Video/ DVD
violence. but this film also manages to mix it wrth more than a hint of humour making it very amusmg indeed. (Fox Pathe) (Jane Hamilton)
ROMANTIC COMEDY SER
(12) 92 mins .00
The down side of being a fresh faced star in Hollywood is that for every American Beauty you get to do. you have to do numerous Losers. Ask Mena Suvari, she knows more than anyone. This cutesy rorn-com scrapes up the nicest bits of Pretty In Pink, Ferris Bue/ler's Day Off and Porky 's and dresses them up in post-grunge college ganns.Jason “American Pie' Biggs co-stars as the geek who gets Suvari‘s chic. a climax which is delayed by a whole 91 minutes. at which moment they get sleazy lecturer Greg Kinnear out of the picture. Derivative. if sweet fun. (Columbia rental; DVD if t 9.99)
(Mark Robertson)
DRAMA MISS JULIE (15) 97 mins 00..
A brave adaptation of August Strindberg's austere. 'unfilmable' theatrical classic from director Mike Figgrs (Leavrng Las Vegas). Peter Multan is the mean- Spirited, bitter proto-prole footman of a 19th cOuntry estate who takes the advances of the Count's daughter (Saffron Burrows) too far With a steamy enc0unter in the kitchen. This leads to a tragic search for a way of escape from the events he has set in motion. It's a strong. intelligent. polemical film. scripted by Helen Cooper and
E” L‘Cw‘f :‘ 5:: “c:
‘(J ‘C‘CI ’, 1(1_<l. AJKI u/
got best exer Er‘gus" ’anguage ‘ir‘f adaptat or‘ of the old Smears" li‘lSS'EtiJ‘iSi. MGM recur; DVD @999) Pat. Daae
ALSO RELEASED High Fidelity iBuena Vista VHS Sjt-l.99: DVD “999' Top ten top slot adaptation of Nick Hornl_)y's novel.
The Low Down lFilrnFour VCl DVD “9.99) Low key London—set twentysometlring drama. Man Is A Woman (Millivres VHS 5‘ l 5.99) Unconveritional gay- therned romance starring Antonre de Caunes.
The Monster Collection iUriiversal .1 Front VHS $79.99 each) The creepy classics featuring: The Mummy. Frankenstein, Dracula and the Wolfman. Waking The Dead (Universal VHS rental) Haunting romance starring Billy Crudup and Jennifer Connolly.
THRILLER MEMENTO (15) 113 mins CO...
‘The end is in the beginning and yet you go on.’ That’s a line from Samuel Beckett’s Endgame, but it could have been a review of Christopher Nolan’s fascinating psychological thriller. In Memento, the end really is in the beginning - a shoot-out in an out-of-town shack - and yet it goes on, each scene finishing where the one before began. We know the what, the movie goes back in time to tell us
the why.
It’s initially bewildering but, as the pieces of the jigsaw start fitting
together, it’s ever more
entertaining. But is it just a piece of clever-clever filmmaking that dazzles with form more than content? Not at all. Thematically it’s somewhere between Endgame - a bleak study in existentialist despair - and Oliver Sacks’ The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat - a text- book study of mental malfunction.
Here, Leonard Shelby (Guy Pearce) has lost his short-term memory as a traumatic reaction to an attack on his wife. He can’t rely on his memories, can’t recognise the motel manager he sees every day, can’t be sure how many rooms he’s taken out; the only way he can survive is to take Polaroid pictures and make notes. But obsessive though they are, his methods are fallible.
The effect of Nolan’s inside-out story telling is to make the viewer as disorientated as the hero. It’s a brilliant technique that captures the empty horror of memory loss. Even at the end - which is the beginning - we remain uncertain of the facts. The desire to go through the whole
rollercoaster ride again is irresistible. (Mark Fisher)
Fascinating psychological thriller
I Available for Video rental and DVD purchase (8 79.99) through Fox Pat/7e from
Mon 30 Apr.
Apology: In The Mood For Love is released through Metro Tartan, not Momentum Pictures as stated last issue.
1 14 THE LIST 26 Apr—10 May 2001
tv@list.co.uk
Stt‘lEb
PERFECT
Scottish, Mon 30 Apr,
9pm 00
It must be springtime
The grass needs (tut. hormones are raging
and the iV is ES[)(}‘.'.’llltt
out dramas by the
channel—load to tempt
us indoors. Perfect is I'W's latest drama
"special. pulled from the vault marked Hurriedly
Cohbled Together Vehicles for Former Soap Stars iFemalei. Sarah Lancashire passed and Martine
McCutcheon is suffering from voice strain. so this one passes to the never~
discerning Michelle Collins.
Post-Cindy. Collins has portrayed a succession of blonde. manipulative fernme fatales. Here. she
branches out to play Julie. a blonde. manipulative femme fatale. compulsive liar
and serial bigamist who
flounders from one marriage phantom
pregnancy to another.
But waitf There are ghostly flashbacks.
creepy musical boxes and a sub-plot involvmg
a sulky teenager‘s search for her birth mother. all of which conspire to reveal the
/\'la' twat wife
I\.',’\ii,tti Sli‘fliw
WILDLIFE ON ONE
8801. Sun 29 Apr, 7.30pm .000
‘.7./i’<:'l'i'.fe> On O'Te rel-art‘s ‘.'.’Eiil the ‘.ei‘.'etj. disclosure that "sharks are the HM >st sensitize creatures n the s~.:.i'. Noun: [)axid Attenhorough can summon up his silkiest stage \vl‘iisper. hut lye seen J;N.*.':; and I'm going to need a lot i'li persuasion that anyt'iing bill dark intent lurks behind those heady. blank eyes.
As the film reveals. those eyes disguise exceptionally strong retinas. all the better for hunting ‘.'.’liil. and each species' sensory toolbox is tuned to the sole purpose of securing lunch. from the Great White's 'natural line' of perception to the Hammerhead's seventh sense that tracks electrical impulses. All very informative this. as you might expect from a flagship nature programme. And, If the uridenvater sequences in this first film struggle to avoid cliche liagged
HOLLonoD GREATS
8801. Mon 30 Apr. 10.45pm COO.
parttt ii‘r'-"?wli‘~ ill“ii..'.\/\Viiit‘d'iii‘U‘i‘. (io'llr-Kr'li,
l lllxlirt"7.’i‘ii‘.i- i.ir~
i)\I‘iw'.i i t‘itiiit"I lll
Hair; stir the lt-lrtiate steps ..1 ireri ‘ri' (hitter 'ri lamt.’ at .i llll ire testoster ,riw "iltlttjt’iitiillltif: st,'e, His talents lioth in front and iltfiilllii ii‘t‘ carnera are skittulig. al.1iliiii' s‘.'./ilt|‘,', (terrvl'istrgife'i here. firth (littT-fiilfl, footage trcrn ()1) It» It)‘.‘.’.’l. fate z'lrrtt ii. (iai' and. ot course his legendar ,' (lalfiarw- .‘."iil inclement naeat‘ier. Most touching. however. is the genuine £lii‘:f,il’)tl felt for Keié', tr, his friends and tarriil,.
represented here h, ism
i‘o'rrier‘ ‘.'.’l‘.’(:fi. 3.2“) daughters and a sop ‘ e spookrl, srrriiiar to tll‘. father he has to be seen to be i)(,’il(,’.".rti.
tK(;ii",/ Api‘fli
The most sensitive creature in the sea, apparently