New Classics reviews the latest films on DVD, including classic movies and box sets, from Hitchcock to James Bond and from Fellini to The Lord of the Rings.

TWO-LANE BLACKTOP    EUREKA MASTERS OF CINEMA EKA70044

With this melancholy, minimalist open-road epic, American auteur Monte Hellman poeticised the beautiful, terrible rootlessness of his nation in the era of Vietnam. Funded by Universal in a bid to recreate the success of Easy Rider, Hellman’s effort is now regarded as one of the key films of the New Hollywood renaissance of the early 1970s. While driving eastward on Route 66, two rival car freaks – The Driver (laconically played by singer-songwriter James Taylor) and The Mechanic (an equally taciturn Dennis Wilson of The Beach Boys) in a souped-up, drag-racing 1955 Chevy, and a middle-aged braggart (the excellent Warren Oates) in a gleaming GTO – begin to race for each other’s ‘pink slips’ and the affections of the listless female hitchhiker (model and photographer Laurie Bird, who only made two other films and tragically committed suicide in her mid twenties). Written by novelist Rudy Wurlitzer and featuring the only screen performances of Taylor and Wilson, Two-Lane Blacktop remains a timeless, existential portrait of lives in transit and of a country questioning its identity. ‘Self-enclosed, self-absorbed, and self-destructive, it’s absolutely riveting.’ - Time Out. The film looks for the soul of America in the early 1970s and makes an intriguing companion to the disillusion of PUNISHMENT PARK, also recently released by Eureka. The many special features with this newly restored high-definition print include an audio commentary by Monte Hellman and associate producer Gary Kurtz; On The Road Again, a video in which Hellman revisits the film’s locations; Somewhere Near Salinas, an interview by Hellman with singer-songwriter Kris Kristofferson; Sure Did Talk To You, featuring interviews with producer Michael Laughlin, production manager Walter Coblenz and the director’s son, Jared Hellman; rare screen-test footage of James Taylor and Laurie Bird; and the original theatrical trailer.

PUNISHMENT PARK        EUREKA MASTERS OF CINEMA EKA70061

The war in Vietnam is escalating, leading to massive public protest in the United States and elsewhere. President Nixon declares a state of national emergency and the Federal authorities are given the power to detain anyone judged to be a risk to national security. Located in a desert zone in southwest California, a civilian tribunal passes sentence on groups of dissidents and gives them the option of avoiding long jail sentences by participating in law enforcement training exercises in the Bear Mountain National Punishment Park. In an atmosphere of aggression and intimidation and in lethally soaring temperatures, the prisoners have to fight for their lives as they are hunted down by the forces of law and order. Peter Watkins’ film Punishment Park is a remarkable pseudo-documentary that purports to be a film crews’ news coverage of the team of soldiers escorting a group of hippies, draft dodgers and anti-establishment types across the desert in an attempt to reach an American flag. Both controversial and relentless in its depiction of suppression and brutality, Punishment Park was heavily attacked by the mainstream press and effectively banned after being permitted only the most limited of releases in 1971. Peter Watkins’ disturbing and prescient film has since then established itself as one of the key, yet still rarely seen, radical films of the late 1960s/early 1970s. Giving voice to the disaffected youth of America that had lived through the campus riots at Berkeley, the trial of the Chicago Seven and who were witnessing the escalation of the Vietnam War, Punishment Park was named by Rolling Stone as one of their top ten films of 1971 and has earned many admirers in the four decades since its release. Extras with this dual format (Blu-ray & DVD) release include a 30-minute video introduction by Peter Watkins and a full-length audio commentary by Dr Joseph A Gomez.

ROLLING THUNDER    STUDIOCANAL OPTBD2101

This cult classic from 1977 was directed by John Flynn and co-written by Paul Schrader, of Taxi Driver fame (released a year earlier). Rolling Thunder is a hard-hitting revenge story starring William Devane as the taciturn Major Charles Rane, a man who has been pushed beyond his limits during an eight year incarceration in the Hanoi Hilton. He returns to his small Texas hometown with his friend Sergeant Johnny Vohden (Tommy Lee Jones), just a psychologically damaged shadow of the man he used to be. Finding himself a local celebrity and awarded with a briefcase full of silver dollars - one for every day he was a POW - he tries to adapt to civilian life with his wife, who is now engaged to another man, and his son, who doesn’t remember him. But any chance at healing is destroyed when a gang of ruthless thugs show up at his house to steal the silver. Tragedy thus descends on Major Rane a second time, stealing whatever shred of humanity was left in him and sending him on a one-way mission: vengeance at any cost. Devane and Jones give fine performances and Linda Haynes is excellent as world-weary waitress and war hero groupie. This complex, gripping and sometimes violent film, with elements of film noir and spaghetti western, brilliantly captures both the stifling heat of southern Texas and an American public shell-shocked in the aftermath of Vietnam. Rolling Thunder was made during one of the great periods of American movie-making and is released now on Double Play (Blu-ray and DVD) with extras that include an audio commentary with co-writer Heywood Gould, the theatrical trailer and an interview with Linda Haynes. Watch the trailer

AN AFFAIR TO REMEMBER   TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX 0124007000

Leo McCarey’s 1957 romantic drama, An Affair to Remember, was a remake of the same director’s 1939, film Love Affair, starring Irene Dunne and Charles Boyer. An Affair to Remember has almost identical scenes and the same screenplay as the original film, written by Delmer Daves and Donald Ogden Stewart. Debonair playboy Nicky Ferrante (played by Cary Grant) and beautiful night club singer Terry McKay (the classy Deborah Kerr at her most gorgeous) have a romantic affair while on a transatlantic liner to New York, despite being engaged to other people. ‘Do you think it will ever take the place of night baseball?’ They agree to reunite at the top of the Empire State Building in six months’ time, if they have succeeded in ending their relationships and started new careers. When an accident keeps Terry from the reunion, Nicky presumes that she has married or doesn’t love him anymore. Will he discover the truth behind her absence and be reunited with his one true love, or has fate and destiny passed them by? There is great chemistry between the two stars and the film has sparkling dialogue, genuine pathos, emotional depth and a timeless plot, making this perfect entertainment for romantics everywhere. Special features with this Blu-ray release include an audio commentary by singer Marni Nixon (who provided Deborah Kerr’s singing voice) and film historian Joseph McBride, documentaries about the stars and director, as well as prolific producer Jerry Wald, and newsreel of the film’s premiere.

LE SILENCE DE LA MER  EUREKA MASTERS OF CINEMA EKA70066

In a small town in occupied France in 1941, the German officer, Werner Von Ebrennac (Howard Vernon) is billeted in the house of an elderly man (Jean-Marie Robain) and his niece (a mesmerising performance by Nicole Stéphane). The uncle and niece refuse to speak to him, but each evening the officer warms himself by the fire and talks of his country, his music, and his idealistic views of the relationship between France and Germany. That is, until he visits Paris and discovers what is really going on. Jean-Pierre Melville’s debut feature is an adaptation of a novella of the same title by celebrated French Resistance author Vercors (the pen name of Jean Bruller). Clandestinely written in 1942 during the Nazi occupation of France and furtively distributed, it captured the spirit of the moment, and quickly became a staple of the Resistance. Melville read the book in London when he was a member of the Resistance and his cinematic adaptation, partly shot in Vercors’ own house, is one of the most important French films to deal with the complex issues arising from World War II. Both literate and cinematic, Le Silence de la mer is a poetic, haunting film beautifully photographed by Henri Decaë (also making his first fictional feature). Melville’s influential masterpiece subtly reflects on the absurd futility of war as it shows the experiences and struggles of occupation and resistance, making this timeless film essential viewing. Extras with this dual format (Blu-ray & DVD) edition include a new high-definition original aspect ratio transfer together with a discussion by Ginette Vincendeau, professor of French cinema at King’s College London, and a French-made documentary about the film.

THE TIN DRUM     ARROW FILMS FCD510

Nobel prize-winner Günter Grass’s 1959 black comedy novel The Tin Drum (‘Die Blechtrommel’) was adapted by director and co-writer Volker Schlöndorff in 1979 for this stylish film. The extraordinary David Bennent (aged only twelve at the time) stars as Oskar Matzerath, the son of a Kashubian family in a rural area of the Free City of Danzig during the 1920s. Oskar receives a shiny tin drum for his third birthday and vows never to get any bigger – and woe betide anyone who tries to take his beloved drum away from him, as he has an ear-piercing scream that can shatter glass. As a result, he retains a permanent child’s-eye perspective on the rise of Nazism as experienced through petit-bourgeois life in his native city, claimed by both Germany and Poland whose invasion in 1939 helped kick-start World War II. With the help of Luis Buñuel’s favourite screenwriter Jean-Claude Carrière, Volker Schlöndorff turns Grass’s magical-realist masterpiece into a carnivalesque frenzy of bizarre, grotesque yet unnervingly compelling images as Oskar turns his increasingly jaded eye and caustic tongue on the insane follies of the adult world that he refuses to join. Disturbing, tragic and grotesquely beautiful, The Tin Drum won the Cannes Palme d’Or in 1979) and received the Best Foreign Film Oscar the following year. This Blu-ray release from Arrow Films features a brand new restoration of the film in its original theatrical version (High Definition and Standard Definition) as well as a High Definition director’s cut, seen for the first time in the UK after its Cannes Film Festival premiere. Special features include an audio commentary with Volker Schlöndorff and an interview with him about the new version. The accompanying booklet provides new writing on the film by George Lellis and Hans-Bernhard Moeller as well as extracts from Schlöndorff’s diary, writing by Jean Claude Carrière and Günter Grass, and archival stills.

THE BURMA CONSPIRACY    OPTIMUM OPTD2311

Following the murder of his adoptive father Nerio, billionaire Largo Winch (hunky Tomer Sisley) is now unwilling CEO of the vast W Group. But the compromises money and power require don’t suit Largo so he announces the sale of the Group and the creation of a humanitarian foundation, to be led by his father’s oldest friend. The very day the agreement is signed Largo is accused of complicity in crimes against humanity in the jungles of Southeast Asia by attractive UN prosecutor Diane Franken (foxy Sharon Stone, trying to keep a straight face). An enjoyably complicated plot ensues, featuring an outrageous cast of scheming characters, corruption, betrayal, furious gun-battles, explosions, a beautiful Burmese girl, mercenaries and over-the-top car chases - climaxing in an exciting mid-air fist fight. ‘A man with no enemies is no man at all.’ This all-action film never takes itself too seriously but has moments of genuine pathos and is gripping throughout. Based on the successful Belgian comic book series and novels by Philippe Francq and Jean Van Hamme, The Burma Conspiracy was directed by Jérôme Salle and shot in striking locations in Hong Kong, Belgium, Switzerland, Germany, the UK, France and Thailand.

LOVELY BY SURPRISE    EUREKA EKA40340

A truly unique and visually stunning take on meta-fiction, Lovely By Surprise follows the journey of novelist Marian Walker (Carrie Preston) as she struggles to finish her first novel, which starts as a post-modern version of Plato’s Allegory of the Cave. Facing the age-old problem of writer’s block, Marian turns to her mentor and ex-lover, Jackson (Austin Pendleton). But his seemingly innocent advice to kill the book’s protagonist unexpectedly leads one of her wilful characters, a man-child called Humkin (Michael Chernus), to escape from the novel, stirring up the unresolved issues in her life and becoming involved with a philosophical car-salesman called Bob (an outstanding performance by Reg Rogers) and his estranged eight-year-old daughter Mimi (the charming Lena Lamer). By turns funny, lyrical, dark, heart-warming and mysterious, this enigmatic film festival favourite explores past and present, art and reality, and the meaning of life and death, ultimately revealing the strength and beauty of the human heart. Brilliantly acted and visually striking, this quirky film written and directed by American Kirt Gunn is set in Memphis, Tennessee. Special features include a trailer, subtitles and the director’s commentary.

SMOKING LAWS     SCANBOX ENTERTAINMENT SCBX 2064

There’s a smoky new perimeter in the barfly subculture. Across the globe, smokers are being forced to stand outside their favourite drinking haunts and have curious conversations and confrontations that last the length of a cigarette. In the smoky haze they talk dirty secrets, dirty habits, beginnings, endings and even matters of life-and death. Smoking Laws takes a witty, voyeuristic look at these people and at The Bossman, a bar owner stuck with a bunch of smokers but who spends most of his time trying to keep his feckless staff under control. His customers aren’t much better, and the random collection of misfits and barflies who brave the cold outside make The Bossman’s life pure misery in this perceptive, hip and very funny film. Drunks, failed artists and an assortment of other characters with dark secrets are deftly defined as they surround the bar in a ring of smoke and strange conversations. Smoking Laws is the first comedy feature from hit US indie Eggwork Productions, the creative collaboration between American director/writer Matthew Ehlers and writer/producer Todd Neilsen. Bonus features with the DVD include deleted scenes and three short films also written and directed by Matthew Ehlers: Lunch, Autobank and Who’s Your Daddy? Win a copy of Smoking Laws here

ELITE SQUAD: THE ENEMY WITHIN    REVOLVER REVD2788

Director and writer José Padilha’s critically acclaimed blockbuster is a compelling action-packed drama, based on real events, which vividly reveals the depths of corruption and visceral brutality from the streets of Rio de Janeiro right through to the heart of Brazil’s suspect political system. After a prison riot in the maximum-security penitentiary Bangu 1 in Rio de Janeiro, high ranking security officer Lieutenant-Colonel Nascimiento (Wagner Moura) and his second in command, Captain André Matias (André Ramiro), are accused of the execution of prisoners as they become involved in a bloody political dispute involving government officials, corruption and deadly paramilitary groups known as the milicias. Following on from Padilha’s Elite Squad (2007), this hard-hitting sequel is the most successful product of Brazil’s cinematic revival, attracting audiences of ten million in its first nine weeks. This exciting, complex and thought-provoking film is now available on both DVD and Blu-ray. ‘A thumping modern policier with a social-conscience edge.’ - Time Out.

THE INTERRUPTERS     DOGWOOF DOG252

An inspirational tale of courage and hope, The Interrupters is the multi award-winning film from Oscar-nominated director Steve James (of Hoop Dreams fame) and prizewinning author Alex Kotlowitz, whose original article inspired the film. The Interrupters follows three ‘violence interrupters’ from the CeaseFire organisation of Chicago who work intimately in their communities to intervene in potential incidents before they erupt into full-blown violent episodes and eventually stop the plague of violence sweeping their communities. Shot over the course of one year, The Interrupters are: Ameena, Cobe and Eddie, all who have stories and histories of violence and gang activity. They use their own personal experiences and street credibility to work with families to stop the infection and spread of such dysfunctional behavior. Their work and their insights are informed by their own journeys, which, as each of them point out, defy characterisation. Their work is fraught with moral dilemmas as they have to step between adversaries, often people they know, and need to acknowledge people’s grievances while simultaneously pulling them back from acting on them. This powerful, intimate and thought-provoking documentary comes with many extras that include extensive deleted scenes, the UK Theatrical Trailer, Al Jazeera’s Fabulous Picture Show on The Interrupters featuring an interview with Steve James, and a short film from Chaos Theory (UK equivalent of Ceasefire Interrupters). ‘If The Wire’s urban tapestries were real, they might look like this’ - Total Film.

TOUCH OF EVIL     EUREKA EKA70037

Written and directed by Orson Welles, Touch of Evil begins with one of the most brilliant sequences in the history of cinema; and ends with one of the most memorable final scenes ever committed to celluloid. In between unfurls a picture whose moral, sexual, racial and aesthetic attitudes remain so radical as to cross borders established not only in 1958, but also in the present age. The film was originally released in 1958 in a compromised version but forty years later, Universal produced a reconstructed version that ostensibly represents a version close to Orson Welles’ original intent. Charlton Heston plays Mike Vargas, the Mexican chief of narcotics who sets out to uncover the facts surrounding a car bomb that has killed a wealthy American businessman on the US side of the border. As Vargas investigates, his newly-wed wife Susie (Janet Leigh, two years before Hitchcock’s Psycho) is kidnapped by a gang out to exact vengeance for the prosecution of the brother of their leader (Akim Tamiroff). Meanwhile, Vargas’ enquiries become progressively more obfuscated by the American cop Hank Quinlan (played with relish by Welles himself, in one of the most imposing screen performances), a besotted incarnation of corruption who alternately conspires with Susie’s captors and seeks solace in the brothel of the Gypsy madame (Marlene Dietrich) who comforted him in bygone times. ‘He was some kind of a man. What does it matter what you say about people?’ This definitive two-disc Blu-ray edition in Eureka’s Masters of Cinema Series includes three versions of Welles’ outstanding film noir: the 1998 reconstruction; the 1958 preview version rediscovered in the mid-1970s; and the 1958 theatrical version. The many extras include the original theatrical trailer and a lavish, illustrated 80-page book.

