FILM index
FILM index continued
flow To Marry A Millionaire (PG) (Jean Negulesco, US, 1953) Lauren Bacall, Marilyn Monroe, Betty Grable. 96 mins. Notable for being the first Cinemascope comedy, which isn’t completely successful. But who cares when you’ve got Bacall, Monroe and Grable playing three foxy ladies who rent a New York apartment in order to trap them some millionaires? Edinburgh: St Bride's Centre.
It's A Wonderful Life (PG) (Frank Capra, US, 1946) James Stewart, Donna Reed, Henry Travers, Thomas Mitchell. 129 mins. Small-town boy Stewart runs into financial difficulties and is on the brink of suicide when an elderly angel descends to earth to show him all the good his life has done for those around him. Archetypal Capra sentimentality with a superbly detailed fantasy framework and one of Stewart's most lovable performances. One to wamt even the most glacial heart. Edinburgh: Cameo.
Jack Frost (PG) (Troy Miller, US, 1998) Michael Keaton, Kelly Preston, Mark Addy. 102 mins. Negligent husband and father Jack Frost chooses to go on a road trip with his band rather than a holiday with his family and is killed in a car accident. However, he gets a chance to begin afresh when he is reincarnated as, erm . . . a snowman. Despite cloying sentiment and obvious humour Jack Frost has a simple, puerile charm that eight-year-olds will enjoy. Glasgow: Odeon Quay. Irvine: Magnum. Kilmarnock: Odeon.
Jason And The Argonauts (U) (Don Chaffey, UK, 1964) Todd Armstrong, Nancy Kovack, Gary Raymond. 103 mins. Totally brill adventure yarn as our hero Jason sets out to retrieve the legendary golden fleece and is helped by a number of the gods on Olympus along the way. Ray Harryhausen's stop-motion effects remain among the best of his career, most notably the final conflict with an army of skeletal soldiers. Stirling: MacRobert.
Jubilee (18) (Derek Jarman, UK, 1978)
Jenny Runacre, Little Nell, Toyah Wilcox. 104 mins. Queen Elizabeth 1 is transported through time to visit the decaying nation of her namesake successor as exemplified by punk London. Dated-looking now of course, but amidst the determination to shock there's a good deal of tart black humour and a few typically lovely Jarman images. Edinburgh: Cameo.
Kes (PG) (Ken Loach, UK, 1969) David Bradley, Lynne Perric, Colin Welland, Brian Glover. 109 mins. In the run-down industrial north, a young boy learns some harsh lessons about life from the fate of his pet bird. Classic piece of British realism which showed that lnach’s television work could transfer to the big screen. A very humane sense of humour leavens what is in effect a tale of some desolation. Glasgow: Gl’l‘. The Last Yellow (15) (Julian Farino, UK, 1999) Mark Addy. Charlie Creed-Miles, Samantha Morton. 88 mins. Bragging about his former SAS Service, overweight and unemployed and single Frank (Addy) becomes involved in Kenny's (Creed-Miles) scheme to avenge his brother, severely brain damaged after being mugng in a pub by a thug. Jerking uncomfortably from Carry On- style humour to traumatic drama, Tlte Last Yellow's fine cast nevertheless manage a partially-successful rescue mission. Glasgow: Odeon Quay.
Life (15) (Ted Demme, US, 1999) Eddie Murphy, Martin lawrence, Ned Beatty. 10‘) mins. Well, it ain’t Cool Ilansttke and it ain’t The Shawshank Redemption, but this prison comedy drama is a worthy addition to the genre. The focus is less on the harsh realities of life in a Mississippi State Prison than on the lifetime love-hate relationship between Ray (Murphy) and Claude's (Lawrence) inmates over the course of a 60- year prison sentence. With a pair of committed central performances, Life is never in danger of becoming a mere comedy vehicle. Edinburgh: ABC Multiplex.
The Limey (18) (Steven Soderbergh, US, 1999) Terence Stamp, Peter Fonda, Luis Guzman. 89 mins. Stamp's criminal cockney reject, Wilson is off his manor and
Juliette Binntne
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“An involving love story...haunting, emotionally intense...daring” may "Richly textured psychological drama...told with compassion and insight”
london Film Festival
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EDINBURGH FILMHOUSE 3-9 DECEMBER
28 'I'IIEUST 2-16 Dec 1999
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in Los Angeles to avenge his daughter’s death in Soderbergh’s take on 60s cinema and the British crime movie. But this is no simple revenge caper, although the action thrills and the one-liners are smart. The casting 60s icons Stamp and Fonda as Wilson’s nemesis, record producer Terry Valentine, is inspired. See preview and review. Edinburgh: Cameo.
Lindyhopping Free video screening of an anthology of film celebrating Swing music and dance. Featuring archive material from the Smithsonian Institute, Washington DC. which includes dance sequences from A Day At The Races and Hellappopt'n '. Edinburgh: Filmhouse.
