VIDEOS
RENTAL The Corruptor (l8)(110mins) :a ,1. I,
Hong Kong actrOn hero Chow. Yun-Fat forms an unlrkely allrartce \.'."th lvlar< Boogre N/gnts Wahlberg, as they portray cops attemptrng to D':T‘:g peace to t"e gang war-IOrn streets of Nev. York’s Chrnatown 'n {.115 breakneck-paced thrrlier The dsaiogue rs tacs-<y at tunes, but the acton set-preces compensate adeQuately The :nf!uence of the paletrc gun frght choreography of d rector John Woo rs notrceabie, wrth hrs trademark use of slo-rho and S\.‘.':ft edt'r‘g sty:e berng SUCCESSfblly employed here by James Fo'ey 'Entertarnrment; rMR.
Guru In Seven
(18) 96 mins
Artrst, charmer and all-round cheeky scamp Sanjay (newcomer Nrtrn Chandra Ganatra) gets dumped by hrs grrlfrrend. To try and cheer hrm up, hrs frrends challenge hrm to become the Guru Hrs task: to bed one woman a day for a week, thus ensues all manner of comrc clrnches. Thrs low budget Brrtrsh productron pokes fun at men, relatronshrps and ASran marrrage customs, as well as provrdrng some laughs along the way, often from SanJay's banterrng to the camera (Showcase) (MR)
Best Laid Plans (15) 93 mins '9:
Small town lrfe threatens to engulf the newly-Orphaned Nrck (Alessandro erola), so when the opportunrty to earn a gurck buck as a getaway drrver presents rtself, he Jumps at the chance to escape. lnevrtably, thrngs don’t go as planned and alongSrde new lone Lrssa (Reese Wrtherspoon) soon f:nd themselves plungrng rnto a quagmre of drugs, theft, rape and murder Or do they? Numerous plot twrsts and smart drrectron ensure there's never a dull moment but Best Lard P/ans never qurte takes off. (Fox Pathe) (KA)
Belly 1 y; «1..
Hype erlrams broadens hrs horrzons after several gr0undbreakrng promo vrdeos for Mrssy Ellrot and Busta Rhymes wrth thrs feature debut,
Rappers Nas and Dl.1>< star h an a too famrlrar tale of tr.'.o gangsters .'.nose loyalty to each other comes 'i-to guestron the more posrert’tr they become Ths, lIKC a?! of ‘r.‘./r11.arns's work, rs a vrsual feast, sty:;s‘n!y shot and edrted and lau'rshéy coloured, Be/ly rs tarorth '/re‘.'.(!ng for tnrs a one If' only the predrctable scrrpt cotr’o have matched the c:nernatograbliy ‘A-Ircl'TC—G Atlantis (MR'
She's All That
(12) 91 mins
Geek meets boy Prom occurs Love ensues Pretty /n P/ITK turnout Moliy angvalcr doesn’t bode we'l and, sure enough, She’s A// That ‘sr‘t ‘t to tuxeak her grnger tresses Ton-.ards the end, flashes of werrdness suggest that had the drrector Indulged brs surreal John Waters tendencres, rt coald have been a campy gem (a rhrr‘estone, to be preCIs‘er But sadly, a cl‘arrsnta-byoass cast, a scrrpt of purest rh me and the vrsuai flarr of a Gtr et eprsooe of Grange H/// ado up to men oc r' ty squared .lern FOLr'r' ,Hl‘."
RETAIL
The Simpsons Greatest Hits
(12) 110 mins
ere rarely gets better than tl"s Tne Greatest Hrts (.Omorrses ‘rx'e t ass c landmarks from Sprrng‘rerd's fnest ~ eprsodes 1, 100 and 200, plus ‘Bart Gets An F’ whrch recerved tner" nrghest vrewer ratzng and ’Lrsa's F r'st Valord' whrch was voted numero Ul‘O by "eaders of a certazn three-letter UK tabl0rd And they may well be rrght as \.‘.G take a tnp rn tune to see the stagyer ngs of ail tnree Srrnp nrppers toxaards therr‘ f rst triter‘rngs Hrlar‘OuS and rteart-tuggrng rT\.'~.'entreth Century Fox £14.99r (BDr
Eternity And A Day
(PG) 125 mins -.. 2 « ~-
Theo Angelopodos certarnly doesn’t belreve rh rushng thrngs Just over i‘.‘.O hoors long, thrs rs one of European Crnema's most wrdely-acclaamed vrSronarreS' more Skrmpy efforts. Yet l‘rs audrence’s patrence rarer goes unrewarded and, thanks to a Subrrme performance from Bruno Ganz,
Shady character: Keanu Reeves dots about the place in The Matrix (Warner. 15, 120 mins ****). Available on retail priced £16.99 and DVD priced £19.99 from Mon 29 Nov.
