list.co.uk/film
I Know Where I’m Going! (U) (Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger, UK, 1945) Wendy Hiller, Roger Livesey. 91min. Beautifully shot in black and white, this is an intriguing comedy romance with dark undertones, in which the young, confident Ms Hiller sets out to marry her rich, elderly fiancé in the Hebrides, but falls instead for Livesey’s sexy young naval officer. St Bride’s Centre, Edinburgh. Ice Age 3: Dawn of the Dinosaurs (U) ●●●●● (Carlos Saldanha, Co- director: Michael Thurmeier, US, 2009) Ray Romano, Queen Latifah, Denis Leary, Simon Pegg. 93min. Life is changing for Scrat, Manny, Ellie and co in many different ways in the latest instalment of popular animated series. The Hippodrome, Bo’ness. Into the Wind (E) (Steven Hatton, UK, 2011) 75min. A documentation of the lives and times of over 50 World War II bomber command veterans from Commonwealth countries. Special preview screening, followed by short documentary Heilig, about the experiences of a man who escaped from Nazi Austria as a child. Brunton Theatre, Edinburgh. Intruders (15) ●●●●● (Juan Carlos Fresnadillo, US/UK/Spain, 2011) Clive Owen, Carice van Houten, Daniel Brühl, Pilar López de Ayala, Ella Purnell. 100min. A young boy finds his worst nightmares bursting into the real world as a hooded demon called HollowFace comes sweeping out of the shadows. Cleverly constructed and suspenseful but fades when pitted against superior genre fare like The Orphanage and Pan’s Labyrinth. Selected release. The Iron Lady (12A) ●●●●● (Phyllida Lloyd, UK, 2011) Meryl Streep, Jim Broadbent, Anthony Head, Richard E Grant. 105min. Lloyd’s biopic features a brilliantly convincing lead performance from Streep, assisted by terrific work from the make-up and prosthetics departments, and makes some interesting observations about old age and the cost of power, but offers no significant insights on the lady of the title. General release. J Edgar (15) ●●●●● (Clint Eastwood, US, 2011) Leonardo DiCaprio, Armie Hammer, Naomi Watts, Josh Lucas, Judi Dench. 137min. Biopic of former head of the FBI, J Edgar Hoover, touching on his alleged homosexuality and cross-dressing tendencies as well as a sentimental trip through the defining moments of his career. This subject matter is handled sensitively, and the film is well acted (especially by DiCaprio in the title role) but overall feels unfocused and lacking the type of authority that made Hoover himself such a formidable figure in American history. General release. Jack and Jill (12) ●●●●● (Dennis Dugan, US, 2011) Adam Sandler, Katie Holmes, Al Pacino. 91min. See review, page 69. General release from Fri 3 Feb.
✽✽ Jiyan (12A) (Jano Rosebiani, Iraq/US, 2002) Kurdo Galali, Pirshang Berzinji, Choman Hawrami. 102min. Iraqi- made film in which a Kurdish-American architect returns to his home town after a chemical and biological bombing, intending to build an orphanage. See caption, page 74. Part of the Middle Eastern Film Festival. Filmhouse, Edinburgh. Journey 2: The Mysterious Island (PG) (Brad Peyton, US, 2012) Josh Hutcherson, Dwayne Johnson, Michael Caine. 94min. Action, adventure and angry lizards in this sort-of sequel to 2008’s Journey to the Center of the Earth. General release from Fri 3 Feb.
✽✽ Journey to the Sun (Günese yolculuk) (15) (Yesim Ustaoglu,
Turkey/Netherlands/Germany, 1999) Nazmî Kirik, Newroz Baz, Mizgin Kapazan. 104min. Two Turkish men meet in the threatening environment of Istanbul where one is arrested on suspicion of terrorism. See caption, page 74. Part of the Middle Eastern Film Festival. Filmhouse, Edinburgh. Jurassic Park (PG) (Steven Spielberg, US, 1993) Sam Neill, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum, Richard Attenborough. 127min. Unsurpassed computer effects ensure that
the dinosaurs themselves are terrifyingly believable (more so than the PG certificate would suggest), but by the half-way point, this is more or less a chase movie with superior technology. The Hippodrome, Bo’ness.
