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All articles by Lee Marshall – Page 47
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Reviews
Southland Tales
Dir/scr: Richard Kelly. US. 2006. 140mins.Maybe SouthlandTales, Richard Kelly's long-awaited follow-up to cult sleeper Donnie Darko,will work as a multimedia project with publishing, music industry and websitetie-ins; it certainly doesn't hang together as a film. Multi-genre film-makingis always a challenge, and this futuristic black comedy musical thriller,larded with facile high-school ...
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Reviews
Shortbus
Dir/scr: John Cameron Mitchell.US.2006. 102mins.A film thatshows three men having no-holds-barred group sex while bawling out The Star-Spangled Banner at the top oftheir lungs is not going to delight the US censors - but John CameronMitchell's follow-up to Hedwig And The AngryInch has plenty to offer the rest of us. ...
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Reviews
Volevo Solo Vivere
Dir: Mimmo Calopresti. It. 2006. 82mins.Mimmo Calopresti'shomage to the almost 6,000 Italian Jews who died in Hitler's death camps, and the 837 who returned alive, Volevo Solo Vivere spins amoving story out of sensitively sifted and edited archive material.The archives used are thoseof the Shoah Foundation's Institute For Visual History ...
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Reviews
Poison Friends (Les Amitis Malefiques)
Dir: Emmanuel Bourdieu. Fr. 2006. 103mins.The theme of young male friendship gets a vigorousthough hardly ground-breaking workout in PoisonFriends, French screenwriter Emmanuel Bourdieu'ssecond directorial outing, which opened Critics' Week at Cannes. Though theprotagonists are already at university, this still qualifies as a coming-of-agemovie, which (not for the first time) shows ...
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Reviews
Hamaca Paraguaya
Dir/scr: Paz Encina. Fr-Arg-Hol-Par-Sp. 2006. 78mins.With a Cannesappearance (in Un Certain Regard) that makes it the first Paraguayan film to screenin the official selection of a major festival - and the only Paraguayan featureshot on 35mm in the last 30 years - HamacaParaguaya will delight those self-flagellatingcineastes who believe, like ...
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Reviews
Anche Libero Va Bene
Dir: Kim Rossi Stuart. It. 2006.104mins.Though it breaks no new ground, Anche Libero VaBene, Italian actor Kim Rossi Stuart'sdirectorial debut, restates the child's eye-view of family strife with suchemotional truth that it feels fresh.The film spends little timetrying to look pretty, and its kitchen-sink aesthetics, together with its deliberately untouristy ...
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Reviews
The Wedding Director (Il Regista Di Matrimoni)
Dir/scr: Marco Bellocchio. It. 2006. 102mins.After the compelling Red Brigade psycho-drama Good Morning, Night, Italian auteurMarco Bellocchio has returned to the hermetic,dreamlike mode of The Hour Of Religionwith his latest effort, in which a leading arthousedirector is talked into shooting a Sicilian wedding video. Occasionally comic,undeniably evocative, at times simmering ...
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Reviews
The Wedding Director (Il Regista Di Matrimoni)
Dir/scr: Marco Bellocchio. It. 2006. 102mins.After his compelling Red Brigade psycho-drama Good Morning, Night, Italian auteurMarco Bellocchio returns to the hermetic, dreamlikemode of The Hour Of Religion with hislatest effort, The Wedding Director, inwhich a leading arthouse film-maker is talked intoshooting a Sicilian matrimonial video.Bellocchio is a profoundly visual director, ...
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Reviews
The Caiman (Il Caimano)
Dir: Nanni Moretti. It-Fr. 2006. 112mins.Part impassioned political expose, part maritaldrama, part meta-cinematic comedy, Nanni Moretti's new film TheCaiman is a curious hybrid that, in most other hands, would feel forced. It'sthe director's intuitive command of tonal shifts - from slapstick to serious,from Allen-esque one-liners to barbed Moore-ish satire - ...
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Reviews
In Between Days
Dir: So Yong Kim. US-Can 2005.83mins.Some of the most interesting films in this year's Berlinale screened in the supposedly off-off Forum sidebar,with In Between Days - a small butmemorable teen romance - a case in point.So Yong Kim's feature is, asthe title hints, a work that takes its time getting ...
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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 ...