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All articles by Lee Marshall – Page 40
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Reviews
CSNY: Deja Vu
Dir: Bernard Shakey. US. 2008. 97 mins.'The huddled sixtysomethings look like they're comparing prescriptions on stage' wrote one uncharitable US music critic of Crosby , Stills, Nash and Young's 2006 'Freedom of Speech' tour, which stirred controversy with its outspoken anti-Iraq-war stance. Unless you're a diehard ...
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Reviews
Quiet Chaos (Caos Calmo)
Dir: Antonello Grimaldi. Italy. 2008. 110 mins.'Write about what you know' goes the old dictum - so contemporary Italian scripters mostly write about city-dwelling, media-savvy middle-class people like themselves. But at least in Quiet Chaos our hero, TV executive Pietro Paladini, is doing something more original than having a mid-life ...
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Reviews
Shine A Light
Dir: Martin Scorsese. US. 2008. 123 mins.Raunchy and affectionate, Scorsese's Rolling Stones film, which opened this year's Berlinale, is as much homage as concert film. In bringing the miracle of the Stones' survival to a wider audience, it's the cinematic equivalent of an all-singing, all-dancing Tutankhamun exhibition. And for all ...
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News
Berlin - the critic's preview
The final Competition line-up of the 58th Berlinale confirms the German festival's preference for indie kudos over commercial clout and star power.Once again - and in contrast to last year's Cannes and Venice festivals - few of the US entries are likely to tickle the critics.The one exception looks to ...
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News
Critical mass- Foreign affairs
The US film industry desperately needs the rest of the world. International takings now account for around half of the theatrical revenue of the US majors, and substantially more for most US indie producers or studio specialty divisions. As United Artists CEO Paula Wagner told Mipcom delegates last October, the ...
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News
Critical Mass- the art of the film trailers
Trailers have received scant attention from film critics; Lisa Kernan's peppy 2004 history of the genre, Coming Attractions, is one of the rare exceptions.This is probably because the trailer is not considered a 'pure' genre. Trailers exist for one reason only: to make us go see the film.But they differ ...
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Reviews
Those Three (An Seh)
Dir/Scr: Naghi Nemati. Iran, 2007. 77mins.Naghi Nemati's assured, poetic debut proves that the Iranian talent factory is still up and running. Playing in Dubai after its Locarno festival bow and Toronto slot, this austerely-shot existential odyssey about three soldiers lost in a snowy wasteland seems tailor-made to illustrate Fellini's claim ...
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Reviews
Recycle (Ee'adat Khalk)
Dir/Scr: Mahmoud al-Massad. Jordan/Netherlands/USA/Germany 2007. 80mins.Recycle, a portrait of a disillusioned former mujahideen fighter who makes a living collecting scrap cardboard in Zarqa, his Jordanian hometown, is one of those subtle, taciturn, underplayed documentaries that forces its audience to work at teasing out meanings. It's Errol Morris, in other words, ...
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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
Captain Abu Raed
Dir/Scr: Amin Matalqa. Jordan/USA 2007. 109mins.Only a handful of full-length films have come out of Jordan in the fifty years since the country's first feature, Struggle in Jarash. This makes Captain Abu Raed's commercial poise and polish all the more remarkable: a moving dramatic fable about an elderly airport janitor's ...
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Reviews
Whatever Lola Wants
Dir: Nabil Ayouch, France/Canada. 2007. 110 mins.French-produced, set between New York and Cairo, scored by an Indian-born French composer and directed by a Moroccan, Whatever Lola Wants practices the same enlightened multiculturalism that it so passionately preaches. But although Nabil Ayouch's mid-budget third feature has its heart in the right ...
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News
Dubai's top Muhr award goes to Lebanese drama Under the Bombs
Lebanese cine-verite drama Under the Bombs, and Soneaa Fi Masr (Made in Egypt), French director Karim Goury's first-person story of his search for his Egyptian biological father, picked up the Muhr Gold awards for best narrative feature and best documentary at this year's Dubai International Film Festival, which ran from ...
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News
George Clooney opens Dubai International Film Festival
The fourth edition of the Dubai International Film Festival, which showcases 141 films from 52 countries, kicked off with a glamorous gala presentation of legal thriller Michael Clayton. Speaking at the opening press conference, the film's star George Clooney highlighted the role of the lavishly-funded festival in acting as a ...
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News
Glory days for Middle East
One of the unexpected consequences of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 has been the resurgence of Middle Eastern and North African cinema. Alongside the established players - Egypt, still living off its Bollywood-on-the-Nile reputation, and arthouse darling Iran - countries with little cinematic infrastructure have begun to emerge. ...
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Features
Production - Festival focus - Dubai fest bids for star status
Now in its fourth year, the Dubai International Film Festival (Diff) has become a focal point for the Persian Gulf's growing interest in the film industry as an economic, cultural and PR platform.Festival chairman Abdulhamid Juma points out that until recently, the territory was known in the film world chiefly ...
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Reviews
And The Spring Comes (Li Chun)
Dir: Gu Changwei. China. 2007. 105mins.Former cinematographer Gu Changwei's follow-up to the well-received Peacock, which won a Berlin Silver Bear in 2005, sees the director teaming up once again with screenwriter Li Qiang for another 1980s period piece set in a provincial Chinese town. A funny-sad character study of a ...
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Reviews
Days and Clouds (Giorni e Nuvole)
Dir: Silvio Soldini Italy/Switzerland 2007. 115 mins.The strongest of the five Italian films that received their national premieres at the Rome Film Fest, Days and Clouds (which also played in Toronto and London) is a fine piece of emotional eye-on-the-object filmmaking from homegrown auteur Silvio Soldini and regular screenplay sidekick ...
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Reviews
Noise
Dir/scr: Henry Bean. US. 2007. 91 mins .Noise has an intriguing idea at its core: it centres on a New York resident who begins a one-man guerilla campaign against urban noise pollution. But having hooked us with the tagline, director Henry Bean never seems to be sure quite where to ...
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Reviews
Let's Say (On Dirait Que)
Dir: Francoise Marie, France 2007. 82 mins.A touching, telling documentary about older children's perspectives on the world of grown-ups, Let's Pretend That... has the potential to rival the success of Etre et Avoir (To Be and To Have) - Nicolas Phillibert's widely distributed study of a primary school class in ...
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Reviews
Second Wind (Le Deuxieme Souffle)
Dir: Alain Corneau. France 2007. 148 mins. Second Wind is an ultra-stylised, garishly-tinted retro genre exercise that rambles on for two and a half hours without ever answering the question of why we need another version of Jose Giovanni's gritty novel about honour among thieves, which was inspired by the ...