Latest – Page 67
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Reviews
Our Mother (Kabei)
Dir: Yoji Yamada. Japan 2007. 132 minsIn Kabei - Our Mother, Yamada's 80th film to date, the veteran Japanese director offers a sweet, gentle, weepy recollection of Japan on the eve of the Second World War (1940-41), based on the autobiographical story by Teruyo Nogami.An out-and-out melodrama, the picture tells ...
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Reviews
Night and Day (Bam gua Nat)
Dir: Hong Sangsoo, S. Korea, 2008. 147mins.Light, charming but not terribly engaging, and as French as any Korean film is ever going to get, Hong Sangsoo's full-on tribute to the New Wave follows Korean expatriates around the City Of Lights. While brevity has never been one of Hong's particular talents, ...
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Reviews
Cherry Blossoms (Kirschblüten - Hanami)
Dir: Doris Dorrie, Germany, 2008, 127minsDoris Dorrie's bittersweet film is a story of mourning and the futility of trying to recover something lost. A Bavarian husband who is nearing retirement loses his wife suddenly, and flies to Japan to visit sites that she never had a chance to see while ...
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Reviews
Sparrow (Man Jeuk)
Dir: Johnnie To. Hong Kong. 2008. 87 mins.The spirit of Jacques Demy lives on in Hong Kong in prolific genre auteur Johnnie To's latest offering. Some of the scenes in this gentle romantic pickpocketing yarn are pure cinematic pleasure, but in the end the plot and the characters are too ...
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Reviews
Good Man Dog
Dir: Singing Chen. Taiwan, 2007. 118 mins.Singing Chen's bleak but richly-detailed portrait of contemporary Taiwan has elicited praise for its artistic ambitions but will do well to move past the festival world and into art-house release.Her second feature boast four separate stories, each playing out separately with occasional overlap until ...
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Reviews
Hey Hey It's Esther Blueburger (2007)
Dir: Cathy Randall. Australia, 2008. 103minsThis charming, highly-accomplished first feature will gladden the hearts of parents everywhere looking for a film to watch with their pre-teens, especially girls. Directed by 35-year-old South-African-born newcomer Cathy Randall, who has been working in Australia for some years, this coming-of-age story of a 13-year-old ...
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Reviews
Son of a Lion
Dir: Benjamin Gilmour. Australia/Pakistan. 2007. 92mins.Childrens' exposure to gun culture is fast becoming one of the fail-safe themes of world cinema, but we haven't yet seen it in quite the context presented by the inventive Pakistan-set drama Son Of A Lion.Benjamin Gilmour's no-frills DV feature, co-written with collaborators from the ...
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Reviews
The Black Balloon (2007)
Dir: Elissa Down Aust. 2007, 97 minsThe Black Balloon is notable for its graphic, not-for-the-squeamish depiction of adult autism. But, more importantly for its box office potential, the youth-oriented movie introduces a glowing young Australian actress with true star potential - the international model Gemma Ward. Plus there's a showy ...
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Reviews
In Love We Trust (Zuo You)
Dir: Wang Xiaoshuai. China, 2008. 115 mins.With In Love We Trust, Sixth Generation director Wang Xiaoshuai presents what can only be described as natural tearjerker material - leukaemia, divorce, infidelity - in the milieu of the Chinese middle class and delivers an uneven picture which attempts the impossible and fails ...
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Reviews
Wonderful Town
Dir: Aditya Assarat. Thailand, 2007. 92 minsAditya Assarat's first feature, a tragic, melancholy, minimalist love story taking place in what was once a Thai beach resort before the 2004 tsunami hit, offers a poignant portrait of a place grappling with the loss of its main source of income amid the ...
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Reviews
Nerakhoon (The Betrayal)
Dir: Ellen Kuras and Thavisouk Phrasavath, US, 2008, 87mins.Even by the standards of independent documentaries, Ellen Kuras's Nerakhoon is the ne plus ultra of ultra-marathons. For her directorial debut, the cinematographer spent 23 years with the family of her co-director, Thavisook Phrasavath (Tavi), as Laotions settled in New York ...
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Reviews
Loins of Punjab Presents
Dir: Manish Acharya India/USA 2007. 88mins.A mostly hilarious screwball comedy set around a New York talent contest for expat Indians - or 'desis' - Loins of Punjab Presents has an infectious energy that makes up for the occasional lapse into self-indulgent cliche. With its wacky ensemble cast and its affectionately ...
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Reviews
Crows: Episode 0 (Kurozu 0)
Dir. Takashi Miike. Japan, 2007. 120 min. What is there left to say about Takashi Miike that hasn't been said yet, in ample detail and often in learned studies' He is, without any doubt, the most prolific filmmaker around, barely 47-years-old and credited with 85 feature films. Only ...
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Reviews
Cargo 200 (Gruz 200)
Dir: Alexey Balabanov, Russia 2007, 86minsAlexey Balabanov's eleventh feature is one of his bleakest. Set in provincial Russia in 1984 as the USSR enters its death throes, it portrays a society that is sickly, violent and cynical. The title refers to the name given to corpses of Russian soldiers being ...
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Reviews
Before The Rains
Dir: Santosh Sivan US/India. 2007. 98minsA bittersweet journey from blinkered loyalty to rueful independence, Before The Rains captures the crumbling of British rule in 1930s India through a doomed love affair and its tragic consequences. In its more obvious moments it strays perilously close to the conventions of romantic fiction ...
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Reviews
Blood Brothers (Tian Tang Kou)
Dir: Alexi Tan, Taiwan/China/Hong Kong, 2007. 95minsThe closing film at the Venice film festival, Blood Brothers is a dark gangster fable set in 1930s Shanghai - and a stylish but hollow debut for John Woo protege Alexi Tan. For all the film's lush cinematography, spot-on period detail and all-star Asian ...
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Reviews
Useless (Wu Yong)
Dir. Jia Zhang-Ke. China , 2007. 84mins.Perennial Venice favourite Jia Zhang-Ke is back with a documentary whose title could invite all manner of cheap shots. But it also happens to be the name of a new, and highly successful, Chinese fashion brand. The second part in a trilogy dedicated to ...
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Reviews
The Sun Also Rises (Taiyang zhaochang shengqi)
Dir. Jiang Wen. China , 2007. 116 min . Five years in preparation and three years in the making, Jiang Wen's explosively energetic third feature film is a feast for the eyes and a delight for the ears. But at the same time this may prove a perplexing, often infuriating ...
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Reviews
Help Me Eros (2007)
Dir. Lee Kang Sheng. Taiwan , 2007. 103minsBest known as Tsai Ming Liang's regular lead actor, Lee Kang Sheng's second feature film will cater mainly for the regular followers of Tsai's special brand of cinema - slow, minimalist, obsessive and heavily reliant on such compulsive fixations as sex and food, ...