melodrama and social realism, with one show-stopping number in ‘Hot Voodoo‘. Eilmhouse. Edinburgh.
The Blue Kite (15) *‘k‘k (Tian Zhuangzhuang. China/11K. 1993) Lu Liping. Zhang Wenyao, Chen Xiaoman. 138 mins. A mother and son struggle to survive the upheavals of the Mao regime and the violent turmoil of the Cultural Revolution. Tian's film tells it straight, where others, such as Farewell My Coneubme. have taken a more metaphorical approach. and the result is an honest and moving account of a still sensitive issue. Eilmhouse, Edinburgh.
Blue Planet (U) An awesome trip around. above and beyond our planet on the IMAX giant screen which prompted the Hits/1171mm:Poslto write: ‘If a picture is worth a thousand words, one image from Blue Planet is worth a zillion'. IMAX Theatre. Glasgow.
Bounce (12) *in (Don Ross, UK, 2000) Ben Affieck. Gwyneth Paltrow, Johnny Galecki. 100 mins. Adman Buddy (Affleck), overwhelmed by Christmas spirit, bestows his ticket home on a fellow reveller. However. the plane crashes and Buddy's relief is tempered by responsibility for the dead man's family. Thus follows an incognito check-up on widow Abby (l’altrow) that inevitably leads to romance. This is one courtship rather less convincing than director Don Ross' previous effort in The Opposite ()fSex; gone is the arch dialogue and pop postmodernism. Instead, we have Paltrow trundling out monologues of absurd banality. The unfeasibly horizontal love scene says it all: dull. tedious and plodding. All words that would more accurately describe this film with a misnomer of a title. General release. Bowfinger (12) it (Frank ()2, US. 1999) Steve Martin, Eddie Murphy. Heather Graham. 97 mins. Ecstatic after reading a 'great script', Martin. the proprietor of the low budget Bowfinger International Pictures. begins the farcical attempt to make a movie with Hollywood's flavour of the month. Kit Ramsey (Murphy), as its unwitting star. lt succeeds in exposing Hollywood's neurotic underbelly, though all
too briefly with the plot quickly running out of steam. Cameo, Edinburgh.
Breathless (A Bout de Souffle) (15) *****(Jean-1.uc Godard, France. 1959) Jean-Paul Belmondo, Jean Seberg. 90mins. A chic Parisian petty criminal (Belmondo) and his American ex-pat girlfriend (Seberg) drift through a world of stolen cars and aimless romance towards an inexorable downbeat finale. Godard's debut feature provoked quite a stir in its day for its carefree arrogance with the conventions of filmic grammar. but today it stands as a casual love letter to the American B-movie crime picture. Eilmhouse. Edinburgh. Cairo 30 (Al-thra thalathin)(1’(i)(Salah Abu Seif, Egypt, 1907) 135 mins. Part of Cincmamcd, see preview. Filmhouse. Edinburgh.
Cairo Enlightened By Her People (al- Qahira munawara bi Ahlaha) (PU) (Youssef Chahine, Egypt. 1991) 22 mins. Part of Cinemamed, see preview. liilmhouse, Edinburgh.
Cairo Station (Bab el-Hadid) (12) (Youssef Chahine, Egypt. 1958) 80 mins. Part of Cinemamed. see preview. Etlmhouse. Edinburgh.
Casablanca (PG) ***** (Michael Curtiz, US. 1942) Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Dooley Wilson. 102 mins. You must remember this . . . Bogart being impossibly noble. Bergman torn between two lovers, Claude Rains playing both ends against the middle, devious Nazis. a fogbound airport, a piano-player tinkling that tune . . .A wonderful hill of beans. GET, Glasgow.
Cast Away (12) iii (Robert Zemeckis, US. 2000) Tom Hanks. Helen Hunt, Nick Searcy. 143 mins. In this solidly told tale of a modern-day Robinson Crusoe. Hanks' FedEx systems engineer Chuck Noland, a flag—bearer for US capitalism and can-do kinda guy, is marooned on a deserted island in the South Pacific after his Christmas Eve flight crashes during a ferocious storm. At a stroke, he's stripped of all the accoutremcnts of modern civilisation and returned to the Stone Age. But like Defoe 's hero. Chuck is an Everyman who embodies the values of
his age: energy. resourcefulness and consummate problem solving. General release.
