list.co.uk/film
Films screening in the next four weeks are listed below with certificate, star rating, credits, brief review and venue details. See list.co.uk for the most up-to- date list of films screening. Film index is compiled by Paul Dale and Laura Ennor. ✽✽ Indicates Hitlist entry
Abduction (12A) ●●●●● (John Singleton, US, 2011) Taylor Lautner, Lily Collins, Alfred Molina. 106min. A young man searches for clues to his identity after finding his baby photo on a missing persons website. General release. The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of The Unicorn (PG) (Steven Spielberg, US/New Zealand, 2011) Jamie Bell, Andy Serkis, Daniel Craig. See Also Released, page 70. General release from Wed 26 Oct.
✽✽ Africa in Motion Short Film Competition (15) (Various, 2010/11)
164min. A selection of innovative and original films by African filmmakers. Filmhouse, Edinburgh.
✽✽ African Films for Children (PG) (Various) 100min. Films made for children in Africa, with live action and animation work. Filmhouse, Edinburgh. Albatross (15) ●●●●● (Niall MacCormick, UK, 2011) Sebastian Koch, Julia Ormond, Felicity Jones. 90min. Emelia (Findlay) is a 17-year-old who goes to work in a seaside hotel, shaking up the lives of the family that owns and lives in it. The story treads familiar ground, but thanks to a very funny script and a combustible lead performance from Findlay it’s never dull. Selected release.
✽✽ Ali Zaoua: Prince of the Streets (15) ●●●●● (Nabil Ayoch,
France/Morrocco/Tunisia, 2000) Said Taghmaoui, Muim Khab. 100min. Buñuel’s superior Los Olvidados updated to the streets of Casablanca with La Haine star Taghmaoui. Part of Africa in Motion. Filmhouse, Edinburgh.
✽✽ Anger of the Gods (La Colère des Sieux) (15) (Idrissa Ouedraogo,
Burkina Faso/France, 2003) Rasmane Ouedraogo, Omar Ouedraogo, Nouss Nabil. 95min. Revenge drama set in mid-19th century Burkina Faso, in which two brothers clash over their royal birthright. Part of Africa in Motion. Filmhouse, Edinburgh. Animated Minds (U) (Various) 100min. Animated shorts selected for the Scottish Mental Health Arts and Film Festival. The Hippodrome, Bo’ness. Anonymous (12A) ●●●●● (Roland Emmerich, UK/Germany, 2011) Rhys Ifans, Vanessa Redgrave, David Thewlis. 130min. See review, page 67. General release from Fri 28 Oct. Arrietty (U) ●●●●● (Hiromasa Yonebayashi, Japan, 2010) Mirai Shida, Ryunosuke Kamiki, Shinobu Otake. 94min. Adaptation of Mary Norton’s Borrowers stories; it may not have the scope of Studio Ghibli’s earliest works, but holds its own as a beautifully realised small-scale drama. macrobert, Stirling. Les Arrivants (The Arrivals) (E) (Claudine Bories/Patrice Chagnard, France, 2009) 113min. Documentary following several immigrants to France as they negotiate the challenges of daily life and the struggle to find a permanent home. CCA, Glasgow. Audition (18) ●●●●● (Takashi Miike, Japan, 2001) Ryo Ishibashi, Eihi Shiina. 115min. A widowed middle-aged businessman sets up a series of auditions to select a new wife. After a deliberately measured build-up, Takashi assaults the viewer’s senses with a truly nightmarish finale, which threatens to overwhelm the film’s critique of male Japanese attitudes to women. Glasgow Film Theatre. The Awakening (15) (Nick Murphy, UK, 2011) Rebecca Hall, Dominic West, Imelda Staunton. 107min. See Also Released, page 70. Filmhouse, Edinburgh.
