Other films on release

AGAINST THE ROPES

X

Cert 12A, 111 mins

WHAT is Meg Ryan doing in a film no better than an also-ran TV drama? She plays Jackie Kallen, a boxing manager cheering her middleweight discovery (Omar Epps) to victory.

Life is hard and sexist, and Kallen hasn't a friend in the world - apart from the black woman cast to get off with Epps (can't have a black actor kissing Ryan, now, can we?). This is pulpy, unforgivable stuff, as ungainly as Ryan's walk in her black high heels.

SPRING, SUMMER, AUTUMN, WINTER ... AND SPRING

Cert 15, 103 mins

THERE are moments here that you will love and remember. Arty but always enjoyable, it tells the story of five seasons over the course of the life of a Buddhist monk living with his teacher by a beautiful lake.

In spring he is a naughty child; in summer a randy adolescent; in autumn, in trouble with the police, and in winter, a penitent. A menagerie, from snakes to locusts, gives it all sorts of wonderful shifts of expression, but perhaps never more so than when the teacher uses the tale of his beloved white cat as a live (if grumbling) calligraphy brush.

RADIO X

Cert PG, 69 mins

A MENTALLY challenged man (Cuba Gooding Jr) is befriended by a highschool football coach. James Horner's egregious score is a crime: a saccharined mousse of emotional voices and orgasmic strings that make Barbra Streisand sound like Bjˆrk.

THE BASQUE BALL

Cert 15, 115 mins

JULIO Medem's awardwinning documentary about the cultural, economic and political conflicts that continue to inflame the Basque country is comprehensive, passionate and clear. His 100 interviewees provide 100 clamorous voices begging for your attention - and getting it.

Against The Ropes
Cert: cert12A