa didactic lecture rather than a dramatic experience, it follows a ...
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Reviews
Wedding Crashers
Dir: David Dobkin. USA.2005. 119mins.Much is made of the recent ascension of a number of actors- including Ben Stiller, Will Ferrell, Vince Vaughn, Jack Black and Owen Wilson- who, informally dubbed the "Frat Pack," have paired in various combinations ona number of studio comedy features. With the popularity of teen ...
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Reviews
Charlie And The Chocolate Factory
Dir: Tim Burton. US.2005. 115mins.Tim Burton brings histraditional baggage to the new film adaptation of Roald Dahl's Charlie AndThe Chocolate Factory, a lavish summer tentpole from Warner Bros whichpurports to stay true to the original novel more than the sunny 1971 musical WillyWonka And The Chocolate Factory. Although that assertion ...
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Reviews
The Island
Dir: Michael Bay. US.2005. 135mins.Human cloning is thesci-fi theme of The Island, yet it is director Michael Bay's trademarkthundering action that leaves the lasting impression from this sleek,big-budget thriller co-produced by Warner Bros and DreamWorks. Thehalf-explored philosophical elements and a gratuitous dose of romance don't addmuch to the movie's overall ...
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Reviews
Fantastic Four
Dir: Tim Story. US. 2005.105 mins.The title characters inMarvel's longest running comic book series form a dysfunctional family ofsuperheroes who struggle to cope with the emergence of their superpowers andthe celebrity that results. So maybe it's appropriate that the lightweight butenjoyable movie version of Fantastic Four, with its playful, slightly ...
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Reviews
Dark Water
Dir: Walter Salles. US.2005. 100mins.Hideo Nakata's elegant2002 Japanese chiller Dark Water makes a smooth transition to a New YorkCity setting in its US remake thanks to an intelligent screenplay by RafaelYglesias and intense direction in his English-language debut by Walter Salles.But while a moreself-possessed film than the Hollywood redos of ...
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Reviews
Colour Blossoms
Dir/scr:Yonfan. HK-Chi. 2004. 106mins.A glorified soap opera wrapped up in silk, satin anddisrobed models, Yonfan's Color Blossoms will be hailed by his faithfuladmirers as a stylish melodrama about over-ripe divas, fresh ingenues and sexyhulks, whose fleeting basis in reality is a springboard for magnificent flightsof decadent fancy. Just imagine an ...