Latest – Page 655
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Reviews
The Bourne Supremacy
Dir: Paul Greengrass. US. 2004. 109 mins.Two years ago, it was indie director Doug Liman who turned Robert Ludlumadaptation The Bourne Identity into a surprise summer hit forUniversal. Now British director Paul Greengrass, who previously made festivalprize-winning docudrama Bloody Sunday, gets his chance for a mainstreamUS breakthrough with sequel The ...
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Reviews
I, Robot
Dir: Alex Proyas.2004. USA.Will Smithreturns to what he does best - kicking ass in summer popcorn movies- in the high-tech thriller I, Robot, a workmanlike sci-fi/action hybrid from dystopiandarling Alex Proyas that fuses the burgeoning artificial intelligence industrywith homeland security concerns, proposing a nightmarish scenario ofenlightened robots running amok through ...
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Reviews
Leon And Olvido
Dir. Xavier Bermudez.Spain. 2004. 112mins.A coming-of-age picture with a difference, Leon And Olvido, XavierBermudez's tale of an adolescent afflicted with Down's syndrome and hisinfatuation with his older sister walks a narrow path between bad taste andhigh melodrama. Thankfully it manages, almost until the end, to avoid slippinginto shoddy predictability and ...
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Reviews
Stage Beauty
Dir:Richard Eyre. US-UK. 2004. 106minsLikeits cross-dressing hero Ned Kynaston (who makes his name playing female partson stage), Stage Beauty isn't entirely sure of its own identity. On theone hand, this is a bawdy and colourful Restoration-era romp, stuffed full ofpuns and sexual innuendo and propelled by some tremendous character turns. ...
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Reviews
Right Now (A Tout De Suite)
Dir/scr:Benoit Jacquot. France. 2004. 95minsBenoitJacquot's Right Now contains a series of incidents rather than what onemight usually call a story - which hits just the right note for this study of ayoung woman drifting without a compass through a tumultuous period of her life.Based on events that happened to Elisabeth ...
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Reviews
King Arthur
Dir:Antoine Fuqua. US-Ireland/UK. 2004. 115mins.Billedas 'The untold true story that inspired the legend,' producer JerryBruckheimer's big-budget King Arthur ditches the mysticism and most ofthe romance usually associated with Arthurian tales and attempts to replacethem with gritty historical realism - or at least with something that's asclose to gritty realism as ...
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Reviews
Moolaade
Dir:Ousmane Sembene. Senegal-Fr. 2004. 123minsBest intentions donot always make best films, and though there is no doubt about the relevance ofan issue as painful as female genital mutilation in Africa, Ousmane Sembene'streatment looks too much like an over-extended politically-correct tract thatwill not go far beyond the strict confines of ethnographic ...
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Reviews
Thirst
Dir. Tawfik Abu Wael.Israel-Palestine. 110mins.A typical choice for Critics' Week at Cannes this year,Tawfik Abu Wael's first film is slow, elaborate and spare and, while itfunctions perfectly as a metaphor, will have trouble keeping its audience alertonce its symbols have been adequately deciphered.A brave debut for the28-year-old director, an Arab-Israeli ...
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Reviews
A Home At The End Of The World
Dir: Michael Mayer. US.2004. 93mins.Can a movie be too short' Broadway theatre directorMichael Mayer and novelist Michael Cunningham have opted for an ultra-concisemovie treatment of Cunningham's celebrated first novel (1990), which traces thefriendship between two boys over 30 years in just 93 minutes. The effect is afilm which feels like ...
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Reviews
Our Music (Notre Musique)
Dir/scr: Jean-Luc Godard. France 2004. 80minsA characteristically encyclopaedic disquisition onwords, images and war, the latest essay-fiction from Jean-Luc Godard is notobviously as visually striking as its predecessor, Eloge De l'Amour, andis considerably more dense verbally. But this three-parter shows Godard to beas perplexing and provocative as ever.Undoubtedly it will appeal ...
