OPENS OCTOBER 3, CERT 12A, 102 MINS
Potentially a vibrant bit of fun, this knowing retro-romp is hindered by one millstone: Ewan McGregor (here starring, in a chemistry-free zone, opposite Ren
OPENS OCTOBER 24, CERT PG, 141 MINS Seabiscuit was the little horse that could?a pop culture phenomenon in Depression-era America who won the 1937 Santa Anita Handicap against all odds and beguiled an ailing nation. Written off in his early years as a grumpy, awkward loser, Seabiscuit was trained for victory by three broken men: too-tall jockey Red Pollard (Tobey Maguire), tragic millionaire Charles Howard (Jeff Bridges) and washed-up cowboy Tom Smith (Chris Cooper). Pleasantville director Gary Ross' self-penned script focuses on this maverick trio and how they came to find redemption through their unlikely partnership. OK, it's not just a horse flick?some of Seabiscuit's most resonant moments occur in the first half-hour as Ross details the rise of mass entertainment culture in '30s America. This may sound like a recipe for the worst kind of mawkish US myth-building but Ross avoids the pitfalls and, with the aid of a killer trio of lead performances, delivers the finest racetrack movie since Frank Capra's Broadway Bill.
OPENS OCTOBER 24, CERT PG, 141 MINS
Seabiscuit was the little horse that could?a pop culture phenomenon in Depression-era America who won the 1937 Santa Anita Handicap against all odds and beguiled an ailing nation.
Written off in his early years as a grumpy, awkward loser, Seabiscuit was trained for victory by three broken men: too-tall jockey Red Pollard (Tobey Maguire), tragic millionaire Charles Howard (Jeff Bridges) and washed-up cowboy Tom Smith (Chris Cooper). Pleasantville director Gary Ross’ self-penned script focuses on this maverick trio and how they came to find redemption through their unlikely partnership.
OK, it’s not just a horse flick?some of Seabiscuit’s most resonant moments occur in the first half-hour as Ross details the rise of mass entertainment culture in ’30s America. This may sound like a recipe for the worst kind of mawkish US myth-building but Ross avoids the pitfalls and, with the aid of a killer trio of lead performances, delivers the finest racetrack movie since Frank Capra’s Broadway Bill.
Arguably the Coen brothers' most purely cinematic outing, this loving homage to the golden age of Warner Bros gangster movies is a fascinating box of tricks filled with bravura action sequences, unexpected twists and off-kilter dialogue. Gabriel Byrne plays Tom Reagan, advisor to Albert Finney's Prohibition-era crime boss Leo and a man who is trying to keep the peace between warring factions, without much success. As with every Coen movie, the script is beautifully assembled but of secondary importance to the whirlwind of genre-tweaking scenes assembled by the brothers. Standout moments are Leo rousting his midnight attackers armed with just a Thompson, cigar and silk bathrobe, and Reagan's torture at the hands of a pair of violent (but polite and respectful) hitmen. In a movie stacked to the gills with great performances, three in particular stand out: Jon Turturro's freakishly howling turn as the alternately pathetic, smug and unpleasant Bernie Bernbaum, Albert Finney's last great role to date as the indestructible Leo and Byrne's dark, complex performance as the troubled Reagan, who must set aside his inherent rationality in order to come to terms with his own ruthlessness. Some rumpus.
Arguably the Coen brothers’ most purely cinematic outing, this loving homage to the golden age of Warner Bros gangster movies is a fascinating box of tricks filled with bravura action sequences, unexpected twists and off-kilter dialogue.
Gabriel Byrne plays Tom Reagan, advisor to Albert Finney’s Prohibition-era crime boss Leo and a man who is trying to keep the peace between warring factions, without much success. As with every Coen movie, the script is beautifully assembled but of secondary importance to the whirlwind of genre-tweaking scenes assembled by the brothers. Standout moments are Leo rousting his midnight attackers armed with just a Thompson, cigar and silk bathrobe, and Reagan’s torture at the hands of a pair of violent (but polite and respectful) hitmen.
In a movie stacked to the gills with great performances, three in particular stand out: Jon Turturro’s freakishly howling turn as the alternately pathetic, smug and unpleasant Bernie Bernbaum, Albert Finney’s last great role to date as the indestructible Leo and Byrne’s dark, complex performance as the troubled Reagan, who must set aside his inherent rationality in order to come to terms with his own ruthlessness. Some rumpus.
Amiable shoot-the-shit comedy from hangdog actor/producer Ice Cube, Barbershop reveals a hint of drama (sinister gangster Keith David has designs on the shop), but is really a sitcommy chatabout between neighbourhood eccentrics. Topics range from slavery reparations to "the difference between a woman with a big ass and a big-assed woman!"
