• Friday 27 May for 1 week

MYSTERIOUS SKIN (18)

(US 2004) dir.Gregg Araki 105m.
Brady Corbet, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Jeffrey Licon, Elisabeth Shue, Mary Lynn Rajskub.

“‘Make me happy, make me happy, make me happy.’ This crooning refrain, delivered by a lesion-covered john enraptured by the simple feel of another human’s skin, resonates across Gregg Araki's masterful adaptation of Scott Heim's novel. Gorgeous and harrowing, it marks a quantum leap for a director’s generally associated with flip, pop-coloured LA nihilism couched in an escapist milieu of murderous road-trips and seven-foot lizard-men. But Araki has always been concerned with the conflicting pursuits of love and identity – ideas that Heim's story allows him to explore with a new directness but no less visual verve. Small-town Kansas eight-year-olds Neil and Brian have little in common: one is corky and self-reliant, the other an introvert suffering from nose-bleeds and black-outs. Their connection remains oblique until a decade later, when Brian (Brady Corbet), convinced they were abducted by aliens, tries to track down Neil (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) – now a charismatic hustler with plans to move to NYC but still shaped by his relationship with the boys’ paedophile Little League coach. In both the impressionistic childhood vignettes and the more intricately dovetailed adolescent plot, Araki creates a powerfully intimate tone through first-prison framing of conversations and lush, meticulous attention to pattern, colour and texture ñ fingers on a face, rain on a window, cereal on a floor. Also benefiting from Corbet and Gordon-Levitt's very differently impressive performances, the result is subjective, unflinching and humane, often shocking but low on judgement and suffused with wondrous yearning. It's a film full of characters gazing upwards in hope of a fantastical escape that cannot come.”
(Ben Walter, Time Out)

MOOLAADÉ (15)

(Sen/B Faso/Cam/Mor/Tun/ Fr 2004) dir.Ousmane Sembene 125m. Subtitles.
Fatoumata Coulibaly, Maimouna Hélène Diarra, Salimata Traoré, Dominique Zeïda, Mah Compaoré, Aminata Dao.

“Provocative and timely, this West African drama tackles a seriously important issue without losing the vibrant energy of everyday life. What sounds like an almost unbearably heavy story is actually witty, engaging and extremely entertaining. The story centres on Collé (Coulibaly), the middle of three wives in a remote village in Burkina Faso. She's already notorious for allowing her teen daughter (Traoré) to skip the purification ritual of clitoral excision, and now four young girls have fled the ritual to ask her for mooladé, or sanctuary. But the village leaders have had enough of this rebellion. They seize all the women's radios, blaming the outside world for putting such ideas into their heads. And they demand that Collé retract the mooladé. But she's had enough as well. It's astonishing how 82-year-old writer-director Sembene can make such an enjoyable and accessible film on such an intense subject. The trick obviously is concentrating on story and characters, bringing out the genuine rhythms of rural African life. He catches all kinds of details, from friendly interaction to power struggles to day-to-day decisions. The characters all spring to life through sheer force of personality. As these feisty, tough, life-loving women send ripples through their society, the true nature of power is revealed. The men may have the titles, but the women rule the world! And further perspective comes from two outsiders – a vendor who once worked as an aid worker and a favoured son who studied in France and comes home to take a bride. The confrontation that erupts in the centre of the village is earthshaking for these people. But their culture has a remarkable balance of respect for tradition and a willingness to listen. It's clear that the tribal leaders' banning of radios and TVs is an act of paranoia and control, but I wonder if we notice that Western culture is no different.”
(Rich Cline, Shadows on the Wall)

Sat 4 Jun 6.00 show to be introduced by Ousmane Sembene & Fatoumata Coulibaly.

BAADASSSSS! (15)

(US 2003) dir.Mario Van Peebles 109m.
Mario Van Peebles, Joy Bryant, Terry Crews, Ossie Davis, David Alan Grier, Nia Long, Saul Rubinek, Rainn Wilson.

“Not only is this one of the most important making-of dramatisations, it's also a powerful love letter from a son to his father. With wit, energy, heart and soul, Mario Van Peebles recounts the making and marketing of his father Melvin's groundbreaking 1971 film Sweet Sweetback's Baadasssss Song, the film that made artists like Spike Lee and Quentin Tarantino possible. Melvin (brilliantly well-played by Mario) is a young filmmaker whose ideas for authentic black cinema are too far ahead of their time. No one's ready for a realistic portrayal of African-American life on screen; they prefer to keep black actors in cliched roles that are either subservient or noble. But Melvin wants to make a raw, edgy thriller with a racial injustice theme. So he scrambles to raise the money himself, with a few close friends at his side and his sceptical 13-year-old son Mario (Thomas) in a pivotal role that includes a sex scene. Mario subtly and cleverly parallels the stories of Sweetback and Melvin, black men fighting a prejudiced system and subverting it in any way they can. But this aspect of the film is relatively understated; more important is Melvin's rollicking story, including the tensions and connections between the various characters and the much larger issues they were battling against. Even though this is a raw, low-budget movie, Mario gets virtually everything right, from the impeccable recreation of the early 1970s to the lively atmosphere on a guerrilla moviemaker's set. It's quite simply one of the best movies ever made about independent filmmaking.”
(Rich Cline, Shadows on the Wall)

BATMAN BEGINS (12A)

(US 2005) dir.Christopher Nolan 140m.
Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Liam Neeson, Morgan Freeman, Gary Oldman, Ken Watanabe, Katie Holmes, Cillian Murphy, Tom Wilkinson, Rutger Hauer, Linus Roache.

