Film Index The Immaculate Conception of Little Drizzle (18) (David Russo, US, 2009) Marshall Allman, Vince Vieluf, Natasha Lyonne. 100min. Quirky debut feature about a janitor and his group of cast- off co-workers who find themselves working as puppets for a corrupt cookie company. Part of FAB Fest. Filmhouse, Edinburgh. The Infidel (15) ●●●●● (Josh Appignanesi, UK, 2010) Omid Djalili, Matt Lucas, Richard Schiff. 104min. A concept movie about a cockney Spurs-supporting Muslim who discovers that he was adopted at birth and that his father is actually a Jew. After a promising initial burst of energy, The Infidel runs out of steam as it heads mind- numbingly into we-are-all-the-same- underneath territory. Odeon at the Quay, Glasgow; Cameo, Edinburgh. Insomnia (15) ●●●●● (Erik Skjoldbjaerg, Norway, 1997) Stellan Skarsgard, Sverre Anker Ousdal, Bjorn Floberg. 97min. A police detective kills someone while attempting to catch a murderer. He conceals his crime, but his troubled conscience keeps him awake at night. Director Skjoldbjaerg inverts the familiar genre conventions of film noir, replacing neo-lit city streets with a bleak, bright coastal landscape. Filmhouse, Edinburgh. Invictus (12A) ●●●●● (Clint Eastwood, US, 2009) Morgan Freeman, Matt Damon, Tony Kgoroge. 133min. Based on a book by John Carlin, Invictus recounts how Nelson Mandela pulled off the political masterstroke of uniting a racially and economically divided South Africa in support of national rugby team the Springboks, once a symbol of Boer-ish oppression. This has a predictable trajectory but one leavened by minute details about the tedium of governance, ingrained prejudices and a belief that hope will always spring eternal. Odeon at the Quay, Glasgow; Odeon, Edinburgh. Iron Man 2 (12A) (Jon Favreau, US, 2010) Robert Downey Jr, Don Cheadle, Gwyneth Paltrow. 124min. See Also Released, page 44. See review at www.list.co.uk. General release. It’s All Judas’ Fault (15) (Davide Ferrario, Italy, 2009) Kasia Smutniak. 102min. Prison-set musical in which young theatre director Irena (Smutniak) goes to a Turin prison to develop a performance piece – a reinterpretation of the crucifixion – with the convicts, only to find that no-one will agree to play Judas. Part of Italian Film Festival. Glasgow Film Theatre. It’s a Wonderful Afterlife (12A) ●●●●● (Gurnder Chadha, UK, 2010) Goldy Notay, Shebhana Azmi, Sendhil Ramamurthy. 100min. Widow Mrs Sethi (Azmi) wants to see her only daughter Roopi married, but Roopi (Notay) is a little overweight and very opinionated and keeps getting rejected by rude suitors. Mrs Sethi begins to take a more murderous route to find her daughter a husband but the spirits of the dead soon come after her. Silly, fun and forgettable. General release. Jar City (15) ●●●●● (Baltasar Kormákur, Iceland, 2006) Ingvar Eggert Sigurosson, Agusta Eva Erlendsdottir, Bjorn Hlynur
A Single Man (12A) Wed 5 May 19:30
48 THE LIST 29 Apr–13 May 2010
Haraldsson. 94min. Compelling Icelandic police procedural thriller about a jaundiced middle-aged cop on the trail of a decades-old mystery involving rape, corruption and murder. Writer/director (and leading Icelandic actor) Kormákur brings some really fresh and haunting twists to the familiar narrative. Part of Nordic Noir season. Filmhouse, Edinburgh. The Joneses (15) ●●●●● (Derrick Borte , US, 2009) David Duchovny, Demi Moore, Amber Heard. 