index Film
styling). Lynch draws on his fascination with 40s and 50s Hollywood and its secret history of crime. here involving two actresses. amnesiac Rita (Harring) and amateur sleuth Betty (Watts). The proceedings veer into the kind of waking nightmare territory that either fiummoxes or delights viewers as Lynch mixes the bizarre. almost laughable with the moments of electrifying fear. Arts Centre. East Kilbride.
New Waterford Girl (15) (Allan Moyle. Canada. 1999) Liane Balaban. Tara Spencer- .\'airn. Nicholas Campbell. 97 min. ‘Moonie' (Balaban). a talented. bookish 15—year-old dreams of life beyond the small town of New Waterford. When Lou (Spencer-Nairn). a girl from the Bronx moves in next door. this alienated pair plot a ‘devious. sinful and inspired' escape route that transforms the lives of all around them. Fine performances. especially from Balaban - a future star. FilthUse. Edinburgh: FTH Cinema. Falkirk. Night Shift (Trols/Hult) (15) .0. (Philip Le Gauy. France. 2001) Gerald Laroche. Marc Barbe. 96 min. From the moment hapless Pierre (Laroche) steps onto the night shift at the bottle factory he falls victim to the resident bullyboy. The bully. Fred (Marc Barbe). is a mean inadequate. jealous of Pierre's popularity and skills. It is. however. when Pierre's son starts to despise his father‘s weakness and begins to hero- worship the odious Fred that the wider destructive elements of bullying are observed. Tense psychological tale and powerful portrayal of a social problem that scars a lot of people and their families. Cameo. Edinburgh. GNo Man's Land (15) one (Danis Tanovic. BOsnia-Herzegovina/Slovenia/ Italy/France/L'K/Belgium. 2002) Branko Djuric. Rene Bitanajac. Katrin Cartlidge. 98 min. And they say satire is dead. Set in the middle of the BOsnian conflict. No Mun 's Land sees two Bosnian soldiers wander into said territory. formerly a rather idyllic piece of farm land. but now a grim venue for trench warfare. They bicker like heavily armed chil- dren. before a good deal of political skuldug- gery brings in the media in the form of a ruth- less British television correspondent (Cartlidge) and a venal and ambitious British L'.\' general (Simon Callow). Can the situa- tion be resolved'.’ Well. not by any of this lot. Tanovic spares no one. and the comedy is of the kind to make you wince as you giggle. See review. GFT. Glasgow.
Notting Hill (15) .0. (Roger Michell. L'K. 1999) Julia Roberts. Hugh Grant. Hugh Bonneville. 123 min. In a now prohibitively expensive part of London. Grant's lowly bookseller literally bumps into Roberts' film star. Thereafter. they engage in romantic pursuits and eventually put class and culture clashes aside to live happily ever after. The leads don't strain themselves. but Richard Curtis‘ script is filled with witty jokes. particularly about national stereotypes. Pavilion. Galashiels.
Ocean’s Eleven (15).... (Steven Soderbergh. CS. 2001 ) George Clooney. Brad Pitt. Julia Roberts. 116 min. Off the cuff is the operative term for Steven Soderbergh's remake of the Las Vegas casino heist thriller that Frankie and Dino and their Rat Pack had so much fun making back in 1960. But where the Rat Pack rascals used the original film as an excuse to run riot in their adopted home city Soderbergh. screenwriter Ted Griffin and an all-star cast have worked to produce a tightly-scripted stylish movie. One. however. which remains at all times self-conscioust throwaway fun. Not quite as cool as the original. but a better film. Showcase Cinema. Coatbridge‘. Showcase. Paisley.
The Officers’ Ward (La Chambre des OfiIcIers) ( 15) 00 (Francois Dupeyron. France. 2002) Eric Caravaca. Isabelle Renauld. 135 min. Watching Dupeyron's film you have the feeling that World War I had nothing to do with national pride or international peace. but simply with the nature of physical deformity. Here the war isn't being fought on the battlefields of Europe. btit chiefly in the mind of Adrien (Caravaca) as he comes to terms with facial disfigurement after being severely wounded in the war's early days. Oddly. it turns out to be well-crafted but shallow cinema. GET. Glasgow.
