Film Index
Films screening this fortnight are listed below with certificate, star rating, credits, brief review and venue details. Film index compiled by Paul Dale ✽✽ Indicates Hitlist entry Aliens in the Attic (PG) ●●●●● (John Schultz, UK, 2009) Ashley Tisdale, Robert Hoffman, Austin Robert Butler. 85min. Likeably frenetic animated adventure about a family’s attempt to fight off knee high alien invaders. General release. Alphaville (15) ●●●●● (Jean-Luc Godard, France, 1965) Eddie Constantine, Anna Karina, Howard Vernon. 98min. Enjoyable mid-60s Godard caper which turns contemporary Paris into Alpha 60, a chilly city of the future from which such concepts as love and tenderness have been banned. Enter Constantine’s grizzled gumshoe Lemmy Caution and we’re set for an extended and highly idiosyncratic homage to comic strip heroism. Part of Truffaut/Godard season. Filmhouse, Edinburgh. Am I Black Enough for You? (12A) (Goran Hugo Olsson, USA, 2008) 90min. Documentary about 70s Philly soul music artist Billy Paul, his influence, and his lifelong companionship with his wife Blanche. Filmhouse, Edinburgh. Antichrist (18) ●●●●● (Lars von Trier, Denmark, 2009) Willem Dafoe, Charlotte Gainsbourg. 108min. When middle class couple Charlotte Gainsbourg and Willem Defoe’s son dies in a freak accident they retreat to their woodland cabin to heal. But soon guilt, confusion and some undefined eschatological force puts them in a very different place. A fine slice of unbridled and unpleasant pantheistic horror that’s underlined by themes of grief and guilt. Cineworld Renfrew Street, Glasgow. Apni Boli Apna Des (U) (Ravindra Peepat, India, 2009) Raj Babbar, Sarabjit Cheema, Shweta Tiwari. Bollywood drama. Odeon at the Quay, Glasgow. The Art of Spain (E) (UK, 2008) Andrew Graham-Dixon. 60min. Weekly screenings of the acclaimed BBC Four series, in which art historian and critic Andrew Graham-Dixon argues that the influence of Spanish art across Europe, from the golden age of El Greco and Velázquez to Picasso and Dali in the 20th century, is even greater than that of its
traditionally more celebrated Italian counterparts. Weston Link, Edinburgh. The Awkward Age (15) (Pavel Giroud, Cuba/Spain/Venezuela, 2006) Ivan Carreira, Mercedes Sampietro, Susana Tejera. 90min. Cuban filmmaker Giroud’s 1958-set sardonic memoir chronicles the life of ten- year-old Samuel, his impressions of Havana, his divorced mother and his fiesty Grandmother. Glasgow Film Theatre. BBC Comedy Shorts (18) (Various, UK, 2009) 90min. Cryptic Nights screening of five original comedy shorts. Featured stars include Derek Jacobi, Matthew Horse, Imelda Staunton, Nic Burns, Hugh Bonneville and James Corden. CCA, Glasgow. Bandslam (PG) ●●●●● (Todd Graff, US, 2009) Vanessa Hudgens, Gaelan Connell, Lisa Kudrow. 110min. Tweeny pop, high school adventure chronicling budding impresario Will Burton (Connell) and his rock’n’roll band’s desperate attempts to win a battle-of-the-bands competition. General release. The Big Smoke: Films from a Lost London 1896 – 1945 (PG) (Various, UK, 1896–1945) 82min. Programme of silent films from the BFI National Archive brought to life with a newly-commissioned score composed and performed by pianist James Pearson with Ronnie Scott’s All Stars. Selected films include Blackfriars Bridge, Old London Street Scenes and The Fugitive Futurist. Part of BFI Mediatheque On Tour. Filmhouse, Edinburgh. Bolt (PG) ●●●●● (Byron Howard/ Chris Williams, US, 2009) Voices of Miley Cyrus, John Travolta, Susie Essman. 103min. Heart-tugging Disney animation about child actress Penny (voiced by Cyrus) and dog Bolt (Travolta) who star in a hit TV series. The dog believes it’s all real, so when he escapes from his trailer and ends up the other side of the country he is in for a few rude surprises. Grosvenor, Glasgow. Born in ‘68 (15) (Jacques Martineau/Olivier Ducastel, France, 2008) Laetitia Casta, Yannick Renier, Yann Trégouët. 170min. Epic drama detailing a group of friends and lovers caught up in the excitement of May ‘68. A circle that at first seems harmonious soon gives way under the pressures of betrayed principles and bourgeois temptations. Part of Glasgay! and London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival On Tour. Glasgow Film Theatre.
