Films screening this fortnight are listed below with certificate. credits. brief review and venue details. Film index compiled by Alan Morrison.
Addicted To Love (15) (Griffin Dunne. US. 1997) Meg Ryan. Matthew Broderick. Tcheky Karyo. 100 mins. Hard-hearted Ryan teams up with romantic Broderick to spy on and sabotage the new partnership of their respective ex-lovers. but discover that love might just be kindling between themselves. Ryan tinkers with her sweet image but it never really rings true. The cinematic equivalent of a frozen ready-meal — not turkey. btit close — this is bland. predictable and convenient. but just about digestible. Largs: Barrfield.
The Adjuster ( 18) (Atom Egoyan. Canada. 1991) [Elias Koteas. Arsinee Khanjian. Maury Chaykin. 102 mins. A disparate array of plot elements — aii insurance adjuster. film censors. a kinky couple — combines with off-killer Twin Peaks-iin humour and some bizarre visuals. ‘A film about believable people doing believable things in an unbelievable way‘ is how Egoyan describes it. Wierd and. in its own way. wonderful. Edinburgh: Cameo.
Air Force One ( I 5) (Wolfgang Petersen. US. I997) Harrison Ford. Gary Oldman. Glenn Close. 124 mins. Kazhakstani terrorists hijack the White House‘s private 747. so President James Marshall (Ford) has to put his own life on the line to save the day. ’Ihere‘s no attempt to take the piss out of US gung-ho positivism. so instead we have an overextended excuse to show American resourcefulness triumphing once again. 'lhe whole ass-whupping jingoism of it all is particularly virulent. General release. Antonia's Line (15) (Marleen Gorris. Netherlands/Belgiuni/UK. I995) Willeke van Ammelrooy. lils Dottermans. Dora van der Overloop. 10-1 mins. 'lhe Best Foreign Film Oscar winner for 1996. Antonio 'v Line is the famin saga of live generations of women from a rural Dutch community. The story. told with magic realist elements. is fragmented and incident-driven. but it's uplifting in its engagement with the sexual politics Gorris has explored in previous films. Edinburgh: Filmhouse.
Austin Powers: International Man Of Mystery (I5) (Jay Roach. US. 1997) Mike Myers. Elizabeth Hurley. Michael York. 94 mins. Austin Powers. the Sixties‘ silliest superspy. is brought out of suspended animation and pitted him against his old nemesis. Btit the world has moved on three decades. so his un-l’C catchphrases and behaviour create a bit of a comic time-clash. Written by and starring ll'iiyne's ll’orld‘s Mike Myers. Austin Powers has perfect detail. spot-on casting and a hilarious tnix of clever pastiche and toilet gags. General release.
Batman 8t Robin (PG) (Joel Schumacher. US. 1997) George Clooney. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Chris O‘Donnell. 1 30 mins. Moving even further way from the Gothic melancholy of'Iim Burton's first two films. the fourth Batman movie brings in Poison Ivy (Uma 'lhurman) and disaffected scientist Dr l-‘reeze (Schwarzenegger). 'lhtirman's scene-stealing performance saves the film from total failure. while Clooney does exactly what's required. but no more. Noisy. empty and without a hint of wit or intelligence. Glasgow: ()deon Quay. Bean (Pti) (Mel Smith. UK. I997) Rowan Atkinson. Peter MacNicol. Pamela Reed. 97 mins. Benn the movie makes an attempt to broaden the range of Atkinson‘s tremendously successful 'I'V sight-gag character by sending him off to California to be mistaken for an art expert. Most gags are agreeably daft; several are tiresomer lavatorial; eventually. however. the film upholds family values and true blue American schmaltz. You'll like it if you like the TV show. Real grown-ups should stay away. General release.
Bhaji on the Beach ( 13) (Gurinder Chadha. UK. 1993) Kim Vithana. Jimmi Harkishin. Sarita Khajuria. 100 mins. A group of Asian women from Birmingham leave their day- to-day cares behind them and head in a van for Blackpool. Btit the problems of culture
clashes. a patriarchal community. domestic violence and generation gaps follow them onto the sand. A magnificently fresh. uplifting view of life in Britain through Asian eyes. Edinburgh: Filmhouse.
The Big Flame (PG) (Ken Loach. UK. 1969) 85 mins. Loach‘s TV drama — made for the Wednesday Play series — concerns a dockers‘ strike in Liverpool. Jim Allen‘s scn'pt directly addresses questions of ownership and class conflict. In 1996. Loach returned to Liverpool and updated the story in The Flickering Flame. a TV documentary also screened here. Both screenings are followed by a discussion on the impact and censorship repercussions of Loach‘s work. Glasgow: GFT.
