Films screening this fortnight are listed below with certificate, star rating, credits, brief review and venue details. Film index compiled by Miles Fielder
All The Pretty Horses ( )5) 000. (Billy Bob Thornton. CS. 2001 ) Matt Damon. Henry Thomas. Penelope Cruz.
| to mins. The year is I‘M‘). but Mexico continues to exert a gravitational pull on Yankees chasing a vanishing frontier. not least Damon's dispossessed young Texas cowboy John (irady Cole and best friend Lacey Rawlins (Thomas). The boys chase their dream until a tangle with the law leads them to take refuge on a ranch. where Cole's prowess at breaking wild horses wins him respect and piques the interest of the owner's high-spirited daughter (Cruz). Thornton's film. adapted from Cormac McCarthy's bestseller. is leisurely paced and glorious to behold. with splendid widescreen cinematography evoking the majesty of the western landscape. MacRobert Arts Centre. Stirling.
Bad Beasts and Creepy Creatures (l?) 0.. (Various.
2001 ) A programme of contemporary and classic animation including :‘xardman's l’ib and Pog and Tex Avery's King-Size Canary. Adam Smith Theatre. Kirkcaldy. Blow ( 18) 0.. (Ted Demme. CS. 2001 ) Johnny Depp. Penelope Cruz. l‘ranka Potente. 123 mins. The story of the rise and fall of drug smuggler (ieorge Jung (played by Depp). who progresses from smuggling marijuana in the late-()0s to importing cocaine on an industrial scale in the 70s. It's a time of high jinks in tnore than one sense and Demme finds a style to match. employing free/e framing and lurching zooms. We could he in an episode of The Monkees. If Blow is intended as a modern morality play. however. then its ethics remain unclear. We never see the social costs of his freebooting entrepreneurship; Demme fails to give us the wider picture. ()deon At The Quay. (ilasgow.
Blue Planet (C) An awesome trip around. above and beyond our planet on the [MAX giant screen which prompted the Washington Post to write: ‘If a picture is worth a thousand words. one image from Blue Planet is worth a zillion’. IMAX Theatre. (ilasgow.
Bridget Jones’s Diary ( )5)
0... (Sharon Maguire. l'S/l7K. 2001 ) Renee Zellweger. Hugh (irant. Colin birth. ()6 mins. Bridget Jones‘s Diary is that rare thing. an adaptation that vastly improves on an over-rated original. in this case Helen l‘ielding‘s bestselling newspaper column-cum-book. Jones has a rather nice job. and looks rather nice. but worries a lot about her appearance and career. In between weighing herself and ranting about the tnodern male. she entangles herself with nasty boss Daniel Cleaver ((irant). before taking tip with nice Mark Darcy (l‘irth). ()n paper. Jones was a snivelling. neurotic wreck. on film she's a snivelling. neurotic wreck who also happens to be consistently hilarious. And Xellweger adds a touch of warmth to what is essentially a wholly unsympathetic. brittle character. Selected release.
A Bug’s Life (ti) 0...
(John Lasseter. CS. 19%)) Voices of: Dave l‘olcy. Kevin Spacey. David Hyde Pierce. Denis Leary. ()5 mins. Made by Pixar Animation Studios (Toy Story). A Bug's Life takes us to Ant Island. where the colony is being oppressed by a gang of menacing grasshoppers. When inventive but clumsy worker ant lilik incurs the wrath of gang leader llopper. he heads off to find help heavyweight help in the battle against his oppressors. ()deon. lidinburgh.
Captain Corelli’s Mandolin ( )5) 0.. (John Madden. l'K/l 'S/l-"rance.
12 THE LIST 1021) Aug 200)
200l ) Nicolas Cage. Penelope ('rtil. John Hurt. l20 mins. This adaptation of Louis de Bernieres' bestseller sees (ireecc taken by the Italian Army during World War II. Captain Corelli and his squad of opera enthusiasts arrive on the island of Cephallonia. catising mttch uproar. And when the Captain is billeted to Dr lannis' (llttrt) house. Corelli and the Doctor's beautiful daughter. Pelagia (Cruz). fall in forbidden love. Madden has stuck to his guns and made a movie at once distinctly liuropean and likely to appeal to American audiences. Commercial. unfaithful to the book. but still head and shoulders above any of the eye candy Hollywood has to offer. Dominion. lidinburgh; Adam Smith 'l'hcatre. Kirkcaldy.
Cats And Dogs (PG) .0. (Lawrence (iuterman. l'S. 2001)
Jeff (ioldbluttt. lilizabeth Perkins. Miriatn Margoyles. 87 mins. This refreshing approach to cute talking
pets films is a kind of subversive Lassie meets Mission: Impossible. These dogs don't just talk. they use surveillance equipment and have a solemn mission
to protect scientist (ioldblum as he invents a cure for dog allergies. The cats are evil. hell-bent on conquering the world; their special agents have deadly ninja skills and vicious weapons. The animatronic effects are of a pretty high standard. but it‘s the anitnal trainers )‘ou're in real awe of. The occasional wander into sentimental territory and slowing tip of pace can be forgiven by the tnadly original idea. lively action sequences and knockabout humour. (ieneral release.
