Films screening this fortnight are listed below with certificate, star rating, credits, brief review and venue details. Film index compiled by Paul Dale
Agent Cody Banks 2: Destination London (PG) 0 (Kevin Allen. US. 2004) Frankie Muniz. Anthony Anderson. Hannah Spearritt. 100min. This feeble sequel to last year‘s hardly overwhelming action comedy for kids sees the CIA-trained Cody posing as a musical prodigy in order to join an international youth orchestra whose aristocratic sponsor is plotting to unleash a mind-control device on world leaders gathering at Buckingham Palace. There are roles for Keith Allen. of Fat Les fame. as a rogue agent. Paul Kaye as a tea- drinking. Q—type boffin and Mark Williams as a blustering police chief. None of them. though. adds much in the way of wit or excitement to a limp assignment. General release.
Aileen (15) 0... (Nick Broomfteld. UK/US. 2002)After 12 years Broomfield returns to the scene of the crime of his 1992 film Aileen Wuornos: 'l’he Selling of a Serial Killer. to see her be executed by the very people that were happy to condone her exploitation in the state of Florida. Moving and incredibly low key for Brootufteld and his co-director Joan Churchill. Cameo. Edinburgh.
Along Came Polly (12A) 00
(John Hamburg. CS. 2004) Ben Stiller. Jennifer Aniston. Philip Seymour Hoffman. Debra Messing. Alec Baldwin. 90min. Formulaic rom com with Stiller more or less recreating his role in Meet
HORROR DAWN OF THE DEAD
(18) 101 min 0.00
the Parents. A couple of kooky. mismatched midlife muck ups go through a whirlwind of romance and separation. Attracted to one another. they subsequently wind each other up. split. but ultimately make up and out. Alec Baldwin steals the show in a cameo as Stiller's lewd. crude boss while Aniston does the dour post grunge student routine all over again. General release.
The Arabian Nights ()8) (Pier Paolo Pasolini. Italy. 1974) Ninetto Davoli. Ines Pellegrini. France Citti. 130min. The last of Pasolini's medieval trilogy recounts several of the Thousand and ()ne Nights stories framed by the tale of a slave girl who becomes ‘king' of a great city. Liberal doses of sex. violence and anti-establishment blasphemy. Part the Pasolini season. Film/rouse. Edinburgh.
Balseros (12A) (Carlos Bosch/Josep M Domenech. Spain. 2002) I20min. Update of 1994 documentary detailing the plight of seven Cubans and their families who headed for US shores on homemade rafts and ended up at the refugee camp at the US base at Guantanamo. I-‘ilnihouse. Edinburgh.
The Basque Ball (La Pelota Vasca) (15) (Julio Medem. Spain. 2003) 115mm. Director Julio Medem retums to his Spanish roots after years away. to create his absorbing documentary about the political and social conflict in the Basque Country. Interviews with various witnesses provide personal insight and opinions into the nature of the tumultuous controversy. (CA. Glasgow; Film/rouse. Edinlnirgh.
Benzina (15) 0.. (Monica Stambrini. Italy. 2001) Maya Sansa. Regina Orioli. Mariella Valentini. Luigi Maria Burruano.Two lesbian lovers -- a butch motor mechanic and her lemme waitress girlfriend — are caught in a clinch by the
.w g The ghoul can’t help it
Completely unnecessary in every sense, this dollar-hungry ‘re-envisioning’ of George Romero’s seminal 1978 zombie apocalypse movie of the same name looks like nothing more than a soulless cash-in. Refreshingly, though, it’s actually a reverential take on the original’s grimly comic vision of social collapse, with a superb cast (including Sarah Polley and Ving Rhames) setting up camp in an empty shopping mail as the dead return to life. Commercials director Zary Snyder deserves credit for crafting one of the most adrenaline-charged American horror movies in recent memory: jump out MTV editing, roaring shotgun blasts and hyperactive zombies who owe more to Olympic sprinters than the lumbering ghouls of yesteryear make for decidedly breathless viewing. Screenwriter James Gunn spent his formative years at schlock factory Troma Studios before moving out to Hollywood and it shows, not least of all in the outrageously yucky pregnancy sequence. Ditching the satiric bite of Romero’s audacious critique of ‘70s consumerism, Snyder clearly feels happier engaging the adrenal glands than the brain. Yet, while the introspective Iulls of the original are sorely missed, the script’s flashes of jet-black gallows humour and high quotient of ultra-squishy, latex gore mean it’d be churlish to moan
too loudly. (Jamie Russell) I Out now on general release.