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Reviews
The Door In The Floor
Dir: Tod Williams. US.2004. 111mins.In his first film sincehis promising 1998 debut The Adventures Of Sebastian Cole, Tod Williamsdelivers a solid and compelling adaptation of the first third of John Irving'snovel A Widow For One Year. Blending Irving's tendency to absurdism witha painful evocation of suppressed grief, The Door In ...
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Reviews
Sword In The Moon
Dir. Kim Eui-Suk. Korea.2003. 100mins.Dark, bloody and brutal, Kim Eui-Suk's martial artsextravaganza, released in Korea last July to lukewarm response, played in UnCertain Regard at Cannes in the hope of catching second wind with a differenttype of audience. But its grim, humourless disposition is unlikely to gain itmany new friends.The ...
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Reviews
The Clearing
Dir: Pieter Jan Brugge.2004. US. 91mins.Robert Redford returns to the big screenseveral months after his brutal vilification in the pages of Peter Biskind's Down And Dirty Pictures as an enemy ofindependent film - with, of all things, a small, independent-style film forthinking adults, albeit one financed and distributed by the ...
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Reviews
Hotel
Dir/scr: Jessica Hausner.Austria. 2004. 82minsHotel is the kind of shaggy dog story that might have madean effective short but feels too insubstantial and enigmatic to measure up as afull-length film. The second feature from LovelyRita writer-director Jessica Hausner is only a partially successful attemptto inject some fresh ideas into the ...
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Reviews
Schizo (Shiza)
Dir: Guka OmarovaRuss-Kazahkstan-Fr-Ger. 2004. 90mins.Don't be fooled by themisleading English title, already used by at least two slasher pics. Kazhakfeature Schizo is a terse but gripping, elegantly crafted slice ofrealist drama, with an edge of low-life thriller. Evoking the desperate mood ofsubsistence-level life in the newly-independent Kazhakstan of the early ...
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Reviews
Criminal
Dir: Gregory Jacobs. US.2004. 87mins.Steven Soderbergh'slong-time first assistant director Gregory Jacobs gets a shot at being the topdog courtesy of Soderbergh's financing clout at Warner Bros with Criminal,a remake of 2000 Argentinian hit Nine Queens (Nuevas Reinas).Unfortunately, somewhere in the transfer of the sting caper from Buenos Airesto Los Angeles, ...
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Reviews
The Notebook
Dir: Nick Cassavetes. US.2004. 124mins.The positioning ofwomen's tearjerker The Notebook by New Line Cinema in the heart of summer blockbuster season may be oneof the more inspired distribution decisions this year. As gentle, lush andsappy as a thousand TV movies but distinguished by sumptuous production valuesand a great cast, The ...
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Reviews
Spider-Man 2
Dir:Sam Raimi. US. 2004. 127mins.There'sas much soul searching as web spinning in the sequel to summer 2002 box officechampion Spider-Man. Revealing more (literally as well asmetaphorically) of its superhero's human face, Spider-Man 2 - againdirected by Sam Raimi and starring Tobey Maguire as the comic book New Yorkcrime fighter - ...
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Reviews
Earth And Ashes
Dir. Atiq Rahimi.France/Afghanistan, 2004. 105mins.Any future attempt tocompile a visual history of the destructive folly which took hold of the humanrace at the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st,will surely allocate a place of honour to this emblematic debut by Paris-basedAfghan film maker Atiq Rahimi.Going ...
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Reviews
Taegukgi (Taegukgi Hwinalrimyeo)
Dir: Kang Je-gyu. Korea.2004. 148 minsIs Kang Je-Gyu becoming theMichael Bay of Korean cinema' The director made a persuasive claim to the titlewith the slick conspiracy thriller Shiri (Swiri) which grabbedthe Korean box-office crown in 1999. Now, he moves into Pearl Harborterritory with Taegukgi, a sweeping wartime epic that combines ...