Film, Issue 579

Not Here To Be Loved

2 Jul 2007

DRAMA/ROMANCE Divorced, cheerless, well heeled 51-year-old ‘huissier de justice’ (bailiff) Jean-Claude (Patrick Chesnais) lives a life of silent misery. Between repossessions and visiting his cantankerous old dad (Georges Wilson) at the nursing…

*Hitlist

2 Jul 2007

• Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia Since everything released this fortnight is a bit below par let’s kick things off with these one off screenings of Sam Peckinpah’s brilliant 1974 nihilistic road movie about one unlucky pianist’s odyssey to win a…

Also Released

2 Jul 2007

Die Hard 4.0 (15) 128min, 3 Stars Renegade cop and one man destroyer of municipal property John McClane (Bruce Willis) steps up to the plate one more time. Older, but not much wiser this time out, he has to contend with a bunch of über geek terrorists.

Dixie Chicks: Shut Up and Sing

2 Jul 2007

DOCUMENTARY When the lead singer of the Dixie Chicks made an off-the-cuff remark at a concert in London in 2003 about the band being ashamed of President Bush coming from their home-state Texas, there’s no way they could have foreseen themselves…

DVD - Aaltra

2 Jul 2007

BLACK COMEDY Gustave de Kervern and Benoit Delépine - the writers, directors and stars of this odd but strangely heart-warming Belgian road movie - are comedians in their home country, and quite obviously blessed with the blackest and most…

DVD - Ghost Ship

2 Jul 2007

HORROR In this genial, seaworthy but fright-lite low budget British horror film from 1952, a couple purchase an old steam boat with the intention of turning it into a luxury love nest only to find the crate has a history akin to that of the Marie…

DVD - Round-up

2 Jul 2007

No mucking about this issue; the home entertainment selection is just too good. After slim pickings last time the box set market is booming. The Coen Brothers Box Set (Fox, 4 Stars) contains three of their best films - Raising Arizona (1987), Miller’s…

DVD - Sacred Heart

2 Jul 2007

DRAMA Ferzan Hamam: Turkish Bath Ozpetek’s latest film plays a little like a combination of two much better, fairly recent Italian works which haven’t received a wide release: The Spectator and Marco Bellocchio’s My Mother’s Smile (both available on…

DVD - Silent Tongue

2 Jul 2007

WESTERN Although filmed on the expansive plains of the Old West, Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Sam Shepard’s 1994 western is a very stagy affair, switching between handfuls of dusty, dialogue-heavy scenes and boasting some scenery-chewing…

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

2 Jul 2007

FANTASY/ADAPTATION At over 800 Pages Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix was always likely to be the hardest of JK Rowling’s tomes to adapt and true to form this is the worst of the little wizard films. The franchise, which has thus far been…

Interview - Maggie Q

2 Jul 2007

In Die Hard 4.0 Maggie Q is described by Bruce Willis’ John McClane character as ‘The Asian kid that kicks people.’ Although, Maggie Q has become the first chick to kick John McClane’s behind, and was recently seen battling it out with Tom Cruise and…

Mere Anarchy

2 Jul 2007

COMIC TALES Back in the day, the artist formerly known as Allan Konigsberg appeared hell-bent on making one classic comedy movie after another. He also seemed to find time to knock up a trio of books with silly stories, philosophically daft musings…

Moliere

2 Jul 2007

COMEDY/DRAMA Your familiarity with the work of France’s most celebrated playwright may well dictate how much enjoyment you can glean from Laurent Tirard’s populist fantasy about an unwritten (and untrue) episode in the life of the great Molière.

Sketches of Frank Gehry

2 Jul 2007

DOCUMENTARY Two minutes into this documentary about Frank Gehry, America’s most famous living architect, the director Sydney Pollack (Tootsie, The Interpreter) admits that the documentary was Gehry’s idea. When the architect suggested it to him…

The Follower

2 Jul 2007

MYSTERY THRILLER A story about a stalker is hardly a novel idea, and Brooklyn-born and bred Jason Starr’s unimaginative treatment of the phenomenon brings absolutely nothing new to it. Set in a Manhattan populated with jocular and bimbotic college…

William H Macy

Interview

2 Jul 2007

Let’s call it the GooGoo Gaga Syndrome. It’s what happens when edgy actors have children and then want to start appearing in films that their younglings can relate to. The result is usually a line of liquid excrement leading from their trailers to the…