26 THE LIST 1—15 Apr 2004
unexpected arrival of the waitress‘ mother. Things lead to murder and a road trip to oblivion. Monica Stambrini's first feature has attracted plaudits on the queer film festival circuit. but that's because there is such a dearth of lesbian representation in movies. The main problem with Ben:ina is its lack of a distinctive voice. I-‘ilmhouse. Edinburgh.
Big Fish (PG) .0. (Tim Burton. CS. 2003) Ewan McGregor. Albert Finney. Billy Crudup. Jessica Lange. Alison Lohman.
1 10min. Edward Bloom (Finney) is much loved. but his compulsive yarn-spinning has alienated him frotn his journalist son Will (Crudup). whose wedding day Edward upstaged with a typically scene-stealing speech. Estranged since then. lidward and Will are reunited when the father falls ill and the son retums from Paris. together with his French wife. Josephine (Marion Cotillard) who soon falls for lidward's entertaining mendacity. “ill. on the other hand. is determined to find the truth behind his father's slippery fictions. Cue gentle giants. utopian villages ftill of happy-shiny people. exotic circus performers. cabaret- performing conjoined twins and poetry- spouting batik robbers. Unfortunately. the film‘s big moral message is mawkish and disappointingly conventional. btit Burton country is always worth venturing into for 1 bit. Cameo. Edinburgh.
0 Blind Flight (15) oooo (John Furse. UK. 2003) Ian Hart. Linus Roache. 97min. This dramatisation of the kidnapping of Brian Keenan and John McCarthy confines itself to the fottr and a half years the Irish teacher and the Iinglish journalist spent in captivity in the Lebanon in the 1980s. Roache and Hart give the performances of their respective careers. and praise. too. must go to writer-director John Furse. who spent titne with Keenan and McCarthy. getting to know them after their separate releases. This low budget film effectively employs a single dramatic location (a series of cells. with chilly Belfast and Glasgow warehouses doubling for the roasting Lebanon locations) is a riveting piece of drama. Brutal. tender and powerful stuff. See preview. page 22 and review. page 23. L'GC Renfrew Street. Glasgow; (/(iC. Edinburgh.
Bolivia ( 15) (Adrian Caetano. Argentinit/Netherlands. 2001 ) Freddy Flores. Rosa Sanchez. ()scar Bertea. Enrique Liporace. The story of Freddy who leaves his family and home in Bolivia to try his luck in Argentina. Eiltnhotise. Edinburgh.
Box 507 (La Caja 507) ( IS) 0000 (Enrique L'rbi'zu. Spain. 2002) Dafne Femandez. Antonio Resines. Miriam Montilla. 1 12min. This smartly-plotted. taut Spanish thriller sees a mild-mannered bank manager named Modesto abandoning his desk fora trail of revenge. Struggling to pull his life back together after the trauma of his teenage daughter being killed in a forest fire. he accidentally uncovers a conspiracy that suggests her death was. in fact. tnurder. Following a money trail leads Modesto to a nexus of corrupt business practice and foreign mobster activities. A box office hit at home. the film‘s criticism of contemporary Spanish society and politics certainly strikes a chord. What‘s compelling. too. is the notion of the everyman taking a stand against rampant corruption. And this not being Hollywoth our hero uses brains rather than brawn to bring the villains to justice. A working class hero. no less. ('C/l. (ilasgou‘.
Brother Bear (1’) 00 (Aaron Blaise/Robert Walker. US. 2003) Voices of Joaquin Phoenix. Jeremy Suarez. Jason Raize. Rick Moranis. Dave Thomas. I)B Sweeney. 85min. Soppy. uninspired take on an Inuktitut legend about a bear who wants to do more than just shit in the woods. (’(‘I. ( 'lydebank.
