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Films screening this fortnight are listed below with certificate, star rating, credits, brief review and venue details. Film index compiled by Paul Dale ✽✽ Indicates Hitlist entry
✽✽ Adventureland (15) ●●●●● (Greg Mottola, US, 2009) Jesse
Eisenberg, Ryan Reynolds, Kristen Stewart. 106min. See feature, page 51 and review, page 52. Selected release. The Agent (12A) ●●●●● (Lesley Manning, UK, 2008) Willaim Beck, Stephen Kennedy, Maureen Lipman. 80min. See review, page 51. Filmhouse, Edinburgh. Aliens in the Attic (PG) ●●●●● (John Schultz, UK, 2009) Ashley Tisdale, Robert Hoffman, Austin Robert Butler. 85min. Likeably frenetic animated adventure about a family’s attempt to fight off knee high alien invaders. General release. Away We Go (15) ●●●●● (Sam Mendes, US/UK, 2009) John Krasinski, Maya Rudolph, Maggie Gyllenhaal. 97min. See review, page 49 and profile, page 51. Selected release. Band of Ninja (12A) ●●●●● (Nagisa Oshima, Japan, 1967) 100min. Legendary Japanese filmmaker Oshima’s only anime. Instead of choosing to animate Sanpei Shirato’s Ninja Bugeicho, a Japanese comic strip about 1960s students and radicals, Oshima employs his camera to move over the actual comic book pages. Part of Oshima season. Filmhouse, Edinburgh. Bandslam (PG) ●●●●● (Todd Graff, US, 2009) Vanessa Hudgens, Gaelan Connell, Lisa Kudrow. 110min. Tweeny pop, high school adventure chronicling budding impresario Will Burton (Connell) and his rock’n’roll band’s desperate attempts to win a battle-of-the-bands competition. Selected release. Bedtime Stories (PG) ●●●●● (Adam Shankman, US, 2008) Adam Sandler, Keri
Russell, Courteney Cox. 90min. Family fantasy about a man who can make bedtime stories come to life. Odeon at the Quay, Glasgow; Odeon Wester Hailes, Edinburgh. Beverly Hills Chihuahua (U) ●●●●● (Raja Gosnell, US/Mexico, 2008) Drew Barrymore (voice), Piper Perabo, Jamie Lee Curtis. 81min. This brightly lit family comedy is a vapid fish-out-of-water confection, revolving around posh pooch Chloe (voiced by Barrymore) who gets kidnapped from Rachel (Perabo) during a resort vacation. To keep Chloe’s real owner, Rachel’s aunt Vivian (Lee Curtis), in the dark, Rachel sets out to rescue the pampered pet from her potential fate at the hands of Mexican dogfighters. Talent-heavy one-joke talking-dog movie. Vue Ocean, Edinburgh. Bildwechsel: Experiments in Living Film Screening (E) (Various) 90min. Screening of artists’ films that were submitted following Bildwechsel’s joint call for films with LaD.I.Y Fest Berlin, as well as work from the Bildwechsel archives. The focus is on artists’, women’s and queer communities. CCA, Glasgow. Born into Brothels (15) ●●●●● (Zana Briski, Ross Kauffman, US, 2004) 85min. Oscar winning documentary looking at the children of prostitutes in Calcutta and teaching the children to look anew through art. Take One Action Film Festival. Filmhouse, Edinburgh.
✽✽ Broken Embraces (15) ●●●●● (Pedro Almodóvar, Spain, 2009) Penélope Cruz, Lluís Homar, Blanca Portillo. 128min. The auteur’s most self- referential love letter to cinema yet presents the story of a ménage-a-quatre between filmmaker Harry (Homar), leading lady Lena (Cruz), her sugar daddy Ernesto (José Luis Gómez), and Harry’s production manager Judit (Portillo). This labyrinthine tale of amour fou unfolds largely in flashback as Harry recounts his sorry story to Judit’s son. Ultra-stylish and loaded with thematic weight. Selected release.