Nagisa Oshima Arguably Japan’s greatest living director is honoured in this fantastic and near
comprehensive 22 film retrospective. Tracing Oshima’s impressive body of work from early left-leaning melodramas Cruel Story of Youth, The Sun’s Burial and Night and Fog in Japan through his experiments with form, classic Japanese storytelling and social comment which included The Catch, the remarkable Diary of a Shinjuku Thief and The Ceremony and also the art house porn In the Realm of the Senses and Empire of Passion which made his name in the west. Season ticket offers available. Buy one now – you are going to need it. ■ Filmhouse, Edinburgh from Fri 4 Sep-Thu 22 Oct.
32 THE LIST 27 Aug–10 Sep 2009
Britain at Bay: Peace and War 1937–1940 (PG) (Various, UK, 1937–1940) 126min. A selection of films from the British Film Institute National Archive that chronicle the British inter-war years. Part of BFI Mediatheque On Tour. Filmhouse, Edinburgh.
✽✽ Broken Embraces (15) ●●●●● (Pedro Almodóvar, Spain, 2009) Penélope Cruz, Lluís Homar, Blanca Portillo. 128min. See review, page 30 and feature, page 10. Selected release. Brüno (18) ●●●●● (Larry Charles, US, 2009) Sacha Baron Cohen, Gustaf Hammarsten. 82min. Baron Cohen’s much anticipated 19-year-old Austrian TV presenter has been ‘schwarzlisted’ following an unfortunate incident involving his all-Velcro suit at a Milan catwalk event. Leaving behind his pygmy Asian flight- attendant boyfriend, Diesel, Bruno heads to America to become the ‘the biggest gay movie star since Arnold Schwarzenegger’ and the world’s most famous Austrian since Hitler. Crude, politically incorrect, shocking, outrageous, vulgar, and very, very funny. Cineworld Renfrew Street, Glasgow.
✽✽ Burma VJ (12A) ●●●●● (Anders Østergaard, Denmark, 2008) 84min.
Empathetic documentary from the maker of 2003’s excellent Tintin and I about the unheralded video journalists who risk their lives every day in Burma. The film focuses on the work of these journalists during the 2007 monk-led uprising in which many people lost their lives. Glasgow Film Theatre, Glasgow. Chéri (15) ●●●●● (Stephen Frears, UK/Germany, 2009) Michelle Pfeiffer, Kathy Bates, Rupert Friend. 92min. Adapted from Colette’s controversial 1920s novels Cheri and The Last of Cheri, which centres on a six-year love affair between a young man (Friend) and an aging courtesan (Pfeiffer) and its aftermath, Stephen Frears’ film is a complex and visually exquisite meditation on ageing and loss; themes that are effected on both a narrative and formal level. Grosvenor, Glasgow. Chess in Concert (12A) (Hugh Wooldridge, UK, 2008) 160min. Spectacular musical from the writers of Mamma Mia! filmed at the Royal Albert Hall in May 2008. Set against the backdrop of a Cold War struggle between the United States and Soviet Union, Chess in Concert centres on a romantic triangle between two chess players in a World Class Chess Championship, and the woman who manages one, and falls for the other. Filmhouse, Edinburgh. The Class (15) ●●●●● (Laurent Cantet, France, 2008) François Bégaudeau, Esmerelda Ouertani, Franck Keita. 130min. One teacher, one class, one term and a whole load of problems. Remarkable social realist drama. Odeon at the Quay, Glasgow. Clockers (18) ●●●●● (Spike Lee, US, 1995) Harvey Keitel, Mekhi Pfifer, John Turturro. 128min. Lee shifts the focus of Richard Price’s weighty novel away from Keitel’s mid-life crisis cop onto young drug dealer Pfifer, but the result is not just another cycle-of-violence ghetto movie. The murder whodunnit provides a suspenseful core narrative, the issues are raised without resorting to the soapbox. Gripping, coherent and accessible. Screening followed by talk from Richard Price. Part of Words and Pictures. Filmhouse, Edinburgh. Cloud 9 (15) ●●●●● (Andreas Dresen, Germany, 2008) Ursula Werner, Horst Rehberg, Horst Westphal. 100min. Brave, raw and intimate portrait of romance and sex amongst the over 60s. German filmmaker Dresen’s remarkable, powerful and darkly humorous film bears comparison to the work of Mike Leigh at his very best. Glasgow Film Theatre, Glasgow. Coco Before Chanel (12A) ●●●●● (Anne Fontaine, France, 2009) Audrey
