Search Results

Season 2005/06

18 films shown in 2005/06, ordered by overall ratings.

Hotel Rwanda

09 Mar 2006 - 8pm - Plaza

UK/USA/South Africa/Italy - 2004 - Terry George - 122 mins

Summary: The first mainstream film to deal with the Rwandan genocide tells the true story of the hotel manager who saved hundreds of people from the slaughter. The focus on his heroics, and the wider critique of the cowardice of Western leaders who refused to intervene, convey powerful emotional and political messages

Ratings: A: 83 | B: 13 | C: 2 | D: 0 | E: 0 | Overall: 95.7

Twin Sisters

26 Jan 2006 - 7pm - Corn Exchange

Netherlands/Luxemburg - 135 mins - Ben Sombogaart - 135 mins

Summary: German twin sisters are separated at the age of six and their lives become mirror images – one in a comfortable Dutch household, the other overworked and abused on a German farm. When they re-unite, they struggle to overcome their divergent backgrounds and beliefs. An engaging epic drama of nature versus nurture

Ratings: A: 95 | B: 35 | C: 7 | D: 0 | E: 0 | Overall: 91.1

Motorcycle Diaries

08 Sep 2005 - 7pm - Corn Exchange

UK/USA/France - 2003 - Walter Salles - 112 mins

Summary: Based on Che Guevara's journal of his travels through South america on an ancient Norton 500 with a fellow student. Walter Salles' film is much more than a road movie. The Andes and Amazon landscapes are spectacular, but the real journey is Guevara's transformation from callow medical student to committed revolutionary.

Ratings: A: 82 | B: 45 | C: 2 | D: 0 | E: 0 | Overall: 90.5

Downfall

13 Oct 2005 - 7pm - Corn Exchange

Germany/Austria/Italy - 2004 - Oliver Hirschbeigel - 155 mins

Summary: This carefully researched account of the last days of the Third Reich is based on the memoirs of Hilter's personal secretary, who watches the swift decline from omnipotent Fuher to paranoia and suicide. Bruno Ganz's extraordinary performance humanises the monster, in a film that seems terrifyly real and immediate.

Ratings: A: 66 | B: 22 | C: 10 | D: 3 | E: 0 | Overall: 87.4

Machuca

22 Sep 2005 - 7pm - Corn Exchange

Chile/Spain/France/UK - 2004 - Andres Wood - 121 mins

Summary: Chile in 1973 - two boys divided by class become friends. But their relationship is threatened by a classmate's feminine charms, as well as by the political turmoil of the fall of Allende and the establishment of the military junta. This is a sesitive and accomplished coming-of-age story.

Ratings: A: 72 | B: 49 | C: 12 | D: 1 | E: 0 | Overall: 85.8

Being Julia

03 Nov 2005 - 8pm - Plaza

Canada/UK/Hungary/USA - 2004 - Istvan Szabo - 104 mins

Summary: Annette Benning is stunning as the aging stage diva seeking rejunvenation through an affair with a young fan, and then revenge when a younger actress threatens to steal him. This comedy drama, based on a Somerset Maugham story, delivers its messages about power, identity and deceit with a wicked wit.

Ratings: A: 89 | B: 46 | C: 16 | D: 2 | E: 2 | Overall: 85.0

The Keys to the House

12 Jan 2006 - 7pm - Corn Exchange

Italy/Germany/France/UK - 2004 - Gianni Amelio - 111 mins

Summary: A father who has never met his physically and mentally disabled is forced to re-examine his life when he has to take the boy to a clinic abroad. The film avoids being sentimental and depressing through humour. great central performances and a focus on the pressures and pain facing the parents of disabled children

Ratings: A: 63 | B: 49 | C: 11 | D: 1 | E: 1 | Overall: 84.4

Only Human

08 Dec 2005 - 7pm - Corn Exchange

Spain/UK/Argentina/Portugal - 89 mins - Dominic Harari - 89 mins

Summary: This Spanish farce begins with the return of an actress to her Jewish home, with her new boyfriend who is fatally clumsy – and Palestinian. In a household of simmering tensions and eccentric stereotypes, things can only get hilariously worse. “The sort of thing Basil Fawlty might get into if he married Manuel’s sister” (The Guardian)

Ratings: A: 55 | B: 52 | C: 11 | D: 0 | E: 0 | Overall: 84.3

My House in Umbria

19 Jan 2006 - 8pm - Plaza

USA/UK/Italy - 2003 - Richard Loncraine - 103 mins

Summary: Maggie Smith won an Emmy for her performance as a romantic novelist who invites her fellow survivors of a terrorist bomb blast to recuperate at her villa. Based on a William Trevor story, the film shows the enriching, then shattering effect of these events on her lonely life

