All articles by Lee Marshall – Page 48
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Reviews
Piano 17
Dir: Manetti Bros. Italy2006. 105mins.Italy long ago lost the talent for genre film-makingthat made it such a commercial force in the 1960s and 1970s. But a few bravesouls, like the Manetti brothers, are trying to kicksome life into the old corpse. The Rome-based brothers' first feature, thetrash horror parody Zora ...
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Reviews
Tough Enough (Knallhart)
Dir: Detlev Buck. Ger.2005. 98mins.Mixing references from early Ken Loach to La Haine to Mean Streets, Tough Enough is German actor-director DetlevBuck's hard man act after a string of dry, slightly surreal comedies - thelast, Bundle Of Joy, dating back to2000.It's a powerful and oftenviolent film, uncritically but movingly wrapped ...
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Reviews
John & Jane
Dir: Ashim Ahluwalia. India. 2005. 83mins.Tracing a fine line between fact and fiction, John & Jane, AshimAhluwalia's documentary about workers in Bombay callcentres, is an intriguing, understated meditation on the new hi-tech slavery.It follows, in relay sequence, the lives of six workers in a facility run by aUS company which ...
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Reviews
Big Bang Love, Juvenile A (46 Oku Nen No Koi)
Dir: Takeshi Miike. Jap. 2006. 84mins.The softening of Takeshi Miike- after the loopily tender Zebraman, and Box, his operatically stylised contributionto the Three Extremes anthology- continuesapace with this bizarre gay prison yarn.With shades of Gohatto (Taboo) and early German expressionistcinema, Big Bang Love, Juvenile A beginsintriguingly as a sort of ...
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Reviews
Bye Bye Berlusconi
Dir: Jan Henrik Stahlberg. Ger. 2006. 88mins.It's easy to see why the Berlinaleprogrammed this tricksy political satire in itsPanorama sidebar: dealing as it does with the controversial figure of Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi,it comes with guaranteed news cachet. But although it has some hilariousmoments, the German-produced, Italian-language Bye Bye ...
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Reviews
Requiem
Dir: Hans-Christian Schmid.Ger. 2005. 92mins.The thinking man's The Exorcism Of Emily Rose, Requiem offers a deliberatelyunderstated take on the real-life events which inspired that commerciallysuccessful courtroom horror yarn.Director Schmidand scriptwriter Lange are only marginally interested in the hoary theme of Emily Rose - the tussle between religiousfaith and scientific reason. ...
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Reviews
Find Me Guilty
Dir/scr: Sidney Lumet. US. 2006. 123mins.Now in his eighties, veteran director Sidney Lumet shows no signs of slowing down - and mob courtroomdrama Find Me Guilty proves that hehas lost none of his ability to turn out a slick, well- crafted product.But it's a product that,like many of the director's ...
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Reviews
The Great Match (La Gran Final)
Dir: Gerardo Olivares. Sp-Ger.2006. 88mins.A surprisingly enjoyable ethno-romp, The Great Match is both a celebration ofthe global reach of football mania and a sly send-up of worthy anthropologicalepics like Himalaya. The threeinterleaved stories - about tribal soccer fans in remote parts of the globe whoare desperate to see the 2002 ...
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Reviews
Family Law (Derecho De Familia)
Dir: Daniel Burman. Arg-It-Fr-Sp.2005. 100mins.Cinema would be a less interesting place if directorsdidn't mine their obsessions, but this is the third time in six years thatDaniel Burman has cast Daniel Hendlerin a comedy-drama about a young Argentinian Jewishman called Ariel who is oppressed by the suspicion that he is not ...
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News
Festival verdict: The best is yet to come'
With four Berlinalecompetition films yet to screen, the critical consensus so far is that this hasnot been a vintage year for quality. It's not just that there has been nosingle standout title so far it's also the lack of pleasant off-the-radarsurprises, like last year's Golden Bear winner U-Carmen eKhayelitsha.But as ...
