Paul Dale

Nanny McPhee & The Big Bang

22 Mar 2010

(U) 109min Sequel to popular 2005 family film. This time Maggie Gyllenhaal is single mum Isabel Green (hubbie Ewan McGregor is off to fight the Hun in WW2) with three out of control nippers to contend with and two insufferably posh evacuee cousins…

How to Train Your Dragon

22 Mar 2010

(PG) 97min Commendable new DreamWorks animation set in the mythical world of Vikings and dragons, and based on the book by Cressida Cowell. Hiccup, a Viking teenager befriends a dragon. Voice work by Gerard Butler, America Ferrara and Craig…

My Last Five Girlfriends

22 Mar 2010

(12A) 87min Frothy, above average British romcom based on a novel by philosopher Alain de Botton. Brendan Patricks, Naomie Harris and Michael Sheen star. General release from Fri 19 Mar.

Ondine

4 Mar 2010

(12A) 104min Irish trawlerman Syracuse (Colin Farrell) 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…

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…

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.

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…

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…

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…

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.

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…

Punishment Park

18 Feb 2010

(15) 88min 'Revolution is not something fixed in ideology, nor is it something fashioned to a particular decade. It is a perpetual process embedded in the human spirit.' Abbie Hoffman (1936 --1989) American political activist and author; co-founder…

The Room

18 Feb 2010

Is Tommy Wiseau’s 2003 horror the worst good bad film ever made? Allegedly screening for the first time ever at a Scottish cinema, you can now judge for yourselves. Late night screening. Cameo, Edinburgh on Sat 20 Feb.

Nosferatu

18 Feb 2010

FW Murnau’s 1922 expressionist horror masterpiece gets the live music treatment in this special one off screening. Filmhouse, Edinburgh on Sun 21 Feb.

Glasgow Film Festival 2010 highlights

17 Feb 2010

Applause. Powerful Danish drama about an alcoholic actress and mother starring mighty Dogme poster girl Paprika Steen. Cineworld Renfrew Street, 1.15pm, Fri 19 and 6.30pm, Sat 20 Feb. The Girl on the Train Racism and suburban snobbery in modern…

Crazy Heart, Tender Mercies and country music on film

17 Feb 2010

Crazy Heart is a tale of alcoholism, love, redemption and country music. It has a healthy lineage writes Paul Dale

The Last Station

17 Feb 2010

(15) 112min It’s 1910 and the great Russian writer and aristocrat Leo Tolstoy (Christopher Plummer) has become a cult dissenting voice in Tsarist Russia. His writings and teachings on non violent resistance, state and property rights, chastity and…

Micmacs (Micmacs a Tire-Larignot)

17 Feb 2010

(12A) 104min The re-evaluation of the golden age of slapstick cinema (cue Paul Merton and sparse piano riff) comes full circle with this slight but enjoyably manic satire from Amélie and Delicatessen director Jean Pierre Jeunet. Left with a bullet…

Crazy Heart

17 Feb 2010

(15) 111min It’s another day in another shit hick town for country and western singer-songwriter Bad Blake (Jeff Bridges). The music business isn’t what it used to be; his schedule now consists of bowling hall and the back rooms of bars. Between the…

Still Walking

17 Feb 2010

Hirokazu Koreeda’s bittersweet dissection of the modern Japanese family with all its dynamics and dysfunctions enjoys a slight return on the big screen. Catch it while you can. Filmhouse, Edinburgh from Fri 19-Wed 24 Feb.

An award is born!

5 Feb 2010

Yuletide comedy Nativity! starring Martin Freeman and Ashley Jensen has won The List’s Film of the Year Award as part of the fourth annual Richard Attenborough Awards (RAFAs). Confetti director Debbie Issit’s new film pleased our readers so much they…

Central Office of Information and Agnes Varda among DVD highlights

DVD boxsets roundup

3 Feb 2010

(15) 116min Director Martin Campbell (GoldenEye, Casino Royale, The Mask of Zorro) returns to the scene of one of his early successes with this feature film adaptation of the 1985 BBC television series that helped make his name. Mel Gibson (in his…

Invictus

1 Feb 2010

(12A) 133min ‘Rugby is’ as Oscar Wilde noted on behalf of the sane and humane ‘a good occasion for keeping thirty bullies far from the centre of the city.’ Clint Eastwood’s new film Invictus not only invites the bullies back within the city walls but…