Movies you can't afford to miss

For the aesthete...
CURSE OF THE GOLDEN FLOWER
Directed by Zhang Yimou. Starring Gong Li, Chow Yun Fat, Man Li. 118mins. Saturday February 24, 10.30am @ Cineworld
Pitched as The Lion In Winter with kung-fu, Zhang Yimou’s decadently lush period spectacle is based on Cao Yu’s 1934 drama Thunderstorm, but is set in the imperial court of the Later Tang Dynasty. Hong Kong superstar Chow Yun-Fat plays Emperor Ping, a noble lately returned from the wars right into a combative family. Zhang Yimou regular Gong Li plays Empress Phoenix, the wife Ping wishes to poison. She, meanwhile, is having an affair with the crown prince, one of three sons battling for supremacy within the court. Soon enough, the royal dysfunction spills onto the streets where thousands will die. Sound epic enough for you?

For your inner thug...
THIS IS ENGLAND
Directed by Shane Meadows. Starring Thomas Turgoose. 100mins. Sunday February 18, 8.50pm @ Cineworld
Shane Meadows’ semi-autobiographical tale follows Shaun, a 12-year-old kid growing up fatherless in the north of England. Set during the summer holidays of 1983, he quickly goes from misfit to shaven-headed thug when he falls in with the local skinhead fraternity. He looks all set for self-destruction, but it’s not long before it appears that his new-found mates are not the upstanding gentlemen he once supposed. Gritty and moving with plenty to say about masculinity, This Is England is already being spoken of as the Best British Film Ever. Well, for this month anyway.

For the controversy hound...
MINE YOUR OWN BUSINESS
Directed by Anne McElhinney, Phelim Mcaleer. 66mins. Sunday February 18, 12noon @Cineworld
This sparky documentary follows journalist Phelim McAleer as he investigates the sinister consequences of environmentalism around the world. Campaigns against large mining projects are seen to prevent poorer nations from breaking out of poverty and much worse, some of the best intentioned folk are heard pushing the ‘poor but happy’ argument. Oh dear. Unlikely to appeal to Al Gore fans.

TEN CANOES
Directed by Rolf de Heer. Starring Peter Djigirr, Johnny Buniyira, David Gulpilil. 92mins. Sunday February 18, 8.40 @ The Screen
Dryly humorous and endlessly entertaining, Rolf de Heer’s multi-award winning yarn within a yarn was developed in collaboration with the aboriginal community of Ramingining and forms a neat lesson in brilliant sprawling storytelling. This bawdy tale of adultery, kidnapping and magic was a big hit at the Cork Film Festival last year and is far more crowd-pleasing than one might have ever expected from the Bad Boy Bubby director.

For the anime junkie...
PRINCESS
Directed by Anders Morgenthaler. 78mins. Saturday February 17, 6.30pm @ Cineworld
When his porn-star sister dies from a drug overdose, 32 year-old August returns from missionary work to look after his 5-year old niece and, in time-honoured tradition, extract a bloody revenge. Anders Morgenthaler’s anime hybrid mixes live action and cartoon ultra-violence as its noble protagonist seeks to destroy every single pornographic image featuring his late sister. Think gender reversed En Grym Film as rotoscoped by Richard Linklater.

For that difficult third album...
THE THRILLS
Directed by Danny O’Connor. 70mins. Friday February 23, 11pm @ The IFI
Ah, the fights, the highs, the lows, the awful truth. They came from nowhere (or rather South Dublin) in 2003, scored monstrous chart hits with their jangly, So-Cal sound and then, erm, actually, what have they been doing again? Shot over four years, Danny O’Connor’s access-all-areas rockumentary forms a compelling portrait of difficult second album syndrome – not to mention the difficult third album. Appearances from REM and the Red Hot Chili Peppers add starry support for Conor Deasy and chums.

For the rocker past the first flourish of youth...
JOE STRUMMER: THE FUTURE IS UNWRITTEN
Directed by Julien Temple. 123mins. Saturday February 24, 8.30pm @ Cineworld
Put together from unearthed interviews, live concert footage and tapes of Strummer’s BBC show, The Future Is Unwritten offers a complex portrait of an idealist intent on channelling his social conscience through music. Julien Temple’s film just received its US premiere at Sundance where it attracted the kind of praise normally only used about Sandinista! by rock journalists of a certain age.

