Film, Issue 584

Knocked Up

(15) 128min

23 Aug 2007

Production assistant Alison Scott (Katherine Heigl) gets the opportunity of a lifetime when she is given the chance to present on an entertainment TV channel. One day her producer tells her that her body could do with being a little ‘tighter’. But no…

Lady Chatterley

23 Aug 2007

Showjumping’s loss is cinema’s gain. As a teenager Marina Hands was a sufficiently accomplished equestrienne to feature in the French junior national team, along with the future actor-director Guillaume Canet. ‘We weren’t good enough to become…

1408

(15) 105min

23 Aug 2007

Mikael 'Derailed Håfström'’s mild chiller is pretty much a one-man horror vehicle for John Cusack as Mike Enslin, a world-weary writer who makes his living from staying in supposedly haunted locations and describing his experiences. After a mysterious…

And When Did You Last See Your Father?

23 Aug 2007

‘It’s not my story, of course. It’s Blake’s story,’ says screenwriter David Nicholls of his latest project. Having cut his teeth on TV drama Cold Feet, Nicholls successfully adapted his own novel Starter For Ten for the cinema before he agreed to give…

Breach

(12A) 110min

23 Aug 2007

Superior political thriller based on the true story of an FBI turncoat who created the biggest security breach in the organisation’s history. Chris Cooper is excellent as FBI agent Robert Hanssen and Ryan Phillippe is equally good as the undercover…

Breach

Chris Cooper interview

23 Aug 2007

Chris Cooper’s got pedigree. The 56-year-old American actor began his impressive big screen career with the great independent filmmaker John Sayles, making four films with him, including Cooper’s 1987 debut, the miner’s union drama Matewan, and the…

Death Sentence

(18) 105min

23 Aug 2007

Mild-mannered businessman Nick (Kevin Bacon) turns into a gang-hunting vigilante when his eldest son is murdered. Good old-fashioned vigilante drama based on the book sequel of Brian Garfield’s Death Wish. Directed with a maturity and intelligence by…

Ex Drummer

23 Aug 2007

Based on the degenerate novel of the same name by the hugely popular Flemish novelist and poet Herman Brusselmans, Ex Drummer is like a checklist of the Belgian writer’s obsessions, noticeably alcohol, sex, disability, boredom, violence, punk rock and…

Four Wenches and a Free For All

23 Aug 2007

An entertaining hour is spent in the company of these talented actors. The laughs aren’t massive, with some jokes a little obvious, but the more creative ones include the ‘Vodafriend’ shop where you can exchange your old mate for a newer model with more…

Hallam Foe

(18) 95min

23 Aug 2007

As writer and philosopher William Gass once noted: ‘for the voyeur, fiction is what’s called going all the way’. No one knows this better than rural Scottish boy Hallam Foe (Jamie Bell). While his father (Ciarán Hinds) and stepmother (Claire Forlani…

Hitlist - the best Festival film

23 Aug 2007

Run Granny Run Enjoyably eccentric documentary about a 94-year-old lady’s attempt to become the Democrat’s New Hampshire candidate for the senate. Filmhouse, 623 8030, 23 Aug, 4.30pm, £7.95 (£5.50). Faro: Goddess of the Waters Captivating…

Hitlist - the best film

23 Aug 2007

Knocked Up Hilarious unwanted pregnancy comedy from the team who made The 40 Year Old Virgin. General release from 24 Aug. Lady Chatterley Intelligent and compelling adaptation of DH Lawrence’s once scandalous novel. GFT, Glasgow from Fri 24 Aug.

Irezumi

(15) 85min (Yume Pictures/DVD retail)

23 Aug 2007

Based on the legendary decadent Japanese writer Junichirô Tanizaki’s short story, Yasuzo Masumura’s 1966 film is a tale of love’s labour lost to prostitution and murder after a woman, Otsuya (Ayako Wakao) from a superior background embarks on an affair…

Jennifer Fox

23 Aug 2007

5 words to describe the film you have at the EIFF? Transformative, humorous, innovative, intimate and unpredictable. 4 of your favourite cinemas in the world? Film Forum, New York; Curzon, Soho; Empire Bio, Copenhagen; L’entrepot, Paris.

Lady Chatterley

(18) 168min

23 Aug 2007

An understated yet compelling French adaptation of Lawrence’s once scandalous novel. Eschewing melodrama the director Pascale Ferran focuses on how the sexual relationship transforms the lives of the lovers. Marina Hans and Jean-Louis Coullo’ch do…

Lynch

23 Aug 2007

This Danish/US co-production is the first authorised documentary feature about the great enigmatic filmmaker David Lynch. Shot in highly stylised black and white, the film offers a glimpse of Lynch at work behind the scenes on his last film Inland…

Manufacturing Dissent: Unconvering Michael Moore

23 Aug 2007

Is Michael Moore a self-regarding political liability who also screws with journalistic codes of conduct, or a wayward truth seeker who has no truck with compromise as he pursues fairness and justice? We probably didn’t need Deborah Melnyk and Rick…

My American Uncle

(18) 125min (Arrow DVD rental/retail)

23 Aug 2007

Working from, but in no way limited by the behavioural theories of Henri Laborit, Alain Resnais’ 1980 film shows us Laborit explaining how our behaviour often resembles that of the animal kingdom, but also how humans complexly deviate from it. Resnais…

No Reservations

(PG) 104min

23 Aug 2007

There are plenty of reasons to feel reserved about this maudlin romance between chefs, carelessly reheated from the rather airier 2001 Italian foodie-flick Mostly Martha. Catherine Zeta-Jones plays Kate, a temperamental Nigella Lawson-type cook whose…

Once

23 Aug 2007

This Belfast-set musical romance about a lovelorn busker and a Czech immigrant single mother who get together to make music is a sort of low-key The Commitments (and Glen Hansard of Irish rock band The Frames appears in both films). It’s got its…

Run Granny Run

23 Aug 2007

Don Ameche In the 20 or so years before his death in 1993, Ameche had become the über OAP in huge box office hits Trading Places and Cocoon. His best late great performance was as shoe shiner come ageing mafia don in David Mamet’s hugely enjoyable…

Seraphim Falls

(15) 111min

23 Aug 2007

In this age of filmmaking retrograde, substantial lengths of celluloid are devoted to the lazy re-hashing of successful formulae and gratuitous remakes. Unfortunately this is not confined to action films or romcoms, as Seraphim Falls, a western, follows…

Stardust

23 Aug 2007

This British blockbuster adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s marvellous English fantasy novel looks fantastic. It’s seriously marred, however, by a lacklustre script co-written by Jane Goldman (Mrs Jonathan Ross) and director Matthew Vaughn. Despite fine art…

State of the World

23 Aug 2007

Portmanteau films are always hard to pull off. After the carbohydrate rich, protein poor dish that was Paris, je t’aime, this six short film look at the state of the world is much more demanding. No film more so than Wang Bing’s Brutality Factory…

Sugarhouse

(15) 90min

23 Aug 2007

Based on Dominic Leyton’s play Collision about a middle class man (Steven Mackintosh) who finds himself forming an unlikely alliance with crackhead D (Ashley Walters) when a volatile gangster Hoodwink (Andy Serkis) comes after him. Hammy, dull and…