CHARLIE CHAPLIN: THE COLLECTION   PARK CIRCUS

Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin, better known as Charlie Chaplin, was born in London, England, in 1889. He joined Fred Karno’s touring stage company with his brother Sydney in 1908 (Stan Laurel was also a member of the company) and in 1912 the troupe went to perform in America, where Chaplin decided to stay. The following year, producer Mack Sennett saw him perform and took him on at the Keystone Studio, which already boasted such names as Roscoe ‘Fatty’ Arbuckle, Mabel Normand and the Keystone Kops. Chaplin went on to become one of biggest movie stars the world has ever seen, making an astonishing 35 pictures in one year alone. As well as being a wonderfully inventive comedy actor he was also a notable director, writer, producer and musician, composing scores for some of his later films. His working life spanned over 65 years, from the Victorian stage and music hall in England as a child performer, almost until his death at the age of eighty-eight on Christmas Day, 1977. This excellent DVD Box Set includes what is arguably Chaplin’s finest film, City Lights. This 1931 silent classic is a romantic comedy-drama featuring Virginia Cherrill and a superb acting and directing performance by Chaplin, who perfectly combines here his genius for comedy and pathos. City Lights ends with one of the most memorable and moving scenes in cinema. This irresistible collection also includes The Chaplin Revue, The Circus, The Gold Rush, The Great Dictator, The Kid, A King In New York, Limelight (with the great Buster Keaton), Modern Times, Monsieur Verdoux and the brilliant, sophisticated A Woman Of Paris, with Edna Purviance and Adolphe Menjou . ‘A day without laughter is a day wasted.’ - Charlie Chaplin.

WEST SIDE STORY    TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX 1593007000

The phenomenally successful American musical West Side Story is an enthralling adaptation of William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, with a witty script by Arthur Laurents, superb music by Leonard Bernstein, sharp lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and exciting choreography by Jerome Robbins. Set in New York City in the mid-1950s, the musical explores the rivalry between two teenage street gangs - the Jets and the Sharks. The members of the Sharks from Puerto Rico are taunted by the Jets, a white working-class group. Tony, one of the Jets, falls in love with Maria, the sister of Bernardo, the leader of the Sharks. The dark theme, sophisticated music, extended dance scenes and focus on social problems marked a turning point in American musical theatre and Bernstein’s score for the musical has become one of the most popular of all time, with songs such as Something’s Coming, Maria, the wonderfully exuberant America, Somewhere, Tonight, I Feel Pretty. and the caustic Gee, Officer Krupke. The original 1957 Broadway production ran for 732 performances and there was an even longer-running London production. The innovative 1961 film adaptation, directed by veteran Robert Wise and Jerome Robbins and starring Natalie Wood, Richard Beymer, Rita Moreno, George Chakiris and Russ Tamblyn, won ten Academy Awards (including for Best Picture) - more than for any other musical. Even the soundtrack album made more money than any other before it. This much loved film is available here on a two-dsc set for the first time on Blu-ray, with many extras that include an excellent documentary of the making of the film - ‘A Place for Us: West Side Story’s Legacy’; ‘Pow! The Dances of West Side Story’; Commentary by Stephen Sondheim; ‘West Side Memories: One-hour retrospective documentary; Music Machine, allowing you to go straight to your favourite musical numbers; Theatrical trailers.

TAKING OFF     PARK CIRCUS PCB0036

Now available for the first time on DVD and Blu-ray, Taking Off was acclaimed director Milos Forman’s first US feature. The comedy-drama stars Lynn Carlin and the wonderfully deadpan Buck Henry as middle-class New York suburbanites, whose teenage daughter runs away from home when she gets in trouble with her parents. In the process of trying to unravel the mystery of the girl’s whereabouts, the couple rediscover their own lives. Forman’s funny, alternative exploration of the sixties generation gap won the Jury prize at the 1971 Cannes Film Festival and seriously rivals its contemporary, The Graduate (which Buck Henry co-wrote) as well as contemporary Woody Allen films. The film affectionately skewers both the sweet idealism as well as the stoned silliness of the 1960s, and there are musical appearances by the wonderful Tina & Ike Turner, Carly Simon and actress Kathy Bates (as ‘Bobo’ Bates). This sparkling HD restoration of the film is available on DVD and Blu-ray with extras that include the trailer, a photo gallery and a documentary, Before Taking Off: Milos Forman’s Road To America.

ALICE THROUGH THE LOOKING GLASS    SECOND SIGHT 2NDVD3222

‘Can you do Division? Divide a loaf by a knife – what’s the answer to that?’ Lewis Carroll was the pen name of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, who as well as being an immortal writer was also a gifted mathematician, logician, inventor and photographer. Born in Cheshire, he spent most of his life at Christ Church, Oxford. His most famous book, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865), developed from a story he told one afternoon to the three daughters of the Greek scholar H. G. Liddell, who was Dean of Christ Church. Alice continued her bizarre yet enchanting adventures in Through the Looking-Glass (1871) and and this magical live–action television adaptation of his classic tale features an all-star cast. Kate Beckinsale is delightful as Alice, who falls asleep and travels through a magic mirror to join the imperious Red Queen (Siân Phillips), Tweedledum and Tweedledee, Humpty Dumpty and others in a giant game of chess. Penelope Wilton is the scatty White Queen, Steve Coogan a moustachioed Gnat and Ian Richardson a yellow-wigged wasp. Ian Holm is terrific as the endearingly accident-prone White Knight. Alice encounters all these weird and wonderful characters, hearing tales of the Walrus and the Carpenter and the scary Jabberwocky as things become curiouser and curiouser resulting in a surreal, Felliniesque climax. ‘What is life but a dream?’

TOM’S MIDNIGHT GARDEN    SECOND SIGHT 2NDVD3221

Adapted from Philippa Pearce’s poignant children’s story and set in the 1950s, Tom’s Midnight Garden is the magical tale of a young boy who is transported to a strange world from times past. Young Tom is sent to stay with his kindly Aunt and Uncle, to avoid catching measles from his brother. One night on hearing the grandfather clock strike thirteen, he sets off to explore and discovers the house has been transformed. He investigates further and opens the door to a magical, sunlit garden of a bygone age, where he meets Hatty, a young orphan girl and begins an incredible adventure. This 1999 adaptation by director Willard Carroll stars the beautiful Greta Scacchi as Aunt Gwen, James Wilby as Uncle Alan, Liz Smith (of Royle Family fame) as Mrs Willows, Anthony Way as 14 year old Tom and Florence Hoath as Hatty in a strong cast that also includes Joan Plowright, brilliant in her brief appearance as the mysterious Mrs Bartholomew, David Bradley as gardener Abel and Penelope Wilton as cross Aunt Melbourne.

HAMMETT     OPTIMUM OPTD2043

Based on the novel of the same name by Joe Gores, this impeccably shot film is the story of Dashiell Hammett, American political activist and author of hard-boiled detective novels and short stories. Frederic Forrest plays the hard-drinking Hammett as he investigates the mysterious disappearance of a beautiful Chinese cabaret actress in San Francisco. Thrust into a seedy world of underage hookers, blackmail and murder, he finds inspiration for his masterpiece novel, The Maltese Falcon. This classic homage to noir films and pulp fiction, produced by Francis Ford Coppola and nominee for the Palme d’Or at Cannes, was Wim Wenders’ American 1982 directorial debut. Fredric Forrest is terrific in the title role and he receives first class support from a cast that includes Peter Boyle, Marilu Henner, Richard Bradford and Elisha Cook Jnr (as an ‘anarchist with syndicalist tendencies’). There are also memorable cameos from veteran actors Sylvia Sydney and Royal Dano, as well as the legendary director Samuel Fuller as ‘Old Man in Pool Hall’. Following the recent release on Blu-ray of Francis Ford Coppola’s The Conversation, Hammett is one of three more of the director’s classic films now available on DVD. ONE FROM THE HEART (OPTIMUM OPTD2042), written and directed by Copppola, stars Frederic Forrest and Terri Garr as Hank and Frannie. The couple have been in a relationship for five years but on the evening of 4 July, when they should be celebrating their anniversary, they wind up arguing and Frannie walks out. After the break up, she meets handsome musician Ray (Raul Julia) and Hank meets a nubile and beautiful Leila (Nastassja Kinski). But are these new bonds meant to be or will true love prevail over a seemingly idyllic, alluring passion? Set in and around Las Vegas, One From The Heart is a romantic Broadway-like musical drama with an original soundtrack by Tom Waits and Crystal Gayle. Terri Garr shows some nifty dance moves – and much else besides – and Nastassja Kinski steals the show with her gamine charm and circus skills. This was the first film to launch Coppola’s self financed Zoetrope Studios and pioneered the use of video-editing techniques which are standard practice today. In THE ESCAPE ARTIST (OPTIMUM OPTD2044), directed by Caleb Deschanel, Griffin O’Neal plays Danny Masters, the teenage son of the late, great magician and escape artist Harry Masters. Determined to match his father’s accomplishment, Danny joins his uncle and aunt in their magic act but soon runs into nothing but trouble. His biggest mistake is picking the pocket of the son of a corrupt town mayor. The eclectic supporting cast includes a delicious performance by Raul Julia as the flummoxed villain, Desi Arnaz as the mayor, Joan Hackett in her final screen role, Teri Garr, Jackie Coogan and M Emmet Walsh. The Escape Artist is a charming cult classic that deserves a much wider audience.

THE CONVERSATION     OPTIMUM OPTBD2059

This classic psychological thriller was written, produced and directed by Francis Ford Coppola. This film won the prestigious Palme d’Or at Cannes and was nominated in three categories at the 1974 Academy Awards, losing Best Picture to The Godfather Part II, another Coppola film. Gene Hackman stars as Harry Caul, a surveillance expert who runs his own company in San Francisco. Highly respected by others in the profession, Caul is obsessed with his own privacy. His apartment is almost bare behind its triple-locked door, he uses pay phones to make calls, claims to have no home telephone and his office is enclosed in wire mesh in a corner of a much larger warehouse. When he and partner Stan (John Cazale) are hired by a mysterious client known only as ‘the director’ (Robert Duvall) to follow a young couple, Harry deduces that the woman, Mary, is the director’s wife, and the man an employee with whom she is conducting an affair. Harry becomes convinced that the director intends to murder the pair and, haunted by guilt from a previous assignment where the information he provided resulted in loss of human life, sets out to prevent the killing himself. One of Coppola’s masterpieces, The Conversation is a dark and unsettling conspiracy thriller which explores the growing role of technology in society, and the impossibility of privacy in our daily lives. The strong cast also includes Cindy Williams, Teri Garr, Harrison Ford and Frederic Forrest. Hackman is superb as the obsessive, haunted Harry Caul and the film’s warnings about loss of privacy are more relevant today than ever. Extras with this Blu-ray release include commentaries by Francis Ford Copolla and sound editor Walter Murch, screen tests, as well as interviews with David Shire, who wrote the music, and Gene Hackman. ‘A severe and gripping masterpiece.’ - Guardian.

THE OUTSIDERS     OPTIMUM OPTBD2062/1.0

Based on a best-selling novel by S E Hinton, Francis Ford Coppola’s classic coming-of-age drama captures how it feels to be caught between childhood’s innocence and adulthood’s disillusionment. The ensemble cast is the original Brat Pack: Matt Dillon, C Thomas Howell, Diane Lane, Rob Lowe, Ralph Macchio, Tom Cruise and Patrick Swayze, plus Tom Waits. In an intensely visual style, Coppola has made these confused, braggadocious street rats and their struggle both heroic and unforgettable as they grow up on the outside of society in 1966 Tulsa. Teenagers come two ways. If you’re a ‘social’ or ‘soc’, you’ve got money, cars and a future. But if you’re a ‘greaser’, you’re an outsider with only your friends... and a dream that someday you’ll finally belong. When trouble breaks out between the two groups it gets out of hand and results in murder and tragedy. A host of extras with this Blu-ray release include an introduction and audio commentary by the director; audio commentary with Matt Dillon and others in the cast; Staying Gold: A look back at ‘The Outsiders’; S E Hinton on location in Tulsa; deleted and extended scenes. A booklet tells the story behind the movie and there are eight exclusive postcards with portraits of Matt Dillon, Tom Cruise, Patrick Swayze, Diane Lane, Ralph Macchio, Rob Lowe, C. Thomas Howell and Emilio Estevez.

CHARADE      PARK CIRCUS PCB0035

With elements of screwball comedy, Charade has been called ‘the best Hitchcock movie Hitchcock never made’, though it’s more of a stylish romp and not to be taken too seriously. Based on a screenplay by Peter Stone, produced and directed by Stanley Donen, this BAFTA-winning romantic suspense thriller has a typically 1960s music score by Henry Mancini and was lovingly photographed on location in Paris. The story centres on a fun-loving, young woman (the luminous Audrey Hepburn) who meets a charming stranger (Cary Grant) on a skiing holiday. She returns home, planning to ask her husband for a divorce, but finds both him and all of their possessions gone. The police notify her that her husband has been murdered and when she discovers that he was responsible for stealing $250,000 from the US government, an elaborate charade begins. Nothing is what it seems to be as Grant and Hepburn find time to fall in love while simultaneously tangling with a trio of heavies, including a lanky Texan (James Coburn) and a man with a lethal metal hand (George Kennedy). Walter Matthau also lurks around as a representative from the American Embassy - or is he? Look out for Cary Grant’s memorable shower scene and Audrey Hepburn’s gorgeous clothes by Givenchy. Now beautifully restored in high definition, this Dual Format Edition release (Blu-ray and DVD) includes the theatrical trailer and a photo gallery.

THIS BOY’S LIFE     SECOND SIGHT 2NDVD3217

Based on the memoirs of successful American writer and professor Tobias Wolff, This Boy’s Life is a powerful tale of a rebellious teenage boy growing up in the 1950s with an abusive stepfather. Drifting from town to town and various different relationships to escape an abusive boyfriend, single mother Caroline and her son Toby eventually settle in Seattle, where she meets a polite and seemingly charming garage mechanic, Dwight. The couple marry, but Dwight’s veneer of respectability soon fades to reveal a bullying, violent tyrant who wants to change Toby and the emotional, verbal and physical abuse begins. Directed by Scottish born Michael Caton-Jones, This Boy’s Life is subtle and brilliantly acted film with highly charged performances in the lead roles by the excellent Ellen Barkin, Robert DeNiro and Leonardo DiCaprio, who is moving and astonishingly assured in his first important screen role, capturing perfectly the confusion and pain of being a teenager. Robert de Niro gives a terrific performance as the bully Dwight, with his barely suppressed rage, and the tension builds to a satisfying climax. Jonah Blechman is also great as as Toby’s gay friend Arthur Gayle. Highly recommended.

HAMLET   MR BONGO FILMS MRBDVDO4

William Shakespeare’s Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, or more simply Hamlet, is set in the Kingdom of Denmark and recounts how Prince Hamlet exacts revenge on his uncle Claudius for murdering the old King Hamlet (Claudius’s brother and Prince Hamlet’s father) and then succeeding to the throne and marrying Gertrude (the King Hamlet’s widow and mother of Prince Hamlet). The play vividly portrays real and feigned madness – from overwhelming grief to seething rage – and explores themes of treachery, revenge, incest, and moral corruption. Shakespeare’s best known play has been puzzled over, quoted endlessly and adapted many times for the screen. Grigori Kozintsev and Iosif Saphiro’s 1964 Russian version, Gamlet, is based on a translation by Boris Pasternak and like Kozintsev’s later film, King Lear, has a magnificent score by Dmitri Shostakovich and powerfully evokes a pervasive atmosphere of dark foreboding right from the opening title sequence. Innokenty Smoktunovsky was greatly praised by Sir Laurence Olivier for his intense performance in the demanding title role and the outstanding cast also includes Mikhail Nazvanov (Claudius), Elza Radzina (Gertrude) and Anastasiya Vertinskaya (a touching Ophelia). ‘Genuinely exciting epic sweep’ - Time Out.

KING LEAR   MR BONGO FILMS MRBDVD040

In William Shakespeare’s King Lear the title character descends into madness after foolishly disposing of his estate between two of his three daughters based on their flattery, bringing tragic consequences for all. After the Restoration, the play, which was based on the legend of Leir of Britain, a mythological pre-Roman Celtic king was often revised with a happy ending for audiences who disliked its dark and depressing tone. Since the 19th century, however, Shakespeare’s original version has been regarded as one of his supreme achievements and has been widely adapted for the stage and films. In Grigori Kozintsev’s classic 1971 version (Korol Lir), Lear’s final days are marked by dissension, internecine conflict and terrible violence. Humiliated and banished by his daughters, the King wanders the countryside like a beggar, accompanied by his Fool and a few faithful servants. Driven mad by despair, Lear’s megalomania consumes him to the point of blindness. Adapted by Boris Pasternak and with an epic score by Dmitri Shostakovich, Kozintsev’s film features a dynamic performance by Yuri Yarvet as Lear and is on a scale no stage production could emulate. ‘The greatest King Lear I’ve seen in any language.’ - The Observer.

