All articles by Lee Marshall – Page 46
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Reviews
The Fountain
Dir: Darren Aronofsky. US. 2006. 96mins.Something of a feature-length New Age doodle, The Fountain will alienate many of thosewho were turned on to indie director Darren Aronfosky by his quirky debut Pi and its follow-up, the drug-fuelled cinematic opera Requiem For A Dream. Threading its epiclove story through three time ...
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Reviews
The Fountain
Dir: Darren Aronofsky. US. 2006. 96mins.Something of a feature-length New Age doodle, The Fountain will alienate many of thosewho were turned on to indie director Darren Aronfosky by his quirky debut Pi and its follow-up, the drug-fuelled cinematic opera Requiem For A Dream. Threading its epiclove story through three time ...
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Reviews
Children Of Men
Dir: Alfonso Cuaron. US-UK. 2006. 108mins.Unwrap the fascinatingdystopian vision of the near-future in Alfonso Cuaron's Children Of Men - based on the sci-fi novel by British literarybaroness PD James - and you find a fairly ordinary movie with stock characters.But if its backdrop and story never quite coalesce into a ...
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Reviews
Children Of Men
Dir: Alfonso Cuaron. US-UK. 2006. 108mins.Unwrap the fascinating dystopian visionof the near-future in Alfonso Cuaron's Children Of Men- based on the sci-fi novel by British literary baroness PD James - and youfind a fairly ordinary movie with stock characters. But if its backdrop andstory never quite coalesce into a satisfying ...
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Reviews
Black Book (Zwartboek)
Dir: Paul Verhoeven. Neth-Bel-Ger-UK.140mins.The prodigal son of Dutch cinema comes home from Hollywood with the budget,production values and the epic nonchalance of the American Way packed in his suitcase. Black Book, Paul Verhoeven'sfirst European film for more than 20 years, is not a particularly original pieceof cinema but it is ...
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Reviews
Infamous
Dir/scr: Douglas McGrath. US 2006. 117mins.To make another TrumanCapote biopic may be regarded as a misfortune; to make another Truman Capotebiopic about exactly the same period of the writer's life looks likecarelessness. But this classic industry no-no could play out, paradoxically, infavour of Douglas McGrath's nuanced take on the US ...
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Reviews
The Black Dahlia
Lee Marshall in VeniceDir: Brian De Palma. US.2006. 121mins.A stylish, steamy genre exercise with a solid castand a cluttered storyline, The BlackDahlia matches director Brian De Palma with hard-boiled LA crime writerJames Ellroy with entertaining, if not whollysatisfying, results.Working closely withcinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond,set designer Dante Ferretti and composer Mark Isham, ...
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Reviews
Driving Lessons
MIME-Version: 1.0Content-Location: file:///C:/2A8CB117/drivingreview.htmContent-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printableContent-Type: text/html; charset="us-ascii"Dir/scr: Jeremy Bro=ck. UK. 200=6.95mins.Funny and tender enough to compen=satefor its lightweight, conventional core, DrivingLessons, the first directorial feature from scriptwriter Jeremy Brock (=Mrs Brown, Charlotte Gray) is a likeable HaroldAnd Maude rerun that is given a commercial leg-up by the canny casting =ofthe three ...
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Reviews
Driving Lessons
Dir/scr: Jeremy Brock. UK. 2006.95mins.Funny and tender enough to compensate for itslightweight, conventional core, DrivingLessons, the first directorial feature from scriptwriter Jeremy Brock (Mrs Brown, Charlotte Gray) is a likeable HaroldAnd Maude rerun that is given a commercial leg-up by the canny casting ofthe three main roles. Harry Potterregular Rupert ...
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Reviews
Change Of Address (Changement D'Adresse)
Dir/scr: Emmanuel Mouret. Fr. 2006. 85mins.As light and frothy as a Feydeau farce, ChangeOf Address (Changement d'Adresse) is aParisian romantic comedy whose charm is all in its peppy performances and deft,old -school take on one of the oldest genres in the book. Halfway in tonebetween a Gallic take on the ...
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Reviews
Honor De Cavalleria
Dir/scr: Albert Serra. Sp. 2006. 112mins.Don Quixoteand his faithful servant Sancho Panzaare intriguingly lost in La Mancha in Honor De Cavalleria,Albert Serra's ultra-minimalist take on Cervantes'enduring classic, which allies itself militantly with an older generation of arthouse masters: Bresson, Pasolini, Olmi. Sadisticallyslow, the film demands a patience, which few at ...
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Reviews
The Bothersome Man (Den Brysomme Mannen)
Dir: JensLien. Nor-Ice. 2006. 95mins.A darkly comicNorwegian fable, The Bothersome Manimagines the after-life as a vacuous Scandinavian social democracy: it's theglossy dystopia of The Truman Showtransported to the land of designer sofas, 30-hour weeks and sweet blonde girlscalled Ingeborg. Lien's debut, the similarly quirky Johnny Vang,did only modest box office ...
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Reviews
Suburban Mayhem
Dir: Paul Goldman. Aus. 2006.89mins.A sassy but uneven slice of youth-oriented Australiana, SuburbanMayhem is worth seeing chiefly for its memorable main character, sexy,wilful and amoral suburban vamp Katrina, who is brought to vivid life by Kiwiactress Emma Barclay.But although it is carriedforward by a driving energy as loud as its ...
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Reviews
Back Home (Bled Number One)
Dir: Rabah Ameur-Zaimeche.Fr-Alg. 2005. 98mins.Algerian-born French director Rabah Ameur-Zaimeche confronts the problems of returnee Maghrebis with BackHome (as it is known in English), his follow-up tominor 2002 festival hit Wesh Wesh. The resultis a strange, loose exercise, part tradition-versus-modernity drama, partrambling filmed diary.Like its orange-hatted hero, the drama keeps switching ...
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Reviews
Re-Cycle
Directed by Danny & Oxide Pang. HongKong/Thailand 2006. 108 mins.ThisLin Sinjee vehicle is a calling card for the FarEastern special effects industry, creating a persuasively dark Alice Through the Looking Glass parallel universe with shadesof Terry Gilliam, Spirited Away and What Dreams May Come. Butthemoody fright-power of the Pang brothers' ...
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Reviews
Clerks II
If it ain'tbroke, milk it, as they say in Hollywood. So why did New Jersey homeboyKevin Smith wait all of 12 years before returning to the successfulsmall-town-buddies formula of his cult debut, Clerks' True, Smith has done stridentvariations on the theme - Mallrats -and lame spin-offs - Jay and Silent ...
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Reviews
Flandres
War isgrim; so is life in rural Flanders. That'sthe message most audiences are going to take from Bruno Dumont's love letter - oris it hate mail - to the area of north-eastern France where the director of L'Humanitewas born and still lives. Criticalreaction after Flandres' Cannes competition screeningwas split (as ...
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Reviews
A Scanner Darkly
Dir, Scr: Richard Linklater. USA 2006. 100 mins.Returning to the animated live-action technique of his 2001 philosophical doodle Waking Life, the hyper-productive Richard Linklater has come up with what must surely be the first sci-fi slacker movie. Based on Philip K Dick's cult novel of the same name, this ...
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Reviews
Drama/Mex
Dir/Scr: Gerardo Naranjo. Mexico 2006. 105 mins.A loose, choral drama that plays out over one hot night in Acapulco, Drama/Mex traces its line of influence back through Amores Perros and Gus Van Sant to early Truffaut.Shot in just three weeks, featuring mostly non-professional actors, this Cannes Critics' Week entry is ...