Films screening this fortnight are listed below with certificate, credits. brief review and venue details. Film index compiled by Miles Fielder.
All About My Mother (15) (Pedro Almodovar, Spain, 1999) Cecilia Roth, Penelope Cruz, Antonia San Juan. 101 mins. Almodovar's best to date. When Madrid hospital worker Manuela‘s son is killed in a car accident, the grief-stricken woman sets out to fulfil her son’s last wish to know his father, and goes to Barcelona to find the transvestite she ran away from eighteen years earlier. Edinburgh: Lumiere.
The American Friend (PG) (Wim Wenders, West Germany/France, 1977) Dennis Hopper, Bruno Ganz. 123 mins. Based on the Patricia Highsmith novel Riplest Game, this excellent, existentialist film noir centres on an alienated Hopper at large in Germany, where his task is to locate and motivate a killer without a track record. Stirring stufi“, with all that eloquent desolation that typifies Wenders' work. Edinburgh: Filmhouse. American Pie (15) (Paul and Chris Weitz, US, 1999) Jason Biggs, Eugene Levy, Chris Klein. 96 mins. The latest in 1999's bumper crop of teenage comedies turns out to be a surprisingly sweet-natured account of adolescent sexual frustration. Jim (Biggs) desperately wants to get laid by Prom night, but when he is caught by his dad in flagrant with mom’s apple pie, his prospects in the contest look bleak. What disappoints is American Pie’s ultimate conventionality. General release.
Analyze This (15) (Harold Ramis, US, 1999) Robert De Niro, Billy Crystal, Lisa Kudrow. 104 mins. A tough Mafioso, struggling to hold it all together, decides to his utter embarrassment to seek out a therapist. TV’s The Sopranos nicks its thunder, but Analyze This is mainly an excuse for Crystal and De Niro to ham their way through the motions. Undoubtedly fun
for a while but finally too familiar. Glasgow: Odeon, Odeon At The Quay, Showcase Cinema. Edinburgh: UCI. East Kilbride: UCI. Paisley: Showcase.
And Life Goes On (PG) (Abbas Kiorostami, Iran, 1992) 91 mins. This blend of fiction and documentary by the master Iranian filmmaker Kiarostami (director of Through The Olive Trees and Cannes Palme D’Or winner The Taste Of Cherries) follows on from Where Is My Friend 's House .7. A director leaves Tehran to discover if the actors from the first movie have survived an earthquake. Glasgow: GF'I‘.
Apocalypse Now! (18) (Francis Coppola, US, 1980) Martin Sheen, Marlon Brando, Robert Duvall. 153 mins. US Army assassin Sheen heads downriver and deeper into the Heart Of Darkness ruled over by Brando’s mad Colonel Kurtz. Altemately pretentious and visually overpowering (the Valkyries helicopter attack, for example), its grandiloquent folly somehow pierces right to the bone of the conflict. Edinburgh: Cameo.
L'Arche Du Desert (12) (Mohammed Chouikh, France/Algeria, 1997) 90 mins. In this fairytale story set in an oasis in a desert, an innocent love affair disrupts the age-old order of the community whose ‘elders’ become enraged at the cross-racial relationship. Edinburgh: Filmhouse. Asterix The Gaul (U) 65 mins. The early adventures of the plucky little warrior who wreaks havoc among the occupying Roman troops, aided by his plump pal Obelix, the druid Getafix and his amazing magic potions. Edinburgh: Filmhouse.
An Autumn Tale (U) (Eric Rohmer, France, 1999) Beatrice Romand, Marie Riviere. 111 mins. Rohmer once again, quite stunningly, accesses the thoughts and feelings of his characters. Patience is the key to his work: if you can empathise with these vacillating people, you are richly rewarded. Stirling: MacRobert.
Babe: Pig In The City (PG) (George Miller, US, 1998) James Cromwell, Magda Szubanski. 99 mins. Just as precocious as before, young Babe accidentally injures
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Farmer Hoggett and puts the farm in jeopardy. In desperation Mrs H and Babe set off to make a fee-paying appearance at a State Fair. A darker film than the original, Babe: Pig In The City is nevertheless entertaining. Ayr: Odeon.
Bicycle Thieves (PG) (VIIIOI'IO De Sica, Italy, 1948) Lamberto Maggiorani, Enzo Staiola. 89 mins. An unemployed Italian workman has his bicycle stolen, but badly needs it for a new job, so he and his small son search the busy streets of Rome for it. The epitome of Italian neo-realism, with the Roman setting vividly sketched and the performances compellineg natural. Edinburgh: Italian Cultural Institute.
Big Daddy (12) (Dennis Dugan, US, 1999) Adam Sandler, Joey Lauren Adams, Jon Stewart. 93 mins. Sadly not an homage to the late wrestling great, but the new comedy vehicle for Adam Sandler’s similarly unsubtle comedy talents. His abrasive screen persona is a full time slob who becomes the unwilling father to a sweet five-year-old. Silly it may be, but despite the lack of ambition it’s occasionally funny. General release.
