Film

Extract

19 Mar 2010

(15) 94min After his considerable small screen success with Beavis and Butthead and King of the Hill, it was clear that Mike Judge’s brand of caustic humour would, one day, enable him to make a great big-screen comedy. Judge’s fans believe he’s…

Trucker

19 Mar 2010

(15) 92min An interesting little drama that’s light on incident but big on character, Trucker is a welcome showcase for the acting talents of Michelle Monaghan. Having been a solid support player in Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and Gone Baby Gone, here…

Profile: Emma Thompson

19 Mar 2010

Name Emma Thompson Born 15 April 1959, London. Background Her mum Phyllida Law is a respected Scottish actress who has appeared alongside her wee lassie in The Winter Guest and Peter’s Friends while her dad Eric only went and created The Magic…

The Kreutzer Sontana

18 Mar 2010

(18) 99min Having discarded cumbersome period trappings for his superb, stripped down, contemporary Los Angeles-set Tolstoy adaptation Ivansxtc, writer/director Bernard Rose does the same with another story by the Russian master, the second in a…

Bernard Rose: Russian Studies

18 Mar 2010

London-born, Los Angeles-resident filmmaker Bernard Rose talks to Miles Fielder about Russian authors, classical music and drug dealing...

Perrier's Bounty

18 Mar 2010

(15) 88min After an accidental shooting, charismatic Dublin gangster Michael McCrea (Cillian Murphy) goes on the run with his fey neighbour Brenda (Jodie Whittaker) and his coke-snorting, hypochondriac father Jim (Jim Broadbent). Together they have…

The Spy Next Door

18 Mar 2010

(PG) 94min Some years after Arnold Schwarzenegger in Kindergarten Cop and Vin Diesel in The Pacifier, Jackie Chan is the latest action star seeking to reinvent himself for a younger generation by portraying himself as a put-upon babysitter to bratty…

Storm

18 Mar 2010

(15) 110min Last time out director Hans-Christian Schmid directed the psychological horror Requiem based on the true story of Anneliese Michel, a young Catholic epileptic sufferer who believed that she was possessed by demons. Schmid has a long…

Old Dogs

18 Mar 2010

(PG) 88min Having earned his rubbish comedy spurs on Walt Becker’s biker comedy Wild Hogs, John Travolta returns on a fool’s errand to partner Robin Williams in the same director’s follow-up Old Dogs. Via a series of arch plot contrivances that…

Kick-Ass

18 Mar 2010

(15) 117min Matthew Vaughn’s adaptation of Mark Millar’s comic book series is a hilarious, hip twist on the superhero genre. Gone are the superpowers, the 100 inch chests and holier than thou attitude. Instead our hero is an awkward teenager, Dave…

Lourdes

10 Mar 2010

(U) 99min Austrian writer/director Jessica Hausner’s debut feature takes a thoroughly anti-mystical approach to the phenomenon of miracles. The action centres on a pilgrimage made by a group of invalids to the eponymous French city during which a…

The Scouting Book For Boys

10 Mar 2010

(15) 93min One hazy summer in a sleepy Norfolk holiday park, David (This is England’s Thomas Turgoose) and Emily (Holliday Grainger), constant companions by default of being the only teenagers there, spend the days mucking about under the permissive…

Twin Peaks complete series released on DVD - Mark Frost interview - complete transcript

5 Mar 2010

The List: We’re almost upon the twentieth anniversary of Twin Peaks since it first aired in the US. It seems incredible that it was such a long time ago until you consider the influence it’s had on television drama since. How do you think it holds up…

Gentlemen Prefer Blondes

4 Mar 2010

(U) 91min Digital re-release of Howard Hawks’ much-loved 1953 comedy musical starring Marilyn Monroe and Jane Russell. Filmhouse, Edinburgh, Fri 5–Sun 14 Mar; GFT, Glasgow, Sun 14–Tue 16 Mar.

Letter from an Unknown Woman

4 Mar 2010

(U) (U) 86min New 35mm print of Max Orphuls’ great 1948 romantic tragedy starring Joan Fontaine and Louis Jordan. The best film you will see anywhere this fortnight. Filmhouse, Edinburgh, Fri 12–Thu 18 Mar.

