Sunday afternoons are special at the Rio. The Double Bill Matinees are a chance to see two brilliant recent, classic or special release films at excellent value – two for the price of one! That’s two films for just £7.50 (£5.50 Concs). A perfect way to spend a Sunday afternoon.

Sun 2 Apr • Double bill

FAMILIA RODANTE (15) 1.30

(Argentina 2004) dir.Pablo Trapero 103m. Subtitles.
Graciana Chironi, Liliana Capurro, Ruth Dobel, Federico Esquerro, Bernardo Forteza.

“Having reaped great acclaim with CRANE WORLD and EL BONAERENSE, Argentinian writer-director Pablo Trapero ups the ante with one of the finest films released here this year. Emilia (Graciana Chirino) is feeding pets and preparing for a visit by family and friends to celebrate her 84th birthday. At the party there’s a surprise call from a forgotten cousin, inviting her to be matron of honour at a wedding in the village of her birth. Cue for the entire clan – four generations (if one includes a new baby) – to pile into her son-in-law’s ancient camper van and make the long, often testing trip from Buenos Aires to the Brazilian border. Trapero brings much deliciously gentle, telling humour to the movie, which often feels like Altman at his most gleefully wayward and witty. A film of subtlety and wisdom, a shaggy-dog story about learning to deal with disappointment, compromise, confusion and loss: learning, in short, to survive life in all its painful truth and beauty.” (Geoff Andrew, Time Out)

+ TICKETS (15) 3.35

(Italy/UK/Iran 2005) dirs.Abbas Kiarostami, Ken Loach & Ermanno Olmi 110m.
Carlo Delle Piane, Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, Blerta Cahani, Sanije Dedja, Silvana De Santis, Aishe Gjuriqi, Klajdi Qorraj, William Ruane, Martin Compston, Gary Maitland.

“Romantic reveries, comic clashes and dicey dilemmas: they're all aboard the winning TICKETS, a train-journey triptych from three leading arthouse auteurs. It pulls out of the station at a relatively slow chug with Ermanno Olmi's study of wistful thinking, but then gets up to speed via Abbas Kiarostami's loose and lively tale of a young man and a general's widow. And lastly we're upgraded to first class for Ken Loach's turn in the driver's seat, which reunites the stars of Sweet Sixteen in an exuberant moral fable. Olmi's opener sees an aged biochemist (Carlo Delle Piane) daydreaming of a dishy PA (Valeria Bruni Tedeschi). The real gems commence when the baton's passed to Iran's Abbas Kiarostami. With its witty reversals and standout performance from Silvana De Santis – a bumptious old bat forever yanking on her reluctant helper's (Filippo Trojano) leash – this centrepiece sweeps the silver medal. But the gold goes to Blighty's own Ken Loach, at the top of his game with the story of three footy fans (SWEET SIXTEEN's Martin Compston, William Ruane and Gary Maitland) who must decide whether an immigrant family is on the make or in dire straits. It's so warm, vital and gut-achingly hilarious that it emerges as reason alone for any right-minded person to bound up to the box office and cry, "Tickets, please!’”
(Matthew Leyland, BBCi Films)

Sun 9 Apr • Billy Wilder double bill

SUNSET BOULEVARD (PG) 1.30

(US 1950) dir.Billy Wilder 106m.
Gloria Swanson, William Holden, Erich von Stroheim, Buster Keaton.

“If the finest things in life are written on an empty stomach, as an agent claims here, Billy Wilder and Charles Brackett must have been ravenous when they penned SUNSET BOULEVARD. Not so much biting the hand that fed them as devouring both arms, their gothic melodrama remains the bitterest attack ever launched on Hollywood. This is both a savage indictment of the star system, and an all-too-knowing depiction of a writer's impotence in Hollywood. Get ready for your close-up with the finest movie ever made about the narcissistic hellhole that is Hollywood.”
(Adrian Hennigan BBCi Films)

+ DOUBLE INDEMNITY (PG) 3.40

(US 1944) dir.Billy Wilder 107m. Re-release.
Fred MacMurray, Barbara Stanwyck, Edward G. Robinson, Porter Hall, Jean Heather, Tom Powers, Byron Barr, Richard Gaines, Fortunio Bonanova, John Philliber.

