All articles by Lee Marshall – Page 50
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Reviews
Habana Blues
Dir:Benito Zambrano. Sp-Cuba-Fr. 2005. 110mins.Spanish director Benito Zambrano scored a surprise hit athome in 1999 with his first film, the intense mother-and-daughter drama Solas.Habana Blues is a very different product - a feelgood slice of raw Havanaenergy which uses its conventional but solid plot as a frame on which to ...
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Reviews
Bittersweet Life (Dal Kom Han In-Saeng)
Dir/scr:Kim Jee-woon South Korea. 2005. 115mins.An ultra-violent actionnoir by Korean director Kim Jee-woon, A Bittersweet Life is a stylishstory of a faithful underworld lieutentant who crosses his boss and ends upfighting for his life against his own gang. As in his previous genre outing,the dark psycho-horror yarn A Tale Of ...
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Reviews
Alice
Dir/scr:Marco Martins. Port-Fr. 2005. 103mins.Anatmospheric, yearning study of loss by first-time Portuguese director MarcoMartins, Alice was one of the strongest films in this year's Quinzainesidebar at Cannes. Sombre and dark in theme and look, this unflinching look ata father's search for his missing three-year-old daughter is not aSaturday-night-at-the-multiplex experience, but ...
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Reviews
Cinema, Aspirins And Vultures (Cinema, Aspirinas E Urubus)
Dir:Marcelo Gomes. Braz. 2005. 99mins.Odd, really, that up to now, nobody has ever thought ofmaking a film about a travelling aspirin salesman in north-eastern Brazil inthe early 1940s. First-time director Marcelo Gomes has not only come up withthe definitive movie on the subject - he also provided us with one ...
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Reviews
The Death Of Mr Lazarescu (Moartea Domnului Lazarescu)
Dir: Cristi Puiu. Rom.2005. 154mins.It's got to be one of the hardest sells there is: atwo-and-a-half-hour film about an incontinent old man in Bucharest who is takenill one evening, calls an ambulance, and is shuttled from hospital to hospitalin search of a diagnosis, a scan, and a free bed.But The ...
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Reviews
Quo Vadis, Baby'
Dir: Gabriele Salvatores.It. 2005. 98mins.Gabriele Salvatores has taken a step back from thedramatic intensity of I'm Not Scared with Quo Vadis, Baby', arambling contemporary noir set in Bologna.Based on the same-name novelby Grazia Verasani, the film is worth a look chiefly for its atmospheric HDcinematography and for its original private ...
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Reviews
Chromophobia
Dir/scr:Martha Fiennes. UK-Fr. 2005. 138mins.The second film by Martha Fiennes, sister of Ralph andJoseph, is a multi-linear choral drama that aims to tell contemporary Britainlike it is. But although there is some sophisticated writing here, and some enjoyableperformances from the mostly British ensemble cast, Fiennes' attempt to do akind of ...
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Reviews
Quando Sei Nato Non Puoi Piu Nasconderti (Once You're Born You Can No Longer Hide)
Dir Marco Tullio Giordana.Italy/UK/Fr. 2005. 118 mins The latest film by The Best of Youth director Marco Tullio Giordana is, like Gianni Amelio's Lamerica, a portrait of an Italy that is trying to get to grips with its newstatus as a multicultural society, whose immigrant population has increasedthirty-fold since 1970. ...
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Reviews
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang
Dir Shane Black, US. 2005. 103 mins.A hugely entertaining mix of film noir, comic buddy movie andmetacinematic romp, Kiss KissBang Bang marks the directing debut of one-time wunderkind scripter Shane Black (LethalWeapon, The Long Kiss Goodnight), who has been off the radar for the best partof a decade. From ...
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Reviews
Election (Hak Seh Wui)
Director Johnnie To Hong Kong. 2005. 100 mins.Election sets out to do for the Hong Kong Triads what TheGodfather did for the New York Italian mafia: enter into the mindset of aclose-knit criminal and social brotherhood, and set its members' respect for ritualand tradition against the bloody brutality of their ...
