FILM index
FILM LISTINGS continued
Doctor Zhivago (PG) (David Lean, US/UK, 1965) Omar Sharif, Julie Christie, Geraldine Chaplin. 193 mins. Big screen romance in the Gone With The Wind style, rather than a genuine adaptation of the Pasternak novel, with Sharif and Christie as lovers caught up in World War One and the Russian Revolution. Notable mainly for its lush, picture postcard photography. Edinburgh: Lumiere.
Doug's 1st Movie (U) (Maurice Joyce, US, 1999) 77 mins. The animated adventures of quirky adolescent Doug Funnie graduates from its popular Saturday morning slot on American television to big screen glory, courtesy of Disney. Movie no. 1 sees the twelve-year-old torn between taking action against environmental pollution and taking his beloved Patti Mayonnaise to the high school dance. General release.
Drop Dead Gorgeous (15) (Michael Patrick Jann, US, 1999) Denise Richards, Kirsten Dunst, Kirstie Alley, Ellen Barkin. 98 mins. Set in America’s heartland of traditional values and Christian morality, this deliciously savage satire takes a bite out of an aspect of American life held most dear - the beauty pageant. Good girl Dunst begins to fear for her life when she goes up against bad girl Richards for the pageant queen title and fellow contestants start meeting with unfortunate accidents. From so simple a premise this sharply observed and well-paced comedy travels to a painful, poignant yet funny conclusion. General release.
Election (15) (Alexander Payne, US, 1999) Matthew Broderick, Reese WitherSpoon, Chris Klein. 103 mins. Payne’s adaptation of Tom Perrotta’s novel, a comic satire on the 1992 American presidential election campaign set in a high school, focuses on the conflict between Jim McAllister (Broderick), a dedicated teacher who's also suffering from a mid-life crisis, and Tracy Flick (Witherspoon), a model but precocious pupil over a student government election. Winning performances and a super sharp script make this the smartest comedy to come out of the States in years. Glasgow: Odeon At The Quay. Edinburgh: Filmhouse, UCl.
The End Of Violence (15) (Wim Wenders, US/Germany/France, 1997) Bill Pullman, Andie MacDowell, Gabriel Byme. 120 mins. Reminiscent of those open-ended paranoia thrillers of the 705 (The Conversation, The Parallax View), The End Of Violence casts a caustic eye on modern LA, where reality and fiction are both most keenly experienced through the camera lens. The plot revolves around the city's hi-tech surveillance system and a murder attempt on a top film producer, but although the themes are intriguing, the overall effect is very patchy. Edinburgh: Filmhouse. Entrapment (15) (Jon Amiel, US, 1999) Sean Connery, Catherine Zeta-Jones. 112 mins. Former ace cat burglar Robert ‘Mac’ MacDougal (Connery) attracts the attention of sexy insurance investigator Gin Baker (Zeta-Jones). She is determined to find evidence connecting him with that opening sequence robbery, just as he is determined to not have that crime pinned on him. It's all very To Catch/1 Thief, but not really in the same league. Edinburgh: Brunton Theatre, Cameo. Falkirk: FTH Cinema.
The Exorcist (18) (William Friedkin, US, 1973) Linda Blair, Ellen Burstyn, Max Von Sydow. 110 mins. Earnest priest Von Sydow steps in to save poor little possessed girl in this hugely effective scarefest. Now re- released in remastered form, with a super stereo soundtrack (so you can hear those Obscenities in full). Dead good, dead scary, dead priest. Edinburgh: Cameo.
Eyes Wide Shut ( 18) (Stanley Kubrick, US, 1999) Tom Cruise, Nicole Kidman, Sidney Pollack. 159 mins. Had Kubrick chosen to stage his adaptation of Arthur Schnitzler’s Dream Novel in its original fin de siEcIe Viennese setting, audiences might have found the whole primitive Freudian mess easy to stomach. Transposing the would-be decadent psychosexual shenanigans to contemporary Manhattan, however, proves disastrous. What makes Eyes Wide Shut just about watchable is the screen presence of its two stars. The couple went to Kubrick
24 TIIE LIST 7-21 Oct 1999
humbly, submitting themselves to the vision of a genius. If only they’d thrown their Hollywood weight and commercial savvy around, the stars may have left the director with a more memorable cinematic epitaph. General release.
Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas (18) (Terry Gilliam, US, 1998) Johnny Depp,. 118 mins. As adaptations of cult books go, Gilliam’s take on Hunter S. Thompson’s assassination of the American Dream is a glorious mess of a movie. It remains true to the author’s vision of moral torpor and psychosis, whilst injecting a good shot of Gilliam’s own obsessions. Flawed, certainly, but epically degenerate. And thus pure gonzo. Edinburgh: Cameo.
Felicia's Journey (12) (Atom Egoyan, UK/ Canada, 1999) Bob Hoskins, Elaine Cassidy, Peter McDonald. 116 mins. After the sublime heights of the seductive Exotica and mesmerising The Sweet Hereafter, Atom Egoyan has fallen from grace with this clunking adaptation of William Trevor’s novel. Felicia is a young lrish girl who journeys across the sea to England to find the father of her unborn child. Arriving in Birmingham, the naive girl accepts the help of Ambrose Hilditch, a seemingly benign middle-aged bachelor who has more than one skeleton in his closet. See preview and review. Glasgow: OFT. Edinburgh: Filmhouse.
Final Cut (18) (Dominic Anciano/Ray Burdis, UK, 1999) Jude Law, Sadie Frost, Ray Winstone. 93 mins. The death of a young actor Jude (Jude Law) brings together all his best mates at his funeral. His wife Sadie (Sadie Frost) insists they watch the film that Jude was making just before his death (he was murdered, but by who?) The film is comprised of the secret filming of Jude's mates and the resulting montage pushes the limit of what friendship is. Chaos follows as home truths are given a painful airing. Lively and surprising enough to hold the interest and the improvising cast are very good. For pure home movie-style voyeurism this film is hard to beat. Glasgow: Odeon At The Quay, Showcase Cinema. Edinburgh: ABC, UCl. Paisley: Showcase.
The General's Daughter (18) (Simon West, US, 1999) John Travolta, James Woods, Madeleine Stowe. 116 mins. Travolta plays Brenner, an undercover detective in the US Army’s Criminal Investigation Division trying to get to the bottom of an explosive murder case on a military base in the Deep South. The victim is the daughter of a General about to make a bid for the Vice Presidency and so with the aplomb of Miss Marple, Brenner sizes up the numerous suspects. The General ’5 Daughter would like us to take its pulp prurience seriously, but remains empty- headed pap. General release.
Get Carter (18) (Mike Hodges, UK, 1971) ) Michael Caine, Britt Ekland, John Osborne. 112 mins. Get Carter stands out as a highlight in the artist formerly known as Micklewhite’s career. His superbly
controlled performance as the relentless avenger on a score-settling trip to the North East of England only makes you wish Caine had played more villains. Hodges grimly effective direction proves that you don’t need to be as worthy as Ken Loach to make a document of social history. Stirling: MacRobcrt.
Go (18) (Doug Liman, US, 1999) Sarah Polley, Desmond Askeu, Katie Holmes. 100 mins. Liman‘s follow up to Swingers comprises three interlocking stories about slacker kids at work, play and getting into trouble in Los Angeles and Las Vegas. Go may not have Swingers’ Rat Pack jokery, nor Jon Favreau's quirky dialogue and borrows its structure from Tarantino’s film, but the cumulative impact of the story mixing is enormously entertaining. Right here, right now, Go is the movie equivalent of Big Beat music, much of which is featured on its great soundtrack. Glasgow: Odeon, Odeon at the Quay. Edinburgh: Cameo, Odeon, UCl. St Andrews: New Picture House. Wishaw: Arrow Multiplex. Greenwich Mean Time (18) (John Strickland, UK, 1999) Steve John Shepherd, Alec Newman, Chiwetel Ejiofor. 117 mins. On their last day of school, Charlie, Rix , Bean, Sherry, Lucy and Boddy are told by their teacher to ‘leave the confines of your existence and break free from the boundaries of South East London'. They do this by forming a band and, four years later, attempt to take the world by storm, fusing a (not really) ground breaking mix of jazz and jungle. However, the band’s burgeoning success is contrasted with various internal tensions. Unfortunately, G:MT is far too moralistic to capture the identity of British youth at the close of the Millennium; unlike Human Traffic every effort is made to identify drugs as the breeding ground of crime. Glasgow: Showcase. Edinburgh: ABC. Paisley: Showcase.
