Latest – Page 694
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Reviews
Tomorrow La Scala
Director: Francesca Joseph. UK. 2002. 108 mins. Funny, stylish and deeply moving, Tomorrow La Scala! is a little gem of a first feature from award-winning documentary filmmaker Francesca Joseph. Inspired by the director's own experiences and partially improvised over three weeks of workshops, it finds real depth and feeling in ...
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Reviews
The Uncertainty Principle (O Principio Da Incerteza)
Dir: Manoel de Oliveira. Portugal 2002. 133mins. Nowadays more prolific than ever, 93-year-old Portuguese veteran Manoel de Oliveira continues to follow his own wildly idiosyncratic path. Although in many ways decorous, even a little staid in its composure, The Uncertainty Principle is overall a characteristically eccentric venture that is as ...
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Reviews
Une Pure Coincidence
Dir: Romain Goupil. France. 2002. 92mins.Friends for more than 30 years, a group of radicals rediscover their passion for direct action in Une Pure Coincidence. The result is a timely, entertaining documentary notable for its warm spirit and light humour. Lacking a professional polish or great visual appeal, it is ...
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Reviews
A Piece Of Sky (Une Part Du Ciel)
Dir: Benedicte Lienard. Belgium-France-Luxembourg. 2002. 85mins.Defiantly out of step with the prevailing mood of the times, Une Part du Ciel makes no bones about its militant political stance nor about its intransigent art-cinema leanings. A story of two estranged female friends - one a factory worker, the other serving time ...
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Reviews
Mr Deeds
Dir: Steven Brill. US. 2002. 96 mins. The Adam Sandler hit factory appears to be back in business. After falling way short of their usual box office standards with 2000's surreally wacky Little Nicky, the boyish star and his regular writing and producing partners revert to much safer material with ...
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Reviews
Men In Black II
Dir: Barry Sonnenfeld. US. 2002. 82 mins. The invigorating burst of zany energy that made sci-fi comedy Men In Black the surprise smash of the 1997 summer season was never going to be easy to reproduce. So it's hardly surprising that Men In Black II feels more slight and less ...
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Reviews
Women In The Mirror (Kagami No Onnatachi)
Dir: Kijyu Yoshida. Japan. 2002. 129mins.Kijyu Yoshida's first feature in 14 years, Women In The Mirror, is a throwback to the humanistic films with a political slant that once flowed from Japan's 1960s Nouvelle Vague, of which he was a key member. It is also a reminder of why such ...
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Reviews
Angela
Dir: Roberta Torre. Italy. 2002. 95mins. Dispensing with the musical numbers that peppered her first two films, but remaining true to her fascination with the character and people of Palermo, Roberta Torre still adds little new to the well-worn themes of Angela. Based on true events from the mid-1980s, the ...
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Reviews
Black And White
Dir: Craig Lahiff. Australia/UK. 2002. 99mins.The Sydney Film Festival traditionally opens with the world premiere of a quality Australian feature: last year it was the free-flowing, cinematically intense Lantana. This year's opener was an altogether more stolid affair - the worthy dramatisation of a 1958 South Australian murder trial and ...
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Reviews
And Now... Ladies And Gentlemen
Dir: Claude Lelouch. France. 2002. 135 mins. His Palme D'Or in 1966 for A Man And A Woman notwithstanding, Claude Lelouch has never been a critics' favourite and his latest offering, unveiled to the press in Cannes to sniggers and walk-outs, was no exception. And indeed even the director's fans ...
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Reviews
Unknown Pleasures (Ren Xiao Yao)
Dir: Jia Zhang-Ke. China 2002. 113 mins. CompetitionA film about teenage aimlessness that evokes its subject only too well, the third feature by Jia Zhang-Ke, director of Xiao Wu and Platform, is a loose, funky digital venture that undoubtedly feels as if it captures the authentic beat of contemporary Chinese ...
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Reviews
10
Dir: Abbas Kiarostami. Iran/France 2002. 94 mins. In competitionA defiantly no-frills exercise even by his ascetic standards, 10 is Abbas Kiarostami's triumphant vindication of digital video's potential to produce a kind of cinema that cannot be achieved by other means. This is screen minimalism at its most uncompromising: 10 sequences ...
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Reviews
Minority Report
Dir: Steven Spielberg. US. 2002. 145 minsThe work of the late Philip K Dick has been a fertile source for films since Ridley Scott's Blade Runner in 1982. The latest gloomy futuristic vision, from a 1956 Dick short story, is Steven Spielberg's Minority Report, which takes themes from Blade Runner, ...
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Reviews
Dear Fidel (Lieber Fidel - Maritas Geschichte)
Dir. Wilfried Huismann. Germany. 2000. 92mins. The story that unfolds in Wilfried Huismann's documentary Dear Fidel is so unexpected and off-kilter that it can be watched in the same fashion as a car crash: with a mute, horrified slow-motion fascination. About a woman who claims to be the lover of ...
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Reviews
Scooby-Doo
Dir: Raja Gosnell. US. 2002. 86 mins.Corporate film-making has become so transparent these days that Hollywood studios are not even making a pretence of masking their priorities on a project like Scooby-Doo. Moving at a pace so frenetic it makes MTV look stately, and blanketed in radio-friendly pop tunes (rock ...
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Reviews
The Hard Word
Dir: Scott Roberts. Australia. 2002. 103 mins.Guy Pearce and Rachel Griffiths, two Australian actors running hot in the States, return home to lend class to this lively but otherwise undistinguished gangster comedy-thriller. Screenwriter Scott Roberts' directorial debut has plenty of bloodthirsty violence shared between a strong cast of tough guys ...
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Reviews
Japon
Dir: Carlos Reygadas. Mexico-Spain. 2002. 122 mins. Carlos Reygadas's visionary and impressive feature debut announces the director as an exciting new talent. It is also highly uncompromising: Reygadas states that he's interested in film as a way of creating sensations rather than of making a statement or telling a story, ...
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Reviews
Winter (L'Inverno)
Dir: Nina di Majo. Italy. 2002. 100 mins.A great performance by Valeria Bruni Tedeschi is not enough to save this self-indulgent ensemble piece by young Neapolitan director Nina di Majo. It's a sad truth that most films are lost or saved in the first few minutes, and the opening of ...
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Reviews
Windtalkers
Dir: John Woo. US. 2002. 134mins. Finally the war may be over. The surge of expensive World War II movies which was kicked off by Saving Private Ryan and The Thin Red Line four years ago now looks like it's coming to an end with John Woo's often admirable but ...
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