95min. Clever satire of consumer culture by first time writer/director Borte in which a model suburban family is used as a marketing tool with regrettable results. Borte’s high concept film runs out of steam after a while but it’s fun while it lasts. General release. Just Another Love Story (18) ●●●●● (Ole Bornedal, Denmark, 2007) Anders W Berthelsen, Rebecka Hemse, Nikolaj Lie Kaas. 100min. Bornedal’s tale of confused and adopted identities sees Julia (Hemse) crash into the back of a car driven by the married Jonas (Berthjelsen). When she ends up in a coma and he starts to visit, the partly responsible Jonas may feel guilty but he’s also besotted. Part of Nordic Noir season. Filmhouse, Edinburgh. Kaifeck Murder (18) (Esther Gronenborn, Germany, 2009) Benno Furmann, Alexandra Maria Lara, Henry Stange. 86min. Photographer Marc (Furmann) faces some chilling goings-on when he pursues an investigation into a multiple murder in a remote Bavarian town. Part of FAB Fest. Filmhouse, Edinburgh. Kick-Ass (15) ●●●●● (Matthew Vaughn, US/UK, 2010) Nicolas Cage, Christopher Mintz-Plasse, Chloe Moretz. 117min. Big screen adaptation of Mark Millar’s massively popular comic in which a bunch of misfit teens don superhero costumes and get stuck into some stylised vigilante action. Successfully celebrating a teen boys’ idea of ‘cool’, Vaughn has a feeling for characters and story arcs that his Lock, Stock . . . collaborator Guy Ritchie has long since forgotten. Quite frankly, Vaughn kicks ass. General release. Kind Hearts and Coronets (PG) ●●●●● (Robert Hamer, UK, 1949) Dennis Price, Alec Guinness, Joan Greenwood, Valerie Hobson. 106min. Blacker than black Ealing comedy has a suave and sophisticated Price killing off an entire family tree (all played by Guinness) in order to move himself closer to the d’Ascoyne family title. Low-key cynicism and disarming callousness make it a true gem of British post-war cinema. Scotsman Screening Room, Edinburgh. The Last Song (PG) ●●●●● (Julie Anne Robinson, US, 2010) Miley Cyrus, Greg Kinnear, Bobby Coleman. 107min. See review, page 42. General release. Life During Wartime (15) ●●●●● (Todd Solondz, US, 2009) Shirley Henderson, Ciaran Hinds, Allison Janney. 97min. Solondz’ sequel to his 1998 film Happiness is slickly (and sickly) achieved but pathetically irrelevant. For die-hards only. Glasgow Film Theatre; Cameo, Edinburgh. Life is Hot in Cracktown (18) (Buddy Giovinazzo, US, 2009) Kerry Washington, Illeana Douglas, Brandon Routh. 101min. Haunting chiller shot in a downtown Los Angeles suburb rife with drugs and crime. Part of FAB Fest. Filmhouse, Edinburgh. Lion’s Den (15) ●●●●● (Pablo Trapero, Argentina/South Korea/Brazil, 2008) Martina Gusman, Elli Medeiros, Rodrigo Santoro. 113min. Argentinian filmmaker Trapero’s latest heroine Julia (Gusman) wakes up bruised and covered in blood but goes to work nevertheless. Later on she returns home to discover a dead man. Has she committed a crime, or was it her partner? An impressive issue movie with an ambiguous yet always emotional centre. Glasgow Film Theatre. Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (12) ●●●●● (Tony Richardson, UK, 1962) Michael Redgrave, Tom Courtenay, Alec McCowen. 114min. Adapted by Alan Sillitoe from his own story, this is a fine example of 60s British cinema in the social realist vein. Courtenay excels as the rebellious youth who is send a boy’s reform school after robbing a bakery and pushes himself to turn his life around. CCA, Glasgow. Lourdes (U) ●●●●● (Jessica Hausner, Austria/France/Germany, 2009) Sylvie Testud, Lea Seydoux, Gilette Berbier. 