Ratings: A: 70 | B: 49 | C: 19 | D: 1 | E: 0 | Overall: 83.9

The Story of the Weeping Camel

23 Mar 2006 - 7pm - Corn Exchange

Germany/Mongolia - 2003 - Byambasuren Davaa - 90 mins

Summary: This fascinating docudrama, in the tradition of Robert Flaherty’s Nanook of the North, follows a family of Mongolian camel-herders who use music and ritual to establish the bond between a new-born colt and its recalcitrant mother. A bizarre and affecting picture of another world – harsh, yet harmonious

Ratings: A: 42 | B: 40 | C: 12 | D: 2 | E: 1 | Overall: 80.9

The Edukators

24 Nov 2005 - 7pm - Corn Exchange

Germany/Austria - 2004 - Hans Weingartner - 129 mins

Summary: The star of Goodbye Lenin reappears as a young, idealistic anti-capitalist whose gentle activism – breaking into rich people’s houses and re-arranging the furniture – gets out of hand as a result of an almost accidental kidnapping. Love triangle, hostage drama, political satire and wry comedy – all in one

Ratings: A: 48 | B: 50 | C: 20 | D: 0 | E: 0 | Overall: 80.9

My Summer of Love

06 Oct 2005 - 8pm - Plaza

UK - 2004 - Pavel Pawlikowski - 86 mins

Summary: Pawlikowski, director of Last Resort, uses an almost documentary technique for this study of an intense summer friendship between two teenage girls. The unfolding drama is set in exotically sunlit Yorkshire landscapes, with rich dialogue and superbly natural acting, creating what the director calls" mythic British realism"

Ratings: A: 51 | B: 69 | C: 22 | D: 4 | E: 2 | Overall: 77.5

Bad Education

09 Feb 2006 - 7pm - Corn Exchange

Spain - 2004 - Pedro Almodovar - 105 mins

Summary: Almodóvar’s latest film is as absorbing and sensuous as his previous work. Its focal point – the affair of two schoolboys and its destruction by an abusive priest – is refracted through fantasy, flashback, deceit and illusion, producing a complex comic melodrama. Occasionally shocking – endlessly intriguing

Ratings: A: 25 | B: 55 | C: 18 | D: 7 | E: 2 | Overall: 72.0

Comme une Image

10 Nov 2005 - 7pm - Corn Exchange

France/Italy - 2004 - Agnes Jaoui - 111 mins

Summary: A heavenly choral soundtrack accompanies this study of a young Parisian chanteuse whose self-esteem is challenged by her obsessions with her weight and her abilities, and by the indifference of her self-absorbed father, a successful novelist. Intelligent, humane, understated, funny – and very French

Ratings: A: 36 | B: 59 | C: 32 | D: 7 | E: 5 | Overall: 70.5

Mean Creek

02 Feb 2006 - 8pm - Plaza

USA - 2004 - Jacob Aaron Estes - 90 mins

Summary: An elaborate plan to teach the loudmouth school bully a lesson spins out of control, facing a close-knit group of friends with a string of difficult moral decisions. Confident and credible performances by the young actors create powerful suspense and a poignant feeling of inevitability

Ratings: A: 22 | B: 57 | C: 25 | D: 6 | E: 3 | Overall: 69.7

In Your Hands

27 Oct 2005 - 7pm - Corn Exchange

Denmark - 2003 - Annette K Olesen - 101 mins

Summary: The tenth - and reportedly last - Danish Dogme film is set in a women's prison, where a newly qualified chaplin must deal with the moral and spiritual dilemmas presented by an inmate, reputed to have superhuman powers, whose unborn child has a chromosome defect. Dark and challenging but not without humour.

Ratings: A: 23 | B: 41 | C: 36 | D: 4 | E: 3 | Overall: 68.0

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

15 Sep 2005 - 8pm - Plaza

USA - 2004 - Michel Gondry - 107 mins

Summary: The title comes from Alexander Pope, the screenplay from Charlie Kaufman (creator of Being John Malkovitch). The film focuses on two contrasted - or incompatible - lovers and the tempation to use a bizarre experimental technique to delete their memories of each other. Funny, original, unsentimental and more than a little absurd.

Ratings: A: 29 | B: 30 | C: 29 | D: 10 | E: 12 | Overall: 62.3

Consequences of Love

23 Feb 2006 - 7pm - Corn Exchange

Italy - 2004 - Paolo Sorrentino - 104 mins

Summary: This unusual psychological thriller gradually reveals the hidden life of a man who lives invisibly and without purpose in a Swiss hotel. Events force him to abandon his suave façade and to start behaving and feeling like a human again. A stylish Italian drama with an unexpected conclusion and a brilliant central performance