Film
film news just to keep you amused
I Book now for Triptych (26-30 April) because it’s not just about music - there are some great movies being shown as well. Rough Cuts recommends you check out the 13th Floor Elevators’ film You’re Gonna Miss Me and if you like your jazz confrontational and inspired you could do a lot worse than popping in to see Charles Mingus: Triumph of the Underdog. But best of all there will be screenings of Mikhail Kalatozov’s brilliant 1964 Soviet Union/Cuban film Soy Cuba, a masterpiece of choreographed propaganda from another age. Visit triptychfestival.com for more information.
I David Young Adam Mckenzie has just started shooting his new film Hal/am Foe in Scotland. Based on Peter Jinks' novel about a teenager's ongoing confusions. it will star Jamie Bell. the lovely Sophie Myles and Connie Nielsen. You can meet Myles in this section next issue.
I If you like to cross the borders between cinema and art, than do not miss an exclusive screening of The Short Films of David Lynch and Matthew Barney’s Cremaster2 on Thursday 6 April at Filmhouse. Edinburgh. The films are showing as part of the excellent CinemalArt season. Visit marquisde.co.uk
WIN A COPY 0E THE BEAT THAT MY HEART SKIPPED
Undoubtedly one of the best films it! wonderful French Sumo nOir thriller is now disc special § fl! edition DVD copies to give away. To be in With a chance of winning one. send an promotions@list.co.uk by Wednesday 12 April. Please include
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44 THE LIST 3O Mar—1 3 Apr 2006
RM“ Cuts Reviews
sci n COMED/ ALIEN AUTOPSY (12A) 95 min as
While ViSIting the US. an old man called Harvey (21 reference to James Stewart's imaginary rabbiti shows Ray (Declan 'Dec' Donnellyi a film depicting an extraterrestrial autopsy After Ray and his friend Gary (Ant McPartlin) have b0ught the film on behalf of a UFO-obsessed gangster. the duo find that the celluloid is corrupted. so they take the film to save their necks but then a TV company becomes interested in the footage.
Based on the true story of aimless wide boys Santilli and Shoefield. Alien Autopsy boasts a clever premise but a distinctly average execution. TV director Jonny Campbell (Shameless. Phoenix Nightsl and screenwriter William Johnny English Dawes keep things amusmg enough when dealing with the lake's creation (espeCiaIIy in scenes featuring the kebab shop- owner-turned-tortured auteur played by Omid Djalrli). but. as the hoax goes global, the farce disappOintingly fails to shift up a gear. (Ian Wintertonl I General release from Fri 7 Apr.
THRILLER BASIC INSTINCT 2: RISK ADDICTION
(18) 113min 00
Introducing Ba3ic Instinct 2 at the World premiere in London. director Michael Caton-Jones. a no-nonsense son of Badgers Brook. Lothian. grumbled obliquely that the shoot was 'harder than it should have been'. Well. good. because this film is tOxic. And not even in a fun. Class-A kind of way.
Sharon Stone returns as nut Job novelist Catherine Trammell. relocated to London where she casts her implausible psychosexual spell on analyst Michael Glass (David Morrissey). Although Stone does look pretty amazing for a 48-year-old. clunking dialogue like ‘Who knows if I'll ever come again' and 'When you think of fucking me — and I know you do' undermines her sexual allure. Morrissey. usually brilliant. is miscast here — not least because. from some angles. he looks the spit of Jimmy Carr.
The fii'ns scle redeeming feature is Ba.i;i hose seed». suean detective at least provides SOtTTt‘a aughs. Intentional ones. that is ‘Ial‘ ‘.‘.'intertcni
I Ge'ie'ar 'eease rem r'x
HISTORICAL DRAMA PIERREPOINT (15) 85min eee
Adrian Shergold's carefully exe<:uted film follows the real life career of Albert PierrepOint (Timothy Spalll. a professional executioner who hanged -133 men and 13 women before being retired in the mid 1950s Pierrepomt's story is a grinin fas‘Cinating one. never more so than when the hangman is transposed to Germany to orchestrate mass executions of Nazi war criminals in a sequence that draws chilling parallels to the actions of those concentration camp guards who claimed they were Just followmg orders. Shergold and screenwriter Jeff Dirty Filthy Love Pope go for a balanced approach. never demonismg Pierrepomt. nor pandering for sympathy; there's welcome space to make up your own mind ab0ut Pierreponit's work.
