Film and Drama

The Constant Gardener

19 Aug 2009

This month’s screening in association with The British Science Association is Fernando Meirelles’ thoughtful adaptation of John Le Carre’s thriller about the murky practices of multinational pharmaceutical companies in the third world. Medical…

Inglourious Basterds - Quentin Tarantino interview

15 Aug 2009

The sixth film by Quentin Tarantino has been a long time coming. Tarantino began writing his World War II men-on-a-mission adventure Inglourious Basterds more than a decade ago. Unable to finish it, he put the script aside and instead made the two-part…

Scarface re-released

The greatest of all modern gangster films returns, but why now?

14 Aug 2009

It’s been twenty six long years since Tony Montana (Al Pacino) invited us to ‘say hello to my little friend’ in director Brian De Palma and then screenwriter Oliver Stone’s Reagan era update of Howard Hawks and Ben Hecht’s gangster polemic of the same…

Just Another Love Story (Kærlighed på film)

14 Aug 2009

While much has been made of Danish cinema’s interest in realism in the wake of Dogme, how many Scandinavian films have been equally interested in self-reflexivity? Whether it’s von Trier’s overlooked Manderlay playing like a homage to curious 1970s…

Top 5 Things To Do This Week

14 Aug 2009

Bloody Beetroot (clubs), Inglourious Basterds (film), Emergent Artists (Visual Art), Soulsavers (music), Christopher Brookmyre (books)

Mid-August Lunch

The subtle drama of an Italian village

12 Aug 2009

Hitherto best known for co-writing Gomorrah, 60-year-old Gianni di Gregorio makes his directorial debut with this charming tale, which beautifully illustrates Tolstoy’s dictum that ‘To speak to the world, one should write about one’s village’. The…

The Fireman's Ball

12 Aug 2009

(PG) 73min (Arrow Films DVD retail) COMEDY/DRAMA Milos Amadeus Forman’s much loved 1967 Czech New Wave lynchpin has the honour of being one of only four films to be ‘banned forever’ by the Czech/Soviet authorities of the day who presumed it was…

Film: Also Released

This week's other cinematic offerings

10 Aug 2009

A Perfect Getaway, Imagine That, The Time Traveler's Wife, Sin Nombre

Alastair Sim season calls at Filmhouse

A season of films celebrating the Scottish actor

4 Aug 2009

The films of (arguably) Scotland’s greatest stage and screen actor (sorry Sir Sean) are celebrated in this superb season. Things kick off with the 1954 adaptation of JB Priestley’s celebrated play An Inspector Calls with Sim masterful in the titular…

Cine Cuba

Fifty years of revolution on film

4 Aug 2009

This season celebrating ‘50 Years of Revolution on Film’ hits its stride with Pavel Giroud’s ageing gangster drama Omertà and the queer politics of Tomás Gutiérrez Alea’s Strawberry and Chocolate. Also showing later in the season are Manuel Pérez’s…

Words and Pictures

David Peace and Garrison Keillor celebrate fiction and adaptation

4 Aug 2009

Writers David Peace and Garrison Keillor will both be making an appearance at this short season celebrating fiction and adaptation. Peace will be talking about The Red Riding Trilogy and Keillor will be talking about A Prairie Home Companion. There…

The Go-Between

Film adaptation of LP Hartley’s tale of illicit passion and snobbery

4 Aug 2009

Director Joseph Losey and writer Harold Pinter’s immaculate 1971 adaptation of LP Hartley’s tale of illicit passion and snobbery in Edwardian Norfolk enjoys a slight return on new digital print.

Am I Black Enough For You?

Philadelphia soul legend Billy Paul in a film by Goran Olsson

4 Aug 2009

Taking its title from his most impassioned and radical tune, the life and formidable times of Philadelphia soul legend Billy Paul are celebrated in Goran Olsson’s engaging, well-researched documentary. GFT, Glasgow from Mon 10-Wed 12 Aug.

Looking For Eric

Ken Loach does love, delusion and footballers

4 Aug 2009

Last chance to catch Ken Loach’s pleasing comedy of love, delusion and platitude-quoting retired footballers on the big screen. Filmhouse, Edinburgh from Fri 7-Mon 10 Aug.

Mesrine: Killer Instinct (l’Instinct de Mort)

30 Jul 2009

Tracing a line from Mesrine’s disillusioning military service during the Algerian war to the beginning of his notoriety in 1972 (when he graduated to murder), the first instalment of this epic crime tale is derivative, energetic and hugely…

Antichrist - Lars Von Trier interview

23 Jul 2009

Lars Von Trier makes films that defy consensus. He is a showman provocateur in search of a reaction, however extreme. The shrugged shoulders of indifference would be his definition of failure. With this in mind, Von Trier can only have been delighted…

Film and Fashion - Coco Before Chanel

23 Jul 2009

As enjoyable as Coco Before Chanel – the giddy biopic of the reputed Nazi collaborator couturier starring Audrey Tautou – is, it underlined a hard, learned truth for me. Fashion and films co-exist – there is no symbiosis between the two. If they were…

Coco Before Chanel

23 Jul 2009

Films about great writers rarely work because it’s hard to express their literary output cinematically; a film about a fashion designer offers a much more visual proposition. Anne Fontaine’s sumptuously dressed biopic of the early years of Gabrielle…

Antichrist

23 Jul 2009

Danish Dogme pack leader Lars Von Trier conjures up a slice of unbridled and unpleasant pantheistic horror that’s underlined by themes of grief and guilt. When middle class couple Charlotte Gainsbourg and Willem Dafoe’s son dies in a freak accident…

Also Released - Film

23 Jul 2009

The Blues Brothers (15) 148min John Landis’ enjoyable 1980 musical comedy re-released on digital print in original US edit. Selected release from Fri 24 Jul. G-Force (PG) 90min Comedy adventure about a covertly trained group of guinea pig special…

The Taking of Pelham 123

23 Jul 2009

How can you go wrong with a remake of 1974’s Joseph Sargent thriller, in which cop Walter Matthau and master-criminal Robert Shaw played out a tense cat-and-mouse game for the lives of subway hostages? For the first hour at least, Tony Scott’s remake of…

Shirin

23 Jul 2009

Revered Iranian filmmaker, Abbas Kiarostami’s latest work stages a dramatic re-telling of the 12th century legend of Shirin and Khosrow. It’s a tragic and brutal tale of female self-sacrifice, but here’s the rub: the central attraction is missing.

Moon: interview with director Duncan Jones

9 Jul 2009

Cerebral science fiction thriller Moon heralds the arrival of an impressive new filmmaking talent in Duncan Jones, the son of David Bowie. Miles Fielder meets him.

Moon

9 Jul 2009

Cleverly conceived, evenly paced and consistently intriguing, this old-school science fiction thriller is a very welcome repost to the numbing spectacle of what passes for sci-fi these days. Taking his cue from genre classics from the late 1960s through…

Frozen River

9 Jul 2009

It’s a week before Christmas, and in upstate New York Ray Eddy (Melissa Leo) is struggling to keep her head above water. Her husband has gambled away their savings and promptly disappeared, she is having to support herself and her two sons on her meagre…