Latest – Page 638
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Reviews
To Paint Or Make Love (Peindre Ou Faire L'amour)
Dir/scr: Arnaud andJean-Marie Larrieu. Fr. 2005. 98mins.The second film byFrance's talented, and as yet little-known, team the Larrieu brothers promisedto be a wild card in the Cannes competition. Given their inventive, hugelyoddball debut feature A Real Man (2003), their follow-up could well haveturned out as much a mood-lightening charmer as ...
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Reviews
The Child (L'Enfant)
Dir/scr: Jean-Pierre andLuc Dardenne. Bel-Fr. 2005. 95mins A few square miles of unprepossessing urban landscapecontinue to yield a rich fictional universe in the Dardenne brothers' latestchronicle of life among modern European have-nots.Filmed as usual in theBelgian industrial town of Seraing, The Child continues the run ofsteely, confident realist dramas that ...
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Reviews
Broken Flowers
Dir/scr: Jim Jarmusch.US. 2005. 106minsAfter diversions into genre-subversion like mysticalwestern Dead Man and modern day samurai saga Ghost Dog, Jim Jarmusch makes afull scale return to the kind of lugubrious, meticulously observed comedy thatfirst made his reputation in the 1980s.Commercial prospects arevery robust for Broken Flowers, a film that fans ...
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Reviews
Le Temps Qui Reste
Dir. Francois Ozon. Fr.2005. 79mins.Faithful to his reputation of changing genres with everynew film, Francois Ozon reveals yet another facet of his talents with LeTemps Qui Reste, treading on a familiar path which he tries to decorate inhis own personal style.The concept - a personfacing imminent death and having to ...
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Reviews
Battle In Heaven (Batalla En El Cielo)
Dir:Carlos Reygadas. Mex. 2005. 98mins.Followingon the heels of his demanding but brilliant first feature, Japon,Mexican director Carlos Reygadas now bulls his way into the Cannes competitionline-up to give us another exceptionally ambitious aesthetic effort. While itdoesn't always work - and critical opinion is sure to be violently split - it'simmensely ...
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Reviews
Where The Truth Lies
Dir:Atom Egoyan. Canada. 2005. 107mins.Fans of Canadian auteurAtom Egoyan, hoping for a comeback from the multiple missteps of his last film,Ararat, which played at Cannes in 2002, are bound to be disappointed bythe director's latest offering, Where The Truth Lies. Based on RupertHolmes' novel of the same title, the film, ...
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Reviews
Manderlay
Dir/scr: Lars Von Trier. Den-Swe-Fr-UK-Ger-Neth.2005. 139mins.The road to hell is pavedwith the noblest of intentions in Manderlay, the stunning second film inLars Von Trier's American trilogy. A philosophical debate on slavery, equality,oppression, free will and racism, it will inevitably be read as anti-Americanin general and a specific response to the ...
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Reviews
A History Of Violence
Dir: David Cronenberg.US. 2005. 96minsTwo American genres - thefilm noir and the Western - are gene-spliced into vigorous new shape in whatlooks, at first sight, like David Cronenberg's most mainstream project inyears. Yet A History Of Violence, a deviously-plotted tale of danger andthe darkness beneath innocent surfaces, soon reveals characteristic ...
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Reviews
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
Dir Shane Black, US. 2005. 103 mins.A hugely entertaining mix of film noir, comic buddy movie andmetacinematic romp, Kiss KissBang Bang marks the directing debut of one-time wunderkind scripter Shane Black (LethalWeapon, The Long Kiss Goodnight), who has been off the radar for the best partof a decade. From ...
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Reviews
The Power Of Nightmares
Dir Adam Curtis, UK, 2005, 157 mins.Unlike most political documentaries made in the US, this highlyentertaining and informative BBC production refreshingly offers itself as astraightforward, almost academic essay, with thesis statement, development and demonstration,and concluding restatement of thesis. Its basic argument is that theAmerican neo-conservative political movement (exemplified by the ...
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Reviews
Quando Sei Nato Non Puoi Piu Nasconderti (Once You're Born You Can No Longer Hide)
Dir Marco Tullio Giordana.Italy/UK/Fr. 2005. 118 mins The latest film by The Best of Youth director Marco Tullio Giordana is, like Gianni Amelio's Lamerica, a portrait of an Italy that is trying to get to grips with its newstatus as a multicultural society, whose immigrant population has increasedthirty-fold since 1970. ...
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Reviews
Election (Hak Seh Wui)
Director Johnnie To Hong Kong. 2005. 100 mins.Election sets out to do for the Hong Kong Triads what TheGodfather did for the New York Italian mafia: enter into the mindset of aclose-knit criminal and social brotherhood, and set its members' respect for ritualand tradition against the bloody brutality of their ...
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Reviews
Bashing
Dir/scr: MasahiroKobayashi. Jap. 2005. 82mins.A mystifying experience for any but a Japanese audience, Bashing,Masahiro Kobayashi's fictional rendering of a real-life event, would haveplayed more comfortably on less demanding grounds than its Cannes competitionberth.The story of a Japanesehumanitarian worker kidnapped in Iraq who then returned home to widespreadspite, Bashing is expressed ...
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Reviews
Kilometre Zero
Dir/scr: Hiner Saleem. Fr-Kurd. 2005. 96minsOne person's illegal war is another's act of sweetliberation in Kilometre Zero. Inspired by the toppling of SaddamHussein, Iraqi Kurdistan director Hiner Saleem has made a film that vividlyilluminates the brutal realities of life under the tyrant's rule. Pettydictators lurk at every checkpoint, people are ...
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Reviews
Lemming
Dir: Dominik Moll. Fr. 2005.129minsFive years ago, Cannes helped to put Dominik Moll on theinternational map with the rapturous response for Harry, Un Ami Qui VousVeut Du Bien. The response to his eagerly awaited follow up is likely to bemore equivocal. A psychological thriller with a peppering of Bunuellian blackcomedy, ...
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Reviews
The Bow (Hwal)
Dir/scr/ed:Kim Ki-duk. S Kor-Jap. 2005. 90mins.South Korean festival favourite Kim Ki-duk has two modes:the island film (The Isle; Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter' And Spring),and the urban film (Bad Guy; Samaria; 3-Iron). It lookedfor a while as if his city tales were a progression from the fishhooks andBuddhist isolation of his ...
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Reviews
Match Point
Dir/scr: Woody Allen. US.2005. 124mins.Match Point would seem to prove the theory that youcan't teach new tricks to old dogs. Quintessential New York filmmaker WoodyAllen may have relocated to London but his eternal preoccupations with love,death, broken hearts and guilty minds remain central to the story. However, MatchPoint does show ...
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Reviews
Last Days
Dir/scr/ed: Gus Van Sant. US. 2005. 96minsWe sort of suspected that Gus Van Sant would not pull offanother Elephant: he's one of those directors that needs a littlebreathing space between masterpieces. But Last Days, Van Sant's newfilm, which is inspired (in the words of the final disclaimer) "in part... bythe ...
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Reviews
Hooligans
Dir. Lexi Alexander.US-UK. 2005. 108mins.An exciting, if superficial, exploration of footballviolence in the UK, this tight little drama is a showcase for an exceptionalpair of young British actors and German-born debut feature director LexiAlexander. Lord Of The Rings star Elijah Wood, clearly eager to breakout of hobbit mode, acquits himself ...