JUST DO IT    DOGWOOF DOG254

For one eventful year director Emily James was allowed unprecedented access to film the secretive world of environmental direct action. The result is this eye-opening tale of modern-day outlaws - an inside view of the world of eco activism that has rarely been seen on film due to its underground nature. The documentary shows the risks that some of these campaigners are prepared to takes, as well as their determination, energy, passion and humour. We get to know members of clandestine activist groups such as Climate Camp and Plane Stupid and join them as they climb over fences, wade through mud, blockade factories, attack coal power stations and glue themselves to the trading floors of international banks despite the very real threat of arrest. Just Do It lifts the lid on climate activism and the daring rebel rousers who have crossed the line to stand up for what they believe in. It’s easy to understand their impatience with more regular political activity and the film is a sympathetic portrayal of these committed and idealistic protestors, though it probably won’t convert many Daily Mail readers to their point of view. Special features include deleted scenes and behind the scenes footage. ‘Rousing stuff.’ - Empire.

IN THE REALM OF THE SENSES    OPTIMUM OPTBD2111

Director Nagisa Oshima’s Franco-Japanese drama, In the Realm of the Senses (Japanese title Ai no Korida), caused considerable controversy for its scenes of explicit, unsimulated scenes of sexual activity when the film was released in 1976. The British Board of Film Censors recommended it be shown under private ‘cinema club’ conditions to avoid the need for cuts to be made, but only after the Obscene Publications Act had been extended to films (in 1977) to avoid potential legal problems. Based on a true story set in pre-war Japan, a man and one of his servants begin a torrid affair. Their desire becomes a sexual obsession so strong that to intensify their ardour, they forsake all, even life itself. Gripping, sophisticated and disturbing, this groundbreaking exploration of unhealthy sexual obsession remains a powerful and challenging film. Extras with this Double Play (DVD & Blu-ray) release include ‘Recalling the Film’ featuring interviews with consulting producer Hayao Shibata, line producer Koji Wakamatsu, assistant director Yoichi Sai and distributor Yoko Asakura; a discussion at Birkbeck College with Japanese film scholars; ‘Once Upon a Time: In the Realm of the Senses’; Deleted Scenes.

EMPIRE OF PASSION   OPTIMUM OPTBD2110

Nagisa Oshima’s follow up to his chilling film In the Realm of the Senses was Empire of Passion, also known as Phantom Love. A young man named Toyoji (Tatsuya Fuji) has an affair with an older woman, Seki (Kazuko Yoshiyuki). He becomes extremely jealous of her husband and decides that they should kill him. One night, after the husband had plenty of sake to drink and was in bed, they strangle him and dump his body down a well. To avert any suspicions, she pretends her husband has gone off to do business in Tokyo. For three years the wife and her lover secretly see each other but eventually people begin to gossip. To make matters worse, her husband’s ghost begins to haunt her and her stepdaughter has dreams of him. Finally the law in the form of a bumbling police inspector is sent to investigate her husband’s disappearance. This surreal, haunting and erotic ghost story is now available in Double Play (DVD & Blu-ray) with extras that include ‘Sur Le Tournage’ featuring production consultant Koji Wakamatsu and assistant directors Yusuke Narita and Yoichi Sai; and a discussion at Birkbeck College with Japanese film scholars.

MY VOYAGE TO ITALY    MR BONGO FILMS MRBDVD043

The great period of Italian Neorealist cinema began with Luchino Visconti’s Ossessione in 1943 and flourished after the Second World War with unforgettable films by directors such as Roberto Rossellini, Vittorio De Sica and Frederico Fellini. My Voyage to Italy is acclaimed Italian-American director Martin Scorsese’s award-winning personal documentary exploring Italian cinema history, especially the outstanding films made by directors in the 1940s and 50s, including generous extracts from some of the lesser known films and the 1960s work of Antonioni. This truly fascinating insight into some of the greatest Italian films of all time was released in 1999 screened at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival. Presented here on DVD for the first time, the film is a joyful and revelatory journey by Scorsese as he leads us through a feast of films that have inspired and moved him. The documentary spans some 30 years of celluloid greats and near-greats, creating almost four hours of unmissable viewing, with illuminating thoughts, reminiscences, private family films and photographs of cinema legend Scorsese, director of Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Goodfellas and Gangs Of New York. ‘Will forever change and deepen the way you look at cinema.’ - New York Times.

THE IRON HORSE    EUREKA EKA40339

This 1924 blockbuster launched 29-year-old John Ford into Hollywood’s emerging A-list of directors, The Iron Horse is a lavish epic mythification of the American railroad’s birth: a rambunctious blend of historical drama and Western actioner, revenge story and saloon comedy. Neighbour to the pre-presidential Abe Lincoln in Springfield, Illinois, young Davy Brandon accompanies his father westward to realise the elder’s dream of a rail line bridging the ends of the continent. Years after Brandon Sr.’s murder and scalping by a two-fingered Cheyenne half-breed, the adult David (played by George O’Brien, three years before his lead role in Sunrise, here in the first of ten films he made with Ford) joins in the effort now underway to lay track and accommodate ‘the Iron Horse’. Ford guides his characters’ fates towards final convergence, like the merging of the tracks from east and west in this engaging tale of courage, chicanery and hardship with many of the director’s regular trademarks already in evidence – pawky humour, stage Oirishness, fistfights, superb action sequences, memorable images and a marvelous gift for cinematic storytelling. With its expressive compositional prowess and incredible stunt work, The Iron Horse anticipates the bounteous universe that Ford would go on to calibrate perfectly in his greatest works. In the final scenes of the meeting of the West and East Railways, the director used the actual engines that did meet on that day - the Jupiter and Locomotive 116. The kitchen staff for the film was made up largely of Chinese cooks, some of whom had been workers on the transcontinental railroad in 1869. This definitive two-disc Masters of Cinema Series release from Eureka features The Iron Horse in its full-length US version for the first time on DVD in the UK. The set also includes the shorter, UK, 133-minute version of the film (with alternate takes), an audio commentary by scholar Robert Birchard, a video essay by Tag Gallagher and an illustrated booklet containing vintage press and publicity material.

SUNRISE     EUREKA (MASTERS OF CINEMA) DVD & BLU-RAY EKA70050

Sunrise, released in 1927 with the subtitle ‘A Song of Two Humans’, is perhaps the finest and most visually expressive of all silent films. Best known for his horror classic, Nosferatu, Murnau was invited by William Fox to America to direct his first Hollywood film, with the promise of complete artistic freedom and a blank cheque. Conceived by Murnau and written by Carl Mayer while they were both still in Germany, Sunrise takes describes the marriage of a peasant couple (George O’Brien and Janet Gaynor) from a country hamlet, invaded by a seductress from the city (Margaret Livingston), and elevates it to the realm of fable, stripped of melodrama yet brimming with poetic impulses. Murnau captivated audiences with his ‘invisible’ tracking shots, breathtaking double exposures, expressive lighting, and distorted sets, so that the viewer is immersed in the fate of these simple characters. Sunrise won three Oscars at the first Academy Awards ceremony. Janet Gaynor won for Best Actress; Charles Rosher and Karl Struss for Best Cinematography; and the film won a special Oscar for ‘Unique and Artistic Picture’ (the only time this award has been given). This dual format special edition in the Masters of Cinema Series includes Sunrise on both Blu-ray and DVD. It contains two versions: the previously released Movietone version and an alternate silent version of the film recently discovered in the Czech Republic. The generous extras include the original English intertitles on the Movietone version, and optional English subtitles on the silent Czech version; the original Movietone score (mono) and alternate Olympic Chamber Orchestra score (stereo); full-length audio commentary by cinematographer John Bailey on the Movietone version; miraculously surviving out-takes (with John Bailey commentary or intertitles); Murnau’s 4 Devils (a documentary about the lost film the director made after Sunrise); the original theatrical trailer; Carl Mayer’s original ‘photoplay’ script with Murnau’s handwritten annotations (150 pages in pdf format); and a 68-page illustrated booklet with numerous essays including a new reprint of a piece by Dudley Andrew. Described by Cahiers du Cinéma as ‘the single greatest masterwork in the history of the cinema’, Sunrise continues to thrill Murnau admirers and Eureka’s latest edition of his masterpiece will amaze a whole new audience.

CITY OF GOD      MIRAMAX MIROPBD2117

Adapted by Fernando Meirelles from the 1997 novel of the same name written by Paulo Lins, City of God depicts the growth of organized crime in the Cidade de Deus suburb of Rio de Janeiro. Set between the end of the 1960s and the beginning of the 80s, with the closure of the film depicting the war between the drug dealer Li’l Zé and criminal Knockout Ned, this is a powerful, fast-paced and utterly compelling film. ‘One of the best films you’ll ever see!’ - Roger Ebert. Extras include News from a personal war and a conversation with Fernando Meirelles. City of God is one of six outstanding modern films newly available in Blu-ray format from Miramax. THE TALENTED MR RIPLEY (MIRAMAX MIROPBD2280) is an American psychological thriller written for the screen and directed by Anthony Minghella. Adapted from the Patricia Highsmith 1955 novel of the same name, the story is set in late 1950s New York. Matt Damon gives a terrific performance as Tom Ripley, a young underachiever who is sent to Europe to retrieve a rich and spoiled millionaire playboy, named Dickie Greenleaf (Jude Law). But when the errand fails, Ripley takes extreme measures. Extras include an audio commentary with Anthony Minghella, trailers, cast and crew interviews, and Inside The Talented Mr. Ripley. EMMA (MIRAMAX MIROPTD2132) is a period romantic comedy based on the novel by Jane Austen. Gwynneth Paltrow stars as Emma Woodhouse, a young woman who imagines herself an authority on matters of the heart. With the best of intentions, Emma plays matchmaker for her friends, most notably her friend Harriet (the excellent Toni Collette), who Emma links up with the Reverend Elton (Alan Cumming), and her governess, (the beautiful Greta Scacchi), who she introduces to her future husband, Mr. Weston (James Cosmo). However, Emma is not nearly as good at playing Cupid as she likes to imagine, and she spends so much time trying to solve everyone else’s romantic problems that it takes her quite some time to realize that she’s fallen in love with Mr Knightly (Jeremy Northam). THE AVIATOR (MIRAMAX MIROPBD2118), directed by Martin Scorsese, is the compelling story of aviation pioneer Howard Hughes (Leonardo Dicaprio). The film concentrates on Hughes’ life from late 1920s to 1947, during which time he became a successful film producer and an aviation magnate while simultaneously growing more unstable due to severe obsessive-compulsive disorder. This film was nominated for 11 Academy Awards, winning five, including one for Cate Blanchett as Katharine Hepburn. Extras include a commentary, deleted scenes and many documentary features. THE QUIET AMERICAN (MIRAMAX MIROPTD2136), directed by Phillip Noyce, is an adaptation of Graham Greene’s bestselling novel of the same name. Saigon, in 1952, is a beautiful, exotic and mysterious city caught in the grips of the Vietnamese war of liberation from the French colonial powers. New arrival Alden Pyle (Brendan Fraser), an idealistic American aid worker, befriends London Times correspondent Thomas Fowler (an Oscar nominated performance by Michael Caine). When Fowler introduces Pyle to his beautiful young Vietnamese mistress Phuong the three become swept up in a tempestuous love triangle that leads to a series of startling revelations and finally - murder. The film illustrates Pyle’s moral culpability in fostering intrigue within the South Vietnamese government. Extras include a commentary and interviews. Directed by Anthony Minghella, THE ENGLISH PATIENT (MIRAMAX MIROPTD2119) is based on the novel by Sri Lankan-Canadian writer Michael Ondaatje and won a remarkable nine Academy Awards, including Best Picture. Beginning in the 1930s, it tells the story of Count Almásy (Ralph Fiennes) who is a Hungarian map maker employed by the Royal Geographical Society to chart the vast expanses of the Sahara Desert along with several other prominent explorers. As World War II unfolds, Almásy enters into a world of love, betrayal, and politics that is later revealed in a series of flashbacks while he is on his death bed after being horribly burned in a plane crash. The film also stars Kristin Scott Thomas, Juliette Binoche, William Dafoe and Colin Firth. Extras include commentaries with the director, producer and author, a historical look at the real Count Almásy and several interviews.

I AM SLAVE     HIGH FLIERS

This hard-hitting film explores the horror and brutality of the modern day slave trade and one woman’s fight to escape from it. Twelve-year-old Malia is snatched from her father during a Muharaleen raid on their Sudanese village in the Nubar Mountains and sold into slavery to a woman in Khartoum. After six years she is sent to London where her name is changed and her miserable life of servitude continues. Stripped of her passport and living in fear of what might happen to her family if she tries to seek help, she again finds herself trapped. However, with the help of a sympathetic stranger, she eventually summons up the strength to make a dramatic escape back to the Sudan to find her father who never gave up hope that she was still alive and who never stopped searching for her. Vividly and economically told, the story contrasts the frantic bustle and noise of London with the exquisite arid landscapes and villages of Africa. Directed by Gabriel Range and written by Jeremy Brock, this intense film is based on the real-life experiences of a young African girl called Mende Nazer and features and moving performances by the stunning Wunmi Mosaku as Malia, Isaach De Bankole as her determined father, and the excellent Lubna Azabal. ‘Powerful … mesmerizing’ – The Sunday Times.

SCHLOSS VOGELOD    EUREKA EKA40337

Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, better known as F. W. Murnau, was one of the greatest film directors of the silent film era and part of the influential German expressionist movement of the 1920s. Unfortunately, much of Murnau’s output has been lost but those films that survive are widely regarded as masterpieces. Born Friedrich Wilhelm Plumpe, Murnau took his directorial name from a town in Germany. After making Phantom, The Grand Duke’s Finances, Nosferatu, Der Letze Mann (also known as The Last Laugh and Faust (his last German film), Murnau emigrated to Hollywood in 1926 to direct the wonderful Sunrise and City Girl. He was one of the great innovators in film with a dazzling mastery of style that influenced both Orson Welles and Alfred Hitchcock. One of Murnau’s earliest films was Schloss Vogelöd: Die Enthüllung eines Geheimnisses (or Castle Vogelöd: The Revelation of a Secret, sometimes misleadingly titled The Haunted Castle) provides a vital glimpse into the development of the uncanny-suffused expressionistic style that became Murnau’s hallmark and legacy. A party of aristocrats assemble at a country manor for an autumn hunt. But a long-lingering question threatens once more to rear its head: who really murdered the Baroness’s late husband? Though not on a par with F W Murnau’s later masterpieces, this enjoyable whodunit has many memorable scenes and creates a terrifically doom-laden atmosphere from the start. One nightmare sequence foreshadows the nocturnal fantasias of both Nosferatu (made the following year) and Phantom, and a masquerade conceit looks backward to Feuillade and forward to Murnau’s own Die Finanzen des Großherzogs, as this languorous mood piece represents the latent material that will figure into a director’s later breakthroughs. Lothar Mehnert gives a riveting performance as the brooding Count Oetsch, a man with seemingly supernatural powers. Baroness Safferstat is played by the charismatic Olga Chekhova, who became one of the most sought after actresses of her time and was involved with many leading Nazi figures, including Adolf Hitler. Schloss Vogelöd has long been unavailable and is here released in the UK in a full, superbly restored version on DVD for the first time. Special features include the original German-language intertitles with newly translated English-language subtitles; The Language of the Shadows: Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau and His Films - a documentary by Luciano Berriatua on the early works of the director; and an illustrated booklet containing a newly translated essay on the film as well as vintage writings about Murnau.

THE EXTRAORDINARY ADVENTURES OF ADELE BLANC-SEC    OPTIMUM OPTBD1850

Luc Besson directed this loosely based adaptation of a Franco-Belgian mystery and adventure comic book series written and illustrated by French artist Jacques Tardi. The comic portrays the titular far-fetched adventures of its eponymous heroine, a writer of popular fiction, in a secret history-infused, gas lamp fantasy version of Paris the early 20th century. Besson transports us back to this intriguing world, where feisty young Adele Blanc-Sec embarks on thrilling missions to find exciting material for her book and a cure for her sick sister Agathe, who is comatose following an unfortunate incident involving a hatpin. She sails to Egypt to raid a tomb that supposedly hides the cure, but what will she do when an army of resurrected mummies get in the way? Back in Paris she finds the city in chaos after a 136 million-year old pterosaur egg mysteriously hatches. Adele realises she is the only one game enough to take control of the prehistoric bird. This beautifully designed film is highly entertaining, with a wittily insouciant script and terrific special effects. Extras include a ‘Making of’ documentary as well as interviews with Luc Besson and Louise Bourgoin (excellent as Adèle).

