Latest – Page 652
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Reviews
Downfall (Der Untergang)
Dir: Oliver Hirschbiegel.Ger. 2004. 150minsDoes the world really needanother film on Adolf Hitler' Downfall answers the question in theaffirmative. Recent years have seen the release of Max, Moloch,the documentary Blind Spot and the Robert Carlyle mini-series, but Downfallis distinctive and potentially much more commercial.It covers seeminglyfamiliar material from the fresh ...
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Reviews
Beyond The Sea
Dir: Kevin Spacey. UK-Ger.2004. 121minsAn old-fashioned,razzle-dazzle biopic, Beyond The Sea breezes through the life of 1960sshowbusiness all-rounder Bobby Darin with a song and a dance and a ton ofchutzpah. Kevin Spacey's second directorial effort (after Albino Alligator)is a true labour of love; beautifully designed, richly photographed andglistening with ambition.Spacey the ...
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Reviews
Being Julia
Dir: Istvan Szabo. Canada/UK/Hungary. 2004. 105mins.Older adults will find many pleasures in IstvanSzabo's cheerful period comedy Being Julia which plays like DangerousLiasions-light in the world of 1930s London theatre. Dominated by astupendously entertaining performance from Annette Bening, which covers overmany of the cracks in the film's lumpy structure, it is ...
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Reviews
The House Keys (Le Chiavi di Casa)
Dir:Gianni Amelio. It-Ger-Fr. 2004. 115mins.Thoughit was well received by the home crowd and the local media, who were desperatefor at least one good Italian film in competition at Venice this year, GianniAmelio's eagerly awaited The House Keys was a major disappointment tothe rest of us.Atough and sombre director, whose Sicilian ...
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Reviews
Ray
Dir: Taylor Hackford. US.2004. 152minsA scene-stealing co-starin Collateral, Jamie Foxx becomes a star attraction in Ray. Hisaccomplished performance as music icon Ray Charles has Oscar contender writtenall over it and offers conclusive proof of his leading man potential.The film itself is a solid,diligent biopic in which director Taylor Hackford displays ...
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Reviews
Millions
Dir: Danny Boyle UK-US.2004. 97minsTen years after Shallow Grave, director DannyBoyle once again discovers that sudden wealth is not without its complications.In Millions it is innocent schoolboys rather than larcenous flatmateswho are faced with a cash windfall.Boyle's approach to the material is equally dynamicbut the screenplay by Frank Cottrell Boyce ...
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Reviews
Land Of Plenty
Dir:Wim Wenders. Ger-UK. 2004. 113mins.WimWenders' Land Of Plenty is a post 9/11 parable that is half politicalpamphlet, half yet another exploration of the director's favourite theme - thestranger in a strange land. But although it is a more controlled exercise thanthe mess that was The Million Dollar Hotel, it does ...
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Reviews
Cellular
Dir: David R.Ellis. US 2004. 90minsTotallyimplausible from start to finish, suspense thriller Cellular has a silly premise and zero chills, but offers plenty ofaction (without a single explosion) and an easy-to-follow storyline. Given thedearth of good popcorn movies during the past five or six weeks, it may evenmanage to hold ...
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Reviews
Kinsey
Dir/scr: Bill Condon US.2004. 124minsA deftly handled mixture ofpersonal drama and social history, Kinseysculpts a compelling film from the life of the pioneering scientist who devotedhimself to the study of human sexuality. Beautifully judged and paced, it isboth intellectually stimulating and emotionally satisfying.Illuminating the presentthrough dramatising the past, it offers ...
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Reviews
Shark Tale
Dirs:Vicky Jenson, Bibo Bergeron, Rob Letterman. USA. 2004. 90mins.Afterbugs and monsters, the DreamWorks versus Disney/Pixar tit-for-tat animationgrudge match has moved on to fish. The latest blow to be struck by theDreamWorks camp, Shark Tale is a colourful, fast-paced, jive-talkingseabed caper that continues the scattershot, kids-and-adults targeting of muchmajor studio animation ...
