Latest – Page 61
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ReviewsThe Stoning Of Soraya M
Dir. Cyrus Nowrasteh. US. 2008. 116mins.This harrowing, if cinematically flawed, account of a male mob’s murder of a young wife and mother according to Shariah law in an Iranian village in 1986, just a few years after Khomeini took power, takes on particular relevance today. Exposes ...
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ReviewsUncertainty
Dir. Scott McGehee, David Siegel. US. 2008. 101 minsRegular collaborators McGehee and Siegel have hit what is called in baseball a double-a compliment, that—with Uncertainty. In the past, their provocative films have veered toward the academic, as with the study of amnesia in the modern Cain-and-Abel ...
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ReviewsKrabat
Dir. Marco Kreuzpaintner. Germany. 2008. 120 mins.The beloved 1971 children’s book by Otfried Preussler finally reaches the screen in a live-action version courtesy of young German director Marco Kreuzpaintner - and the results are impressive. Set in an 18th century Europe ravaged by the plague, the ...
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ReviewsFlash of Genius
Dir. Mark Abraham. US. 2007. 119 minsMarc Abraham’s debut feature about an inventor battling the Ford Motor Company, which steals and markets his window-wiper invention, puts new mileage on the David-Goliath model. Sentimental but remarkably compelling, the saga of a little man’s victory over a corporate ...
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ReviewsEverlasting Moments (Maria Larssons eviga ögonblick)
Dir. Jan Troell. Denmark/Sweden, 2008. 130 mins.
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ReviewsMiracle at St. Anna
Dir. Spike Lee; US/Italy. 2008. 166 mins.After enjoying the biggest commercial success of his career with the tightly disciplined genre film Inside Man, Spike Lee returns to his freewheeling ways in Miracle At St Anna, an Italy-set World War II story which plays like a jazz ...
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Reviews
Everlasting Moments (Maria Larssons eviga ögonblick)
Dir:Jan Troell. Denmark/Sweden, 2008. 130 mins.Discreet, old fashioned, traditional and altogether admirable, this is Jan Troell in what he does best, a period drama about a woman photographer living in Sweden at the turn of the last century. Paying minute attention to the smallest details, taking its time but never ...
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ReviewsGenova
Dir. Michael Winterbottom. UK. 2008. 94minsA family’s struggles with loss, grief and guilt form the basis of a frustratingly insubstantial drama inGenova.Michael Winterbottom’s latest effort is commendable for its refusal to indulge in easy sentimentality but the pricefor that is an elusive, low-key tale that keeps ...
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ReviewsHeaven On Earth
Dir. Deepa Mehta.Canada 2008. 106 min.The yearnings and travails of an Indian emigre bride, a subject recently given a pictorial, naturalistic treatment inBrick Lane, gets a grittier, more mystical workout in Deepa Mehta’s slow-burning and quietly potentHeaven on Earth.The seventh feature of the Toronto-based director opened ...
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ReviewsNick and Norah's Infinite Playlist
Dir. Peter Sollett. US. 2008. 89mins.The highly anticipated second feature of the New York-based independent Peter Sollett (Raising Victor Vargas) valiantly attempts to both enliven and subvert the tendencies and predictability of the teenage romantic comedy - although the whole never quite registers as forcefully as ...
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ReviewsRain (Lluvia)
Dir: Maria Govan. The Bahamas. 2008. 93 mins.One of the first indigenously produced films to come out of the Bahamas, Maria Govan’s Rain shows a different side to Nassau where, in the shadows of luxury resorts and ocean liners, lives a subset of islanders battling the ...
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ReviewsDean Spanley (2008)
Dir. Toa Fraser. New Zealand/UK. 2008. 99mins.New Zealand director Toa Fraser’s Dean Spanley overcomes an uncertain and sketchy opening section to register as a moving and visually wondrous evocation of magic and imagination. The movie’s tonal shifts are fairly abrupt and the first third is frustratingly ...
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ReviewsGhost Town
Dir: David Koepp. USA. 2008. 103 mins.A minor studio comedy notable as the first Hollywood starring vehicle for UK comic Ricky Gervais, Ghost Town takes a formulaic story about a curmudgeon learning to love and spices it up with some Gervais-style sarcasm and smartass dialogue. Making ...