SUBMARINE       OPTIMUM

Writer-director Richard Ayoade, of I.T. Crowd fame, made his directorial debut in 2010 with this coming-of-age comedy-drama adapted from the novel of the same name by Joe Dunthorne. The film stars newcomer Craig Roberts as 15-year-old Oliver Tate, who has two objectives: To lose his virginity before his next birthday with the girl of his dreams Jordana (Yasmin Paige), and to extinguish the flame between his uptight mother and her ex-lover, the phony psychic Graham T. Purvis (Paddy Considine). Witty, perceptive and touched with melancholy, this engaging film features fine performances by the wonderful Sally Hawkins as Oliver’s mother and Noah Taylor as his depressive father. Craig Roberts has the gentle charm of a young Richard Beckinsale and Yasmin Paige is totally believeable as his resolutely unromantic girlfriend. Available on Blu-ray and DVD. Extras include an audio commentary with Richard Ayoade, Joe Dunthorne and director of photography Erik Wilson; Cast and crew Q&As; Alex Turner’s Piledriver Waltz music video; Through The Prism with Graham T. Purvis; Cast and crew interviews; a message from executive producer Ben Stiller; Deleted and extended Scenes; A test shoot and the trailer. Highly recommended.

HIROSHIMA MON AMOUR   OPTIMUM OPTD2107

French critic André Malraux called Alain Resnais’ first feature, made in 1959, the most beautiful film he had ever seen. Sensual, poetic and mesmerising, it brought the director instant fame, winning the Cannes International Critics Prize and becoming an enduring classic of film history. Set in post World War II Japan, this study of a troubled relationship stars Emmanuelle Riva, Eiji Okada, Bernard Fresson, Stella Dassas and Pierre Barbaud. A young French actress, in Hiroshima for the shooting of a film about peace, meets a Japanese architect who reminds her of the first man she loved, a German soldier. Their passionate, haunting affair is overshadowed by memories of the Bomb and is told in a complex series of dreamlike flashbacks with intimations of death, loneliness and time passing. Scripted by experimental novelist Marguerite Duras, the innovative Hiroshima Mon Amour was a catalyst for the highly influential Nouvelle Vague film movement of the 1960s. Superby photographed and acted, especially by Emmanuelle Riva, this intense masterpiece is enough to give post-modernism a good name.

NIGHT & FOG   OPTIMUM OPTD2108

Alain Resnais’s Night and Fog (Nuit et brouillard) was the first and remains one of the most vividly powerful depictions of the horrors of Nazi concentration camps. Filmed at Auschwitz and Majdanek in 1955, ten years after the liberation of the camps, this half hour documentary combines colour and black and white footage with stills and newsreels shot by the victorious allies. The radical documentary, winner of the Jean Vigo Prize and 1957’s Karlovy Vary Film Festival Grand Prize, tells the story not only of the Holocaust, but the horror of man’s limitless potential for brutal inhumanity. The film was made in collaboration by two survivors of the Holocaust, composer Hanns Eisler and writer Jean Cayrol, whose text is admirably narrated by Michel Bouquet. He describes the rise of Nazi ideology and compares the life of the Schutzstaffel to the starving prisoners in the camps with their torture, scientific and medical ‘experiments’, executions and prostitution. After showing the liberation of the country and the discovery of the horror of the camps, the film asks profound questions about who was responsible and warns that we must constantly be on our guard against such evils in the world today. Shocking and often painful to watch, Night and Fog is a powerful and moving experience.

WENT THE DAY WELL?    OPTIMUM OPTD2066

Director Alberto Cavalcanti’s memorable 1942 propaganda film stars Leslie Banks, Basil Sydney, Valerie Taylor, David Farrar, and Mari Lohr as the redoubtable lady of the manor, as well as many British actors who would later become famous, including Harry Fowler as the plucky boy George, feisty Thora Hird, Mervyn Johns, Janette Scott, the excellent Patricia Hayes and John Slater. Look out also for uncredited appearances by Christopher Lee, Arthur Ridley, Norman Shelley and the voice of comedian Tommy Trinder as a radio announcer. Based on a short story by Graham Greene, this solidly constructed wartime melodrama tells the story of a group of disguised German paratroopers who set up an advance post for a planned invasion in the unsuspecting British village of Bramley Green. Ruthless Nazi officer Ortier (Sydney) contacts plausible local Fifth Columnist Oliver Wileford (Banks), using the film’s title as their password. Fortunately, the vicar’s astute daughter picks up on a clue left behind by the Germans and alerts her neighbours to the impending danger. Inspiring, suspenseful and surprisingly violent, Went the Day Well? is a superb piece of propaganda as well as an ingeniously structured film that stands up well in its own right. Digitally restored, it’s available on DVD & Bluray with extras that include a ‘BBC Radio 3 The Essay - British Cinema of the 1940s audio featurette’ and a Cavalcanti short film, Yellow Caesar, that mocks Italy’s dictator Benito Mussolini (screenplay by Michael Foot).

A HIGH WIND IN JAMAICA    EUREKA EKA40334

Richard Hughes’ classic 1929 pirate adventure novel was transformed in 1965 into a magnificent film adaptation by the revered director Alexander Mackendrick, who also made Sweet Smell of Success, The Ladykillers and Whisky Galore. A High Wind in Jamaica tells the story of a group of children living in the West Indies in the 1870s who are sent by their parents to be educated in England to prevent them becoming uncivilised. However, when their ship is attacked by pirates and the children are inadvertently transferred onto the enemy vessel, their presence begins to stir up trouble amongst the superstitious crew, easily spooked by ‘duppies’. With wonderfully robust performances by Anthony Quinn as Chavez, the pirate captain, and James Coburn as a charming rogue, the film also has Deborah Baxter in a brilliant debut performance as feisty young Emily. Others involved include Dennis Price, Lila Kedrova as the local Madame, Nigel Davenport, Vivienne Ventura, Ben Carruthers, Gert Fröbe as a Dutch sea captain, Kenneth J Warren and, er, 15-year-old Martin Amis. As well as being a thrilling adventure classic, the film is a subtle, look at the boundaries of childhood perception, with a dark side that includes violence, death and sexual danger. Special features with the DVD include a new high-definition transfer in the correct 2.35:1 aspect ratio, two theatrical trailers and optional English subtitles. ‘Marvellous entertainment.’ - Radio Times.

NO SURRENDER     SECOND SIGHT 2NDVD3204

Scripted by the acclaimed writer of The Boys From The Blackstuff, Alan Bleasdale’s No Surrender is one of the great British comedies of the 1980s and stars several members of the ‘Bleasdale repertory company’. The increasingly chaotic action takes place at The Charleston in Liverpool, a seedy nightclub run by the local gangland boss. The new manager (a splendidly laid-back Michael Angelis) has arrived and his predecessor, a practical joker, has left a host of atrocious cabaret acts for the New Year’s Eve bash - a band that can’t play, a magician (Elvis Costello) with a dead rabbit under his hat and, to top off the night, two coach parties of rival OAPs arrive. One is a devout Catholic social club, complete with a drunken blind ex-boxer, and the other is an equally boisterous group of Protestant revelers. Mayhem enjoyably ensues in this classic slice of British black humour as the evening progresses to its surreal climax. Bleasedale’s marvelously droll dialogue sharply points up the absurdities of sectarianism whilst celebrating the Liverpudlian sense of community. There are great performances all round, especially by Angelis, the very funny Bernard Hill, James Ellis, Joanne Whalley, J G Devlin, Joan Turner and the great Ray MacNally. Special features include ‘Making No Surrender’ and interviews with director Peter Smith and producer Mamoun Hassan. ‘Brutally funny’ - Mail On Sunday.

LAKE MUNGO    SECOND SIGHT 2NDVD3203   

Sixteen-year-old Alice Palmer tragically drowns while swimming in the local dam. When her body is recovered and a verdict of accidental death returned, her grieving family buries her. The family then begins to experience a series of strange and inexplicable events centered in and around their home. Profoundly unsettled, the Palmers seek the help of psychic and parapsychologist, Ray Kemeny, who discovers that Alice had a secret, double life. A series of clues lead the family to Lake Mungo where Alice’s secret past emerges. Drawing comparisons to Paranormal Activity and The Blair Witch Project, this highly acclaimed thriller from Australia is a ghost story that is all the more effective by being made in understated documentary style. Director Joel Anderson made this remarkable debut film in 2008, using his limited resources brilliantly to create gathering sense of unease. There are many genuinely unsettling moments as he explores the family’s grief, the mystery of Alice and the dreamlike, Daliesque landscape surrounding Lake Mungo. Highly recommended.

THE ROUND UP     REVOLVER

This 2010 box office box-office hit in France (as ‘La Rafle’) is a poignant and gripping treatment of a truly shocking story that until relatively recently has been largely taboo. Writer and director Roselyne Bosch’s tense drama throws a powerful light on one of the most disturbing episodes in modern French history. Based on meticulous research and told through the story of several Jewish families who find themselves taken unawares by the ferocious turn of events, the film portrays the few weeks in July 1942 when more than 13,000 Parisian Jews, including more than 4,000 children, were rounded up and taken to the now notorious Vélodrome D’Hiver stadium, where they were held in degrading conditions and treated with casual brutality. From the Vélodrome to the camp of Beaune-La-Rolande, from Vichy to the terrace of the Berghof, The Round Up follows the destinies of the victims and the executioners, those who orchestrated it all as well as those who opposed them. This powerful, heartbreaking film’s cast includes Jean Reno as a dedicated doctor, Mélanie Laurent as a young Protestant nurse and Hugo Leverdez as eleven year old Joseph Weismann, with Gad Elmaleh and Raphaëlle Agogué outstanding as the boy’s parents. All the characters portrayed are real and all the events, even the most extreme and harrowing, took place in that terrible summer of 1942.

CONAN THE BARBARIAN     TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX HOME ENTERTAINMENT

Arnold Schwarzenegger made his striking screen debut as the legendary warrior hero, Conan the Barbarian. Written by Oliver Stone and director John Milius, this adaptation of Robert E. Howard’s sword and sorcery adventures is set during the fictional prehistoric Hyborian Age, a time after the fall of Atlantis but eons before the rise of known ancient civilizations. When his mother and father are killed in a raid by the evil sorcerer Thulsa Doom (James Earl Jones), Conan is sent to a slave camp. As the years pass, he develops into a powerfully-built man, still determined to get revenge for his parents’ death and solve the riddle of steel. He learns that Thulsa Doom is the head of a mysterious snake cult and in his attempts to get closer to the evil sorceror Conan makes some powerful friends and many deadly enemies. This epic tale of survival and revenge is now a recognised classic and Schwarzenegger’s best film, now available in Blu-ray. Extras include two new special featurettes - Art of Steel: The Blacksmith & Swordsman and Conan: From the Vault - as well as commentary by John Milius and Arnold Schwarzenegger, deleted scenes, a ‘making of’ documentary and theatrical trailers.

THE LINCOLN LAWYER    ENTERTAINMENT IN VIDEO

This intelligent, intricately-plotted noir thriller is based on the bestseller by acclaimed crime novelist Michael Connelly, sharply scripted by John Romano. Matthew McConaughey plays fast-talking, charismatic criminal defence lawyer Mickey Haller, who prefers working out of the back of his chauffeured Lincoln Continental sedan to sitting in an office, when he takes on rich young playboy realtor Louis Ross Roulet (Ryan Phillippe) as a client accused of rape and attempted murder. The case seems straightforward with a big money pay-off, but as events progress Haller starts to doubt whether Roulet is telling him everything and echoes from past cases come back to haunt him. Before long, Haller knows he’s being played by a pro but to what end and for what purpose? The gripping story develops into a deadly match between two masters of manipulation and a crisis of conscience for Haller, coolly played by McConaughey. Beautifully photographed by Lukas Ettlin and directed by young Brad Furman, the film vividly brings to life the Chandleresque streets of downtown Los Angeles as Haller floats around in his chauffeur-driven Lincoln. The excellent cast also includes Josh Lucas, Luarence Mason and Frances Fisher, with Marisa Tomei as Haller’s ex-wife and the brilliant William H. Macy as his droll right-hand man. The Lincoln Lawyer is an atmospheric, tough guy thriller with many satisfying twists and turns. Now available in both Blu-ray and DVD.

IL GENERALE DELLA ROVERE - ROSSELLINI   ARROW

This Venice Film Festival winner was Roberto Rossellini's first box-office successes after a string of commercial failures, notably with his wife Ingrid Bergman. It also marked a return to the themes of the films which had brought him international fame in the 1940s - Rome, Open City, Paisà and other neorealist classics. Set in Genoa in 1943, Il Generale Della Rovere is based on a story by the Italian journalist Indro Montanelli and stars Rossellini's friend and fellow director Vittorio De Sica as Victorio Emanuele Bardone, a plausible con man with a gambling problem and debts who helps to save Italians arrested by the Gestapo, or at least pretends to do so, in exchange for money or gifts from their family. When he attempts to save a man already executed he is turned over by the man's wife and is given the choice of execution or carrying out a confidence trick for the Germans; to assume the identity of General Della Rovere. Turning on his country to save his skin, Bardone enters prison to seek out the identity of a partisan commander, Fabrizio, from among the new batch of inmates. De Sica is excellent as the conflicted Bardone and there are fine performances too by Sandra Milo as a former prostitute girlfriend, Hannes Messemer as a relatively sympathetic Nazi commandant and Vittorio Caprioli as an inmate barber on a death sentence. Shot in Rome's Cinecitta to save time and money, the film nevertheless retains the look of neorealist cinema. Despite its length (138 minutes) this intelligent, understated film grips all the way to its moving conclusion. Il Generale Della Rovere is now available on DVD for the first time in the UK in a new transfer of its Venice Film Festival version, with optional English subtitles, interviews with Rossellini's son Renzo and film scholar Adriano Apra, who explains the different versions of the film, and a comprehensive booklet featuring writing by Tag Gallagher and Peter Bondanella as well a contemporary interview with Roberto Rossellini.

CONDITIONED    LOWAVE

This DVD compilation curated by Yekhan Pinarligil and Silke Schmickl features eight experimental film and video art works from Turkey that explore the intellectual conditioning of children and teenagers through both the educational system and contemporary Turkish society at large. Through a variety of styles and approaches, each of these works elude to the conditioning of youth including references to the seemingly innocent daily repetition of the national anthem (The First Ones by Hatice Güleryüz), more violent military methods (Origin by Erkan Özgen), and social injustice (Our village by Sener Özmen). From the privacy of home (A young girl is growing up by Ferhat Özgür) to public spaces (On the thin ice de Burçak Kaygun), several processes are at play, subtly or directly, through the womens prison featured in Koro by Güldem Durmaz or the school in Where Bluebirds fly by Berat Isik. Beyond that lies a reflection on the impact of the world and on the development of an individual such as with the video Delirium by Ethem Özgüven confronting the mechanisms of the consumer society and its psychological consequences. Other intriguing Lowave releases include HORS PISTES (featuring Meryl Streep in Lasrie Simmon’s experimental musical, The Music of Regret), Triny Prada’s FOOD FOR THOUGHT, the ‘deliciously oddball’ MIX UP and Samuel Bester’s exploration of the island of SYLT.

FLOODTIDE     PARK CIRCUS PC0028

This 1949 British romantic drama directed by Frederick Wilson stars Gordon Jackson and Rona Anderson, who were to marry two years later. Jackson plays David Shields, the son of a Scottish farmer who dreams of a life in the city and against his father’s wishes becomes a lowly shipyard worker. He falls in love with his boss’s daughter (Anderson) and keeps an eye out for opportunities to advance himself as a revolutionary ship designer. Through determination and resourcefulness, he quickly works his way up to an executive position with a firm, upsetting some with his impatience and dislike for performing menial tasks but trying his best not to forget his humble roots. Gordon Jackson is excellent and the strong supporting cast includes the great Jimmy Logan, John Laurie, Janet Brown, Elizabeth Sellars, James Woodburn, Molly Weir, Ian Wallace, the inevitable Sam Kydd and Arthur Lowe as a pianist (back to camera, uncredited). Much of the film was shot in Clydeside at the impressive John Brown shipyard, now sadly long gone. This DVD edition features a restored version of the film, which was shot extensively on location.

