Rio Cinema

R I O P A R E N T S & B A B I E S C L U B

The Parents and Babies Club gives parents with babies a chance to visit the cinema, without having to find a baby sitter or worry about their babies causing a disturbance. The auditorium is lighter than usual, and there is a secure space for pushchairs. The Club is exclusively for parents with babies under one year old. Membership is free but you do need to sign up and receive a membership card to come to these screenings. You may join on the day, or email us: mail@riocinema.org.uk with your name, address, contact telephone number, your baby’s name and date of birth. Tickets are at the normal matinee price of £5.50 and £4.50 Concessions.

ENRON: THE SMARTEST GUYS IN THE ROOM • Tue 6 Jun 12.45

ENRON: THE SMARTEST GUYS IN THE ROOM (15)

(US 2005) dir.Alex Gibney 109m. Documentary.

“The corporate scandal of the century comes under the spotlight in ENRON: THE SMARTEST GUYS IN THE ROOM, a movie that's as much disaster flick as documentary. Likened by one interviewee to ‘a house of cards built over a pool of gasoline’, US energy giant Enron went from boom to bankruptcy in the space of 18 months, brought down by hubris and hokey accounting. With Oscar-nominated clarity and verve, director Alex Gibney lays out the whole gory story. He isn't the first one to tell it: the film is based on Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind's bestseller of the same name. The potentially dry material makes a smooth transition from page to screen. With Michael Moore-like savvy, Gibney accommodates the audience with pacey editing, lush cinematography and even an ear-pleasing soundtrack. Despite these feature comforts, you'll be left shocked and sobered by the calamity that unfolds. At the front of the firing line are Enron execs Ken Lay (nicknamed 'Kenny Boy' by George W Bush) and Jeff Skilling, who led the Houston-based company (America's seventh largest) as it cooked the books on a scale that in 2001 cost thousands of employees their jobs and retirement funds. Yet there are several others named and shamed (sometimes implicitly); it all adds up to a piercing indictment of an out-of-control corporate culture that feeds on greed. You won't believe your ears when you hear audiotapes of traders fiddling with California's energy crisis like it's a game of Battleships. Alas, this is an all-too-true cautionary tale for the 21st century.”
(Matthew Leyland, BBCi Films)

£5.50/£4.50 Concs/£3.00 OAP’s

BRICK • Thur 8 Jun 12.45

BRICK (15)

(US 2005) dir.Rian Johnson 110m.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Lukas Haas, Nora Zehetner, Noah Segan, Noah Fleiss, Emilie de Ravin, Meagan Good, Matt O'Leary, Richard Roundtree, Brian White, Lucas Babin.

“The last year has given us several contemporary spins on the genre: self-referential pastiche in KISS KISS BANG BANG, comic-book ultraviolence in SIN CITY and now, with BRICK, a patter-heavy gumshoe procedural with a high-school setting. The plot is as chewy as the genre demands, with Brendan setting out to find and then avenge his drug-using ex Emily after he receives an uncharacteristic plea for help. True to noir form, his pursuit takes him across boundaries of high, low and outlaw society, with an archetypal rogue’s gallery mapped on to the high school ecosystem with satisfying facility. But it’s Gordon-Levitt who cements the whole thing: understated to the point of near-invisibility, his Brendan still has killer smarts, balls of steel, a natty line in put-downs and the shrugging acknowledgement of all Hammett-style heroes that the price of knowledge is violence visited on the body. BRICK is surprisingly plausible. Shooting on his home turf of southern California, Johnson eschews conventionally noirish cityscapes for flat, muted expanses and exploits the sinister potential of the everyday, generating almost Lynchian unease through the sense of unspeakable secrets eavesdropped upon. This is heightened by the film’s canny use of sound. It’s a characteristic moment: violent, chuckling and insisting to be taken on its own terms.”
(Ben Walters, Time Out)

£5.50/£4.50 Concs/£3.00 OAP’s

• Tue 13 Jun 12.45

JUNEBUG (15)

(US 2006) dir.Phil Morrison 106m.
Embeth Davidtz, Amy Adams, Ben McKenzie, Alessandro Nivola, Celia Weston.