The Shouting Men

4 Mar 2010

(15) 91min Likeable Britcom which follows ten middle age fans of underdog team Gillingham FC on an ill-fated minibus trip to Newcastle to watch a crucial match. A poor, self-conscious script undermines good performances, and a few decent gags. Matt…

Ondine

4 Mar 2010

(12A) 104min Irish trawlerman Syracuse (Colin Firth) discovers a beautiful woman trapped in his fishing nets and offers her sanctuary. Writer and filmmaker Neil Jordan’s first original screenplay in over a decade carries echoes of his 1984 fantasy…

Chloe

4 Mar 2010

(15) 96min Does this sound familiar? A middle-aged gynaecologist Catherine (Julianne Moore), worried that she may no longer be desirable to her flirtatious music professor husband David (Liam Neeson), decides to pay a prostitute Chloe (Amanda…

How Shutter Island invokes the spirit of Sam Fuller and Shock Corridor - Martin Scorsese interview

2 Mar 2010

‘Sam Fuller and Shock Corridor can only be conjured as a mantra!’ barks Martin Scorsese, pointing his finger purposefully at yours truly. ‘Shock Corridor is a classic work of art! It’s unique; it comes from the unique experience of being Sam Fuller.…

Twin Peaks boxset released on DVD - Mark Frost interview

2 Mar 2010

Almost twenty years to the day since Twin Peaks first aired, the long-awaited conclusion to David Lynch and Mark Frost’s seminal series is finally released on DVD. Series co-creator and executive producer Frost tells Murray Robertson what took so…

Exit Through the Gift Shop

2 Mar 2010

(15) 85min Over the past decade one of the big mysteries of the art world has been the identity of Banksy. Now, in his first foray into filmmaking, the mystery man places the issue of identity at the centre of his pseudo documentary on street…

The Father of my Children

2 Mar 2010

(12A) 110min A charming and popular middle-aged man, Gregoire Canvel (Louis-Do de Lencquesaing) appears to lead an enviable life. Happily married to the Italian Sylvia (Chiara Caselli) with whom he has three daughters, Clémence (Alice de Lencquesaing…

Case 39

2 Mar 2010

The current vogue for demonic children flicks doesn’t excuse the unwarranted release of Christian Antibodies Alvart’s long-shelved horror film, in which Renee Zellweger plays Emily Jenkins, a social worker who adopts a malevolent girl with the ability…

Hachi: A Dog's Story

2 Mar 2010

(PG) 93min Lasse Hallstrom, director of My Life As A Dog, returns to his canine roots with Hachi: A Dog’s Story, an unashamedly sentimental version of the story most Scots would recognise as Greyfriars Bobby. The cited real-life inspiration for…

Adoration

2 Mar 2010

(15) 101min With its stilted dialogue and contrived plot revelations, this 2008 film by French Canadian filmmaker Atom Egoyan (the first of two films by Egoyan released in Scotland this fortnight) would seem to indicate a filmmaker who has lost his…

Alice in Wonderland

2 Mar 2010

(PG) 108min Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland is as dark and visually arresting as we’ve come to expect from the director, yet not quite as emotionally involving as his very best work. A sequel of sorts that takes in elements of both Lewis…

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

2 Mar 2010

(U) 92min (Oracle) Premiering on DVD to coincide with the release of Hollywood goth Tim Burton’s take on the Lewis Carroll classic, this 1972 British musical version can certainly be described as both lavish and faithful to its much-loved source.

Green Zone

2 Mar 2010

(15) 114min Bourne actor-director combo Matt Damon and Paul Greengrass’ new collaboration dissects the lies that were told to enable and maintain the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The title zone is the international zone of Iraq where the Coalition…

I Love You Phillip Morris

2 Mar 2010

(15) 97min Demented comedy based on a true story from writers of Bad Santa Glenn Ficarra and John Requa about a gay con man, his prison squeeze and his inexhaustible appetite for scheming. This uneven and madcap but undeniably dark and entertaining…

I Think We're Alone Now

2 Mar 2010

(15) 64min (Spirit/Kaleidoscope) To Jeff Turner, Tiffany is ‘the most Christ-like person’ he’s ever known. Talking about the 80s teen popstar; Turner considers Tiffany a close friend, despite her taking a restraining order out on him. This…

Kamikazi Girls (Shimotsuma Monogaturi)

2 Mar 2010

(12) 103 min (Third Window Films) Kawaii-cute Momoto (Kyôko Fukada) lives in a beruffled fantasy world, more at home in 18th century Rococo France than the small Japanese farm town of Shimotsuma, until tough teen biker-girl Ichiko (Anna Tsuchiya…

Motherhood

2 Mar 2010

(15) 90min (Metrodome) Released in time for Mother’s Day, this comic drama about a day in the life of a harassed middle-class New York married mom of two sets hard about eliciting the sympathy of maternals everywhere. In an unlikely role…

Star Wars in Concert

2 Mar 2010

John Williams’ classic score from all six Star Wars movies are brought to life by the Royal Philharmonic Concert Orchestra with special effects, high definition movie projections, live narration from Anthony Daniels (the one and only C3PO) and a display…

The Bargee

2 Mar 2010

(PG) 102min (Optimum) Forty years before Ewan McGregor shagged his way up and down the Edinburgh to Glasgow canal, Harry H Corbett was doing the same thing between Hertfordshire and Middlesex (oo-er). Corbett’s handsome Hemel Pike is a scruffy…

The Bounty Hunter

2 Mar 2010

Comedy starring Jennifer Aniston and Gerard Butler about a bounty hunter who is assigned to hunt down his bail jumping ex wife. General release from Wed 17 Mar.