JAVA HEAD & TIGER BAY   OPTIMUM OPTBD2093

Born Wong Liu Tsong (meaning ‘frosted yellow willows’) in the Chinatown district of Los Angeles, California, to parents who ran a laundry, Anna May Wong was the first Asian American actress to become an international star. Her long and varied stage and film career began during the silent era of the 1920s and lasted until 1961, when she died at the age of 56. Controversially, MGM refused to consider her for the leading role in its film version of The Good Earth and chose instead the German actress Luise Rainer. For decades after her death, Anna May Wong was remembered for the stereotypical ‘Dragon Lady’ and demure ‘Butterfly’ roles that she was often given but her life and career have lately been re-evaluated in major biographies and film retrospectives. This DVD revives two of the films that she made in England during the 1930s. The enjoyable Java Head tells the story of a Bristol based sailing ship line of the 1800s. The owner has two sons. One, a handsome seafarer, is in love with a local girl, but cannot marry her due to a long-running feud between their fathers. After a lengthy voyage, he returns with a very exotic, noble Chinese wife, which scandalizes the conservative town. His other son, a supercilious ‘landlubber’ played by Ralph Richardson, seeks to convert to steamships, to the disgust of his father. Even worse, he is secretly dealing in contraband. Anna May Wong gives a typically intelligent, dignified performance in this literate, elegantly constructed yarn. In the less ambitious Tiger Bay, directed by J Elder Wills and partly edited by David Lean, a young Englishman abroad (played by Victor Garland) in South America visits the local low-life spot of Tiger Bay, full of colourful, mostly disreputable characters up to no good. Wong’s character, the elegant Lui Chang, is a truly exotic dancer as well as a shrewd businesswoman who owns a Chinese nightclub. The Englishman falls in love with her beautiful young foster-sister (‘the peach of her eye’) and intervenes when vicious local protection racketeers target the club and Lui Chang. The drama is leavened with quaint jokiness and a very funny performance by Margaret Yarde as the club’s manageress, a stately galleon of a woman reminiscent of a Blackpool landlady.

THE HALFWAY HOUSE     OPTIMUM OPTBD2094

This year sees the centenary of the birth of Ealing stalwart Basil Dearden, who directed 18 Ealing films, more than any of his peers. They include The Blue Lamp, Saraband for Dead Lovers and The Halfway House. He was also the director of the ground-breaking Victim, starring Dirk Bogarde. The Halfway House, written by Anghus McPhail (of Whisky Galore! fame), Diana Morgan and T E B Clarke (Passport to Pimlico) from the stage play by Denis Ogden, is an enjoyable mystery tale about a group of strangers driven to take shelter at a remote Welsh inn. Each has a personal problem to hide, but they are soon brought together by unsettling events perhaps precipitated by their hosts, the enigmatic innkeepers played by imperturable Mervyn Johns and his real-life daughter Glynis, whose distinctive voice and ethereal persona are perfect for the role. ‘Death is only a door that you walk through.’ By turns whimsical and bluff, The Halfway House is an entertaining and very British film that has some surprisingly serious and touching moments.

THE BROTHERS      PARK CIRCUS PC0027

Born Felicia Miriam Ursula Herold in 1915, Patricia Roc was adopted by a wealthy Dutch-Belgian stockbroker, André Riese, and grew up believing him to be her real father (not learning that she was adopted until 1949). After an expensive private education and a Paris finishing school, she studied at Rada and went on to become one of the most glamorous British actresses of the 1940s - ‘the goddess of the Odeons’. In The Brothers, directed in 1947 David MacDonald who adapted his screenplay from a novel by L.A.G. Strong, the vivacious Roc causes havoc as a young orphan girl named Mary who arrives on a remote Scottish island at the turn-of-the-century to become a servant to the Macraes, a family clan who are arch rivals with another family on the island, the McFarishes. Her arrival revives the feud and provokes competition between the young men of the two households, eventually turning to jealousy within the Macrae family itself. Both troubled Fergus (Maxwell Reed) and the dupilicitous John Macrae (Duncan Macrae) are determined to marry her, but their chase may have chilling consequences for all. This classic melodrama, filmed on the wonderfully scenic Isle of Skye, also features Scottish music hall star Will Fyffe as a roguish ‘captain’, John Laurie fortelling doom with his usual relish, and a fine performance by James Woodburn as the buttoned up local priest. Patricia Roc is effortlessly sexy as Mary, disrupting the almost exclusively male population with her free-spirits, skinny dipping and gorgeous hair.

FACCIA A FACCIA      EUREKA EKA40324

One of the best films from Italian genre master Sergio Sollima, Faccia a Faccia (Face to Face ) is one of the greatest of all 1960s Italian westerns - a gangbusting saga as well as a gripping parable of the rise of fascism. Mild mannered history professor Brad Fletcher (convincingly played by Gian Maria Volonte) is forced into retirement by his poor health and moves west for the warmer climate. Almost as soon as he arrives, however, he is taken hostage by famed bandit Solomon ‘Beauregard’ Bennett (a riveting performance by Tomas Milian) in an accidental confrontation, and by necessity is forced to take up with the Wild Gang and laconic Charley Siringo (the excellent William Berger). But the learned man’s growing identification with the gang encourages him to stage a takeover from Bennett, and a new crueller system of leadership is put into place as Fletcher ‘discovers the force within’. Produced by Sergio Leone’s longtime partner Alberto Grimaldi and shot with painterly skill using Techniscope cinematography, Faccia a Faccia has a fantastic score by Ennio Morricone and a memorably exciting finale. Special features with this DVD release include the original Italian audio with newly translated English subtitles, US and Italian theatrical trailers, an interview with Sergio Sollima, and a lavish 16 page booklet containing an essay by spaghetti western expert Howard Hughes.

AS FAR AS MY FEET WILL CARRY ME   SECOND SIGHT 2NDVD3200

Based on Josef M Bauer’s best selling novel of the same name, As Far As My Feet Will Carry Me tells the incredible true story of a German soldier’s epic bid for freedom. Clemens Forell was imprisoned in an east Siberian labour camp at the end of World War II and forced to work in the mines. After enduring four years of brutal treatment he escapes, but beyond the barbed wire of the camp lies one of the most hostile environments on earth. Across 8000 miles of desolate terrain, freezing temperatures and constant danger he battles on. The years pass as he fights to survive, digging deep within his soul in the hope of finally being reunited with his wife and child. Bernhard Bettermann, both of whose grandfathers were sent to Soviet POW camps at the end of World War Two, is totally convincing as Clemens Forell in this unique morality tale. This gripping, powerful film is here released in its full length version for the first time in the UK on DVD. ‘One of the most unbelievable true stories ever told.’ - DVDTalk.

DON’T LOOK NOW      OPTIMUM  OPBD1616

Directed by Nic Roeg, Don’t Look Now stars Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie as John and Laura Baxter, who travel to Venice where he is to oversee the restoration of an old church. They encounter a pair of elderly sisters: one of them a blind psychic who claims to have been in communication with the couple’s dead child. Whilst Laura is intrigued John resists the idea, despite the possibility that he is having his own visions that threaten to put his life in danger. ‘This one who’s blind. She’s the one that can see.’ - Laura Baxter. This brilliantly atmospheric adaptation by writers Allan Scott and Chris Bryant of a novel by Daphne du Maurier is genuinely unsettling, mysterious and surreal. To celebrate Don’t Look Now’s brand new restoration, Optimum Releasing premiered a new digital print of of the film at the Curzon Soho in London on 21st June 2011, followed by a Q&A with Nic Roeg and Allan Scott, hosted by journalist and author Jason Wood. This digitally restored version will also be released by Optimum on blu-ray for the first time on July 4th, 2011. The many extras will include a Nic Roeg commentary; Looking Back (a ‘making of’ documentary); an introduction by Alan Jones; and interviews with Danny Boyle, Allan Scott, director of photography Tony Richmond, Donald Sutherland and composer Pino Donaggio.

THE FIFTH ELEMENT      PATHE P927107000

In the year 2257, a planet-sized sphere of supreme evil is approaching the Earth at relentless speed, threatening to exterminate every living organism unless four ancient stones, representing the elements of earth, wind, fire and water are united with the mysterious ‘Fifth Element’. Luc Besson, acclaimed director of Leon and Nikita, has made an audacious film that turns science fiction inside out and takes the viewer on an exciting, adrenaline-filled journey to a new dimension of sumptuous visuals, stunt packed set-pieces and spectacular explosions Available now for the first time on Blu-ray, The Fifth Element is a fight between good and evil with excellent effects, extravagant sets, a beautiful score by Eric Serra and outstanding performances by Bruce Willis, Gary Oldman, Ian Holm, the gorgeous Milla Jovovich and Chris Tucker. Extras include documentaries, an audience With Diva Plavalaguna, a visual effects commentary and the theatrical trailer. ‘Luc Besson’s futurescape was built for Blu-ray.’ - Total Film.

APOCALYPSE NOW     OPTIMUM OPTBD2067

Heralded by many as the film that crystallizes most perfectly the experience of the Vietnam War, Apocalypse Now stars Martin Sheen as Army Captain Willard, a troubled man sent on a dangerous top-secret mission into Cambodia to assassinate a rogue Green Beret, Colonel Kurtz (an outrageous performance by Marlon Brando), who has barricaded himself in a remote outpost. As Willard ventures deeper into the wilderness of the jungle, he embarks on a strange journey that leads him to Kurtz but also forces him to come face to face with the terrifying vision of the heart of darkness in us all (John Milius’s screenplay is loosely based on Joseph Conrad’s famous novella). Robert Duvall as Lieutenant Colonel Kilgore memorably loves ‘the smell of napalm in the morning’ and Martin Sheen suffered a heart attack during the film’s gruelling location shoot in the Philippines. Francis Ford Coppola’s hallucinatory masterpiece, painstakingly restored by the director’s own Zoetrope studios under his close supervision, is being released back into cinemas from May 27 2011. Optimum will also be releasing this restored version as part of a three disc Special Edition blu-ray set from the 10th of June 2011. This will come with many extras, including Apocalypse Now Redux, a 2001 version with 49 additional minutes, plus a terrific documentary, Hearts of Darkness, directed by Coppola’s wife, Eleanor. There will also be audio commentaries by the director, lost scenes, rare photographs, trailers and featurettes covering the fascinating stories of editing, music and sound.

DEAD HOOKER IN A TRUNK   BOUNTY FILMS BF88007

Set in Vancouver, this Canadian film was the debut feature written, directed and produced in 2009 by twin sisters Jen and Sylvia Soska. Already something of a cult classic, it tells the story of four friends who set out on an errand and one thing leads to another as they end up in a fight for their lives after discovering the body of a dead hooker left in their trunk. Inspired by a sexy, impulsive Badass (an aggressively strutting performance by Sylvia Soska), her distant Geek twin sister (Jen Soska), their bible thumping, Jesus loving Goody Two Shoes friend, and a chaotic, rock star Junkie pal, the group has to put aside their differences to dispose of the body before they are the killer’s next victims. Thrown into their own personal purgatory, they face off against persistent police, a sleazy motel manager, chainsaw wielding triads and a brutal serial killer. All the while they are followed by a mysterious Cowboy Pimp who wants to claim the corpse for his own. Will they uncover the truth behind the body and be able to stand up to their demons? Darkly funny and enjoyably gruesome, Dead Hooker in a Trunk has gun fights, extreme violence, blood, guts, gore and serious injuries – this is a film that takes no prisoners on its cheap thrills ride into sometimes farciacal bad taste. DVD extras include a mini documentary and commentary with the directors.

MIDNIGHT COWBOY     20TH CENTURY FOX HOME ENTERTAINMENT

British director John Schlesinger’s 1969 American film was written by Waldo Salt, based on a novel of the same name by James Leo Herlihy. Starring Dustin Hoffman and then-newcomer Jon Voight, Midnight Cowboy won three Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Director and Best Adapted Screenplay. It tells the story of Texas greenhorn Joe Buck, who arrives in New York City for the first time intending to become a real ‘hustler’. Young, handsome, muscular though he is, Joe discovers that it’s not easy to make a living as a stud. He goes through one degrading experience after another until he eventually hooks up with crippled, sleazy Ratso Rizzo. Together the two misfits try to survive and get out of the city and move to Florida. But will they make it? ‘The two basic items necessary to sustain life, are sunshine and coconut milk... didya know that?’ - Ratso Rizzo. Dark, disturbing and utterly compulsive, Schelsinger’s masterpiece is a grimy yet humane portrait of New York and its inhabitants. Voight and Hoffmann give compelling performances, with great support from Sylvia Miles, John McGiver, Brenda Vaccaro and an uncredited M. Emmet Walsh. Daring, shocking and provocative, Midnight Cowboy is the only X-rated movie ever to win an Oscar. Special features with this new Blu-ray release include an audio Commentary by producer Jerome Hellman, After Midnight: Reflecting on the Classic 35 Years Later, and a celebration of John Schlesinger.

STORM BOY     CRABTREE FILMS CFDVD1024

Based on Colin Thiele novel of the same name, Henri Safran’s enduring 1976 film is an engaging story about a lonely boy and his pelican. Storm Boy (the excellent Greg Rowe) likes to wander alone along the bleak and beautiful coast of South Australia’s Coorong. He and his father, known to some as ‘Hideaway Tom’, live a reclusive life among the dunes that face out into the Southern Ocean. Storm Boy’s real name in the film is Mike - ‘Storm Boy’ is what he is called by Fingerbone Bill (charismatically played by the great David Gulpilil), a local Indigenous man who becomes his friend. After a pelican mother is shot, Storm Boy rescues three chicks, which he calls Mr Proud, Mr Ponder and Mr Percival, and nurses them back to health. His father eventually forces Storm Boy to release the birds, but Mr Percival returns. The story then concentrates on the conflict between the boy’s lifestyle and the externally imposed requirement for him to attend school, and the fate of the pelican. Sensitive and heart-warming, Storm Boy was made for $260,000 on location on the windswept, desolate beaches of South Australia. It won a medal at the Moscow Film Festival in 1977 for best children’s film as well as the Australian Film Institute Award for Best Film in the same year. Touching sensitively on questions of race relations, ecology, family breakdown and ownership, it’s a much cherished film that appeals to both children and adults alike. This classic family film has here been reissued on DVD to celebrate it’s 35th anniversary. ‘A gem of a film.’ – Variety.

DER TIGER VON ESCHNAPUR / DAS INDISCHE GRABMAL   EUREKA EKA50047

One of the most beautiful colour films in the history of cinema, legendary Fritz Lang’s Der Tiger von Eschnapur / Das indische Grabmal has been released for the first time on DVD in Eureka’s Masters of Cinema Series. Lang directed his two-part adventure epic after returning to Germany on the eve of the 1960s and this became his penultimate work. Although no encapsulating title was lent at the time of release, this is effectively a single 3-hour-plus film split in two, consisting of Der Tiger von Eschnapur (The Tiger of Eschnapur) and its ‘even more exciting and stupendous’ sequel, Das indische Grabmal (The Indian Tob). It proved to be one of the legendary director’s most adventurous achievements and was also one of his most popular successes in his Germany. The film is a superior adventure yarn about a brave and seemingly indestructible German architect Harald (Paul Hubschmid) commissioned by an Indian maharaja (played by German actor Walter Reyer) to construct a temple on his palatial grounds. Harald saves the life of Seetha the Sheeva the bewitching dancer (Debra Paget) whom the maharaja wishes to marry, and the pair are drawn into a hazardous maze of traps and narrow escapes. Lang’s glittering spectacular is more melodramatic than his early silents while adopting a vivid colour palette reminiscent of Michael Powell. Debra Paget’s dancing may be more showgirl than Indian classical but is authentically erotic and the film is an altogether dazzling experience. Arriving in the wake of The River (Renoir) and Black Narcissus (Powell & Pressburger) it stands as another remarkable contribution by great Western filmmakers who have explored India. This special two-disc edition features newly restored transfers of the films, two soundtracks (the native German-language track, and an English-language dubtrack made for overseas distribution), newly translated optional English subtitles, audio commentaries for both films by David Kalat, a ‘making of’ documentary, vintage location footage shot by Sabine Bethmann who played Harald’s sister, original French trailers, and a lengthy booklet containing an essay by Lang scholar Tom Gunning as well as interviews with the director.

BIUTIFUL     OPTIMUM OPTBD2005

Oscar-nominated for Best Foreign Language Film and Best Actor for Javier Bardem’s outstanding performance, Biutiful is written and directed by Mexican auteur Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu. The film tells the story of a man who struggles to reconcile fatherhood, love, spirituality, crime, guilt and mortality amidst the lawless back streets of modern Barcelona. Uxbal (Javier Bardem) is a man with a bright side and a dark side. On the one hand a caring father who is strong but affectionate toward his two children, and struggles to maintain a healthy relationship with their mother, Marambra (Maricel Alvarez) despite her problems with alcohol and mental instability. But Uxbal is also a criminal who oversees an underground empire alongside his impulsive brother Tito (Eduard Fernandez) and fellow crime boss Hai. Uxbal’s dealings range from drugs to construction, but unlike his partners, he tries to treat those around him with dignity even as he trades in human misery. Uxbal’s precarious world begins to collapse when he is diagnosed with a terminal illness and told he has only a few weeks left to live; he comes to consider what his life will mean for the legacy he leaves his children, and sets about trying to make a better life for them before he departs. Bleak, emotionally harrowing and intricate, Biutiful is a visually powerful and unflinching film with convincing performances and a haunting musical score by Gustavo Santaolalla. Available in Blu-ray and DVD formats, with extras that include the director’s Flip Notes as well as interviews with Javier Bardem, Maricel Alvarez and Eduard Fernandez.

