All articles by Lee Marshall – Page 48
-
Reviews
All The Invisible Children
Dirs: Mehdi Charef, Emir Kusturica, Spike Lee, KatiaLund, Jordan and Ridley Scott, Stefano Veneruso, John Woo. It. 2005. 131mins.Portmanteau films arelike chocolate assortments: pretty boring once all the coffee creams have gone.The latest multi-director outing to test international audiences' limitedappetite for the genre, All The Invisible Children is a worthy ...
-
Reviews
Shadowboxer
DirLee Daniels. US. 2005. 93mins.LeeDaniels made history as the first stand-alone black producer of anOscar-winning film, when Halle Berry lifted the Best Actress prize for Monster'sBall in 2002. It's a shame then that the talented Daniels chose Shadowboxerfor his directorial debut: it's doubtful whether even the most experiencedauteur could have ...
-
Reviews
Dam Street (Hong yan)
Dir: Li Yu. Chi-Fr. 1995.93mins.A persuasive, lyricalstudy of smalltown life in rural China in the 1980s and 1990s, Dam Street fullyconfirms the promise of director Li Yu's debut feature, Fish And Elephant.Like that first film, Dam Street deals with women's issues - but not ina narrow or dogmatic way. There ...
-
Reviews
Enlightened By Fire (Iluminados Por El Fuego)
Dir:Tristan Bauer. Arg. 2005. 100mins.Sometimesa film has more value as a national pain relief than as a quality piece ofcinema. Such is certainly the case with Enlightened By Fire, the firstArgentine commercial film to take on the subject of the Falklands/Malvinas war,and to deal with the traumas of the young ...
-
Reviews
Summer In Berlin (Sommer Vorm Balkon)
Dir: Andreas Dresen.Germany 2005. 112mins.Indie director AndreasDresen is the German counterpart of Robert Guediguian: a regional maverickwithin a national system, whose drama-tinged comedies, or comedy-tinged dramas,are all set in the milieu he knows best. Dresen's preferred location is theformer East Germany, his preferred subject those who are struggling in thedepressed ...
-
Reviews
Not Here To Be Loved (Je Ne Suis Pas La Pour Etre Aime)
Dir: Stephane Brize. Fr.2005. 95mins.French director StephaneBrize's second feature after Hometown Blues (1999), Not Here To BeLoved is more a slow, intimate study of two repressed characters than astraightforward romantic comedy. The film's measured dosing of humour andpassion takes its cue from the tango music, which is central to the ...
-
Reviews
Manslaughter (Drabet)
Dir:Per Fly. Den. 2005. 105mins.Adark, controlled moral tragedy, Manslaughter is even more austere, evenmore relentless in its probings of the consequences of our wrong turns, thanPer Fly's previous film, Inheritance. Jesper Christensen, most recentlyseen in The Interpreter, delivers an outstanding performance as anacademic proponent of class resistance forced to live ...
-
Reviews
El Aura
Dir/scr: Fabian Belinsky.Arg-Sp. 2005. 129mins.A successful debut filmis always a difficult act to follow. Argentine director Fabian Bielinsky dealswith the pressure by giving us what might be described as the anti Nine Queensin his follow-up feature, El Aura. That multi-territory hit, whichspawned the US remake Criminal, was as sharp as ...
-
Reviews
Obaba
Dir: Montxo Armendariz.Sp-Ger. 2005. 109mins.There are strange thingsgoing on down in Obaba, a tale of isolated village life set in thePyrenean hinterland of San Sebastian - which is why, presumably, it was chosento open the 53rd edition of Spain's A-list film festival.But although it got a warmreaction from the gala ...
-
Reviews
Fragile (Fragiles)
Dir: Jaume Balaguero.Sp-UK. 2005. 98mins.Fragile's the word.Spanish horror specialist Jaume Balaguero fails to impress with his follow-upto the psycho-thriller Darkness, which grossed over $22m at the US boxoffice, despite downbeat reviews. A stale spooky-hospital yarn, Fragilesuffers from poor suspense management and the gelid obnoxiousness of thecentral nurse character, played by ...
