Film - showing at a cinema near you
Lust, Caution
Strangely, the problem with Lust, Caution is its fundamental lack of lustiness. It's World War II, Shanghai is occupied by the Japanese and Chinese actress Wong Chia-Chi (Tang Wei) has been enlisted to seduce the head of the secret police, Mr. Yee (Tony Leung) - a man with a price on his head for collaborating with the Japanese. The plot does not go according to plan, and so the story is able to stretch across several years, one long, long game of mah-jong and several scenes of sexual violence. Ang Lee is a sublime director, and in many ways this is a quite exquisite film, but it lacks that essential passion, graceful intellect and emotional fire we have come to expect from his work.
18, 148 mins
PS. I Love You
There are times while watching PS. I Love You when one wonders whether the film is in fact the product of some perverse Hollywood think tank - an organisation dedicated to making the most nauseating movie in history. Because that is precisely what we have here: Holly (Hilary Swank) and Gerry (Gerard Butler) are blissfully married, their honeyed existence about to be marred by Gerry's death from a brain tumour. Thoughtfully, though, Gerry does not die before plotting out a year's-worth of activities for Holly to perform after his death: chuck out his things, karaoke, visit Ireland, meet someone else - all set out in letters delivered to his grieving wife after his death. Totally dreadful.
12A, 126 mins
St Trinian's
St Trinian's 2007 looks somewhat different to its original cinematic outing of 1954. Though it is still a 'school for young ladies' (in the broadest sense of the word), today its pupils are variously decked out as trustafarians, emo-kids, geeks, chavs and that perennial favourite, the naughty little schoolgirl. The school is yet again in financial bother, and, as its headmistress Camilla Fritton (Rupert Everett) tussles with the new Education Minister, the rest of St Trinian's rallies together in an audacious plot to save the school by stealing a painting from the National Gallery. This is a fizzy, feel-good romp, crammed with British talent from Stephen Fry and Russell Brand to supermodel Lily Cole and Girls Aloud. It’s cinema's answer to the Christmas selection box.
12A, 100 mins
Enchanted
A knowing reinvention of the classic Disney fairy tale, Enchanted tells the story of Giselle (Amy Adams), a princess who tumbles out of her animated world and slap-bang down to earth - to New York City indeed, where she finds a home with Robert (Patrick Dempsey) and his cutesome daughter, Morgan (Rachel Covey). Will they find true love? Or will the Other Woman (Idina Menzel) win Robert's heart? Really, who cares when there's a splendiferous song-and-dance sequence in Central Park and all manner of musical hi-jinx with Giselle's new-found animal friends? Marvellous stuff.
PG, 107 mins
El Violin
We're in the mountains of Mexico, where tourist hot-spots nestle beside the homes of impoverished locals. Revolution is in the air, and the three generations of Don Plutarco's family travel from town to town, busking to make ends meet and quietly accumulating support for the guerilla movement. When their village falls under the grip of the military authorities, Plutarco (a magnificent Don Angel Tavira) attempts to conjure a relationship with one of the officials (Dagoberto Gama) via the violin, in an effort to gain access to the resistance's stash of ammo buried out in the fields. Hardy, flinty viewing - but thoroughly engrossing.
15, 98 mins
Paranoid Park 
Gus Van Sant's tale, set in his native Portland, Oregon, involves a teenage skateboarder named Alex (Gabe Nevins) struggling to come to terms with the fact that he is responsible for a fatal accident - the death of a security guard. The cast is largely unknown (and allegedly recruited via Myspace) which does bring a degree of naturalness to the proceedings, and the overwhelming sense is remarkably similar - though thankfully less affected - to that of Elephant. It's characteristically Van Sant though, with thoroughly beautiful, languid camerawork and an impressive soundtrack, but one can't help feeling it's just a little too desperate to be hip.
15, 85 mins
We Own the Night
James Gray pitches Russian mobsters against the NYPD in this great gutsy sprawl of a movie, at the centre of which sit brothers Joseph Grusinsky (Mark Wahlberg) and Bobby Green (Joaquin Phoenix); the former a goody-two-shoes cop who has earned the approval of their father (Robert Duvall), the latter a high-spirited nightclub owner and the black sheep of the family who now nestles warmly with the Buzhayev family. The situation changes, however, when a Buzhayev causes harm to Joseph, and Bobby rediscovers the pull of his blood ties. In essence, the idea is kinda schlocky, and the film is far from perfect. We Own the Night works - in a messy, spontaneous, big-hearted way.