For people who like to picket cinemas...
DELIVER US FROM EVIL
Directed by Amy Berg. 101mins. Saturday February 17, 1pm @ Cineworld
During the 1970s, Father Oliver O’Grady moved from parish to parish in Northern California. Sadly and unbeknownst to his many congregations, O’Grady was a dangerously active peadophile that Church hierarchy, aware of his predilection, harbored for over 30 years, allowing him to abuse countless children. Featuring an extended, creepy interview with O’Grady himself and tragic stories of his victims, filmmaker Amy Berg exposes deep corruption within the Catholic Church. The documentary, partly filmed in Ireland, has already caused a storm in the US, especially since being nominated for an Academy Award.

For dangerous visions...
SUNSHINE
Directed by Danny Boyle. Starring Cillian Murphy, Rose Byrne, Michelle Yeoh, Chris Evans. 108mins. Friday February 23, 8.30pm @ Cineworld
The dream team behind 28 Days Later – director Danny Boyle, screenwriter Alex Garland and star Cillian Murphy – bring you this Solaris-alike metaphysical sci-fi adventure. 50 years into the future, the sun is failing and humanity is doomed. A spacecraft with a crew of eight men and women sets out with a bomb the size of Kansas in order to re-ignite part of the sun. Seven years prior, a similar ship had been launched for the same mission, but all contact was lost with the ship. When the crew of eight move toward the sun they soon discover – wouldn’t you know it – the distress beacon of the lost ship and the source of all life in the universe.

METROPOLIS
Directed by Fritz Lang. Starring Alfred Abel, Gustav Froelich, Brigitte Helm. 124mins, Thursday February 22, 6.30pm @ The National Gallery
What could be better than Lang’s 1929 sci-fi masterpiece on the big screen? As the zenith of German Expressionism, its futuristic landscape of skyscrapers and slavery has lost none of its original grandeur. As a straight up battle between communism and capitalism, only Strike comes close. Rather excitingly, this presentation at the National Gallery comes with live accompaniment by 3epkano.

CRÉ NA CILLE (pictured)
Directed by Robert Quinn. Starring Brid Ní Neachtain, Peadar Lamb, Márie Ní Mháilie. 94mins. Saturday February 17, 6.20 @ The IFI
This full length feature adaptation of Mairtin Ó Cadhain’s novel Cré na Cille (Graveyard Clay) has been produced to commemorate 100 years since the birth of the book’s author. Directed by Robert Quinn, the filmmaker behind Dead Bodies, this equally black comedy is an epic tale of sisterly jealousy that continues into the afterlife. Set in a graveyard, the dead sit around bitching about the slowness of time and each other. Happily for those of us educated on the other side of the border, the film, the first contemporary project of its kind, comes with subtitles.

For Lord knows...
RESCUE DAWN
Directed by Werner Herzog. Starring Christian Bale, Steve Zahn, Jeremy Davies. 120mins. Tuesday February 20, 8.20pm @ The Screen
One never knows what to expect from Werner Herzog’s forays into feature films, but Rescue Dawn is unusually focussed for the German master. The film shares its subject matter with Herzog’s 1997 doc Little Dieter Needs To Fly, the story of a German-American Navy pilot who crash-lands in Laos during the Vietnam War. There, he faces torture and ill-treatment until he engineers his very own Great Escape. Christian Bale, even by his ridiculously high standards, gives it socks in the lead role.

For the budding empire builder...
WHY WE FIGHT
Directed by Eugene Jarecki. 98mins. Friday February 23, 4pm @ Cineworld
Winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival, Eugene Jarecki’s documentary charts he rise and maintenance of the United States military-industrial complex by concentrating on wars led by the United States of the last fifty years, with particular reference – no surprise – on the 2003 Invasion of Iraq. Featuring interviews with John McCain, Chalmers Johnson, Richard Perle, William Kristol, Gore Vidal and Joseph Cirincione, the film seeks to illustrate that in every decade since World War II, the American public has been told a lie to bring it into war to fuel the military-economic machine. It’s an old-fashioned argument stated with aplomb.