126 THE “ST 18 Nov—2 Dec 1999
RETAlL/DVD Life Is Beautiful (PG) 122 mins
Oscar-festooned Italian actor/director Roberto Benigni plays a rogue who first pursues and wins the woman of his dreams, and then gets sent to Auschwitz, where he protects his son by passing the whole experience off as an elaborate game. Black comedy? Fierce satire? No. This is Hollywood's greatest lie — Love Conquers All — applied to the Western world's most profound crisis of faith.
It might be churlish to pick holes in what is essentially a fable, but then you've got to tread carefully around the greatest horror of the 20th century. Benigni’s Auschwitz is a
Family at war: Life Is Beautiful
cartoon. The fact that his character stumps the guards by jeering at them, ducking behind walls and hiding his son in his bunkbed is silly enough, without even starting on basic matters like the fact that children in the camps were separated from their parents and usually killed immediately.
In Art Spiegelman’s graphic novel Maus, the protagonist tells his therapist that he admires his father for surviving Auschwitz, and is cautioned to remember that ‘it wasn’t the best people who survived . . . it was random’. The implied logic of Life Is Beautiful is that if you were sweet, self- sacrificing and committed to saving your kids, it was pretty easy to outwit
those nasty Nazis.
Good, in short, will prevail — and this feelgood Hollywood logic clashes grotesquely with the monstrous irrationality of the concentration camps. Attempts to impose happy endings on history don't get any more
nauseating than this. (Hannah McGill)
'r‘ Ava/Table on retar/ at £74.99 and on DVD at [75. 99 by Buena Vista on Mon 22
Nov.
re'narkabe crnernatograpl‘y and the satrsfac’.:0r‘_ \‘.'hrch comes from JOrnzng the dots win recurr:r~.g rrt‘agery Gang :3 a poet at the end of hrs to \‘.'l‘,o befrrends a lrttle AlbleIdl‘, refugee and thrs makes nrm thrnk a brt too mucn aboot tne past as hrs dernrse oravts near 'Artrf:cral Eye £15 99‘ 80!
Father Ted
(15) 152 mins
As wrth B/ackadder, rt rs genera ly agreed that serres two of Father Ted nas the cream of that fertrre crop Unfortunately, there was to be no more txrth the passrng of Dermot Morgan, but that has only made the menaory fonder And here, over a I\.‘.O and a half hour perrod, you can 'atrgh yOur cassocks off to frve epsodes, rncludrng the Crazy Chrrstmas specral Top moments rnclude Father Jack’s harry hands, Ted (udgrng the Lovely Grrls Competrtron and D0ugal causmg rn-flrght mayhem .VCl/Hat Trrck
£15 99) (8D)
The Idiots
(18) 109 mins
The premrse for Tne /drots 1s both engrossrng and absurd A group of mrddle class Danes who Irve together attempt to drscover tnerr‘ true selves thrOugh pretendrng to be mentally and phySrcally :mparred, the drscoverrng of the Inner lleI. Thrs IS a volatrle mrx of black humOur, arty grbber and toochrng emotron whrch, due to the ramshackle, rmprovrsed nature of rts constructron (usrng the Dogma frlmmakrng ruleS) c0uld fall apart at any mrnute Thankfully, rt doesn’t and rs a rewardrng trawl (Tartan £15.99) (MR)
Ali G, lnnit (18) 89 mins
The one true star 0‘ The ’7 O’Crock Show :s g ten ‘tr re n to exerc se hrs ("08K a comp at-o't of “Nd anno- ups and co'nrc mrs'iearrng Rhodes Boyson, Ron Da-.res, Tony Benn ans: Judge Prc< es .'desp te h s name, r‘e’s "o: a D)" are art‘ong Afr G's co-operat stooges as ne attempts to fl‘ the gap that Chrrs »‘\.'rOrrrs 'tas, 'aopeftr? y, te'nporarriy eft n the cee'p'ty-ba'trng stakes A who e now and a na‘ s stretCt‘rg lulr G’s ta ents to the mom: put yOu :1 laugh alOUO Booyakan‘ And so ‘orth ‘VCI/C‘nanne 41 £15 99 80
It's Not Big And It's Not
Clever
(18)45 mins t
Thrs Just goes to show that rr’ you 'et Crazy people loose wrth technology then crazy thrngs wril happen Thrs rs Brzarre magazrne’s comprlatron of the 'best’ moments from RuSSran TV's S/abo rlrterally meanrng ‘Beat That'r, a cross between You’ve Been Framed and Drr/ler Kr/ler Watch rn bloody norror as manracal MUSCOwteS swallow two bottles of vodka, swrng therr chrldren aOOLJt by therr narr and set themselves ablaze Not for those who get queasy eaSy (Brzarre £12 99: (BO)
REVIEWERS THIS ISSUE: Kelly Apter, Brran Donaldson, Hannah McGrll, Mark Robertson
STAR RATINGS
+ t s a * Unmrssable
t t t i Very good
it t * Worth a shot
a tr Below average
* You've been warned 4