FILM index
FILM INDEX continued
Deep Blue Sea (15) (Renny Harlin, US, 1999) Saffron Burrows, Samuel L. Jackson, LL Cool J. 104 mins. With its ferocious action, heart-stopping suspense and rib- shaking explosions, Harlin's hugely entertaining ‘smart shark' movie pulls out all the stops. Lashed by a tropical storm, an Aquatica marine research laboratory is rapidly turned into a flooded environment that suits the mutated, predatory sharks better than their human prey. General release.
Doug's 1st Movie (U) (Maurice Joyce, US, 1999) 77 mins. The animated adventures of quirky adolescent Doug Funnie graduates from its popular Saturday morning slot on American television to big screen glory, courtesy of Disney. Movie no. 1 sees the twelve-year-old torn between taking action against environmental pollution and taking his beloved Patti Mayonnaise to the high school dance. Edinburgh: Lumiere. Galashiels: Pavilion. Greenock: Waterfront. Dr Strangelove (PG) (Stanley Kubrick, US, 1963) Peter Sellars, George C. Scott, Sterling Hayden. 93 mins. Subtitled ‘Or, How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love The Bomb', Kubrick and writer Terry Southem’s superb black comedy satire shows us, step by careful step, just how easily foolish politicians and military egos could start a nuclear war. Edinburgh: Cameo.
Dreaming Of Joseph Lees (12) (Eric Styles, UK, 1999) Samantha Morton, Lee Ross, Miriam Margoyles. 92 mins. Fancying itself as Thomas Hardy style tragi-drama, essentially this film is hacked from the template of Catherine Cookson. Eva (Morton), a bright girl in a dingy town, is pushed through her ‘cusp of womanhood’ obligations when she is torn between two lovers. While the script threatens to sink the film into bottomless sentimentality, astonishingly sensitive actingand subtle direction partially save the day. Glasgow: Odeon Quay. Edinburgh: Virgin Megaplex. East Is East (15) (Damien O'Donnell, UK, 1999) Om Puri, Linda Bassett, Jordan Routledge. 96 mins. Based on Ayub Khan- Din’s play, East Is East draws its perfectly balanced mix of belly laughs and tears from the conflict within a multi-racial family living in Salford in the 705. Head of the Khan household, George attempts to force his sons into arranged marriages in a belated effort to preserve tradition, but, born in England, the sons are having none of it. General release.
NW (12) (Ron Howard, US, 1999) Matthew McConaughey, Ellen DeGeneres, Woody Harrelson. 123 mins. DeGeneres plays a TV executive whose inspiration for improving ratings comes in the shape of no- hoper Normal Guy, Ed (McConaughey). In what amounts to The Truman Show with a consenting protagonist, Ed's every waking moment is beamed across the nation on its own channel as a real life soap opera. But the entire premise becomes a mere vehicle for some unoriginal ‘fame is empty, TV more so’ satire, and a lethargic love story with which to pad it out. General release. 81/2 Women (15) (Peter Greenaway, Luxembourg/ Netherlands/Germany/UK, 1999) John Standing, Vivian Wu, Toni
Collette. 120 mins. After the death of his wife, an ageing businessman (Standing) rekindles his sex life by bringing a variety of lovers from East and West to his Geneva chateau. Partly a tribute to Fellini, it’s also a laconic reassessment of male sexual fantasies post-AIDS and a self-conscious foray into more mainstream narrative filmmaking. Yet it remains unmistakably Greenaway. See feature and review. Edinburgh: Cameo.
Election (15) (Alexander Payne, US, 1999) Matthew Broderick, Reese Witherspoon, Chris Klein. 103 mins. Payne’s adaptation of Tom Perrotta’s novel, a comic satire on the 1992 American presidential election campaign set in a high school, focuses on the conflict between Jim McAIlister (Broderick), a dedicated teacher who’s also suffering from a mid-life crisis, and Tracy Flick (Witherspoon), a model but precocious pupil over a student government election. Winning performances and a super sharp script make this the smartest comedy to come out of the States in years. Edinburgh: Cameo.
