Latest – Page 653
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Reviews
Strings
Dir:Anders Ronnow Klarlund. Den-Swe-UK-Nor. 2004. 92mins.Say "puppet movie" and most people think of the Muppetsor, at a push, Pinocchio - who has most famously come to life on screen in cartoon and live action form.Traditional marionettes have always messed with the suspension of disbeliefthat appears to be necessary in the ...
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Reviews
Vera Drake
Dir/scr: Mike Leigh.2004. UK/France. 125mins.Mike Leigh's latest tourde force takes the subject of illegal abortion in 1950 London and uses it toair issues of moral integrity, goodness and justice never more relevant than intoday's self-serving social and political climate.In Vera Drake, Leighachieves a level of engagement and intensity of which ...
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Reviews
The Merchant Of Venice
Dir. MichaelRadford. UK-It. 2004. 125mins.Despite beingone of Shakespeare's best known plays, The Merchant Of Venice has seenlittle in the way of film adaptation during the past 50 years or so. While TVhas given us plenty of Shylocks to feast our eyes upon, cinema has offered nocompetition, in part due to ...
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Reviews
A Love Song For Bobby Long
Dir:Shainee Gabel. USA. 2004. 119mins.Oldtrooper Travolta meets rising star Johansson in A Love Song For Bobby Long,a fragile but charming slice of New Orleans bohemiana. It was a nice idea togive the on-screen stand-off between their two characters (he a washed-up,alcoholic former university professor; she a stroppy school dropout with ...
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Reviews
Finding Neverland
Dir: Marc Forster. US.2004. 101mins.It may have been given atitle more redolent of a cheesy TV movie, but anchored by another knockoutperformance by Johnny Depp, Finding Neverland is destined to get plentyof big screen attention later this year.Miramax Films can count onrunaway word-of-mouth and big-time returns both on awards podiums ...
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Reviews
The Sea Inside (Mar Adentro)
Dir: Alejandro Amenabar.Spain. 2004. 127mins.Though Alejandro Amenabar's new film screened only athird of the way into the Venice festival, the gut feeling after the earlypress screening on the Lido was that we had just been watching the Leone D'Oro.Still only 32, Amenabar proves with this moving study of a quadraplegic ...
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Reviews
Vanity Fair
Dir: Mira Nair US/UK2004 140 minsAdapting classic Nineteenth Century novels for the screenis invariably a thankless task. If filmmakers are too brutal paring down bookswhich run to hundreds of pages, they risk straining out the wealth of detailand description which makes the originals memorable in the first place. Ifthey're not ...
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Reviews
The Sea Inside (Mar Adentro) review
Dir: Alejandro Amenabar.Spain. 2004. 127mins.Though Alejandro Amenabar's new film screened only athird of the way into the Venice festival, the gut feeling after the earlypress screening on the Lido was that we had just been watching the Leone D'Oro.Still only 32, Amenabar proves with this moving study of a quadraplegic ...
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Reviews
They Came Back (Les Revenants)
Dir: Robin Campillo.France 2004. 105 mins.A thinking man's "horror"film, Les Revenants is an intriguing if dramatically muted Gallic"zombie" movie, in which terror, gore and SFX are replaced by an existentialconsideration of a "what if'" situation: what if the dead rose from theirgraves to cohabit - at first peacefully - with ...
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Reviews
5 x 2
Dir. Francois Ozon.France 2004. 90mins.A kind of Scenes FromA Marriage told in reverse, Francois Ozon's latest feature is a pleasant,watchable but rather unexceptional melodrama that catches wedlock gone stale atfive emblematic moments, starting with the divorce and ending with the firstencounter.Given Ozon's smoothprofessional touch and a presentable performance from lead ...
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Reviews
5 x 2 review
Dir. Francois Ozon.France 2004. 90mins.A kind of Scenes FromA Marriage told in reverse, Francois Ozon's latest feature is a pleasant,watchable but rather unexceptional melodrama that catches wedlock gone stale atfive emblematic moments, starting with the divorce and ending with the firstencounter.Given Ozon's smoothprofessional touch and a presentable performance from lead ...
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Reviews
Throw Down
Dir:Johnnie To. Hong Kong. 2004. 94mins.After25 years as a director of solid Hong Kong crime and action features, Johnnie Tois finally beginning to be taken seriously on the international festivalcircuit. PTU, the story of a city cop's search for his missing gun, waswell received in 2003, and Breaking News was ...
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Reviews
Alexandria' New York
Dir: Youssef Chahine.Fr-Egypt. 2004. 128minsDuring the past few years, veteran Egyptian directorYoussef Chahine has courted controversy with his comments relating to the 9/11terrorist attacks on America.On-screen, Egypt,his contribution to the 11'09''01 - September 11 project portrayed anArab director being refused entry to New York, facing the ghosts of a dead ...
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Reviews
The Hamburg Cell
Dir: Antonia Bird. UK.2004.100minsIs the world ready for a dispassionate account of theterrorist cell behind the 9/11 atrocities' Is it possible to understand thehuman impulses behind such unconscionable actions'Those are just two of thequestions prompted by The Hamburg Cell, a fastidious, open-mindeddrama-documentary recreating the events that led to the attack ...
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Reviews
The Taste Of Tea (Cha No Aji)
Dir/scr/ed: IshiiKatsuhito. Japan. 2004. 143minsA little eccentricitygoes a long way in The Taste Of Tea, the third feature from IshiiKatsuhito that bills itself as a fusion of the classical humanist dramas of Ozuand the manga-shaped sensibility of a director who worked on the animationsequence in Tarantino's Kill Bill Vol 1.In ...
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Reviews
Private
Dir. Saverio Costanzo.Italy. 2004. 92mins.Raw, gritty and uncompromising, Saverio Costanzo'saward-winning Locarno debut is a thought provoking and painfully realisticimage of living under occupation. As such, it is likely to become a favouriteon the festival circuit (it already has a berth in Toronto's Discovery sectionnext month) and a leading exponent of ...
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Reviews
Inside I'm Dancing
DirDamien O'Donnell. Ireland-UK. 2004.104minsThebrief, liberating alliance between two disabled men is the basis ofheart-warming drama in Inside I'm Dancing. Cynics might argue thatdisability is a convenient short cut to emotional engagement and awardsattention but Damien O'Donnell's third feature largely skirts easysentimentality to create a film that could melt the hardest ...
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Reviews
Exorcist: The Beginning
Dir: RennyHarlin. 2004. USA. 114mins.A thunderousassault of visual and aural effects, including digitally rendered hyenas androiling sandstorms straight out of The Mummy, the long-gestating Exorcist:The Beginning is a colossal studio misfire that is less unprecedented forits erratic production history than for its capacity to rival notorious fiasco ExorcistII: The Heretic ...
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Reviews
The Purifiers
Dir/scr: Richard Jobson.UK. 2004. 85minsThere are some areas of the international market in whichBritish cinema cannot reasonably expect to compete. A meaty, martial artsthriller might be one of them. That hasn't stopped ambitious writer-directordirector Richard Jobson making a plucky attempt to create his own pulpyScottish version of a Hong Kong ...