One False Move (1992)

Recommended

USA
Feature Film
Director: Carl Franklin
Writers: Tom Epperson, Billy Bob Thornton
Cinematographer: James L. Carter
Composers: Peter Haycock, Derek Holt
Cast: Bill Paxton, Cynda Williams, Billy Bob Thornton, Michael Beach, Jim Metzler, Earl Billings, Natalie Canerday, Robert Ginnaven, Kevin Hunter

A beautifully nuanced, even-handed, and non-judgemental exploration of cultural and racial differences, as well as suspense-filled crime thriller from Franklin, that follows a small town police chief and two Los Angeles officers as they await the arrival of three suspected murderers in a small Arkansas town. Iain.Stott

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Cannabis: The Evil Weed? (2009)

UK
Short Television Documentary
Series: Horizon (1964-)
Writer/Director: Annabel Gillings
Cinematography: Tim Cragg
Featuring: Dr. John Marsden

A fascinating, even-handed, and well-made (despite the occasional ostentatious close-up) documentary, examining the origins, benefits, dangers, and highs & lows of Cannabis and its various uses, that comes to a conclusion that will not go down well with the Daily Mail reading members of the populace. Iain.Stott

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Darwin's Struggle: The Evolution of the Origin of Species (2009)

UK
Short Television Documentary
Writer/Producer: Jeremy Bristow
Composer: Max Richter
Narrator: Deborah MacLaren

A thoroughly compelling and deeply human documentary, examining the brave, tentative steps that Charles Darwin took towards publishing The Origin of Species, a book and theory that would change the face and path of scientific theory and social history. Iain.Stott

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The Dish (2000)

Cautiously Recommended

Australia
Feature Film
Director: Rob Sitch
Writers: Santo Cilauro, Tom Gleisner, Jane Kennedy, Rob Sitch
Cinematographer: Graeme Wood
Composer: Edmund Choi
Cast: Sam Neill, Patrick Warburton, Roy Billing, Kevin Harrington, Genevieve Mooy, Taylor Kane, Billie Browne, Anderw S Gilbert, Eliza Szonert

A professional if slightly uninspired and rather Hollywoodised account (the Hollywood-like score is particularly ghastly) of Australia’s part in the televising of the first moon landings in 1969, but a fairly entertaining one never the less, and the no-worries Aussie kookiness that infuses much of it is often quite amusing. Iain.Stott

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Rab C. Nesbitt: Fitba (1991)

UK
Television Series Special
Writer: Ian Pattison
Cast: Gregor Fisher, Tony Roper, Eric Cullen, Stanley Baxter

An often laugh-out-loud funny one-off special, following the ever-sozzled, philosophising Glaswegian, Rab C. Nesbitt, to Italia ’90, in the company of a dying ex-footballer, in search of fitba and pizza. Iain.Stott

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The Puffy Chair (2005)

Recommended

USA
Feature Film
Director: Jay Duplass
Writers: Mark Duplass, Jay Duplass
Cast: Mark Duplass, Kathryn Aselton, Rhett Wilkins, Julie Fischer, Larry Duplass

The Duplass brothers’ feature debut, a rambling road movie, following an impractical young man, his gorgeous girlfriend, and his spaced-out brother on a quest to buy the titular piece of furniture for his father’s birthday, has a real authenticity about it that is by turns funny, annoying, insightful, and eventually really rather moving. Iain.Stott

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Rita, Sue and Bob Too (1986)

Recommended

UK
Feature Film
Director: Alan Clarke
Writer: Andrea Dunbar
Cinematographer: Ivan Strasburg
Composer: Michael Kamen
Cast: Siobhan Finneran, Siobhan Finneran, George Costigan, Lesley Sharp, Kulvinder Ghir, Willie Ross, Patti Nicholls

Adapted by Dunbar from her own socially satirical play, this ridiculously funny sex farce, following the sexual misadventures of two teenaged babysitters, which admittedly on paper sounds like a product of Hustler’s Barely Legal, is in fact a nuanced, incisive, and insightful if somewhat bawdy little gem. Iain.Stott

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