Elizabeth (15) (Shekhar Kapur, UK, 1998) Cate Blanchett, Geoffrey Rush, Christopher Ecclestone. 120 mins. Not your typical frock flick, Kapur’s film may be ravishing to look at, but it's altogether darker and more disturbing than you’d expect. A political thriller from Tudor history, in which Blanchett's performance turns cherished notions about England's Virgin Queen on their head. A gripping and intelligent work. Edinburgh: Filmhouse.
End Of Days (18) (Peter Hyams, US, 1999) Arnold Schwarzenegger, Gabriel Byme, Robin Tunney. 122 mins. At the end of this apocalyptic action movie, Amie raises his eyes to heaven and prays, ‘Please God, help
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Fallen angel: Gabriel Byrne in End Of Days
me.’ Indeed, for this is a wildly inconsistent mish-mash of 70s devil movies, 805 action pics and 905 computer-generated sfx. Byme is the handsome human host for the dark angel whose procreative lust must be thwarted by Schwarzenegger’s‘vodka- sodden, rocket-launcher-toting non-believer. See review. General release.
Ernie Gehr Programme 1 (18) (Ernie Gehr, US, 1970-91) 75 mins. Win programmes experimenting with duration, optical effects, colour, focus, gravity and landscape. Programme 1 features Serene Velocity, Eureka, and Table, while Programme 2 features Shift, Field, This Side Of paradise and Side/Walk/Shuttle. Glasgow: GFT.
Ernie Gehr Programme 2 (18) (Ernie Gehr, US, 1970-91) 75 mins. 'I\vin programmes experimenting with duration, optical effects, colour, focus, gravity and landscape. Programme 1 features Serene Velocity, Eureka, and Table, while Programme 2 features Shift, Field, This Side Of paradise and Side/Walk/Shuttle. Glasgow: GFI‘.
Eyes Wide Shut (18) (Stanley Kubrick, US, 1999) Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman, Sidney Pollack. 159 mins. Had Kubrick chosen to stage his adaptation of Arthur Schnileer’s Dream Novel in its original fin de siAcle Viennese setting, audiences might have found the whole primitive Freudian mess easy to stomach. Transposing the would-be decadent psychosexual shenanigans to contemporary Manhattan, however, proves disastrous. What makes Eyes Wide Shut just about watchable is the screen presence of its two stars. Stirling: MacRobert.
Bugsy Malone (U) (Alan Parker, UK, 1976) Scott Baio, Jodie Foster, Martin Lev. 93mins. Family Associates Screening of the musical spoof of Prohibition-era gangster films, with an all-child cast. Family entertainment pure and simple, and a true original with it. Edinburgh: Lumiere.
Fanny And Elvis (15) (Kay Mellor, UK, 1999) Kerry Fox, Ray Winstone. 111 mins. Fox and Winstone play another of those chalk ‘n’ cheese couples loved by makers of romantic comedies. She ’s a middle-class feminist who's struggling to complete her first bodice-ripping novel; he’s a chauvinistic Cockney car salesman, and it’s hate at first sight. The feature debut of Kay Mellor, best known for the TV series Band OfGold, strives hard to give the material an original spin, but despite game performances from the cast, the results fail to rise much above sitcom-level predictability. Edinburgh: Virgin Megaplex. Fight Club (18) (David Fincher, US, 1999) Brad Pitt, Ed Norton, Helena Bonham Caner. 135 mins. Masculinity is in a mess: and consumerism is to blame. Men have become docile spectators of life according to Fight Club, Fincher's controversial
, adaptation of Chuck Palahniuk's novel. In . reckless response to this late twentieth
century malaise, Norton’s docile spectator teams up with Pitt's mischievous Tyler Durden to form an arena for men to beat each other to a pulp and thus reconnect with the world. It’s hit and miss, but enough of the punches connect to startle even the most docile of viewers. General release. Gregory's Girl (PG) (Bill Forsyth, UK, 1981) Gordon John Sinclair, Dee Hepburn, Clare Grogan. 91 mins. \aning comedy from Cumbemauld with Sinclair eventually finding romance after his heart is set aflame by the latest recruit to the school football team. Seminal piece of Scottish cinema, its universal appeal demonstrating that homegrown talent can compete with Hollywood's finest in the entertainment stakes. Edinburgh: Cameo.