99min. Austrian writer/director Hausner’s debut feature takes an anti-mystical approach to miracles on a pilgrimage to Lourdes. The film’s complexity plays with the mystery of religious faith, with Christine’s (Testud) ‘miracle’ taking place in an ellipsis. Ultimately it is Hausner’s carefully crafted atmosphere that makes her a talent to watch. Cameo, Edinburgh. The Lovely Bones (12A) ●●●●● (Peter Jackson, UK/US/New Zealand, 2009) Mark Wahlberg, Rachel Weisz, Susan Sarandon. 135min. The problems with Jackson’s adaptation of Alice Sebold’s popular novel run much deeper than the usual stumbling block of having a macabre subject matter. The casting is seriously misjudged, and, shirking away from the darkest elements of the novel, the tone and the aesthetic are completely wrong – where in the book, Susie (Ronan) resides in a 14- year-old’s idea of heaven, Jackson seems to have designed the movie equivalent in a Salvador Dali museum. Cameo, Edinburgh. The Man on the Roof (15) ●●●●● (Bo Winderberg, Sweden, 1976) Carl- Gustaf Lindstedt, Sven Wollter, Thomas Hellberg. 110min. Stylish policier with a political message based on The Abominable Man by Sjowall & Wahloo. Rare screening. Part of Nordic Noir season. Filmhouse, Edinburgh. The Manchurian Candidate (12A) ●●●●● (John Frankenheimer, US, 1962) Frank Sinatra, Laurence Harvey, Angela Lansbury, Janet Leigh. 126min. Harvey plays a Korean war hero who is brainwashed by Communists and becomes a pawn in the sinister mission planned for his homecoming. Brilliant political satire- cum-thriller, with the cast in great form and a staggeringly inventive plot. New digital print. Glasgow Film Theatre. Merantau (18) (Gareth Evans, Indonesia, 2009) Iko Uwais, Sisca Jessica, Christine Hakim. 106min. Action thriller starring Iko Uwais, a dab hand in the Indonesian martial art of Silat. Part of FAB Fest. Filmhouse, Edinburgh. Moon (15) ●●●●● (Duncan Jones, UK, 2008) Sam Rockwell, Kevin Spacey, Dominique McElligott. 97min. Old-school science fiction piece delivering a cerebral adventure that’s as thought-provoking as it is thrilling. Rockwell plays a mining engineer working for a corporation that’s found a new source of energy for the clapped-out planet Earth, but as he nears the end of his three-year contract, cabin fever begins to take hold. Paisley Arts Centre, Paisley. Nanny McPhee & The Big Bang (U) ●●●●● (Susanna White, US, 2010) Emma Thompson, Ralph Fiennes, Maggie Gyllenhaal. 109min. Sequel to the popular 2005 family film. This time Gyllenhaal is single mum Isabel Green (hubbie is off to fight the Hun in WW2) with three out of control nippers to contend with and two insufferably posh evacuee cousins about to arrive on their farm. General release. Neighbor (18) (Robert A Masciantonio, US, 2009) America Olivo, Christian Campbell, Lauren Rooney. 90min. Flipping the classical horror roles, Masciantonio’s character-driven work tells the tale of a lone woman who terrorises a series of frightened and defenceless men. Seriously nasty stuff. Part of FAB Fest. Filmhouse, Edinburgh. A Nightmare on Elm Street (18) (Samuel Bayer, US, 2010) Jackie Earle Haley, Katie Cassidy, Kyle Gallner. 95min. See Also Released, page 44. General release from Fri 7 May. No Greater Love (PG) ●●●●● (Michael Whyte, UK, 2009) 100min. Whyte’s debut feature film is the result of a ten-year-long correspondence between himself and a community of Carmelite nuns based in the heart of Notting Hill. Whyte is among the few men who have been granted access to the convent; yet despite his status
as an outsider within this religious community, this beautiful film captures unobtrusively the essence of the religiously devout life. Glasgow Film Theatre; Filmhouse, Edinburgh.
