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Monday, October 16, 2006

20. Little known US TV film director Charles Carner's "Judas" (2004): Recommended only for those who have courage to accept another viewpoint

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This is a remarkable film. First, because it was made at least two years before the Gospel of Judas was unearthed in Egypt a few years ago ...
Thursday, October 12, 2006

19. New Zealander Jane Campion's "The Piano" (1993): Clever film that makes you wonder

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This film won the Cannes Film Festival's top honor the year it was released. It is a good film. It's a clever film. You would love i...
Thursday, October 05, 2006

18. Italian director Guiseppe Tornatore's English/French film "La leggenda del pianista sull'oceano" (The Legend of 1900) (1998): a charming fable on celluloid

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When asked by the Khaleej Times in Dubai to pick my 10 best films, I listed this movie The legend of 1900 as one of the top 10 movies made...
1 comment:
Wednesday, October 04, 2006

17. US filmmakers Michael and Mark Polish's "Northfork" (2003): A notable effort using surreal and absurdist images offering layers of entertainment

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" I t all depends on how you look at it-–we are either halfway to heaven or halfway to hell ," says the ...
Tuesday, October 03, 2006

16. US filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen's "Blood Simple" (1984): A movie to make you laugh (and then reflect on why you laughed)

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Debut films have a quality that experience smothers. What struck me first was the disarming innocence of a clever script--not a single cop s...
Friday, September 22, 2006

15. Polish director Krzysztof Kieslowski's "Trzy kolory: bialy" (Three colors: white) (1994); White as a metaphor

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O stensibly Kieslowski chose white of the French flag to make a movie on equality. Equality if it can be reached in marriage, makes it work....
1 comment:
Thursday, September 21, 2006

14. The late Italian director Sergio Leone's US masterpiece "Once Upon a Time in America" (1984): A great swansong

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Not many realize that Sergio Leone was offered the chance to direct Puzo's The Godfather but opted to make Once Upon a Time in Americ...
4 comments:
Tuesday, September 19, 2006

13. German director Wim Wender's US film "The Million Dollar Hotel" (2000): Stamp of a mature director

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Here's an American film made with a European touch that provides social, psychological and political commentary. The story was conceived...
2 comments:
Sunday, September 17, 2006

12. Senegalese director Ousmane Sembene's "Moolaade" (2004): Africa ought to be proud of this film!

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Ousmane Sembene is a colossus among African filmmakers. He is what Kurosawa and Ray are to Asia. At 82, this man is making films on women...
2 comments:
Saturday, September 16, 2006

11. Valerie Guignabodet's French film "Mariages!" (2004): Weaving entertainment from strands of reality

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The film is an essay on marriages. Robert Altman tried to do the same in A Wedding and ended up with a delectably visual and aural feast tha...
Thursday, September 14, 2006

10. Aki Kaurismaki's Finnish film "Mies vailla menneisyytta" (2002) (A Man Without a Past)--Reducing the world into a man, a woman, a dog and trains

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T his movie is deceptive--a casual viewing could discard it as another "feel good" film from Europe. It permeates Christian va...
6 comments:
Wednesday, September 06, 2006

9. Paolo Sorrentino's Italian film "Le conseguenze dell'amore" (Consequences of Love) (2004)--Laugh and then reflect on why you laughed

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I saw this interesting film back to back with the Chinese/French film 2046 at the 2005 Dubai Film festival. Both were intelligent works ma...
1 comment:

8. Changwei Gu's Chinese film "Kong que" (Peacock) made in 2005--A gorgeous family epic that makes the audience positively review their lives

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W hen accomplished cinematographers take to direction, they often make superb films (William Fraker's Monte Walsh , Nicho...
Monday, September 04, 2006

7. Polish filmmaker Krzysztof Kieslowski's Dekalog 5 (Dekalog, piec) (1988) -- a disturbing treatise on killing

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The brilliant Polish director--whom I had the good fortune to meet in Bangalore at an International Film Festival in 1982--made a series o...
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6. Arthur Penn's US film made in 1970--"Little Big Man"--an oxymoron that prepares us for tragi-comedy

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`Little big' is an oxymoron. Little Big Man , the film, is another cinematic oxymoron: a tragi-comedy. Most of Penn's movies are d...
Sunday, September 03, 2006

5. An impressive debut from Argentina--"Hermanas" (Sisters) (2005)--intelligent and intellectual

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Director Julia Solomonof has shown viewers that she can present a work that has an assured pace of a structured thriller while presenting a ...

4. Iranian director Mohsen Amiryousefi's debut film in Farsi/Persian language--"Khab-e talkh" (Bitter Dreams) (2004): A brilliant mockumentary

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Bitter dreams is an unforgettable debut by 32 year-old Iranian filmmaker Mohsen Amiryousefi, who first took t...
Friday, September 01, 2006

3. Mohamed Asli's debut feature from Morocco "Al Malaika la tuhaliq fi al-dar albayda" (2004)

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T his is one of the finest Arab films, set in the Berber community of Morocco, evoking neo-realist images--a superb debut. The English titl...
1 comment:
Thursday, August 31, 2006

2. Andrei Zvyagenitsev's "Vozvrashcheniye" (The Return) A brilliant Russian film made in 2003

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Russia, (or rather, in the purist sense, the erstwhile USSR), has produced some of the finest filmmakers of the century--Andrei Tarkovsky, ...
4 comments:
Sunday, August 27, 2006

1. Michael Haneke's "Cache" (Hidden): A French film made by an Austrian in 2005

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Beginning as a clinical, psychological and social study of a respectable European, it ends as a study of a larger segment of contemporary E...