FILM index
FILM INDEX continued
Sense And Sensibility (U) (Ang Lee, US/ UK, 1995) Emma Thompson, Kate Winslet, Alan Rickman, Hugh Grant. 135 mins. Denied their inheritance when the father of the household dies, the female members of the Dashwood family face a precarious future which complicates the romances of sensible Elinor (Thompson) and emotive Marianne (Winslet). Thompson's adaptation keeps the wordplay engagingly tart and sharp-witted, but never loses sight of the powerful frustrations simmering beneath the surface. infinitely more satisfying than your typical fluffy period piece. Edinburgh: Filmhouse.
Showboat (U) (George Sidney, US, 1951) Kathryn Grayson, Ava Gardner, Howard Keel. 108 mins. Kern and Hammerstein's musical gets the MGM colour treatment, and it's one of the best. Set among Mississippi river folk, it contains a batch of favourites including ‘01' Man River‘ and ‘Make Believe‘. Glasgow: GET.
Simpatico (15) (Matthew Warchus, US, 1999) Jeff Bridges, Nick Nolte, Albert Finney. 106 mins. Successful Kentucky race-horse breeder Carter (Bridges) receives a panicky phone call from boozy Vinnie (Nolte), who claims to have been arrested for harassment. and drops everything to fly to Southern California. British theatre director Warchus's respectable adaptation of Sam Shepard '5 play is most intriguing in the initial stages, when various clues must be deciphered in order to understand the connections between the characters. Unfortunately, any sense of mystery is dissipated by a series of underwhelming revelations. See review. Selected release.
The Sixth Sense (15) (M. Night Shyamalan, US, 1999) Bruce Willis, Haley Joel Osment, Olivia Williams, Toni Collette. 107 mins. Nine-year-old Cole Sear (Osment) has a terrible secret. He can see the dead walking the earth; they’re around him all the time and it's scary as hell. Child psychologist Malcolm Crowe (Willis) takes his case and spends all of his time, at the expense of his marriage to Anna (Olivia Williams), attempting to help the boy. Shyamalan's clever script suggests much and explains little, keeping the audience guessing. General release.
Sleepy Hollow (15) (Tim Burton, US, 1999) Johnny Depp, Christina Ricci,.Christophcr Walken. 105 mins. During the final days of 1799 ambitious young policeman lchabod Crane (Depp) is sent to the fog-shrouded village of Sleepy Hollow to investigate a series of decapitations, but his scientific beliefs are shaken when he comes face to space with the Headless Horseman. Burton gives Washington lrving's Gothic folktale a distinctly British colouring, as he borrows merrily from the Hammer films of the 505 and 605. while Depp brings the right note of comedy to the dark proceedings. General release.
Spike Lee Day Writer and researcher Jamie Hall gives an illustrated presentation of on the work of Spike Lee. Session includes screenings of Summer 01' Sam and Do The Right Thing. Edinburgh: Filmhouse.
Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace (U) (George Lucas, US, 1999) Ewan McGregor, Liam Neeson, Natalie Portman. 132 mins. On the surface, the plot structure isn't a million light years away from the
Hearing aid: Phillipe Volter in The Five Senses
original Star Wars. ln visual terms, The Phantom Menace stands alone in the cinematic universe. At times you'd think there was more animation than live action on screen - and maybe it's this toning down of the human element that has left the film lacking soul. Glasgow: Grosvenor. Falkirk: FI'H Cinema. Stigmata (18) (Rupert Wainwright, US, 1999) Patricia Arquette. Gabriel Byrne, Jonathan Pryce. 102 mins. Portentous, religious-themed supernatural thriller that's rips off the obvious genre classics: The Exorcist and The Omen. Pittsburgh hairdresser Frankie Paige (Arquette) is afflicted with wounds that resemble those suffered by Christ on the cross. Her increasingly torturous condition comes to the attention of the Vatican, where devious Cardinal Houseman (Pryce) despatches investigator Andrew Kiernan (Byrne) to check on the validity of Paige‘s case. See review. General release.
