• Friday 30 September for 2 weeks

A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE (18)

(US 2005) dir.David Cronenberg 96m.
Viggo Mortensen, Maria Bello, Ashton Holmes, Ed Harris, William Hurt, Peter MacNeill, Stephen McHattie, Greg Bryk, Heidi Hayes, Kyle Schmid, Ian Matthews, Steve Arbuckle.

"Though this is certainly Cronenberg's most 'mainstream' movie in years, the fact that it's so immediately enjoyable as a terrific thriller does not diminish its less obvious virtues. Indeed, its apparent effortlessness in transcending simple generic concerns to interrogate a range of issues surrounding violence, justice, heroism and identity should not distract attention from its subtly subversive critique of the American Dream. Diner proprietor Tom Stall (Viggo Mortensen), his lawyer wife Edie (Maria Bello) and their two kids seem to have a pretty idyllic existence in smalltown America until a couple of gleefully murderous hoods turn up by chance at the eaterie, and an order for coffee escalates to terrorising Tom and his customers. Quick thinking on his part leads to reluctant celebrity – and, still more unwelcome – further visits, from sinister wise guys hinting that Tom may not be quite the clean-cut Ordinary Joe he says he is. Besides playing fast and loose (in the most elegantly rigorous way, of course) with family-under-siege thriller conventions, Cronenberg deftly undermines narrative expectations by implying that happy families may in fact be forms of imprisonment, and that trying to conform to an American way may involve lying to ourselves and others about the very human capacity for monstrosity. Here, as a repressed past erupts with a vengeance, violence begets violence, and safe, traditional ethics are swiftly revealed as virtually irrelevant. All this is executed with Cronenberg's now customarily brilliant wit, bravura style and perfect pacing, not to mention peak-form performances from a superb cast that memorably includes William Hurt and Ed Harris. The film succeeds not only in terms of action and suspense but as cautionary fable, historical allegory, social satire and moral disquisition. In short, it's marvellous, and up there with SPIDER as Cronenberg's very best work."
(Geoff Andrew, Time Out)

• Friday 14 October for 1 week

KINKY BOOTS (12A)

(UK 2005) dir.Julian Jarrold 107m.
Joel Edgerton, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Sarah-Jane Potts, Jemima Rooper, Linda Bassett, Nick Frost, Ewan Hooper, Robert Pugh, Geoffrey Streatfield.

“Based on a true story, this is a feel-good British comedy from the creators of CALENDAR GIRLS. It's engaging and blessed with a seriously good cast. Charlie Price (Joel Edgerton) has just moved to London with his girlfriend (Jemina Rooper) when his father dies (Robert Pugh). Now he has to return to Northampton to run the family shoe business, but Old World quality isn't as popular as it used to be, and the business is on the brink of bankruptcy. A chance meeting with the colourful drag queen Lola (Chiwetel Ejiofor) changes Charlie's life. And Lola's too, as he designs a new range of outlandish footwear to restore the company fortune. If, that is, the buyers in Milan go for it. The script nimbly dances through the story without ever getting heavy handed about it, while nicely avoiding most clichés. The characters are just complex enough that we both believe them and travel with them on this journey. After years of solid work Down Under, Edgerton has been waiting for a big leading man role, and he handles it with charm and personality, nicely balanced by Jemima Rooper and Sarah-Jane Potts (as his assistant). Meanwhile, Ejiofor steals the film with another astonishingly layered, energetic, impeccable performance. Lola is absolutely wonderful – a fascinating mixture of flashy showmanship with an undercurrent of realistic self-doubt. The epilogue is thoroughly sigh-inducing while the climactic sequence is deeply fabulous.”
(Rich Cline, Shadows on the Wall)

Mon 17 Oct 8.50 show to be followed by Q&A with Julian Jarrold

• Friday 21 October for 2 weeks

BROKEN FLOWERS (15)

(US 2005) dir.Jim Jarmush 106m.
Bill Murray, Jeffrey Wright, Sharon Stone, Frances Conroy, Jessica Lange, Tilda Swinton, Julie Delpy, Mark Webber, Chloë Sevigny, Christopher McDonald, Alexis Dziena, Heather Simms.

