WINTER WARMERS
The top twenty gems coming to a cinema near you soon. Roll up. Words: Miles Fielder
ALI 25 January, 2002
They say movies are made or broken in the casting. If that's the case. this boxing biopic of the fighter who danced like a butterfly and stung like a bee has got it made with super-charismatic Will Smith in the lead. Men In Black and Wild Wild West's Barry Sonnenfeld was originally to direct. but has been replaced by Michael Mann. who proved he can do no wrong With Heat and The Insider.
APOCALYPSE NOW REDUX 23 November, 2001
You either loathe Francis Ford Coppola's Vietnam war movie as exploitative junk (Jane
bunnies in action.
Fonda was very vocal on this matter) or love it as a balmy, baroque masterpiece. Coppola has added 43 minutes of previously unused footage. bringing this director's cut up to three hours and seventeen minutes. so now you'll love or loathe it much. much more. New stuff includes a lengthy scene at a forgotten French colonial outpost and more of the Playboy
FROM HELL 8 February, 2002
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Comic books don't generally translate to the big screen. so an attempt to adapt Alan The Watchmen Moore's investigation of the Jack the Flipper murders looks doomed to failure. For a start. the results of Moore's exhaustive investigation — which traces each lead to its conclusion bringing in ancuent history. religion. occultism. cultism. you name it - took a decade for him and Scottish artist Eddie Campbell to publish. How do you squeeze that into 90 minutes? And the Hughes brothers are directing. the guys that made the post-blaxploitation films Menace 2 Society and Dead Presidents. Still. Johnny Depp and Heather Graham cut handsome gibs.
ROCK STAR 28 December, 2001
It shouldn't have been Mark Wahlberg slugging it out with those intelligent apes. No. Marky's best served playing a young buck like Dirk Diggler in Boogie Nights or. in this case. a yeting dude in an 80s heavy metal tribute band. His long- haired headbanger Chris Cole's dream comes true when he gets to join his idols The Steel Dragons. Though Rock Star isn't the hilarious parody Spinal Tap was. it's nevertheless spot on in its portrayal of old metal culture. For those about to rock. we salute you.
BROTHERHOOD OF THE WOLF 19 October, 2001
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon meets Dangerous Liaisons meets Predator in this kung fu French period drama’horror mystery hybrid. Strange bedfellows. indeed. Based on real events where over 100 people were slain in the province of Gevaudan, Brotherhood Of The Wolf is one of the most expenswe movies ever made in France. The cast includes on-and-oft screen partners Vincent Cassel and Monica Bellucci. but with Christophe Gans directing Mark Dacascos — the martial artist star of his manga adar’)tation Cry/rig Free/ital? —- the emphasis will be on action.
THE ANNIVERSARY PARTY Early 2002
GOSFORD PARK 1 February, 2002
Hollywood maverick and veteran Robert Altman (M'A'S'H. NashVi/le. Short Cuts) has been making movies for :30 years and it's taken him all this time to make one in the UK. Well. now he has. and he's chosen Agatha Christie's murder mystery Ten Little Indians as a starting pornt to dissect English high society between the wars. Expect Altman's trademark comic absurdity. stylistic chaos (including ear-twnding overlapping dialogue) and
This movie. made by
Alan Cumming and Jennifer Jason Leigh and their luvvie pals (Gwyneth Paltrow, Kevin Kline. Jennifer Beals). about a Hollywood party that spirals Out of control cOLild so easily have been a load of self-indulgent wank. But it isn't. It's funny, well- acted and self-depreciating. Class character actors like Parker Posey and John C. Reilly help. And there's a great reference to one of Cumming and Leigh's sources of inspiration - the swinging (SOs comedy The Party — in Michael Panes. a little known actor who's the spitting image of that film's star Peter Sellers.
dreamy ensemble cast: Maggie Smith. Alan Bates. Derek Jacobi. Helen Mirren. Kristin Scott Thomas. Jeremy
Northam, Richard E.
Grant. Kelly Macdonald.
12 'I’HE LIST x. 18 Oct 7001