All articles by David D'Arcy – Page 19
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Reviews
Feast Of Love
Dir. Robert Benton, US 2007. 102 mins.Feast of Love weaves its way through the frustrated loves of couples in Portland Oregon who don't have much else to do besides reflect on what they have won and lost in romance. Robert Benton's adaptation of Charles Baxter's 2000 novel coats the original ...
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Reviews
Man From Plains
Dir. Jonathan Demme. US 2007. 125 mins.Man from Plains follows the former US president Jimmy Carter from his sprawling family peanut farm in southern Georgia to a national book tour on which the earnest man who brokered the Camp David Accords defends his controversial view that Israel imposes rules akin ...
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Reviews
The Kingdom
Dir. Peter Berg. US, 110 mins.The Kingdom , about terror against Americans in Saudi Arabia, will confirm some of the worst American prejudices about the Middle East - that most Arabs there hate the US, and that America could eliminate threats there if bureaucrats got out of the way and ...
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Reviews
New York City Serenade
Dir. Frank Whaley. US 2007. 103 mins.The title of New York City Serenade and an opening aerial skyline shot would lead you to believe that the film is an ode to New York . It's really an ode to friendship with a friend who gets you to the wrong places ...
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Reviews
Captain Mike Across America
Dir: Michael Moore. US. 97 mins.Move over, Meatloaf. Michael Moore is a rock star, or at least he was for a short season, in an autumn 2004 US tour to exhort non-voting young Americans to register and cast ballots for the Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry. Captain Mike Across America ...
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Reviews
Before the Devil Knows You're Dead
Dir: Sidney Lumet, 2007 , US , 123mins.Sidney Lumet is back on familiar territory with this caper gone awry. This time it's a plot by two desperate adult brothers, Andy and Hank (Philip Seymour Hoffman and Ethan Hawke), to rob their parents' suburban jewellery store, which ends up killing their ...
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Reviews
The Nanny Diaries
Dir. Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini, US, 105 minutes, colour, 35 mm.In The Nanny Diaries, adapted from the best-selling picaresque roman a clef about tending to the offspring of New York's elite, Scarlett Johansson plays a would-be anthropology student immersed in a foreign culture as a nanny to a ...
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Reviews
Death At A Funeral
Dir. Frank Oz. UK. 2007. 90mins.Death At A Funeral reprises the old formula of assembling a raucous ensemble comedy from the mourners at a respectable upper middle-class funeral that comes unwound. Dysfunction becomes delirium, fuelled here by hallucinogens and the dead man's gay lover, a dwarf. The bawdy farce then ...
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Reviews
Hairspray
Dir. Adam Shankman. US. 107mins.As an adaptation of an adaptation, Hairspray beats the odds against turning a musical based on a film into a credible movie, with a punchy cast that delivers the musical numbers without sacrificing the comedy. The score also ups the ante with new numbers added to ...
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Reviews
Evening
Dir. Lajos Koltai. US. 2007. 117mins.In Evening, director Lajos Koltai makes his English-language feature debut with an earnest adaptation of Susan Minot's successful novel about a dying woman looking back at the love of her youth. With a dream-team cast of actresses - Vanessa Redgrave, Clare Danes, Meryl Streep, Natascha ...
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Reviews
Georgia Rule
Dir: Garry Marshall. US. 2007. 111mins.Georgia Rule is a comedy about women that comes with stars and a mighty promise -that honesty and humor can heal the most bitter rifts that fray mother-daughter bonds over three generations. The film, written and directed by men, aims at a trans-generational market of ...
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Reviews
We Are Together (Thina Simunye)
Dir. Paul Taylor. UK. 2006. 86minsThe young singers in We Are Together (Thina Simunye) are some of the estimated 1.2m orphans in South Africa today, most of whom lost their parents to AIDS-related illnesses. The motivational documentary by Paul Taylor observed them singing and struggling over three years. The themes ...
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Reviews
Watching The Detectives
Dir: Paul Soter. US. 2007. 91mins. Watching The Detectives, Paul Soter's feature debut, is intended to be a cinephile's movie, a geek cinephile's movie, where the hapless proprietor of video store and slacker haven is seduced by a femme fatale who walks in off the street. The tale than unfolds ...
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Reviews
The Air I Breathe
Dir: Jieho Lee. US. 2007. 97mins.In his debut feature, The Air I Breathe, Jieho Lee turns a Chinese proverb into a story that explores the interlocking fates of four characters, all of whom all are trapped in the grip, literally, of a violent gangster boss called Fingers. The gangster drama ...
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Reviews
The Grand
Dir: Zak Penn. US. 2006. 95minsIf you hesitated to believe that gambling casinos were a magnet for misfits, The Grand, an improvised ensemble comedy set at a high-stakes poker tournament in Las Vegas, will confirm that impression. Zak Penn's new film is a high-stakes vaudeville Love Boat with more stars ...
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Reviews
Beyond Belief
Dir: Beth Murphy. US. 2007. 98mins.Beyond Belief follows two 9/11 widows outside Boston as they rebuild their families. The women move beyond grief and beyond their own experience to start a charity to help the thousands of Afghan women whose hardships from decades of war and discrimination is barely know ...