FILM listings
FILM LISTINGS continued
Cinema Paradiso (PG) (Giuseppe Tomatore, Italy/France, 1988) Phillipe Noiret, Jacques Perrin, Salvatore Cascio. 123 mins. Told largely in flashback, the winner of the 1990 Oscar for Best Foreign Film traces young Salvatore's infatuation with his village cinema, and his growing friendship with its projectionist (played to perfection by Noiret). Essentially, it's Tornatore's lament for the joyous movie- going experience of his youth and a recognition of the price we pay for our maturity. See review. Glasgow: GFT. Edinburgh: Filmhouse.
Complicity (18) iii (Gavin Millar, UK, 1999) Jonny Lee Miller, Keeley Hawes, Brian Cox. 100 mins. Joumalist Cameron (Jonny Ice Miller) is, at first glance, a regular young Edinburgh-based professional. The police, however, have fingered him as a serial killer, guilty of some of the most gruesome murders Scotland has ever witnessed. Those familiar with lain Banks‘s novels will recognise the trademark darkness. Millar, who is directed The Crow Road, has turned the book into an ambitious movie, and an adult one. General release. Dance Hall Queen (15) (Don Letts, Rick Elgood, Jamaica, 1997) Audrey Reid, Paul Campbell, Cherine Anderson. 102 mins. Life in Jamaica is pretty tough for single mother Marcia. And things get tougher for her when Uncle Larry, who suppons her children, demands a return on his investment in the form of Marcia's teenage daughter. Edinburgh: Filmhouse.
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 ‘sman 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. Edinburgh: Cameo.
Dogma (15) ** (Kevin Smith, US, 1999) Matt Damon, Ben Affleck, Alan Rickman. 130 mins. Smith, creator of Clerks and himself a devout believer, confronts the conflict between personal faith and the institutionalised religion of the Catholic Church. Meanwhile slacker prophets Jay and Silent Bob provide the usual casual Obscenities. Dogma is vulgar and irreverent, and features a ‘poop monster’ and Alanis Morrisette as God. It’s also undisciplined, shambolic and boring. As a satire, it doesn’t have a prayer. Glasgow: Odeon At The Quay, Showcase. Edinburgh: Cameo, Virgin Megaplex.
The Dolly Sisters (U) (Irving Cummings, US, 1945) Betty Grable, June Haver. 114 mins. This story of a famous vaudeville act has got all the glamour a Hollywood musical could want: lovely legs, great song and dance routines, lavish sets and lovely legs. Supported by a Paramount newsreel from 1945. Edinburgh: St Bride's.
Double Jeopardy (15) it (Bruce Beresford, US, 1999) Tommy Lee Jones, Ashley Judd, Annabeth Gish. 105 mins. Double Jeopardy is The Fugitive with a female lead. Not only does it rip off the earlier film's basic premise — innocent hero(oine) gets wrongly convicted for murdering a spouse and goes on the run, pursued by a dogged officer of the law - it even boasts the same co-star (Jones). But while The Fugitive was gripping and well- crafted, Double Jeopardy is formulaic pap. 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: Odeon. Dragonheart (PG) (Rob Cohen, US, 1996) Dennis Quaid, Sean Connery, David Thcwlis. 103 mins. Disillusioned but noble knight Bowen (Quaid) teams up with the last of the dragons (voice and mannerisms by Connery) to free the land from a tyrant king
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('I'hewlis). Dungeons and dragons for all the family in a film that is only fun when the expertly animated, fire-breathing beast is on screen. Otherwise the storyline lumbers along. Edinburgh: Odeon.
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 70s. 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.
8 112 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) rekindlcs 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-Ale and a self-conscious foray into more mainstream narrative filmmaking. Yet it remains unmistakably Greenaway. Kirkcaldy: Adam Smith.
The End Of The Affair (18) *ii* (Neil Jordan, UK/US, 2000) Ralph Fiennes, Julianne Moore, Stephen Rea. 101 mins. This is a diary of hate,‘ explains narrator Bendrix (Fiennes), as he attempts to piece together the memories of his war-time affair with Sarah (Moore), the wife of high- ranking civil servant Henry (Rea). Jordan captures the rancorous tone and bitter intensity of Graham Grahame Greene‘s source novel in this potent adaptation, the impact of which is compounded by a trio of commanding performances. See feature and review. Selected release.
Extreme Screen: Everest 8: The Living Sea (U) it 40 mins. Although the lwerks experience impresses on a technical level, neither of these films transcend entertainment as lumbering fairground attraction. Everest is a dry-as-sand account of a recent expedition up the big yin. Filmed in the style of a Sunday afternoon docudrama, it also has the dubious honour of rendering a remarkable adventure mundane. A much better bet is the visually wondrous The Living Sea, an ‘edutaining' look at mankind‘s relationship with the sea (with voice-over from Meryl Streep). Edinburgh: Virgin Megaplex.
