By Robert Alstead

(l to r) Brendan Mackey as Joe Simpson and Nicholas Aaron as Simon Yates recreate a true-life mountaineering drama in Touching the Void.

The Corporation (January)
This documentary notes that by law a corporation has the rights of an individual, then proceeds in a scathing analysis to show that the individual’s "personality" is that of a psychopath. The Corporation was voted most popular Canadian film at this year’s Vancouver International Film Festival.
Read the review in the October edition of Common Ground

The Passion of Christ (February)
Mel Gibson co-wrote and directed this emotional account of the final 12 hours in the life of Jesus Christ (played by James Caviezel). A high-ranking Vatican official who recently attended a special private screening described watching the film, whose dialogue is in Latin, Hebrew and Aramaic, as "an intensely religious experience."

On the Corner
Nathaniel Geary’s gritty drama picks up where Nettie Wild left off with Fix: The Story of an Addicted City. An aboriginal teenager turns up in Vancouver’s downtown Eastside looking for more excitement than he can find on the rez. Only he quickly finds himself spiraling down into a world of drugs and prostitution. Unflinching.

Touching the Void (early ‘04)
Oscar-winning director Kevin Macdonald’s docudrama is a mountaineer's riveting true-life survival story. After smashing up his leg, Joe Simpson was being belayed down a mountain in the Peruvian Andes when his buddy was forced to cut the rope to stop both of them disappearing down a bottomless crevasse. Somehow Simpson survived to write about his experience in a best-selling book. He features here along with a dramatic reconstruction of those amazing events.

Osama (early ‘04)
The first entirely Afghan film to come out of Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban reminds us just how oppressive that regime was for women. The minimalist drama shows things going from bad to worse for a 12-year-old girl (the Osama of the title) when, after disguising herself as a boy to raise money for her desperate family, she is conscripted to fight for the Taliban.

The Day After Tomorrow (28 May)
The greenhouse effect goes into overdrive in this apocalyptic disaster movie from the creators of Independence Day. Floods, tornadoes, tidal waves and other natural disasters wreak havoc worldwide. At the centre of this effects-laden drama is a prof (Denis Quaid) trying to save the world and his son who is stuck in New York as a new ice age sets in. The big-budget special effects look great in the trailer, but will this be another lame Hollywood story?

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (June)
The boy magician and friends are expected to veer more off school grounds in this the third HP installment. With a new director at the helm, Alfonso Cuaron (Y Tu Mama Tambien), the mood is expected to be darker and edgier but with the usual array of fantastic flying things and magic moments.

The Stepford Wives (June)
Nicole Kidman stars in this remake of the 1975 women’s lib satire about a young wife, Joanna, who moves with her husband (Matthew Broderick) to an upper-class suburb where all the housewives have been replaced with subservient clones by their husbands. The comedy includes a gay man - Joanna’s confidante - who is "straightened out" by the men.

Catwoman (July)
After the rumour and gossip during the Vancouver shoot, we get to see the finished product this summer. Halle Berry plays Patience Philips, a shy, sensitive graphic designer for a cosmetics company. When she stumbles across the company’s dark secret, her boss (Sharon Stone) has her murdered. But Philips is brought back to life by an Egyptian Mao cat and, as Catwoman, uses her feline powers against her old employer.

Fahrenheit 9/11 (September)
As Dubya and the Republican gang gear up for the forthcoming US presidential election, who better to rely on to throw a spanner in the works than Michael Moore? The burly filmmaker’s latest documentary will investigate alleged links between the Bush and bin Laden clans, and look at how the Bush administration has used the tragedy of September 11 to push through its agenda. Expect fireworks.

Robert Alstead runs film, DVD and video ezine iofilm. Contact him at www.iofilm.ca.





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