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Dir: Todd Solondz
With: Jordan Gelber, Mia Farrow
Running time: 84 minutes
TODD Solondz, purveyor of comedy bleaker than the grave, returns after the misfire that was Life During Wartime with this enjoyably anarchic tale.
Abe (Jordan Gelber) excels at being a loser. Well past 30, he is still living with his parents (Christopher Walken, Mia Farrow), working for his dad, and collecting toys. Then into his life stumbles Miranda (Selma Blair), a woman even more messed up than Abe. Can true love win the day? This being a Solondz (Happiness, Welcome to the Dollhouse) movie, what do you reckon? Outrageously gloomy, and of course it goes too far, but this is Solondz back on form for a comedy like no other.
DCA, Dundee, from tomorrow-Sunday; Glasgow Film Theatre, August 10-12.
Salute (15)
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Dir: Matt Norman
Running time: 120 minutes
THE story of John Carlos and Tommie Smith's black power salute at the 1968 Mexico Olympics is rightly the stuff of political legend, but what of the third man on the podium that day, Australian athlete Peter Norman? Matt Norman (Peter's nephew) tells the rest of the story, and what a belter it turns out to be. Weaving together the excitement of the games and the tempestuous political times of the late 1960s, Salute is a fitting and terrific tribute to a trio of true Olympic heroes.
Filmhouse, Edinburgh, July 24-26.
Nostalgia for the Light (12A)
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Dir: Patricio Guzman
Running time: 90 minutes
THIS enthralling documentary from Patricio Guzman is full of surprises, and many moving moments besides.
It begins as a meditation on the past and the origins of life, before slowly changing into a look at Chile's haunted history, pre and post revolution.
Guzman, filming in the Atacama desert, manages to establish a link between the archaeologists and astronomers who scour the desert and the skies for meaning, and the relatives of Pinochet's "disappeared" who comb the sands for the remains of their loved ones.
The desert images are stunning, but its the human tales that prove to be the most breathtaking of all.
Glasgow Film Theatre, tomorrow-July 22.
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