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Film and Issue 645

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Me and Orson Welles - Richard Linklater interview

Me and Orson Welles - Richard Linklater interview

4 Dec 2009

Richard Linklater’s new film uncovers the ambition and talent of young Orson Welles. Kaleem Aftab meets a director with nothing left to prove.

Déborah François

Déborah François

4 Dec 2009

While still at school in her Belgian hometown, 16-year-old François attended an open casting held by the Dardenne brothers. She was chosen ahead of 150 other hopefuls in the role of a teenage mother, whose new baby is sold by her boyfriend, and the film…

Tulpan

Tulpan

(4 stars)4 Dec 2009

(12A) 102min We never actually get to see the Tulpan of the title, who is the object of the affections of 22-year-old sheepherder Asa (Asat Kunchinchirekov). Having recently completed his national service in the Russian navy, he has returned to the…

Disgrace

Disgrace

(4 stars)4 Dec 2009

(15) 118min A white, middle-aged professor of literature at a Cape Town university, David Lurie (John Malkovich) is forced to leave his job, following an affair with a mixed-race student (Antoinette Engel). At the disciplinary hearing the divorced…

Me and Orson Welles

Me and Orson Welles

(3 stars)4 Dec 2009

(12A) 113min The distance between insanity and genius is measured only by success. Nobody is greater testament to that than Orson Welles – broadcaster, actor and director who ended his days bloated, impoverished and doing voiceover work on…

The Box

The Box

(3 stars)4 Dec 2009

(12A) 115min As with his debut, Donnie Darko, Richard Kelly’s third film boasts an intriguing conundrum and an evocative period setting to complement it. Unfortunately, like his second film, Southland Tales, Kelly’s latest eventually unravels into an…

Unmade Beds

Unmade Beds

(3 stars)4 Dec 2009

Written and directed by Argentinean filmmaker Alexis Dos Santos, Unmade Beds unfolds against the backdrop of the East End of London’s modern day bohemian scene. It’s a world of rent-free accommodation in generously equipped warehouse squats, regular…

The First Day of the Rest of Your Life

The First Day of the Rest of Your Life

(3 stars)4 Dec 2009

(15) 113min An enormous hit at the French box office, writer-director Remi Bezancon’s second feature explores the highs and lows of middle-class suburban family life. Split into five chapters, each of which offers the perspective of a different…

The Girlfriend Experience

The Girlfriend Experience

(2 stars)4 Dec 2009

(15) 77min Steven Soderbergh returns to his roots with more sex and lies on tape (now disc) in this low-budget drama about a high-class hooker in New York who offers her clients the titular relationship facsimile. Hard-core porn star Sasha Grey plays…

Cracks

Cracks

(2 stars)4 Dec 2009

(15) 104min Jordan Scott, daughter of Ridley Scott (nepotism, it’s a wonderful thing) follows the promise of her shorts Jonathan and Portrait with this ludicrous and feeble attempt to posit William Goldman’s Lord of the Flies in a 1930s girls…

Paris Va Par

Paris Va Par

(4 stars)4 Dec 2009

(15) 95min (Artificial Eye) Long overdue reissue of above average 1964 portmanteau film featuring the youthful efforts of some of the French New Wave’s finest. The idea was to invite six directors to contribute a short film named after and set in a…

The Stepfather

The Stepfather

(2 stars)4 Dec 2009

Reprising the unfortunate wine-into-water routine of his Prom Night remake, director Nelson McCormick performs a similarly unwelcome trick by blandly rehashing Joseph Ruben’s solid 1987 sleeper hit. TV staple Dylan Walsh steps into the role previously…

Carriers

Carriers

(3 stars)4 Dec 2009

(15) 84min Having hit fame as Captain Kirk in JJ Abrams’ sprightly reboot of Star Trek, Chris Pine’s role as Brian explains the cinema release of Carriers, a low-budget horror-thriller largely filmed in New Mexico. Set after a pandemic has turned…

Gangster Story

Gangster Story

(3 stars)4 Dec 2009

(PG) 65min (Brightspark) Walter Matthau had a handful of supporting roles under his belt (Bigger Than Life, A Face in the Crowd, King Creole) when he directed himself in this 1959 low-budget crime movie. But Matthau had yet to develop his trademark…

Scared to Death

Scared to Death

(3 stars)4 Dec 2009

(U) 65min (Network) This B-movie chiller from 1947 is chiefly distinguished for being the only colour film to star Bela Lugosi (he appeared but did not star in the 1930 Technicolor film Viennese Nights). Lugosi was long into his poverty row years at…

The Last Thakur

The Last Thakur

(2 stars)4 Dec 2009

(15) 83min (Artificial Eye) This Bangladeshi Western directed by British filmmaker Sadik Ahmed is a clumsily realised tale of Oedipal tensions. The film focuses on Kala, a young man visiting a small town determined to find out who raped his mother.

Betty's Bath and Other Stories

Betty's Bath and Other Stories

(3 stars)4 Dec 2009

(18) 36min (Film First) If you like your erotica antiquated and a little bit naughty then this collection of eight short, silent black and white films shot in Hollywood in the early 1920s may be of archival (or other) interest. Filmed by some couch…

Where The Wild Things Are - Spike Jonze interview

Where The Wild Things Are - Spike Jonze interview

2 Dec 2009

Plagued by creative and corporate problems and criticised for being too scary for kids, the long-awaited film adaptation of Where the Wild Things Are finally sees its UK release this month. Miles Fielder talks to director Spike Jonze about the often…

Best of a decade: Timeline

Best of a decade: Timeline

2 Dec 2009

1999 July Scottish Parliament opens, with Labour candidate Donald Dewar elected as the first First Minister ahead of SNP rival Alex Salmond. Dewar died suddenly in October 2000, following a fall at his Edinburgh residence. 2000 June Biffy Clyro…

Best of a decade: Respectable in the Noughties

Best of a decade: Respectable in the Noughties

2 Dec 2009

Much of the most powerful art produced in Scotland in the 1980s–1990s developed in angry reaction to the political situation and tapped into our radical, left-wing and egalitarian traditions – it’s no accident that the most popular works of that period…

Best of a decade: Film

Best of a decade: Film

2 Dec 2009

Dogville, Che, Fish Tank, The Son, Hidden, 14 Months 3 Weeks and 2 Days, The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, The Death of Mr Lazarescu, The Man Who Wasn’t There, Adaptation

Where The Wild Things Are

Where The Wild Things Are

(3 stars)1 Dec 2009

Long deemed unfilmmable, Maurice Sendak’s nine-sentence children’s tale about a boy whose bedroom turns into a forest full of huge creatures gets the Spike Jonze (Being John Malkovich, Adaptation) treatment. To fluff out the story, Jonze employed A…

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