film

new releases

Twin Town (18) 99 mins at ht *

The quaint Ivor The Engine image of Wales is seriously derailed by Kevin Allen's anarchic, amoral comedy. Watch the daffodils in Max Boyce's garden wilt under a barrage of profanity, drug use, joyriding, sleazy sex, police corruption and all-round bad behaviour.

The inevitable comparison to Trainspotting has been and will continue to be made, but it's really only apparent in the pumping soundtrack Super Furry Animals and Catatonia bring the current surge of Welsh musical energy onto the screen, mixing in with such diverse performers as Stereolab and Petula Clark. Allen's approach to the material is more direct and less slickly stylish than Danny Boyle's, although Boyle and Trainspotting producer Andrew Macdonald function here as executive producers. Then again, both films share an in- your-face attitude that takes delight in ruffling conservative feathers.

Brothers but not twins - Jeremy and Julian Lewis (real life siblings Rhys lfans and Llyr Evans) are the thorns in the side of modern-day Swansea, but are particularly hated by bent Scottish copper Terry (Dougray Scott) and slimy building contractor Bryn (William Thomas). When their father falls off a roof while working, but Bryn refuses to consider compensation, the boys' vendetta starts an escalation of events that threaten to blow open 3 drugs deal and lead, ultimately, to mass murder.

This darkening plot structure pulls the film away from its fast-paced, farcical early scenes into what is basically a contemporary twist on a Jacobean revenge tragedy. The Lewis brothers orchestrate a couple of grand set-piece killings (and a neat Godfather reference) that brilliantly

Bad cop, worse cop: Dorien Thomas and Dougray Scott in Twin Town

combine bizarre comedy, nasty brutality and poetic justice. That Allen manages to kindle a small flame of sympathy for the boys amid all the slap-your-face antics is no mean feat.

It's interesting to note that the director’s initial inspiration for the film was the arson stitch-up done during the Glasgow ’lce Cream Wars' a subject he took on in factual form in a television documentary. Only a glimmer of this remains in the finished film, but it's enough to suggest that what we're watching is an out- of-control allegory about the total decline of morality in the late 20th century. Okay, that sounds a bit heavy, but Twin Town does leave you discomforted by the slide from mad-for-it to simply, certifiably mad. (Alan Morrison)

3 Selected release from Fri 25 Apr See feature page 70

Everyone Says I Love You (12) 101 mins it it

Music has alV-JJVS played a prominent role in Woody Allen's films Now he‘s taken the p'unge and made a fully- fledged musical « or rather, in his own words, a 'cornedy where the characters sing and dan: e'

Narrated by sassy voting Manhattanite DJ (Natasha Lyonne), the film follows the members of her well-to-do extended family as they fall in and out of love in the course of a

year

Hawn).

Singing her praises: Woody Allen and Julia Roberts in Everyone Says I Love You

Her half-sister Slylar fDren'x Barrymore) gets engaged to clean-cut Holden (Edwarr Noll-mi, him temporarily When she falls for a loutish ex-con (Tim Roth) who's been taken up by her socialite—‘.=.'ith-a- conscience mother Steffz 'Goldie

Fickle DJ herself consorts ‘.'.’l’.l‘. a stririr; of beaux while her father Joe an expatriate writer living in Paris, bemoans his romantic misfortunes On holiday in Venice, ll()\.'.’(,“.'-Z?T, J tries to set her father up with the beautiful Von (Julia Roberts‘,

fantasies she has learned by eavesdropi‘nng on Von's therapy sessions back in New York

But where do the songs come in? Well, the various lovers burst into song and dance at regular intervals, iamely performing 30s and rlOs standards alongside tap-dancing jewellers, hospital nurses and even a chorus line of gliosts singing 'Erijoy Yourself (lt's Later Than You Thinki'

The actors acquit themselves with varying degrees of success - Allen has chosen (with one or two eXteplionsi untrained performers who, suppose-(fly, make up in sin(erity what they lack in polish The director himself looks distinctly pained when he sings his number, 'l’m Thru Willi Love', as ll anxious "or the ordeal to pass But his discomfort is nothing compared with ours ‘.‘.'ht‘-i‘- Roberts opens her mouth to

sing All My Litt-

if singing this flat got what on earth did Drew - who was dubbed sound

or y 17 We. .Ylt’, .he .:m,

Barrymore likr‘7

The film's best comic llll, have echoes of Allen's past triumphs and some of “‘0 “WW rll numbers have a (lti'rk‘f f'atlernai'»:

charm, but \‘Jcotlv

‘Allert‘; ‘~.'.Iisecra(ks and neuroses tiltiritately work against the spirzl of lllll‘i‘ttil comedy and the film has t": be carrot-ad a disappointing mis.‘:ie 'lason Best

I Glasgow Film Tlicnitre an! [cf/rhhfxrg."

‘.'.«l‘."-se deepest Cameo from Fri 78 Apr

new releases FILM Box Of Moonlight

(15) 112 mins ***

Al Fountain (John Turturro) is a stickler for routine and discipline. When he goes away for a weekend on business, naturally he leaves his son with a pile of maths reVi5ion and his wrfe muttering about marriage to ’Mr

- Clockwork'. Something’s got to give,

and the backwater town of Drip Rock provides the catalyst for personal transformation.

Al's busmess trip is cancelled, but instead of returning home, he is compelled to seek the local site of a childhood memory. One thing leads to another and, before long, he’s kipping in a mobile home half open to the woods, tripping with mythical loner The Kid (Sam Rockwell) and spending 4 July in bed with a woman called Floatre

The film's allegorical nature makes it difficult to engage With any of the characters. AI never comes across as a real person because he is primarily an Everyman, embodying the constraints of middle-class life (as perceived by the critical eye of writer-director Tom DiCillo of Livrng ln Oblivion acclaim). Al’s return to Drip Rock is treated as an opportunity to satirise society rather than as a persooal event -- the film takes passing swipes at enVironmental decay, evangelical Christianin and the repression. of natural urges

The Kid is clearly designed as the antidote to all this He lives 'off the social gritl’ and is essentially a happy- go-lucky scavenger who breaks laws of society but never those of nature. The character makes a clear philosophical point on behalf of the film, even if he is something of a cliche, but he is more remote than Al « and nameless and dressed in a stolen Davy Crockett costume to boot

John Turturro (Barton Fink, (lockers) turns in an intelligent and often amusing performance as Al, but he doesn’t have the power to make the him live, and overall Box Of Moonlight seems ('irnateurish and pretentious. (Hannah Fries)

I Edinburgh Frlmnouse from Fri 25 Apr Glasgow Film Theatre from Fri 2 May See preview

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l8 Apr 1 May 199/ THE ll5T19