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Angela

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OPENS AUGUST 15, CERT 15, 94 MINS Unusual this; a mob story told from a female point of view. Dusky beauty Angela (Donatella Finocchiaro), with her perfect vermilion manicure and Ava Gardner eyebrows, manages a shoe store in Palermo that doubles as a front for her husband Saro's heroin business. When Saro hires smouldering hunk Masino (rising star Andrea Di Stefano), the mutual attraction between them develops into an affair. But the police are listening in, recording the lovers' phone calls, and when they arrest Saro and his gang, Angela is forced to choose between giving evidence in exchange for the tapes' destruction or keeping mum about her husband's business?but at what price? It's pasta plain girly melodrama, really. But writer/director Roberta Torre has a delicate, playful touch, employing handheld moves and assorted tricks, showing a native's feel for Sicily's peeling buildings and stark light. Finocchiaro, a professional lawyer making her film debut here, has an old-fashioned bombshell sexiness and expressive features that speak volumes for her character. Not a full-blown hankie wetter, but an honest piece of work.

OPENS AUGUST 15, CERT 15, 94 MINS

Unusual this; a mob story told from a female point of view. Dusky beauty Angela (Donatella Finocchiaro), with her perfect vermilion manicure and Ava Gardner eyebrows, manages a shoe store in Palermo that doubles as a front for her husband Saro’s heroin business. When Saro hires smouldering hunk Masino (rising star Andrea Di Stefano), the mutual attraction between them develops into an affair. But the police are listening in, recording the lovers’ phone calls, and when they arrest Saro and his gang, Angela is forced to choose between giving evidence in exchange for the tapes’ destruction or keeping mum about her husband’s business?but at what price?

It’s pasta plain girly melodrama, really. But writer/director Roberta Torre has a delicate, playful touch, employing handheld moves and assorted tricks, showing a native’s feel for Sicily’s peeling buildings and stark light. Finocchiaro, a professional lawyer making her film debut here, has an old-fashioned bombshell sexiness and expressive features that speak volumes for her character. Not a full-blown hankie wetter, but an honest piece of work.

Swimming Pool

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OPENS AUGUST 22, CERT 15, 102 MINS An uptight, emotionally constrained English lady crime-writer and a sexually aggressive Proven...

OPENS AUGUST 22, CERT 15, 102 MINS

An uptight, emotionally constrained English lady crime-writer and a sexually aggressive Proven

Equus

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Peter Shaffer's play is stripped of its stage trappings by director Sidney Lumet, exposing many of its failings?primarily Shaffer's preposterous, ponderous script. Admittedly, Peter Firth is believable as the disturbed boy with a quasi-religious fetish for horses, but Richard Burton's dreadfully hammy as his psychiatrist. Jenny Agutter supplies the gratuitous nudity.

Peter Shaffer’s play is stripped of its stage trappings by director Sidney Lumet, exposing many of its failings?primarily Shaffer’s preposterous, ponderous script. Admittedly, Peter Firth is believable as the disturbed boy with a quasi-religious fetish for horses, but Richard Burton’s dreadfully hammy as his psychiatrist. Jenny Agutter supplies the gratuitous nudity.

The Lady Vanishes

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A '70s remake of the Hitchcock classic, with Angela Lansbury as an English nanny kidnapped on a German train on the eve of WWII. Can dizzy US heiress Cybill Shepherd foil this Nazi plot with the aid of rugged news photographer Elliott Gould? It might have worked if they'd played it straight; instead, they go for screwball comedy, and it's a disaster.

A ’70s remake of the Hitchcock classic, with Angela Lansbury as an English nanny kidnapped on a German train on the eve of WWII. Can dizzy US heiress Cybill Shepherd foil this Nazi plot with the aid of rugged news photographer Elliott Gould? It might have worked if they’d played it straight; instead, they go for screwball comedy, and it’s a disaster.

Johnny English

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John Malkovich slums it as the evil mastermind plotting to turn Britain into a giant prison camp, while Rowan Atkinson, as the titular rubbish spy, presses all the wrong buttons. Puerile, deeply unfunny and, as an advert for our country, downright treasonable. A crime, if memory serves, still punishable by death.

John Malkovich slums it as the evil mastermind plotting to turn Britain into a giant prison camp, while Rowan Atkinson, as the titular rubbish spy, presses all the wrong buttons. Puerile, deeply unfunny and, as an advert for our country, downright treasonable. A crime, if memory serves, still punishable by death.