Spall's hangdog expresSion is perfectly suited to making this much caricatured man a fully fleshed out character. suggesting a gentle humanity as he tries to soften the moment of death for his victims. But despite excellent support from Juliet Stevenson (as Pierrepoint's long- suffering Wife). many of the other characters — particularly the hangman's pal Tish (Eddie Marsdeni and his tarty girlfriend Jessne (Claire Keelani — are weakly drawn. Also the authentic and tragic subplot fails to suggest the complex reasons for Pierrepomt's eventual change of heart. Offering executions as entertainment. Pierrepomt is a morbidly engrossmg film. but one that Will swing somewhat more comfortably on the small screen. (Eddie Harrison)
I Fi/mhouse, Edinburgh from Fri 7 Apr.
MUSICAL RENT (12A) 134min .0
Everybody has AIDS!‘ It‘s difficult to take seriously this celluloid adaptation of the Pulitzer and Tony Award- Winning muSical about Bohemians in the East Village of New York City with love. money and health problems after it was so brilliantly lampooned in Team America. Matters are not helped by Chris Home Alone Columbus' clunky direction and the poor choreography of the numer0us numbers. The cast of Rosario Dawson. Anthony Papp and Adam Pascal are also too long in the tooth to conVince as multicultural kids
struggling to pay the rent wi‘. trim apartment building Part of tl‘i- "i problem is that the niusuxii h.i:; Ii’w: rather badly None of the songs haw become a true classics and the themes of gentrification. AIDS my: upwardly mobile youths haw silt ire Io u in a 21st century dominath h, tril- homogonous lifestyles of Sttirtiiit‘kr. double decaf vanilla (:appur‘t‘ino drinkers and iPod listeners. (Zoliirniilnz' New York is a l)|.’£lllt3 mix of stagi- sets. period design and modern .la‘. locations. It's as mixed up as the mid to-like. seltohsessed non (‘haiai term Fashionistas take note. this it) conclusive proof that thr- nor. .'.“.'t‘ never cool. (Kaleem Attahi
I General release from Fri ,' Apr
COMEDY IAMIIY YOURS, MINE AND OURS (PG) 90min ee
Somebody. somewl‘iere believes that what the world needs right now is .i Cheaper by the Do/en rip-oft. and right on cue comes Yours, Mine and Ours.
As Willi the Steve Martin ‘."(:Ill(ll(:. Raia Scoohv Doo Gosnell's <;oiiir,-i I, is a remake of a much older film ".‘VTIIfZII itself was based on an improbable hut true story). With Dennis Guard and Renee Russo taking (in the roles formerly played in 1968 by Henry Fonda and LuCilIe Ball respectively. He's a Widower With eight kids who falls fora Widow With ten children of her own, and naturally, the kids hate each other. He's a Whistle-I)Io.‘ling admiral Who likes to think he runs a tight ship at work and at home. while she’s a tree-hugging handbag deSIgner Who brings up her brood on free expreSSion.
The pesky little mites. however. find COmmon ground in their determination to wreck the Ouaid-Russo relationship. putting their respective parents gaiiiely thr0ugh the usual pratfall indignities.
Despite such low brow toys as watching pigs and dogs scariipeiiiig onto the table and Guard being gunged With paint and glue. Yours. Mine and Ours has a little more restraint than might be expected from the director responSible for Big Momma '3 House. but Syrup-soaked sentiment all but kills any potential for laughs. A 90-minute argument for birth control. (Eddie Harrison)
I General release from Fri 37 Mar.