Strangers On A Train (PG) (Alfred Hitchcock, US, 1951) Farley Granger, Robert Walker. 101 mins. Hitch's appropriation of Patricia Highsmith‘s novel, the conceit for which is two strangers who get chatting aboard a long train journey and both admit to people they would like to kill — one isjoking, the other is deadly serious. With it's climax aboard an out-of-control fairground ride and two superb central performances, this is one of Hitchcock's best. Edinburgh: Filmhouse. Summer Of Sam (18) (Spike Lee, US. 1999) John Leguizamo, Adrien Brody, Mira Sorvino. 142 mins. Summer 1977 in New York. Disco is the hottest new sound in the clubs, while the punk rock revolution has crossed the Atlantic. The city is also melting down under a record- breaking heatwave, causing blackouts, looting and riots. Out in the Bronx, however, New Yorkers are concerned about something else: a murder spree by a serial killer dubbed by the media the ‘Son Of Sam’. Lee tackles intolerance once more, and it's his best shot at the subject since Do The Right Thing. General release.
Life According To Fred
Fred MacAulay will be performing at
ARCHAOS, QUEEN STREET, GLASGOW on the evenings of the|4th and ISth FEBRUARY for his new BBC Scotland television series.
If you’d like to come along, please phone the free ticket line now on O|4|338 2566.
HE Scotland
30 THE UST 20 Jan—3 Feb 2000
Tarzan (U) (Kevin Lima and Chris Buck, US, 1999) Minnie Driver, Glenn Close, Nigel Hawthorne. 88 mins. Disney has finally turned its attention to the second most filmed character in Western cinema (Dracula is the first) and has created some astonishing images. Storytelling-wise, Tarzan remains reasonably faithfully to Edgar Rice Burrough's original. Shipwrecked on a tropical island, baby Tarzan looses his human parents to a terrifying tiger and is adopted by an ape clan. All grown up. the Ape Man is reunited with man and womankind when a trophy hunting’anthropological expedition arrives and Tarzan meets Jane. General release.
This Year's Love (15) (David Kane, UK, 1998) Douglas Henshall, Catherine McCormack, Kathy Burke, Jennifer Ehle, Dougray Scott, lan Hart. 118 mins. Kane‘s deliciously wry romantic comedy features star- crossed lovers, 90s-style — six latc- twentysomethings whose orbits coincide briefly over a period of three years. The trendy London neighbourhood of Camden provides a living, breathing setting, for an ensemble piece that is gratifyingly free of synthetic sitcom contrivance or cute, sentimental solutions. Edinburgh: Cameo.
Three Seasons (12) (Tony Bui, UK/ Vietnam, 1999) Nguyen Ngoc Hiep, Tran Manh Cuong, Don Duong. 108 mins. The feature debut of Bui, a Vietnamese-bom and American-raised writer-director, the film consists of a series of intersecting stories, set against the backdrop of contemporary Vietnamese society. Three Seasons offers up a portrait of a country in a process of transition, where Western values hold sway. but where economic ‘progrcss' and modernisation have come at a substantial price for many of the inhabitants. Although exquisitely photographed, as a piece of drama Three Season's is curiously unfulfilling. Edinburgh: Filmhouse.
The Tichborne Claimant (PG) (David Yates, UK, 1998) Robert Pugh, John Kani, Sir John Giclgud. 98 mins. The most confident British film debut in years brings the most sensational court case of the Victorian Age brought to the screen. 1866. When the long lost heir to the English Tichborne fortune is sighted in Australia, the family's African servant, Bogle is packed off down under to retrieve him. Years later. a neglected and dejected Bogle returns with a man claiming to be the heir. Clinging to their family jewels, the Tichbornes refute the claim and a court case of scandalous proportions ensues. Edinburgh: Cameo. Falkirk: FTH Cinema. Kirkcaldy: Adam Smith.
Time Regained (l8) (Raul Ruiz, France/ Italy, 1999) Marcello Mauarella, Catherine Deneuve, Emmanuelle Be'art. 162 mins. Marcel (Mauarella) lies in bed thinking about his life, and reflects back less on his own actions than of those in the wealthy late 19th/carly 20th century salon culture in which he moved. Ruiz's adaptation of Proust's final volume of Remembrance Of Things Past captures brilliantly the tenuousness and subjectivity of memory — aided and abetted by his trademark lateral tracking shots, technical
correlatives to Proust's thinking. Edinburgh: Filmhouse.