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Reviews
Howl's Moving Castle (Hauru No Ugoku Shiro)
Dir: Hayao Miyazaki.Japan. 2004. 117mins.Japanese animation geniusHayao Miyazaki's follow-up to the international critical and box-office hit SpiritedAway is as visually inventive and unremittingly charming as itspredecessor. By turns funny, exhilarating and touching, it lacks only onething: the spiritual and metaphysical depth that made Spirited Away sucha haunting experience.While this will ...
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Reviews
Resident Evil: Apocalypse
Dir: Alexander Witt. US/Canada/UK. 2004. 94 mins.More zombies, more screen time for Milla Jovovich and the addition ofsome crucial characters from the games themselves are the draw in this sequelto 2002 video game adaptation ResidentEvil. The new elements may not add many non-gamers to the audience for whatis otherwise a ...
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Reviews
Layer Cake
Dir:Matthew Vaughn. UK 2004. 100minsTrue,the directing debut of Matthew Vaughn - who made his name as producer of GuyRitchie's crime capers - is indeed a British gangland thriller. But it carriesfew traces of the saloon-bar jokiness that was Ritchie's trademark in Lock,Stock and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch. Although slick ...
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Reviews
Enduring Love
Dir: Roger Michell. 2004. UK. 100 mins. After spinningan intense yarn with Hanif Kureishi in TheMother, UK film-maker Roger Michell turns to the ultimate British master ofthe dark side Ian McEwan for his latest film Enduring Love. The result is the most effective film adaptation ofMcEwan to date. Faithful to ...
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Reviews
A Hole In My Heart (Ett Hal I Mitt Hjarta)
Dir: LukasMoodysson. 2004. Sweden/Norway. 98mins.Sweden's LukasMoodysson takes an astonishing journey to the dark heart of humanity in hisfourth feature A Hole In My Heart. Audaciously expressionistic andcinematically experimental, it will be one of Toronto's talking points andprompted plenty of walkouts at the first screenings.Set almostentirely in a dingy apartment in ...
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Reviews
3-Iron
Dir/scr/prod/ed: KimKi-duk. S Kor. 2004. 89mins.An arthouse favourite,now firmly established after last year's Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter' AndSpring, Kim Ki-duk's reputation will be enhanced by his latest work, whichis less extreme but no less intriguing.Coming only seven monthsafter Kim won Best Director at Berlin for Samaritan Girl, this sleek,elegant, stylised ...
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Reviews
I Heart Huckabees
Dir: David O. Russell.US. 2004. 106minsFive years after ThreeKings, writer-director David O Russell returns with an absurdistexistential comedy that is more idiosyncratic and daring than anything he hasmade before. I Heart Huckabees combines the lickety split verbalgymnastics of a Preston Sturges with the philosophical musings of a StephenHawking and then ...
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Reviews
Birth
Dir: Jonathan Glazer.UK-US. 2004. 100mins.Jonathan Glazer'slong-awaited follow-up to Sexy Beast shows the commercials and musicvideo director in austere, minimalist mode. A snail-paced but neverthelesscompelling yarn about a ten-year-old boy who claims to be the reincarnation ofa woman's dead husband, Birth is half psychological thriller and halfexistential love story. By turns ...
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Reviews
Palindromes
Dir/scr: Todd Solondz.US. 2004. 99mins.Sundance darling ToddSolondz' latest warped take on the American dream is an uneven film, half bigemotional roller coaster, half whimsical fable, that inhabits the Midwesternsuburban wastelands somewhere between the David Lynch Motel and the HarmonyKorine Five-and-Dime. The story of a 12-year-old Kansas girl who is determinedto ...
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Reviews
Mysterious Skin
Dir:Gregg Araki USA. 2004. 99mins.GreggAraki is a film buff's director, one of those independent US mavericks, likeHarmony Korine, whose regular feature outings are staples of the internationalfestival circuit (it plays Toronto after its Orizzonti premiere at Venice) andultra-arthouse theatres, but register only the faintest bleeps on the radar ofthe cinemagoing ...