list.co.uk/film
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 Aftershock (15) ●●●●● (Xiaogang Feng, China, 2010) Fan Xu, Jingchu Zhang, Chen Li. 135min. The epic story of a family separated as a result of the enormous Tangshan earthquake of 1976. Sloans, Glasgow. All the President’s Men (15) ●●●●● (Alan J Pakula, US, 1976) Dustin Hoffman, Robert Redford, Jack Warden. 138min. Released in 1976 during the Carter-Ford presidential campaign, Pakula’s political thriller traces the real-life story of journalists Bob Woodward (Redford) and Carl Bernstein (Hoffman) as they uncover an attempted crime in Washington DC’s Watergate Complex that led to the Watergate Scandal and Nixon’s resignation. A classic of the much abused crusader journalist genre. Scotsman Screening Room, Edinburgh. Apocalypse Now (18) ●●●●● (Francis Coppola, US, 1980) Martin Sheen, Marlon Brando, Robert Duvall, Dennis Hopper. 153min. Vietnam as ‘the ultimate trip’. We follow US Army assassin Sheen downriver and deeper into the Heart of Darkness ruled over by Brando’s mad Colonel Kurtz. Alternately pretentious and visually overpowering (the Valkyries helicopter attack, for example), the film’s grandiloquent folly pierces right to the bone of the conflict. Macrobert, Stirling. Arrietty (U) ●●●●● (Hiromasa Yonebayashi, Japan, 2010) Mirai Shida, Ryunosuke Kamiki, Shinobu Otake. 94min. Fourteen-year-old Arrietty (voiced by Shida) and the tiny Clock family live under the floorboards of a suburban home, exploring and borrowing from the human world above. Arrietty may not have the scope of Studio Ghibli’s earliest works, but the result is a beautifully realised small- scale drama. Selected release. Beautiful Lies (12) ●●●●● (Pierre Salvadori, France, 2010) Audrey Tautou, Nathalie Baye, Sami Bouajila. 110min. See review, page 107. Selected release. Bedknobs and Broomsticks (PG) ●●●●● (Robert Stevenson, US, 1971) Angela Lansbury, David Tomlinson, Roddy McDowall. 117min. An apprentice witch and three English kids make their contribution to the war effort via some enjoyable set pieces (the animals’ football match) and some less than wonderful songs. Glasgow Film Theatre. Beginners (15) ●●●●● (Mike Mills, US, 2010) Ewan McGregor, Christopher
RBS First Film: Super 8
Plummer, Mélanie Laurent. 104min. McGregor is Oliver, whose father Hal (Plummer) has recently died from cancer, having at the age of 75 come out as gay and enthusiastically embraced the life he had long denied himself. Whimsicality runs through every frame and incurable romantics will clutch it to their hearts. Selected release. A Better Life (12A) ●●●●● (Chris Weitz, US, 2011) Demián Bichir, Eddie ‘Piolin’ Sotelo, Joaquín Cosio. 97min. A Better Life is the simple tale of illegal Mexican immigrant Carlos’ (Bichir) attempt to make a better life for his son Luis (Julián) in Los Angeles. When Carlos’ pick up van and tools are stolen the pair know they must find them to survive. Morally commendable and mildly successful. Filmhouse, Edinburgh. The Big Picture (L’homme qui voulait vivre sa vie) (15) ●●●●● (Eric Lartigau, France, 2010) Romain Duris, Marina Foïs, Niels Arestrup. 115min. Duris plays an anti-hero deep in emotional crisis. His wife is having an affair and when he confronts the object of her affections his problems really begin. Director Lartigau’s control of atmospherics is impressive and Duris proves that he is always more watchable when playing tormented souls. Filmhouse, Edinburgh. Bridesmaids (15) ●●●●● (Paul Feig, US, 2011) Kristen Wiig, Maya Rudolph, Rose Byrne. 125min. When her newly- engaged best friend Lillian (Rudolph) asks her to be chief bridesmaid, Annie (Wiig) is delighted, until she meets Lillian’s new best friend; a beautiful, rich bitch. The cast list overflows with comedy talent and the jokes are very funny. General release. Captain America: The First Avenger 2D (12A) ●●●●● (Joe Johnston, US, 2011) Chris Evans, Hugo Weaving, Hayley Atwell, Sebastian Stan. 123min. Joe Johnston, director of The Wolfman and The Rocketeer, takes us back to the early days of the Marvel with the archetypal superhero. When Steve Rogers (Evans) volunteers to participate in an experimental program, it turns him into super soldier Captain America. As Captain America, Rogers joins forces with Bucky Barnes (Stan) and Peggy Carter (Atwell) to wage war on the evil HYDRA organization, led by the villainous Red Skull (Weaving). See review at List.co.uk. General release. Captain America: The First Avenger 3D (12A) ●●●●● (Joe Johnston, US, 2011) Chris Evans, Hugo Weaving, Hayley Atwell, Sebastian Stan. 123min. See above. General release. Cars 2 2D (U) ●●●●● (John Lasseter, Brad Lewis, US, 2011) Larry the Cable Guy, Owen Wilson, Michael Caine.