The Man Who Loved Women

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Released along with four other Fran...

Released along with four other Fran

Stars In Their Eyes

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Not just an epic three-hour Oscar-winning adaptation of Tom Wolfe's best-selling account of the infamous Cold War 'race to space', nor simply a showcase for the burgeoning talents of messrs Quaid, Harris and Shepard. No, The Right Stuff, at its kernel, is director Philip Kaufman's love poem to machismo. Making Peckinpah look like a patsy, and pointing the way for Michael Bay and Jerry Bruckheimer, Kaufman thunders through the film's detailed account of NASA's manned-flight Mercury program with a near mystical regard for the chrome sheen of jet planes, rockets, silver jumpsuits, helmets and cavernous air hangars. In this world of prototype adrenaline junkies, men walk in slow motion and risk their lives just so they can "punch a hole in the sky", and fly up "to where the demons live, at about Mach 2.3". Brazenly phallic, chest-thumping, alpha-male entertainment. But in the best way.

Not just an epic three-hour Oscar-winning adaptation of Tom Wolfe’s best-selling account of the infamous Cold War ‘race to space’, nor simply a showcase for the burgeoning talents of messrs Quaid, Harris and Shepard. No, The Right Stuff, at its kernel, is director Philip Kaufman’s love poem to machismo. Making Peckinpah look like a patsy, and pointing the way for Michael Bay and Jerry Bruckheimer, Kaufman thunders through the film’s detailed account of NASA’s manned-flight Mercury program with a near mystical regard for the chrome sheen of jet planes, rockets, silver jumpsuits, helmets and cavernous air hangars. In this world of prototype adrenaline junkies, men walk in slow motion and risk their lives just so they can “punch a hole in the sky”, and fly up “to where the demons live, at about Mach 2.3”. Brazenly phallic, chest-thumping, alpha-male entertainment. But in the best way.

Punch-Drunk Love

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The fundamental tension here isn't whether bipolar salesman Barry (Adam Sandler) will end up with doe-eyed English executive Lena (Emily Watson). No, the question here is one of authorship. At a snappy 97 minutes, detailing Sandler's eccentric but essentially loveable dufus, his explosive temper and wacky air-miles scam, it fits neatly into the Sandler lineage. Yet, with Sandler's broader antics leavened by long tracking shots and static arthouse takes, the film is recognisably the work of pop-auteur Paul Thomas Anderson. The brilliance of the movie is that it effortlessly buzzes between the two poles.

The fundamental tension here isn’t whether bipolar salesman Barry (Adam Sandler) will end up with doe-eyed English executive Lena (Emily Watson). No, the question here is one of authorship. At a snappy 97 minutes, detailing Sandler’s eccentric but essentially loveable dufus, his explosive temper and wacky air-miles scam, it fits neatly into the Sandler lineage. Yet, with Sandler’s broader antics leavened by long tracking shots and static arthouse takes, the film is recognisably the work of pop-auteur Paul Thomas Anderson. The brilliance of the movie is that it effortlessly buzzes between the two poles.

Silver Dream Racer

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David Essex and his cheeky grin may have starred in two of the '70s' great British rock'n'roll fantasy movies, That'll Be The Day and Stardust, but he came a cropper in this 1980 motorbiking mess. Champion racers macho it out?it's clich...

David Essex and his cheeky grin may have starred in two of the ’70s’ great British rock’n’roll fantasy movies, That’ll Be The Day and Stardust, but he came a cropper in this 1980 motorbiking mess. Champion racers macho it out?it’s clich

Monday Morning

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Veteran Georgian director Otar losseliani cobbles together this amiable slice of menopausal whimsy, following middle-aged factory worker and wannabe painter Vincent (Jacques Bidou) as he breaks his blue-collar routine and flees to romantic Venice. There he encounters other eccentric middle-aged men, spies on some skirt-lifting nuns, climbs a roof, drinks some wine, and then returns home, a wiser man. DVD EXTRAS: Interview with director losseliani, trailer, filmography.Rating Star

Veteran Georgian director Otar losseliani cobbles together this amiable slice of menopausal whimsy, following middle-aged factory worker and wannabe painter Vincent (Jacques Bidou) as he breaks his blue-collar routine and flees to romantic Venice. There he encounters other eccentric middle-aged men, spies on some skirt-lifting nuns, climbs a roof, drinks some wine, and then returns home, a wiser man.

