DRAMA
ME WITHOUT YOU
(15) 107 mins 00..
With a title as naff as Me Without You, this story of the best- friendship between two girls could easily have been as cringeworthy as an Athena poster full of penguins or ponies. And because the leads are played by a pair of soap-stars, Brookside’s Anna Friel and Dawson’s Creek’s Michelle Williams, Me Without You might have displayed all the cinematic ambition of an episode of George And Mildred.
Utterly convincing bittersweet 808 period drama
However, Me Without You is none to Marina hogging the spotlight, but dresses her bittersweet period
of these things. This Brit-flick
and Williams (you wouldn’t know the latter is American), whose on screen relationship as Marina and Holly remains utterly convincing throughout its ebb and flow, from London suburb schoolgirls in the 705, through Brighton University student flatmates in the 80s to Central London professionals towards the end of that decade.
Though best friends, the girls are (Kyle MacLachlan). Director Sandra Goldbacher
chalk and cheese. Holly is resigned ALSO OPENING
SPY GAME
(15 tbc) Mins tbc.
Could it be that Spy Game is not being screened to the press because its subject matter is deemed by its UK distributor to be too politically sensitive in the current climate? Covering a sixteen year period in the history of America's Central Intelligence Agency. Spy Game tells the stOry of Cold War spy veteran Nathan Muir (played by Robert Redford) and his protege Tom Bishop (Redford‘s younger alter ego. Brad Pitt). Scripted by CIA expert Michael Frost Beckner (who created the American television series The Agency), the film opens in 1991 with Bishop imprisoned in a jail in China. awaiting execution. Political relations between America and China have reSulted in the CIA washing their hands of Bishop. Muir's attempts to save Bishop provide director Tony Scott with the opportunity to indulge in one of the those deadly games of chess that only spies participate in as the film flashes back to Vietnam. where the men first met; Berlin. where the veteran trained the rookie; and to Beirut during the height of the conflict. where Muir and Bishop parted ways over international aid worker Elizabeth Hadley (Catherine McCormack).
It's this last political hot-spot location which may be the sensitive issue. considering Israel‘s renewed aggression against the Palestinians and the pressure being exerted on the country by America. Still, if that's the case. you wonder why the film is being released at all at this time. (Miles Fielder)
I General release from Fri 23 Nov.
Too politically sensitive?
26 THE LIST 15-29 NOV 2001
Marina’s deep down lack of boasts a pair of star turns from Friel confidence makes her at times wildly envious of her friend’s quiet smarts. And so the friendship is a tumultuous one, beset by betrayals accessorising and a soundtrack and reconciliations. Among the worst of these are Marina’s ongoing favourites as Echo and the efforts to keep her big brother Nat (the excellent Oliver Milburn) and Holly from realising their love for one another, and her affair with Holly’s college lecturer lover Daniel Depeche Mode sang I ‘Just Can’t
drama immaculately. Drawing on her own past to co-write the film with Laurence Coriat (Wonderland), black bin liner punk fashion
featuring such 805 alternative
Bunnymen’s ‘The Cutter’ are evocations of the era undercut with gently mocking humour. Me Without You is a joy to watch; as
Get Enough’. (Miles Fielder) I General release from Fri 23 Nov.
MUSICAL
GLITTER [Glimmiflé
In this rags-to-riches melodrama inspired. very loosely. by her own life. ‘pop music legend‘ Mariah Carey delivers a performance of such ineptitude that it plumbs depths of histrionic awfulness unknown even to Madonna and Whitney Houston. Wearing the expression of a startled chipmunk. she plays feisty orphan Billie Frank. a wannabe singer on the fringes of New York's music scene. Her big break isn't long in coming. While ghosting the voice of another singer (played by Salman Rushdie's girlfriend. Padma Lakshmi). she attracts the attention of hip DJ Julian Dice (Max Beesley). who promises to make her a star. Before music lovers can scream. ‘No. Dice!‘ Billie is on her way to the top. warbling and ululating with demented sincerity.
Actor-turned-director Vondie Curtis-Hall (Gridlock ’d) attempts to dress things up a bit. but no amount of flashy camerawork can disguise the essential blandness and predictability of the material. Once or twice. the tedium is relieved by moments of unintentional hilarity that make the viewer hoot with disbelief at the screen. Sadly. there aren't enough of them to turn Glitter into a camp classic.
(Jason Best) I General release from Fri 23 Nov.
HORROR
THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE 2 (18) 115 mins .0
British horror fans have waited long and patiently for Tobe Hooper's sequel to his classic. but after a decade and a half. it's hard not to be sawly disappointed. if you will. This attempted black comedy turns out to be a right carve-up.
Caroline Williams plays Stretch. a small- town Texas radio DJ who accidentally records Leatherface's chainsaw murder of two neds during a phone in. She. as the genre dictates. gets little help from the disbelieving local plod. but finds an unlikely assistant in Dennis Hopper. the sheriff of a neighbouring county who lost his niece to the cannibal family. who seem much unchanged from the original film. He's the kind of Christian fundamentalist who'd make you want to join the Jihad. and incompetent to boot. There are too many implausiblities before the final confrontation under a Wild West theme park, where the bone china isn't of the usual kind.
You will be sawly disappointed
While there are odd moments of clever satire. and much nauseous reflection on the content of Texas chilli. much of the business of this film is dull and repetitious. going over the action of the original. A crashing gore. (Steve Cramer)
I Selected release from Fri 76 Nov.