Reviews
AlilMAilON. COMEDY FAMILY CHICKEN LITTLE (U) 80min .0.
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Will Hollywood never tire of plucky underdogs wrnnrng the day? Seemingly not. because here comes another one. Followrng the death of hrs mother, Chicken Little (vorced by Scrubs star Zach Braff) struggles to communicate With a butch father who's ‘never there for him'. As if life wasn't hard enough, the feathery youngster sends his town into chaos after misdiagnosing that the sky is falling. Humiliation rains down on lather and son like hailstones and they become the laughing stock to all but a few equally ostracrsed oddball friends. A pig wrth food Issues and a penchant for Barbra Streisand. a mute goldfish wrth his head in a tank. ‘ugly ducklrng' Abby Mallard (she's beautiful on the inside. naturally) and a cool but spiky 'Morkupine' Porcupine make up Chicken Little's motley crew. Together they show the popular kids in high
DOCUMENTARY/MEDITATION GRIZZLY MAN (15) 103min 0000
Meet Timothy Treadwell - animal lover, waiter, actor, filmmaker, celebrity environmentalist and grizzly bear victim. In October 2003 he died alongside his girlfriend Amie Hugunard when he was attacked in the Alaskan nature reserve that he had been periodically visiting for over ten years. Within environmental circles Treadwell was about as controversial as it gets. He was, as the mighty filmmaker Werner Herzog points out in the voiceover of this superb documentary, ‘a star of his own invention’ who had ‘styled himself as a Prince Valiant’ of the environmental movement. The value of his methodical filming and documentation of the bear’s progress through each consecutive summer was dodgy at best and risible at worst, and yet in Treadwell’s footage and diaries Herzog finds redemption for an amateur filmmaker who was ultimately able ‘to catch images that all the studios with their union crews could
never capture’.
It is easy to forget what a remarkable documentary filmmaker Herzog is. If you have had the privilege of seeing any of his non-fiction canon (particularly Land of
school there's more to life than .ars't, spons and cheerleadrng Nothing nes. there then. Except Chicken Little throws in some alien aCil‘.’li“,’ to perk up a .vell- .vorri tale and appeal to the Invasion generation. Fast paced. fan and a little corny but with :ts neart in the right place. Chicken Little unor"! save yOur day. but it'll while away an afternoon quite nicely. (Kelly Apter.
I General release from Fri 70 Feb.
DRAMA PROOF (12A) 100mm 000
After her success in David Auburn's Pulitzer prize-Winning stage play Gwyneth Paltrow bravely recreates; her role of Catherine — a bereaved mathernatrcran — on the big screen. It is a role that all too awkwardly mirrors events in the star's own life. Onscreen dad Robert (Anthony Hopkinsi was once a brilliant but mentally unstable mathemarics professor, and after his death Catherine has to deal wrth the weight of mental, familial and intellectual inheritance.
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father's papers that more change the face of modern mathematics Like Curtis Hanson's The lilor‘de'rxhu Proof suffers from the probien: of making the academic llitESI‘,i(‘ connect wrth the rest of the comparatixer. under—educated WOrld.
That noted. the nerd), good humour Of the mathematical milieu is well- caught but the nature of the proof remains inexplicable in cinematic terms. which leaves John Shakespeare /n Love Maoden‘s film adding up to little more than erudrtion, semantics and coursework.
(Eddie Harrisonr I Film/rouse, Edinburgh from Fri in Feb. General release from Fri 2-1 Feb.
DRAMA NORTH COUNTRY (15) 126mm .00
A brief karaoke sequence featuring Rat Benatar‘s 'Hrt Me With Your Best Shot' provides a rare breezy moment in Niki Whale Rider Caro's otherwrse heavy handed expose of sexual harassment in the workplace. Real tough cookie JOSie Aimes lCharlize Theron) has two hungry mouths to feed. but her attempt to carve out a lrvrng in a
Silence and Darkness, Where the Green Ants Dream and Little Dieter Needs to Fly), you will know that he is
one of the true innovators of the documentary form. With Grizzly Man he digs deep, as is oft his way, into the life of one of society’s outsiders while also investigating man’s relationship with nature. Treadwell proves to be a complex and fascinating subject - an ex alcoholic who sought redemption and a certain reconfiguration of his own dismal past in the bears of the Katmai National Park and Reserve. What emerges is a Conradian portrait of a man coming apart in the middle of nature, and it makes astounding, disturbing viewing. Herzog is, however, always respectful and intelligently meditative about his subject, his film is composed in large part of Treadwell’s remarkable footage and Herzog chooses not to play the final sound tape of Treadwell and Hugunard being torn apart by a bear. No doubt Milos Forman will one day make a fictionalised feature about Treadwell to add to his quirky cinema biopics of oddball American heroes Andy Kaufman and Larry Flint, but if
Treadwell’s chaotic, paranoid and troubled spirit rests
cinema.
anywhere it is in this outstanding example of ‘found’
I GFT, Glasgow and Fr/mhouse, Edinburgh from Frr 3 Feb.
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I General release trr lrv‘ lr; ;‘
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FAMILY ADVE: N l l M it,
THE ADVENTURES OF GREYFRIARS BOBBY (PG) 104min 000
Apparently the fir:r;:f,:i,'. t l’ 15'“ Greyfrrars Bobh, a ’."‘.’r:mtre Tr1°'i':l T' '1' Skye terrier, as txr: Alli) ir. ":a‘ me. ,' .1, caused outrage minimal I; mtg: folklore purists.
Why they're sr. canoe" a“: v mystery —- Greyfriaru [int/r), made popular b, US ani'w' E im' r Atkinson, is mostl, flit/1111.3" T'l": facts are remarkable but not DarliCLrlarl‘,’ cineniatie lr. ‘rj‘fi’. :: 'iari named John G'a, ’lie': 11' rr' '. ‘atf'. terrier guarded his gran; r we, "vrr', Krrkgate. Edrnl,:irrir~.. iv 1.: ,ear'.
AlthOugh the film pan/mu to U: mere fact-based than the book arr: Disney's 1961 mo .iie. it's still a whimsical fiction :n.oi..rig dogcatchers. cote orpl‘arr, a“: conni/ing councillors, lt‘g effec'M: as children's entertainment. ale a’tmfu Wl” enjoy seeing the like; 9‘ Christopher Lee and Ard‘a' C‘Harm being upstaged by the 24; flesw; :mpostcr. ilari ‘flrritertgrr I General release from Fr. 7 0 Feb.
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