Latest – Page 56
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Reviews
Be Like Others
Dir: Tamaz Eshaghian. USA, Canada, Iran, 2008. 74minsBe Like Others , a documentary on a topic that seems almost like the start of a joke -- did you know that in Iran, homosexuality is punishable by death, but sex-change operations are not only sanctioned by the governing clerics but almost ...
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Reviews
Son of a Lion
Dir: Benjamin Gilmour. Australia/Pakistan. 2007. 92mins.Childrens' exposure to gun culture is fast becoming one of the fail-safe themes of world cinema, but we haven't yet seen it in quite the context presented by the inventive Pakistan-set drama Son Of A Lion.Benjamin Gilmour's no-frills DV feature, co-written with collaborators from the ...
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Reviews
Cafe De Los Maestros
Dir: Miguel Kohan. Argentina/USA/Brazil. 2008. 92 mins.You can imagine the pitch: 'It's the Buena Vista Social Club of tango'. (Old-school tango, that is - before Nuevo Tango genius Astor Piazzola began to take the music in a more radical direction). And it really is: there's the gathering of the old ...
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Reviews
The Aquarium (Genenet Al Asmak)
Dir. Yousry Nasrallah. Egypt/ France/ Germany, 2007. 111 mins.As undoubtedly the best-known protege of t legendary Egyptian director Youssef Chahine, Yousry Nasrallah has been working as a film critic or film-maker for nearly 30 years. Since 1988, hhee has directed a series of distinctive films that frequently show up in ...
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ReviewsBlack Ice (Musta Jaa)
Dir: Petri Kotwica. Finland/Germany. 2008. 100 mins.Petri Kotwica’s darkly inventive second film,Black Ice, tries to be at one and the same time a Hitchcockian thriller, a horror version of a Feydeau farce, and an intense marriage drama of love, betrayal and jealousy in the tradition of ...
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Reviews
The Black Balloon (2007)
Dir: Elissa Down Aust. 2007, 97 minsThe Black Balloon is notable for its graphic, not-for-the-squeamish depiction of adult autism. But, more importantly for its box office potential, the youth-oriented movie introduces a glowing young Australian actress with true star potential - the international model Gemma Ward. Plus there's a showy ...
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Reviews
Lemon Tree
Dir: Eran Riklis. Israel/Germany/France, 2008. 106 minsIn Lemon Tree, director Eran Riklis once again looks at the Arab-Israeli conflict from a human perspective, showing how, in a climate of suspicion and mistrust, politics can crush all who get in the way. Penned by his Syrian Bride collaborator Suha Arraf, this ...
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Reviews
In Love We Trust (Zuo You)
Dir: Wang Xiaoshuai. China, 2008. 115 mins.With In Love We Trust, Sixth Generation director Wang Xiaoshuai presents what can only be described as natural tearjerker material - leukaemia, divorce, infidelity - in the milieu of the Chinese middle class and delivers an uneven picture which attempts the impossible and fails ...
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Reviews
CSNY: Deja Vu
Dir: Bernard Shakey. US. 2008. 97 mins.'The huddled sixtysomethings look like they're comparing prescriptions on stage' wrote one uncharitable US music critic of Crosby , Stills, Nash and Young's 2006 'Freedom of Speech' tour, which stirred controversy with its outspoken anti-Iraq-war stance. Unless you're a diehard ...
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Reviews
Quiet Chaos (Caos Calmo)
Dir: Antonello Grimaldi. Italy. 2008. 110 mins.'Write about what you know' goes the old dictum - so contemporary Italian scripters mostly write about city-dwelling, media-savvy middle-class people like themselves. But at least in Quiet Chaos our hero, TV executive Pietro Paladini, is doing something more original than having a mid-life ...
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Reviews
Wonderful Town
Dir: Aditya Assarat. Thailand, 2007. 92 minsAditya Assarat's first feature, a tragic, melancholy, minimalist love story taking place in what was once a Thai beach resort before the 2004 tsunami hit, offers a poignant portrait of a place grappling with the loss of its main source of income amid the ...
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Reviews
Poor Boy's Game
Dir: Clement Virgo. Can. 2007. 104mins. If you haven't had your fill of motivational boxing movies, here's one with a twist. Clement Virgo's Poor Boy's Game is a Canadian fight feature. In Nova Scotia, an ex-con enters the ring to pay a moral debt and escape the dead-end of Halifax's ...
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Reviews
Good Morning, Mister Grothe (Guten Morgen, Herr Grothe)
Dir: Lars Kraume. Ger. 2007. 90mins Despite promising, tense beginnings, classroom tensions fail to provide much in the way of social or emotional revelation in Good Morning, Mister Grothe. Despite strong lead performances, this story of a teacher and a problem pupil going head to head finally veers uneasily between ...
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Reviews
Here's Looking At You, Boy
Dir/scr: Andre Schafer. Ger-Neth. 2007. 90mins. Billed as a documentary about 'the coming-out of queer cinema', and destined mostly for TV and DVD formats after further festival action, Here's Looking At You, Boy ticks most of the right boxes in its interviews-plus-film clips survey of the years when queer cinema ...
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Reviews
The Last Mimzy
Dir: Bob Shaye. US. 2007. 94mins. What on paper looked suspiciously like a vanity directing project by New Line supremo Bob Shaye turns out to be a quirky, New Age, eco-aware kids' sci-fi movie that plays well with young audiences - at least if the upbeat reaction from the Berlinale ...
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Reviews
La Leon
Dir: Santiago Otheguy. Arg-Fr. 2007. 85mins. A ravishing portrait of loss and nature set in the evocative, strange Parana Delta wetlands near Buenos Aires, Santiago Santiago Otheguy's La Leon is a very impressively piece visually though marred by its prosaic storytelling. Shot in beautifully sculpted black and white widescreen, the ...
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Reviews
Angel
Dir: François Ozon. Fr-UK-Bel. 2007. 137mins They don't make 'em like this any more - but just try telling that to François Ozon, whose Angel is a determinedly old-fashioned English costume melodrama of the sort that once would have been a cast-iron vehicle for the likes of Bette Davis. Based ...
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Reviews
I Served The King Of England (Obsluhoval Jsem Anglickeho Krale)
Dir: Jiri Menzel. Czech Rep-Slovak. 2007. 119mins. A likeable comic underdog saga that follows the life and loves of a Chaplinesque waiter in pre- and post-war Czechoslovakia, I Served the King of England represents veteran Czech director Jiri Menzel's most marketable feature for some time. The film's little-big-man protagonist and ...
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Reviews
Bordertown
Dir/scr: Gregory Nava. US. 2007. 112mins.In Bordertown, directed by Gregory Nava, Jennifer Lopez plays a Chicago reporter who speaks no Spanish, but goes undercover as a Mexican worker in a Juarez sweatshop to investigate the brutal murders of hundreds of women. If you can believe this, you can believe much ...
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Reviews
Lost In Beijing (Ping Guo)
Dir. Li Yu. China. 2007. 112mins. A social satire with strong sexual undertones in its early reels, which switches as it progresses into a darker melodrama, Li Yu's new film offers another variant on the surrogate mother dilemma. Despite some hesitancies in the second half, it pulls through thanks to ...