Black Grape: The Grape Tapes 90 mins. A special preview of a feature length video documentary that nips behind the scenes to witness the antics of Sean Ryder and his merry men. There‘s concert footage and drug-addled philosophy on offer from the band‘s early days right up until the new Radioactive album. Part of In The City. Glasgow: GFI".
La Boheme (PG) (Luigi Comenchini. France/Italy. 1987) Barbara Hendricks. Jose Carreras. Luca Canonici. 106 mins. Puccini‘s celebrated opera is set in a wintry Paris in 1910. and follows the fortunes of a group of young artists as they freeze in their garret. with only the thought of romance to warm their beans. l-‘ine opera movie that works on its own terms as well as remaining faithful to the text. because the artificiality of the original perfectly matches Commenchini’s melodramatic. studio-based style. Glasgow: Gl’f.
The Boy From Mercury (PG) (Martin Duffy. UK/France. 1996) James Hickey. Rita Tushingham. Tom Courtney. 87 mins. Eight-year-old Harry (Hickey) believes he has special powc rs granted him through his birthplace being Mercury rather than Dublin — a belief boosted by visits to the Saturday morning film club and his lack of a father figure. An irrisistible tale of memory. loss and the search fora better future. If you manage to sit through this without wilting intojelly at Hickey's painfully innocent performance. then you have the heart of a tyrant. Kirkcaldy: Adatn Smith.
Career Girls (15) (Mike Leigh. UK. 1997) Katrin Cartlidge. Lynda Steadman. Joe Tucker. 86 mins. Career Girls doesn‘t work within a narrative. btit a series of character encounters. playing otit iii two time-frames. Annie arid Hannah meet tip for a reunion weekend years after they shared a flat together as students. In the present and iii the past. they cross paths — with credibility stretched to breaking point — with a past boyfriend. another fiatmate. and a schizophrenic fellow student. 'Iiie emotions and social backdrop ring true where the characters themselves crucially do not. See preview and review. Glasgow: (ii-'1'. Edinburgh: Cameo. UCI.
The Company of Strangers (Cynthia Scott. Canada. I990) 100 mins. Scott's experimental film is set on a broken-down bus where seven old ladies and a young gospel singer. Michelle. respond to their collective isolation by opening tip to each other. 'Ihe dialogue is based on hours of conversation. and the director has allowed her actors to steer the movie. lidinburgli: Filmhouse.
Conspiracy Theory ( 15) (Richard Donner. US. 1997) Mel Gibson. Jtilia Roberts. Patrick Stewart. 1-10 mins. Humble New York cabbie Mel Gibson has a paranoid theory about everything. btit when he‘s picked off the streets by men in long coats. his delusions seem to have foundation. Mixed tip iii all this is attorney Julia Roberts. who has dedicated years to investigating the murder of her federal judge father. Glossy and overlong. this collection of post-Vietnam cliches and sinister governmental operations which passes for a plot isn't even made interesting by star power. Paisley; Showcase.
Contact (PG) (Robert '/.emeckis. US. 1997) Jodie Foster. Matthew McConaughey. James Woods. 150 mins. Based on the Carl Sagan bestseller. this epic story of man's first contact with extraterrestrial intelligence is beset throughout by arrant nonsense and miscalculation. Foster is the researcher specialising in the monitoring of radio
waves from the ether who picks tip a communication signal from another planet. Zemeckis has inherently fascinating subject matter throughout. but shows a truly depressing lack of imagination in bringing it to the screen. See preview and review. General release.
Crash (18) (David Cronenberg. Canada. 1996) James Spader. Holly Hunter. lilias Koteas. 100 mins. l-‘inally passed uncut. Crash is not — as The Daily Mail would have you believe — a film which will inspire copycat car crashes or copulation amidst the ensuing wreckage. Instead it is a cool. insidioust disturbing study of an evolving human pathology based on eroticised car crashes and techno-fantasies. livery hetero and homosexual permutation is explored as the fixed boundaries of ‘normal‘ sexuality give way to a creatively ‘perverse‘ fluidity. Provocative. extreme and intellectually exhilerating. Stirling: MaeRobert.