✽✽ Bab’Aziz: The Prince who Contemplated his Soul (15)
(Nacer Khemir, Tunisia/UK, 2005) Parvis Shahinkhou, Maryam Hamid, Hossein
Panahi. 98min. The third part of Tunisian director Khemir’s Desert Trilogy explores Sufism, the mystical expression of Islam, through the prism of a grandfather’s stories told to his granddaughter. Part of Africa in Motion. Filmhouse, Edinburgh. The Battle of Warsaw 1920 3D (15) (Jerzy Hoffman, Poland, 2011) Viktor Balabanov, Mateusz Banasiuk, Dariusz Biskupski. 115min. Historical epic showing how the newly independent Poland managed to halt both the Red Army and the spread of communism across Europe in 1920. Selected release. A Beautiful Mind (12) ●●●●● (Ron Howard, US, 2002) Russell Crowe, Jennifer Connelly, Paul Bettany. 135min. Crowe plays John Nash, the mathematics genius, during his college days in America in the 1940s. Nash is also a paranoid- schizophrenic, who was nevertheless awarded the Nobel Prize late in his life. St Bride’s Centre, Edinburgh.
✽✽ Bernadette: Notes on a Political Journey (E) ●●●●● (Lelia Doolan, Ireland, 2011) 88min. Key moments in the public life of civil rights activist and politician Bernadette Devlin McAliskey. Introduced by director Lelia Doolan and followed by a Q&A. Part of Document 9 film festival. Glasgow Film Theatre. The Black Power Mixtape 1967–1975 (12A) ●●●●● (Göran Olsson, Sweden, 2011) 100min. See Also Released, page 70. Selected release from Fri 21 Oct. Blood for Dracula (18) ●●●●● (Paul Morrissey, Italy/France, 1973) Udo Keir, Joe Dallesandro, Maxime McKendry. 103min. Delightfully gory and at times extremely funny, Morrissey’s distinctive take on the vampire myth has Keir’s surprisingly sympathetic bloodsucker searching for virgin blood in Italy, but thwarted by Dallesandro’s efforts as an over-sexed Marxist gardener. Screening together with Jean LaFleur’s 1977 short, Ilsa the Tigress of Siberia. A Psychotronic Cinema presentation. Filmhouse, Edinburgh. Bold Native (tbc) (Denis Hennelly, US, 2010) Joaquin Pastor, Randolph Mantooth, Sheila Vand. An animal rights activist emerges from the underground to coordinate a campaign, and is sought by his estranged father as well as the FBI. ACE, Edinburgh. Boys on Film: Bad Romance (18) (Various, 2010) 164min. A collection of innovative and sometimes controversial short films depicting the dark side of love relationships. Glasgow Film Theatre. The British Guide to Showing Off (15) ●●●●● (Jes Benstock, UK, 2011) 97min. British artist Andrew Logan leads us into the outrageous, anarchic and glittery world of his very own costume pageant: the Alternative Miss World Show. Cameo, Edinburgh. 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. CCA, Glasgow. A Cat in Paris (Une Vie de Chat) (PG) (Jean-Loup Felicioli/Alain Gagnol, France/Netherlands/Belgium/Switzerland, 2010) 70min. Hand painted animation depicting the night-time activities of a black cat name Dino. Part of French Film Festival. Filmhouse, Edinburgh. CinemaAttic Spanish Film and Arts Festival Screening (tbc) (Various) 90min. The first in a planned series of screenings organised by CinemaAttic, showcasing the best in short films from the Spanish-speaking world. Inspace, Edinburgh. Contagion (12A) ●●●●● (Steven Soderbergh, US/UAE, 2011) Matt Damon, Kate Winslet, Jude Law. 106min. See review, page 67. General release. Crash (18) ●●●●● (David Cronenberg, 1996) James Spader, Holly Hunter, Elias Koteas. 100min. A cool, insidiously disturbing study of an evolving human pathology based on eroticised car crashes and techno-fantasies. Provocative, extreme and
