Latest – Page 656
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Reviews
Dealer
Dir/scr.Benedek Flieghauf. Hungary. 2004. 160mins.Dark, brooding and slow, Benedek Flieghauf's second film,recently awarded the Best Director prize in Mar del Plata, is God's gift tofestivals, a feast for film buffs and art houses and a test of endurance formisguided audiences seeking pure entertainment. Thoseaccustomed to Hollywood and others' over-stylised view ...
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Reviews
Izo
Dir: Takashi Miike. 2004.Jap. 128mins.The bad boy of Japanesefilm, with a growing international following, Takashi Miike likes violence wellenough, injecting everything from slow torture to mass slaughter into his50-plus films. But until his latest, Izo,he had never done samurai swordfighting. The traditionalist genre, until younger film-makerscame along like Nakano (Samurai ...
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Reviews
Los Muertos
Dir/prod/scr/ed:Lisandro Alonso. Argentina. 2004. 78minsBewareof promising beginnings bearing false hopes. That would seem to be the lessonto be drawn from Los Muertos, the second feature from Argentiniandirector Lisandro Alonso. Alonso's debut feature was the memorably stultifying LaLibertad (2001), which lovingly covered the working life of a ruralwoodcutter. Los Muertos signals ...
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Reviews
Or
Dir:Keren Yedaya. Israel-Fr. 2004. 100mins.This intimate, visually stylised but rather loose firstfictional film by Keren Yedaya paints a raw, grim and uncompromising portraitof the relationship between an adolescent girl and her prostitute mother, andthe daughter's effort to get her parent once and for all off the streets.Yedaya,a socially-conscious activist who ...
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Reviews
Ma Mere
Dir: Christophe Honore.France. 2004. 109 mins.It's not difficult to seewhy second-time director Christophe Honore was surprised when Ma Mere,his incest-laced study of sexual obsession was turned down by the Cannesselection committee: it is, after all, much more of a festival film than acommercial prospect. Striking in its stark cinematic language, ...
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Reviews
Steamboy
Dir/scr: Katsuhiro Otomo.Jap. 2004. 126mins.In 1988, with his debut feature Akira,Katsuhiro Otomo introduced the world to the post-apocalyptic future,Japanese-style - and spurred a global boom for Japanese animation that has yetto subside. Sixteen years later, he is back with Steamboy, an animatedepic set in the London of 1866, when the ...
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Reviews
Around The World In 80 Days
Dir: Frank Coraci. US.2004. 119mins.Walden Media's costly self-financed family adventurefinally hits the screens with the Walt Disney Pictures stamp on it and provesworthy of the honour. Jules Verne purists and lovers of the three-hour 1956classic will do best to stay away, but family audiences will be guaranteed agood-natured summer entertainment ...
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Reviews
Los Muertos
Dir/prod/scr/ed:Lisandro Alonso. Argentina. 2004. 78minsBewareof promising beginnings bearing false hopes. That would seem to be the lessonto be drawn from Los Muertos, the second feature from Argentiniandirector Lisandro Alonso. Alonso's debut feature was the memorably stultifying LaLibertad (2001), which lovingly covered the working life of a ruralwoodcutter. Los Muertos signals ...
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Reviews
Ladies In Lavender
Dir/scr: Charles Dance.UK. 2004. 108minsCharles Dance's directorial debut is a stilted andold-fashioned romantic drama which would be heavy as suet were it not for thedeft and lively performances of its two Dames, Judi Dench and Maggie Smith. Inrecreating 1930s Cornwall, Dance throws in all the elements associated withBritish heritage cinema ...
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Reviews
In My Father's Den
Dir: Brad McGann. NZ-UK.2004. 125minsLast year's Sydney FilmFestival opened to an embarrassing effort, the feeble Australian comedy TheHonourable Wally Norman. This year, in contrast, a packed house was grippedby New Zealand director-writer Brad McGann's assured debut feature In MyFather's Den, a hard-to-categorise mix of family conflict, coming of agedrama and ...