Bugsy Malone (U) ●●●●● (Alan Parker, UK, 1976) Scott Baio, Jodie Foster, Martin Lev. 93min. Musical spoof of Prohibition-era gangster films, with an all- child cast. Family entertainment pure and simple, and a true original with it. Cineworld Parkhead, Glasgow. Café de los Maestros (PG) ●●●●● (Miguel Kohan, US/Brazil/UK/Argentina, 2008) 90min. Fascinating exploration into the roots and evolution of tango music, documenting the maestro’s of tango’s golden years as they reunite for a gala performance in Buenos Aires’ famous Teatro Colón. CCA, Glasgow. Cathy Come Home (PG) ●●●●● (Ken Loach, UK, 1966) Carol White, Ray Brooks. 79min. Loach’s seminal docu- drama affected the nation in a way that any TV broadcast is unlikely to do today, causing the issues to be debated and a new realist style to be born. White plays a young homeless woman struggling to keep her family together and, although the lines between victim and perpetrator might be rather simply drawn, it remains an impassioned piece of work. Part of Social Realism in British Cinema season. Glasgow Film Theatre. Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 3D (U) ●●●●● (Phil Lord, US, 2009) Voices of Bill Hader, Anna Faris, James Caan. 90min. See Also Released, page 51. General release from Fri 18 Sep Coco Before Chanel (12A) ●●●●● (Anne Fontaine, France, 2009) Audrey Tautou, Benoît Poelvoorde, Alessandro Nivola. 110min. This sumptuously dressed biopic of the early years of Gabrielle ‘Coco’ Chanel faithfully charts the rising hemlines and torn bustiers of a passionate woman repressed by society, with emotion-driven montages of dressmaking as Coco uses sewing machine and scissors to direct her restless energies into clothing. There’s nothing experimental or innovative here, but it provides undeniably classy entertainment. Dominion, Edinburgh.
Index Film Index Film Crude (15) (Joe Berlinger, US, 2009) 105min. Real life high stakes legal drama chronicling the infamous $27 billion ‘Amazon Chernobyl’ case against US-based Chevron. This screening will be followed with a discussion on the theme ‘Cleaning up the Rules’, with speakers including Ecuadorian campaigner Benito Bonilla and Director of World Development Movement Deborah Doune. Glasgow Film Theatre; Filmhouse, Edinburgh. Cruel Story of Youth (15) ●●●●● (Nagisa Oshima, Japan, 1960) Yusuke Kawazu, Miyuki Kuwano, Yoshiko Kuga. 101min. Familiar territory for Oshima, his second feature centres upon a naive middle- class girl who is used by her boyfriend as bait, in a bid to extort money from middle- aged lechers. Part of Oshima season. Filmhouse, Edinburgh. Crying with Laughter (18) (Justin Molotnikov, UK, 2009) Stephen McCole, Malcolm Shields, Andrew Neil. 93min. Stand-up comedian Joey’s ( McCole) foul- mouthed act has drawn interest from people in high places, but things start to unravel when he tells one little gag about an old school pal, who just happens to be in the audience. A bold low-budget Scottish thriller. Glasgow Film Theatre. Dance Flick (PG) ●●●●● (Damien Dante Wayans, UK, 2009) Shoshana Bush, Damon Wayans Jr, Essence Atkins. 82min. Grotesque physical slapstick spoof of the dance movie genre featuring Bush as Megan, a failed ballet dancer who teams up with an arrogant street dancer (Wayans Jr) to compete in a street-dance battle. Cineworld Renfrew Street, Glasgow. Dear Summer Sister (15) ●●●●● (Nagisa Oshima, Japan, 1972) Hiromi Kurita, Hosei Komatsu, Akiko Koyama. 95min. Oshima adopts an almost farcical tone in his handling of the rather serious subject of the return of Okinawa to Japan from American control –a floating camera and free-form narrative gives Dear Summer Sister the feeling of parody. Part of Oshima season. Filmhouse, Edinburgh.
IN CINEMAS FRIDAY visit fishtankmovie.com for details
10–24 Sep 2009 THE LIST 53