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Reviews
Last Days
Dir/scr/ed: Gus Van Sant. US. 2005. 96minsWe sort of suspected that Gus Van Sant would not pull offanother Elephant: he's one of those directors that needs a littlebreathing space between masterpieces. But Last Days, Van Sant's newfilm, which is inspired (in the words of the final disclaimer) "in part... bythe ...
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Reviews
The Bow (Hwal)
Dir/scr/ed:Kim Ki-duk. S Kor-Jap. 2005. 90mins.South Korean festival favourite Kim Ki-duk has two modes:the island film (The Isle; Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter' And Spring),and the urban film (Bad Guy; Samaria; 3-Iron). It lookedfor a while as if his city tales were a progression from the fishhooks andBuddhist isolation of his ...
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Reviews
The Manual Of Love (Manuale D'Amore)
Dir: Giovanni Veronesi.It. 2005. 91mins.The big Italian successstory of 2005 so far, The Manual Of Love has taken over $15m in its fourweeks on release (almost double the total haul of Hitch). An episodic rom-comin the style of Love, Actually, the film is a cleverly populist littlenumber.Its all-star cast seems ...
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Reviews
Adam and Paul
Dir:Lenny Abrahamson. Ire. 2005. 86mins.Imaginea full-length Laurel and Hardy film set in Dublin's junkie netherworld andscripted by the bastard son of Samuel Beckett. If you like the sound of that,then you'll love Adam and Paul, Irish commercials director LennyAbrahamson's first feature.Abrahamsondoes a grand job, but it's scriptwriter and co-star Mark ...
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Reviews
Adam and Paul
Dir:Lenny Abrahamson. Ire. 2005. 8s6mins.Imaginea full-length Laurel and Hardy film set in Dublin's junkie netherworld andscripted by the bastard son of Samuel Beckett. If you like the sound of that,then you'll love Adam & Paul, Irish commercials director LennyAbrahamson's first feature.Abrahamsondoes a grand job, but it's scriptwriter and co-star Mark ...
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Reviews
Sacred Heart (Cuore Sacro)
Dir: Ferzan Ozpetek. Italy. 2005. 117 minsFerzan Ozpetek serves upa cringingly sentimental tale of managerial altruism for the multiplexgeneration: and yet another great white hope of Italian cinema falls by thewayside. The Turkish-born, Italian-trained Ozpetek is, alongside fellow Medusaregular Gabriele Muccino, the director who most ably occupies the middle-groundbetween commercial ...
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Reviews
Stranger (Ono)
Dir:Malgosia Szumowska. Ger-Pol. 2005. 98mins.Thesecond full-length feature by Polish film-maker Malgosia Szumowska, Strangeris infused with the spirit of Kieslowski. But this slow, measured film about anunmarried girl who decides to go ahead with an unplanned pregnancy does notfeel derivative.Unsentimental,emotionally intelligent, it gets under the skin, adding up to more than ...
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Reviews
Night Watch (Nochnoy Dozor)
Dir: Timur Bekmambetov.Russia. 2004. 114mins.One of the mostimpressive things about Night Watch is the fact that such a stylish andtechnically polished fantasy movie - which can teach Hollywood a trick or twoabout squeezing a great look out of a tight budget - is it is 100% made inRussia. But, as ...
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Reviews
Mad Hot Ballroom
Dir: Marilyn Agrelo. US.2005. 114mins.An upbeat, feelgooddocumentary about kids from three New York public elementary schools whocompete in a citywide ballroom dancing competition, Mad Hot Ballroom isthis year's Spellbound, if with a less an ironic take on its subjectsthan the spelling-bee documentary and gutsier motivational verve.One of the hot tickets ...
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Reviews
Peacock (Kong Que)
Dir: Gu Changwei China.2005. 161mins.If further proof wereneeded of the technical and emotional maturity of the New Chinese cinema, then Peacocksupplies it. The story of three siblings in a provincial Chinese town at thetail end of the Cultural Revolution, this sensitive, deceptively simple filmtakes a while to establish its authority, ...