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 SUPERBAD (MA)
Starring Jonah Hill, Michael Cera
Directed by Greg Mottola
“You know when you hear girls say, ‘Ah man, I was so shit-faced last night, I shouldn’t have fucked that guy’? We could be that mistake!” says Seth, enthusiastically motivating his best friend Evan. There’s a noble lineage of gross-out teen-movies whose formula is relatively unchanged – high school boys desperate for booze and sex have one night left in which to get both. Although Superbad doesn’t exactly revitalise the genre, it does give it a fresh coat in two significant areas. Firstly, scriptwriters Seth Rogan and Evan Goldberg give their likeable characters a sense of realism and heart not often found in gross-out comedy. In fact a scene in which the straight leads pledge their love is rather touching. OK, they’re drunk and do their best to forget it the next morning, but for a fleeting moment two men come clean. Secondly, much of Superbad is funny of the laugh-out-loud, I-can’t-believe-he-just-said-that, did-the-drunk-policeman-really-try-to-shoot-a-teenager? variety. Although it runs out of steam before crossing the finish line, most of the movie is highly entertaining and nothing that would trouble the army of 16-year-old boys who took it to Number One. For as Evan wisely notes, “She wants to suck on your penis. That’s a good thing. It’s the best.”
 THE WAR ON DEMOCRACY (M)
Documentary
Directed by John Pilger
At heart, John Pilger’s The War on Democracy is a carefully constructed diatribe that delivers a damning critique on American foreign policy in Central and South America. Pilger scores some impressive interviews, notably a chummy chat with Venezuelan President, Hugo Chavez. Vilified by the US for socialist policies that rationalised their oil supply to America, he also won 80 per cent of the popular vote but considers Fidel Castro a friend. Bolivia’s nationalisation of water has done the same. Reclaiming a resource that had been bought by foreign interests put President Morales in the same company as Chavez, Castro and Stalin. As Pilger tours Latin America, he returns to a persistent theme of peoples persecuted for the greater American good. While some countries now face the blunt edge of America’s economic sword, others fared less favourably. Across Latin America, US forces helped topple democratically elected governments – from General Pinochet’s hysterical overthrow of Chile’s socialist government, through Salvador and Nicaragua – to install brutal leaders who would protect US interests. Pilger’s invective and sermonising style is unsettling, but truth wins out. His revelations jar to the bone as he presents a raft of events that tell a miserable story of empiric hegemony while pointing to the elephant in the room.
 CINEMA REWIND
The Corporation (2003)
The amended United States Constitution considers a business corporation to be a person and thus is able to conduct business like any other individual. However, unlike a person, a corporation is driven by the need to do right by its stockholders and, conveniently, does not succumb to the notion of conscience. This is the central argument of The Corporation, a startling documentary that lifts a lid on sweatshops, industrial pollution and government collusion amid sound claims of psychopathic behaviour by these corporate citizens. Based on Joel Balkan’s The Corporation: the pathological pursuit of profit and power, The Corporation is an award-winning, easily-digested 145-minute revelation thanks to the inspired use of library footage and a persuasive cast: enter captains of industry, whistleblowers, a spy and illuminating interviews with Noam Chomsky, Naomi Klein, Milton Friedman and Michael Moore. There’s also a psychopathic consultant from the FBI for added comic value. The film travels from provocative and intimidating to monstrous and frightening as their cogent argument against corporate rape gathers force. Where much anti-globalisation reportage has been reduced to soggy sound bites by incoherent activists, The Corporation is a concise, chilling, reasoned argument.
Did you know ...
• The Corporation won the Audience Award at the 2004 Sundance Film Festival.
• Joel Bakan and Bart Simpson are both credited for writing this documentary.
• Seventy interviews took place in making the film; only 40 made the final cut. They comprised 100 hours of footage that was distilled to 30 for the first cut.
• The film’s gestation involved three-and-a-half years of fundraising, three years of filming and one-and-a-half years of post-production.
• The Corporation features a clip from the 1969 two-minute epic, Bambi Meets Godzilla.
DVD REVIEWS
 Hate Crime
Cast includes Seth Peterson, Chad Donella, Brian J. Smith
Directed by Tommy Stovall
Released by Out & About Films via Eagle Entertainment
What would you do if your partner was left comatose after a hate crime and the police don’t agree when you tell them you reckon the creepy homophobe next door did it?
This is the predicament in which suburban gay accountant Robbie (Seth Peterson) finds himself when his mini-mutt Phoebe returns home covered in blood one dark evening after his partner Trey (Brian J Smith) takes her for walkies in the park. No, not that kind of park, dear dirty-minded readers.
Suspicion immediately falls on the pair’s new neighbourino, Chris Boyd (Chad Donella), a Southern Baptist Christian so consumed by familial fire-and-brimstone he makes Ned Flanders seem a model of tolerance. Boyd’s friendly greeting to the ‘fags’ next door: “You’re going to Hell!” Charming!
But Boyd has an alibi. We’re told he was with his father (Bruce Davison), a Southern Baptist preacher who makes Fred ‘GodHatesFags.com’ Phelps seem a model of tolerance.
And when a homophobic Hispanic homicide dick takes over the case and zeroes in on the gay couple’s mutual life insurance policy, the twists and turns start coming thick and fast (get your minds out of the gutter!).
Though this independent film by first-time writer-director Tommy Stoval has its flaws, it has also won a few film festival awards and attracted a small but loyal fan-base among those for whom the issue of hate crime is a resonant one. Nonetheless, as a low-budget issue-based melodrama, it has the look and feel of a made-for-TV midday movie.
Whether or not you’d want to see Hate Crime screened on free-to-air telly is another matter. Though the Christian characters are portrayed with at least a little nuance, some viewers will feel uneasy about the very negative way they are presented.
Certainly, others will disapprove of Hate Crime’s provocative conclusion. But never mind, all’s well that ends well. Isn’t it?
 Nina’s Heavenly Delights
Cast includes Laura Fraser, Shelley Conn
Directed by Pratibha Parmar
Released by Force Queer
Food, family and female attraction are the main ingredients of Prathiba Parmar’s semi-autobiographical debut feature, Nina’s Heavenly Delights.
When feisty Indian-Scotswoman Nina Shah (Shelley Conn) returns home to Glasgow following the death of her estranged father she finds she has inherited his half of an award-winning restaurant, The New Taj.
She’s also inherited his gambling debts and his business partner, Lisa (Laura Fraser), with whom she finds a simmering romance that never quite cooks to satisfaction.
All the while, Nina is embroiled in various crises involving family politics, an ex-fiancée, a Bollywood-style drag queen and a quest to win the Best of the West curry competition.
Unfortunately for some viewers who like it hot, the culinary tends to overshadow the cunnilingus. Consequently, this dish is closer to korma than vindaloo.
It is as if Parmar feared her mainstream (and Indian) audience might react negatively if the lesbian love was explored with any greater intensity. If so, it’s a pity, because films like My Beautiful Laundrette have previously enjoyed great success marrying the themes of same-sex attraction and South Asian cultural identity.
Or perhaps Parmar feared Stephen Frears’ groundbreaking Laundrette would cast too great a shadow over her heavenly delights, perhaps prompting critics to dismiss it as My Bonnie Curryhouse.
Nonetheless, this film does have its share of fans who are attracted to its light and easygoing tone and to the likeable performances from Shelley Conn and Laura Fraser (The Flying Scotsman).
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