15, 117 mins
Half Moon
Kurdish-Iranian director Bahman Ghobadi's fourth film tells the story of Mamo (Ismail Ghaffari), a Kurdish musician in exile in Iran who, after the fall of Saddam, crosses into Iraqi Kurdistan with his sons for a concert which will celebrate the country's liberation. This is a visually and emotionally stunning film, dreamlike and bewitching, that at times seems half road-trip, half Grimm's fairytale. From the flurry of a village cockfight to set-tos with ruffian border guards and the sight of 1,300 exiled female singers raising their voices as one, this is utterly gorgeous.
12, 114 mins
I Am Legend
It's 2012, three years after a devastating virus has swept through New York. The city is now overgrown and feral and Robert Neville (Will Smith), the sole survivor, roams its streets with a gun and his dog looking for fellow survivors and the night-dwelling mutants spawned by the virus. This is an eerie film - at times suspenseful, at others filled with a draughty loneliness. But one can't help feeling this is well-trodden, Jodie Foster-esque territory: one ordinary citizen surviving in extraordinary conditions. Smith is such a watchable actor; there must be a strong film in him somewhere. Alas, this is not it.
15, 101 mins
Balls of Fury
The world of competitive table tennis provides the setting for this crap - the tale of ping-pong legend Randy Daytona (Dan Fogler), roused from retirement as part of a complicated plot to both avenge his father and assist the FBI in nailing the evil Feng (Christopher Walken), who is not only a ping-pong wizard, but also has a penchant for murderising people with poison darts. Balls of Fury's humour is very predictable, but its biggest problem arrives 20 minutes in when one realises that although it bears all the hallmarks of a Will Ferrell movie, Ferrell is nowhere to be seen. Thereafter, the only way is down.
12, 90 mins
Bee Movie
This latest addition to the animation canon is visually impressive of course, but wins most of its points for verbal dexterity - much of which can be attributed to the involvement of Jerry Seinfeld, who is not only the voice of the lead bee but also scriptwriter and producer. The young Barry B Benson (Seinfeld) is in the throes of choosing his path in life, loathe to accept the hive-based existence chosen by his best friend (Matthew Broderick). Instead, he flies further afield and falls in love with a human florist named Vanessa (Renee Zellweger). This rosy moment is tempered, however, by Barry's discovery that honey - made by factory bees - is sold in supermarkets, so he decides to sue the entire human race. Firmly aimed at the adults, Bee Movie is a frequently delightful and fulsomely hilarious piece of holiday entertainment.
U, 90 mins
The Kite Runner
Khaled Hosseini's novel about an Afghan refugee who, having landed in America, looks back on his childhood, receives its big-screen adaptation. Our narrator is a novelist, Amir (Khalid Abdalla), conjuring up his 12-year-old self (Zekiria Ebrahimi), his father Baba (Homayoun Ershadi), and his best friend Hassan (Ahmad Khan Mahmoodzada) - whom he will betray when Hassan is brutally raped and Amir does nothing to save him. Can Amir, in adulthood, repair the damage? In this tale of regret and the search for redemption, there is an appealing waft of Atonement, but there is also a want of cultural enrichment - we never really get the flavour of Afghanistan that we do in the novel. It does make for a gripping movie, though.
12A, 122 mins
I'm Not There
This is not so much a film about Bob Dylan - none of the characters even carry his name - as a jaunt around our obsession with him: as musician, poet, master of reinvention and the man onto whom we have projected so much cultural significance. Todd Haynes ravels up six figures, played by six actors (Cate Blanchett, Heath Ledger, Richard Gere, Christian Bale, Ben Whishaw and Marcus Carl Franklin) that roughly correspond to six different versions of Dylan: 60s beatnik, husband, railroad rider, 19th century cowboy, coffeehouse folk star and Pentecostal minister. There are of course enough strings here for things to get a little frayed, knotted and confusing at times, but Mr Haynes' film has the bona fide ring of a masterpiece to it.
15, 135 mins
Reviews by Laura Barton
FIRST POSTED
JANUARY 3, 2008
