Film - showing at a cinema near you
Smart People
In the hallowed halls of Carnegie Mellon University, sour, widowed college professor Lawrence Wetherhold (Dennis Quaid) has long been buried beneath the weight of Victorian literature (you can even see the man sag). But he finds himself rather pleasantly ironed out by getting frisky with former student Janet (Sarah Jessica Parker). Their involvement is the touch paper for Lawrence's highly-flammable domestic pile: his children - the magnificently devoted, thoroughly sarcastic Vanessa (Ellen Page) and the troubled, sensitive soul James (Ashton Holmes) - and his adoptive brother, Chuck (Thomas Haden Church), who is forever bucking responsibility and is currently shacked-up in the spare room. This is an impeccably drawn film, superbly scripted and gently directed. It's also required viewing for anyone who has ever set - or is even considering setting - foot in a university English department.
15, 95 mins
The Air I Breathe
There is a great deal of pretension in this quartet of vignettes, each portraying a different emotion: Happiness, Sorrow, Pleasure and Love. Yet all the airs and graces do not render the film unlikeable. The four segments are loosely threaded by several recurring characters, in the tried and trusted manner of other 'connectivity' movies such as Crash and Babel. We open with Forest Whitaker, giving us 'Happiness' as a downtrodden bank clerk who bets his life savings on a horse race and finds himself entangled with a glowering mobster named Fingers (an exceptional Andy Garcia), and we close with 'Love', as a doctor (Kevin Bacon) tries to rescue the love of his life (Julie Delpy) from a potentially fatal snake-bite. In between, we encounter Sarah Michelle Gellar as a pop star named Sorrow, and Brandon Fraser as a mobster henchman cursed with the gift of premonition who finds 'Pleasure' in an evening when, for once, he can no longer see into the future. It is a carefully - and impressively - tangled web with some magnificent performances, but on occasion the movie's desire to show its bright, shiny cleverness is a little unsettling.
18, 95 mins
Honeydripper
The dawn of rock 'n' roll is the ostensible subject of John Sayles's movie - albeit a fictionalised dawn. It tells the story of Sonny Blake (Gary Clark Jnr, pitching it somewhere between Chuck Berry, Ike Turner and Little Richard), a guitar-playing genius who rides the railroads until he hops off in Harmony, Alabama one day and helps rescue the fortunes of a rundown roadhouse named the Honeydripper, run by a boogie-woogie pianist named Tyrone Purvis (Danny Glover). The tale is fabled and folkloric, knotting together all kinds of histories of the South - cotton plantations, religion, oppression and good ol' rock 'n' roll. Sadly, though, the film never feels comfortable in its own skin - the plot is just too hokey, the dialogue too awkward and the pace too slow.
PG, 123 mins
Forgetting Sarah Marshall
Here we go again into familiar Judd Apatow territory with another of his productions telling the tale of some laid-back slacker dude who's trying to woo the girl, but is cursed by a lack of cheekbones and pectoral muscles. Only this time it's in Hawaii. Our hero is Peter (Jason Segel), who composes music for a TV cop drama and for five beautiful years dated the show's star Sarah Marshall (Kristen Bell). Until she dumped him. And started dating a rock-star, Aldous Snow (Russell Brand). Now they are all, by some terrible freakish chance, holidaying on the same island. This is a very modern break-up movie - Peter, we learn, is not short of offers, including the hotel receptionist Rachel (Mila Kunis), but his heart only belongs to Sarah. Or does it? It's hard not to be charmed by the honesty and awkwardness of the gawky Apatow school, but it might, at some point soon, be time to alter the hottie-and-the-dough-faced-boy pairings, which are starting to wear a tad thin.