“Chicago art dealer Madeleine meets her husband's North Carolina family for the first time but she can't quite leave her urban sensibilities or professional ambitions behind. A slow-paced but witty character study, this is Phil Morrison's first feature which takes the staid family reunion theme and gives it a shine with fresh insights and wry observations. There's a bittersweet tang here too, heightened by Amy Adams' Oscar-nominated performance as a naïve young mother-to-be. George hasn't seen his family in three years and for most of the time he lurks in the background, mentioned more than seen. So the focus is on the budding relationship between Madeleine and sister-in-law Ashley, another outsider sucked into the family by marriage to Johnny. Adams' star turn of hyperactivity and eternal optimism shrieks out, the polar opposite of Davidtz's trying-too-hard nervous tension. Writer Angus MacLachlan has spun a script of one-liners and heartfelt emotion that draws the ties and tensions between the family members with unerring accuracy.”
(Jamie Woolley, BBCi Films)

£5.50/£4.50 Concs/£3.00 OAP’s

• Thur 15 Jun 1.15

THE SQUID AND THE WHALE (15)

(US 2006) dir.Noah Baumbach 81m.
Jeff Daniels, Laura Linney, Jesse Eisenberg, Owen Kline, William Baldwin.

“Hilarious and humane, this is a terrific tragi-comedy exploring the fall-out from a mid-80s divorce. Drawing on his own background, writer/director Noah Baumbach brings an unflinching ring of truth to this tale of two Brooklyn brothers struggling to come to terms with the acrimonious break-up between their writer parents. From self-delusion to self-abuse, Baumbach captures his characters' traumas to a tee. All the performances hit the mark, but special praise has to go to Daniels for bringing a bedraggled pathos to the astoundingly pompous Frank, a figure who'd be flat-out hateful in another actor's hands. Baumbach nails the period perfectly with nods to everything from Tangerine Dream to Blue Velvet; but this is just the icing on a cake that's stacked with layers of bittersweet empathy. You'll laugh, you'll wince, you'll wonder why films twice this long are rarely half as good.”
(Matthew Leyland, BBCi Films)

£5.50/£4.50 Concs/£3.00 OAP’s

WAH-WAH • Tue 20 Jun 1.00

WAH-WAH (15)

(UK 2006) dir.Richard E Grant 99m.
Gabriel Byrne, Emily Watson, Julie Walters, Nicholas Hoult, Miranda Richardson, Zachary Fox, Celia Imrie.

“For his writing-directing debut, actor Grant puts his childhood on screen. This is a deeply personal story about growing up under the microscope of an expat community. In 1969 Swaziland, young Ralph watches helplessly as his mother Lauren runs off with another man. His father Harry, unable to cope, sends Ralph away to boarding school. A few years later Ralph returns to find an American stepmother Ruby stirring up things in the frightfully proper ‘hubbly-jubbly, wah-wah’ English enclave, as Britain prepares to hand the nation back to its king. Stress about his job, and continuing feelings for Lauren, drive Harry to drink. The entire cast is superb. Watson and Byrne are especially strong, creating intriguingly layered characters. Grant directs in a dusty, scruffy 1970s style that makes the most of his locations; it was filmed completely in Swaziland, which seems untouched by time. The relationships are so bracingly recognisable that the film will be difficult for some to watch – snobbery, feuding, indiscretions, denial, fury. And in the end, it's a remarkable ode to both an imperfect father and an emerging nation.”
(Rich Cline, Shadows on the Wall)

£5.50/£4.50 Concs/£3.00 OAP’s

OFFSIDE • Thur 22 Jun 1.00

OFFSIDE (PG)

(Iran 2006) dir.Jafar Panahi 91m. Subtitles.
Sima Mobarak-Shahi, Shayesteh Irani, Ayda Sadeqi, Golnaz Farmani, Mahnaz Zabihi
Nazanin Sediq-zadeh, Melika Shafahi, Safdar Samandar.

