Before the Rains
This film is set in India during colonial times and filmed with lush postcard-style beauty; director Santosh Sivan reproduces the exoticising colonial gaze all too well. Linus Roach plays the Englishman building a road, selling spices and having an illicit affair with a married Indian woman. Disaster strikes, of course, but without at any point making the film exciting, engrossing or even interesting. It’s all very ponderous and predictable, practically the definition of narrative as heavy weather. Before the Rains feels like it was made 30 years ago. — Shaun de Waal
Beverly Hills Chihuahua
The newest Walt Disney flick presents us with one of their least interesting ideas in the past decade with Beverly Hills Chihuahua. Chloe, who more closely resembles a handbag accessory than an actual dog, finds herself torn from her lush life in Beverly Hills and is forced to rely on the help of other animals to get back to her owner. Think Homeward Bound, but without the charm or a decent script. The eponymous pooch is voiced by a seemingly Valium-filled Drew Barrymore, whose impressively lacklustre voice-acting displays only apathy. The human actors show a similar disinterest in the project, all except Jamie Lee Curtis, who revels in the idea of playing a Beverly Hills kugel in her unfortunately limited number of scenes. Unless you or the kids absolutely adore cute talking animals, give this sub-par effort a miss. — Shain Germaner
My Best Friend’s Girl
Kate Hudson proves that her career is now permanently stuck in romantic-comedy limbo as she stars in this predictable shlockfest opposite the perpetually unlikeable Dane Cook. Watching a romantic comedy where the main characters are both horribly unappealing is a change, indeed, but not one for the better.
Cook and Hudson share absolutely zero on-screen chemistry, and the only reprieve from their banal bickering is when the film focuses on the even less interesting supporting cast. The only saving grace of My Best Friend’s Girl is Alec Baldwin, who manages to bring a little charm to his role as a misogynistic bastard.
The first three quarters of the film consist of mostly male-oriented gross-out humour, and the sappy romantic ending doesn’t mesh with the rest of the film: it looks like a weak attempt to apologise to the female members in the audience. — SG
Pride Film Festival
Showing until October 4 at Cinema Nouveau, Rosebank, Johannesburg; at V&A Waterfront, Cape Town, until October 11; and until October 9 at Gateway, Durban, this festival coincides with the Johannesburg Pride parade on October 4. The lead titles are Another Gay Sequel: Gays Gone Wild, the follow-up to Another Gay Movie (the gay version of American Pie), and Starrbooty, a spoof thriller starring RuPaul (a guest of the festival). Also on the festival are: the comedy Kiss the Bride; the new version of Brideshead Revisited (getting a general release on October 10); the South African historical drama The World Unseen; coming-of-age tale Shelter, which showed at this year’s Out in Africa Gay and Lesbian Film Festival; and Holding Trevor, which stars Jay Brennan of Shortbus fame and showed at last year’s Out in Africa festival. Go to www.sterkinekor.com for more information.