intellectually exhilarating. Cameo, Edinburgh. Crazy, Stupid, Love. (12A) ●●●●● (Glenn Ficarra, John Requa, US, 2011) Steve Carell, Ryan Gosling, Julianne Moore. 118min. After Emily (Moore) tells husband Cal (Carell) that she wants a divorce he meets local lothario Jacob (Gosling) who takes him under his wing. What begins as an interesting observational comedy on the collapse of the nuclear family becomes a rom-com full of the requisite farce, denouement and sentimentality. Selected release. Days of Heaven (PG) ●●●●● (Terrence Malick, US, 1978) Richard Gere, Sam Shepard, Brooke Adams. 94min. Malick is one of the great wayward talents of the contemporary American cinema and this is an exquisite triangular love story, now digitally restored, set against the wheat farming Midwest at the turn of the century. You can almost feel the sweat of labour and smell the soil, such is the power of undoubtedly majestic filmmaking. The Hippodrome, Bo’ness. Dead Man’s Shoes (18) ●●●●● (Shane Meadows, UK, 2004) Paddy Considine, Gary Stretch, Toby Kebbell. 90min. When ex-marine Richard (Considine) returns to his Midlands town to look after his young brother Anthony, he vows revenge on the abusive petty criminals who have looked after his sibling since he has been away. Seamless, violent, sordid revenge thriller that will stay in your mind long after you have watched it. Cameo, Edinburgh. The Debt (15) ●●●●● (John Madden, US, 2010) Helen Mirren, Sam Worthington, Ciaran Hinds. 113min. A taut, sober-minded remake of 2007 Israeli espionage thriller Ha- Hov, The Debt pays off as entertainment without saying anything particularly significant about the weighty issues it skirts around. Selected release.
✽✽ Document 9 (Various) This dedicated international human rights
documentary film festival uses international film to raise the profile of human rights and social issues that are not exposed in the mainstream media. It showcases a wide range of styles from reportage to cinematic essays, investigative journalism to left-field experiments. The 2011 theme is ‘The Year of Protest’, with film work responding to popular demonstration in North Africa, the Middle East and closer to home. CCA, Glasgow, Thu 20–Sun 23 Oct. Dolphin Tale (U) ●●●●● (Charles Martin Smith, US, 2011) Morgan Freeman, Ashley Judd, Ray McKinnon. 112min. Freeman and Judd lend their talents to this family story about a boy’s relationship with the ocean’s friendliest mammal. General release. Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark (15) ●●●●● (Troy Nixey, USA/Australia/Mexico, 2010) Katie Holmes, Guy Pearce, Bailee Madison. 99min. While Kim (Holmes) and Alex (Pearce) spruce up their new house, daughter Sally (Madison) finds a furnace in the basement where she believes monsters are living. Producer del Toro pays tribute to the eponymous 1973 TV movie, but debut director Nixey lacks del Toro’s style or imagination. General release.