Amiable shoot-the-shit comedy from hangdog actor/producer Ice Cube, Barbershop reveals a hint of drama (sinister gangster Keith David has designs on the shop), but is really a sitcommy chatabout between neighbourhood eccentrics. Topics range from slavery reparations to “the difference between a woman with a big ass and a big-assed woman!”
Chaplin's work is a strange blend of clinical perfectionism and cloying sentimentality, and though there's no denying that his timing is impeccable and his constant quest for innovation is impressive, whether you find him funny or not is another matter. This box contains all 10 of his feature films, plus a lengthy new documentary.
Chaplin’s work is a strange blend of clinical perfectionism and cloying sentimentality, and though there’s no denying that his timing is impeccable and his constant quest for innovation is impressive, whether you find him funny or not is another matter. This box contains all 10 of his feature films, plus a lengthy new documentary.
Patchy, visually flashy remake by Neil Jordan of his favourite film, Melville's classic Bob Le Flambeur. Its art-robbery-scam story's all over the place, in truth, but Nick Nolte proves to be a wildly compelling force of nature as he kicks heroin, woos a young girl and beats casinos at their own game, all the while looking like he hasn't slept for a very taxing fortnight.
Patchy, visually flashy remake by Neil Jordan of his favourite film, Melville’s classic Bob Le Flambeur. Its art-robbery-scam story’s all over the place, in truth, but Nick Nolte proves to be a wildly compelling force of nature as he kicks heroin, woos a young girl and beats casinos at their own game, all the while looking like he hasn’t slept for a very taxing fortnight.
Insane collision of thriller and farce, with a kidnapping plot played at volume 11 and cast by a person on amyl. Kevin Bacon and Courtney Love are the bad couple, Charlize Theron and Stuart Townsend the goodies. Charlize attacks Kev with a scalpel hidden down her knickers, but is still less raving bonkers than Courtney. Gloriously dreadful.
Insane collision of thriller and farce, with a kidnapping plot played at volume 11 and cast by a person on amyl. Kevin Bacon and Courtney Love are the bad couple, Charlize Theron and Stuart Townsend the goodies. Charlize attacks Kev with a scalpel hidden down her knickers, but is still less raving bonkers than Courtney. Gloriously dreadful.
With untenable Leone motifs and broad comedy caricatures, this final part of Shane Meadows' "Midlands Trilogy" (after Twenty-Four Seven and A Room For Romeo Brass) is a disappointment. Robert Carlyle is solid as the Glaswegian rogue determined to win back ex-partner Shirley Henderson. Yet, despite a re-shot 'dramatic' ending, it feels slight.
With untenable Leone motifs and broad comedy caricatures, this final part of Shane Meadows’ “Midlands Trilogy” (after Twenty-Four Seven and A Room For Romeo Brass) is a disappointment. Robert Carlyle is solid as the Glaswegian rogue determined to win back ex-partner Shirley Henderson. Yet, despite a re-shot ‘dramatic’ ending, it feels slight.
Bizarre variation on The Phantom Of The Opera, with Vincent Price as a deformed musician seeking revenge on the doctors who accidentally killed his wife, and achieving it by murdering them in a spectacularly imaginative series of set-pieces. A truly mixed supporting cast (Joseph Cotton, Terry-Thomas) and a memorably stylish approach, with Price on monstrously hammy form.
Bizarre variation on The Phantom Of The Opera, with Vincent Price as a deformed musician seeking revenge on the doctors who accidentally killed his wife, and achieving it by murdering them in a spectacularly imaginative series of set-pieces. A truly mixed supporting cast (Joseph Cotton, Terry-Thomas) and a memorably stylish approach, with Price on monstrously hammy form.
Utterly demented female assassin action from Korea's Je-gyu Kang, who comes across as the bastard son of John Woo and Luc Besson (without the flair of either). Kang chucks in a load of contemporary political context, which is interesting, but falls victim to the current vogue for assembling your final cut half an hour too long. Enjoyable but overlong and confusing.
Utterly demented female assassin action from Korea’s Je-gyu Kang, who comes across as the bastard son of John Woo and Luc Besson (without the flair of either). Kang chucks in a load of contemporary political context, which is interesting, but falls victim to the current vogue for assembling your final cut half an hour too long. Enjoyable but overlong and confusing.
A Dogme film in danger of giving a tiring genre a good name, Susanne Bier's love tragedy is deeply involving and intensely moving. When a woman's lover is paralysed in a car accident, she falls in love with his married doctor. Not once in its two hours does the film hit a dishonest note, there's subtle humour, and the acting's exemplary. You'll be tenderised.