“If you like your dialogue hardboiled, your lighting shadowy, and your femmes fatales preposterously evil, then look no further: Billy Wilder's 1944 adaptation of James M Cain's insurance-scam novella. Doorstepping salesman Walter Neff becomes the archetypal schnook caught in a man-trap of greed and gullibility after knocking on the door of Phyllis Dietrichson; his ability to anticipate the moves of accident investigators is the secret weapon in their attempt to off her husband and score a $50,000 payday simultaneously. Despite their exquisitely constructed exchanges, it's Edward G Robinson, as the bulldog sniffer-out of phoney claims Barton Keyes, who really grabs the eye now. His powerhouse, cigar-chomping performance makes him by far the most vivid creation on show.”
(Andrew Pulver, The Guardian)

Sun 16 Apr • Double bill

NORTH COUNTRY (15) 1.30

(US 2005) dir.Niki Caro 126m.
Charlize Theron, Elle Peterson, Thomas Curtis, Frances McDormand, Sean Bean, Woody Harrelson, Jeremy Renner, Richard Jenkins, Sissy Spacek, James Cada, Rusty Schwimmer.

“Inspired by a real-life sexual harassment case, the story of mineworker Josey Aimes, this is a bold and well-judged piece of work by the director of WHALE RIDER, Niki Caro. She lends a stark edge to what could have been a too-slick courtroom thriller. But it's Charlize Theron who really provides the backbone with her trademark balance of grit and vulnerability.”
(Stella Papamichael, BBCi Films)

+ WALK THE LINE (12A) 4.00

(US 2005) dir.James Mangold 136m.
Joaquin Phoenix, Reese Witherspoon, Ginnifer Goodwin, Robert Patrick, Shelby Lynne.

“There's a warm and generous richness to this biopic of country singing legend Johnny Cash; you'd need a heart of stone not to love it, and toes of stone not to tap along to the music's driving force. Cash and country singer June Carter are here played by Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon, who also do a very impressive job of singing all the songs.”
(Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian)

Sun 23 Apr • Double bill

DEAD MAN (18) 2.00

(US 1995) dir.Jim Jarmusch 120m.
Johnny Depp, Gary Farmer, John Hurt, John North, Robert Mitchum, Gabriel Byrne, Iggy Pop, Billy Bob Thornton, Jared Harris, Alfred Molina.

“A bizarre, funny, almost mystical take on the Western, Jarmusch's film charts the sentimental education of a clerk, William Blake, when he travels out West and finds himself, after an unexpected violent incident, pursued by vicious bounty hunters and taken up by a decidedly eccentric Indian who believes his new friend is the English visionary poet. Looser in structure than the director's earlier work, but pervaded with the same deadpan humour and superb imagery, this is an original and very weird account of the American wilderness. Haunting electric guitar score by Neil Young.”
(Geoff Andrew, Time Out)

+ THE PROPOSITION (18) 4.25

(Australia 2005) dir.John Hillcoat 104m.
Tom Budge, Guy Pearce, Emily Watson, Ray Winstone, David Wenham, John Hurt, David Gulpil, Leah Purcell, Richard Wilson, Tommy Lewis.

“A beautifully shot tracker’s western that brings the Fordian poles of garden and desert to bear on the bushrangers’ Outback, this is also a revenge drama of substantial horror – little surprise given that its writer is Nick Cave. Following his capture in a bravura opening shoot-out, outlaw Charlie Burns (accepts Captain Stanley’s proposition to hunt down his psychopathic elder brother Arthur in exchange for their runtish younger brother’s life. The songwriter’s familiar marriage of Old Testament retribution narrative and Romantic engagement with nature and the self is well-served by Benoit Delhomme’s infernal red-yellow photography, and well-suited to the western form. The obscene absurdity of the settler project is enough in itself to prompt sympathy for its outlaws, with Pearce’s expressive face bearing largely mute, bewildered witness to the horrors it sparks.”
(Ben Walters, Time Out)

Sun 30 Apr • East End Film Festival

See Special Screenings

Sun 7 May • Double bill

BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY’S (PG) 1.30

(US 1961) dir.Blake Edwards 114m.
Audrey Hepburn, George Peppard, Patricia Neal, Martin Balsam, Mickey Rooney.

"It's with good reason that 40 years after appearing as Holly Golightly, Audrey Hepburn – cigarette-holder in hand, subtly streaked hair pinned high – is still a poster icon for those aspiring to the kind of classy romance that doesn't seem to exist anymore. In Blake Edwards' hands the story is lighter than the Truman Capote novel on which it was based, but he manages to add some trademark humour and keep the romance sweet. TIFFANY’S is actually one of the few films not to be greatly harmed by its flaws. Audrey Hepburn is delicious as Holly and the Henry Mancini score is in the class of elite soundtracks.”
(Emma Cochrane, Empire)

+ CAPOTE (15) 3.45

(US 2005) dir.Bennett Miller 114m.
Philip Seymour Hoffman, Catherine Keener, Clifton Collins Jr, Chris Cooper, Mark Pellegrino.

