New Films

BEST LAID PLANS (15, 93 mins)

Director: Mike Barker

Starring: Alessandro Nivola, Reese Witherspoon

See The Independent Recommends, right. West End: Clapham Picture House, Odeon Camden Town, Odeon Kensington, Odeon Marble Arch, Odeon Swiss Cottage, UCI Whiteleys, Virgin Fulham Road, Virgin Haymarket, Warner West End. And local cinemas

ETERNITY AND A DAY (PG, 130 mins)

Director: Theo Angeloupolos

Starring: Bruno Ganz, Achileas Skevis

When Theo Angelopolous (renowned for his lengthy meditations on life and death) names his film Eternity and a Day, it's surely intended as a health warning or a wry joke. Thankfully, last year's Palme d'Or winner proves the Greek auteur's most accessible film to date, charting the physical and spiritual journey of a writer (Bruno Ganz) through Europe (with Skevis's Albanian orphan boy in tow). Big themes go hand in hand with big visuals. It all adds up. West End: Clapham Picture House, Curzon Soho, Renoir

GET REAL (15, 110 mins)

Director: Simon Shore

Starring: Ben Silverstone, Brad Gorton

Basingstoke is the backdrop for Simon Shore's vibrant coming-of-age comedy, bolstered by a winning lead turn from Ben Silverstone as the gay comprehensive kid pining for the school's golden boy (Brad Gorton). Get Real juggles homegrown wit with Hollywood feel-goodisms, and its genuine good nature soon wins you over. West End: ABC Tottenham Court Road, Metro, Notting Hill Coronet, Ritzy Cinema, Virgin Chelsea, Virgin Haymarket. Local: Hampstead ABC

THE IDIOTS (18, 117 mins)

Director: Lars Von Trier

Starring: Bodil Jorgensen, Jens Albinus

Von Trier's gleeful exercise in social deviancy has its able-bodied jesters literally play- acting the fool in various venues around contemporary Denmark before indulging in a bout of (unsimulated) group sex. This tour de force is at its best during its more wild and woolly stretches, less successful when it affects to stick a conventional (and moralistic) coda on the end. Pitfalls aside, Von Trier's latest film is a masterpiece; a behavioural bull in a china shop. West End: Gate Notting Hill, Metro, Ritzy Cinema, Screen on Baker Street

PARTING SHOTS (12, 98 mins)

Director: Michael Winner

Starring: Chris Rea, Diana Rigg

Michael Winner's absurdly awful curio refits his earlier Death Wish in a sitcom strait-jacket, with nauseating zooms and numbskull dialogue. A leaden Chris Rea plays the lead (a wronged everyman out for revenge), while Oliver Reed makes what would prove to be his last screen appearance, as a hitman. The surrounding film expires with a wheezy rattle. West End: Odeon Kensington, Plaza, UCI Whiteleys, Virgin Chelsea, Virgin Trocadero. And local cinemas

A PRICE ABOVE RUBIES (15, 117 mins)

Director: Boaz Yakin

Starring: Renee Zellweger, Christopher Eccleston

Director Boaz Yakin's disappointing follow-up to his acclaimed debut, Fresh, is the story of sexual awakening tossed against the repressive structure of New York's Orthodox Jewish community. Renee Zellweger is the lovelorn wife of a religious scholar, and Christopher Eccleston the lusty interloper, in a tale that lurches between torrid melodrama and overegged symbolism. West End: Screen on the Hill

TRUE CRIME (15, 128 mins)

Director: Clint Eastwood

Starring: Clint Eastwood, Isaiah Washington

Clint Eastwood plays a broken-down hack struggling to clear a convicted killer (Isaiah Washington) on Death Row. The result is a typical star- director effort from cinema's last great American hero: tough and stolid, yet with pockets of real emotion. West End: ABC Panton Street, ABC Tottenham Ct Rd, Barbican Screen, Clapham Picture House, Odeon Camden Town, Odeon Kensington, Odeon Swiss Cottage, Ritzy Cinema, The Tricycle Cinema, UCI Whiteleys, Virgin Fulham Rd, Virgin Trocadero, Warner West End. And local cinemas

TWIN DRAGONS

(SHUANG LONG HUI) (12, 100 mins)

Director: Tsui Hark & Ringo Lam

Starring: Jackie Chan, Maggie Cheung

A hit in Hong Kong some years back, the cannily dubbed, tattily played Twin Dragons has Jackie Chan overstretched as mismatched twin brothers who are up to their respective necks in slapstick action. West End: Odeon Marble Arch, Virgin Trocadero. And local cinemas