✽✽ No One Knows About Persian Cats (12A) ●●●●● (Bahman
Ghobadi, Iran, 2009) Negar Shaghaghi, Ashkan Koshanejad, Hamed Behdad. 106min. Freewheeling mockumentary about the underground Iranian music scene in Tehran featuring real musicians from the director A Time For Drunken Horses and Turtles Can Fly. Moving, funny and worrying – this unique little film deserves to find an audience, plus the soundtrack is a killer. Glasgow Film Theatre. Nostalgia (15) ●●●●● (Andrei Tarkovsky, Italy, 1983) Oleg Jankovsky, Erland Josephson, Domiziana Giordano. 126min. A Russian poet and musicologist researching in the Tuscany hills meets a mysterious stranger who believes the world is about to end. Often obscure, often hauntingly beautiful evocation of exile and the need for faith. Filmhouse, Edinburgh. Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief (PG) ●●●●● (Chris Columbus, Canada/US, 2010) Brandon T Jackson, Steve Coogan, Uma Thurman. 118min. Big screen adaptation of Rick Riordan’s first fantasy adventure novel featuring Greek mythology-baiting child Percy Jackson. Possible franchise? We think so. Selected release. Planet 51 (U) ●●●●● (Jorge Blanco/Javier Abad, US, 2009) Voices of Dwayne Johnson, Jessica Beil, Gary Oldman. 90min. Dull, mildly offensive Spanish animated feature about one astronaut’s adventures as an illegal alien on a far-flung planet. Filmhouse, Edinburgh. Ponyo (U) ●●●●● (Hayao Myazki, Japan, 2008) Voices of Noah Cyrus, Liam Neeson, Frankie Jonas. 101min. Delightful animated feature from the Studio Ghibli brand about a five-year-old boy who falls for a goldfish princess. It’s funny, charming and original enough to keep adults entertained, but where it really scores is Miyazaki’s (Spirited Away) ability to understand what a child sees. Like its goldfish heroine, Ponyo may seem like a slight and slivery proposition, but it dives to uncharted depths. Cineworld Parkhead, Glasgow; Cineworld Fountainpark, Edinburgh. Privilege (18) (Yvonne Rainer, UK, 1990) 103min. Influential avant-garde filmmaker Rainer’s Privilege shifts from documentary to fiction and back as it marries cultural theory with drama in a broad-ranging and compelling social critique. CCA, Glasgow. Reel Zombies (18) (David J Francis/Mike Masters, Canada, 2008) David J Francis, Mike Masters, Stephen Papadimitriou. 89min. Satirical post- apocalyptic mockumentary about a group of independent zombie filmmakers who are trying to complete their living dead trilogy using real zombies. Part of FAB Fest. Filmhouse, Edinburgh. Remember Me (12A) ●●●●● (Allen Coulter, US, 2010) Robert Pattinson, Emilie De Ravin, Pierce Brosnan. 112min. A US box-office belly flop, this overwrought drama sees ‘RPatz’ play rebellious rich boy Tyler Hawkins, a misfit New Yorker who unwisely gets into a punch-up with a police sergeant (Cooper). Memorable only for its crass attempt to exploit genuine tragedy for entertainment purposes. Vue Ocean, Edinburgh. Repo Men (18) ●●●●● (Miguel Sapochnik, US/Canada, 2010) Jude Law, Forest Whitaker, Liev Schreiber. 111min. An adaptation of Eric Garcia’s novel The Repossession Mambo, in which novelist and repo man Remy (Law) recovers body organs for a living, aided by his partner (Forest Whitaker). Despite the successful dystopian urban landscape the plot that runs into a cul-de-sac and turns into yet another pop-violence action yarn. Selected release. Resurrecting the Street Walker (18) (Ozgur Uyanik, UK, 2009) Joanne Ferguson, Christina Helena, Pinar Ogun. 80min. An obsessive office worker loses