Cecil B Demented (18) *id: (John Waters. US. 2000) Melanie Griffith. Stephen Dorff. Alicia Witt. 88 mins. The veteran of trash filmmaking shoots down the film industry — both Hollywood and independent — in a re- enactment of the Patty Hearst story. Hearst (who has a cameo role here) is supplanted with film star Honey Whitlock (the game Griffith). who is kidnapped by the eponymous renegade auteur (Dorff) and forced to appear in one of his trashy movies. But before Demented can yell ‘cut and wrap', she sides with her director. fighting for the independent cause. Waters employs the scattergun approach, peppering the film with in jokes, some of which raise laughs, some of which fall lame. Adam Smith Theatre. Kirkcaldy. Centenary Showreel (NC) 120 mins (Various directors, UK, 1996) Film Guide member Peter Kendrick narrates this rare opportunity to see original work shot by Scots in the first halfof the 20th century. Encompassing a variety of subjects. this is a must for enthusiasts of local history with footage of local events, government and pioneering times of the age. Edinburgh Eilm Guild at Eilmhouse.
Charlie's Angels (15) *t* (McG, US, 2000) Cameron Diaz, Drew Barrymore. [.ucy 1.iu. 90 mins. This update of the TV series has three chief attractions which are so pleasing on the eye it almost gets away with everything else: the gorgeous trio of Diaz, Barrymore and Lin, the outfits and action sequences. There's nothing believable about these three crime fighters — and that's why girls needn't get excited about this being a rare action film lead by women — but the lack of realism is also one of the film's strengths; its thrills and spills have a cartoonish, laws of nature-defying brilliance. On the other side of the coin, the plot is pants, the characters are wafer-thin and the jokes aren't half as funny as they ought to be. Selected release.
Chopper (18) **** (Andrew Dominik, Australia, 2000) Eric Bana, Simon Lyndon, David Field. 93 mins. Based on the life of
index FILM
Mark ‘Chopper' Brandon Read. Australia's self-proclaimed gangster number one. Chopper is a savagely funny voyage through the rationale of a criminal mind. Dominik questions the myth of a man who gained notoriety by chopping off his own ears in prison to escape a rival gang. and later removed fingers and toes of others. The considerable explicit violence slides uncomfortably along a razor edge between realism and fantasy and raised a round of critical assaults. And central to the film is a beguiling performance by top Australian comedian Bana as Chopper. a mischievous piece of casting that really piles on the irony. Adam Smith Theatre. Kirkcaldy.
Chuck And Buck(15) *vktt (Miguel Arteta, US, 2000) Chris Weill. Mike White. 95 mins. Chuck (Weitz) and Buck (White. also scriptwriter) used to suck and fuck each other, when they were kids. As the years pass they drift apart, Chuck moves to los Angeles and becomes a successful music industry executive while Buck stays at home with his mother. living in a state of perpetual childhood at 27 years of age. But the death of Buck's mom brings the boys back together. much to Buck's delight and Chuck's chagrin. You'll find Chuck-1nd Buck either irritating or endearing, but it's an American indie movie that makes a truth of those much overused adjectives: quirky. offbeat and oddball. 1"1‘H Cinema, l-‘alkirk. The Cider House Rules (12) tit (Lassc Hallstrom, US. 2000) Tobey Maguire. Michael Caine, Charlize Theron. 126 mins. Maguire takes the lead as Homer Wells, an orphan who grows up to continue the worthy work of his mentor and surrogate father, Dr larch (Caine). On route to manhood, Homer undertakes a small-scale odyssey around 1940s New England. during which time he works on an apple farm and has an affair with farm owner Candy Kendall (Theron). Somewhere between Irving's screenplay and Hallstrt'im's direction there's an overabundance of sentimentality which undermines 1rving's brand of tragi-comedy. ()deon, Dunfermline.
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1—15 Feb 2001 THE LIST 33