FORTRESS     MEDIUMRARE ENTERTAINMENT FHED2667

Set in the remote Australian outback, Fortress tells the story of a young teacher and her one-room school of students who are kidnapped by a vicious masked gang and locked in an underground cavern. The children and the teacher, calm and peaceful by nature, are driven beyond their limits by the shambolic kidnappers, eventually responding with a cruelty and fury extending beyond that of their oppressors as they fight for their lives and try to escape from their captors. This tense and sometimes gruesome tale is loosely based on the 1972 Faraday School kidnapping of a teacher and her class by Edwin John Eastwood and Robert Clyde Boland. Eastwood later escaped from prison and repeated the crime with another teacher and her class five years later. This is an effective, atmospheric thriller with echoes of William Golding’s Lord of the Flies. Rachel Ward’s excellent performance as the heroic teacher subtly reveals her complex relationships with the children.

MY NEIGHBOURS THE YAMADAS    OPTIMUM OPTBD0322

This charming animation film from the inventive Studio Ghibli shows a series of events an little victories in the lives of the ordinary Japanese Yamada family. Hard-working father Takashi Yamada and his wacky wife Matsuko navigate their way through the ups and downs of work, marriage and family life with a sharp-tongued grandmother who lives with them, a teenage son who wishes he had cooler parents, and a pesky daughter whose loud voice is unusual for someone so small. Even the family dog has issues! Directed by Isao Takahata and featuring the voices of American comedy stars Jim Belushi and Molly Shannon, this charming film is wise, funny, touching and beautifully drawn – a winning combination of reality and fantasy. Available here for the first time on Blu-ray, the film comes with a generous range of extras that include storyboards, an NTV Special: Secrets of My Neighbours the Yamadas, a Behind the Microphone feature with the voice artists, and the original Japanese trailers.

LAPUTA: CASTLE IN THE SKY    OPTIMUM OPTBD0291

From the creators of Spirited Away comes Hayao Miyazaki’s homage to Jules Verne and Jonathan Swift. Castle in the Sky was the first feature film from the now legendary Studio Ghibli and combines the Japanese master director’s twin obsessions of eco-thriller and aerial escapades, turning a treasure hunt into a fight against evil for an unforgettable adventure. Orphan Pazu dreams of escaping from life in his dreary mining village, until the day that the beautiful Sheeta literally falls out of the sky. Round her neck she wears a glowing crystal, a relic of the mighty Levitation Stones that once kept ancient cities floating in the air. Caught up in a race between sky pirates and sinister government agents, Pazu and Sheeta go in search of Laputa, the last of the fabled castles in the sky. Miyazaki’s fantasy epic is a beautiful and magical trip into an enchanting world. Extras include storyboards, a promotional video, a behind the scenes documentary and the original Japanese trailers.

MAMMA ROMA         MR BONGO FILMS

Pier Paolo Pasolini’s heart-breaking film stars Academy award-winning Anna Magnani in the lead role of a prostitute who attempts to better her life with a new apartment and a job as a fruit seller. But her efforts may be too late for her teenage son Ettore (an excellent performance by Ettore Garofolo), who is drawn to the street life and ironically falls for a young whore. As Mamma Roma tries to set him straight her past continues to haunt her, with tragic consequences. Anna Magnani has the loudest voice in the market and is magnificent as always in this forgotten masterpiece of Italian cinema. Skilfully constructed by Pasolini, every shot is beautifully framed, often with religious overtones. ‘A work of shattering beauty’ - Time Out. Mamma Roma is one of three Mr Bongo releases featuring the work of some of Italy’s finest directors, now available for the first time on DVD. Bernardo Bertolucci’s debut, THE GRIM REAPER (La Commare Secca) was made when the director was 21 years. A mystery based on a book by Pasolini, it tells the story of a prostitute who is brutally murdered in a park near the Tiber River in Rome. Police track down the people who were in the park that night and question them in the hope of catching the killer, and the story is told in flashbacks as each suspect, Rashomon-style, gives their account. ‘Vivid proof of his ability to generate genuine tension in a classic whodunit format’ - The New York Times. Ermanno Olmi’s semi-auto-biographical IL POSTO, called The Sound Of Trumpets on its initial release in the USA, is a satirical take on the daily grind of working life. A young suburban boy, Domenico, has big dreams of working in a big city corporation and after a gruelling entry process he lands a job as an errand boy. Here he meets Antonietta and the pair embark on a relationship as he begins to climb to the corporate ladder. Loredana Detto’s Antonietta is charming and Sandro Panseri is wonderful as the shy Domenico, looking like a young Buster Keaton as he tries to make sense out of the comic futility of office life. Understated, visually beautiful, tender and honest, Il Posto is warm and funny as well as deeply moving.

RIFIFI           ARROW ACADEMY FCD495

The 1955 film ‘Du rififi chez les hommes’ was released in the English-speaking world as Rififi, a word that means fighting or brawling. Famously, the film features an audacious 30-minute robbery sequence that occupies a quarter of the running time and is played without dialogue or music. It was directed by Jules Dassin, who made many American film noir classics such as The Naked City, Thieves’ Highway and Night and the City, but had to leave Hollywood after being blacklisted by HUAC. He filmed Rififi on a low budget on the streets of Paris in realistic lighting and in black and white it looks particularly stunning in this new digital transfer. The Bogartesque Jean Servais is superb as Tony le Stephanois, a master thief with a battered face and a tubercular cough, souvenirs of a recent spell in prison. The cynical, aging Tony is reluctant to return to a life of crime, but when he realises his girlfriend has thrown him over for a rival gangster, he agrees to attempt one last job. Together with three collaborators - a young father (the excellent Carl Mohner), an extrovert Franco-Italian and a sentimental Milanese safecracker (played by Dassin himself) - Tony meticulously engineers his biggest heist yet: robbing the most heavily guarded jewellery store in Paris. With glamorous photography by Philippe Agostini, beautiful women, ruthless crooks, shiny automobiles, relentlessly mounting tension and a satisfyingly cathartic ending, this is a true classic that stands the test of time. François Truffaut called Rififi ‘the best film noir he had ever seen’ and it has influenced many other directors, including Stanley Kubrick, Louis Malle and Quentin Tarantino. The film is an unmissable treat and extras on this superbly produced dual format DVD/Blu-ray release include a high definition transfer of the film from a brand new restoration, an introduction by French cinema critic Ginette Vincendeau, an interview with Jules Dassin, Q&A with Dassin at the BFI Southbank, the original trailer, a comprehensive booklet, and artwork that includes three original posters.

LES DIABOLIQUES    ARROW ACADEMY FCD474

After the success of The Wages of Fear, Henri-Georges Clouzot cemented his reputation with this masterpiece. Set in a shabby French boarding school, Les diaboliques is based on a novel by Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac and tells the story of a sadistic headmaster (Paul Meurisse) who brutalises his fragile, vulnerable young wife and mistress (played by the director’s wife Véra Clouzot and Simone Signoret), who plot together to murder him. Superbly edited with nail-biting suspense, the women murder the headmaster then dump his body in the school’s grimy swimming pool - but when the pool is drained the corpse has disappeared. An unsettling and beautifully-paced study of betrayal, mistrust and guilt, Les diaboliques is atmospherically shot in black and white, its murky tones hauntingly echoing the moral ambiguity of its principals. Simone Signoret is marvelous as the cool mistress and there is a scene-stealing performance by Charles Vanel as a detective on the case. Look out too for an uncredited Johnny Hallyday as one of the boys. Often imitated but never bettered, this fine psychological thriller was an acknowledged influence on many other directors, including Stanley Kubrick and Alfred Hitchcock, who based Vertigo on another novel by the same authors. Les Diaboliques is available on Blu-ray here for the first time in the UK in this dual format Blu-ray and DVD release. Special features include a high definition transfer from a new restoration of the original negative, audio commentary by film expert Susan Hayward, an interview with French cinema scholar, critic and author Ginette Vincendeau, the original trailer, new writing on the film by author and critic Brad Stevens, an interview with Clouzot by Paul Schrader illustrated with stills and rare set drawings by Léon Barsacq, and artwork that includes original posters. Les Diaboliques is unmissable - an undisputed classic by the master of French film noir.

BLUE VALENTINE      OPTIMUM OPTBD 2089R0

Blue Valentine is a complex portrait of a contemporary American marriage. On the far side of a once-passionate romance, Cindy (Michelle Williams) and Dean (Ryan Gosling) are a working class married couple with a young daughter, Frankie. Hoping to save their marriage, they steal away to a theme hotel and in flashbacks we see them years earlier, meeting and falling in love, and discover their dysfunctional family backgrounds. Moving fluidly between these two time periods, the film unfolds like a cinematic duet asking questions abot the nature of falling in and out of love. Framing the film as a mystery whose answer lies scattered in time and in character, director Derek Cianfrance constructs an elegant set of dualities: past and present, youth and adulthood, vitality and entropy. Michelle Williams earned an Academy Award nomination as Best Actress for her role and Ryan Gosling is equally good as her unambitious but essentially kind husband. Blue Valentine is a poetic, honest and often touching exploration of a relationship in trouble, and the scene in which Dean sings and plays the ukele for Cyndy to dance to in a shop doorway is particularly poignant. ‘How can you trust your feelings when they can just disappear like that?’ Extras include deleted scenes, a Cannes Q&A with cast and director, a ‘making of’ feature, and audio commentary with the director and editor.

OPERATION VALKYRIE    HIGH FLIERS

Operation Valkyrie was an emergency plan developed in 1944 in Nazi Germany for the Territorial Reserve Army to execute and implement in case of a general breakdown in order. Failure of the government to maintain control of civil affairs could be caused by the Allied bombing of German cities, or a rising of millions of foreign forced labourers working in German factories. German Army High Command officers Friedrich Olbricht, Henning von Tresckow and Claus von Stauffenberg modified the plan with the intention of using it to take control of German cities, disarm the SS, and arrest the Nazi leadership once Adolf Hitler had been assassinated in the July 20 Plot. This thrilling historical drama tells the amazing true story of the events leading up to this audacious attempt to assassinate Hitler at the height of World War II, detailing the well-organised but ultimately flawed plan to change the course of history and end Hitler’s reign of terror in Europe. Sebastian Koch stars as resistance fighter Claus von Stauffenberg, and the cast also includes Ulrich Tukur, Katharina Rivilis, Stefania Rocca, Hardy Krüger Jr. and an impressive mute role by Udo Schenk as Hitler. The film uses eye witness accounts from the time, rare colour footage, painstakingly recreated dramatisations, detailed CG reconstructions and exclusive interviews with leading historians to present the definitive record of a pivotal event in the course of the war.

THE TUNNEL   SECOND SIGHT 2NDVD3196

During the 28 years that the Berlin Wall stood, countless tunnels were planned as escape routes from East to West. German director Roland Suso Richter’s multi-award winning drama, Der Tunnel, loosely based on true events, tells the gripping and harrowing tale of the most famous one. Famous swimming champion Harry Melchior (played by the hunky Heino Ferch) flees to the West to escape the East German communist regime just before the borders are sealed, but his sister is not so lucky and he is determined to free her. Joined by others also desperate to free their loved ones, they have an audacious plan; to form a 430 foot long tunnel beneath the wall and the ‘death strip’ partrolled by border guards. But things do not go smoothly and not everyone can be trusted and they are soon digging for their lives in a nerve-racking race against time. Described by the LA Times as the most exciting German film since Das Boot, The Tunnel is a riveting, emotional tale about the courage and tenacity of a group of unlikely heroes driven by love of their families and the need for freedom. A host of colourful characters are played by an excellent cast that also includes Nicolette Krebitz and Sebastian Koch (who later appeared in Black Book and The Lives Of Others). ‘Superb…incredible suspense.’ - Washington Post.

BICYCLE THIEVES              ARROW ACADEMY FCD380A

Arrow Academy is a new label that takes its name from one of the most famous repertory cinemas, the Academy 1-2-3 where many critics, writers, filmmakers and cineastes first discovered a new kind of cinema. The planned releases include of some of the greatest works ever to grace the screen, presented in brand new restorations, with new special features and artwork. Arrow Academy aims to be an at-home repertory cinema, where you can enjoy great films with optimal picture and audio presentation, plus poster artwork. The label launches with Vittorio De Sica’s classic Ladri di biciclette (Bicycle Thieves), made in 1948. Hailed as the greatest film ever made on release, this seminal work won an Oscar and topped the Sight & Sound film poll in 1952. Captivating and moving, it tells the story of Antonio, a long unemployed man who needs a bicycle to work putting up film posters. When the bicycle is stolen, Antonio and his son take to the streets in a desperate search to find it. This landmark film defined the Italian Neorealist approach with its brutal portrayal of post-war working-class life, truthful acting, compassion and poetic rhythm. The neo-realist movement featured stories set amongst the poor and working class as Italy grappled with difficult postwar economic and moral conditions. The films, shot on location and often using non-professional actors, reflected changes in the Italian psyche and conditions of everyday life: defeat, poverty, and desperation. De Sica’s poignant timeless masterpiece has been described by Ken Loach as ‘One of the most important films of all time.’ Special features with this dual Blu-ray and DVD release include an audio commentary by Italian cinema expert Robert Gordon; ‘Cesare Zavattini’, a feature length documentary by director Carlo Lizzani on the screenwriter, novelist, critic, neo-realist pioneer and long time De Sica collaborator; ‘Timeless Cinema’, a documentary portrait of De Sica; the original trailer; and an excellent booklet featuring new writing about the film as well as a reprint of Zavattini’s ‘Some Ideas on the Cinema’.

THE DOOR   OPTIMUM OPTD2082

The Door (Die Tür) is an accomplished supernatural thriller and a dark moral fable centering on a broken man, given a second chance at life following a tragic accident. This acclaimed fantasy thriller is an intriguing immersion in parallel worlds as David, a formerly successful painter, distressed by his beautiful young daughter Leonie’s death and his divorce from his wife, finds a mysterious door that allows him to take up his life at the point where it began to go wrong. However, what initially seems like a wonderful chance for a new beginning becomes increasungly complicated and soon turns out to be a veritable horror scenario, since not everything in the past is quite as it seems in this magical-realist world. Superbly acted by Mads Mikkelsen, Jessica Schwarz, Heike Makatsch and the amazing nine-year-old Valeria Eisenbart, The Door is a complex, imaginative and gripping film that will keep you guessing to the end. Playing out in the manner of a Greek tragedy, the cleverly structured film was adapted from a novel, ‘Die Damalstuer’, by Akif Pirinçci, widely regarded as Germany’s Stephen King. DVD extras include interviews with director Anno Saul, cast & producers, as well as deleted/alternate scenes and a trailer.

HIS & HERS            ELEMENT PICTURES

‘A man loves his girlfriend the most, his wife the best, but his mother the longest’ - Old Irish Proverb. From kitchens, living rooms, and hallways across the Irish midlands, His & Hers is brilliantly edited, combining observation and charm to tell a 90-year-old love story through the voices of 70 women. This intimate gender and cultural snapshot explores a woman’s relationships with the most important men in her life - father, boyfriend, husband, son. Following sequentially from little girl to old woman, each character portrait is woven with the others into one perfectly crafted cinematic quilt. His & Hers is an enchanting and affectionate appreciation for woman in all her versatility. Award-winning short film director Ken Wardrop has applied his signature style, marking an accomplished feature debut that has won many awards, including the Audience award in the Dublin International Film Festival, an IFTA for Best Feature Documentary and the Cinematography Award at the Sundance Film Festival 2010. Insightful, often engagingly funny and touching, His & Hers is a poignant celebration of humanity from the female perspective. ‘Amazing and hilarious.’ - Sunday Tribune. Extras include an delightful short film by Ken Wardrop called The Herd, featuring a deer with an unusual identity problem.

RUBBER    OPTIMUM OPTD2002

Written and directed by electro musician Quentin Dupieux (better known as Mr Oizo), Rubber is the bizarre story of Robert, an inanimate old tyre that has been abandoned in the California desert, and suddenly and inexplicably comes to life. As Robert roams the bleak landscape, he discovers that he possesses terrifying telepathic powers that give him the ability to destroy anything he wishes by lethally vibrating. At first content to prey on small desert creatures and various discarded objects, his attention soon turns to humans, especially a beautiful and mysterious woman (Roxane Mesquida) who crosses his path and becomes his obsession. Leaving a swath of destruction and exploding heads across the desert landscape, Robert is a chaotic force to be reckoned with, and local lawman Lt Chad (Stephen Spinella) steps in to investigate. Surreal? Post-modern? Confused? You will be. Impeccably photographed and acted, Rubber is smart, absurd, off-the-wall-funny and playfully horrific – a wholly original tribute to the cinematic concept of ‘no reason’. DVD extras include interviews with Quentin Dupieux, actors Stephen Spinella, Jack Plotnick and Roxane Mesquida, camera tests and a trailer.

