Just For Lookin' Thru

Written in 1621, The Changeling requires a modern audience to cast aside twenty-first century social and sexual politics. A pre-show talk by Nottingham Playhouse Theatre Company’s Steve Unwin explains that, far from being distressed, Beatrice-Joanna would have been honoured to have her husband chosen for her by her father, and that her disobedience would have struck contemporary audiences as deeply shocking. Days before her wedding to an unwanted suitor, the apparently indulged Beatrice-Joanna instead falls for Alsemero. An awkward situation, further complicated by her father’s devoted servant de Flores, who is obsessed with her. She repels de Flores until she decides to make him useful, asking him to kill her bridegroom and leave her free to marry Alsemero. It has not occurred to her that she has made a deal with the devil. To her horror, he refuses money but claims her as his reward, switching her from privileged and headstrong young woman to hapless victim. Not only a Jacobean reven...

Clooney is mesmerizing as smooth, smart fixer for a large corporate law firm in New York. He’s brought in to tidy up the mess when friend Arthur (Tom Wilkinson) appears to have a breakdown whilst working on a lengthy compensation case for an agro-chemical corporation. The case stinks; small farmers and their families have been poisoned by the company’s carcinogenic weed killer, and Arthur switches sides. He’s up against Karen (Tilda Swinton), ruthless boss of the agrochemical company. There are no caricatures and no clichés in this cracking, believable, suspense movie. It’s a fine character study of Clayton, who operates alone using an extensive network of legal contacts. Cool and adept on the job, he is distracted and inattentive when he’s with his bright and thoughtful son, and the boy provides a nice counterbalance to Clayton’s worldly effectiveness. Wilkinson is on superb form as a clever lawyer, suffering from mental health problems and overcome with guilt. The hi...

Desperately slow moving focus on Alain (Depardieu) and Marion (Cecile de France), with the camera lingering particularly lovingly on the latter. Her beautiful eyes are almost spellbinding but that doesn’t make for enough of a story. Alain is a singer and the cheesy material and excruciating lyrics are difficult to sit through. The film quality is grainy which makes it look like a home movie but does add to the seventies, downbeat, dance hall atmosphere. However, this simple drama about an older, fading, local celebrity, falling for a young, enigmatic woman is touching at times, mortifying at others, and Alain’s dogged pursuit of the obviously reluctant Marion is embarrassing. You just want to tell him to stop it and leave her alone. She is deeply troubled, suffering from a recent relationship break-up, and hardly ready to be wooed and won by an older, overweight man. Alain persists, is rejected, then seemingly toyed with as Marion develops an affection for him. Both charac...

Gripping quarry and pursuit movie for landscape junkies. Quality cinematography and direction keep the tension going throughout the lengthy chase after Gideon (Pierce Brosnan) by Carver (Liam Neeson) and his men. Starting high in snow covered mountains, the relentless hunt continues downriver as Gideon evades his pursuers, determined to survive not only them, but an embedded bullet, freezing, near drowning, starvation and thirst. He comes up with some ingenious but brutal survival techniques. The squeamish may need to look away at times; the camera spares no detail in this visceral and thrilling adventure. However, when Gideon gets down to a dried up riverbed in an arid landscape, (which looks like seasonal confusion, but is possibly symbolic) the story dries up too. There are some surreal references to Eastwood’s classic ‘The Outlaw Josey Wales’ in the inexplicable appearance of a medicine seller and a wise Indian in the desert which are plain silly. Possible nods to Josey Wa...