Bugs! 3D (17) (Mike Slee.1'K. 2003) 40min. Dame Judi [)ench narrates this giant screen 30 film which focuses on the life cycles of a praying mantis and a butterfly from their birth to their inevitable demise in the tropical rainforests of Southeast Asia. IMAX. Glasgow:
The Cabinet of Doctor Caligari (PG) 0.... (Robert Wiene. (iermany. 1911)) Werner Kratiss. Conrad \'eidt. Lil l)agover. 90min. A landmark of expressionist cinema. feasting the eyes with bizarre. angular visuals despite its technical crttdity. The acting and directing are superb. and the story of a fairground hypnotist who uses a sleepwalker to carry out murders still retains a unique sense of horror. l-‘ilmhouse. l-[ilinlnirelt
The Canterbury Tales ( Is) 0.
(Pier Paolo l’asolini. Italy/France. 1971 1 Laura Betti. Ilugh (iriffitli. Jenny Runacre. 109mm. Pasolini appears as Chaucer overseeing the telling of four of the Canterbury Tales. Bawdy. sadistic arid terminally tedious. Part of the I’asolini season. (il’l: (ilasgow: Film/muse. Edinburgh.
Captain Corelli’s Mandolin l 15)
CD. (John Madden. l'K/l'S/l‘rance. 2001) Nicolas Cage. l’enelope (‘ru/. John Hurt. 120mm. This adaptation of Louis de Bernieres' lWL‘slSt‘llL‘t' secs' (ireccc iiilst'll by the Italian Army during World \Var 11. Captain Corelli and his squad of opera enthusiasts arrive on the island of Cephaloiiia. catising much uproar. And when the Captain ls billetcd to Dr lannis' (llurt) house. Corelli and the doctor's beautiful daughter. I’elagia (Cruz). fall in forbidden love. Madden has stuck to his guns and made a mm ie at once distinctly liuropean and likely to appeal to American audiences. Commercial. unfaithful to the book. but still head atid shoulders above any of the eye candy Hollywood has to offer. ()deon. lz‘dinbtirgh.
C9 Capturing the Friedmans ( 15) (Andrew Jarecki. ISA. 2002) 107min. l’aedophilia is proving itself to be fertile ground for great movies. What Happiness did for fiction. Capturing the liter/mans does for documentaries. The Friednians are the archetypal dysfunctional American family. who were way ahead of their titne when they used \ ideo cameras in the 80s to film their personal response to police allegations that two members of the family. the father and youngest child. were sodomising children. The material they produced is often hilarious despite the torrid subject matter and director Andrew Jarecki cleverly ties together this archival footage to ensure that the lmundaries between fact and fiction are sullicd like bed sheets after an orgy. It might be sick. btit it‘s also a brilliant look at media-led hysteria and the vagaries of human relationships. See feature. page 1-1 and review 2-1. Selected release.
Carmen t 15) (\‘icentc Aranda. Spain. 2003) Pa! Vega. Leonardo Sbaraglia. Antonio l)echent. Joan Crosas. 1 10min. While planning his wedding to young Carmen (I’a/ Vega). Antonio (Leonardo Sbaraglia) finds an old picture of his bride-to—be with another mart. igniting a spark of jealousy in the young lover. As Antonio uncovers more information about her past. his obsession surmounts until it threatens to destroy them both. (if-"I: Glasgow: Film/tome. lz'dinburgh. Carnages ( IS) 0“ (l)elpliine (ilei/e. l'TiillCC/BClgllllll/Spatll'l/S“ it/erland. 2004) (‘hiara Mastroiattni. Angela Molina. 1.io. 130mm. What might a young Spaniin matador. a live-year-old girl with epilepsy. a schimlteachcr. a struggling Italian actress. a hospital researcher. his pregnant wife. an amateur taxidermist arid a suicidal philosopher-turned-ice-skater hay c in common‘.’ In (ilei/e's debut. their destinies become entangled in a web of connections after each receives a part of a bull slaughtered in the ring. An initially engaging storyline unravels through a series of seemingly unrelated stibplots. btit grows tiresome as the characters' relations and bi/arre secrets become as complicated as differential calculus equations and less likely than a lottery win. ('(iC Renlreiv Street. Glasgow:
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