Latest – Page 684
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Reviews
Confidence
Dir: James Foley. 2002. US. 98minsJames Foley's con-thriller, Confidence, tries to be as clever as the word play in its title, but this attempt at a clever-clever heist story fails due to a slack script and so-so performances. Despite some snappy dialogue, twists and turns and toying with the linear ...
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Reviews
Noi The Albino (Noi Albinoi)
Dir: Dagur Kari. Ice-Ger-UK-Den. 2003. 95mins.Noi The Albino, the debut feature of young Icelandic director Dagur Kari, is one of those films that seem absolutely of their own place and yet curiously cosmopolitan. With its characteristically Nordic comic melancholia and strikingly photographed scenery, it could not have been made anywhere ...
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Reviews
Owning Mahowny
Dir. Richard Kwietniowski. Can-UK. 2003. 107mins.A low-key character study of an extraordinary man, Owning Mahowny tells the true story of a nebbish Canadian bank employee who embezzled millions from his employers to feed his addiction to gambling. Directed with austerity by Richard Kwietniowski and played by the riveting Philip Seymour ...
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Reviews
The Station Agent
Dir: Tom McCarthy. 2002. US. 90minsAs often at Sundance, the real winners are to be found among the recipients of the audience award and not the Grand Jury Prize. This year was no exception as newcomer Tom McCarthy's crowd-pleaser, The Station Agent, proved the talk of Park City all week, ...
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Reviews
All The Real Girls
Dir: David Gordon Green. USA. 2002. 105 mins. Young writer-director David Gordon Green lives up to the poetic promise shown by his acclaimed but little-seen first feature, George Washington, with this exquisite dissection of young heartbreak that is similarly set amid the gorgeously-shot industrial decay of North Carolina. An art-house ...
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Reviews
American Splendor
Dir: Shari Springer Berman & Robert Pulcini. US. 2003. 105 mins. American Splendor tells the true story of Harvey Pekar, the writer of the American Splendor comic book series which depicts the inanities of Pekar's humdrum life. A sort of celebration of ennui, or triumph of the nerd saga, the ...
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Reviews
Pieces Of April
Dir: Peter Hedges. US. 2003. 80 mins. Sweet, neat and oh-so-slight, Pieces Of April marks another triumph for InDigEnt, the digital film-making initiative behind Personal Velocity, Tadpole, Tape and Chelsea Walls. Budgeted at some $150,000, the film looks good and hits all the same buttons you would expect from a ...
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Reviews
Fear X
Dir: Nicolas Winding Refn. Denmark-UK. 2002. 91mins.Abandoning the mean streets of the Copenhagen underworld to make his first American-set feature film, Nicolas Winding Refn has crafted an intensely eerie psycho-drama that plays unnerving mind-games with the audience right through to its ambiguous and rather abrupt end. Evoking at times David ...
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Reviews
Just Married
Dir: Shawn Levy. US. 2002. 94 mins.Broad comedy, flimsy romance and some decorative European settings are the key ingredients in Just Married, a young-skewing romantic comedy from producer Robert Simonds. Grossing a surprising $34m after 10 days on US release, the $18m project has also become the film to knock ...
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Reviews
Masked And Anonymous
Dir: Larry Charles. USA. 2003. 120 min.Masked And Anonymous screened at Sundance as a work-in-progress and director Larry Charles has his work cut out for him. A mish-mash of styles, genres and cameo appearances, as it stands it will annoy every constituency it aims to entertain. As a showcase for ...
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Reviews
Thirteen
Dir: Catherine Hardwicke. US. 2002. 100minsAn impressive directorial debut by established production designer Catherine Hardwicke (Vanilla Sky), Thirteen offers a glimpse into the sex-and-drug realities of life as a teenage girl in LA. The film is particularly disquieting as it is based on both the screenplay and experiences of a ...
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Reviews
The Thirteen Steps (13 Kaidan)
Dir: Masahiko Nagasawa. Jap. 2002. 122mins.In the past, Japanese audiences have flocked to Hollywood Death Row films like Dead Man Walking and The Green Mile - and local producers have taken note. Now Masahiko Nagasawa has directed The Thirteen Steps (13 Kaidan), which tells the story of two men who ...
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Reviews
Wilbur Wants To Kill Himself
Dir: Lone Scherfig. Den-UK. 2002. 111minsA bittersweet reflection on love and death, Wilbur Wants To Kill Himself should beguile the same sophisticated audience who warmed to Italian For Beginners and also win writer-director Lone Scherfig a fresh wave of admirers. Displaying the same quirky charm and bone dry humour of ...
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Reviews
The Singing Detective
Dir: Keith Gordon. US. 2003. 107 mins. There is a point where reverence for one's source material can prove damaging. That point is reached in Keith Gordon's film of The Singing Detective which follows the late Dennis Potter's script of his own landmark TV series to the letter, resulting in ...
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Reviews
It's All About Love
Dir: Thomas Vinterberg. Denmark. 2003. 104 min.Hugely imaginative, conceptually compelling, arresting in its visual panache, It's All About Love can be seen as a millennial fairy tale and Thomas Vinterberg as its latter-day Grimm. He peers into the near-future and sees a wintry dystopia, where the absence of love - ...
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Reviews
Levity
Dir: Ed Solomon. US. 2003. 100mins.From its portentous title to its lofty themes, Levity reeks of a self-importance which is rarely justified. The ambitious directorial debut of Ed Solomon, the screenwriter of Men In Black and the two Bill And Ted films, was the opening night film of the Sundance ...
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Reviews
A Guy Thing
Dir: Chris Koch. US. 2002. 101mins. Having got his big break as the writer of $300m worldwide hit Meet The Parents, Greg Glienna now mines a similar vein of material for A Guy Thing, a sweet-natured, though sometimes familiar-feeling romantic comedy made on a modest budget for MGM. Replicating the ...
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Reviews
9
Dir: Umit Unal. Turkey. 2002. 94mins.Preceded by a quote from Franz Kafka's In The Penal Colony about the invisible workings of the system, 9 presents a grim portrait of the way in which religious bigotry and social malaise have a direct and poisonous impact on people's everyday behaviour. Chosen, surprisingly, ...
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Reviews
Kangaroo Jack
Dir: David McNally. US. 2002. 86 mins. Jerry Bruckheimer's first stab at younger-skewing family fare is a mishmash of an action comedy with buddy bonding, chase sequences and eye candy for the adults and fart gags and a computer enhanced 'roo for the kids. Arriving in US cinemas this week ...
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Reviews
Twilight Samurai (Tasogare Seibei)
Dir: Yoji Yamada. Japan. 2002. 129mins.The winner of a slew of film awards at home and a competition selection at Berlin next month, The Twilight Samurai (Tasogare Seibei) may finally propel director Yoji Yamada into the international spotlight, after a long and highly successful career. Ironically, the film is in ...