The Others (12) 0000 (Alejandro Amenabar. L'S/Spain. 2001) Nicole Kidman. Fionnula Flanagan. Alakina Mann. James Bentley. 101 min. The Others combines aIl the elements of the Victorian Gothic thriller. but Amenabar's American debut is actually set on Jersey. at the end of World War II. Kidman plays Grace. a highly-strung woman who keeps her children locked up in an old mansion because she believes they will die if exposed to the sun. However. they do not dwell there alone. Amenabar‘s is a moody tale that rests on the impossibility of working out what is real and what is supernatural. A triumph of merciless psychological manipulation. Odeon City Centre. Glasgow. Gpanic Room (15) one (David Fincher. US. 2002) Jodie Foster. Forest Whitaker. Jared Leto. I 12 min. Panic Room may well be more style than substance but it nevertheless soon has the viewer gripped. Jodie Foster's rich. emotionally bruised divorcee and her teenage daughter have bare- ly taken possession of their new Manhattan home when they have need of its fortified. hidden chamber aka the panic room. On their first night in the place. they are forced to take refuge there when three intruders break in and what follows is a tense. cunning game of cat and mouse. Foster gives shades to her character that the script doesn‘t deserve. and of the bad guys. Whitaker is doleful and hon- ourable and Leto is cartoon-like as the loud- mouthed Junior. General release. Pippi Longstocking (L') O. Smith/Michael Schaack/Bill Giggie. Canada/Sweden/Germany. 2000) 78 min. There's something vaguely disturbing about a nine-year-old girl who parades down the street singing ‘Oh what a fabulous day. I’m happy as can be' having just watched her father being washed out to sea. But maybe that's being churlish. After all. Pippi Longstocking's anarchic behaviour has won her a place in the hearts and on the bookshelves of many a child since Astrid Lindgren first unleashed the world's first riot girl. But in an age of sophisticated children‘s films. Pippi Longstocking with all her exuberance. fails to deliver. Arts Centre. East Kilbride.
Prefab Story ( 18) (Vera Chytilova. Czechoslovakia. 1979) 96 min. Materialism. sex. the old. violence and corruption are some of the themes in this uncompromising portrait of contemporary morality. set in a modern day housing development. and portraying a cross-section of society. Focuses on the ridiculous and embarrassing. Controversial at the time. Filmhouse. Edinburgh.
Princes and Princesses (L' ) (Michel Ocelot. France. 1999) 70 min. Imaginative animated film in which a boy and a girl stage a series of amazing adventures with the help of a magic story-making machine. Groovy. GET. Glasgow.
The Princess Diaries (PG) 0
(Garry Marshall. LS. 2001 ) Anne Hathaway. Julie Andrews. Heather Matarazzo. 115 min. Goofy teenager Mia Thermopolis (Hathaway) lives with her boho artist other in San Francisco. Although Mia gets the grades rather than the boys. she breezes happily through life. L'ntil her paternal grandmother Queen Clarisse (Andrews) arrives at her doorstep and tells Mia she‘s the heir to the throne of the European principality of Genovia. Thereafter. .Mia suffers under the tutelage of her stern royal granny as she is transformed from ugly duckling into a charming princess. Horrible. from sappy wish-fulfilment premise to sugar- coated execution. Cineworld. Falkirk.
Queen Of The Damned (15) 0 (Michael Rymer. CS. 2002) Stuart Townsend. Aaliyah. Vincent Perez. 101 min. Based on Anne ‘Inlerview With The Vumpire' Rice's novels. The l’iintpire ('lzrrmir/es'. Lestat (Townsend. reprising Tom Cruise‘s role in Interview as not much more than a series of daft facial expressions) attempts to wake the ‘biggest. baddest mother of them all‘ of the title. by joining a bad rock band and spreading the word through his songs (yes. really). .\'one of the actors get off the hook. with Vincent Perez rating a special mention for his camp turn as Marius. an ancient vampire with a set of choppers which. like most of the script. he finds it impossible to get his lips round. Magnum Theatre. Irvine: Highland Theatre. ()ban.
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N EXT w ISSUE our Via 23 MAY '2.
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