Film Index PROFILE
GIANNI DI GREGORIO Born 1949, Rome Background Having grown up in the Trastevere district of Rome, di Gregorio studied acting and directing in the Italian capital, before becoming a screenwriter. From 1996 he began collaborating with the director Matteo Garrone on films Roman Summer, The Embalmer and First Love. Di Gregorio was one of the writers on Garrone’s acclaimed portrait of the Neapolitan Mafia Gomorrah.
What’s he up to now? Di Gregorio makes his directorial debut with the semi- autobiographical Mid-August Lunch, in which he plays a middle-aged bachelor looking after four spirited elderly women, including his mother, over a sweltering holiday weekend in Rome. Impressively acted by its mainly non-professional cast, this charming and humane tale won the prize for best first feature at Venice in 2008 and the Satyajit Ray award at that autumn’s London Film Festival.
On perseverance ‘It’s taken me ten years to get Mid August Lunch made, because I couldn’t find anybody who was willing to finance it. People kept telling me – “A movie about four old ladies, nobody will like that.” Deep inside me, though, I knew there was something universal in the story.’ On directing non- professionals ‘After the first few days me and the crew realised that it was impossible to try and direct these ladies. I realised I would have to throw a lot of the script away and let them do their own thing. I gave them a general framework, and the words and the movements were their own.”
Interesting Fact Seeing Mean Streets on the big screen in the 1970s made him want to devote his creative life to cinema. ■ Mid-August Lunch is on selected release from Fri 14 Aug. See review, page 23.
26 THE LIST 13–20 Aug 2009
Land of the Lost (12A) ●●●●● (Brad Silberling, US, 2009) Will Ferrell, Anna Friel, Danny McBride. 101min. Dr Rick Marshall (Ferrell) and his research assistant Holly (Friel) are sucked into a vortex and sent back through time to an alternative universe full of crazy prehistoric creatures. Unfunny, inconsistent and very sketchy comedy based on a classic television series. General release. Life Partner (12A) (Rumi Jaffery , India, 2009) Govinda, Genelia D’Souza. 150min. Bollywood rom-com in which three men take very different approaches to life, marriage and finding The One. Cineworld Renfrew Street, Glasgow. London Belongs to Me (PG) ●●●●● (Sidney Gilliat, UK, 1948) Joyce Carey, Richard Attenborough, Alastair Sim. 112min. Post-war comedy drama set in a south London boarding house. The arrival of an exuberant young man (Attenborough) and an elderly psychic (Sim) disturbs the peace, and the group rallies when the youngster is arrested for suspected murder. Part of Alastair Sim season. Filmhouse, Edinburgh. Looking for Eric (15) ●●●●● (Ken Loach, UK, 2009) Steve Evets, Eric Cantona, Stephanie Bishop. 146min. Shot without frills, this sentimental, feel good comedy is much less conspicuously political than Loach’s previous films. It centres upon protagonist Eric Bishop (Evets), a middle- aged Mancuanian postman, who is prone to panic attacks. Gazing up one night over a spliff at a bedroom poster of Cantona, Eric is amazed to see the Frenchman appear, and Cantona proceeds to act as a life coach to the mixed-up Eric. Cameo, Edinburgh. Mark of an Angel (12A) ●●●●● (Safy Nebbou, France, 2008) Catherine Frot, Sandrine Bonnaire, Wladimir Yordanoff. 91min. This impressively executed French film begins as an engrossing character study and concludes as a riveting domestic thriller. Eliciting a pair of finely modulated performances from his talented leading ladies, Nebbou establishes two compelling mother figures who are both fiercely protective of their children, both real or imagined, which lays the groundwork for the thrills to come in the climax. Matinees only. Cameo, Edinburgh. Mauricio’s Diary (15) ●●●●● (Manuel Pérez, Cuba, 2006) Rolando Brito, Blanca Rosa Blanco, Larisa Vega Alamar. 135min. Revolutionary Mauricio (Brito) is struggling with the loss of his wife and finds himself spending his 60th birthday alone in Havana. Flashbacks of the character’s life are skilfully intertwined with a series of passages from the present, and the profound political upheavals of the 1990s are brought to the fore. Part of Cine Cuba season. Filmhouse, Edinburgh. Meerkats (U) ●●●●● (James Honeyborne, UK, 2008) Paul Newman. 83min. March of the Penguins-style documentary feature from the BBC’s Natural History department, following the formative years of Kolo, a young meerkat getting to grips with the realities of life in the Kalahari desert. Alexander McCall Smith’s narration is voiced by the later, great Paul Newman, and Kolo’s fight for survival is rendered intensely and sympathetically. Vue Edinburgh Ocean.