To Be Or Not To Be (U) (Ernest Lubitsch, US. 1942) Jack Benny, Carole Lombard, Robert Slack. 99 mins. Audacious wartime satirical comedy that criticises the Nazis, not so much for their politics as for their appalling bad manners. Benny and Lombard ham it up as the husband and wife stalwarts of a Warsaw theatre-and-resistance group. Edinburgh: Edinburgh Film Guild at The Filmhouse. Transition (15) (Andy Mackinnon, Scotland, 1999) 75 mins. Shot over a five year period, using time lapse photography, Mackinnon observes the changing landscape in Scotland at the end ofthc millennium. Glasgow: GET. Trystero Short Film Night Late night programme of short films, wrapped around a break in the Cameo bar and selected by Edinburgh-based arts events organisers Trystero Productions. Highlights include: Robert Tate’s New York-set Ketosis, Anthony Alleyne's award-winning The Booth and Edinburgh College of Art graduate Adrian J. McDowell's hilarious ll'hois My Favourite Girl. Edinburgh: Cameo.
Very Bad Things (18) (Peter Berg, US, 1998) Cameron Diaz, Jon Eavrcau, Christian Slater. 100 mins. Diaz is marrying Favteau and nothing, but nothing, is going to upset her plans for the perfect wedding. That is, until Favreau and pals hit Las Vegas for his stag night and inevitable debauchery is cut short when they accidentally kill a hooker. An outrageously grim and gruesome black comedy about the extremes of nuptial hysteria and male bonding. Edinburgh: Filmhouse. Watership Down (U) (Martin Rosen, UK, 1978) With the voices of John Hurt, Richard Briers, Ralph Richardson, Roy Kinnear. 92 mins. Richard Adam‘s best-seller is transformed into this pretty animation adventure that lacks most of the tension and unique viewpoint of the book. When their warren is threatened by man, a group of rabbits decide to find a new home many miles away. Remembered (unfortunately) for Art Garfunkel’s Number One hit, ‘Bright Eyes‘. Edinburgh: Lumiere.
The Winslow Boy (U) (David Mamet, US, 1999) Nigel Hawthorne, Rebecca Pidgeon, Jeremy Northam. 110 mins. It has surprised many that David Mamet should adapt Terence Rattigan‘s very British period drama, based on an event which caught the public's imagination in 1912. The boy in question is expelled from naval academy for allegedly stealing a postal order, much to the consternation of his upper middle class family. At father's insistence, the Winslow's spare no expense to clear the boy ‘5 name. The cast are roundly superb, evincing as much control as their director. Although the proceedings seem a little cold, that‘s Mamet's way. What astonishes is the sheer style and skill on display. Edinburgh: Cameo. Stirling: MacRobert.
Wonderland (15) (Michael Winterbottom, UK, 1999) Gina McKee, Shirley Henderson, Molly Parker. 108 mins. At once both extraordinarily beautiful and desperately sad, this portrait of life in contemporary London is seen through the eyes of three sisters and their dysfunctional family. ll'onderland is unrelentingly grim for the most part, yet the performances are so good that you can't help but be moved to tears. And Winterbottom utilises every trick in the Great Filmmaker's Manual to create a visual treat worthy of its title. Glasgow: GET. Edinburgh: Cameo.
The World Is Not Enough (12) (Michael Apted, US/UK, 1999) Pierce Brosnan, Robert Carlyle, Denise Richards. 128 mins. A nuclear scientist with shapely curves, an international terrorist impervious to pain, a slick British spy who delivers his innuendo with a touch of apology in his voice. The nineteenth Bond movie is distinguished by a number of plot twists not usually squeezed in between spectacular but uninspired action set pieces, which increases involvement with the peripheral characters. General release. You've Got Mail (PO) (Nora Ephron, US, 1998) Meg Ryan, Tom Hanks. Greg Kinnear, Parker Posey. 119 mins. Update of the Ernst Lubitsch's classic 1940 comedy The Shop Around The Corner for the electronic age. in the original, James Stewart and Margaret Sullavan played unwitting pen-pal sweethearts; here Ryan and Hanks are c-mail correspondents who happen to be enemies in real life. A sweet but not very substantial confection. Edinburgh: Filmhouse.