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Also on release...
The Soloist. Directed by Joe Wright. Certificate: 15.
AH, the redemptive powers of music. This is a true story of a musical talent laid low by terrible ill health.
Nathaniel Ayers had dream, but it’s a long way from the gutters of Los Angeles to wearing a tux, violin tucked under his chin, on stage at one of California’s swankiest concert venues.
Ayers (Jamie Foxx) is a super fiddle/cello player but has been struck with schizophrenia. Then he is befriended by do-gooding journo Steve Lopez (Robert Downey Jnr) who is desperate for a story, and, without knowing it, the chance to help someone make the most of their talents and get their life back together.
We have been here before: Geoffrey Rush put in a beautiful performance as a schizophrenic piano playing genius in Shine: however, the music was a little better there. While Rush’s performance is Royal Albert Hall, Foxx would look happier busking.
White Lightnin’. Directed by Dominic Murphy. Certificate: 12a
THE story of oh-so-quick tap dancer Jesco White. We learn that west Virginian mountain boy Jes has a pretty terrible life – an under-10 drug abuser enrolled at various reform schools – until his dad teaches him the rudiments of tap.
His is the type of log-choppin’, gun-toting moonshine-swilling life, where tippy-tappy dancing may seem a little out of place. But his dad is pretty hot at the mountain version of tap, done to double-fast banjo twangy music, and reckons it would be a good way of expending energy for his restless young charge. Disaster strikes in the second act, robbing young Jes of his pa, and apparently leaving him with no option but to become the greatest mountain tap dancer the world has ever seen. Then it’s a successful tour, chased by demons involving the death of old man White, which he has to keep at arms length. A little like Billy Elliot, just with much more swearing, whisky and sex. And better scenery.
The Crimson Wing. Directed by Matthew Aeberhard and Leander Ward. Certificate: U
IT is a pretty impressive sight, and all the better for being seen on the big screen. Nature docs are the staple of so many satellite channels now, our ability to simply sit back and see, via the cathode tube, something in the great outdoors which will make you simply swear under your breath and exhale is becoming rarer and rarer, rather like many of the leading subjects these programmes like to feature. We have all swum with dolphins and sharks, watched grizzlies tear something to pieces, enjoyed an Aussie baiting a seriously poisonous snake or checked out a penguin switch from ballerina grace under water to cumbersome wobbler on land.
But The Crimson Wing will reinvigorate your love of nature docs: it charts the life cycle of the one million flamingoes who have made Lake Natron in Tanzania.
This is eco-tourism from the comfort of your local picturehouse. Go to Africa for the night on a guilt-free journey – the bus has a much smaller carbon footprint than a pesky jumbo. |
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