✽✽ Kick Off (12A) (Shawkat Amin Korki, Iraq/Iran/Japan, 2009) Atug
Asu, Hamed Diyar, Hamajaga Hilin. 81min. A familiar scenario – a small-town football team and its ardent supporters – in an unfamiliar setting – refugee community living in a stadium in Kirkuk, Iraq – form the basis of this poignant comedy. See caption, page 74. Part of the Middle Eastern Film Festival. Filmhouse, Edinburgh. Kiss Me Deadly (18) (Robert Aldrich, US, 1955) Ralph Meeker, Maxine Cooper, Albert Dekker, Paul Stewart, Cloris Leachman. 105min. Private eye Mike Hammer picks up a girl on a motorway, and winds up with a corpse on his hands. Thus begins a quest into the unknown in search of ‘the great whatsit’. Beautifully acted by a group of actors who never really got their due in Tinseltown, author and screenwriter AI Bezzerides’ script has a kind of disparity and desperation in its meter that is at least ten years ahead of its time. Dundee Contemporary Arts, Dundee. Lady Windermere’s Fan (PG) (Ernst Lubitsch, US, 1925) Irene Rich, May McAvoy, Bert Lytell. 120min. Oscar Wilde’s complex tale is cleverly adapted into a silent comedy about deception and scandal. Accompanied live by the Edinburgh Film Music Orchestra. Filmhouse, Edinburgh. Laura (U) (Otto Preminger, US, 1944) Gene Tierney, Dana Andrews, Clifton Webb. 88min. Preminger’s classic Twin Peaks-inspiring mystery about the fallout following the murder of beautiful Laura and the many people suspected of killing her. Selected re-release from Fri 24 Feb. Les Girls (U) (George Cukor, US, 1957) Gene Kelly, Mitzi Gaynor, Kay Kendall, Taina Elg. 109min. A dancer writes a tell- all book about her days with the troupe Barry Nichols and Les Girls, prompting one of her fellow chorus line kickers to sue her for libel. Sparkly comedy musical starring the effervescent Kelly as cad Barry. Paisley Arts Centre, Paisley. Like Crazy (12A) ●●●●● (Drake Doremus, US, 2011) Anton Yelchin, Felicity Jones, Jennifer Lawrence. 89min. See review, page 72. General release. Live from the Met: Ernani (E) (Marco Armiliato, US, 2012) Dmitri Hvorostovsky, Salvatore Licitra, Angela Meade, Feruccio Furlanetto. 230min. One of Verdi’s lesser known, but championed by the Met for over 100 years, this opera tells the story of a nobleman who, having fallen on hard times, turns to banditry and seeks revenge on an old foe, who just happens to be in love with the same girl as him. Selected screenings on Sat 25 Feb. Live from the Met: Götterdämmerung (E) (Robert Lepage, US, 2012) Wendy Bryn Harmer, Iain Paterson, Deborah Voigt/Katarina Dalayman, Gary Lehman/Stephen Gould. 360min. The New York Met Opera’s new production of the Ring cycle comes to its catastrophic and fateful climax. Selected screenings on Sat 11 Feb. The Lost Boys (15) (Joel Schumacher, US, 1987) Corey Feldman, Jami Gertz, Corey Haim, Edward Herrmann, Barnard Hughes, Jason Patric, Kiefer Sutherland, Dianne Wiest. 97min. Anaemic comic horror as a Santa Monica teen falls into bad company in the shape of a mad, bad and dangerous-to-know gang of vampires, led by a sinister Stand By Me-era Sutherland. Sloans, Glasgow.
✽✽ Lost Highway (18) (David Lynch, France/US, 1997) Bill Pullman,
Patricia Arquette, John Roselius. 134min. Lynch’s practice run before Mulholland Dr also experiments with dual roles and narrative structure. A man is convicted of murdering his wife. Awaiting execution, he transforms into another man who is released into a complex world of crime. Part of Into a World: The Films of David Lynch. Filmhouse, Edinburgh.
