Cinema To Video

"Inventing The Abbotts" (15)

Based on a short story by Sue Miller, Pat O'Connor's handsome and engaging film opens in a small Illinois town in 1957 and deals with three sisters from one of the wealthiest families in the area, and two brothers from the other side of the tracks. In this tender, sensitive and beautifully realised picture of adolescent longing and rebellion, O'Connor again shows his skill for eliciting credible, natural performances from a fine cast, most notably Joaquin Phoenix, Billy Crudup, Liv Tyler and Kathy Baker.

"Tomorrow Never Dies" (12)

Never mind the comic-strip plotting and politics, this is the most entertaining James Bond movie for many a year. Now wholly at ease as 007, Pierce Brosnan plays the urbane - and unusually chaste - hero with aplomb, and with tongue firmly in cheek, as he confronts a megalomaniacal media tycoon played by Jonathan Pryce, slicing the ham in thick chunks. Director Roger Spottiswoode lays on the expertly staged action sequences with panache, and composer David Arnold delivers a punchy new treatment of the familiar theme music.

"Alien Resurrection" (18)

Killed off in Alien 3 and now cloned from an old sample of DNA, the redoubtable Ellen Ripley returns to life in Jean-Pierre Jeunet's visceral, at times eerily sensual thriller which is permeated by a dark, menacing atmosphere. Sigourney Weaver plays Ripley as tougher, more forceful and more blunt-spoken than ever before, and Winona Ryder co-stars as an enigmatic mechanic.

"Cop Land" (18)

In every respect a western in modern dress - with explicit references to High Noon - James Mangold's moral drama features a bloated Sylvester Stallone as the small-town New Jersey sheriff forced to assert his position in an area populated by New York police officers, many of them corrupt. Unfortunately, too many of the film's very many characters are reduced to ciphers, but the cast is solid: Ray Liotta, Robert De Niro, Michael Rapaport, Peter Berg, Harvey Keitel, Robert Patrick, Cathy Moriarty.

"One Night Stand" (18)

The intriguing new Mike Figgis movie survives an unlikely coincidence and is ultimately satisfying. Heading a fine cast, Wesley Snipes plays a commercials director who, when stranded overnight on a trip to New York, has an adulterous fling with a married woman (Nastassja Kinski). Robert Downey Jr is excellent as his best friend, a gay man dying of AIDS.

"The Peacemaker" (15)

The first feature from Steven Spielberg's company, Dreamworks SKG, is a routine, though well-crafted action thriller with George Clooney and Nicole Kidman on the trail of a missing nuclear missile. Mimi Leder directs.

"SpiceWorld: The Movie" (PG)

From those halcyon days when Posh, Sporty, Scary, Ginger and Baby were a quintet, this rambling movie shows how they cope with their fans, the media and their manager in the run-up to a Royal Albert Hall concert. There's not much else to it beyond a succession of bland videos strung together with more banal dialogue and those blink-and-you'll-miss'em cameos. It may not spice up your life, but it's as camp as Butlins.

"Face" (18)

This violent Cockney gangster thriller, written by Ronan Bennett and directed by Antonia Bird, features a strong central performance from the always reliable Robert Carlyle. With Ray Winstone, Steven Waddington, Phil Davis, Blur singer Damon Albarn, and in a cameo, Gerry Conlon.

"subUrbia" (18)

Richard Linklater's film of Eric Bogosian's play takes place over a single night as a group of suburban twentysomethings welcome home an old friend after a successful tour with his rock band. Of the cast, Giovanni Ribisi fares best in a movie which eventually becomes as tiresome as the people who populate it.

"G.I. Jane" (15)

Demi Moore shaves her head to play a navy intelligence officer who makes history when she's recruited as the first woman to train for the covert unit known as the US Navy SEALs. Viggo Mortensen plays the commander who puts her through physical and emotional hell. Anne Bancroft co-stars, and Ridley Scott directs this glossy, over-the-top yarn.

"The Tango Lesson" (General)

In this tedious and self-indulgent exercise, director Sally Potter gives herself the central role of a film-maker who, frustrated by the problems of getting her new production financed, takes tango lessons from an Argentinian dancer (Pablo Veron) until their relationship becomes more complicated.

Direct To Video

"Stag" (18)

The atmosphere at a surprise stag party abruptly darkens when one of the two strippograms hired for the evening is accidentally killed. What follows is heavy, creepy stuff as the men respond by worrying more about image damage and jail sentences than about their victim or her sister (played by singer Taylor Dayne) whom they hold captive. Plausibility is regularly stretched in this essentially contrived drama directed by Gavin Wilding. However, it does feature a few strong performances: Andrew McCarthy cast against type as a ruthless drug dealer and extortionist, John Stockwell as the morally weak groom-to-be, and Kevin Dillon as a traumatised Gulf War veteran.