✽✽ Le Mepris (15) ●●●●● (Jean-Luc Godard, France, 1963) Brigitte Bardot,
Jack Palance, Michel Piccoli. 103min. Godard’s comment on international filmmaking is re-released in a new print. A scriptwriter is increasingly despised by his wife as he tries to set up a film in Rome to be directed by Fritz Lang. The breakdown of a marriage contrasts with the chequebook wedding that marked so much collaborative filmmaking during the 60s, while the Mediterranean photography makes this the most handsome film Godard ever made. Part of Truffaut/Godard season. Filmhouse, Edinburgh.
✽✽ Mesrine: Killer Instinct (15) ●●●●● (Jean-François Richet,
France, 2008) Vincent Cassel, Cécile De France, Gérard Depardieu. 113min. The early career and criminal gestation of France’s most notorious bank robber and gangster Jacques Mesrine circumscribed in
the first of two films telling his remarkable story. Tracing a line from Mesrine’s disillusioning military service during the Algerian war to the beginning of his notoriety in 1972, the first instalment of this epic crime tale is derivative, energetic and hugely enjoyable. Selected release.
✽✽ Mid-August Lunch (12A) (Gianni Di Gregorio, Italy, 2008) Gianni Di Gregorio, Valeria De Franciscis, Marina Cacciotti. 75min. See review, page 23 and profile, page 26. Filmhouse, Edinburgh. Moon (15) ●●●●● (Duncan Jones, UK, 2008) Sam Rockwell, Kevin Spacey, Dominique McElligott. 97min. With this cleverly conceived, evenly paced and consistently intriguing old-school science fiction piece Jones eschews special effects and action-oriented clatter, instead delivering a cerebral adventure that’s as thought-provoking as it is thrilling. Rockwell plays a mining engineer working for a corporation that’s found a new source of energy for the clapped-out planet Earth, but as he nears the end of his three-year contract, cabin fever begins to take hold. Cineworld Renfrew Street, Glasgow; Cameo, Edinburgh. My Sister’s Keeper (12A) (Nick Cassavetes, US, 2009) Cameron Diaz, Alec Baldwin, Abigail Breslin. 109min. When the daughter of seemingly perfect parents Sara (Diaz) and Brian (Patric) requests not to carry on with the medical donations that keep her leukaemia stricken sister alive they are forced to deal with some deep moral and ethical questions. Tear jerking adaptation of Jodi Picoult’s popular novel. Showcase Cinema, Coatbridge; Showcase Cinema, Paisley. On The Day: The Story of the Spirit of Scotland Pipe Band (E) (John McDonald, UK, 2008) 85min. Documentation of the World Pipe Band Championships 2008, featuring 8,000 musicians from 16 countries. Glasgow Film Theatre. Orphan (15) ●●●●● (Jaume Collet- Serra, US, 2009) Vera Farmiga, Peter Sarsgaard, Isabelle Fuhrman. 122min. Diverting evil child horror from House of Wax director Collet-Serra. Grieving parents Kate (Farmiga) and John (Sarsgaard) decide to adopt a child from a local orphanage and soon wish they hadn’t bothered. General release. Paul Blart: Mall Cop (PG) ●●●●● (Steve Carr, US, 2009) Kevin James, Keir O’Donnell, Jayma Mays. 90min. Adam Sandler’s regular cohort James plays a big- hearted, small-time lawman who takes on a gang of acrobatic skateboarding thieves after a lengthy set up introducing him as an over- zealous store detective. Despite the vanilla blandness of the conceit, James provides a likable enough hero and scattered moments of self-referential wit will be appreciated by older audiences. Vue Edinburgh Omni. A Perfect Getaway (15) ●●●●● (David Twohy, US, 2009) Steve Zahn, Timothy Olyphant, Milla Jovovich. 97min. See Also Released, page 23. General release. The Perfect Ten with Phill and Phil Live recording of Phill Jupitus and Phil Wilding’s pod cast, in which they rattle through ten topics in 30 minutes. Includes Mel Brooks’ film comedy Blazing Saddles (12A) on the big screen, a DJ set and possibly flying confectionary. Cameo, Edinburgh. A Prairie Home Companion (PG) ●●●●● (Robert Altman, US, 2006) Woody Harrelson, Tommy Lee Jones, Meryl Streep, Garrison Keillor. 105min. It’s the final night of a long-running variety radio show based on Keillor’s real-life ‘A Prairie Home Companion’ and as the action follows the (celebrity cameo) acts on and off stage, a trenchcoated angel of death (Madsen) stalks Keillor. The final film from the recently deceased Altman is a genial, warm- hearted meditation on mortality itself. Part of Words and Pictures season. Filmhouse, Edinburgh. The Proposal (12A) ●●●●● (Anne Fletcher, US, 2009) Sandra Bullock, Ryan Reynolds, Mary Steenburgen. 107min. Odd- couple comedy follow-up to 27 Dresses with a plot that blatantly reworks Peter Weir’s
