Out 3 June/last update

Adam and Paul (Dir: Lenny Abrahamson): Black comedy set in a period of 24 hours in the lives of two heroin addicts as they roam the streets of Dublin looking for their next fix. Time Out has described it as “mordantly funny and unexpectedly poignant”. /// Brotherhood (Dir: Kang Je-Gyu): From South Korea comes this tale of two brothers. Jin Tae is a shoeshine boy who is soon to be married, and Jin Seok, his bookish younger brother dreams of one day attending university. They are unwillingly conscripted as the Korean War is about to break out. Jin Tae sets about to find a way to discharge his brother and this will lead to a split between them. E-Film Critic wrote that it could think ‘of few anti-war statements more articulate, or images more powerful.’ /// Guerrilla: The Taking of Patty Hearst (Dir: Robert Stone, pictured):Documentary about the Symbionese Liberation Army that earned notoriety in 1974 when it kidnapped newspaper heiress Patricia Hearst who ended up joining her captors in a California bank robbery (Hearst is a John Waters regular these days). Hearst does not appear in the film, which leaves a gap, but this is fascinating material that outstrips the film’s flaws. /// League of Gentleman’s Apocalypse (Dir: Steve Bendelack): From the creators of the successful and surreal TV series, crammed with gags that will please the series fans.

Filtered news

Italian film director, Michelangelo Antonioni, the last surviving name attached to Italian Neorealism, is being given a month-long retrospective at the National Film Theatre. Short films, lectures and features will give Londoners a chance to brush up on one of the most intriguing film directors ever/// The British Museum Film Society shows on Saturday (4 June) the film Crumb, a documentary about the cartoonist Robert Crumb, author of Mr Natural and Fritz the Cat.///Jane Fonda lands on the stage of the NFT for a Guardian interview led by Lord Puttnam. The interview marks the launch of Fonda’s biography My Life So Far. The event is sold-out but you can submit a question to Ms Fonda from the NFT’s webcast page.



For further info on the events mentioned, see the links list on the right.

Out 3 June/Swimming Upstream

Directed by Russell Mulcahy and set in 1950s Brisbane, Swimming Upstream is based on Anthony Fingleton's autobiographical novel of the same name. Tony ( Jesse Spencer) beats the odds to become a champion swimmer in spite of an overbearing alcoholic father Harold (Geoffrey Rush ), and his long-suffering but quietly heroic wife Dora (Judy Davis). Overshadowed in his father's eyes by his brothers Harold Jnr and John ( David Hoflin and Tim Draxl), it is only when Tony displays an extraordinary swimming talent that he feels he has a shot at winning his father's heart and maybe even the Olympic gold.

Ed: I haven't seen this movie, this is just a straightforward description.