15, 112 mins
La Antena
The message of this Argentinean film - the dangers of a society monopolised by the media - is spelled out with precious little subtlety, but La Antena is still a gripping piece of cinema. It is quite extraordinary to watch: rendered in the monochrome of the silent film, its voiceless characters communicate through read lips, signals and subtitles. The result is a movie that is both intellectually and emotionally engaging, and also thoroughly unnerving. As to the plot: Mr TV (Alejandro Urdapilleta) is the all-powerful media force in the City Without A Voice. There is just one citizen who still has the ability to speak her thoughts: The Voice (Florencia Raggi), a woman who sings exquisitely on one of Mr TV's shows. When Mr TV joins forces with the equally detestable Dr Y (Carlos Pineiro) in a plot to control The Voice and do away with her son (who, it transpires, has inherited his mother's ability to speak her mind), it lies in the hands of The Inventor (Rafael Ferro) and his family to rescue them.
12A, 90 mins
Where in the World is Osama Bin Laden?
The difficulty for Morgan Spurlock was surely: where on earth could he go after Supersize Me, his brilliantly simple and impressive cinematic debut that dealt with the dangers of fast food? The answer, it seems, is to the Middle East. Spurlock sets off on a journey to find not only enemy number one, Osama Bin Laden, but also to see first-hand the part of the world where the bogeymen supposedly dwell in the wake of 9/11. Not surprisingly, he finds that the people of Egypt, Morocco, Israel, Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan are, by and large, rather nice and not all hijackers and militants. Spurlock's ambition here, one assumes, is to display this fact to the average cinema-goer rather than to those who have watched the numerous documentaries and fictional accounts of life in the region released recently - in the same way that many people didn't really need to know that existing only on McDonald's probably wasn't great for one's health. It's admirable stuff, but the difference this time is that Spurlock offers little political fire, just a tour of the world's hotspots.
PG, 93 mins
Made of Honour
Finding a new spin on the wedding romcom can be a difficult task, but Sony has (sort of) triumphed with this tale of a charming, successful lady-killer named Tom (Patrick Dempsey) who realises that his best friend, the fragrant Claire (Michelle Monaghan), is in fact the love of his life. Sadly, the realisation thuds home at the precise moment when Claire is embarking upon a whirlwind holiday romance in Scotland, returning home with a ring on her finger and plans to appoint Tom as her 'maid' of honour. Sure, the ensuing 'who will get the gal?' shenanigans that follow have a rather predictable flavour, but it's a sparky, intelligent cast - and everyone needs a little wedding romcom in their lives sometimes, right?
12A, 101 mins
Caramel
Caramel is a wonderfully warm and embracing movie from Lebanese writer-director Nadine Labaki - who also plays the lead character, Layale, the owner of a Beirut beauty salon. Unmarried, she still lives at home with her parents, spurning the sweet affections of a traffic policeman in favour of a dead-end affair with a married man. But this is just one of the movie's many tales, all of which swirl around the beauty salon where, along with hair clippings, nail lacquer and the caramel wax of the title, we find divorce, marriage, the bonds of family life and the fear of ageing. It's not an especially dramatic film; rather, it's a welcoming, involving soap opera of sorts which explores the hidden lives of women.
PG, 95 mins
Iron Man
Another comic book superhero flick to add to the pile, but a welcome one nonetheless. Jon Favreau's Iron Man tells the story of Tony Stark: an engineering genius, squillionaire weapons manufacturer and international playboy who is prompted to engage his social conscience and re-evaluate the ethics of his business when he's kidnapped in Afghanistan and charged with constructing one of his own missiles for his captors. Instead, he builds a robotic armoured suit to effect a spectacular escape, and then decides to perfect this machine in order to aid mankind. It's an admirable dig at war-profiteering that boasts some great gadgetry, sparky one-liners, a restrained use of CGI and some pro performances from Robert Downey Jr (as a nicely edgy Stark), Gwyneth Paltrow (as his devoted assistant Virginia 'Pepper' Potts) and Jeff Bridges (as menacing fat cat Obadiah Stane). The plot, though, is a tad un-dynamic and lacks the dark tension needed to see us safely through to the sequel. As a result, it doesn't quite hit the spot as the Batman or Spider-Man movies do, but Marvel fans undoubtedly won't care.
