Latest – Page 665
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Reviews
The First Letter (Abjad)
Dir. Abolfazl Jalili. Iran-France-Italy, 2003. 110mins.Far too long, excessively self-indulgent and often repetitive, this autobiographical reconstruction of director Jalili's own adolescence in pre-revolutionary Iran should be a surefire hit on the festival circuit and in specialised arthouses, for its blunt, in-your-face indictment of Islamic fundamentalism, which ruled over his young ...
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Reviews
The Corporation
Dirs: Mark Achbar, Jennifer Abbott. Canada. 2003. 145mins.This compelling, hugely ambitious documentary will be required viewing for every left-of-centre intellectual and a bore for the other 95% of the movie-going world. Although its marketing attempts to draw parallels with such populist fare as Michael Moore's Bowling For Columbine, this film ...
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Reviews
Summer In The Golden Valley
Dir. Srdjan Vuletic. Bosnia and Herzegovina-France-UK, 2003. 104 mins.This is another case of the message coming across much clearer than the ramshackle vehicle put together to carry it through. A inexpert crime comedy caper about an adolescent who has to produce 50,000 marks to clear up the memory of his ...
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Reviews
Vibrator
Dir: Ryuichi Hiroki. Japan. 2003. 95 mins.Ryuichi Hiroki’s Vibrator sounds, from its plot summary, like a throwback to the feminist dramas of a generation ago - troubled thirtysomething woman rediscovers love and life on the road. Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore - she went to Japan. Based on an award-winning ...
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Reviews
Ramblers
Dir. Nobuhiro Yamashita. Japan 2003. 83mins.Looking like a manga version of Waiting For Godot, this deadpan adaptation of a Yoshiharu Tsuge comic strip about two forlorn characters stranded in the frozen Japanese countryside offers the kind of minimalist, understated satire normally expected from Jim Jarmusch. A series of successive ...
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Reviews
You've Got A Call (Chakushin Ari)
Dir: Takashi Miike. Japan. 2003. 112mins.Kuroi Kazuo, executive producer of You've Got A Call and president of Kadokawa-Daiei, insists that this shocker, about death-messaging mobile phones, is not yet another reworking of Ringu, the Hideo Nakata film that launched the Japanese horror boom back in 1998. "We're doing a different ...
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Reviews
The Card Player (Il Cartaio)
Dir: Dario Argento. Italy. 2003. 107mins.Italian horror-maestro Dario Argento will alienate many of his loyal cult followers with this surprisingly conventional ripper-flick, which revolves around a serial killer's challenge to police investigators to play online video-poker if they want to save the life of his trussed and webcammed victims. But ...
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Reviews
The Young Black Stallion (LSF)
Dir: Simon Wincer. US. 2003. 50mins.A prequel to 1979 family classic The Black Stallion, The Young Black Stallion, Disney's first live-action dramatic movie made specifically for giant screen exhibition, is, predictably, strong on visuals and weak on story. A Christmas Day opening in the US on 51 IMAX screens yielded ...
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Reviews
Nathalie
Dir. Anne Fontaine. France 2003. 105 mins.Following on from Dry Cleaning and How I Killed My Father, the two films which established her as one of the most interesting French filmmakers of the current generation, Anne Fontaine again goes out to explore the troubled subconscious of the prim, apparently self-satisfied ...
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Reviews
Paycheck
Dir: John Woo. US. 2003. 119 mins.Representing a comeback opportunity for both director John Woo and star Ben Affleck, Paycheck is a sci-fi action thriller that offers glimpses of Woo at his elegant best before it disintegrates into hackneyed genre silliness. Paramount's Christmas Day US release will be watched closely ...
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Reviews
Monster
Dir: Patty Jenkins. US. 2003. 110 mins.Two documentaries by Nick Broomfield may have told the Aileen Wuornos story vis a vis the American justice system and media, but Patty Jenkins tells the human story of the woman in her dramatization Monster, a low-budget character study which was released domestically at ...
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Reviews
Zelary
Dir: Ondrej Trojan. Czech Republic. 2003. 150mins.Ondrej Trojan, the producer of Czech hits Divided We Fall and Pupendo, returns to directing with Zelary, a sweeping World War II story set in a remote mountain community where a resistance worker takes refuge from the Nazis. One of those lilting, long films ...
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Reviews
Not On the Mouth (Pas Sur La Bouche)
Dir: Alain Resnais. France-Switzerland. 2003 115 mins.Alain Resnais and humour make strange bedfellows and his new film is grounds for divorce: Not On The Mouth is a glossy but charmless adaptation of a comic operetta and the best argument do date for Resnais, the erstwhile icon of solemn art house ...
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Reviews
Stuck on You
Dirs: Bobby Farrelly, Peter Farrelly. US. 2003. 118 mins. Are the Farrelly brothers, the original kings of gross-out comedy, going soft' It often seems that way in this potentially outrageous comedy that in fact shows off the brothers' sweet side to some effect but delivers little of the bracingly over-the-top ...
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Reviews
Details (Detaljer)
Dir: Kristian Petri. Sweden. 2003. 112mins.Although this theatrical adaptation is very much a minority sport, it did not quite deserve to drop out of sight at the Swedish box office in the two weeks after its October 10 release. Its potential has been confirmed at MIFED, where the film attracted ...
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Reviews
Warriors Of Heaven And Earth
Dir: He Ping. China. 2003. 119 mins.He Ping, best known internationally for Red Firecracker, Green Firecracker, is better known in China as the pioneer of the so-called Chinese western like Sun Valley and Swordsman Of Double Flag Town which are set in the vast and unpopulated western territories. Warriors Of ...
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Reviews
Peter Pan
Dir: PJ Hogan. 2003. US. 104 minutesThis umpteenth revisiting of the familiar children's story, first mounted on the London stage a century ago, is always thoroughly competent, even generally engaging, but rarely soars. Universal, happy to have hijacked the property's profile from Disney, has obviously expended a great deal of ...
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Reviews
A Touch Of Spice (Politiki Konzina)
Dir. Tassos Boulmetis. Greece. 2003. 108 mins.A natural crowd pleaser and by far the most successful Greek picture of the year (where it has outgunned the likes of Pirates Of The Carribean with 1m admissions since it opened in late October), this ode to traditional Balkan cuisine and its Ottoman ...
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Reviews
Mona Lisa Smile
Dir: Mike Newell. 2003. US. 117mins.Mona Lisa Smile is a not-bad movie that is, alas, fatally at war with itself. On the one hand, it's a well-acted, convincingly-mounted period piece set in smug, elitist Wellesley College in 1953 that takes up, far more seriously than anyone had a right to ...
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Reviews
Something's Gotta Give
Dir: Nancy Meyers.US. 2003. 123mins.In this terrific new romantic comedy, writer-director Nancy Meyers (The Parent Trap, What Women Want) has given Jack Nicholson the Christmas present of a lifetime. Turning to her (and his) advantage the actor's off- and on-screen persona as skirt-chaser who specialises in younger women, Meyers ...