The Exorcist (18) (William Friedkin, US, 1973) Linda Blair, Ellen Burstyn, Max Von Sydow. 1 10 mins. Earnest priest Von Sydow steps in to save poor little possessed girl in this hugely effective scarefest. Now re- released in remastered form, with a super stereo soundtrack (so you can hear those Obscenities in full). Dead good, dead scary, dead priest. St Andrews: New Picture House.
Cereal killer: Andrew Shim in A Room For Romeo Brass
Eyes Wide Shut (18) (Stanley Kubrick, US, 1999) Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman, Sidney Pollack. 159 mins. Had Kubrick chosen to stage his adaptation ofArthur Schnitzler's Dream Novel in its original fin de sieele 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. Edinburgh: Lumiere.
Felicia's Journey (12) it (Atom ligoyan, UK.’Canada, 1999) Bob Hoskins, Elaine Cassidy, Peter McDonald. 116 mins. After the sublime heights of the seductive Erotica and mesmerising The Sweet Hereafter, Atom Egoyan has fallen from grace with this clunking adaptation of William Trevor's novel. Felicia is a young Irish girl who journeys across the sea to England to find the father of her unborn child. Arriving in Birmingham, the naive girl accepts the help of Ambrose Hilditch, a seemingly benign middle-aged bachelor who has more than one skeleton in his closet. Stirling: MacRobert.
Ferris Bueller's Day Off (15) (John Hughes, US, 1986) Matthew Broderick, Jennifer Grey, Charlie Sheen. 103 mins. A sunny Spring day in Chicago is far too good to spend locked in a classroom so the irrepressible Ferris Bueller feigns a malady, cuts classes and promises his two best friends a day to remember. Characteristically uneven Hughes teen comedy that scores with fresh dialogue and appealing characterisations, but has the drawback of some laboured farce and the need to make meaningful statements. Edinburgh: Cameo.
Festen (15) (Thomas Vinterberg, Germany, 1998) 106 mins. Made under the banner of DOGME 95, a chief dictum of which filmic manifesto is that the inner lives of the characters must justify the workings of the plot, in this case the story of a country house party given to celebrate the 60th birthday of rich patriarch Helge Klingenfeldt. Tensions surface before long and a disturbing family secret is revealed. Edinburgh: Cameo. Following (15) **** (Christopher Nolan, UK, 1999) Jeremy Theobald, Alex Haw, Lucy Russell. 70 mins. Struggling young writer Bill (Theobald), who randomly follows strangers around London for inspiration, is caught and apprenticed by compulsive burglar Cobb (Haw). Peopled by noirish archetypes, Following is taut and engrossing, and touches on the theme of voyeurism as Cobb‘s showman exploits Bill's stalker impulses. Nolan's film could prove to be as significant a debut as Blood Simple. Glasgow: GET.
The Fountainhead (PG) (King Vidor, US, 1949) Gary Cooper, Patricia Neal, Raymond Massey. 114 mins. A real oddity this. Cooper plays an upstanding architect at odds
with the commercialism personified in the money men around him; so much so that he eventually blows up a building that doesn't lit his viewpoint. Based (uncomfortably) on Ayn Rand‘s novel, the film struggles to achieve its expressionistic symbolism, although some of the visuals are entertainingly bizarre. Edinburgh: Lumiere. II Giorno Della Civetta *** (Damiano Damiani, Italy, 1968) 104 mins. Life in a small Sicilian village is turned upside down when an entrepreneur is killed and the imprisonment of a suspect upsets the Mafia in this adaptation of Leonado Sciascia's novel. Edinburgh: ltalian Cultural Institute. Godzilla (PG) (Roland Emmerich, US, 1998) Matthew Broderick, Jean Reno, Maria l’itillo. 140 mins. Nuclear testing causes a lizard to grow to an enormous size, reproduce asexually and head to New York to lay some eggs. When the military take the offensive, it‘s time for the rampaging reptile to demolish Manhattan. Godzilla goes beyond insulting its audience and makes the grave error of forcing our sympathy away from the monster and onto the non-dcscript humans. When a film like this fails to thrill with its effects - it‘s Jurassic Park all over again - it can only fall flat on its over-sized Hollywood ass. Ayr: Odeon.
Gregory's Two 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 Cumbernauld. 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's 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. Kirkcaldy: Adam Smith. Happy, Texas (12) (Mark lllsley, US, 1999) Jeremy Northam, Steve Zahn, William H. Macy. 98 mins. lnto 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. Edinburgh: Lumiere. Kirkcaldy: Adam Smith.
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 (Dimitriadcs — 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