DVD EXTRAS: Interview with director losseliani, trailer, filmography.Rating Star

Real Women Have Curves

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Mildly engaging Mexican comedy concerning female empowerment; a kind of My Big Lardy Greek Wedding for liberals. Should our heroine work to feed the poor folks, or follow her dream of further education? Will she learn that true beauty comes from within and body size isn't everything as we arrive at ...

Mildly engaging Mexican comedy concerning female empowerment; a kind of My Big Lardy Greek Wedding for liberals. Should our heroine work to feed the poor folks, or follow her dream of further education? Will she learn that true beauty comes from within and body size isn’t everything as we arrive at the d

The Real Blonde

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Tom DiCillo's fascination with the chasm between talent and celebrity comes to the fore in this mischievously smart relationship comedy. New Yorkers Matthew Modine and Catherine Keener are drifting apart; when aspiring thespian Modine is fired from a role as an extra in a Madonna video, he hits rock bottom. Bitingly brilliant, with cameos from Steve Buscemi and Daryl Hannah. DVD EXTRAS: Scene selection. Rating Star (CR)

Tom DiCillo’s fascination with the chasm between talent and celebrity comes to the fore in this mischievously smart relationship comedy. New Yorkers Matthew Modine and Catherine Keener are drifting apart; when aspiring thespian Modine is fired from a role as an extra in a Madonna video, he hits rock bottom. Bitingly brilliant, with cameos from Steve Buscemi and Daryl Hannah.

DVD EXTRAS: Scene selection. Rating Star

(CR)

My Kingdom

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King Lear re-enacted in modern-day Liverpool as crime boss Richard Harris, broken by the senseless murder of wife Lynn Redgrave, splits his empire between his two black-hearted daughters. The dialogue's got a touch of the Guy Ritchies and the violence is silly, but Harris?cunning, lean, leonine?commands the screen.

King Lear re-enacted in modern-day Liverpool as crime boss Richard Harris, broken by the senseless murder of wife Lynn Redgrave, splits his empire between his two black-hearted daughters. The dialogue’s got a touch of the Guy Ritchies and the violence is silly, but Harris?cunning, lean, leonine?commands the screen.

Divine Intervention

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Keaton-esque Palestinian comedian Elia Suleiman's sporadically successful and loosely-bound compendium of sketches Divine Intervention features two lovers, from Ramallah and Jerusalem, who pass their romance at an Israeli checkpoint while a surreal world of humorous vignettes pass before them?some of which are sublime (like the Yasser Arafat balloon), others unsophisticated (like the Palestinian ninja who dispatches five Israeli henchmen).

Keaton-esque Palestinian comedian Elia Suleiman’s sporadically successful and loosely-bound compendium of sketches Divine Intervention features two lovers, from Ramallah and Jerusalem, who pass their romance at an Israeli checkpoint while a surreal world of humorous vignettes pass before them?some of which are sublime (like the Yasser Arafat balloon), others unsophisticated (like the Palestinian ninja who dispatches five Israeli henchmen).

Blue Crush

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Great fun for surfers, but?considering it's made up entirely of scenic beaches and hotties in bikinis?crashingly inane tedium for the rest of us. A kind of Pointless Break for girls, directed by John Stockwell, it stars Kate Bosworth as the teen rebel surfer who wants to be just like all the other teen rebel surfers. A Ladyshave ad in thin disguise.

Great fun for surfers, but?considering it’s made up entirely of scenic beaches and hotties in bikinis?crashingly inane tedium for the rest of us. A kind of Pointless Break for girls, directed by John Stockwell, it stars Kate Bosworth as the teen rebel surfer who wants to be just like all the other teen rebel surfers. A Ladyshave ad in thin disguise.

Ballistic—Ecks Vs. Sever

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Antonio Banderas and Lucy Liu play secret agents who start out on opposite sides, then realise they should be allies. The script and plot barely make it out of the first dimension, the stunts are contrived and irritating and one can only assume the stars were blackmailed into taking part. A strong contender for worst movie of the year.

Antonio Banderas and Lucy Liu play secret agents who start out on opposite sides, then realise they should be allies. The script and plot barely make it out of the first dimension, the stunts are contrived and irritating and one can only assume the stars were blackmailed into taking part. A strong contender for worst movie of the year.