Black Beauty (U) (Caroline Thomson, US/UK, 1994) Sean Bean, David Thewlis, Peter Cook. 82 mins. A darker take on the horsey story from the screenwriter of The Secret Garden and Edward Scissorhands The pace sets off at a gallop, and should intrigue adults as well as younger viewers. Edinburgh: Odeon.
Black Orpheus (18) (Marcel Camus, France/Portugal, 1959) Breno Mello, Marpessa Dawn, Lea Garcia. 98 mins. An Oscar winner as the best Foreign Film of its year, this is an imaginative, poetic updating of the legend of Orpheus and Eurydice in which a streetcar conductor and a country girl fall in love during the Rio de Janeiro carnival. Edinburgh: Filmhouse.
The Blair Witch Project (15) (Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sanchez, US, 1999) Heather Donahue, Josh Leonard, Michael Williams. 90 mins. Myrick and Sanchez’s terrifying docu-horror movie purports to be an edited version of the film and video footage that three students shot in the days before they disappeared in the woods. While you're watching you’re too sacred to think; but, on reflection, it’s the subtle artifice that sustains the illusion of unfiltered reality. General release.
Bowiinger (12) (Frank Oz, US, 1999) Steve Martin, Eddie Murphy, Heather Graham. 97 mins. Ecstatic after reading a ’great script’, Martin, the proprietor of the low budget Bowfinger International Pictures, begins the farcical attempt to make a movie with Hollywood's flavour of the month, Kit Ramsey (Murphy), as its unwitting star. Exposing Hollywood’s neurotic underbelly, but sadly all too briefly, the plot then develops into double trouble for Murphy, who takes two roles. General release.
The Boys (18) (Rowan Woods, Australia, 1998) David Wenham, Lynette Curran, Toni Collette. 86 mins. Tough as nails drama about exocon Brett’s return to his grim suburban home. Unsurprisingly, he can’t stick to the straight and narrow, nor can he
Bruised ego: Edward Norton in Fight Club
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avoid resorting to domestic violence. Slow burning and powerful. Edinburgh: Film Guild at Filmhouse.
Bride Of Chucky (18) (Ronnie Yu, US, 1999) 89 mins. The dismembered corpse of the pint-sized homicidal maniac is exhumed for this knowing horror sequel to the Child's Play series. The new edition offers diversion in the form of Jennifer Tilly as the once- human Chucky’s vengeful cx-girlfriend Tiffany. Stirling: Carlton.
Brigadoon (PG) (Vincente Minclli, US, 1954) Gene Kelly, Cyd Charisse, Van Johnson. 108 mins. Two Yanks on vacation in Scotland discover a sleepy village that comes alive once every hundred years. Rather flat and uninvolving Minclli musical, especially in comparison with his other Fifties work. Edinburgh: St Bride's Centre. Buena Vista Social Club (U) (Wim Wenders, Cuba, 1999) Ry Coodcr, Ibrahim Ferrer, Ruben Gonzalez. 104 mins. Cuba looks a little like the land that time forgot. A theme Wenders brings out both in the over- exposed images of Havana and also in the musical brilliance of these octogenarian and nonagenarian musicians who have for so long been neglected. Edinburgh: Filmhouse. Buffalo 66 (15) (Vincent Gallo, US, 1998) Vincent Gallo, Christina Ricci, Angelica Huston. 110 mins. Life for Billy Brown is so awful that he reconstructs himself from lies upon his release from a five year prison spell. Gallo has a black sense of humour, finding absurdity in lower-class American life, but it becomes clear that Buffalo 66 is a deeply life-affirming film. Edinburgh: Cameo, Filmhouse.
A Bug's Life (U) (John Lasseter, US, 1998) Voices of Dave Foley, Kevin Spacey, David Hyde Pierce. 95 mins. The colony of Ant Island is being oppressed by a gang of menacing grasshoppers. When inventive but clumsy worker ant Flik incurs the wrath of gang leader Hopper, he heads off to find help heavyweight help in the battle against his oppressors. Edinburgh: ABC.
Canadian Fall/Videos d'Ecosse (18) (Various, Canada/Scotland, 1999) 140 mins. Acclaimed video artists Nelson Henricks and Nikki Forrest introduce two programmes of experimental video art, the product of a cultural exchange. Glasgow: GFI‘.
Celebrity (18) (Woody Allen, US, 1999) Kenneth Branagh, Melanie Griffith, Winona Ryder, Charlize Theron, Leonardo DiCaprio. 113 mins. A not always successful dissection of the nature and price of fame. The film revolves around Branagh’s philandering hack and wannabe screenwriter, Lee Simon (Allen’s alter-ego), who is irresistible to a succession of dazzlineg attractive women. Glasgow: Grosvenor.
Cookie’s Fortune (12) (Robert Altman, US, 1999) Glenn Close, Julianne Moore, Patricia Neal. 118 mins. Neither a masterpiece like Short Cuts, nor a piece of studio hack work like The Gingerbread Man, Robert Altman’s latest is a Iikeable, very minor slice of Americana. However, Altman's inquiring visual style fails to find characters of any substance. East Kilbride: Arts Centre. Stirling: MacRobert.
Deep Blue Sea (15) (Renny Harlin, US,