“In 1959, at the beginning of this film, Philip Seymour Hoffman’s Truman Capote announces that ‘I find autobiographical stories at this juncture in my life to be quite boring’. Accordingly, the darling of the Manhattan cocktail set embarks on an ambitious project which would, as he hoped, change the way writers wrote: the ‘non-fiction novel’. The material Capote chose was the murder in rural Kansas of the Clutter family; the resulting book, ‘In Cold Blood’, was his greatest achievement. Its authorial voice scrupulously avoids overt opinionating, but the triumph of director Miller, writer Dan Futterman and particularly Hoffman – who gives one of the best performances of the decade – is to suggest that the case is most fruitfully read in the context of Capote’s own life, and as an ultimately self-damning exercise of ego. Even as you marvel at Truman’s narcissism it’s no great struggle to feel his distress, see his grip on the ever-present tumbler of booze tighten.”
(Ben Walters, time Out)

Sun 14 May • Double bill

FAVELA RISING (12A) 1.45

(US 2005) dirs.Jeff Zimbalist & Matt Mochary 82m. Subtitles. Documentary.

“Vividly shot on digital video in the streets of Rio, FAVELA RISING tells the inspirational story of Anderson Sa, a former drug dealer in the notorious district of Vigario Geral, who galvanized his violence-plagued community by setting up the AfroReggae music and dance movement. Together with DJ Jose Junior, Anderson set up the AfroReggae group, which fused hip-hop, reggae and African-Brazilian sounds, played packed local concerts and later acquired an international record deal. Given that camera crews aren't exactly welcomed by the various gangs in Vigario Geral, Zimbalist and Mochary should be commended for presenting this candid perspective of favela life. Anderson's own efforts to rehabilitate himself after a life-threatening accident add further resonance, but above all FAVELA RISING is an important reminder of how human beings can unite to effect grass-roots social change.”
(Tom Dawson, BBCi Films) (FAVELA RISING is also showing on Sat 13 May at 2.00)

+ CITY OF GOD (18) 3.35

(Brazil 2002) dir.Fernando Meirelles 130m. Subtitles.
Alexandre Rodrigues, Leandro Firmino, Phellipe Haagensen, Douglas Silva, Seu Jorge.

“An intoxicating shot of cinematic adrenaline, CITY OF GOD is an apt allegory for the frantic fight for survival of the protagonists in this ferocious blast of gangster mayhem. Rocket narrates our journey into the slums of Rio de Janeiro, the City of God. A child of the 60s, he witnesses two decades of barbarity, greed, rape and revenge which fuel a catastrophic gang war. Shocking, frightening, thrilling and funny, this has the substance to match its lashings of style. Cinema doesn't get more exhilarating than this.”
(Nev Pierce, BBCi Films)

Sun 21 May • Single film

THE DA VINCI CODE (*) 2.15

See Main Features

Sun 28 May • Double bill

INNOCENCE (15) 1.00

(France 2004) dir.Lucile Hadzihalilovic 121m.
Zoé Auclair, Bérangère Haubruges, Léa Bridarolli, Marion Cotillard, Hélène de Fougerolles.

INNOCENCE is no ordinary boarding school movie. At the remote French institution in the woods which serves as the theatre for this creepy, beautiful and deliciously ambiguous film, little girls arrive (and sometimes leave) in coffins. It’s the arrival in this same sinister (and unexplained) fashion of 6-year-old Iris (Zoé Auclair) that first alerts us to the cycle of arrival, surprise, initiation, friendship, stewardship and departure that defines life in this shadowy, gothic, part-idyllic and part-horrific school – a place of few pupils, even fewer teachers and abundant lessons dedicated to dance. This gathering of impossibly childlike, impossibly angelic children works as a metaphor for childhood and the memory of it, growing up, fleeting comradeship, the onset of puberty and the bliss before sexual awakening. Ultimately, despite its sinister edge, this is an intelligent lament for youth lost, framed by a distinctive and fairytale vision of utopia. A debut of rare vision.”
(Dave Calhoun, Time Out)

+ THE CHILD (L’enfant) (12A) 3.20

(Belgium/France 2005) dirs.Jean-Pierre & Luc Dardenne 95m. Subtitles.
Jérémie Renier, Déborah François, Jérémie Segard, Fabrizio Rongione, Olivier Gourmet.

“Just who is the child? The obvious answer would be the newborn bairn that becomes the merchandise in a sleazy baby trafficking episode. But with Belgian auteurs the Dardenne brothers behind the camera, there are deeper levels to explore in another gripping construction of social realism. A more likely candidate for the title emerges in the form of the baby's father, petty crook Bruno (Jérémie Renier), who struggles to deal with the consequences of selling his first born. It's hard to empathise with such a blatantly self-centred individual but Renier's rakish charm is more than enough to carry the film. And when events finally push him towards redemption, it's as if an irresponsible but much-loved younger brother has finally managed to get back on the rails.”
(Jamie Woolley, BBCi Films)