All articles by Peter Brunette – Page 4
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Reviews
Beowulf And Grendel
Dir: Sturla Gunnarsson.Can-UK-Ice. 2005. 103mins.Beowulf And Grendel is a handsomely mounted retelling of the ancientAnglo-Saxon classic from the early Middle Ages, the period in which a nascentChristianity was attempting to establish itself among the warring pagan tribesof northern Europe.It appears that littleexpense was spared, and the cast boasts the likes ...
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Reviews
In His Hands (Entre Ses Mains)
Dir: Anne Fontaine.Fr-Bel. 2005. 90mins.Frenchauteur and former actress Anne Fontaine has been turning out nuanced studies ofthe hidden depravities of respectable middle-class life for a decade. Thehighpoint was 2001's How I Killed My Father, which staged a riveting,deliciously ironic encounter between a son and a father, played respectively,and brilliantly, by ...
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Reviews
Thank You For Smoking
Dir. Jason Reitman. US.2005. 92mins.First-time director JasonReitman pulls off the miraculous feat of creating a single-issue comedy thatretains its freshness and drive throughout with his satire Thank You ForSmoking.It's a bristling, wickedlysmart portrait of a lobbyist named Nick Naylor (Eckhart), who makes his living orrather, in the running motif that ...
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Reviews
Seven Invisible Men
Dir:Sharunas Bartas. Lith-Fr-Port. 2005. 119mins.Add to the seven invisible men of this film's title aninvisible plot and invisible characterisation. Sharunas Bartas, the darling ofcinema purists in the 1990s, here self-destructs, offering us a brilliantparody of an art film. Alas, this appears to have been unintentional. Thiscompletely impenetrable exercise will find ...
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Reviews
Zim And Co
Dir: Pierre Jolivet. Fr. 2005. 90mins.Played for- aughs like the flipside of Mathieu Kassovitz's gritty LaHaine, Zim And Co is a pleasant ultra benign diversion in itsportrayal of the trials and tribulations of a multi-cultural cast of characters- one Arab, one African and one white (who may be Jewish).Screened at ...
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Reviews
Crossing The Bridge: The Sound Of Istanbul
Dir/scr: Fatih Akin. Ger.2005. 90mins.Following on the heels ofhis Golden Bear win for Head-On at last year's Berlin Film Festival,Turkish-German filmmaker Fatih Akin shows a different side of his artisticpersonality in Crossing The Bridge: The Sound Of Istanbul, a lovingmusical homage to that glorious city straddling Asia and Europe.Though it ...
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Reviews
Factotum
Dir: Bent Hamer.Nor-US-Ger. 2005. 93mins.Following the modest butreal arthouse success of Kitchen Stories (which premiered, in 2003, inDirector's Fortnight at Cannes), Norwegian auteur Bent Hamer is back with Factotum,a small but droll and, in its own way, quietly powerful film based on a novelby America's poete maudit, Charles Bukowski.To this ...
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Reviews
Where The Truth Lies
Dir:Atom Egoyan. Canada. 2005. 107mins.Fans of Canadian auteurAtom Egoyan, hoping for a comeback from the multiple missteps of his last film,Ararat, which played at Cannes in 2002, are bound to be disappointed bythe director's latest offering, Where The Truth Lies. Based on RupertHolmes' novel of the same title, the film, ...
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Reviews
Battle In Heaven (Batalla En El Cielo)
Dir:Carlos Reygadas. Mex. 2005. 98mins.Followingon the heels of his demanding but brilliant first feature, Japon,Mexican director Carlos Reygadas now bulls his way into the Cannes competitionline-up to give us another exceptionally ambitious aesthetic effort. While itdoesn't always work - and critical opinion is sure to be violently split - it'simmensely ...
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Reviews
The Power Of Nightmares
Dir Adam Curtis, UK, 2005, 157 mins.Unlike most political documentaries made in the US, this highlyentertaining and informative BBC production refreshingly offers itself as astraightforward, almost academic essay, with thesis statement, development and demonstration,and concluding restatement of thesis. Its basic argument is that theAmerican neo-conservative political movement (exemplified by the ...