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Reviews
Uncovered: The War On Iraq
Dir/prod: Robert Greenwald. US. 90mins.Lessflamboyant than Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 - and, therefore,perhaps less superficially entertaining - Uncovered: The War On Iraq isa must-see for every American who cares about their country, regardless oftheir political persuasion.While the twofilms reach a similar conclusion - that the Bush administrations statedrationale for war ...
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Reviews
Bitter Dream (Khab E Talkh)
Dir/scr/ed:Mohsen Amiryoussefi. Iran. 2004. 87minsThelow-budget Iranian film Bitter Dream is a study of the meaning of lifeand death that is infinitely more far-reaching than it initially appears.Writtenand directed by first-time film-maker Mohsen Amiryoussefi, a self-confessedBrechtian, the film unfolds as a series of loosely connected, intenselyself-reflective vignettes, which centre on Abbas ...
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Reviews
The Terminal
Dir: Steven Spielberg.US. 2004. 128minsWhen Steven Spielberg sets out to make a feelgood heartwarmer, as he openlystates was his intention in The Terminal, cynics better watch out. Thefilm-maker whose command of the craft is so fluent that he can eke tears fromthe hardest of hearts goes all out for sentiment ...
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Reviews
Garfield The Movie
Dir: Peter Hewitt. US 2004.80minsHe is one of the mostrecognisable comic strip characters in the world today - a fat, slovenly,self-satisfied but lovable orange furball named Garfield - and he is the latesttwo-dimensional creature to star in his own live action/computer generatedfilm. But this fat cat won't generate half the ...
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Reviews
The Chronicles Of Riddick
Dir:David Twohy. US. 2004. 119mins.It'snot just the budget that is bigger on this sequel to Pitch Black, themodestly scaled sci-fi hit from writer/director David Twohy that four years agoset Vin Diesel on the road to stardom. In the $120m Chronicles Of Riddick,cult favourite Twohy fulfils the requirements of a summer ...
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Reviews
The Stepford Wives
Dir: Frank Oz. US. 2004.93mins.The third filmedadaptation of the Ira Levin thriller about suburban fembots on the rampage in afrosting-coated, master-planned community has been given an extreme makeoverredolent of Death Becomes Her, She-Devil and The Witches OfEastwick, forgettable female-driven star vehicles with limited substanceand depth, too many garish special effects ...
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Reviews
The Ordeal (Calvaire)
Dir: Fabrice du Welz. Fr-Bel-Lux. 2004. 90mins.Callinga film The Ordeal is surely asking for trouble, and this unforgivingexercise in Belgian Gothic is undeniably a rough ride for the faint of heart.However, anyone receptive to macabre psycho-horror with a distinct streak ofblack humour will find much to relish.Pitchedbetween Euro art-thriller and ...
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Reviews
Z Channel: A Magnificent Obsession
Dir:Xan Cassavetes. US. 2004. 120minsXanCassavetes' slightly uneven labour of love, Z Channel: A MagnificentObsession, is, at two hours, much too long for its own good but isnevertheless compulsively watchable, especially for people who love the movies.As such, while its commercial prospects may be slim, it should be of primeinterest to ...
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Reviews
Five
Dir:Abbas Kiarostami. Fr-Iran, 2003. 74minsHavingtaken his own cinema lessons to heart (see Screen International's reviewof 10 On Ten), Abbas Kiarostamihere reaches the logical conclusion, going for the most esoteric, minimalistcinema imaginable, consisting of just five long static shots taken with adigital camera, no actors, no script, no story and no ...
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Reviews
The Hook (Je Suis Un Assassin)
Dir: ThomasVincent. France. 2004. 110minsThe moralconsequences of murder provide the basis for a solid psychological thriller in TheHook. Director-writer Thomas Vincent created a few waves with his grittycharacter piece Karnaval (1999) and this follow-up marks a move towardsmore mainstream fare.Adapted from aDonald Westlake novel, it is intriguingly set up and ...