Film, Issue 669

Flower of Flesh and Blood, Guinea Pig and August Underground on DVD

The List’s guide to banned horror films, we watched them so you don’t have to

For this Hallowe’en special we step into the outer reaches of horror and examine some of the films that have been refused a certificate by the British Board of Film Classification. Of course it’s impossible to have a discussion on banned movies in the…

Carlos

(15) 333min/165min The release of French director Olivier Assayas’ Carlos – an exhilarating epic chronicling the career of ‘superstar terrorist’ Carlos the Jackal – is one of the cinematic events of 2010. Made in three parts for French television…

Andrzej Zulawski's cult horror hybrid Possession released on DVD

It certainly ranks as one of the most surreal moments in my life. I’m sitting in a Polish restaurant, having dinner (before a scheduled Q&A at the Filmhouse) with one of my all time favourite film directors, who is standing behind me, giving me a…

The Arbor

(15) 94min Writer-director Clio Barnard’s The Arbor takes its title from a semi-autobiographical play written by the late Yorkshire playwright Andrea Dunbar, who grew up on the deprived Buttershaw estate in Bradford. Dunbar was just fifteen when she…

The Kids Are All Right

(15) 106min High Art director Lisa Cholodenko has made one of the funniest films of the year by taking aspects of her own life — most notably the use of a sperm donor to father a child — and turning it into a comedy of social dilemmas. Woody Allen…

Burke and Hare

100min A darkly comic retelling of the tale of Edinburgh’s most notorious murderous residents, Williams Burke (Simon Pegg) and Hare (Andy Serkis), and their quest to supply doctors with fresh bodies for their experiments, from director John Landis…

Document 8 and Africa in Motion

Two spirited local film festivals

The term ‘human rights cinema’ may sound too much like hard work for the average cinemagoer. But for the last seven years Document, the Glasgow-based International Human Rights Film Festival, has been demonstrating that films about human rights simply…

Easy A

(15) 92min Hollywood is going gaga for Emma Stone at the moment, and on the strength of her performance in this hit American teen comedy, it’s easy to see why. Stone channels Molly Ringwald in her heyday, playing a gauche outsider teen desiring…

Africa United

(PG) 85min The 2010 World Cup is already a fading memory but the event’s afterglow is almost sufficient to cast a spell over the simplistic, feel good road movie Africa United. The film’s mood is eternally sunny, the approach is hectic and bustling…

Involuntary

(15) 98min In contrast to recent high drama hits from Sweden (Let the Right One In, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo), Ruben Östlund’s quiet and thoughtful film Involuntary concentrates on the small conflicts of everyday life. Five unconnected…

Legend of The Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole

(PG) 90min Recommended to anyone keen to see a bunch of cartoon owls knocking lumps out of each other, Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole marks the animated debut of Zack Snyder (300, Watchmen). Combining a talent better known for violent…

Ramona and Beezus

(U) 104min Adapted from Beverly Cleary’s popular children’s books, Ramona Quimby is a highly imaginative nine-year-old girl with a penchant for getting into mischief. In Elizabeth Allen’s feature, Ramona (Joey King) has to deal with that most…

Alpha and Omega

(U) 88min Improbably dedicated to the late Hollywood wild man Dennis Hopper, who provides the voice of pack leader Tony, Alpha and Omega is a cutesy animation for toddlers only. Sultry alpha wolf Kate (Hayden Panettiere) is expected by her pack’s…

Dead Cert

(18) 93min (Momentum) Two of modern cinema’s most over used clichés collide when vampires meet cock-er-ney gangsters in this tired Brit flick as Romanian bloodsuckers try to muscle in on an East End strip club owned by Craig Fairbrass. What could…

Night of the Demons

(18) 96 mins (Kaleidoscope) Hollywood’s unquenchable appetite for remakes means even near-forgotten schlock horror cheapies are getting the remake treatment. Night of the Demons was a lurid, gory, late-night favourite from 1988 and this updated…

Psych 9

(18) 93 mins (indi VISION) Unfortunately, Psych 9 takes itself way too seriously. Roslyn (Sarah Foster) finds temporary employment on the nightshift helping to clear out an abandoned hospital, while a serial killer (dubbed the Night Hawk by local…

Big Tit Zombies 3D

(15) 73min (Terracotta) Where a film like The Horde takes its zombies seriously, this isn't is something you could ever accuse Takao Nakano’s Big Tit Zombies of doing. BTZ goes for simple pleasures as a troupe of strippers fight off a plague of the…

The Horde

(18) 93min (Momentum) Surprsingly France is at the forefront of new extreme horror cinema, and while The Horde isn’t as subversive as Frontier(s), Martyrs or Inside it’s a wildly entertaining mix of La Haine and Dawn of the Dead (unfortunately we…

RED

(12A) 111min Action romcom adapted from Warren Ellis' graphic novel as a bunch of old duffers (Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman, John Malkovich, Helen Mirren and Brian Cox) are called back from retirement (RED stands for Retired Extremely Dangerous) for…

Paranormal Activity 2

(15) 91min Hasty sequel to the ‘found footage’ horror phenomenon of 2009. This time a family set up surveillance equipment after what appears to be a series of break-ins, but soon realise something far nastier is lurking in the shadows. General…

Saw 3D

(18) min The seventh and supposedly final instalment of the series that defined ‘torture porn’. Expect blood, guts and more intricate terror traps as Jigsaw (Tobin Bell) reeks his final revenge from beyond the grave in goretastic 3D. General…

Chasing Legends

94min Gripping documentary following the HTC-Columbia Team through the grueling 2009 Tour De France. Odeon Braehead; Showcase Paisley, Glasgow, 21 Oct.