All articles by Lee Marshall – Page 54
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Reviews
The Card Player (Il Cartaio)
Dir: Dario Argento. Italy. 2003. 107mins.Italian horror-maestro Dario Argento will alienate many of his loyal cult followers with this surprisingly conventional ripper-flick, which revolves around a serial killer's challenge to police investigators to play online video-poker if they want to save the life of his trussed and webcammed victims. But ...
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Reviews
Details (Detaljer)
Dir: Kristian Petri. Sweden. 2003. 112mins.Although this theatrical adaptation is very much a minority sport, it did not quite deserve to drop out of sight at the Swedish box office in the two weeks after its October 10 release. Its potential has been confirmed at MIFED, where the film attracted ...
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News
European Film Awards adopt English accent
While no film looks likely to sweep the board at this weekend's European Film Awards (Dec 6), a winner has already emerged - the English language. Out of four non-UK nominees for best European film, three are English-language productions. The exception ' Wolfgang Becker's Good Bye, Lenin! ' partly makes ...
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Reviews
Caterina In The City (Caterina Va In Citta)
Dir: Paolo Virzi. Italy. 2003. 106mins.This contemporary commedia all'italiana squeezes some enjoyable mileage out of the old "hick in the big city" trope, in its tale of a 13-year-old girl who moves to Rome from the provinces, and is immediately caught up in the factional politics of her new high ...
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Reviews
The Return Of Cagliostro
Dir: Daniele Cipri and Franco Maresco. Italy. 2003. 100 mins.The films of Sicilian directing duo Daniele Cipri and Franco Maresco are an acquired taste. If you find physical deformities, speech defects and farting priests funny, you'll love them. The present reviewer was therefore doubled up in fits of laughter through ...
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Reviews
Osama
Dir: Siddiq Barmak. Afghanistan, Japan, Ireland. 2003. 82 mins.The striking title is not the only virtue of this harrowing slice of cinema, which is the first feature film shot in Afghanistan by an Afghan director since the fall of the Taliban. In a hundred years of cinema-producing history, Afghanistan has ...
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Reviews
Singing Behind The Screens (Cantando Dietro I Paraventi)
Dir: Ermanno Olmi. Italy. 2003. 100 mins.Years ago, David Thomson wrote "A question mark hangs over Ermanno Olmi, as if he needed some gust of passion or surrealism to free him from the aspirations of realism". This gust began to blow in Olmi's last film, The Profession Of Arms, and ...
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Reviews
Les Sentiments
Dir: Noemi Lvovsky. France. 2003. 95mins.French director Noemie Lvovsky came to notice with two small autobiographical features set at different stages in the life of four girls. The second, Life Doesn't Scare Me (La Vie Ne Me Fait Pas Peur, 1999) earned Lvovsky a slew of festival prizes, including a ...
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Reviews
Travellers & Magicians
Dir: Khyentse Norbu. Bhutan. 2003. 105 mins.Travellers & Magicians is the first feature film to be shot entirely within the secret and reclusive Kingdom of Bhutan. Like Khyentse Norbu's debut, The Cup, this magic realist fable is being handled by UK-based sales company HanWay. But buyers may find it less ...
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Reviews
Travellers & Magicians
Dir: Khyentse Norbu. Bhutan. 2003. 105 mins.Travellers & Magicians is the first feature film to be shot entirely within the secret and reclusive Kingdom of Bhutan. Like Khyentse Norbu's debut, The Cup, this magic realist fable is being handled by UK-based sales company HanWay. But buyers may find it less ...
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Reviews
The Miracle (Il Miracolo)
Dir: Edoardo Winspeare. Italy. 2003. 89mins.Released on a limited Milan and Rome run the day after its Venice festival competition screening, Edoardo Winspeare's The Miracle racked up an impressive screen average then second only to The Hulk. This is the third film from the talented young southern Italian director, whose ...
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Reviews
Raja
Dir: Jacques Doillon. France-Morocco. 2003. 112mins.The latest excursion by the director of Ponette - which scooped a Venice Best Actress prize in 1996 for underage star Victoire Thivisol - is a prickly and at times inaccessible meditation on the nature of colonial and sexual power in present-day Morocco. Though its ...
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Reviews
The Five Obstructions (De Fem Benspaend)
Dir: Lars von Trier, Jorgen Leth. Denmark. 2003. 91 mins.This two hander by the Great Dane, Lars Von Trier, and his older colleague and compatriot Jorgen Leth, is one of the most thought-provoking slices of cinema we are likely to see this year. It is in many ways a more ...
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Reviews
21 Grams
Dir: Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu. USA. 2003. 124 mins.Emotionally draining but formally brilliant, the long-awaited second feature by Mexican director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu is for those of us who are passionate about cinema, and who don't mind taking a few body blows in a dark room in the process. The high ...
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News
Goodmorning, Night (Buongiorno, Notte)
Dir: Marco Bellocchio. Italy. 2003. 105 mins.Marco Bellocchio's passionate but controlled psychological study of Red Brigade terrorism is not the masterpiece that some Italian critics would claim; nor was Bellocchio 'robbed' of the Golden Lion at this year's Venice festival, which went to a better film, Andrey Zvyagintsev's The Return. ...
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Reviews
Goodmorning, Night (Buongiorno, Notte)
Dir: Marco Bellocchio. Italy. 2003. 105 mins.Marco Bellocchio's passionate but controlled psychological study of Red Brigade terrorism is not the masterpiece that some Italian critics would claim; nor was Bellocchio 'robbed' of the Golden Lion at this year's Venice festival, which went to a better film, Andrey Zvyagintsev's The Return. ...
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News
Venice festival sees Return to form
The main competition jury managed to shirkoff local pressure and pre-release publicity for Marco Bellocchio'slocal favourite Buongiorno, Notte and indoing so proved wrong detractors who have warned that Venice is becoming parochial. Alerted to a lesserprize than the Golden Lion, Bellocchio returned to Rome to work off his anger.It would ...
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News
Venice festival shakes off some of its detractors
The main competition jury managed to shirkoff local pressure and pre-release publicity for Marco Bellocchio'slocal favourite Buongiorno, Notte and indoing so proved wrong detractors who have warned that Venice is becoming parochial. Alerted to a lesserprize than the Golden Lion, Bellocchio returned to Rome to work off his anger. Itwould ...
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News
Venice festival is classy Toronto prequel
The main competition jury managed to shirkoff local pressure and pre-release publicity for Marco Bellocchio'slocal favourite Buongiorno, Notte and indoing so proved wrong detractors who have warned that Venice is becoming parochial. Alerted to a lesserprize than the Golden Lion, Bellocchio returned to Rome to work off his anger.It would ...
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Reviews
Code 46
Dir: Michael Winterbottom. UK. 2003. 92 mins.The latest product to leave the non-stop assembly line of Michael Winterbottom and Revolution Films is that rarest of creatures, the all-British sci-fi movie. Code 46 is set in 'the near future', and its evocation of this desertified world, where genetic engineering and constant ...