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (Man Som Hatar Kvinnor)

2 Mar 2010

(18) 152min The first of Stieg Laarson’s deservedly successful millennium thrillers receives faithful but labourious film treatment. When investigative journalist Mikhael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist) ends up the wrong end of a libel case brought by…

Gregory's Girl, Mogwai's Burning and Legacy bring Glasgow Film Festival 2010 to a close

Glasgow Film Festival blog

2 Mar 2010

I returned to GFF for the closing day yesterday and discovered it had been an eventful weekend: Neil Marshall turned up at FrightFest to show off 20 minutes of Centurion, his forthcoming historical actioner featuring a naked Michael Fassbender in the…

Hipsters, Bad Lieutenant and a Frightfest at GFF

Glasgow Film Festival blog

1 Mar 2010

Friday afternoon. I decide to brave the vertiginous screens at Glasgow’s Cineworld Renfrew Street where some festival films are also showing. I make the perverse choice of Hipsters, a Russian film with no current UK distributor about a group of post…

Greenberg revealed at The List Surprise Movie at GFF

Glasgow Film Festival blog

28 Feb 2010

Hello. Don’t worry this is the last time you will have to read my witless meanderings, normal transmission with Sir Paul Gallagher will be resumed soon. So… The List Surprise Movie was…. (drum roll, drum roll) Greenberg. No it wasn’t Kick Ass or…

Samuel Maoz' Lebanon and New York, I Love You among GFF first week highlights

Glasgow Film Festival blog

26 Feb 2010

Hello good people, Paul Gallagher has taken a well-earned rest from the film festival and I will be filling in for him for the next few days. I can’t promise to be as reasoned, intelligent or as enthusiastic as Paul -- being the embittered old hack I am…

Restored Pandora and the Flying Dutchman among the GFF highlights

Glasgow Film Festival blog

26 Feb 2010

So last night didn’t quite work out as planned. It was a toss-up between Herzog’s Bad Lieutenant or the Comrade Couture documentary, showing in Glasgow’s hippest warehouse, SWG3. Much as I’m keen to see Nic Cage getting his crazy on, I decided the…

Shutter Island

25 Feb 2010

Just as he followed his gangland classic Goodfellas with his pulpy remake of Cape Fear, so Martin Scorsese’s first feature film proper since The Departed is thriller Shutter Island. Based on the 1954-set novel by Dennis Lehane, like Cape Fear, it’s…

Percy Jackson & The Lightning Thief

25 Feb 2010

Having passed on the Harry Potter directing reigns after the second instalment, Chris Columbus attempts to kick-start another fantasy franchise with this adaptation of the first book in Rick Riordan’s Percy Jackson and The Olympians series.

Young stars of 1234 dispel myths of film industry

Glasgow Film Festival blog

25 Feb 2010

It seems to be a pre-requisite of my typical film festival experience that I will inevitably end up in a conversation about the value (or not) of film criticism with a filmmaker who clearly isn’t a fan of critics. Such was the case yesterday, as myself…

Legion

25 Feb 2010

(15) 100min From his ferret-carrying juggler in Inkheart to his deathly dull Charles Darwin in Creation, Paul Bettany’s weird and not-so-wonderful choice of roles hasn’t given him much of a chance to live up to the considerable acting promise he…

The Father of My Children - Mia Hansen Love profile

25 Feb 2010

Name Mia Hansen Love Born 5 February 1981, Paris Background The daughter of two philosophy teachers of Danish-German ancestry, Hansen-Love acted as a 17-year-old in Olivier Assayas’ Late August, Early September and in the same director’s…

Julian Fellowes' From Time to Time a really satisfying family film

Glasgow Film Festival blog

24 Feb 2010

Cary Grant would, I think, have approved of some of the goings-on at the party held in his name last night. As an iconic figure of class, cool and control he took many opportunities to puncture that image in some of the all-time-classic screwball…

Zombie Zombie perform the music of John Carpenter

23 Feb 2010

Forming part of the Glasgow Film Festival’s Music and Film strand, the influence of one of American cinema’s most widely-respected cult auteurs hung over this event, so we shouldn’t be too picky that the band scrapped the idea of performing in front of…

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, The Boys and Big Fan among film festival highlights

Glasgow Film Festival blog

23 Feb 2010

Paul Gallagher. Photo: Dan Mayers Monday 23 Feb After the busy opening weekend, Monday felt like a bit of a breather – no big parties, no blockbusting events – so I took it as a chance to watch a few movies, and I thought I would use this space…

Screen legend James Earl Jones master of good conversation

Glasgow Film Festival blog

22 Feb 2010

The festival buzz has definitely been building over the weekend, and on Sunday I felt its full effect as I walked, a few minutes late (for shame!), into a jam-packed GFT Cinema 1 for the sold-out In Coversation with James Earl Jones event. The place was…