“With flawless performances and a gently hilarious tone, Jarmusch catches life with nuance and charm in this subtle comedy. And with its soul-searching theme, it's like a delicate variation on About Schmidt. Don Johnston (Murray) is a confirmed bachelor whose girlfriend (Delpy) gets fed up and leaves, just as he receives an anonymous letter saying that he has a long-lost 18-year-old son. His neighbour (Wright) is an amateur sleuth, and he plots a fact-finding mission for Don to visit his girlfriends from that time period. What follows is a voyage into the past, as Don catches up with the sexy Laura (Stone), thoughtful Dora (Conroy), sensual Carmen (Lange) and physical Penny (Swinton). Can life ever be the same after such a journey? Jarmusch has always resisted MTV-style editing and forced energy, concentrating instead on real life rhythms. And indeed, this film is almost too authentic for words; the settings and characters feel like places and people we know, and know far too well. And the starry cast is clearly enjoying the chance to underplay their characters with knowing wit and telling pauses. This is the kind of thing Murray excels at, of course, and he's simply wonderful, while the women around him all sparkle with their own inner light. The characters aren't drawn with stereotypes, they're distinguished with personality, written and acted with sheer charisma. Amid his deadpan observation, Jarmusch creates a story that's deeply provocative, and not in the way we expect. Like Don, we long for specific answers, but the revelations come when we're not looking. Revisiting old relationships and recognising patterns in new ones, struggling through awkward reunions and falling back into easy familiarity – to make these things sing requires impeccable filmmaking and perfectly balanced acting. Don may know that he's, as Delpy says, "an over-the-hill Don Juan," but he also knows he was happy in that life. "Was" being the operative word. It's not a new message, but it couldn't be delivered any more elegantly than this.”
(Rich Cline, Shadows on the Wall)

• Friday 4 November for 1 week

TIM BURTON’S CORPSE BRIDE (PG)

(UK 2005) dirs.Tim Burton & Mike Johnson 77m. Animation.
Voices of Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Emily Watson, Tracey Ullman, Paul Whitehouse, Joanna Lumley, Albert Finney, Richard E. Grant, Christopher Lee.

“This macabre musical is an endearingly schizoid Frankenstein of a movie, by turns relentlessly high-spirited and darkly poignant. Burton works best when his wickedly off-kilter sensibility is filtered through a deliberately constricted visual and tonal range. Here Burton, co-director Mike Johnson and production designer Alex McDowell have done just that, using stop-motion animation to create a visually restrained yet richly expressionistic Victorian-era milieu. It's a dazzlingly immersive and cinematic rendering of repression that extends the promise of creepy good fun. Snazzy opening number introduces two sets of parents, the snooty old-money Everglots and the nouveaux riches Van Dorts, whose respective offspring are being forced into holy, if money-motivated, matrimony. Shy, sensitive Victor Van Dort (Johnny Depp) is a remarkably gifted pianist, a talent that enchants his betrothed, the lovely but equally timid Victoria Everglot (Emily Watson). The only hitch: The nervous groom is having trouble memorizing his vows. A spectacularly grim misunderstanding occurs when Victor, walking alone in the forest at night practicing his lines, happens to recite his vows over a dead woman's grave. In a scene that playfully recycles the ending of CARRIE, Victor finds himself, face to rotting face, with the titular bride, who is instantly smitten with her new hubby and whisks him off to the underworld. Voiced by Helena Bonham Carter with equal parts tenderness and matter-of-fact tartness, the Corpse Bride herself is a beguilingly beautiful creation; it's no exaggeration to say death becomes her. Voice work is aces. Burton's perennial muse Depp is in fine, self-effacing form as Victor; Joanna Lumley is a hoot as the outrageously snotty Maudeline Everglot; and Richard E. Grant is sneeringly good as wedding crasher Lord Barkis.”
(Justin Chang, Variety)

• Friday 4 November for 1 week

BATTLE IN HEAVEN (18)

(Mexico 2005) dir.Carlos Reygadas 98m. Subtitles.
Marcos Hernandez, Anapola Mushkadiz, Bertha Ruiz, David Bornstein, Rosalinda Ramirez.