considerably superior Green Card. Bullock plays a bullish publisher who faces deportation to Canada. Her only route to remaining in her swanky job involves bullying her put-upon assistant Andrew (Reynolds) into a fake marriage. Soulless, manipulative fare. General release. Public Enemies (15) ●●●●● (Michael Mann, US, 2009) Johnny Depp, Christian Bale, Marion Cotillard. 143min. Depp is typically mesmerising as depression-era bank robber John Dillinger, a folk hero to a disenchanted public, and number one target of J Edgar Hoover’s fledgling FBI. Mann’s gripping hand-held style and real locations heighten the authenticity and immediacy and overcome minor niggles, such as the occasional distortion of history, for a powerful result as Mann does what he does best. Vue Edinburgh Omni. Race to Witch Mountain (PG) ●●●●● (Andy Fickman, US, 2009) Dwayne Johnson, Carla Gugino, Ciaran Hinds. 98min. Sympathetic revival of 1975’s Escape to Witch Mountain as a vehicle for The Rock. Jack Bruno, a Las Vegas taxi-driver picks up two alien children (Anna Sophia Robb) and (Alexander Ludwig) and attracts the attentions of FBI-man Henry Burke (Hinds) in this solid time-passer that makes up in speed and slick production values what it lacks in character. Empire Clydebank. The Railway Children (U) ●●●●● (Lionel Jeffries, UK, 1970) Dinah Sheridan, William Mervyn, Jenny Agutter. 108min. A trio of youngsters’ involvement with the railway that runs past their garden leads them into adventure. Pleasing family film with an old-fashioned, comfortably British feel that sets it apart from contemporary kids movies. Part of Weans’ World. Filmhouse, Edinburgh. Red Riding: 1974 (18) ●●●●● (Julian Jarrold, UK, 2009) Andrew Garfield, David Morrissey, Sean Bean. 101min. Part one of Tony Grisoni’s adaptation of David Peace’s gritty books depicting the Leeds of the 1970s. Police corruption, child abductions and compromised journalistic integrity all feature in this dark and brooding drama. Part of Words and Pictures season. Filmhouse, Edinburgh. Red Riding: 1980 (18) ●●●●● (James Marsh, UK, 2009) Andrew Garfield, David Morrissey, Paddy Considine. 94min. Tony Grisoni’s adaptation of David Peace’s gritty books centred around the search for the ‘Yorkshire Ripper’ in the 1970s and 80s. This second part of the trilogy deals with a Manchester police officer’s return to a Yorkshire town where he has plenty of enemies. Part of Words and Pictures season. Filmhouse, Edinburgh. Red Riding: 1983 (15) ●●●●● (Anand Tucker, UK, 2009) David Morrissey, Warren Clarke, Mark Addy. 100min. The third and final instalment of Tony Grisoni’s tripartite adaptation of David Peace’s books about the search for the ‘Yorkshire Ripper’ in the 1970s and 80s. Tucker’s film centres on the unravelling of the web of deceit woven around the West Yorkshire murders over the past years. Part of Words and Pictures season. Filmhouse, Edinburgh. Shorts (PG) (Robert Rodriguez, US, 2009) William H Macy, Jimmy Bennett, Jake Short. 89min. The lastest family film from Rodriguez (Spy Kids and Planet Terror) about a rock that can grant wishes. Preview screenings only. Reviewed next issue. Selected release.
✽✽ Sin Nombre (15) ●●●●● (Cary Joji Fukanaga, US/Mexico, 2008) Paulina Gaitan, Edgar Flores, Kristyan Ferrer. 96min. See feature, page 12 and Also Released, page 23. Cameo, Edinburgh. Strawberry and Chocolate (15) (Tomas Gutierrez Alea/Juan Carlos Tabio, Cuba/Mexico/Spain, 1993) Jorge Perugorria, Vladimir Cruz, Mirta Ibarra. 110min. A straight Cuban sociology student becomes the object of affection for a older gay man. As their platonic friendship develops, they find themselves under pressure from the attitudes of other friends and from the political regime. What begins – deliberately – in stereotypical fashion