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All articles by Lee Marshall – Page 50
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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 ...
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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 ...
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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 ...
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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 ...
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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 ...
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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, ...
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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 ...
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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 ...
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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 ...
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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 ...
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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 ...
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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 ...
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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. ...