A Dogme film in danger of giving a tiring genre a good name, Susanne Bier’s love tragedy is deeply involving and intensely moving. When a woman’s lover is paralysed in a car accident, she falls in love with his married doctor. Not once in its two hours does the film hit a dishonest note, there’s subtle humour, and the acting’s exemplary. You’ll be tenderised.
This respectful ode to the early days of the US movie industry was the third consecutive box-office flop for Peter Bogdanovich, and the movie that put an end to his w
Finnish director Aki Kaurism
Young Adam's David MacKenzie makes an impressive directorial debut with this low-key but unpredictable thriller about two travellers who stumble across a strange community in the remote Scottish Highlands. It benefits from a nice mix of quirky humour and quiet menace, plus a sprinkling of the supernatural for good measure. Bleak, but still well worth the journey.
Young Adam’s David MacKenzie makes an impressive directorial debut with this low-key but unpredictable thriller about two travellers who stumble across a strange community in the remote Scottish Highlands. It benefits from a nice mix of quirky humour and quiet menace, plus a sprinkling of the supernatural for good measure. Bleak, but still well worth the journey.
The Omen echoes throughout Simon Wincer's camp but sporadically affecting 1980 re-imagining of Rasputin. Here the Mad Monk has been replaced by Robert Powell's mysterious glam-rock psychic healer, who cures the leukaemia-stricken son of venal senator David Hemmings and uses magic to expose the senator's crimes. It's clunky and dated, but Powell's typically messianic performance smoothes over the cracks.
The Omen echoes throughout Simon Wincer’s camp but sporadically affecting 1980 re-imagining of Rasputin. Here the Mad Monk has been replaced by Robert Powell’s mysterious glam-rock psychic healer, who cures the leukaemia-stricken son of venal senator David Hemmings and uses magic to expose the senator’s crimes. It’s clunky and dated, but Powell’s typically messianic performance smoothes over the cracks.
Ironically, the musicians who look back on The Old Grey Whistle Test with dewy-eyed nostalgia and the great reverence that they themselves received from the once-whispering but now croaky Bob Harris are the very people whose contributions here are eminently fast-forwardable. By contrast, the artists later appearing on the show as a TV opportunity, pure and simple, are those who make for the most interesting viewing today. The early-'70s section, all long hair, beards and appalling afro perms, blue-eyed soul and singer-songwriters, offers much embarrassment: Loggins and Messina's "The House At Pooh Corner" is so utterly appalling that it becomes a perverse highlight. Even the glittering Roxy Music, the eccentric Kevin Ayers and Roy Harper, and the Moon-era Who would have been better served by superior song selections, should they exist. Things turn the corner with Be Bop Deluxe. The Whistle Test eventually caught up with punk and new wave, and performances by Squeeze, The Adverts, The Style Council and, especially, Patti Smith, the Banshees, The Undertones and The Pogues are genuinely exciting if not essential, meriting its four stars.
Ironically, the musicians who look back on The Old Grey Whistle Test with dewy-eyed nostalgia and the great reverence that they themselves received from the once-whispering but now croaky Bob Harris are the very people whose contributions here are eminently fast-forwardable.
By contrast, the artists later appearing on the show as a TV opportunity, pure and simple, are those who make for the most interesting viewing today.
The early-’70s section, all long hair, beards and appalling afro perms, blue-eyed soul and singer-songwriters, offers much embarrassment: Loggins and Messina’s “The House At Pooh Corner” is so utterly appalling that it becomes a perverse highlight. Even the glittering Roxy Music, the eccentric Kevin Ayers and Roy Harper, and the Moon-era Who would have been better served by superior song selections, should they exist.
Things turn the corner with Be Bop Deluxe. The Whistle Test eventually caught up with punk and new wave, and performances by Squeeze, The Adverts, The Style Council and, especially, Patti Smith, the Banshees, The Undertones and The Pogues are genuinely exciting if not essential, meriting its four stars.