Man on a Ledge (12A) ●●●●● (Asger Leth, US, 2012) Sam Worthington, Jamie Bell, Ed Harris, Elizabeth Banks. 102min. See review, page 70. General release from Fri 10 Feb. Margin Call (15) (JC Chandor, US, 2011) Kevin Spacey, Paul Bettany, Jeremy Irons, Zachary Quinto, Demi Moore, Stanley Tucci. 107min. A remarkably strong cast leads this thriller about an investment bank during the early stages of the financial crisis. General release. Martha Marcy May Marlene (15) ●●●●● (Sean Durkin, US, 2011) Elizabeth Olsen, John Hawkes, Sarah Paulson, Hugh Dancy. 102min. See review, page 70. Tue 7 Feb screening at GFT is part of the Screen Salon series, introduced by a guest speaker and followed by a discussion. Cameo, Edinburgh; Dundee Contemporary Arts, Dundee; Glasgow Film Theatre, Glasgow. A Matter of Life and Death (PG) ●●●●● (Michael Powell, Emeric Pressburger, UK, 1946) David Niven, Kim Hunter, Roger Livesey, Raymond Massey, Marius Goring. 104min. A witty and stylish film that rises above its beginnings as a piece of wartime propaganda about goodwill between Britain and the US. Niven is an RAF pilot who finds himself before a heavenly tribunal when he bails out of his burning plane. St Bride’s Centre, Edinburgh. Meals on Reels: Scotland’s Food and Drink (E) (Various, Scotland, Various) Food, film and conversation with Slow Food Scotland, starting with a tasty supper of quintessentially Scottish dishes (cullen skink – check! Haggis – check!), then a selection of films and footage from the Scottish Screen Archive featuring food and drink in Scotland from the last century. The evening concludes with a talk from Catherine Brown. The Scottish Café and Restaurant, Edinburgh. Memento (15) ●●●●● (Christopher Nolan, US, 2000) Guy Pearce, Carrie-Anne Moss, Joe Pantoliano. 116min. Beginning where most other films would end with an act of vengeance, writer-director Nolan tells his story by gradually working backwards in time. Leonard Shelby (Pearce) is obsessed with avenging his wife’s rape and murder. Trouble is Leonard suffers from a condition of short-term memory loss, and so he relies on an elaborate system of mementoes — maps, polaroids, body tattoos - to piece together the clues in his investigation. A compelling, elliptical reconstruction of the revenge thriller, which skilfully examines the connections between memory, identity and perception. Preceded by an introduction and followed by a Q&A on memory and amnesia with Professor Della Sala. Filmhouse, Edinburgh. Milk (15) ●●●●● (Gus Van Sant, US, 2008) Sean Penn, Emile Hirsch, Josh Brolin, Diego Luna, Alison Pill, Victor Garber, and James Franco. 128min. This fairly conventional biopic of the first openly gay elected politician in the United States succeeds in overcoming genre limitations to create a powerful and compassionate film. Part of LGBT History Month. Filmhouse, Edinburgh.