Way Of The Dragon—Platinum Edition

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Pristine restoration of Bruce Lee's only movie as star, director, writer and producer, released to mark the 30th anniversary of his death. He's a country boy come to the city, in this case Rome, where he must kung-fu kick the collective badass of gangsters trying to take over a Chinese restaurant. Not Lee's best, but it does have nunchakus and that great, no-frills fight with a hairy Chuck Norris in the Colosseum.

Pristine restoration of Bruce Lee’s only movie as star, director, writer and producer, released to mark the 30th anniversary of his death. He’s a country boy come to the city, in this case Rome, where he must kung-fu kick the collective badass of gangsters trying to take over a Chinese restaurant. Not Lee’s best, but it does have nunchakus and that great, no-frills fight with a hairy Chuck Norris in the Colosseum.

Kiss Me Deadly

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Robert Aldrich's blazing adaptation of Mickey Spillane's gut-wrenching nuclear age potboiler turns a well-worn genre on its head and retains its power to shock almost 50 years after it was made. Ralph Meeker yells his way through this movie as the quintessential Mike Hammer: loud, boorish, sexist, bullying and gleefully violent. Watch out for the back-to-front titles and apocalyptic climax. Truly the greatest private-eye movie ever made.

Robert Aldrich’s blazing adaptation of Mickey Spillane’s gut-wrenching nuclear age potboiler turns a well-worn genre on its head and retains its power to shock almost 50 years after it was made. Ralph Meeker yells his way through this movie as the quintessential Mike Hammer: loud, boorish, sexist, bullying and gleefully violent. Watch out for the back-to-front titles and apocalyptic climax. Truly the greatest private-eye movie ever made.

Nashville Dreams

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Since it was made in 1975, James Szalapski's documentary about the set of young country songwriters who in the early '70s turned their back on mainstream Nashville has assumed classic status?largely, you imagine, because it has been so rarely seen. I saw it in 1976, at a press screening to which about four other people turned up?country music of any description back then utterly unfashionable. I was fascinated by it, though, since it offered a rare, early glimpse of performers I had lately been listening to a lot, principal among them Guy. Clark and the great Townes Van Zandt. What seemed odd about the film then and seems even odder now, however, is its complete lack of context and explanation?something that will surely baffle anyone coming to it without prior knowledge of the people in it, especially since most of them are even less well known today than they were 30 years ago. Whatever its narrative failings, the film is still worth five stars if only for the footage of Clark, Van Zandt, a very young Steve Earle and a fabulous sequence in the pool room of old geezer's hangout The Wigwam Tavern that looks like something from a David Lynch movie.

Since it was made in 1975, James Szalapski’s documentary about the set of young country songwriters who in the early ’70s turned their back on mainstream Nashville has assumed classic status?largely, you imagine, because it has been so rarely seen. I saw it in 1976, at a press screening to which about four other people turned up?country music of any description back then utterly unfashionable. I was fascinated by it, though, since it offered a rare, early glimpse of performers I had lately been listening to a lot, principal among them Guy. Clark and the great Townes Van Zandt.

What seemed odd about the film then and seems even odder now, however, is its complete lack of context and explanation?something that will surely baffle anyone coming to it without prior knowledge of the people in it, especially since most of them are even less well known today than they were 30 years ago.

Whatever its narrative failings, the film is still worth five stars if only for the footage of Clark, Van Zandt, a very young Steve Earle and a fabulous sequence in the pool room of old geezer’s hangout The Wigwam Tavern that looks like something from a David Lynch movie.

Joni Mitchell—Woman Of Heart And Mind

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It doesn't matter whether you're a fan. This study of Mitchell is a model of musical biography in DVD form. Over two hours we get her life story in perfectly matched words, music and images. The interviews with Mitchell are candid, the recollections from the likes of James Taylor, David Crosby and Graham Nash are fascinating, and the musical excerpts, which cover her entire career, are luminous.

It doesn’t matter whether you’re a fan. This study of Mitchell is a model of musical biography in DVD form. Over two hours we get her life story in perfectly matched words, music and images. The interviews with Mitchell are candid, the recollections from the likes of James Taylor, David Crosby and Graham Nash are fascinating, and the musical excerpts, which cover her entire career, are luminous.

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