MINNIE & MOSKOWITTZ      MR BONGO FILMS

Pioneering director and legendary actor John Cassavetes, wrote, directed and starred in this screwball romantic comedy, originally released in 1971. Minnie & Moskowitz was something of family affair showcasing his wife, the talented Gena Rowlands, his mother Katherine Cassavetes (magnificent as Seymour’s mother, Sheba), his brother-in-law David Rowlands and several of his children as extras. Museum curator Minnie Moore’s (Rowlands) life has not turned out how she expected. She is a disillusioned divorcee around years old, with a jealous boyfriend Jim (Cassavetes) who is married to someone else. A nasty break-up and a blind date that goes horribly wrong lead to a chance encounter with crazy parking lot attendant Seymour Moskowitz (Seymour Cassel). He instantly falls in love with Minnie but can he convince his seemingly polar opposite to fall in love with him? Featuring outstanding performances by the beautiful Rowlands and Cassell as the unlikely couple, as well as Val Avery as desperate Zelmo Swift and Timothy Carey as the insistent Morgan Morgan, the film is a breakaway from the director’s usual fare and shows his lighter side. As confusing and wonderful as real life, Minnie & Moskowitz is a film about loneliness, love and finding true happiness. Highly recommended even for non Cassavetes fans. ‘Captivatingly witty.’ - Time Out.

THE MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH      OPTIMUM OPTBD0978 (BLURAY)

This 1976 science fiction, directed by Nicolas Roeg, is based on the novel of the same name by Walter Tevis about an extraterrestrial who crash lands on Earth seeking water for his planet, which is suffering from severe drought. Thomas Jerome Newton (perfect casting for David Bowie) is a highly intelligent humanoid who creates a vast business empire to obtain the billions of dollars he needs to build a return spacecraft. As he takes on, and beats, every major US corporation, people can only guess his true purpose. Newton’s ageless fall from grace, as he becomes prey to lust, alcohol, business rivals and the US Government, makes The Man Who Fell To Earth a bitingly caustic indictment of the modern world as well as a poignant commentary on the loneliness of the outsider. Literate, intelligent and thought-provoking, this is science fiction at its thought best. The film also stars the charmingly sexy Candy Clark as Mary-Lou as the girl who falls in love with ‘Newton’, the great Rip Torn as disillusioned, sexually voracious prefessor Nathan Bryce, and Buck Henry as the buttoned-up lawyer Oliver Farnsworth. To celebrate the cult classic’s 35th Anniversary, Optimum is releasing this digitally restored Blu-ray edition with extras that include a ‘Watching the Alien’ documentary, the theatrical trailer and interviews with Nic Roeg, cinematographer Tony Richmond, writer Paul Mayersberg and Candy Clark.

GAINSBOURG        OPTIMUM OPTBD1824R0

French singer-songwriter, actor and director Serge Gainsbourg was one of the world’s most influential popular musicians. Born Lucien Ginsburg in Paris, to Jewish parents, he was deeply affected by the occupation of France by Nazi Germany. After the war he earned his living as a piano player in bars, had love affairs with Juliette Greco and Brigitte Bardot and married Jane Birkin, with whom he had daughter Charlotte Gainsbourg and recorded the steamy duet, ‘Je t’aime... moi non plus’. This unconventional biopic, based on director Joann Sfar’s own graphic novel, provides an brilliantly original take on one of France’s greatest mavericks. The film, originally called Vie héroïque, shows the charismatic Gainsbourg’s early life growing up in Paris, his highly successful years as a song-writer and cultural icon in the 1960s, his tragic decline, more scandals and finding his last love, Bambou (Mylène Jampanoï). He is excellently played by Kacey Mottet Kleinn as a boy and by Eric Elmosnino, an unknown cabaret star who bears an uncanny resemblance to the flamboyant Gainsbourg. Laetitia Casta and Anna Mouglalis are sexy as Bardot and Gréco, and Doug Jones plays Gainsbourg’s alter ego, La Gueule. Sadly, Lucy Gordon, who is terrific as Jane Birkin, killed herself shortly before the film’s release. Extras with this Blu-ray release include a behind the scenes documentary and interviews with Joann Sfar and Eric Elmosnino.

MOVE OVER DARLING   SECOND SIGHT 2NDVD3194

Five years to the day after his wife Ellen disappears in a plane crash at sea, lawyer Nick Arden declares her legally dead and embarks on a new life with wife number two, Bianca. The newlyweds set off on honeymoon to Monterey on the same day Ellen, having been rescued from a desert island by the Navy, arrives back home to be told the news. She immediately heads for the happy couple’s resort to prevent the honeymoon developing further. Then things start to get complicated. This classic, fast-paced romantic comedy, now available for the first time in the UK on DVD, stars screen legend and number one box office star of the time, Doris Day, sparring with the excellent James Garner. Others involved in this glossy farce include Polly Bergen as Bianca, Don Knotts as a randy shoe salesman, the brilliant Edgar Buchanan as a surly Court Judge, and screen veteran Thelma Ritter as Ellen’s mother. This is the kind of cute, frothy nonsense they don’t make any more, unfortunately. ‘Slick, utterly professional and without a wasted scene, this is a sheer delight from start to finish’ - Radio Times.

LE AMICHE     EUREKA MASTERS OF CINEMA EKA70030

A key film of Antonioni’s middle-period, Le amiche (The Girlfriends) is based on a short novel by Cesare Pavese, (the literal translation of the title of the story is Tra Donne Sole). In this film the Antonioni expands his palette in the realm of traditional narrative cinema by way of his masterful direction of an ensemble cast, while subtly examining the emotional makeup of women at that time. Clelia (Eleonora Rossi-Drago) arrives from Rome to set up a fashion salon in Turin and finds herself caught up in the tangled emotions and (melo)dramas of a bourgeoise circle of mostly unhappy acquaintances, including the iconic Valentina Cortese. Their attendant attempts at suicide, class prejudices and romantic alliances threaten to transform this restless social clique into an emotional tar-pit. Le amiche represents the epitome of Antonioni’s 50s period, laying the groundwork for such 60s breakthroughs as L’avventura and La Notte, as the director ponders the possibility that men and women might find a way to understand each other and live as equals. Eureka’s Masters of Cinema Series here releases Le Amiche for the first time in the UK in a dual format edition (DVD & Blu-ray), with optional English subtitles. The film has been beautifully restored by Cineteca di Bologna with help from the Martin Scorsese Film Foundation. Extras include a video introduction with critic and teacher Gabe Klinger, and another video in which he discusses the director’s entire career. The accompanying booklet includes critical pieces about the film as well as interviews with Antonioni.

LA SIGNORA SENZA CAMELIE     EUREKA MASTERS OF CINEMA EKA70031

Cinema master Michelangelo Antonionis second feature film tells the story of a shop girl named Clara (superbly played by the captivating Lucia Bosé, who appeared in the directors brilliant debut, Cronaca di un amore). Clara finds that a chance casting in a small movie role develops into a full-blown career as screen-siren. Tension erupts when her husband can no longer tolerate watching her frivolous cinema escapades, and pushes her into a serious, artistic production of the life of Joan of Arc, for which she is castigated by the critical establishment. A riveting behind-the-scenes show-business drama, La signora senza camelie (The Lady Without Camelias) takes a wry look at the Italian film industry of the 1950s. The film explores themes that would haunt its director from Lavventura through La notte and The Passenger - the tenuous hold of an individual on her identity, and the dangers inherent to performance, in life and on-screen. This masterful, highly personal film is now available here on Blu-ray and DVD for the first time in the UK in a lustrous HD transfer in which the streets of Rome look wonderfully elegant in black and white. Extras include a video introduction with critic and teacher Gabe Klinger, and a video in which he discusses Antonioni in the context of the Italian production system of the 1950s The booklet contains newly translated critical pieces about the film, excerpts of interviews with Antonioni, and a lengthy debate between Antonioni and critic Luigi Chiarini on the subject of the film.

MY ONE AND ONLY    ENTERTAINMENT IN VIDEO EBR 5180

My One and Only loosely follows the story of George Hamilton’s teenage years based on anecdotes that the actor with the famous tan told to Merv Griffin. Director Richard Loncraine’s bittersweet period comedy shows Hamilton’s early life on the road in the 1950s. Renée Zellweger is in top form as his mother, Anne Devereaux, a blond Southern belle married to bandleader Dan (Kevin Bacon) who loves her, but is a compulsive womaniser. After finding him in bed with one woman too many, she leaves him and takes her two sons: 15-year-old George (Logan Lerman) and the older Robbie (a wonderfully camp performance by Mark Rendall), half-brothers from her two marriages. In a sky-blue Cadillac convertible, they set off an odyssey to find Anne a new husband - the only way she can think of to support them. Their journeys take them to a series of her old boyfriends in Boston, Pittsburgh and St. Louis - hunting expeditions seen through George’s dubious eyes. When the men prove a disappointment, Anne tries working and apparently strikes pay dirt with a proposal from a man whose family owns a big house-paint business. This warm, funny and poignant road movie has sharp dialogue and engaging performances all round, especially from Kevin Bacon and the splendid Renée Zellweger. It’s witty and stylish in the way Hollywood movies used to be in the 50s. Extras include an equally stylish ‘making of’ feature and revealing interviews with the filmmakers. Highly recommended.

BEDWAYS       CRABTREE FILMS CFDVD1019

Set in Berlin, Bedways revolves around film director Nina Bader (Miriam Mayet) as she is joined for a couple of days by two actor friends, Hans and Marie (Mathias Faust and Lana Cooper) in a grand, though dilapidated apartment. Nina wants to shoot a movie about love and sex and offers her friends screen tests. For Nina love is not necessarily a matter of emotion – she is rather looking for an authentic depiction of sex. The intimate collaboration turns into experiments with film, love and bodies and finally has an impact on the private relationships between the three of them as the boundaries between acting and reality begin to disappear. At times shocking and explicit, ‘Bedways’ always retains its sense of honesty while the palpable chemistry between the two leads helps to create what is an unforgettable viewing experience. Quirky, beautiful and atmospherically photographed, Bedways is a hypnotic German film with lots of smoking and increasingly graphic sex scenes that explore love, desire and the flesh. ‘A film that promises nothing and fulfils everything.’ - Berliner Morgenpost.

THE BRUTE & SUSANA   MR BONGO MRBDVD131 & MRBDVD130

Luis Buñuel one of cinemas most original and influential directors, though much of his work has been unavailable on DVD. Groundbreaking label Mr Bongo Films has now released for the first time on DVD two of Buñuels earliest works, The Brute and Susana, which together serve as a great introduction to the directors strange and unique world. The Brute, aka El Bruto, made in 1953, is a bold, brutal and tragic melodrama starring two of Mexicos finest actors, and is the highlight of Buñuels Mexican period. A brutal landlord hires a powerfully built, slow-thinling slaughterhouse worker nicknamed El Bruto (a fantastic performance by Pedro Armandariz) to evict unwanted tenants, but things soon start to get complicated when he falls for the landlords seductive wife played by award-winning actress Katy Jurado. Best remembered for her role as the saloon owner in the classic High Noon, made a year earlier, she is even better in this film from her home country. There is a touching performance by Rosa Arenas as the innocent girl, Meche, who El Bruto really loves. Less surreal than his later work, The Brute is one of Buñuel’s darkest and most enigmatic films, with a satisfying and memorable final scene. ‘Powerful …magnetic…unforgettable’ - Time Out. SUSANA, aka The Devil and The Flesh, is a powerful melodrama in which a beautiful, sultry delinquent girl (Rosita Quintana) escapes, on a dark and stormy night, from a rat-infested reform school where she has been locked up. Susana finds solace in the home of a well to do family and uses her feminine wiles and lovely bare shoulders to tempt the men around her, turning orderly lives into a frenzied chaos. The film uses the power of eroticism to reveal the hypocrisies or modern society. This remake of a 1929 American film, The Squall, has fine dialogue, great photography and enough sly jokiness to keep Buñuel fans happy. A stinging assault on Mexico’s rich and religious, in particular their indolence and hypocrisy.’ - Radio Times.

BRIGHTON ROCK      OPTIMUM OPTD2087

This classic 1947 film was based on a novel of the same name by Graham Greene, who also wrote the screenplay with Terence Rattigan. It tells the story of a gang of assorted criminals and, in particular, their leader - a vicious young hoodlum known as ‘Pinkie’ Brown, whose deceptively innocent looks hide a violent and temperamental maniac. Chillingly played by Richard Attenborough, Pinkie will not tolerate drinking and smoking but condones the occasional murder. The seediness and sleazy nightlife of inter-war Brighton is marvelously evoked through expressionistic photography and location shooting, giving the seaside town a nightmarish look never seen before. Arguably the best film made by the talented Boulting brothers, this British noir masterpiece stands comparison with the best of the underworld films made in Hollywood (it was called ‘Young Scarface’ when first released in America). Carol Marsh is touching as naïve cafe waitress Rose, William Hartnell plays a member of Pinkie’s gang, and Hermione Baddeley is the determined Ida Arnold. Brighton Rock offers disturbing insights into an otherwise little recorded world and has a great twist at the end. This digitally restored release, also available on Blu-ray, has extras that include an interview with Rowan Joffe and a 1954 interview with Richard Attenborough and director John Boulting.

THE FLYING SCOTSMAN    OPTIMUM OPTD2091

Engine driver Bob is due to retire from his job after years of distinguished service. On his last day working aboard the famous Flying Scotsman train, a disgruntled fireman, dismissed after being reported for drinking at work, decides to get his revenge on Bob (who reported him to the company) by causing an accident. Meanwhile, the fireman’s amorous young replacement has fallen in love with a beautiful girl, whose father, unbeknown to him, happens to be Bob (and who has also boarded the train in an attempt to stop the villain). Moore Marriott, of Will Hay films fame, plays Old Bob White and this enjoyable thriller, here digitally restored, is also notable for the film debut of Ray Milland (as Raymond Milland) as well as for its amazingly daring stunts performed aboard a real moving train. At one point actress Pauline Johnson walks along the outside of the train wearing high heeled shoes, transferring from the coaches while travelling at high speed. ‘Is there a doctor on the train?’ Well acted and lovingly photographed by Theodore Sparkuhl, The Flying Scotsman is a charming, funny and genuinely exciting gem. It was one of the first British sound films and like Alfred Hitchcock’s Blackmail it was initially intended to be silent, with the decision to include speech made during production. Some historians claim that it predates Blackmail as the earliest British sound film (both were released in 1929), but the BFI film database states that the soundtrack was added in 1930.

BEDEVILLED   OPTIMUM OPTBD2000

When beautiful Hae-Won (Ji Sung-won) needs to escape the pressure of her complicated life in Seoul, where she works at a bank, she takes a vacation to the idyllic island of Moodo, where she spent part of her childhood. On arrival she is reunited with her old friend Kim Bok-Nam and soon realises that life on the island is far removed from the paradise that she remembers. Amidst the beautiful landscape and breathtaking scenery a vile and spiteful society has been allowed to co-exist. The hapless Bok-Nam is forced to live in a world of unkindeness where she is brutally treated by her violent husband, abused by the male population and exploited by her cruel female elders. When an attempt to escape results in the death of a loved one, Bok-Nam decides to take things into her own hands. With nothing left to live for and nothing left to lose, Bok Nam’s reign of gruesome, blood drenched Grand Guignol revenge begins. Powerful, poignant and extremely unsettling, Bedevilled is shocking and disturbing, with secenes of explicit violence and sexuality. Definitely not one for the faint-hearted. Available on DVD as well as Blu-ray, South Korean writer-director Jang Cheol-so’s gripping film is stunningly photographed and brilliantly acted, especially by Seo Yeong-Hie as Bok-Nam. Extras include a trailer and behind the scenes footage.