-
Reviews
Initial D (Taumanchi D)
Dirs: Andrew Lau, AlanMak. HK. 2005. 107mins.After the InfernalAffairs trilogy, directing duo Andrew Lau and Alan Mak seem to have theMidas touch. This year's summer blockbuster in Hong Kong, Initial D nudged a$5m gross at home - more than War Of The Worlds and Batman Beginsput together.Loosely working from ShiuchiShigeno's ...
-
Reviews
Perhaps Love (Ruguo Ai)
Dir: Peter Ho-sun Chan.HK-Ch-Malay. 2005. 108mins.The seeming Chineseanswer to Moulin Rouge, Perhaps Love is a lavish butinsubstantial musical love story with pan-Asian cinema and music stars Zhou Xun(Suzhou River, The Little Chinese Seamstress) and TakeshiKaneshiro (Chungking Express, House Of Flying Daggers) in theNicole and Ewan roles.It's an odd mix: arthouse ...
-
Reviews
Don't Tell
Dir:Cristina Comencini. It-UK-Sp-Fr. 2005. 120mins.Thestrongest of the three Italian films in competition at Venice this year, Don'tTell will nevertheless struggle to extend worthy local director CristinaComenicini's limited international appeal.GiovannaMezzogiorno's gritty performance as a soon-to-be-mother forced to deal for thefirst time with the ghosts of child abuse in her childhood netted ...
-
Reviews
Sympathy For Lady Vengeance
Dir: Park Chan-wook. SKor. 2005. 113mins.Few contemporarydirectors are able to mix genres and moods as confidently as Park Chan-wook -and get away with it. The third and final part of the Korean director'sJacobean revenge trilogy, after Sympathy For Mr Vengeance and Oldboy,is the most daring of the lot in the ...
-
Reviews
Edmond
Dir: Stuart Gordon. US.2005. 81mins.You never know how aDavid Mamet adaptation is going to turn out. The best of the last 10 years, Oleanna,was the one that stayed closest to its stage original in the college settingand the claustrophobic one-to-one stand-off of the two main characters.William H Macy starred thereand ...
-
Reviews
Mary
Dir: Abel Ferrara.It-Fr-US. 2005. 83mins.Watching Abel Ferrara's Maryis like watching an odd religious ritual taking place in a language we onlyhalf understand. We recognise the power of the ceremony, and the commitment ofthose involved - but as for what the hell is going on, and what it all means,and whether ...
-
News
...as 'American' Venice wraps on a high
MostLido regulars agreed that it was the strongest Venice in years, if one lookedbeyond the merely average competition to consider the festival as a whole. But it was also one of the most front-loaded festivalsanyone could remember. In the first four days, Ang Lee, George Clooney and ParkChan-wook led the ...
-
Reviews
Elizabethtown
Dir/scr:Cameron Crowe. US. 2005. 138mins.Aromantic comedy for the MTV generation with some of that old Kentucky magicthrown in for the oldies, Elizabethtown illustrates the dangers of goingstraight for the feelgood jugular. Feelgood has to be earned. So do the last 48minutes of a 138-minute film. And the overlong Elizabethtown has ...
-
Reviews
Elizabethtown
Dir/scr:Cameron Crowe. US. 2005. 138mins.Aromantic comedy for the MTV generation with some of that old Kentucky magicthrown in for the oldies, Elizabethtown illustrates the dangers of goingstraight for the feelgood jugular. Feelgood has to be earned. So do the last 48minutes of a 138-minute film. And the overlong Elizabethtown has ...
-
Reviews
Romance & Cigarettes
Dir/scr:John Turturro. US. 2005. 106mins.After the first song-and-dance number of John Turturro'sstar-peppered blue collar musical, the Venice press corps broke into loud,spontaneous applause. When the second ended, there was a more subdued ripple.By the time the third came along, the excitement had died down, and thegood-natured, foot-tapping, flawed nature of ...