Gregory's ‘Mo Girls (15) (Bill Forsyth, UK, 1999) John Gordon-Sinclair, Maria Doyle Kennedy, Carly McKinnon. 104 mins. Gregory Underwood is still the endearing, awkward, immature boy of 1979, although by 1999 he's a teacher at his old school in Cumbemauld. Forsyth cleverly develops the film's two plot strands to play on Gregory's emotional immaturity and innocence. In one Gregory avoids the attentions of Kennedy ’5 fellow teacher while fantasising about McKinnon’s school girl; in the other he is reacquainted with old school pal Fraser Rowan (Dougray Scott), an entrepreneur involved in highly unethical business dealings. Edinburgh: Lumiere. Guest House Paradlso (15) (Adrian Edmondson, UK, 1999) Edmondson, Rik Mayall, Simon Pegg. 86 mins. Richie (Mayall) and Eddie (Edmondson) are the manager and bellboy, respectively, of the self-proclaimed worst hotel in Britain, where, amazingly, a fair few oddballs naively come to stay. The television series, Bottom crystallised the on-screen relationship between Mayall and Edmondson, which here is a set of ill- thought out sketches carelessly spliced together. See review. General release.
The Happiest Days Of Your Life (PG) (Frank Launder, UK, 1950) Alastair Sim, Margaret Rutherford, Joyce Grenfell. 81 mins. Inspired pairing of Sim and Rutherford in a classic British farce, revolving around a girls' school that is billeted with a boys’ school. Hilarious. Edinburgh: Filmhouse.
Happy Texas (12) (Mark Illsley, US, 1999) Jeremy Northam, Steve Zahn, William H. Macy. 98 mins. Into Happy’s crime-free smalltown haven roll a pair of escaped convicts (Northam and Zahn) posing as gay directors of a beauty pageant for little girls. The ensuing camp antics and gender bending could have been less funny than a squashed armadillo and as PC as a KKK clan member, but thanks to lively central performances and a light touch from the filmmakers, Happy, Texas jaunts along. See preview and review. Glasgow: Odeon. Edinburgh: Cameo.
Head On (18) (Ana Kokkinos, Australia, 1999) Alex Dimitriades, Paul Capsis, Julian Garner. 104 mins. Head On grips from the start, spending 24 hours with Ari (Dimitriades — remarkable), a messed up nineteen-year-old whose quest for drugs and casual sex is overshadowed only by his own self-hatred. It's an uncompromising look at what it means to be second generation Greek in what is supposed to be one of the most liberal cities in the world - Melbourne. It does not flinch from difficult issues such as the insidious racism and homophobia that seem to breed in any community. Edinburgh: Filmhouse.
The Iii-lo Country (15) (Stephen Frears, US, 1999) Woody Harrelson, Billy Crudup, Patricia Arquette. 114 mins. Having successfully mastered-the American crime movie with Grtfters, Stephen Frears tries his hand at the Western. Unfortunately, his latest film fails to transcend the cliches that litter a genre in Which there now seems little new to say. The drama, solidly elegiac in tone, is set in the post-World War Two New Mexico communi of Hi-Lo, where two cattlemen defend the traditional ways of the cowboy in the face of encroaching mass commercialisation. Edinburgh: Filmhouse.
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