Days Of Heaven (PG) (Terence Malick. US. 1978) Richard Gere. Sam Shepard. Brooke Adams. 94 mins. Malick is one of the great wayward talents of the contemporary American cinema ( Bud/ands is his only other feature) and this is an exquisite triangular love story set against the wheat farming Midwest at the turn of the century. You can almost feel the sweat of labour and smell the soil. such is the power of undoubtedly majestic film-making. Glasgow: (if-'1'.
Death In Venice t I 5) (Luchino Visconti. Italy. 1971) Dirk Bogarde. Bjorn Andressen. Silvano Mangano. 128 mins. Ageing celebrated composer Von Auscenbach (the capable. slightly miscast Bogarde) comes to Venice in the midst of a creative crisis and becomes infatuated with a beautiful Polish boy who embodies the kind of physical and spiritual purity he's been looking for It) his work. Highly decorative attempt at the unlilmable. though the use of Mahler's l-‘ifth Symphony is highly affecting. Introduced by Scottish composer Craig Armstrong. Part of In The City. Glasgow: (il’l‘.
Deltalog 1 8t 2 (Krzysztof Kieslowski. Poland. I989) The first two of Kieslowski's remarkable set of hour-long films. loosely based on the Ten Commandments. begins in a Polish housing estate. where a father atid son relationship ends tragically. Edinburgh: l-‘ilmhoiise.
Event Horizon ( 18) (Paul Anderson. US/UK. 1997) Laurence l‘isltburne. Sam Neill. Joer Richardson. 9| mins. The crew of a rescue ship discover that hell has been unleashed inside a missing craft that reappears near Neptune. as their deepest fears begin to terrorise them in physical form. Effectively a haunted house movie set in space. [Event Horizon boasts stunning "l'echno Medieval' design; btit tight editing leaves the characterisation and story stripped to within an inch of their lives. General release.
index
lyle and co in The Full Monty
Routine business: Tome Wilkinson. Robert Car
Exotica (l8) (Atom Egoyan. Canada. 1994) Bruce Greenwood. Mia Kirschner. Elias Koteas. 104 mins. A brooding set of troubled souls who collect in a strip club are linked by a dark event in their pasts. In a way. Egoyan‘s film. despite its setting. isn‘t about sex at all. It certainly doesn't allow the viewer to escape into fantasy. instead focusing on how these traumatised individuals cope with their personal sense of loss. Edinburgh: Cameo.
Face (18) (Antonia Bird. UK. 1997) Robert Carlyle. Ray Winstone. Stephen Waddington. 100 mins. Think The Long Good Friday. think Ger Carter. Ray (Carlyle) and his gang of East End criminals pull off an armed robbery. but when the loot goes missing. it becomes obvious they have been stitched up by one of their own. Face tackles the spectre of the Thatcher years within the framework of a crime thriller. and the results are hit and miss. Blur‘s Damon Albarn acquits himself well in a small role as a wannabe crook. See review. General release.
Famin Viewing (18) (Atom Egoyan. Canada. 1987) David Hemblen. Aidan Tierney. Gabrielle Rose. 86 mins. Alienated youth Van ('lierney) lives with his father and step mother in hi-tech surroundings. While he concocts a scheme to have his grandmother secretly removed from care. his father has him put under electronic surveillance. ligoyan‘s second feature is a complex investigation of alternative famin groupings. and at the same time a study of mediated experience in the computer age. Edinburgh: l‘ilmhouse
. The Fifth Element (12) (Luc Besson. France/US. 1997) Bruce Willis. Milla Jovovich. Gary Oldman. 127 mins. New York City in the 23rd Century. and cabbie Korben Dallas (Willis) picks tip an unexpected passenger in the shape of Leeloo (Milla Jovovich) — an alien who holds the key to saving the world. Besson's second linglish language film — following the excellent Leon - is a colourful jumble of camp designs (by Jean-Paul Gaultier). self- indulgent performances and genre rip-offs which plays for laughs as genuine sci-fi ideas run dry. Edinburgh: Cameo.
The Full Monty (15) (Peter Cattdpeo. UK. I997) Robert Carlyle. Tom Wilkinson. Mark Addy. 92 mins. Carlyle plays Gary. an unemployed Sheffield steelworker who. along with an odd mix of former colleagues. decides to go one better than the Chippendale troupes that fill the local halls. Cattaneo's laugh-out-loud film comes from the same tradition as Brassed Off. mixing comedy with a strong social conscience and showing unemployment as an emasculating experience. It's the ordinariness of these blokes that gives the film both its humour and its depth. General release.
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