The Little Princess (U) (Walter Lang, US, 1939) Shirley Temple, Richard Greene, Anita Louise. 93 mins. Temple' bursts into colour as a little girl who is sent to a boarding school in Lortdon when her father goes off to fight in the Boer War. Complete with dream sequence and happy ending. Screening with a short film, Deanna Durbr‘n Sings. Edinburgh: Lumiere.
The Lodger (PG) (Alfred Hitchcock, UK,l944) 84 mins. llitch’s masterful Jack The Ripper-style thriller set in fog-bound old London town, here benefits from a new score composed by The Divine Comedy's Joby Talbot, which was performed live duringthe last Edinburgh lntemational Film Festival. It's still worth seeing with the pre- recorded soundtrack. Edinburgh: Filmhouse. The Matrix (15) (The Wachowski Brothers, US, 1999) Keanu Reeves, Carrie-Anne Moss, Lawrence Fishbume. 139 mins. 1n the future, reality is actually an illusion — the human race is enslaved by a computer virus which has taken over the world. Computer genius Nco (Reeves) is one of the few people who doesn’t believe his eyes, so it’s up to him and a couple more cyber commandos to save the world. Edinburgh: Cameo. St Andrews: New Picture House. Movie Music Masterclass Silent movie film score composer Neil Brand sets out to prove that the soundtrack is one of the most significant components of any film. Not difficult when you consider what the shower scene in Psycho or shark attacks in Jaws would be like without music. Glasgow: GFT.
The Muse (PG) (Albert Brooks, US, 1999) Brooks, Sharon Stone, Andie MacDowell. 96 mins. Brooks’s Hollywood screenwriter has lost his edge. In desperation, he hires Sharon Stone's real life Muse from Greek mythology to rekindle his inSpiration, which the spolit woman provides anything but. Ultimately, The Muse is likely to amuse only those — and there are numerous Player-style cameos: Martin Scorsese, James Cameron, Rob Reiner - who appear in it. See review. Glasgow: UCl Clydebank.
My Best Fiend 8: Nosferatu (15) (Werner Herzog, Germany/UK/France, 1999/79)
Northam and Steve Zahn in Happy, Texas
Herzog, Klaus Kinski. 98/107 mins. As the wordplay suggests, in My Best Fiend llerzog documents his turbulent (and that's an understatement) relationship with his preferred actor Kinski. And in Herzog’s take on the Dracula myth, Nosferatu, Kinski gets to play the count, and makes a rather convincing bloodsucker. Glasgow: GFI‘. Night Of The Living Dead (18) (Tom Savini, US, 1991) Tony Todd, Patricia 'l'allman, Tom Towles. 96 mins. Not as influential as Romero's original, but this remake by horror sfx grandmeister Savini is more intelligent and terrifying than the other zombie rip-offs that have oozed their rotting flesh onto the market. With a heroine in the Ripley mould, it's toughened up for an apocalyptic scenario. Edinburgh: Odeon. Notting Hill (15) (Roger Michell, UK, 1999) Hugh Grant, Julia Roberts. 110 mins. Screenwriter Richard Curtis‘s eagerly awaited follow-up to Four Weddings And/l Funeral has Grant playing William Thackcr, the divorced owner of a travel bookshop into whose life walks Hollywood megastar Anna Scott (Roberts) and, before you know it, they kiss. Kilmarnock: Odeon.
October Sky (PG) (Joe Johnston, US, 1999) Jake Gyllenhaal, Chris Cooper, Laura Dem. 108 mitts. It‘s 1957 and the Russians are leading the Space Race. Down on ground level young American Homer (Gyllenhaal) looks destined to follow in his father's footsteps into the local mine, but can’t help looking to the skies and becoming obsessed with rocket science. A heroic, if melodramatic true-life story which demonstrates how even the most unlikely of childhood dreams can come true. Glasgow: Showcase. Edinburgh: Virgin Multiplex, UCl. Pailsey: Showcase.
Onegin (12) (Martha Fiennes, UK. 1999) Ralph Fiennes, Liv Tyler. 106 mins. Alexander Pushkin's epic poem, Evgeny Onegin, is the source of Fiennes‘s impressive debut film, which hurls its characters through an intensity of passion, betrayal and unbearable loss within the thoroughly elegant and codified context of the Russian aristocracy of the 18203. Ralph Fiennes's Onegin is an initially arrogant, cynical man who learns his own heart when tragic circumstances force him to re- evaluate his feelings for a woman. Glasgow: GFT. Edinburgh: ABC Multiplex, Dominion, Filmhouse.
The Other Sister (PG) (Garry Marshall, US, 1999) Juliet Lewis, Giovanni Ribisi, Diane Keaton. 131 mins. Lewis is a backward 24-year old from a wealthy family. who falls for an equally handicapped working-class boy (Ribisi). When they try to make a life for themselves, they find other people - in particular, Carla's mother (Keaton) - getting in the way of their happiness. Ultimately the film uses the couple’s problems merely as a gimmick. Glasgow: Showcase.