The Last King of Scotland

By Larry Anklewicz

Tuesday, October 24, 2006

A powerful performance by Forest Whitaker propels this film into the forefront of Academy Award nominations.

Whitaker plays Idi Amin, the mad dictator of Uganda during the 1970s with an amazingly subtitle and skillful performance. Whitaker shows Amin's sense of humour and playfulness, while at the same time giving full expression to Amin's cruelty and the lack of value he placed on human life.

The film is a chilling portrayal of one of the worse dictators in African history.

The Last King of Scotland opens with young Scottish physician, Nicholas Garrigan completing medical school and looking for a little adventure. He decides to go someplace where his medical skills are truly needed and chooses Uganda.

Once he has arrived in Africa, Garrigan is called to the scene of a bizarre accident. The new leader of Uganda, Idi Amin, has crashed his Maserati into a wayward cow and Garrigan impresses Amin with his ability to handle the chaotic situation.

Amin offers Garrigan the job of being his personal physician, and although Garrigan is reluctant at first, he changes his mind and accepts the position. The result is that Garrigan gets an inside view at the political situation in Uganda and at the man who rules the country with an iron first.

Garrigan becomes the dictator's confidante, advisor and his right hand man. As such, he slowly learns the true state of affairs in Uganda and obtains a unique view of the atrocities Amin perpetrates against his own people. We also witness the education of a naive European do-gooder as he is introduced to the world of real politics.

The film follows Amin from his assumption of power until the Entebbe Airport crisis, when Palestinian terrorists hijacked an Air France passenger jet and flew it to Uganda, but does not show the Israeli commando raid that rescued most of the Jewish passengers left behind after the others had been released.

This is a remarkable motion picture that puts the audience through a variety of conflicting emotions. It's definitely a must see film.

Starring: Forest Whitaker, James McAvoy, Kerry Washington, Simon McBurney, Gillian Anderson.

Shortbus

Beware! If you have any problems with seeing full frontal nudity on the screen, don't go to see this film! If sex doesn't bother you, then this is the film to see.

Shortbus is the story of a group of people with sexual hangups and other problems, and how they cope with them. All of the characters eventually wind up at an underground salon in New York where people get together to act out their sexual fantasies and where anything goes.

The story focuses on two couples. One couple is gay and the other is straight. The woman of the straight couple is a sex therapist of some kind, but she has many sexual issues of her own.

The film explores differences in society and once the basis of the film is set out and the most shocking aspects are shown, it becomes an interesting study of sexual mores and deviations that is worth watching.

Starring: Sook-Yin Lee, PJ DeBoy, Paul Dawson, Linday Beamish, Jay Brannan, Justin Bond.

Recent DVD's

Thank You For Smoking

Satirical look at today's culture and attempts by corporations, government and private organizations to put their own spin on things.

In this film, Nick Taylor is the chief spokesman for Big Tobacco who can turn any situation into his favour. He defends the rights of smokers to kill themselves and the right of cigarette manufacturers to continue producing and selling a product that harms and kills millions of people.

All of this is done in a tongue in cheek and very humourous way.

Starring: Aaron Eckhart, Maria Bello, Cameron Bright, Adam Brody, Sam Elliott, Katie Holmes, David Koechner, Rob Lowe, William H. Macy, J.K. Simmons, Robert Duvall.

Over The Hedge

Animated film about Verne and his woodland friends who awake from hibernation to discover a great big green thing in the middle of their field. The thing turns out to be a hedge and beyond the hedge is a brand new subdivision populated by human beings, their children their pets and their brand new homes.

R.J., an opportunistic raccoon, tries to convince Verne and his friends that this thing is a blessing in disguise and that life can be easier living off the garbage people leave behind.

Starring the Voices of: Bruce Willis, Garry Shandling, Steve Carell, William Shatner, Nick Nolte, Thomas Haden Church, Allison Janney, Eugene Levy, Catherine O'Hara, Avril Lavigne.

Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2: The Gruesome Edition

Sequel to one of the greatest horror thrillers of all time. Leatherface goes on another spree and his activities are caught on videotape by a late night radio DJ.

Dennis Hopper plays a former Texas Ranger determined to bring Leatherface to justice.

New edition has lots of bonus features, deleted scenes and two audio commentaries.

The Only Thing You Know

In 1970 a young Canadian filmmaker, Clarke Mackey, working with no set script and improvising the dialogue throughout, produced a touching story about a sensitive high school girl struggling with changing values in 1970s society.

The film won Best Actress Canadian Film Award and Mackey was awarded a Special Jury Prize.

After limited theatrical release in Canada and a few broadcasts on television, the film disappeared, until it was restored by David Douglas and Peter Rist of the Pioneers in Canadian Independent Cinema Project. These two Concordia University scholars have been restoring and releasing a series of Canadian feature films from the 1960s and 70s and making them available to film students and researchers.

For more information go to www.telltalesmedia.com