✽✽ Min Dit: The Children of Diyarbakir (15) (Miraz Bezar, Germany/Turkey, 2009) Senay Orak, Muhammed Al, Hakan Karsak. 102min. When two Turkish children are orphaned in Kurdistan, they find themselves in the care of their aunt who decides to move the family to Sweden. Before this happens, she disappears and the children must fend for themselves. Screening with short film Breath. See caption, page 74. Part of the Middle Eastern Film Festival. Filmhouse, Edinburgh. A Minority Report (E) (Stefano Giantin, Italy, 2007) 54min. This film explores the chaos in Kosovo following the three-month NATO campaign against Yugoslavia in 1999, during which the UN entered Kosovo under the banner of human rights but failed to organise even an effective police service, leaving the country in a vacuum. St Bride’s Centre, Edinburgh. Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol (12A) ●●●●● (Brad Bird, US,
INDEX Film
2011) Tom Cruise, Jeremy Renner, Simon Pegg, Paula Patton. 133min. The Impossible Missions Force is disowned but allowed to escape by the US government after being implicated in the bombing of the Kremlin, leaving Ethan Hunt (Cruise) and his four- man team to go rogue in an attempt to clear its name and find the real culprit. A slightly ludicrous but enoyably slapdash addition to the franchise. General release. A Monster in Paris (U) (Bibo Bergeron, France, 2011) Vanessa Paradis, Matthieu Chedid. 90min. In 1910 Paris, a shy film projectionist and an inventor join forces with an eclectic band of misfits to embark on the hunt for a monster that is terrifying the locals. General release. Mother and Child (15) ●●●●● (Rodrigo García, US/Spain, 2009) Naomi Watts, Annette Bening, Kerry Washington, Jimmy Smits, Samuel L Jackson, David Morse. 125min. This drama follows a 50- year-old woman, the daughter she gave up for adoption and an African American woman looking to adopt a child. The triptych of plotlines is strong, but undermined by leaden pacing and over-neat segues between stories. macrobert, Stirling; The Hippodrome, Bo’ness.
✽✽ Mourning (12A) (Morteza Farshbaf, Iran, 2011) Kiomars Giti, Sharareh
Pasha, Amir Hossein Maleki. 85min. When a child is orphaned after an accident kills his parents, two deaf relatives take him on a road trip to attend the funeral. See caption, page 74. Part of the Middle Eastern Film Festival. Filmhouse, Edinburgh. The Muppets (U) ●●●●● (James Bobin, US, 2011) Jason Segel, Amy Adams, Chris Cooper, Rashida Jones. 103min. See review, page 69. General release from Fri 10 Feb. My Beautiful Laundrette (15) ●●●●● (Stephen Frears, UK, 1985) Gordon Warnecke, Daniel Day-Lewis, Saeed Jaffrey, Roshan Seth. 97min. A young Asian from South London is given the chance to manage his uncle’s laundrette, which he and his ex-skinhead boyfriend transform into the latest word in laundromats. Originally made for TV, this provided Channel Four’s first foray into the cinema. Part of LGBT History Month. Filmhouse, Edinburgh. The Nine Muses (tbc) (John Akomfrah, Ghana/UK, 2010) 96min. This experimental film combines archive imagery with footage of Alaskan landscapes to examine the experience of immigrants to the UK since the 1960s. macrobert, Stirling. NT Live: The Comedy of Errors (E) (Dominic Cooke, UK, 2012) Lenny Henry, Chris Jarman, Lucian Msamati. Lenny Henry stars in the National Theatre’s version of Shakespeare’s comedy of two sets of twins and many cases of mistaken identity. Selected screenings on Thu 9 Feb. NT Live: Travelling Light (E) (Nicholas Hytner, UK, 2012) Mark Extance, Colin Haigh, Anthony Sher. Live broadcast from the National Theatre of a new play by Nicholas Wright about the life of an Hollywood film director and his humble beginnings in a turn-of-the-century Eastern European village. Selected screenings on Thu 1 Mar. Old Dog (Khyi rgan) (tbc) (Pema Tseden, China, 2011) Yanbum Gyal, Drolma Kyab, Lochey. 88min. Tibetan- language drama about a family’s decision to sell its canine member in the wake of a spate of dog thefts. Part of Takeaway China. CCA, Glasgow.
✽✽ Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (Bir zamanlar Anadolu’da) (15)
(Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Turkey/Bosnia and Herzegovina, 2011) Muhammet Uzuner, Yilmaz Erdogan, Taner Birsel. 150min. Atmospheric police drama about a group of men involved in a murder investigation in a Turkish backwater. See caption, page 74. Part of the Middle Eastern Film Festival. Filmhouse, Edinburgh. One For the Money (tbc) (Julie Anne Robinson, US, 2012) Katherine Heigl, Jason O’Mara, Daniel Sunjata. 106min. Romcom as a newly unemployed Heigl sets herself up as a bounty hunter, based on the book by Janet Evanovich. General release from Fri 24 Feb.
2 Feb–1 Mar 2012 THE LIST 75