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Reviews
Sometimes In April
Dir/scr: Raoul Peck.US-Rwa. 2005. 140mins.The biggest obstacle to SometimesIn April, Raoul Peck's worthy, emotionally-stirring and thought-provokingaccount of 1994's Rwandan massacre of the Tutsi minority lies, paradoxically,in the success of rival feature Hotel Rwanda.Sometimes In April is superior to Hotel Rwanda on severalfronts, including the fact that it has less of ...
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Reviews
Hostage
Dir: Florent Siri. US. 2005. 115mins.Hostage, the new vehicle for Bruce Willis,survives an occasionally overcomplicated plot to provide consistently solid, ifnot particularly novel, entertainment. While there is very little that is newhere, the familiar characters, story, situation and iconography of theSWAT-team genre are crisply and engagingly delivered by French director ...
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Reviews
Hostage
Dir: Florent Siri. US. 2005. 115mins.Hostage, the new vehicle for Bruce Willis,survives an occasionally overcomplicated plot to provide consistently solid, ifnot particularly novel, entertainment. While there is very little that is newhere, the familiar characters, story, situation and iconography of theSWAT-team genre are crisply and engagingly delivered by French director ...
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Reviews
Noel
Dir:Chazz Palminteri. US. 2004. 96mins.Animmensely talented cast is mostly wasted in Noel,actor Chazz Palminteri's inauspicious directorial debut. Sadly, this feel-goodfilm, set at Christmas in New York (that old movie stand-by), never rises muchabove made-for-TV fare, despite the high-voltage actors who populate it.Stalwarts like Susan Sarandon, PenelopeCruz, and an uncredited Robin ...
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Reviews
Haven
Dir/scr: Frank E Flowers. UK-Ger-US-Sp. 2004. 115mins.Handsomely, even expensively mounted, and serviceably if notbrilliantly, acted, Haven is a filmso lacking in narrative skill, interesting characters, or anything but the mostshowily attractive situations andthemes that it self-destructs barely 15 minutes in and stays out of servicethroughout its long, long length.Despite the ...
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Reviews
Keane
Dir/scr: LodgeKerrigan. US. 2004. 90mins.After a hiatusof six years following his not very well-received second film Claire Dolan,American independent director Lodge Kerrigan is back with Keane, an intense tale of obsession that recalls the triumph of hisdebut film, Clean, Shaven (1993).Like that earlierfilm, Keane focuses relentlessly andclaustrophobically on a single ...
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Reviews
Yes
Dir/scr: Sally Potter.UK-US. 2004. 99mins.Sally Potter can never beaccused of avoiding risks. From the magnificent Orlando on down, she hassought to push back the borders of 'acceptable' film practice, allthe while engaging herself autobiographically in the most contentious socialand political issues of the day.That noteworthy and welcometradition continues with the ...
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Reviews
Crash
Dir:Paul Haggis. US. 2004. 100mins.Whilethe mini-genre it occupies - multi-storylined ensemble pieces aboutdysfunctional life in southern California - is already well-established (see ShortCuts, Magnolia), Crash is a superb, sometimes literallybreath-taking new addition to this august group.First-timefeature director Paul Haggis (a native of Canada who has lived in Los Angelesfor a ...
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Reviews
Marseille
Dir:Angela Schanelec. Germany. 2004. 95minsAngelaSchanelec's Marseille starts badly and gets worse. Festival-goers - thefilm played in Un Certain Regard at Cannes - are all too familiar with the kindof movie in which someone unnamed wanders aimlessly and interminably, withoutbenefit of characterisation or plot, around a city. The sad thing about ...
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Reviews
Bitter Dream (Khab E Talkh)
Dir/scr/ed:Mohsen Amiryoussefi. Iran. 2004. 87minsThelow-budget Iranian film Bitter Dream is a study of the meaning of lifeand death that is infinitely more far-reaching than it initially appears.Writtenand directed by first-time film-maker Mohsen Amiryoussefi, a self-confessedBrechtian, the film unfolds as a series of loosely connected, intenselyself-reflective vignettes, which centre on Abbas ...