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (t’) O... (Ken lltighes. LR. 1008)
Sally Anne llow es. Dick Van Dy kc. Lionel Jeffries. l-lS mins. Lengthy. effects-filled children’s adventure conceived in the wake of Mary Poppins' huge commercial succes but with a charm (and great songs) all of its own. Dick Van
Dyke is the mad inventor whose Ilying car
propels his children and romantic interest Howes to a far-off land of adventure. (it‘osvenor. (ilasgow.
The Colour Of Lies
(Au Coeur Du Mensonge) ( 18) 0.. (Claude Chabrol. l-‘rance. I‘NS) Sandrine Bonnaire. Antoine de Caunes. Jacqties (iamblin. ll} mins. A more straightforward thriller than we're used to from Chabrol. (iamblin is a struggling. ageing artist. Rene. implicated in the murder of a ten-year-old girl. But if Rene looks guilty. what about his wife. \‘ivianc (Bonnaire)? .\'ot guilty of the crime of course. but of a lesser offence. of
embarking on an affair with an undeniably
obnoxiotis media celebrity. (iermain (dc Caunes). Chabrol settles here less for psychological depth than the width of social culpability. and offers up an impressive study in toxic milieu. (ilasgow l-‘ilm Theatre. (ilasgow.
The Dish ( 12)....
(Rob Sitch. Atistralia. 2000)
Sam Neill. Kevin Harrington. Tom Long. 101 mins. It's 196‘). Apollo X1 is about to land and Neil Armstrong is due to take the first human steps upon the moon. A bumbling team of country boys. at Parkes Radio Telescope l-‘acility in New South Wales. are responsible for providing the images scheduled to appear on ()00 million television screens around the world. l'nfortunately. they seem to have lost Armstrong in space. The resulting tension is high. the optimism infectious and the outcome astounding. With unfailingly quirky humour and sincere performances. the result has to be one of the most uplifting and entertaining history lessons ever filmed. Adam Smith 'l'heatre. Kirkcaldy. Dolphins (l') The producers of the (Host successful IMAX movie ever. l'.\c‘t'L‘sl. take its undersea into the aquatic home of dolphins. Willi narration by Pierce Bi'osnan and inusic by Sting. [MAX 'l‘heatre. (ilasgoyv.
SCIENCE FICTION PLANET OF THE APES (12) 119 mins .00
Tim Roth proves that the make up is the best thing in Tim Burton's remake
To address the inevitable first question about Tim Burton’s Planet Of The Apes: no, it isn’t better than the original science fiction classic. Burton’s insistence that his film is not a remake or a sequel is just bogus. That said, the film does retain more of the entertaining social satire of Pierre Boulle’s source novel than the 1968 original. Thus, the emphasis in William Broyles Jr’s screenplay is on the mores and manners of the topsy-turvy society in which the apes are ‘civilised’ and the humans slaves. By con- trast, Rod Serling’s original screenplay went for straightforward sci-fi thrills, underpinned by allegorical references to concerns of the time: race riots, Vietnam, nuclear war.
Nevertheless, the two films share a similar plot: An astronaut (Mark Wahlberg’s little lad Leo Davidson taking the place of manly, be-loin- clothed Charlton Heston) is marooned on the planet and captured by the war-like apes. He meets a liberal female chimpanzee (Helena Bonham- Carter’s Ari), who helps him escape, and leads a revolt against the simian oppressors. In effect, the new film condenses events spread across the original five Apes films, but plot-wise it’s a mess — scenes lurch from one to another so that no coherent sense of pacing or tone is established. Meanwhile, much of the dialogue in unintentionally funny - ‘I’m going after my chimp,’ says Wahlberg at one point, sounding like Dirk Diggler, his porn star from Boogie Nights.
As you might expect, Burton’s Planet Of The Apes exceeds the original in the make-up department. Not only has sfx guru Rick Baker made the simians look real - the cast’s ape school studies have also helped here - but he makes them resemble the actors beneath. Therefore, you will recognise both Tim Roth as fascistic military commander Thade and, in a rib-tickling cameo, Charlton Heston as Thade’s father.
Paying respectful homage to the original, Burton fills his film with such amusing references (though, paradoxically, this is the least Burton-esque of Burton’s own films). His ending, which couldn’t hope to top the superb coupe of 1968, also employs a great visual gag. And though it doesn’t make sense within the film’s own story logic, it’s sure to be explained in the inevitable sequel. (Miles Fielder)
I Genera/ release from Fri 77 Aug.