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This is a topical comedy, not so much a laughing out loud comedy, but one that provides a fairly constant smile. |
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If you are besotted by UFOs, Aliens and believe firmly in Roswell, don’t see this film – unless you are eager to bypass the evidence and construct a conspiracy theory about what the American government did and didn’t do there and what they want and don’t want us to know. |
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Scripture is often quoted as saying that "money is the root of all evil". That is not quite exact. The actual quotation is that "the love of money is the root of all evil". That is certainly the text for this film. It is a film about gambling, about gambling addiction. This reviewer had to react carefully as gambling is not one of his favourite pastimes. |
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Audiences don't get much opportunity to see films from South Africa. Even the two films made for international audiences on the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, John Boorman's In My Country (with Juliet Binoche and Samuel L. Jackson) and Tom Hooper's Red Dust (with Hilary Swank and Chiwitel Eijiofor) did not receive cinema release in the UK. Nor did Drum (2004), an award-winning film about the stands of the magazine Drum in the 1950s and its reporting of atrocities. South African directors have made a number of films about the aftermath of the end of apartheid and the troubles with young people in Cape Town and Johannesburg. |
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There is a lot going for this unusual tale about a transsexual man becoming a woman. |
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This may not be your glass of Dom Perignon (there is more of that around in this film than cups of tea, except for the poor actors who live in lower class digs, living in hope of getting and audition and a part). |
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Plenty of sleep, very little (if any) science! A credit is offered at the end of the film to Rhys Ifans for the title. Director Michel Gondry and Ifans had worked together on the offbeat comedy (which did have a lot of science), Human Nature. |
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Ryna was directed by Ruxandra Zedine who studied in Switzerland, in New York as well as in Prague. She directed a number of short films and this film, made in her late twenties, is her directorial feature debut. |
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In the 1970s, Dennis Potter created a series for British television where the characters used popular songs to express their inner thoughts and feelings: Pennies from Heaven. He followed it up with the celebrated The Singing Detective. |
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A very pleasant surprise. |
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During 2005, a surprise box-office success around the world was Scott Derrickson’s The Exorcism of Emily Rose, around $80,000,000 in the US alone. |
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Once upon a time, the Pink Panther was a fabulous jewel. When it was stolen in the very popular film of 1963, the French detective brought in to solve the mystery was the accident-prone, vowel-mumbling Inspector Clouseau. |
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Peter Cattaneo reached a career peak with the unexpected worldwide success of The Full Monty in 1997. His follow up film, the prison comedy, Lucky Break, was only moderately successful. Now he has gone to Australia to direct the family film, Opal Dream, based on a story by Ben Rice, who also worked on the screenplay. |
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A fine New Zealand film about Islanders and their families living in the Mount Rosskill suburb of Auckland. |
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Love + Hate was written and directed by Dominic Savage. It is a BBC Films production. Savage has made quite a number of documentaries as well as music videos. His main work prior to this film was for television and this is clearly seen in the style of Love + Hate. |
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Claude Chabrol is, perhaps, the longest surviving French director whose films are always welcomed and who is screened regularly at festivals. His first feature film, Le Beau Serge, was released in 1958. |
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A thriller that keeps the interest until the end. |
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 Hostel arrives with severe condemnations as being one of the ugliest, sadistic horror films of recent years. It has also been attacked by the government of Slovakia, where it is set, as giving an awful impression of that country and its people. They are not wrong about that. |
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