For the anti-phoney league...
EVERYTHING’S GONE GREEN
Directed by Paul Fox. Starring Paulo Contstanzo. 95mins. Saturday February 17, 4.10pm @ The Screen
The New Order reference may alert you to the involvement of Douglas Coupland and sure enough, Everything’s Gone Green is the novelist’s debut screenplay. Taking in pyramid schemes, Mandarin language classes and abandoned golf courses, Paul Fox’s film comically depicts the ordinary hidden agendas of everyday life.

For Bard-a-maniacs...
AS YOU LIKE IT
Directed by Kenneth Branagh. Starring Alfred Molina, Adrian Lester, Romola Garai, Bryce Dallas Howard, Kevin Kline. 120mins. Saturday February 17, 6.10pm @ The Screen
The Kenneth Branagh players are back and this time they have new blood in their ranks. Like his production of Love’s Labours Lost, Shakespeare’s number one fan relocates one of the Bard’s most light hearted romps to an alien setting. Here. Rosalind and Orlando play out their courtship in 19th century Japan and an impressive Bryce Dallas Howard fits in just fine with older thespians like Lester and Kline.

For a cautionary tale...
HALF NELSON
Directed by Ryan Fleck. Starring Ryan Gosling, Shareeka Epps. 107mins. Monday February 19,8.40pm @ The Screen

Ryan Fleck’s gritty debut, one of the best reviewed films in the US last year, has already picked up numerous awards and an Oscar nod for its star, Ryan Gosling. By day, Dan (Gosling) is a popular junior high-school teacher. By night, he’s a hardcore crack addict. When a female student finds him keeled over in the changing rooms, an unlikely friendship blossoms but trouble lies ahead.

For that ‘just because you’re paranoid’ feeling...
THE LIVES OF OTHERS
Directed by Florian Henckel Von Donnersmarck. Starring Ulrich Muhe, Martina Gedeck, Sebastian Koch. 137mins. Saturday February 17, 8.30pm @ Cineworld
Winner of three European Film Awards and seven Lolas, The Lives Of Others is set in East Germany, in 1984 at a time when Stasis roamed the earth. When we first meet Stasi Capt. Gerd Wiesler, we think he’s a monstrous servant of a surveillance state shown but in this climate everyone, it transpires, is a monster, all playing the system with double and triple crosses. A riveting Machiavellian riposte to the sweet nostalgia of Good Bye Lenin.

For Berlusconi bashers...
THE CAIMAN
Directed by Nanni Moretti. Starring Silvio Orlando, Margherita Buy, Jasmine Trinca. 112mins. Sunday February 18, 6.20 @ The Screen
Nanni Moretti, the patron saint of international film festivals makes a welcome return with The Caiman, his first film since the award-winning weepie The Son’s Room. Though centred on an exploitation film director whose marriage is falling apart, The Caiman uses every opportunity to take aim at former right-wing Silvio Berlusconi. Happily, things seem to have worked themselves out since the film was made.

For maverick japery...
WC
Directed by Liam O’Mochain. Starring Liam O Mochain, Julia Wakeham, Adam Goodwin, May Murray. 76mins. Friday February 23, 6.30pm@ the IFI
The Book That Wrote Itself, you may remember, marked an impressive act of will on the part of Irish guerilla filmmaker Liam O’Mochain. His sophomore effort, WC, is another no-budget wonder, shot in the toilets of a Dublin pub. Jack (O’Mochain himself) is there to pay off gambling debts to his family. Katya meanwhile, is his opposite number ion the Ladies, doomed to perform this most menial of tasks on account of her ‘illegal’ status in Ireland. Less sprawling than the rambling high-jinx of The Book That Wrote Itself, WC is a sweet take on contemporary Hibernia made on half a shoestring. Way to lateral think.

For a sure thing...
LETTERS FROM IWO JIMA
Directed by Clint Eastwood. Starring Ken Watanabe, Kaunari Ninmiya, Tsuyoshi Ihara. 141mins. Monday February 19, 8.30pm @ Cineworld
This Golden Globe-winning, Academy Award-nominated war film from Clint Eastwood has received ecstatic reviews and may well see Eastwood pip Martin Scorsese at the post yet again. A companion piece to Flags Of Our Fathers, Letters... plays the Battle of Iwo Jima from the perspective of Japanese soldiers. Not to be confused with The Green Berets, Eastwood’s film is almost eerily contemplative about the nature of war.