The Straight Story
General
Directed by David Lynch. Starring Richard Farnsworth, Sissy Spacek, Harry Dean Stanton
Lynch's most tender film since The Elephant Man is a cherishable, handsome and touching movie featuring the splendid Richard Farnsworth as an ailing 73-yearold who, on learning that his older brother has had a stroke, vows to visit him and patch up their 10-year feud. Too weaksighted to hold a driving licence and too proud to accept a lift, he makes the journey from Iowa to Wisconsin aboard a 1966 John Deere lawnmower.
EdTV
Directed by Ron Howard. Starring Matthew McConaughey, Woody Harrelson, Jenna Elfman, Ellen DeGeneres
Comparisons with The Truman Show are inevitable and prove unflattering in the case of this mildly amusing comedy featuring McConaughey as Ed, an easygoing video store clerk whose life becomes the subject of a 24-hours-a-day television show. The difference between Ed and Truman Burbank is that Ed is aware that he is being filmed and has agreed to it.
Happy, Texas
Directed by Mark Illsey. Starring Jeremy Northam, Steve Zahn, Ally Walker, Illeana Douglas
In an only intermittently amusing spin on the infinitely superior Some Like It Hot, Northam and Zahn play escaped convicts who steal a car and are forced to assume the identities of its owners, two gay men who are staging a pre-teen beauty pageant in a tiny Texas town named Happy.
Guest House Paradiso
Directed by Adrian Edmondson. Starring Rik Mayall, Adrian Edmondson, Vincent Cassel
This spinoff from the TV series Bottom, set in what is possibly the worst hotel in the world, is crude, shrill, grating, and ultimately revolting - and certainly the worst movie released in cinemas here last year.