NO-HEADLINE

WILD MAN BLUES

(12) HH

Director: Barbara Kopple

The esteemed documentarist Barbara Kopple followed Woody Allen on his 1996 European tour with his jazz band and culled from the assembled material this rather cautious and reverent portrait of the artist as a reclusive, bitter old man. Actually, Allen comes out of it remarkably well, despite having his obsessive-compulsive tendencies laid bare; perhaps it's because the trait which makes him a stunted actor - his stand-up comic's demeanour - serves him well when he is required to improvise his way out of awkward situations - whether it's being canonised by an Italian fan or gritting his teeth through a nightmarish lunch with his elderly parents.

Along the way, little is either explored or revealed, which makes the documentary format feel rather redundant. But "the notorious" Soon-Yi Previn is shown to be an accomplished character in her own right, as well as an astute, ego-pricking film critic (she describes Allen's film Interiors as "long and tedious").

THE HANGING GARDEN

(15) HHH

Director: Thom Fitzgerald

Starring: Chris Leavins, Kerry Fox

Families rarely come more dysfunctional than the one at the centre of Thom Fitzgerald's lyrical and disarming drama. Dad is a brute unable to express himself, grandma has Alzheimer's, there's an incontinent dog, an escapee mother and a child of uncertain parentage. The gay hero, Sweet William (Chris Leavins), returns home to this chaos for the wedding of his sister (Kerry Fox, in the kind of unhinged, banshee role that Judy Davis has made her own), who is marrying the boy that William once had a crush on.

The film flashes between scenes from the past, when William was a misfit wrestling with his weight as well as his sexuality, and modern-day episodes which prove that wounds in the family are far from healing. Fitzgerald takes this slightly hackneyed scenario and invests it with wit and poetry that can take your breath away. Tennessee Williams would have been proud.

LOLITA

(18) HH

Director: Adrian Lyne

Starring: Jeremy Irons, Dominique Swain

Stanley Kubrick attempting a version of Adrian Lyne's Flashdance would really be something to behold, but Lyne's remake of Kubrick's starched and stylish Nabokov adaptation lacks spirit and adventure. Nevertheless, Jeremy Irons is excellent as Humbert Humbert, the mild-mannered paedophile who lusts after young Lolita (Dominique Swain, who was a newcomer when the film was shot three years ago, but has since appeared in Face/Off).

WESTERN

(15) HHH

Director: Manuel Poirier

Starring: Sergi Lopez (subtitles)

An amiable and beguiling road movie which begins with the weaselly thief Nino (Sacha Bourdo) making off with a car belonging to Paco (Sergi Lopez), and then progresses along an unexpected route to become one of the most unlikely buddy movies in recent memory. Just like its characters, the film frequently seems to have no idea where it's heading as it wanders off around Brittany, which only increases its charm.

SHALL WE DANCE?

(PG) HHH

Director: Masayuki Suo

Starring: Koji Yakusho, Tamiyo Kusakari (subtitles)

A charming comedy about a stressed accountant who discovers a new lease of life when he enrolls in a dance class and gets in touch with his inner rumba champion. At two hours, the picture is over-long, but it displays a grace and compassion towards each of its characters that is sweetly intoxicating.

MARTHA - MEET FRANK, DANIEL & LAURENCE

(15) H

Director: Nick Hamm

Starring: Monica Potter, Rufus Sewell, Joseph Fiennes, Tom Hollander

This intermittently engaging romantic comedy employs a precarious and daring time structure which almost distracts you from the film's saccharine dramatic content. Martha (Monica Potter) is an American who visits London on a whim, and goes on separate dates with three men who turn out to be best friends. The British actors are generally limp and bloodless, but Tom Hollander turns in a nice comic performance as the most narcissistic of the trio.

SOMETHING TO BELIEVE IN

(PG) H

Director: John Hough

Starring: William McNamara, Tom Conti

Undoubtedly a contender for the so-bad-it's-good category, this is the story of an up-and-coming pianist who falls in love with a Las Vegas croupier who's suffering from a fatal illness.

THE DESIGNATED MOURNER

(NC) HH

Director: David Hare

Starring: Mike Nichols, Miranda Richardson, David de Keyser

David Hare's film of Wallace Shawn's scrupulously intelligent play about imagination and free thought struggling to survive under an anonymous fascistic regime retains its original three-person cast and makes no concessions to the cinematic form. Both Swimming to Cambodia and Shawn's own My Dinner With Andre (directed by Louis Malle) have proved that the cinema screen can be brought to life by conversation or monologue, so Hare's approach seems stubborn and slightly precious. However, the deep, searching hunger in Shawn's writing survives the translation.

DONALD CAMMELL: THE ULTIMATE PERFORMANCE

(NC) HHH

Directors: Chris Rodley and Kevin Macdonald

Donald Cammell made three challenging and original movies - Performance (co-directed with Nicolas Roeg), Demon Seed and White of the Eye - before committing suicide in 1996. This fascinating documentary assembles interviews with the likes of Roeg, Mick Jagger and James Fox, all of whom testify that Cammell was, in many ways, seeking to live out the madness contained within his work. For once, the splicing together of documentary footage and scenes from Cammell's work is entirely appropriate: he was the star of his own psychedelic movie.

AMY FOSTER

(12) H

Director: Beeban Kidron

Starring: Vincent Perez

Conrad's short story about the romance between a shipwreck survivor (Vincent Perez) and a Cornish servant girl (Rachel Weisz) has some dramatic potential, but this is eventually squandered by a lifeless visual sense and tortoise pacing.