Check out the GreatOffers on page 4
Tautou, Benoît Poelvoorde, Alessandro Nivola. 110min. This sumptuously dressed biopic of the early years of Gabrielle ‘Coco’ Chanel faithfully charts the rising hemlines and torn bustiers of a passionate woman repressed by society, with emotion-driven montages of dressmaking as Coco uses sewing machine and scissors to direct her restless energies into clothing. There’s nothing experimental or innovative here, but it provides undeniably classy entertainment. Selected release. Coraline 2D (PG) ●●●●● (Henry Selick, US, 2009) Voices of Dakota Fanning, Teri Hatcher, John Hodgman. 100min. After her family moves to Pink Mansions, Coraline (voiced by Fanning) quickly becomes bored with the large dusty house, and in particular with her hardworking parents (Hatcher and Hodgman). The fantasy kicks into top gear when she discovers a secret door that leads her into an alternate version of her home. A lush, visually imaginative and freshly entertaining stop-motion adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s children’s novel. Selected release. Dance Flick (PG) ●●●●● (Damien Dante Wayans, UK, 2009) Shoshana Bush, Damon Wayans Jr, Essence Atkins. 82min. Grotesque physical slapstick spoof of the dance movie genre featuring Bush as Megan, a failed ballet dancer who teams up with an arrogant street dancer (Wayans Jr) to compete in a street-dance battle. General release. Day for Night (15) ●●●●● (Francois Truffaut, France, 1973) Jacqueline Bisset, Jean-Pierre Leaud, Francois Truffaut, Valentina Cortese. 120min. Interesting and entertaining movie about moviemaking, with Truffaut as the hack director trying to steer cast and crew through a tacky love story. Won an Oscar for Best Foreign Film. Part of Truffaut/Godard season. Filmhouse, Edinburgh. Dear Summer Sister (15) ●●●●● (Nagisa Oshima, Japan, 1972) Hiromi Kurita, Hosei Komatsu, Akiko Koyama. 95min. Oshima adopts an almost farcical tone in his handling of the rather serious subject of the return of Okinawa to Japan from American control – a floating camera and free-form narrative gives Dear Summer Sister the feeling of parody. Part of Nagisa Oshima season. Filmhouse, Edinburgh.
✽✽ District 9 (15) ●●●●● (Neill Blomkamp, South Africa/New
Zealand, 2009) Sharlto Copley, Jason Cope, Nathalie Boltt. 112min. See review, page 29. General release from Fri 4 Sep. Duplicity (12A) ●●●●● (Tony Gilroy, UK, 2009) Clive Owen, Julia Roberts, Tom Wilkinson. 124min. A Mr & Mrs Smith type crowd pleaser with Owen and Roberts in the respective Brangelina roles, the film kicks off in Dubai in 2003 with a meeting between CIA spy Claire Stenwick (Roberts) and MI6 agent Ray Koval (Owen). A painstakingly convoluted story involving a complicated con to steal $40 million dollars from a New York based mega corporatio which then unravels. Vue Ocean, Edinburgh. Enchanted (PG) ●●●●● (Kevin Lima, US, 2007) Amy Adams, Patrick Dempsey, James Marsden. 107min. Two fairytale characters struggle to find each other and make it in the ‘real’ world in this mix of live and animated action (à la Who Framed Roger Rabbit). Enchanted is one of the nastiest, most insidious children’s films adults will have the displeasure of seeing this year. Chock full of pseudo Christian ideas, Waspish imperialism, product placement and celebrations of consumer culture this is about as evil as Disney gets. Leave your critical faculties, reason and humanity at the door. Wean's World screening. Filmhouse, Edinburgh. (500) Days of Summer (12A) ●●●●● (Marc Webb, US, 2009) Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Zooey Deschanel, Geoffrey Arend. 94min. See review, page 30 and feature, page 28. Selected release. Film Discussion Group Meet up with film writer Eddie Harrison and lots of other film buffs to swap opinions and perceptions of both art house and big blockbuster recent releases. Held on the second Wednesday of every month. Glasgow Film Theatre.