"Warner Bros wisely hands the franchise to skilled filmmaker Nolan, who creates one of the most involving, inventive superhero movies yet.

Heir to a billion-dollar empire, Bruce Wayne (Bale) is consumed by bitterness over the senseless mugging death of his parents. While roaming the globe, he's recruited by the vigilante League of Shadows and trained in their Himalayan lair by leader Ra's al Ghul (Watanabe) and his sidekick Ducard (Neeson), but parts company when they tell him to abandon all compassion. Back home in Gotham, Bruce adapts his new skills, collecting gadgets, becoming the Batman and embarking on a mission to save the city from an insidious attack.

The film has two halves: first is the origin story, which Nolan tells in his trademark out-of-sequence style (see also Following and Memento), watching Bruce as a boy and man coming to terms with who he is, fine-tuning relationships with the butler (Caine) who raised him, a childhood friend (Holmes), a forgotten Wayne employee (Freeman) and a city cop (Oldman). The interaction between them is terrific, simply because the casting and acting are so perfect. The second half is more straightforward, as Bruce faces off against a mobster (Wilkinson) and a sinister psychologist (Murphy) who are part of a larger plot to destroy Gotham. These characters are no less intriguing, and the plot seamlessly emerges, building on the earlier themes and characters. All the way, Nolan maintains a dark tone that captures Bruce's troubled mind and the story's vicious brutality without ever being obvious. And this is what sets the film apart: it's driven by actual subtlety and subtext! It also looks much more realistic; Nolan uses real sets and miniatures, keeping computer effects to a minimum. It only occasionally drifts in to iconic imagery and movie-franchise plotting, opting instead for a thoughtful examination of the struggle between justice and revenge. This is vivid, riveting storytelling that resonates emotionally and delicately balances the drama, humour and terror. Most intriguing is the way it inverts traditional ideas of suspense - because it's the hero who's scaring us. Brilliant." (Rich Cline, Shadows on the Wall)

WAR OF THE WORLDS (12A)

(US 2005) dir.Steven Spielberg 116m. (approx.)
Tom Cruise, Justin Chatwin, Dakota Fanning, Tim Robbins, Miranda Otto, David Alan Basche, Yul Vazquez.

Steven Spielberg and Tom Cruise reunite for this remake of THE WAR OF THE WORLDS, based on the science fiction classic by HG Wells. The story promises to be the ultimate sci-fi adventure thriller presenting the extraordinary battle for the future of humankind through the eyes of one American family fighting to survive it. Ray Ferrier (Cruise) is a working-class man living in New Jersey. Estranged from his family, he's too caught up with himself and his life’s a mess. But the unthinkable and, ultimately, the unexpected is about to happen. His small town life is shaken violently by the arrival of devastating intruders and Ray will have to come to the defence of his children: Martians are invading Earth. As they plow through the country in a wave of destruction and violence, humans must fend for themselves and save the world from a far greater force that threatens to eradicate the planet.

MADAGASCAR (U)

(US 2005) dirs.Eric Darnell & Tom McGrath 88m. Animation.
Voices of Ben Stiller, Chris Rock, David Schwimmer, Jada Pinkett Smith.

"Anarchy is the timeless spirit of animation. It's there in Bugs Bunny and Bullwinkle cartoons, in FANTASIA and THE INCREDIBLES. It's there as well, in a megaplex-toddler-friendly way, in MADAGASCAR, the delightfully wacked new digitally animated comedy in which a quartet of critters escape the Central Park Zoo to taste the freedom of the wild world beyond. Freedom doesn't agree with them, exactly; it makes them prickle and sweat. Yet that's the film's funky glory. Alex the Lion, with his blow-dried pentagon of a mane, is voiced by Ben Stiller. In classic Stiller fashion, he's a polite and self-doubting egomaniac, at home in captivity, preening for adoring crowds like the domesticated muscleman of the jungle. His best friend, Marty the Zebra (Chris Rock), is a loyal, low-down neurotic who can't decide whether he's black with white stripes or vice versa. Marty, however, does know that he'd like to break away from behind bars. When he busts out of the zoo, Alex follows close behind, along with Melman the Giraffe (David Schwimmer), a nudnik hypochondriac, and Gloria the Hippo (Jada Pinkett Smith), a saucy scold. For a while, they turn Manhattan into a gritty playground, but they end up cornered by police at Grand Central Terminal. Packed off in crates to a Kenyan wildlife reserve, they are shipwrecked on Madagascar, a tropical island that looks like Waikiki as drawn by Rousseau, and once there they meet the restless natives, a tribe of hard-partying lemurs whose self-proclaimed king, Julien, is the spirit - the very soul - of anarchy. Voiced by Sacha Baron Cohen (Ali G), Julien is first seen leading a techno-disco horde as he sings, ''I like to moove-it! moove-it!'' I nominate that line as the single most demonically catchy in any movie this year. The madness escalates from there as the lemurs send their zoo visitors to a special lush corner of the island that's like a wild-kingdom Eden. Alex begins to feel free, his inner carnivore awakens; he starts to fantasize about eating his friends, who turn into steaks before his eyes. In the old Warner Bros. cartoons, stuff like this happened when stranded characters ran out of food, but you've got to hand it to a kiddie flick that dares to present its hero's follow-your-dream 'liberation' as his looming conversion into a flesh-hungry sociopath. That's untamed fun."
(Owen Gleiberman, Entertainement Weekly)