Reviews
ANIMATION THE CAT RETURNS I9.) 7.5mm}?! _ _.
Hiroyuki Morita's enchanting animation begins with a still image of a cat. dressed in top hat and tails. photographed from behind as it gazes through a window into a cobbled street. It's a wistful image that sets the tone of The Cat Returns. another high quality children's film from Studio Ghibli. now released three years after its Japanese bow (in both subtitled and dubbed versions).
quality of Spirited Away or Princess Mononoke. but is worth cherishing for its energy. imagination and good humour.
On her way home from school. heroine Haru (voiced in the dubbed version by Anne Hathaway) sees a cat crossing a busy road. carrying in its mouth a package with a ribbon around it. The cat is about to get hit by a truck when Haru manages to sweep it to safety with her lacrosse stick. The cat gets to its hind legs and thanks her. promising to prove his gratitude later, and that night. marching armies of cats arrive at her home to proclaim her ‘the Queen of
DRAMA'ADVENTURE DUMA
(U) 100min .0.
Imagine wonder dog Lassie as a South African cheetah speeding across the veldt and you'll quickly suss the nature of this thoroughly decent.
Based on a comic by Aoi Hiragi. as was Ghibli‘s 1995 film Whisper of the Heart. The Cat Returns lacks the epic
SCI-Fl EPIC
STAR WARS EPISODE III: THE REVENGE OF THE SITH
(12A) 139min 0...
George Lucas has gone and done what no one expected him to - he’s made a Star Wars movie. He fell down badly pandering to little kids with 1999’s The Phantom Menace and seriously over-indulged the big kids with 2002’s Attack of the Clones, but now Star Wars fans - and surprisingly enough, actual film fans too - can enjoy an great sci-fi fantasy romp made by Lucas for the first time in two decades.
The main reason why Revenge of the Sith works is that, unlike its two predecessors, it has a goal: to draw together the plethora of untidy plot strands, all of which would (in theory, at least) feed into the original 1977 movie. It doesn’t matter that you probably know how it ends though: the real fun is in the getting there.
The film centres on the disintegration of the bond between master and apprentice, Obi-Wan Kenobi (Ewan McGregor) and Anakin Skywalker (Hayden Christensen), and deals with the latter’s drift to the dark side and the
the Kingdom of Cats'. Seeking an escape. Haru follows a mysterious white cat into another dimension. built on a cat-orientated scale where humans have to crawl through the doors leading to a death-defying confrontation atop a collapsing tower in the traditional Ghibli fashion. The Cat Returns doesn't have Miyazake's mythic touch. but the lush scoring. fertile visual imagination and overall cuteness make this a compact pussycat adventure. (Eddie Harrison) I UGC Renfrew Street. Glasgow and Cameo. Edinburgh from Fri 27 May.
occasionally thrilling family film. Based on the experiences of wildlife photographer Carol Cawthra Hopcraft and her son Xan with a domesticated big cat. director Ballard and his writers have elaborated Xan's book How It Was With Dooms (Duma is Swahili for cheetah), into a rousing. wildlife rites- of-passage fable.
Shaken by the death of his father and relocation to the city. young Xan (Alex Michaletos) escapes into the desert. determined to return Duma to his natural home. Soon stranded. the unlikely pair take up with wandering
arrival of Darth Vader. Christensen is convincingly troubled but Natalie Portman as his main squeeze Padme is underused, relied on for little more than occasional weeping and distraught gasping. But let’s skip the details. It’s safe to say the shit hits the intergalactic fan and it becomes hard for anyone to tell who’s good and who’s evil.
Lucas is still without inspiration when it comes to dialogue but drops a few concessionary one-liners in for McGregor, who reprises his role as the Ealing branch of the Jedi council. One other cute touch is that about two-thirds in, without warning, the whole movie starts to get a little grimy, worn and, truth be told, 70$- looking. Lucas’ eagerness to make this episode a part of the six part series - like we believe he thought all this stuff up 30 years ago - pays off.
While The Revenge of the Sith is clunky in places, it has flashes of the earthy charm of A New Hope and the emotive drive of The Empire Strikes Back and proves a worthy conclusion to this most epic of epics.
(Mark Robertson) I Out now on general re/ease.
Film
tribesman Rip (an impressive Brit Walker). leading to a series of run-ins with lions. crocodiles and tsetse flies. Ballard. the veteran helmer of The Black Sta/lion and Never Cry Wolf. is right at home here. blending nature's savage majesty with standard cute critters — the wide-eyed. springy bush baby is a scene-stealer — and Ballard even stoops to bring a touch of Kipling
or Twain to the odyssey. If it all boils
down to conventional. narration-heavy life lessons by the end. the more powerful stretches prove that Duma earns its emotional power honestly. (Leigh Singer)
I Genera/ re/ease from Fri 27 May
DRAMA MONDAYS IN THE SUN (15) 113min 0000
With this superb Spanish film about the wretched lives of a group of unemployed Galician men. star Javier Bardem (Before Night Falls. The Sea /nside) seals the deal on his credentials as one of the greatest actors on the planet. As out-of-work docker Santa. Bardem manages to generate awe and pathos in equal measures as his character continues to display the pride of a lion despite being cast adrift
when the docks are closed and he and the men who worked there no longer serve a purpose in society. With no income and no future Santa and his emasculated former co-workers spend their aimless days lounging in the sun and their nights drinking in a local bar. One of their number suffers the humiliation of being old job-hunting in a young man‘s market. Another's marriage begins to fall apart. A third gives up on life all together.
The same milieu has been tackled repeatedly elsewhere. by Ken Loach in the UK (Riff-Raft. Raining Stones) and Robert Guediguian in France (A /a place du Coeur. La Vi/le est tranquil/e). and. like these films. Mondays in the Sun presents a frightening vision of the world. It's one that w0uld make for uniformly miserable viewing if not for the rich, rewarding humour and humanity director Fernando Leon Aranoa (Caminantes). co-writer Ignacio del Moral and their roundly excellent cast bring to the film. DeSpite its sobering stOry and angry protest message. this is tough, soulful filmmaking at its cinematic best.
(Miles Fielder) I UGC Renfrew Street. G/asgow and Fi/mhouse. Edinburgh from Fri 27 May.
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12(3 May-E) Jun 2008 THE LIST 45