"The story opens starkly on the naked body of a flabby middle-aged man, on whom a beautiful young woman is graphically performing fellatio. Since they're isolated against a neutral background, the scene has a surreal, abstract quality, which is not put into any possible narrative context until a matching shot ends the film. The unprepossessing man turns out to be the film's principal character. Marcos (Marcos Hernandez) is a driver for the family of an army general. He and his wife (Berta Ruiz), who sells cakes and alarm clocks in a Mexico City underpass, have kidnapped a baby, but the child accidentally died that morning. The child's death shakes Marcos to the core, and the film is about his inner struggle to come to terms with his conscience. Over and over again, audience expectations about what the characters are like, what they feel and what they will do are systematically overturned. The main actors are superbly cast in these difficult parts. Though he shows very little expression, Hernandez's humanity shines through every scene. As his wife, Ruiz defeats all preconceptions with her sheer physical presence. Much of the film's soulful beauty stems from the cinematography by Diego Martinez Vignatti, used with enormous care and parsimony. Music, too, plays a key role in Reygadas' vision of man on earth, using pumped-up excerpts from John Taverner and Bach to show a hidden grandeur behind the most mundane images."
(Deborah young, Variety)

• Friday 11 November for 2 weeks

THE CONSTANT GARDENER (15)

(US/UK 2005) dir.Fernando Meirelles 129m.
Ralph Fiennes, Rachel Weisz, Danny Huston, Bill Nighy, Hubert Koundé, Pete Postlethwaite, Gerard McSorley, Richard McCabe, Archie Panjabi, Donald Sumpter, Anneke Kim Sarnau, Rupert Simonian.

“In adapting John le Carré’s novel, Meirelles more than lives up to the promise of his brilliant debut CITY OF GOD. This is one of the most gripping and powerfully moving thrillers in memory; absolutely everything about this film works perfectly. Justin Quayle (Ralph Fiennes) is an unassuming British diplomat in Kenya who loves working in his garden. When his activist wife Tessa (Rachel Weisz) is murdered, he sets off to find out what happened to her. Along the way he discovers things about his wife he never knew, and uncovers the conspiracy she was tenaciously trying to expose – poverty, Aids, government inaction and drug company greed. Soon Justin's colleagues (Danny Huston and Bill Nighy), a company owner (Gerard McSorley) and a spy (Donald Sumpter) are all warning him to stop digging. Due to Meirelles' thrillingly inventive direction, the story's three layers balance flawlessly – conspiracy thriller, romantic drama and global-political exposé. Cinematographer César Charlone captures the vivid, raw character of every setting, as well as the emotions experienced by the cast. Editor Claire Simpson assembles the story out of sequence to maximum impact – the film echoes and swirls as it builds to several gut punches. We also get the very best out of the cast. In addition to being a gripping thriller and a stirring love story, the film highlights events and situations taking place right now – injustice that slips beneath the radar of public conscience. It's a rare film that deserves all the attention – and awards – it gets.”
(Rich Cline, Shadows on the Wall)

• Friday 25 November for 2 weeks

HARRY POTTER AND THE GOBLET OF FIRE (12A)

(UK/US 2005) dir.Mike Newell 157m
Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson, Robbie Coltrane, Ralph Fiennes, Michael Gambon, Brendan Gleeson, Jason Isaacs, Gary Oldman, Alan Rickman, Maggie Smith.

Here comes the long awaited fourth instalment of the HARRY POTTER series. During the summer before entering his fourth year at Hogwarts, Harry’s been having strange dreams about men plotting murders. Meanwhile he gets the chance to go to the Quidditch World Cup with best friend Ron Weasley but his fun is soon spoilt when what is called the ‘Dark Mark’ appears over the stadium during the match. This is evidence that Voldemort's Death Eaters are gaining strength and that the Dark Lord is ready to rise again... Once back at school, Harry finds himself selected to compete in the TriWizard Tournament which will be hosted at Hogwarts. Student representatives from three different wizarding schools are to compete in a series of contests and Harry will meet the challenge of his life. Will he be able to keep up with school while competing for the TriWizard Tournament or will the challenges along with Voldemort's rebirth be too much for the young hero?