12A, 126 mins
Persepolis
Based on the graphic novel by Marjane Satrapi, and directed by the author in tandem with Vincent Paronnaud, there is a real sense of elegance and towering greatness to this animated autobiographical coming-of-age story. Animation, in recent times, has come to mean the kapow and zap of the brashly-hued movies that Pixar and co produce, but here we have a flat, sombre-coloured depiction of the streets of Iran, where Satrapi grew up in the time of revolution. Voices are provided by Chiara Mastroianni as the young Satrapi, Catherine Deneuve as her mother and Danielle Darrieux as her grandmother - a wise, quick-witted woman who embodies the movie's feminist heart. As the revolution rages, Satrapi's family sends her off to the safety of Vienna, where she enjoys the freedoms of the West but pines for her home. Her decision as to whether or not to return to Iran is the central conflict of the film, though the mood never turns mawkish. Movies of this calibre and boldness come along rarely, and serve to remind us of the incredible possibilities and subtleties that film can allow. An absolute gem.
12A, 95 mins
In Bruges
Racist dwarves, wisecracking hitmen, elephantine American tourists, the camp cutesiness of mediaeval Bruges - Martin McDonagh's self-directed script is abundant (indeed, over-abundant) with scraps of Tarantino, shards of Ritchie and a soupcon of Private Eye. The film's fun, though, and it's a pleasure to see Colin Farrell, Brendan Gleeson and Ralph Fiennes having such a murderously good time. The plot? Two Irish contract killers are sent to Bruges to lie low after a job goes messily wrong. Why Bruges? Because Harry, the Essex crimelord (Fiennes), loved it when he was a kid and thinks it might make a terminal treat for Ray (Farrell). The tone's uneven - what should be cheerfully amoral hinges on something truly nasty - but there are plenty of good jokes here.
18, 107 mins
What Happens in Vegas
All the goofy, mismatched romcom pairings that Hollywood has willed to work over the last few years may now be forgiven as Cameron Diaz and Ashton Kutcher unite to form what seems like a natural comedy dreamteam. Joy (Diaz) and Jack (Kutcher) both arrive in Vegas in a rather fragile state - she newly boyfriendless, he freshly jobless - and proceed first to get royally drunk, and second to get married, unintentionally. When Jack then wins big on the slot machines (using money lent to him by Joy) the two of them separately embark on a sequence of cunning plans and contortions in an effort to lay individual claim to the loot. Not altogether shockingly, this whole fandango leads them circuitously into one another's arms. It's froth, of course - pure sugar-whipped confection - but the plot has an appealing simplicity, Vegas is suitably bonkers, and Diaz and Kutcher really do bring a certain zing to the screen.
12A, 99 mins
Speed Racer
Tatsuo Yoshika's 1960s classic receives a slick remodelling here from Andy and Larry Wachowski, the guys behind The Matrix. Young driver Speed Racer (Emile Hirsch) discovers a dastardly race-fixing scheme run by industry moguls Royalton Industries - a company he has recently slighted by refusing a gigantic sponsorship offer so that he can stay driving his spectacular vehicle, the Mach 5. Royalton vow that Speed Racer and the Mach 5 will never race again, and in order to defy them, Speed will have to take part in the dreaded Crucible Race (which claimed the life of his brother Rex many years ago) supported only by his father Pops Racer (John Goodman), his girlfriend Trixie (Christina Ricci) and an unlikely ally in his rival, the mysterious driver X. It's a real feel-good, finely-tuned, swishy blockbuster, with sensational visuals.
PG, 129 mins
Joy Division
In the wake of last year's mesmerising Control comes this documentary by Grant Gee about the magnificent and hugely influential Manchester band led by Ian Curtis, who killed himself at the age of just 23. With appearances by the late Tony Wilson (who founded Factory Records), Curtis's former bandmates Bernard Sumner, Peter Hook and Stephen Morris (who would of course go on to form New Order), his lover Annik Honore, and contributions from Touching at a Distance (the book written by his widow Deborah), it makes a fine stablemate for Control. Rather than a mere portrait of a talented but troubled young man, Gee offers us a moving picture of Curtis's city in the late 1970s and early Eighties, when Manchester - a once-proud centre of industry - had grown stagnant and depressed.
15, 93 mins
Reviews by Laura Barton
FIRST POSTED
MAY 15, 2008
