Cinema

Promised Land
Fri 3 – Thu 9 May
When Gus Van Sant directed Good Will
Hunting he firmly placed Matt Damon (and his
co-writer Ben Affleck) on the Hollywood map.
The bond between Damon and Van Sant has
clearly lasted; having worked together several
times in the intervening decades, they have
been reunited again for Promised Land,
working from a script written by Damon and
John Krasinski and based on a story by
Dave Eggers.
Damon plays a salesman for a fracking
company whose job is to talk rural people
into leasing their land for natural gas drilling.
Accompanied by his colleague Sue (Frances
McDormand) he lands in a town where
the local farming culture is dying and the
townspeople are facing another decade
of hard times. With cash in hand the argument
for selling is persuasive, but a local
environmentalist (Krasinski) is prepared to
put up a fight to ensure that the full facts are
disclosed before any contracts are signed.
With the topic of fracking extraordinarily
relevant to Scottish audiences, Promised Land
will resonate with anyone interested in the
relationship between big business and the
environment. Never preachy or sanctimonious,
this film is also a loving portrait of small town
America. With veteran performers Hal Holbrook
and Rosemarie DeWitt (Your Sister’s Sister) as
supporting players in the drama, it is still
Damon who shines here as an actor whose
ordinariness is as compelling as it is familiar.
Dir: Gus Van Sant
USA / United Arab Emirates 2012 / 1h46m
Digital / 15
Senior Citizen Kane Club screening
Thu 9 May, 10:30
Bring a Baby screening Thu 9 May, 10:30
The Look of Love
Fri 10 – Thu 16 May
Filmmaker Michael Winterbottom (The Trip, 24 Hour Party
People) reunites with Steve Coogan for The Look of Love, a
biopic about the Liverpool-born ‘King of Soho’ Paul Raymond,
whose great wealth and success were mirrored by deep
personal sacrifice.
Spanning more than three decades, the film charts the rise of
the cheeky entrepreneur as he builds the empire of “gentlemen’s
clubs” and erotic magazines which challenged contemporary
British morals. But as with any visionary (even in the murky world
of sexual commerce), Raymond has his fair share of knocks,
including obscenity charges, failed marriage, troubled children
and tragedy.
The Look of Love is a personal project for Coogan, who had
been struggling for years to bring this story to the big screen: the
final result is his strongest performance to date. Winterbottom’s
endless creativity as a filmmaker is brought to the forefront here
as he echoes the cinematic style of each passing era both
visually and with the soundtrack. Part social history, The Look
of Love is ultimately a character study of a flawed man who
summed up his life by quoting Oscar Wilde: "We are all in the
gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars."
Dir: Michael Winterbottom
USA 2013 / 1h41m / Digital / 18
Bring a Baby screening Thu 16 May, 10:30
Tickets 01382 909 900 5