Gregory's Mo Girls (15) (Bill Forsyth, UK, 1999) John Gordon-Sinclair, Maria Doyle Kennedy, Carly McKinnon. 104 mins. Gregory Underwood is still the endearing, awkward, immature boy of 1979, although by 1999 he’s a teacher at his old school in Cumbernauld. Forsyth cleverly develops the film‘s two plot strands to play on Gregory's emotional immaturity and innocence. In one Gregory avoids the attentions of Kennedy’s fellow teacher while fantasising about McKinnon's school girl; in the other he is reacquainted with old school pal Fraser Rowan (Dougray Scott), an
entrepreneur involved in highly unethical
business dealings. See previews and review. Glasgow: Odeon City Centre. Edinburgh: ABC Multiplex, Cameo.
The Haunting (12) (Jan De Bont, US, 1999) Liam Neeson, Catherine Zeta-Jones, Lili Taylor. 113 mins. From Robert Wise’s classic 1963 ghost story, for some critics the best of its kind, De Bont starts his remake carefully and pretty successfully, then quite literally loses the plot, as his special effects budget takes over from storytelling. Wise confirmed the aptness of his name by
right) in Head On
Love and hate: Alex Dimitriades(
understanding that horror, like the erotic, is often most effective when it’s mostly left to the imagination. De Bont, to extend the analogy, prefers amateur gynaecology to a look in the eye. Here, the story of a small group of people gathered in and tested by an old dark house is finally treated for its spectacle value, rather than its atmosphere. General release.
Head On (18) (Ana Kokkinos, Australia, 1999) Alex Dimitriades, Paul Capsis, Julian Garner. 104 mins. Head On grips from the start, Spending 24 hours with Ari (Dimitriades - remarkable), a messed up nineteen-year-old whose quest for drugs and casual sex is overshadowed only by his own self-hatred. It's an uncompromising look at what it means to be second generation Greek in what is supposed to be one of the most liberal cities in the world — Melbourne. It does not flinch from difficult issues such as the insidious racism and homophobia that seem to breed in any community. See preview and review. Glasgow: Odeon City Centre. Edinburgh: UCl.
' High Art (18) (Lisa Cholodenko, US, 1999)
Ally Shecdy, Radha Mitchell, Patricia Clarkson. 102 mins. A refreshingly intelligent tale of doomed lesbian love, writer/director Cholodenko’s debut feature chronicles the complex romance between ambitious picture editor Syd (Mitchell) and once famous photographer Lucy Berliner (Sheedy). The over-written script has a studied, airless feel, but the scenes of sexual tension and trembling desire between Syd and Lucy achieve a palpable erotic charge. Stirling: MacRobcrt.
Human Traffic (18) (Justin Kerrigan, UK/lreland, 1999) John Simm, Lorraine Pilkington, Danny Dyer. 95 mins. One of that rare breed - a good movie about contemporary dance culture. Set in Cardiff, although it could be anywhere, the film follows a gang of friends over a non-stop weekend of boozing, mobile phonecalls and drug-inspired clubbing. Stirling: Carlton. Into The West (PG) (Mike Newell. Eire/ UK, 1992) Gabriel Byme. Ellen Barkin, Ciaran Fitzgerald, Ruaidhri Conroy. 102 mins. Following the death of his wife, a former traveller (Byme) sets up home with his two sons in a Dublin slum. But when a mystical white horse appears and the boys head off into the Irish countryside with it, he is forced to come to terms with his present life and past culture. A wonderful piece of family storytelling, blending ancient and modern myths. Stirling: MacRobcrt.
Jack Frost (PG) (Troy Miller, US, 1998) Michael Keaton, Kelly Preston, Mark Addy. 102 mins. Negligent husband and father Jack Frost chooses to go on a road trip with his band rather than a holiday with his family and is killed in a car accident. However, he gets a chance to begin afresh when he is reincarnated as, errn . . . a snowman. Despite cloying sentiment and obvious humour Jack Frost has a simple, puerile charm that eight-year-olds will enjoy. Glasgow: UCl. East Kilbride: UCl. Jew Boy Levi (Viehjud Levi) ( 15) (Didi