DIRECT TO RENTAL
"True Blue" (15), available from Monday next
If the Kevin Costner golfing movie Tin Cup was Rocky Fore, then True Blue is Rocky Oar. Unfortunately True Blue, which deals with the 1987 boat race between Oxford and Cambridge, has none of the style and sharpness of the Costner picture. In 1986 Oxford suffered their first defeat in 10 years and the movie follows the efforts of coach Daniel Topolski to regain victory a year later. Tensions are heightened by the inclusion of brash Americans on the team and by disagreements over training methods.
However, the only significant tension generated by the movie itself comes towards the end of its tortuous two-hour duration with the race itself, which is well staged by director Ferdinand Fairfax. The cliche-mouthing cast is led by Johan Leysen, Dominic West and Josh Lucas.
"Mrs Winterbourne" (15)
This inane and tiresome effort directed by Richard Benjamin is described on its sleeve as a "hilarious comedy of mistaken indentity". That is truly wishful thinking in the case of such a contrived yarn in which chat-show host Ricki Lake plays a pregnant and homeless young woman who assumes the identity of a wealthy woman who dies with her husband in a train crash. She is joined in the cast of this witless picture by Shirley MacLaine and Brendan Fraser.
CINEMA TO RENTAL
"Jude" (18)
Michael Winterbottom's tough, touching and admirably achieved film of Thomas Hardy's Jude The Obscure builds to heartbreaking tragedy and features haunting performances from Christopher Eccleston as the naive innocent Jude Fawley whose dreams of education and love are shattered, and Kate Winslet as Sue Bridehead, the plain-speaking, firmly independent cousin with whom he falls in love.
"Some Mother's Son" (15), from Tuesday next
Terry George's political drama, scripted by himself and Jim Sheridan, is seen from the point of view of two women with sons on the hunger strikes of 1981 in the Maze prison. One (Fionnula Flanagan) comes from a rural, hard-line Republican background and her son, Frank (David O'Hara) is a fugitive IRA member. The other, a middle-class teacher (Helen Mirren) has no idea that her son, Gerard (Aidan Gill en), a university student, leads a secret life as an active IRA supporter.
The linking fictional narrative is less compelling than the film's dramatisation of the key events surrounding the hunger strike, and it is most problematic in the rather contrived relationship it forges between the two mothers. More effective is the warm and often touching relationship captured between the mother and son played by Mirren and Gillen.
"The Last of the High Kings" (15)
Directed by David Keating, based on Ferdia MacAnna's novel and set in Howth during the summer of 1977, this cheerful but slight coming-of-age comedy follows the experiences of the 17-year-old Frankie (Jared Leto) as he struggles with his sexual urges, his unusual family and the prospects for his future while he awaits his Leaving Cert results. Catherine O'Hara's shrill, over-the-top performance as Leto's Protestant-hating mother capsizes the movie. "The First Wives Club" (12), from Friday next
Hugh Wilson's brash, over-the-top comedy features Bette Midler, Goldie Hawn and Diane Keaton as former high school friends who are reunited later in life when each of them has been dropped by an adulterous husband and they set out to wreak revenge. With Maggie Smith, Dan Hedaya and Stockard Channing.
"Fear" (18)
The best thing about this slick, formulaic thriller is the cleverly ambiguous performance of Mark Wahlberg (aka Marky Mark) as an apparently sweet-natured young man who reveals his psychotic side after he seduces 16-year-old Reese Witherspoon. Directed by James Foley.
"Brassed Off" (15)
Set in Yorkshire, Mark Herman's sentimental film deals with a miners' brass band which makes it into the national finals at the time when their pit is threatened with closure. A solid cast headed by Pete Postlethwaite, Ewan McGregor, Tara FitzGerald and Stephen Tompkinson compensates for the cracks in the screenplay.
"The Long Kiss Goodnight" (18)
Geena Davis and her husband, director Renny Harlin, follow the debacle that was Cutthroat Island with a truly inane would-be thriller in which she plays a schoolteacher suffering from amnesia. Samuel L. Jackson co-stars.
"Jingle All the Way" (PG)
Arnold Schwarzenegger is on auto-pilot as a workaholic who neglects his son (Jake Lloyd); when Christmas Eve dawns he sets out on a frenzied quest to secure the season's most in-demand toy for the boy. Brian Levant ploddingly directs this trite and predictable yarn.
SELL-THROUGH
The pick of the recent movies now available to buy includes Joel and Ethan Coen's double-Oscar-winning Fargo; Claude Lelouch's film of Victor Hugo's Les Miserables, with Jean-Paul Belmondo and without songs; and Richard Loncraine's vibrant Richard III starring Ian McKellen. For younger viewers, Disney's animated cartoon feature, A Goofy Movie, goes on sale next Monday.
New widescreen releases of note are Strange Days, Ryan's Daughter, Annie Hall, Manhattan and two which feature their original trailers, The Deer Hunter and The Mission. Available on full-screen are the Coens' first film, Blood Simple; Tony Richardson's underrated John Irving adaptation, The Hotel New Hampshire; Derek Jarman's gay-themed Sebastiane in Latin with English subtitles; and Hammer's 1957 Dracula featuring Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee.
