Latest – Page 661
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Reviews
Hush Hush Baby (Shouf Shouf Haibibi)
Dir: Albert ter Heerdt. The Netherlands. 2004. 88minsThe ever expanding borders of the European Union have pushed immigration to the top of the political agenda. Hush, Hush Baby touches on some of the serious global issues surrounding the topic but is generally happy to settle for broad, knockabout comedy and ...
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Reviews
Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind
Dir: Michel Gondry. US. 2004. 108minsScriptwriter Charlie Kaufman (Adaptation) and director Michel Gondry go a long way in their new film toward rehabilitating themselves after their disastrous previous collaboration, Human Nature, but the conspicuously brilliant Kaufman, especially, still seems too smart for his own good.The concept behind Eternal Sunshine Of ...
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Reviews
The Reckoning
Dir: Paul McGuigan. UK. 2001. 110mins.Paul Bettany's penchant for diverse roles spanning the eras continues in the intriguing but lethargic medieval murder mystery The Reckoning, a long finished drama shot in 2001, even before Bettany made his leap into Hollywood with A Beautiful Mind.This time Bettany is a fugitive priest ...
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Reviews
Shaun Of The Dead
Dir: Edgar Wright. UK. 2004. 100mins tbcAfter the critical debacle that was last month's Sex Lives Of The Potato Men comes Shaun Of The Dead, a film which proves that the move from small to big screen comedy does not always end in artistic failure. This romantic zombie comedy - ...
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Reviews
Don't Move (Non Ti Muovere)
Italy-Spain-UK. 2004. 121 mins.Don't Move is worth any number of seminars on the state of Italian cinema, and is ample proof that there is life in the old dog yet. The cynical might object that this is because of a standout performance by Spanish star Penelope Cruz, who does something ...
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Reviews
Starsky & Hutch
Dir: Todd Phillips. US. 2003. 100 mins.Hollywood's infatuation with the cheesy classics of 1970s American TV continues with an action comedy take on Starsky & Hutch that plays for laughs more than thrills and gets just about enough of them to, in all probability, keep the affair going for at ...
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Reviews
South Of The Clouds (Yun De Nan Fang)
Dir: Zhu Wen China. 2004. 100mins.Zhu Wen began his working life as a factory engineer before deciding, 10 years ago, that stories were his real metier. After four short story collections, a novel and two film script collaborations (he was one of three credited screenwriters on the Zhang Yuang prison ...
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Reviews
Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights
Dir: Guy Ferland. US 2004. 87 minsThe original Dirty Dancing made a star of Patrick Swayze, became one of the surprise hits of the late 1980s and grossed an $163m worldwide. Set in the Catskills in 1963, it introduced a predominantly female audiences to the catchphrase "Nobody puts Baby in ...
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Reviews
Hidalgo
Dir: Joe Johnston. US. 2003. 135mins.After getting bumped last year from Disney's fall slate, reportedly due to an overabundance of horse movies, the family-targeted action-adventure Western Hidalgo, starring Viggo Mortensen in his first post-Aragorn turn, arrives amid press reports questioning the authenticity of the film's real-life protagonist, one-time cowboy and ...
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Reviews
Triple Agent
Dir: Eric Rohmer. France. 2004. 115mins.Triple Agent is another clever, witty, intelligent morality play by the dean and master of the genre Eric Rohmer, interpreted with his legendary playful earnestness. This is however, by his own admission, the most talkative of his films and as such something of a challenge ...
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Reviews
Nightsongs (Die Nacht Singt Ihre Lieder)
Dir. Romuald Karmakar. Germany. 2004. 95mins.Regarded by many as one of the great hopes of German cinema, Romuald Karmakar's award-studded career risks taking a downward turn with Nightsongs, a self-indulgent, repetitive and unimaginative adaptation of a Norwegian stage play that gains nothing from being transferred to film.A static portrait of ...
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Reviews
Touch Of Pink
Dir: Ian Iqbal Rashid. UK-Canada. 2004. 91mins.The latest entry in the canon of colourful Indian-diaspora comedies after Bend It Like Beckham, The Guru and Bollywood/Hollywood, Touch Of Pink is a notable directorial debut from UK TV writer and poet Ian Iqbal Rashid. Oozing charm and a genuine joie de vivre ...
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Reviews
Kick 'n' Rush (2 Ryk Og 1 Aflevering)
Dir: Aage Rais-Nordentoft. Denmark. 2004. 95mins.Mixing football with the problems of adolescence has become something of a sub-genre in recent years. Purely Belter and Bend It Like Beckham opened the scoring for England; now the Scandinavians have begun to lob their own teen soccer tales into the area, with United, ...
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Reviews
Agatha And The Storm (Agata e la Tempesta)
Dir: Silvio Soldini. It-Switz-UK. 2004. 123 mins.With his 1999 comedy Bread And Tulips, Silvio Soldini pulled off the increasingly difficult act of combining auteurish pretensions (albeit gentle and soft-centred ones) with commercial success: the film racked up an impressive $5m-plus in its home market alone - around four times its ...
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Reviews
Twisted
Dir: Philip Kaufman. US. 2003. 96 mins.Ashley Judd has made a profitable habit of playing strong, successful women at the centre of moody, otherwise male-dominated thrillers. Twisted (originally known on the international sales circuit as Blackout) is a serviceable addition to Judd's resume but one that lacks the charge necessary ...
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Reviews
Cold Light (Kaldaljos)
Dir: Hilmar Oddsson. Ice-Ger-UK-Nor. 2004. 92mins.There must be a law in Iceland stipulating that local films should contain one or more of the following: a) a weird and lonely hero; b) an avalanche; c) cod fishermen vs the cruel sea; d) magical powers, especially the ability to predict the future. ...
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Reviews
Crimson Rivers 2: The Angels Of The Apocalypse (Rivieres Pourpres 2: Les Anges De L'Apocalypse)
Dir: Olivier Dahan. Fr-UK-It. 2004. 100mins.No, he's not the real thing, courtesy of Mel Gibson, but France still has its own screen Jesus figure this week, courtesy of Crimson Rivers 2: The Angels Of The Apocalypse. Here, the apostles all get killed off while 'the Christ' himself (or rather a ...
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Reviews
Pearls And Pigs (Helmia Ja Sikoja)
Dir: Perttu Leppa. Finland. 2003. 113 mins.Feelgood comedy Pearls And Pigs was seen by around 1 in 40 Finns in the weeks after its home release late last year, and while being big in Finland is no watertight guarantee of international success, this likeable teen comedy has some serious Hollywood ...
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Reviews
Love's Brother
Dir: Jan Sardi. Australia/UK. 2004. 90 minsJan Sardi's screenplay for the gritty biopic Shine was nominated for all the major international awards in 1997. Now he makes his directorial debut with this lightweight romantic fable from a self-penned screenplay which could have done with a tougher editor. Sardi's stretched story ...