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Reviews
Container
Dir: Lukas Moodysson. Sweden. 2006. 74mins. Wilfully obscure and defiantly strange, Lukas Moodysson'sblack-and-white film is as much visual art as cinema. Moodysson would havelittle patience with such subjective categories; but distributors are notoriouslysubjective, and few will touch a film that lacks even the narrative or shock ofMoodysson's previous departure from ...
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Reviews
Candy
Dir: Neil Armfield. Australia.2006. 108minsAlternately dazzling andflashy, affecting and mannered, this impressive debut from feted Australiantheatre director Neil Armfield is lifted to the verge of excellence byoutstanding performances from Heath Ledger and Abbie Cornish as a pair ofheroin addicts in love. If it doesn't quite scalethe final peak, it's because ...
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Reviews
V For Vendetta
Dir:James McTeigue UK-Ger. 133mins.Thelatest Alan Moore graphic novel adaptation, after From Hell and The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen, V for Vendetta has A for Auxiliarywritten all over it.It allstarts promisingly enough, with sombre chords and a vintage, black-and-white WarnerBros logo ushering us into a dark vision of a totalitarian Britain ...
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Reviews
El Custodio
Dir:Rodrigo Moreno. Arg/Ger/Fr. 100 mins.ElCustodio did nothing to satisfy festivalBerlinale audiences hungry for a little light entertainment. This study of anArgentinian government minister's police minder is painfully slow, taking allof 90 minutes to build to its first, and last, moment of real action. But itis also a strangely compelling exercise ...
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Reviews
Slumming
Dir: Michael Glawogger. Aust, 2006. 96mins.Michael Glawogger's Slumminghas something of The Edukators about it, and something ofMike Leigh's Naked: it's about blind existentialrage, arrogant male ennui and what happens when schoolboy pranks turn nasty.But it is not didactic: if anything, Glawogger trustshis own creative instinct too much in this story ...
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Reviews
Once In A Lifetime
Dirs: PaulCrowder, John Dower. US. 2006. 98 mins. Aiming for the huge double demographicof football fans and 1970s nostalgics, Once In A Lifetime narrates the rise andfall of the New York Cosmos football team which, for a few short years in thelate 1970s, was home to stars of the ...
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Reviews
Crime Novel (Romanzo Criminale)
Dir: Michele Placido.It-UK-Fr. 2005. 146mins.The middle floor betweenItaly's auteur attic and its commercial bargain basement is curiously empty.Screenwriting duo Stefano Rulli and Sandro Petraglia are among the few to havemade their home here, scripting films like The Best Of Youth, which for all its symphonic, multi-linearstructure and often prickly political ...
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Reviews
Gravehopping (Od Groba Do Groba)
Dir/scr: Jan Cvitkovic. Slovenia, 2005. 103mins.A darkly comic curio, the second filmfrom Bread And Milk director Jan Cvitkovic has been flying the festival flag for Sloveniaever since its debut at San Sebastian - where it picked up the New Directors Award- and has since won best film prizes at Cottbus ...
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Reviews
Melissa P
Dir: Luca Guadagnino. It-Sp. 2005. 102mins. "Loosely based on" ascandalous bestselling book which purports to recount the true sexualexperiences of a 16-year-old Sicilian schoolgirl, Sony Pictures Entertainment'sfirst Italian production Melissa Pstruggles gamely to be less of an adolescent sexploitation flick and more of acoming-of-age study.True,there is some teen sex ...
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News
Cvitkovic and Takushi share honours at Turin
Slovenian film Gravehopping shared top honoursat the 2005 Torino Film Festival with Clouds of Yesterday, anostalgia-soaked paean to the silent film era which represents the featuredirecting debut of Japanese actor and composer Tsubokawa Takushi.The Torino best feature awardfor Gravehopping continued the triumphal festival march of JanCvitkovic's choral black comedy, which ...