OUTSIDE THE
FESTIVALS
106min. Pixar’s charmless sequel replaces the homespun values of the original with impressive racetrack backdrops, violent guns-and-missile action, and juvenile comedy from the belching, flatulent Mater. A mechanical slew of pop-culture gags indicate a considerable drop in the level of invention from Finding Nemo or Up. General release. Cars 2 3D (U) ●●●●● (John Lasseter, Brad Lewis, US, 2011) Larry the Cable Guy, Owen Wilson, Michael Caine. 106min. See above. General release. The Conspirator (12A) ●●●●● (Robert Redford, US, 2010) James McAvoy, Robin Wright, Kevin Kline. 122min. This courtroom drama about the woman charged alongside John Wilkes Booth – the man who shot Abraham Lincoln – is clearly just as inspired by more recent politics. The results are intermittently preachy and starchy,
better suited to stirring a
classroom debate than a cinema audience. Macrobert, Stirling.
✽✽ The Devil’s Double (18) ●●●●● (Lee
Tamahori, Belgium, 2011) Dominic Cooper, Ludivine
Sagnier, Raad Rawi. 108min. See
review, page 107. General release. Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules (U) ●●●●● (David Bowers, US, 2011) Zachary Gordon, Devon Bostick, Rachael Harris. 99min. Anaemic sequel to last year’s adaptation of Jeff Kinney’s best- selling books. Macrobert, Stirling. ✽✽ Elite Squad 2 (Tropa de Elite: O Inimigo Agora É Outro) (18)
●●●●● (José Padilha, Brazil, 2010) Wagner Moura, Irandhir Santos, André Ramiro. 115min. See review, page 108. Selected release.
✽✽ Film Socialisme (PG) ●●●●● (Jean-Luc Godard,
Switzerland/France, 2010) Catherine Tanvier, Christian Sinniger, Jean-Marc Stehlé. 101min. Still mad and provocative after all these years, legendary French filmmaker and polemicist Jean-Luc Godard new feature is set on a garish cruise ship that’s traveling around the Mediterranean (with Patti Smith among its guests). There’s no narrative to speak of: this is part treatise on the state of the European Union, part philosophical debate, part aesthetic experiment and part journal on the decline of European civilization. See review at list.co.uk. Dundee Contemporary Arts, Dundee. Flashdance (15) ●●●●● (Adrian Lyne, US, 1983) Jennifer Beals, Michael Nouri, Lilia Skala. 90min. Alex (Beals) is a welder by day and an erotic dancer by night. Iconic 80s dance classic with a storming soundtrack. Macrobert, Stirling.
Outdoor film screenings are about as Scottish as a gladiatorial contests but that hasn’t stopped the Royal Bank of Scotland launching a series of alfresco screenings throughout the summer. That’s the good news, the bad news is you have to be an RBS current account customer to purchase a ticket, now that’s what we call a captive audience. The season opens with JJ Abrams’ excellent sci fi mystery Super 8. rbs.com/filmfirst ■ Hopetoun House, South Queensferry, on Thu 18 and Fri 19 Aug. Pollok Country Park, Glasgow on Thu 25 and Fri 26 Aug.
INDEX Film
Profile EYAD ZAHRA Born 20 Safar 1403 AH (Islamic calendar) in Cleveland, Ohio. Background Zahra’s family is Syrian. He was the first of his family born in America, his older brother was born in Syria. Growing up, his mother taught him about Islamic culture, which he now sees as a blessing and a curse. Zahra always had a strong interest in filmmaking and took classes at the undergraduate film program at Florida State University. He made two short films: Jazima (2003) and Distance from the Sun (2004). What’s he up to now? Zahra has just made The Taqwacores, an adaptation of the novel about the US Punk Islam scene by Michael Muhammad Knight. On Punk ‘We deal with some basic themes that you see in many films but look at these issues in a bizarre, off-beat way. That is what punk is to me. I was not a punk expert before this film, not that I am now, but I did my best to reflect the genre and the community and culture and that is what we are aiming for, a rough and tumble film.’ On the vernacular ‘The book had more leeway, the conversations were longer and if you go on the internet someone had made a glossary of all the terms used in the book. What I didn’t want to do was make a film where we have a scene that’s just for the white people in the audience explaining what’s going on. I tried to stay as close to how you would hear people speak should they be living in such a commune.’ On Hollywood movies ‘A lot of times these days people get pumped up about a Hollywood movie, wait for it for weeks and then they go see it, ejaculate and never talk about it again. Obviously a good film is opposite, you don’t know what you are going into, get floored by it and are thinking about it and talking about it with friends for weeks.’ Interesting fact When Knight wrote the novel, the Muslim punk scene did not really exist but since the novel came out the Muslim punk scene has grown. (Kaleem Aftab) ■ The Taqwacores is on selected release from Fri 12 Aug. See review at list.co.uk/film.
11–18 Aug 2011 THE LIST 117