Film and Issue 586

George Clooney in Michael Clayton

20 Sep 2007

There are two sides to George Clooney that are as bipolar as his famed salt-and-pepper hair. Although it would be fair to say that when he popped up in Venice to promote Michael Clayton, for which the former ER star is heavily tipped to be in Oscar…

A Mighty Heart

20 Sep 2007

THRILLER/TRUE CRIME (15) 107min For a number of reasons, it’s difficult not to think of Henry Miller’s remark that ‘whatever there be of progress in life comes not from adaptation but through daring’ when watching Michael Winterbottom’s powerful…

The Bow

(15) 89mins (Tartan/DVD retail)

20 Sep 2007

Best known in Western audiences for Bad Guy, 3-Iron and Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring, enfant terrible Korean director Kim Ki-duk has some serious twisted form in Asian cinema. This one, like most of the others, comes recommended. The…

The Yacoubian Building

20 Sep 2007

EPIC DRAMA (PG) 172min With the possible exception of Iran, new cinema from the Arab world gets a fairly raw deal in the UK, so it’s a rare pleasure indeed to immerse oneself in this accessible but sprawling multiple story drama from Egypt based on…

Death Proof

20 Sep 2007

HORROR/ACTION (18) 113min Like the best roller-coasters, Death Proof takes an eternity to get moving, but once in top gear, Quentin Tarantino’s thriller will leave you hanging on tighter than poor Zoe Bell, who clings grimly to a speeding car’s…

Transylvania

20 Sep 2007

DRAMA (15) 101min Tony Gatlif’s latest musing on Romany life is a visually stunning road movie that attempts to evoke the freewheeling spirit of Fellini’s La Strada. Wild-eyed Zingarina (Asia Argento) discovers she is pregnant and heads to Romania…

Evening

20 Sep 2007

DRAMA (12A) 117min From its literary origins through its evocative photography and exquisite production design to its award-winning crew and all-star cast, Evening is the kind of class act that Hollywood refers to as a ‘prestige picture’. Adapted…

The Brave One

20 Sep 2007

CRIME/THRILLER (18) 122min There is no actor working today who portrays motivational fear better than Jodie Foster. Her performances in The Accused and The Silence of the Lambs and to a lesser extent the more recent Panic Room and Flight Plan are…

Xavier Giannoli

20 Sep 2007

The French director Xavier Giannoli can pinpoint the moment cinema entered his life. He was five years old and asleep in his parents’ flat in Paris, when he woke up to the sound of tanks and machine guns. It turned out that the noise was coming from the…

DVD Round-Up

20 Sep 2007

On hearing of Marilyn Monroe’s death, the filmmaker and actor John Huston said: ‘It’s a terrible pity that so much beauty has been lost to us.’ Forty-five years on, the first of two definitive DVD collections dedicated to her are coming out. Marilyn…

I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry

20 Sep 2007

COMEDY (12A) 110min Adam Sandler’s determination to earth his angry-funnyman persona within real-life tragedy has already resulted in the flop of maudlin post-9/11 drama Reign On Me. I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry offers a rather sunnier view of…

Also Released - Film

20 Sep 2007

The Sound of Music (U) 174min ••• This restored print re-release of the popular sugar-coated family musical is a must for fans but hardly essential viewing for everyone else. Selected release from Wed 26 Sep. Across the Universe (15) 133min •••…

Yella

20 Sep 2007

DRAMA/THRILLER (12A) 89min Nina Hoss won the best actress Silver Lion at the Berlin Film Festival for her turn as Yella. Uniting with director Christian Petzold for a third time (Wolfsburg and Something to Remind Me being their previous efforts…

As You Like It

20 Sep 2007

COMEDY/ADAPTATION (12A) 126min His forthcoming remake of Anthony Shaffer/Joseph L Mankewicz’s Sleuth (this time adapted by Harold Pinter) may put his career back on track, but Kenneth Branagh’s once golden touch with the Bard turns leaden with As You…

Hatchet

20 Sep 2007

HORROR/COMEDY (18) 85min Although the tagline – ‘it’s not a remake, it’s not a sequel and it’s not based on a Japanese one’ – suggests Hatchet is an original horror movie, it’s far from that. It is, as a second tagline more accurately describes this…

Ecoute Le Temps

20 Sep 2007

MYSTERY/CRIME (15) 87min There are echoes of Brian de Palma’s superb 1981 thriller Blow Out in this low-budget, high-concept drama from writer/director Alanté Kavaïté. A documentary sound engineer Charlotte (Émilie Dequenne, best known for her debut…

Hitlist - The best film & dvd releases

20 Sep 2007

• The Yacoubian Building Good Egyptian films don’t come round that often so don’t miss this epic multi character drama. GFT, Glasgow from Fri 21-Sun 23 Sep. • A Mighty Heart Angelina Jolie stars in Michael Winterbottom’s moving adaptation of…

Rocket Science

20 Sep 2007

COMEDY/DRAMA (15) 101min Having charmed cinema-goers with his enthralling Oscar-nominated documentary Spellbound, director Jeffrey Blitz works a different kind of magic with this beguiling fiction film debut. Where his first film followed a bunch of…

Clubland

20 Sep 2007

COMEDY/DRAMA (15) 107min Brenda Blethyn is on Little Voice form in this touching, bittersweet Australian comedy. She plays Jean, an ageing stand-up comedienne whose best days are behind her. She’s also a control freak who refuses to accept that her…

Mrs Ratcliffe's Revolution

20 Sep 2007

COMEDY/DRAMA (12A) 102min The National Lottery logo often elicits audience groans at the start of a film; twee comedy-dramas like Mrs Ratcliffe’s Revolution are the reason why. Set in 1969, Billie Eltringham’s film begins when British couple Dorothy…

The Red Shoes

20 Sep 2007

HORROR (15) 103mins (Tartan Asia Extreme) Based loosely on the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale, and the Powell and Pressburger film of the same name, this Korean psychological horror flick’s biggest inspiration is perhaps the likes of The…

Man In The Mirror: The Michael Jackson Story

20 Sep 2007

BIOPIC (PG) 87min (Scanbox DVD retail/rental) On the subject of once highly-regarded artists fallen on hard times, this made-for-TV biopic isn’t the finest hour in director Allan Moyle’s career. His first film was the New York-set cult punk classic…

War

20 Sep 2007

ACTION/THRILLER (18) 102min War, as Edwin Starr once noted, is good for absolutely nothing, particularly when it’s a non-event of a smack-down between cockney tough-guy Jason Statham and celebrated martial arts star Jet Li. Pop promo director Phillip…

One Last Dance

20 Sep 2007

COMEDY/CRIME/ROMANCE (18) 110min (Tartan DVD retail/rental) Straight-to-DVD premieres no longer herald generally third-rate titles, as this off-beat Asian crime film proves. Written and directed by Brazilian filmmaker Max Makowski, and financed and…

They Fought For Their Motherland

20 Sep 2007

WAR DRAMA (15) 137min (Nouveaux Pictures/DVD retail) Like Sergei Bondarchuk’s earlier Destiny of a Man, this is taken from a book by Mikhail Sholokhov, a writer best known for And Quiet Flows the Don. Unlike that film, this is a multi-character…