And if that's not enough Pink Floyd (see left), Live At Pompeii 
is the director's cut of their rather fine 1972 film, featuring such early in-concert favourites as "Careful With That Axe Eugene" and "Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun". Heaven knows, Prince's records in recent years have ranged from the simply dire to the downright unlistenable. But he's still a consummate showman, as he proves on Prince Live At The Aladdin Las Vegas 
. Recorded at the end of last year, the show includes his versions of Zeppelin's "Whole Lotta Love" and James Brown's "Pass The Peas". But be warned: it's not a greatest hits show, and you won't find "Purple Rain" et al. The Gospel According To Al Green doesn't include many of his hits either, although "Let's Stay Together" is here. For the rest, the 1984 film finds Green in full-on evangelical mood with prayers and sermons alongside the likes of "Nearer My God To Thee". Alicia Keys?From Start To Stardom 
is an "unofficial" documentary?which means it includes interviews with everyone but Keys herself. Rockin' In The is a bit of a treat, with 22 tracks taken from German TV between 1969 and 1974, including astounding performances from the Grateful Dead (pictured below), Captain Beefheart, Spirit, The Beach Boys and Little Feat. Five years ago, the Pretty Things got back together to give their pioneering, pre-Tommy 'rock opera' SF Sorrow a makeover. SF Sorrow Live At Abbey Road commemorates the event and includes guest appearances from David Gilmour and Arthur Brown. A slew of variable in-concert DVDs this month includes Reef Live , which checks in at a marathon two-and-a-half hours, Stiff Little Fingers In Concert , on which "Suspect Device" sounds as explosive as ever, a riotous Jesus Jones Live At The Marquee and a reformed Mountain, trying a little too desperately to recreate the golden age of the power trio on Sea Of Fire . But for sheer, old-fashioned class, try Memories Of Duke 
, a loving homage to Duke Ellington from 1968.
And if that’s not enough Pink Floyd (see left), Live At Pompeii is the director’s cut of their rather fine 1972 film, featuring such early in-concert favourites as “Careful With That Axe Eugene” and “Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun”. Heaven knows, Prince’s records in recent years have ranged from the simply dire to the downright unlistenable. But he’s still a consummate showman, as he proves on Prince Live At The Aladdin Las Vegas . Recorded at the end of last year, the show includes his versions of Zeppelin’s “Whole Lotta Love” and James Brown’s “Pass The Peas”. But be warned: it’s not a greatest hits show, and you won’t find “Purple Rain” et al. The Gospel According To Al Green doesn’t include many of his hits either, although “Let’s Stay Together” is here. For the rest, the 1984 film finds Green in full-on evangelical mood with prayers and sermons alongside the likes of “Nearer My God To Thee”. Alicia Keys?From Start To Stardom is an “unofficial” documentary?which means it includes interviews with everyone but Keys herself. Rockin’ In The is a bit of a treat, with 22 tracks taken from German TV between 1969 and 1974, including astounding performances from the Grateful Dead (pictured below), Captain Beefheart, Spirit, The Beach Boys and Little Feat. Five years ago, the Pretty Things got back together to give their pioneering, pre-Tommy ‘rock opera’ SF Sorrow a makeover. SF Sorrow Live At Abbey Road commemorates the event and includes guest appearances from David Gilmour and Arthur Brown. A slew of variable in-concert DVDs this month includes Reef Live , which checks in at a marathon two-and-a-half hours, Stiff Little Fingers In Concert , on which “Suspect Device” sounds as explosive as ever, a riotous Jesus Jones Live At The Marquee and a reformed Mountain, trying a little too desperately to recreate the golden age of the power trio on Sea Of Fire . But for sheer, old-fashioned class, try Memories Of Duke , a loving homage to Duke Ellington from 1968.
Camp Crystal Lake reopens 20 years after the tragic death of young Jason Vorhees and no one is safe from the ingenious butchery. There's no hip hockey mask and few cute one-liners?just a catalogue of slaughter and a neat double-twist ending as director Sean Cunningham attempted to replicate the success of John Carpenter's Halloween.
Camp Crystal Lake reopens 20 years after the tragic death of young Jason Vorhees and no one is safe from the ingenious butchery. There’s no hip hockey mask and few cute one-liners?just a catalogue of slaughter and a neat double-twist ending as director Sean Cunningham attempted to replicate the success of John Carpenter’s Halloween.
Generally hailed as Renoir's 'unfinished masterpiece', this sad, lyrical short from 1946 is based on a Guy de Maupassant story. A young girl finds a quasi-romance after wandering off from her picnicking family near the Seine. It's all about Renoir's impressionistic eye for nature and the transience of innocence: a personal, poetic work which now, extended, looks better than ever.
Generally hailed as Renoir’s ‘unfinished masterpiece’, this sad, lyrical short from 1946 is based on a Guy de Maupassant story. A young girl finds a quasi-romance after wandering off from her picnicking family near the Seine. It’s all about Renoir’s impressionistic eye for nature and the transience of innocence: a personal, poetic work which now, extended, looks better than ever.
Buckling under the weight of expectation inherent in all ‘New Latin Cinema’ (this isn’t City Of God), El Crimen still has another deft performance from movement poster-boy Gael Garc
