All articles by Lee Marshall – Page 49
-
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 ...
-
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 ...
-
Reviews
Bubble
Dir: Steven Soderbergh.US. 2005. 73mins.Soderbergh goes back tobasics. Not in the tricksy, star-stuffed mode of Full Frontal or Schizopolis:in Bubble the basics are the ones that really matter. A strong storylineand good dramatic structure give this quirky tragic love triangle a grip on theaudience; and a certain edgy eccentricity in ...
-
Reviews
Corpse Bride
Dirs:Mike Johnson, Tim Burton. UK. 2005. 75mins.Thefirst stop-motion feature directed (in part) by Tim Burton - he produced andwrote The Nightmare Before Christmas - Corpse Bride brings theHollywood fantasist's dark and fertile imagination to bear on a hugelyentertaining macabre love story.Likethe two Shrek movies, the film has a fairytale backbone ...
-
Reviews
Proof
Dir:John Madden. US-UK. 2005. 100mins.Anefficient drama, rather than a memorable one, John Madden's Proofbenefits, for once, from its theatrical origins. Madden directed GwynethPaltrow in the main role of David Auburn's stage play at the Donmar Warehousein London, and the familiarity of both director and actress with the materialcomes through in ...
-
Reviews
Casanova
Dir: Lasse Hallstrom. US.2005. 112mins.There's somethingold-fashioned about Lasse Hallstrom's take on the 18-century Venetian rake andwomaniser Giacomo Casanova; but also something disarmingly likeable.It's as if the spirit of Richard Lester, circa The Three Musketeers, had takenpossession of the Swedish director.Hallstrom is helped by ascript fizzing with brio and by the ...
-
ReviewsTakeshis'
Dir/scr: Takeshi Kitano.Jap. 2005. 108mins.By the morning of thepress screening, pretty much everyone on the Lido knew that the “surprise” filmon the Venice competition roster was the new project by Japanese auteur and TVcelebrity Takeshi Kitano. The real surprise, however, came at the end: thebriefest ripple ...
-
Reviews
The Exorcism Of Emily Rose
Dir: Scott Derrickson.US. 2005. 118minsAn interesting but unresolved hybrid of metaphysical horror film andcourtroom drama, The Exorcism Of Emily Rose takes the true story of agirl who died in Germany following an apparent case of demonic possession, andtransplants it to small-town America.Billed as the firstauthentic film treatment of demonic possession, ...
-
Reviews
Brokeback Mountain
Dir:Ang Lee. US. 2005. 133mins.Nonewly-arrived Martian would ever guess that the same person had directed Sense& Sensibility, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and The Hulk.The most impressive thing about Ang Lee's creative take on the multiplepersonality syndrome is the way that each successive experiment feels like thework of a pro that ...
-
Reviews
Good Night, And Good Luck
Dir:George Clooney. US. 2005. 90mins.Anaustere drama of political and journalistic ethics, Good Night, And GoodLuck represents George Clooney's consecration as a serious writer anddirector after his original but uncertain debut, Confessions Of A DangerousMind.Shotin elegant black-and-white with a classic, measured feel to editing and pacingthat matches its patient establishment of ...
-
Reviews
Seven Swords (Qi Jian)
Dir: Tsui Hark. HK-Chi-SKor. 2005. 152mins.Hong Kong auteur TsuiHark's most ambitious film to date, Seven Swords makes for an energeticVenice curtain-raiser after the dreary plod of last year's The Terminal.The director has talked upSeven Swords as the Saving Private Ryan of martial arts films, of areturn to basics and focus ...
-
Reviews
Love + Hate
Dir/scr: Dominic SavageUK. 2005. 86mins.A timely call forracial tolerance set in an unnamed town in northern England with a large Muslimcommunity, Love+Hate will be energised, for UK distributors, by thecurrent debate on the resurgence of Islamic identity among apparentlywell-integrated second- and third-generation immigrants.Ona simpler level, though, this is a classic ...
-
Reviews
Guy X
Dir: Saul Metzstein.UK-Can-Ice. 2005. 94mins.One would love to like afilm that was one of the few survivors from the British film funding crunch inFebruary 2004. But despite some enjoyable satire along the way, Guy X,the second feature from Scottish director Saul Metzstein, never adds up to thesum of its parts.Set ...
-
Reviews
Sleeper (Schlafer)
Dir/scr: BenjaminHeisenberg. Austr-Ger. 2005.100mins.The latest co-productioninvolving dynamic Austrian/German directors' collective Coop99 (Darwin'sNightmare, The Edukators), Sleeper is an austere,thought-provoking post-9/11 drama about a German scientist who allows himselfto be talked into spying on a North African colleague.Perhaps a little too dourand drabbly-shot to reach much of an international audience outside offestivals, ...
-
Reviews
Orlando Vargas
Dir/scr:Juan Pittaluga. Uru-Fr. 2005. 80mins.JuanPittaluga was associate producer and sound man on Jonathan Nossiter's fortunatewine documentary Mondovino, and Nossiter has returned the favour byassociate producing the Uruguayan director's first feature, Orlando Vargas.But although it is has moments of visual poetry and a certain atmosphericforce, this wilfully obscure film, which screened ...
-
Reviews
The Buried Forest (Umorgei)
Dir: Kohei Oguri. Japan.2005. 94mins.Stuck seductively in itsown dreamtime, Japanese arthouse director Kohei Oguri's Directors Fortnightcontender The Buried Forest is a slow waltz of stories and images thatonly reluctantly offers itself up to rational analysis. Set in a rural Japanesevillage that has an a historical, magical realist feel, this demanding ...
-
Reviews
Crying Fist (Jumeoki Unda)
Dir: RyooSeung-wan. South Korea. 2005. 132mins.One of noless than six South Korean features to be invited to Cannes this year, FIPRESCIprize-winner Crying Fist is a better film than its generally downbeatreviews at home might suggest. The latest addition to the boxing genre, CryingFist is more conventional in one way than ...
-
Reviews
Peekaboo! (Cache Cache)
Dir:Yves Caumon. Fr. 2005. 91mins.Amodern rural fable teetering halfway between country-house ghost story andslapstick silent comedy, Peekaboo is a lightweight but originaldivertissement that will amuse Gallic audiences without knocking them sideways.Playing entertainingly with the back-to-nature impulses, and phobias, of theurban bourgeoisie, the film is carried by the wordless central performance ...
-
Reviews
Adam's Apples (Adams Aebler)
Dir/scr:Anders Thomas Jensen. Den. 2005. 92mins.How do you persuade a neo-Nazi to bake an apple pie' Thisis the droll challenge that powers the third feature to be directed byubiquitous Danish screenwriter Anders Thomas Jensen.Adam'sApples isa curious genre mix, part black comedy, part serious good-and-evil moralitytale. Though it does not always ...
-
Reviews
Event Horizon (L'Orizzonte Degli Eventi)
Dir:Daniele Vicari. Italy. 2005. 114mins.It's a nice idea for a film: take Italy's highest mountainoutside the Alps - the Gran Sasso - and come up with a storyline that links thehi-tech world below the mountain (which hosts the Gran Sasso National Laboratory,the world's largest underground laboratory for research into particle ...