“Teenage girls, all ardent soccer fans, masquerade as boys to crash the Iran-Bahrain game at Tehran stadium in the hilariously offbeat OFFSIDE. In his most accessible and spontaneous picture, ranking Iranian director Jafar Panahi reveals unsuspected comic gifts barely visible in his dramatic festival winners THE WHITE BALLOON, THE CIRCLE, and CRIMSON GOLD. Providing continuity is the strong underlying social theme of mistreated femmes deprived of basic rights – here, the right to root for their team. Even as it cleverly spotlights the absurdity of Iran's strict segregation policies toward the female sex, OFFSIDE also describes a surprisingly rebellious world of young people who are not ready to buy into their country's imposed social values. The ensemble acting by the non-pro cast relies on each girl embodying a different type, from the gentle schoolgirl doing something naughty to the masculine toughie who looks and talks like a boy. Each is so comically down-to-earth she effortlessly grabs audience sympathy. The film's great virtue is its spontaneity, very different from the careful control of the director's earlier work, but very much in synch with the hypercharged stadium atmosphere.”
(Deborah Young, Variety)

£5.50/£4.50 Concs & Under 15’s/£3.00 OAP’s

THE WIND THAT SHAKES THE BARLEY • Tue 27 Jun 12.30

THE WIND THAT SHAKES THE BARLEY (15)

(UK/Ireland 2006) dir.Ken Loach 127m.
Cillian Murphy, Pádraic Delaney, Liam Cunningham, Orla Fitzgerald, Laurence Barry, Damian Kearney, Roger Allam, John Crean, Frank Rourke, Myles Horgan, Mary Riordan.

Acclaimed director Ken Loach sticks to what he does best: telling political and family-led stories with a masterly touch. Ireland 1920: workers from field and country unite to form volunteer guerrilla armies to face the ruthless Black and Tan squads that are being shipped from Britain to block Ireland’s bid for independence. Driven by a deep sense of duty and a love for his country, Damien abandons his burgeoning career as a doctor and joins his brother Teddy in a dangerous and violent fight for freedom. Despite the apparent victory, civil war erupts and people, who fought side by side, find themselves pitted against one another, putting their loyalties to the ultimate test. Filmed on location in county Cork, this is Loach’s first period film since LAND AND FREEDOM (1995) and there are definitely similarities between this new film and that earlier story of internal struggle among freedom fighters during the Spanish Civil War. A tense, absorbing and deeply moving approach to a very difficult story, nothing makes it clearer how complicated the issues in Ireland have always been. Excellent storytelling and superb acting – an unforgettable film and winner of the Palme d’Or at Cannes.

£5.50/£4.50 Concs/£3.00 OAP’s

• Tue 4 Jul 12.45

BALLETS RUSSES (PG)

(US 2006) dirs.Daniel Geller & Dayna Goldfine 119m. Documentary.

“To those, like me, who know nothing about ballet, this is unexpectedly riveting stuff: the story of how the world's greatest ballet company carried on after the death of Serge Diaghilev in the 1920s, and how great performers, musicians, designers and choreographers took the message of ballet all around the world. Basically, the brand-name splintered: two opposing impresarios managed the Ballet Russe of Monte Carlo and the ‘original’ Ballet Russe. One ran out of money; the other shrewdly hired American dancers and gained a foothold in Hollywood. Both companies found that they were inspiring other, competing outfits everywhere, which undermined their monopoly. This movie has wonderful, moving interviews with the elderly dancers now – sprightly in their 80s and 90s and still passionate about their art.” (Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian)

£5.50/£4.50 Concs & Under 15’s/£3.00 OAP’s

THE WIND THAT SHAKES THE BARLEY • Thur 6 Jul 12.30

THE WIND THAT SHAKES THE BARLEY (15)

£5.50/£4.50 Concs/£3.00 OAP’s

• Tue 11 Jul 1.00

TRANSAMERICA (15)

(US 2005) dir.Duncan Tucker 103m.
Felicity Huffman, Kevin Zegers, Fionnula Flanagan, Elizabeth Peña, Graham Greene.

“Huffman, best known as the Desperate Housewife, has now given a miraculously relaxed and witty performance as Bree, a man-to-woman pre-op transsexual tensely waiting for her therapist to sign off on crucial permission to have the final surgery performed on her penis. On the very eve of this procedure, she receives a phone call from a New York police station, asking if she will stand bail for a young man she fathered by a one-night stand 17 years ago. So Bree is forced to travel to New York to get Toby out of jail, and travel with him cross-country to Los Angeles. The film is an absolute delight, and Huffman is a treat.” (Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian)