All articles by Lee Marshall – Page 58
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News
Roger Dodger
Roger DodgerReviewed by Lee Marshall in VeniceDir: Dylan Kidd. USA. 2002. 106 mins.This dark-veined New York comedy by first-time director Dylan Kidd came as oneof the few pleasant surprises in the opening few days at Venice, where itplayed in critics' week. Roger Dodger is thethinking man's American Pie: thestory of ...
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News
Roger Dodger
Roger DodgerReviewed by Lee Marshall in VeniceDir: Dylan Kidd. USA. 2002. 106 mins.This dark-veined New York comedy by first-time director Dylan Kidd came as oneof the few pleasant surprises in the opening few days at Venice, where itplayed in critics' week. Roger Dodger is thethinking man's American Pie: thestory of ...
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News
Few films can equal mosquitos' buzz
If a festival is only as good as the films it screens,Venice has cause to be more than a little worried. It's day five on the Lido,and so far only the mosquitos, out in record numbers this year, have beenconsistently successful in getting under the skin.Thestart was respectable enough. Frida, ...
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News
Not much to get buzzed up about in Venice
If a festival is only as good as the films it screens,Venice has cause to be more than a little worried. It's day five on the Lido,and so far only the mosquitoes, out in record numbers this year, have beenconsistently successful in getting under the skin.Thestart was respectable enough. Frida, ...
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Reviews
Frida
Dir: Julie Taymor. USA. 2002. 121mins.First the bad news: Julie Taymor's cinematic life of painter Frida Kahlo, which US-based Mexican actress Salma Hayek fought for most of a decade to bring to the screen, is not the masterpiece some had anticipated. The good news, at least for distributor Miramax, is ...
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Reviews
Frida
Dir: Julie Taymor. USA. 2002. 121mins.First the bad news: Julie Taymor's cinematic life of painter Frida Kahlo, which US-based Mexican actress Salma Hayek fought for most of a decade to bring to the screen, is not the masterpiece some had anticipated. The good news, at least for distributor Miramax, is ...
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Reviews
Lilja 4-Ever
Dir: Lukas Moodysson. Sweden. 2002. 109 mins.After a promising debut with Show Me Love (known in some territories as Fucking Amal), Swedish wunderkind Lukas Moodysson entered the major league with his last film, Together, a study of a dysfunctional 1970s commune that combined wry humour with emotional torture. Moodysson seemed ...
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Reviews
Lilja 4-Ever
Dir: Lukas Moodysson. Sweden. 2002. 109 mins.After a promising debut with Show Me Love (known in some territories as Fucking Amal), Swedish wunderkind Lukas Moodysson entered the major league with his last film, Together, a study of a dysfunctional 1970s commune that combined wry humour with emotional torture. Moodysson seemed ...
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Reviews
At The Tips Of Her Fingers (Sur Le Bout Des Doigts)
Dir: Yves Angelo. France. 2002. 83mins.The latest feature from Yves Angelo is a small but compelling story that hinges on an unbalanced mother's jealousy of her talented piano-playing daughter. Although some audiences will feel that At The Tips Of Her Fingers leaves a little too much left unsaid, its careful ...
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Reviews
Ticket To Jerusalem
Dir: Rashid Masharawi. Palestine-Netherlands. 2002. 84 mins.Hyped as the scoop at this year's Taormina Film Festival, Ticket To Jerusalem turns out to be a worthy but rather flat and one-sided fable about a Palestinian projectionist trying to show a film in occupied Jerusalem. With its made-in-Palestine tag and its film-on-film ...
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Reviews
Just A Kiss
Dir: Fisher Stevens. US. 2001. 90mins.This New York ensemble comedy is like a drunk at a party. It thinks it's being witty, kooky and perceptive, but to those of us on the other side of the cranium, it's just slurring its speech. Director Fisher Stevens is a stage, film ...
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Reviews
Happy Times (Xingfu Shiguang)
Dir: Zhang Yimou. China-US. 2000. 96minsThe first film from Edward R Pressman and Terrence Malick's Sunflower Productions, Zhang Yimou 's Happy Times is a Chaplinesque sentimental comedy which has its moments of greatness. Even during the more pedestrian scenes, it is difficult not to be warmed by this winning tale ...
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Reviews
Winter (L'Inverno)
Dir: Nina di Majo. Italy. 2002. 100 mins.A great performance by Valeria Bruni Tedeschi is not enough to save this self-indulgent ensemble piece by young Neapolitan director Nina di Majo. It's a sad truth that most films are lost or saved in the first few minutes, and the opening of ...
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Reviews
Casomai
Dir: Alessandro D'Alatri. Italy. 2002. 116mins.Alessandro D'Alatri is back with a stylish romantic comedy which draws more than any of his previous outings on his other job - directing TV commercials. Set in contemporary Milan, Casomai will appeal to the generation it depicts: urban professional thirtysomethings, caught between work, the ...
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Reviews
The Hour Of Religion (L'Ora di Religione)
Dir: Marco Bellocchio. Italy. 2002. 103mins.The term "auteur" is not much used these days outside of ironic quotation marks. But it is difficult to think of a better description for Italian director Marco Bellocchio, now well into his fourth creative decade. The story of an atheist painter who suddenly discovers ...
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Reviews
Dandy (La Bande Du Drugstore)
Dir: Francois Armanet. France. 2001. 98 mins.Dandy suffers from some of the same superficiality as the posturing, blow-dried youths it portrays. It's difficult to see this film, about Parisian rich kids during the mid to late 1960s, appealing to their modern-day peers in the 16 to 20-year-old age group, who ...
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Reviews
The Best Day Of My Life (Il Piu Bel Giorno Della Mia Vita)
Dir: Cristina Comencini. Italy-UK 2002. 102 mins.Like all of Cristina Comencini's films, The Best Day Of My Life is about relationships: family relationships, sexual relationships and the troubled relationship between the two. A large ensemble piece, it features some of the strongest acting talents on the Italian scene, from veteran ...
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News
Killing Me Softly
Dir: Chen Kaige. US. 2002. 99mins.The real mystery about this unconvincing MGM film noir is what Chen Kaige is doing directing it. Perhaps the lukewarm reception afforded to his most recent Chinese outing, The Emperor And The Assassin, persuaded the director to try his luck with a thoroughly Western film. ...
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Reviews
From Nought To Ten (Dazeroadiec)
Dir: Luciano Ligabue. Italy, 2002. 100mins.Italian rockstar Luciano Ligabue rather showed up the country's army of under- achieving full-time directors when his first film, Radiofreccia, turned out to be both a critical and a commercial success. But hubris - at least on the critical front - has not been long ...
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Reviews
Amnesia
Dir: Gabriele Salvatores. Italy/Spain. 2002. 114mins.Amnesia is the second 'little' film to be fired off by Gabriele Salvatores while he tries to raise the funds to make an adaptation of Amitav Ghosh's novel The Calcutta Chromosome. Teeth (Denti, 2000) was a curious tale of precarious dental and mental health which ...