Latest – Page 62
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ReviewsSauna
Dir: Antti-Jussi Annila. Finland. 2008. 83mins.Finnish director Antti-Jussi Annila (Jade Warrior) invokes slavishly two masters, Andrei Tarkovsky and Stanley Kubrick, with this intensely baroque and religion-inflected period horror movie. The severely grotesque atmosphere and mannered style suffocate the promising ideas and results in a dramatically incoherent ...
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ReviewsThe Secret Life Of Bees
Dir: Gina Prince-Bythewood. USA. 2008. 110 minsInspirational life lessons abound in The Secret Life Of Bees, a wholesome, heartwarming version of the Sue Monk Kidd bestseller. The mixture of personal heartache and social history is handled with tender loving care, but is so sentimental and sermonising ...
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ReviewsRockNRolla
Dir/scr: Guy Ritchie. UK. 2008. 114mins.RocknRolla returns Guy Ritche precisely to the world that made his name; the low-level underworld of Lock, Stock And Two Smoking Barrels (1999) and Snatch (2000) which were in turn the inspiration for a UK geezer subgenre (Sexy Beast, Layer Cake, ...
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ReviewsPasschendaele
Dir: Paul Gross. Canada. 2008. 114minsAnyone confronting the horrors of trench warfare in the First World War has to acknowledge the long shadows cast by seminal classics All Quiet On The Western Front and Paths Of Glory. Paul Gross’s ambitious Passchendaele doesn’t try to compete. Instead, ...
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ReviewsThe Sky Crawlers
Dir: Mamoru Oshii. Japan. 2008. 122mins.Mamoru Oshii’s most meditative feature-length animation to date tells the story of a group of genetically modified eternally-young fighter aces in a world where war has become a company-sponsored reality game. Like the Peter-Pan ‘Kildren’ that it depicts, The Sky Crawlers ...
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ReviewsA Country Teacher
Dir: Bohdan Slama. Czech-Ger-Fr. 2008. 113mins.A bittersweet comedy about a gay teacher hiding out in a country school, Bohdan Slama’s follow-up to his award-winning Something Like Happiness feels slightly old-fashioned, going over ground that has already been dealt with in other films. The kind of gay ...
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ReviewsMilk (Sut)
Dir: Semih Kaplanoglu. Turkey-France-Germany. 2008. 111mins.Painfully slow but at the same time a resonant, elegiac coming of age story, the second installment in Turkish arthouse director Semih Kaplanoglu’s Yusuf trilogy shows him to be something of a magic-realist Terence Davies. But with its overlong shots in ...
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ReviewsGoodbye Solo
Dir: Ramin Bahrani. US. 2008. 91mins.An odd-couple relationship fuels a slow-burning but ultimately moving emotional and spiritual journey in Ramin Bahrani’s third feature. As in the well-received festival faves Man Push Cart and Chop Shop, the US director of Iranian origins unspools a story set among ...
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ReviewsPlastic City (Dangkou)
Dir: Yu Lik-wai. Brazil-China-Japan. 2008. 118mins.An underdeveloped yakuza-in-Brazil storyline and a hip- hop VJ sound-and-image assault do not add up to a rounded arthouse film in Yu Lik-wai’s PlasticCity. Despite some moments of visual brilliance, this third directorial outing by Jia Zhangke’s regular cinematographer betrays the ...
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ReviewsA Perfect Day (Un Giorno Perfetto)
Dir: Ferzan Ozpetek. Italy. 2008. 101mins.Obsessive love, corrupt politicians, coming-of-age crisis and teenage rebellion are just some of the ingredients in Ferzan Ozpetek’s Competition entry A Perfect Day. Adapted from a novel by Melania Mazzucco, this tragic melodrama spreads itself rather thin trying to pack it ...
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