✽✽ Drive (18) ●●●●● (Nicolas Winding Refn, US, 2011) Ryan Gosling, Carey
Mulligan, Bryan Cranston. 100min. Gosling’s Hollywood stuntman/getaway driver gets mixed up with the wrong crowd in writer/director Nicolas Winding Refn’s crime thriller. Refn’s proved to be (arguably) one of the greatest film stylists and genre anarchists working today and the dialogue is reductive, elusive and cloaked in cod portent and existential yearning. Selected release. Embera (12) (Andres Estefan, Colombia, 2011) 60min. Colombian documentary exploring the life of the rainforest-dwelling Embera people, who have resisted all incursions of European culture on their home amid the forest’s labyrinth of waterways. Filmhouse, Edinburgh. Empire of the Sun (PG) ●●●●● (Steven Spielberg, US, 1987) Christian Bale, John Malkovitch, Miranda Richardson. 152min. JG Ballard’s bestseller becomes a long, sentimental account of a young boy’s character-building exploits during the
INDEX Film
Japanese invasion of Shanghai and his subsequent internment in a prison camp. Cameo, Edinburgh. Enigma (15) ●●●●● (Michael Apted, UK, 2001) Dougray Scott, Kate Winslet, Saffron Burrows. 117min. Apted’s screen adaptation of Robert Harris’ best-selling novel about a WWII code-breaker is, rarely enough, both relatively faithful and rather good, though scriptwriter Tom Stoppard increases the love interest and fiddles the plot a little, but the mixture of cynicism and heroism that characterised Harris’ characters is undiluted in the film. Filmhouse, Edinburgh. The Evil Dead (18) ●●●●● (Sam Riami, US, 1982) Bruce Campbell, Ellen Sandweiss, Betsy Baker. 85min. Five unsuspecting youngsters head off for a healthy weekend in a mountain cabin, only to fall foul of wicked demons whose purpose is – wait for it – wholesale slaughter. Every horror cliche is exploited and subverted in this stylish, cheapo schlocker-shocker made with imagination and flair. Glasgow Film Theatre; Sloans, Glasgow. The Exterminating Angel (12) ●●●●● (Luis Buñuel, Mexico, 1962) Silvia Pinal, Enrique Rambal, Jacqueline Andere. 92min. Buñuel’s satirical drive may not be as fine as in The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, but this remains a classic example of what could be called Cinema of the Absurd. Filmhouse, Edinburgh.
✽✽ Fambul Tok and Slaves (15) (David Aronowitsch/Sara Terry,
Sweden/Sudan/Sierra Leone/US, 2010) 97min. Africa in Motion double bill, featuring Sara Terry’s documentary about how families in Sierra Leone are healing the wounds of civil war and David Aronowitsch’s animated documentary based on interviews with children forced to join militia in Sudan. Part of Africa in Motion. Filmhouse, Edinburgh. First Night (15) ●●●●● (Christopher Menaul, US, 2010) Richard E Grant, Sarah Brightman, Susannah Fielding. 116min. Grant plays a wealthy businessman who turns his hand to opera singing as a means of proving his soulfulness to his peers. Showcase Cinema, Glasgow. Footloose (12A) ●●●●● (Craig Brewer, US, 2011) Kenny Wormald, Julianne Hough, Dennis Quaid. 113min. Likeable remake of the seminal 80s teenflick as Wormald moves steps into the Kevin Bacon role as the new kid who moves to a town where rock’n’roll and dancing have been banned. General release.
✽✽ 48 (12) (Susana de Sousa Dias, Portugal, 2010) 93min. Documentary
pairing still photographs of former Portugese political prisoners with their own accounts of the experiences under the fearsome regime of dictator Antonio de Oliviera Salazar. Part of Document 9 film festival. Glasgow Film Theatre. Friends with Benefits (15) ●●●●● (Will Gluck, US, 2011) Mila Kunis, Justin Timberlake, Patricia Clarkson. 109min. For all its dirty talk and supposed frankness about sex, Gluck’s follow up to the considerably saltier Easy A is a sappy rom com which pretends to deflate clichés of the genre while in fact studiously observing them. Selected release.
✽✽ The Future (12A) ●●●●● (Miranda July, Germany/US, 2011)
Miranda July, Hamish Linklater, David Warshofsky. 91min. See profile, page 66 and review, page 67. Selected release from Fri 4 Nov. Ghostbusters (PG) ●●●●● (Ivan Reitman, US, 1984) Bill Murray, Sigourney Weaver, Dan Aykroyd. 105min. See Also Released, page 70. Selected release from Fri 28 Oct. Give Up Tomorrow (tbc) (Michael Collins, US, 2011) A teenager from a Philippines political party is accused of murder, plunging the country’s judiciary into turmoil after years of alleged corruption. Cameo, Edinburgh. A Good Man (PG) (Bob Hercules/Gordon Quinn, US, 2011) 90min. Documentary following director and choreographer Bill T Jones through two busy years of life in the dance theatre world. Filmhouse, Edinburgh.
20 Oct–17 Nov 2011 THE LIST 71