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COMEDY PINEAPPLE EXPRESS (15) 111min 0000
As with last year's Superbad, male bonding lies at the heart of the latest Judd Apatow production which also comes from the screenwriting team of Evan Goldberg and Seth Rogen. After playing one of the cops in Superbad and starring in Knocked Up, Rogen returns to play Dale Denton, a permanently-baked legal process- server whose friendly neighbourhood weed-dealer, Saul Silver (James Franco) sells him a rare strain of cannabis known as Pineapple Express. When Denton accidentally leaves a half-smoked joint at the scene of gangland murder, Denton and Silver are forced to go on the run from the police and criminals alike.
The Pineapple Express project was created by Apatow after revisiting Tony Scott’s True Romance, with Silver’s hippy-Jesus character clearly fashioned after Floyd, Brad Pitt’s stoner comic relief. From this inspiration, Apatow encouraged Rogen and Goldberg to create a ‘drug- buddy’ comedy that’s pitched somewhere between Cheech and Chong and Laurel and Hardy.
Directed by the usually sensitive David Gordon Green (George Washington, All the Pretty Girls, Undertow),
DRAMA THE BANISHMENT (12A) 157min eee
Fledgling master Russian filmmaker Andrei The Return Zvyagintsev's flawed second feature is a nonetheless interesting fusion of British gangster flick Sexy Beast. Ingmar Bergman’s Persona and (thematically at least) Scenes from a Marriage as created by Andrei Tarkovsky and Aleksandr Sokurov in their more ponderous. less assured moments.
Based on a short stOry by the great Armenian-American William Saroyan. the film opens like a thriller as middle-aged Mark (Aleksandr Baluyev) drives to the inner-city flat of his brother Alex. He has a bullet in his arm and insists Alex removes it without any fuss. Mark may be a criminal. but we're never told. Next thing we know, Mark and his beautiful wife Vera (Norwegian actress Maria Bonnevie) and two small children are staying at the family's remote countryside retreat. A revelation from Vera brings on the disintegration of their marriage amongst much enigmatic ellipses. all at a snail‘s pace.
The very epitome of challenging. self-conscious art house cinema The Banishmenf works for at least its first hour. The sparse dialogue. blunt editing. and fantastic cinematography (by Mikhail Krichman who also shot The Return) work in its favour to create something both oblique and meditative. Unfortunately, a badly advised flashback sequence and a shamefully showy closing tableaux ruin the magic (legendary Estonian composer Arvo Part even. regrettably. gets in on the action). Still, for those with the patience of a saint who are interested in the troubling semantics at the heart of any marital union, this is definitely worth a look. (Paul Dale)
I Fi/mnouse, Edinburgh and selected cinemas from Fri 5 Sep.
Pineapple Express is a loose, freewheeling and highly enjoyable action comedy that boasts a decidedly 19803 attitude, right down to the Huey Lewis and the News closing song. As with Superbad, the narrative has the quality of a rambling, somewhat exaggerated shaggy- dog story, and the theme of friendship is developed in a similar plotline about a strained relationship which comes close to extinction after an unspeakable truth is said’ (‘I guess the monkey is finally out of the bottle’ admits Franco’s addled stoner ‘That’s the thing about Pandora, she won’t go back in the box’).
While not quite as filthin sidesplitting as Superbad, Pineapple Express raises plenty of smiles, despite a few bum notes - scenes involving Dale’s awkward romance with a high-school girl and one in which our heroes sell drugs in a children’s playground both seem contrived and too self-conscious in their desire to shock - yet both strands pay off in delirioust funny set pieces, one in which Denton attempts to enjoy a calm dinner with his girlfriend’s parents while fending off the attentions of the drug-dealing community, and a riotous sequence in which Saul clumsily steals a police car to rescue his friend. (Eddie Harrison)
I General release from Fri 72 Sep.
Disaster Movie (12A) 90min 0 New spoof comedy from the Epic Movie/Meet the Spartans folk. Blockbuster disaster flicks plus the Indiana Jones franchise. Iron Man and High School Musical get Iampooned to tedious effect. General release from Fri 5 Sep. Bangkok Dangerous (18) 98min .0 Arriving in Bangkok to execute some contracts, hitman Joe (Nic Cage) quickly finds himself immersed in the city's corrupt and dirty lifestyle. Hiring local henchman Kong (Shahkrit Yamnarm) to serve as a middleman, he goes about his brutal business with the ease of a professional. CGI- embellished but much less gritty remake of the Pang Brothers' 1999 feature of the same name. Cage once again gets to wear ridiculous clothes and a terrible weave and turn on the laconic charm in this sanitised. tourist- friendly remake. General release from Fri 5 Sep.
The Women (12A) 90min
0. Depressing update of Clare Booth Luce’s 1936 satirical play set amid the idle and bitchy world of wealthy wives and divorcees. lmmensely popular in its day (it ran on Broadway for over a year) and most famously adapted by Anita Loos for George Cukor's wonderful 1939 film, this version of The Women updates the action for a new cast of bitchy madams including Meg Ryan, Annette Bening and Eva Mendes. US TV writer Diane English adapts and directs with little feeling for the sacred text she is dealing with. Some adequate performances, nice costumes and a few decent one-liners aside. this begs the inevitable question: why? General release from Fri 72 Sep.
Jar City (15) 94min “.0 Compelling Icelandic police procedural thriller about a jaundiced middle-aged cop on the trail of a decades old mystery involving rape, corruption and murder. Writer/director (and leading Icelandic actor) Baltasar 707 Reykavik Kormakur brings some really fresh and haunting twists to the familiar narrative. Read the full review and exclusive interview with Kormakur next issue. GFT, Glasgow and Cameo, Edinburgh from Fri 72 Sep.
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