WILL SUCCESS SPOIL ROCK HUNTER?     EUREKA MASTERS OF CINEMA EKA40328

Lowly television advertising writer Rockwell P Hunter stuggles for success on Madison Avenue- ‘the street of grey-flannelled dreams’ – until he finds the perfect model and spokesperson for his new line of lipstick, the actress with the ‘oh-so-kissable lips’, Rita Marlowe. In order for Rita to endorse the lipstick, Rock has to pretend to be her boyfriend to make her real boyfriend, Bobo Branigansky, star of a TV Tarzan show, jealous. Bobo leaks the news of Rita’s new romance to the tabloids and Rock Hunter is suddenly famous. Women are crazy about him and he moves steadily up the ladder at work, becoming company president, only to find that success is not what he all it’s cracked up to be. Frank Tashlin produced, directed and wrote the original screenplay for this satirical romantic comedy, which stars the very funny Jayne Mansfield and Tony Randall, with Betsy Drake, screen legend Joan Blondell, Mickey Hargitay, Henry Jones as Hunter’s boss, and a brief cameo by the great Groucho Marx. Little more than the title and the character of Rita Marlowe (a former Miss Florida Grapefruit, loosely based on Marilyn Monroe) remain from George Axelrod’s successful Broadway play of the same name, which also starred Jayne Mansfield. This new DVD features a stunning high-definition transfer of the film in its original aspect ratio. Extras include a video introduction to the film by director Joe Dante, a vintage Movietone short which captures Jayne Mansfield on tour promoting the film, an alternate music and effects track, and the original theatrical trailer. Other new DVDs in Eureka’s excellent Masters of Cinema series include MAKE WAY FOR TOMORROW (EKA40329), which Orson Welles called ‘the saddest movie ever made and could make a stone cry’. Leo McCarey’s ‘lost masterpiece’ was a personal favourite among all his films and is certainly sad, but it’s also a cathartic affirmation of the dignity of human feeling and achieves a subtle complexity of characterisation. Victor Moore and Beulah Bondi, two fine Hollywood character actors, appear aged beyond their actual years to portray a couple whose house the bank has foreclosed upon (the film was set and produced in 1937 during the Great Depression), and who are forced subsequently to move into their children’s homes in the city. All the cast are excellent, including Thomas Mitchell as the favourite son and Maurice Moscovitch as a Jewish storekeeper. Brilliantly constructed and unrelentingly unsentimental, yet maintaining a rare balance of pathos and levity, Make Way for Tomorrow had a powerful influence on Yasujirô Ozu’s revered Tokyo Story and was admired by other directors such as Renoir, Ford and Hawks. This high-definition transfer is accompanied by a 20-minute video with Peter Bogdanovich talking about the film and Leo McCarey’s career. In another video extra, writer Gary Giddins discusses the director’s work and the social and political contexts of the film. A lengthy booklet features an essay by writer Geoffrey O’Brien and an excerpt from Josephine Lawrence’s source novel, Years Are So Long. THE BURMESE HARP (EKA40304) is a rhapsodic celebration of song, a brutal condemnation of wartime mentality, and a lyrical statement of hope within darkness; even amongst the riches of 1950s’ Japanese cinema, this elegiac film, directed by Kon Ichikawa, is one of the finest achievements of its era. At the close of World War II, a Japanese army regiment in Burma surrenders to the British. When Private Mizushima fails to persuade a trapped Japanese battalion to surrender, he is traumatised by the horors he sees. Disguising himself in the robes of a Buddhist monk in hope of temporary anonymity, he journeys across the landscape trying to heal the devastation with his bare hands. Visually extraordinary and musically moving, The Burmese Harp is a poetic vision of horror, necessity and redemption. Special features with this new, restored high-definition transfer include an enlightening interview with scholar and filmmaker Tony Rayns, the original Japanese theatrical trailer, and a 40-page booklet with an essay by Keiko I McDonald.

ARC   ISIS ISIS1007

‘It is well for the world that in most of us, by the age of 30, the character has set like plaster, and will never soften again.’ These simple words by William James set it all in motion - the search for a kidnapped child and the quest for redemption by a lowlife drug dealer. Set in the dark belly of Los Angeles’ criminal underworld, ARC is the story of Paris Pritchert, a former police officer turned drug dealer and addict who embarks on a driven quest to find a missing child in the hope of redeeming his deperate life. Like all addicts, Paris’ confidence is completely dependent on the drugs in his system and, in this case, his firm belief that he can succeed if he can just stay both high and alive long enough to see it through. Paris enlists the help of Maya Gibbs, an African American prostitute well versed in the language of the street and the words of Maya Angelou and Nadine Gordimer. The path of this dysfunctional and unlikely duo crosses with those of the child’s parents, a doctor with a penchant for soliciting street boys, a self ascribed ‘King of Porn’, and a hardened cop with more scams than the most adept street hustler. Told through a variety of visual techniques and colour schemes, ARC unfolds as Paris’ search leads to places he never expected - a search filled with the grimness of an addict’s life, the shadiness of perverse characters and the budding friendship of two people with nothing to lose and everything to gain. Written and directed by Robert Ethan Gunnerson, this intense, passionate film is tough, cool and a tad pretentious, though brilliantly acted, by Peter Facinelli as Paris, Raina-Simone Moore as the sexy Maya, and Ann Cusack and Blake Robbins as the missing child’s parents.

THE OPEN DOOR      SECOND SIGHT 2NDVD3192

High school senior Angelica (the beautiful Catherine Georges) is unhappy with her life and most of the people in it, including her oppressive parents and boorish friends. Looking for a solution, she thinks she might find the answer in the guise of a new pirate radio station that promises to make wishes come true. What begins as an Urban Legend becomes a living hell as the trusting Angelica unwittingly opens the door to an evil entity that preys upon the souls of the innocent and turns her dreams into a living nightmare. Written and directed by veteran stuntman Doc Duhame in his directorial debut, this creepy chiller won the Audience Choice Award at the LA Shriekfest and Best Feature Film at Horror UK. The actors clearly enjoyed themselves making this original, independent film, which manages to find a new take on the genre cliches while cleverly cranking up tension to create its terrifying effects.

ZVENIGORA & ARSENAL   MR BONGO FILMS MRBDVD035 & MRBDVD034

Ukrainian director Alexander Dovzhenko was one of the most important and celebrated early Soviet filmmakers, along with Sergei Eisenstein and Vsevolod Pudovkin. His most highly regarded film is Earth (or Zemlya, which literally translates as ‘Soil’), made in 1930 as the third part of his ‘Ukraine Trilogy’ following Zvenigora (1928) and Arsenal (1929). Mr Bongo Films has now released the first two films of this trilogy celebrating the beauty of the Ukrainian steppe and re-telling ancient folklore. Zvenigora is a poetic, challenging avant-garde film, which has a unique style in its approach and disregards the more traditional storytelling devices. Nikolai Nademsky stars as the grandfather of Timoshka (Semyon Svashenko), whom he alerts to secret treasure buried in the mountains and the boy spends the rest of his life trying to find it. Almost religious in tone, the film wonderfully blends lyricism and politics and uses its central construct to build a montage praising Ukrainian industrialisation and attacking the European bourgeoisie. ‘A visual poem filled with exquisite, haunting images of the years leading up to the great revolution.’ - New York Times. Arsenal (also known as ‘January Uprising in Kiev in 1918’) is an action-packed film based on the real life events of the Ukranian Civil War. Set in the bleak aftermath and devastation of World War One, a recently demobbed soldier, Timosh (Semyon Svashenko) returns to his hometown Kiev, after having survived a train wreck. His arrival coincides with a national celebration of Ukrainian freedom, but the festivities are not to last as a disenchanted Timosh soon begins to clash with the city’s authorities when he starts to agitate for the adoption of the Soviet system. Arsenal is intense and emotionally wrenching, with painterly photography and some of the most eloquent horses ever seen on film. ‘Represents the summit of Soviet cinema and remains one of the most poetic and visually beautiful of all Russian films.’ - Chicago Tribune.

THE LOVERS GUIDE 3D    OPTIMUM OPTBD1999

The first Lovers’ Guide video was released in 1991 and became the only non-fiction film to top the UK video charts. It sold well over a million copies in the UK but caused considerable controversy for using explicit material to illustrate the instructional points being made. The Lovers’ Guide products has since expanded to ten further DVDs, a book, an encyclopaedia, two CD-ROMs and CDs of the soundtracks. Twenty years after the original groundbreaking Guide exploded into the lives of the UK public, it is now back with another no-holds-barred exploration of the pleasures of love-making. This latest installment has been created using cutting edge 3-D technology as the next stop in the sexual revolution, so that the audience is engaged with a never-before-seen sense of intimacy. Subtitled Igniting Desire: How to have the best sex of your life, it is available on on DVD and Blu-Ray and released just in time for Valentine’s day. Described as ‘bigger, better and bolder than ever before’ it aims to ‘take audiences to an altogether new level of love-making enlightenment’. Featuring the voices of Hollyoaks actors Gemma Bissix and Jeremy Edwards, it was created by the original producers of The Lovers’ Guide series, Robert Page and William Campbell, and filmed by the award winning director Kenny Rye. Extras include a trailer and a ‘making of’ feature.

THE THIN RED LINE    OPTIMUM OPTD2054

Set during the Allied invasion during World War II of the island of Guadalcanal, situated in the Solomon Islands in the Pacific Ocean, north-east of Australia, this 1964 film is based on the novel by James Jones. Keir Dullea plays Private Doll, who dreads the invasion and steals a pistol to help him protect himself. The combative Sergeant Welsh (Jack Warden), a caustic, battle-scarred veteran, hates Doll, whom he considers a coward. In battle, Doll kills a Japanese soldier and is filled with remorse, which further angers the sergeant. The next day, an emboldened Doll wipes out an entire enemy machine gun post and begins to feel as sadistic as Welsh. The two must work together to clear away some mines, but as they do, their platoon is surprised by a Japanese raid. Terrence Malick’s 1998 version of The Thin Red Line is more starry and better known but director Andrew Marton’s gritty film tells the story well and is perhaps truer to the original novel in showing that ‘there’s only a thin red line between the sane and the mad’.

THE LONG HOT SUMMER     OPTIMUM OPTD2049

Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Orson Welles, Anthony Franciosa, Lee Remick and Angela Lansbury co-star in this riveting tale of life in the Deep South. Provocative and compelling, and with more than a hint of Tennessee Williams, the film simmers with sexual tension, bawdy humour and a powerful clash of personalities. When Ben Quick (Newman in full youthful swagger), a suspected barnburner drifts into Frenchman’s Bend, Mississippi, after being kicked out of another town, he catches the eye of Will Varner, a tyrannical, intimidating patriarch (Welles) who decides Quick is the ideal husband for his repressed schoolteacher daughter Clara (a touching, intelligent performance by Joanne Woodward). But once the loner moves in, the two men lock horns, drawing Varner’s family into a complex web of emotions and actions that leaves all of them changed forever. Based on three stories by William Faulkner and directed by the underrated Martin Ritt, The Long Hot Summer was the first and perhaps best onscreen collaboration of husband and wife Newman and Woodward. Anthony Franciosa is excellent as Will Varner’s disappointing son, Jody, and Paul Newman won the Best Actor at Cannes for this film, which looks better than ever after 50 years. Optimum has also released UK DVD premieres of two more classics. Director Fritz Lang’s suspenseful MAN HUNT (OPTD2051) is a ripping yarn about British hunter Alan Thorndike (a fine performance by Canadian-born Walter Pidgeon), on the run from Nazi agents after he allegedly tries to take a pot shot at Hitler, with only a young streetwalker (Joan Bennett, endearing in a beret and bad cockney accent) to help him. Roderick McDowall plays a young cabin boy, George Saunders is convincing as a German officer, Heather Thatcher has fun as Lady Risborough, and John Carradine is suitably creepy as a Gestapo agent. Adapted from Geoffrey Household’s classic thriller Rogue Male, Man Hunt was originally set to be directed by John Ford but Lang, himself a refugee from fascism, makes this brilliant film his own. In the entertaining DEADFALL (OPTD2047), directed by Bryan Forbes, cat burglar Henry Clarke (the insouciant Michael Caine) and his accomplices the Moreaus (Giovanna Ralli and Eric Portman) attempt to steal diamonds from the chateau of millionaire Salinas (David Buck). Mrs Forbes - Nanette Newman - inevitably turns up along the way, as does a youthful Leonard Rossiter. The glossy photography, mostly on location in Spain, is by Gerry Turpin. John Barry wrote the lush score, including a pseudo classical guitar concerto that he appears on screen to conduct.

MARY AND MAX      SODA PICTURES SODA133

Acclaimed Australian writer/director Adam Elliot and producer Melanie Coombs created this charming, funny, and ultimately very moving tale of friendship between two unlikely pen pals: Mary Daisy Dinkle, a lonely eight-year-old girl living in the suburbs of Melbourne with her pet cockerel, and Max, a forty-four-year old, severely overweight man with Asperger’s Syndrome existing mostly on chocolate hot-dogs in a monochrome New York City. Mary’s hopeless mother is forever testing sherry and her father likes playing in his shed with dead birds. Over the course of twenty years and two continents, this beautiful and compassionate film explores autism, taxidermy, alcoholism, where babies come from, kleptomania, religious and sexual differences, trust, copulating dogs, agoraphobia and more of life’s big and little surprises. Mary and Max is a Claymation film with enough quirky oddity and edginess to distinguish it from Elliot’s strongest competitor in the manipulation of little plasticine puppets, Aardman Animation (of Wallace and Gromit fame). Narrated by Barry Humphries, the film’s other voices include Toni Collette as Mary, Bethany Whitmore as young Mary, Philip Seymour Hoffman as Max and Eric Bana as Damien. The generous range of DVD extras include alternate endings, a ‘making of’ feature, audio commentary with the director, and Harvie Krumpet (Adam Elliot’s Academy Award winning short film). ‘Destined for cult status’ - Empire Magazine.

THE LAST REMAKE OF BEAU GESTE    SECOND SIGHT 2NDVD3191

Marty Feldman was born in London’s poverty-stricken London East End and left school at the age of 15, hoping for a career as a jazz trumpeter, but with his his manic, bulbous-eyes and crooked nose he almost inevitably became a comedian. As such he was one of Britain’s most gifted and influential comedy writers and performers during the late 1960s and early 1970s. He wrote scripts for the immortal Round the Horne on radio as well as for television’s Frost Report, including the famous ‘three classes’ sketch. His for At Last the 1948 Show laid the surreal groundwork for Monty Python’s Flying Circus and his own series, It’s Marty, was an inspired mixture of sketches and won many awards. His movies included an unforgettable Igor in Young Frankenstein and he made his directorial debut in 1977 in The Last Remake of Beau Geste, which he also wrote and starred in as Digby Geste, the ‘identical’ twin brother of Beau (Michael York). When a priceless family heirloom, the Blue Water sapphire, is stolen their fates are sealed, the cheerful lunacy escalates and the laughs come thick and fast. Others involved in this enjoyable nonsense include Peter Ustinov, Spike Milligan as the butler, Trevor Howard as the outrageous Sir Hector, Ann-Margaret as a lascivious stepmother, Roy Kinnear, Henry Gibson, James Earl Jones and the great Irene Handl. The second half slows down the story somewhat but this film shows how much was lost when Feldman died five years later, aged only 48. ‘Hilariously irreverent’ - New York Times.

CATFISH       MOMENTUM MP1095D

Film-makers Henry Joost and Ariel Schulman are young New York media types who document their lives as a matter of course. So when photographer Yaniv, Ariel’s brother, known as Nev, receives an email from Angela Faccio, a housewife in smalltown Michigan, they become interested. She is sending him naive but striking paintings by her eight-year-old daughter, Abby, based on a photograph of his on the internet. Abby’s paintings continue to arrive regularly and Nev strikes up a Facebook and phone correspondence with Angela in which she introduces Nev to her husband, two sons and Abby’s 19-year-old stepsister, Megan, an attractive artist, dancer and veterinarian’s assistant. An unlikely real-life romance blossoms and, according to the publicity, the film is a reality thriller and a shocking product of our times, ‘a riveting story of love, deception and grace within a labyrinth of online intrigue’. But is Catfish really a documentary, an elaborate hoax or a warning about social networking? If it’s a hoax, then the acting by the emotional ‘Angela’ and her family is magnificent. Extras include a question and answer session with Joost and the Schulman brothers who maintain that it’s all true, but can we believe them or is everyone just a character in their own novel? This widely discussed and controversial film cost only $30,000 to make, and on a limited release has taken $3m at the box office, making it a phenomenon of Blair Witch Project dimensions.

MORGAN – A SUITABLE CASE FOR TREATMENT     OPTIMUM OPTD1908

This irreverent cult classic from 1966 was directed by Karel Reisz, best known for Saturday Night and Sunday Morning. Morgan - A Suitable Case For Treatment stars British character acting legend David Warner in his first and only lead role, the angry, child-like, loving, misguided and ultimately maddening Morgan Delt. The gorilla-fixated artist with a distinctly anarchist tendencies tries repeatedly to regain the affections of his divorced wife Leonie by variously kidnapping her, attempting to blow up her future mother-law and attacking her fiancé, played by celebrated stage actor Robert Stephens. Cut with scenes from King Kong and the Tarzan films, Morgan’s madness is revealed with dark humour, and between the hectic slapstick David Mercer’s script is perceptive about the painful consequences of a broken marriage. David Warner gives a vintage performance as the impulsive Morgan and Vanessa Redgrave looks luscious in her first leading part as Leonie, for which earned her a nomination as Best Actress at the Oscars. Irene Handl is very funny as Morgan’s dear old communist mother, still looking forward to the day when the Royal family will be shot and those educated at public schools are put on a chain gang. John Dankworth contributes the playful score and others involved in include Bernard Bresslaw as a baffled Policeman and Arthur Mullard as Wally the wrestler.

PIRANHA 3D       ENTERTAINMENT IN VIDEO EBR5137

Every year the population of sleepy Lake Victoria explodes from 5,000 to 50,000 for Spring Break; a riot of sun and drunken fun. But this year, there’s something more to worry about than hangovers and complaints from local old timers; a new type of terror is about to be cut loose on Lake Victoria. A sudden underwater tremor sets free scores of prehistoric man-eating fish unchanged since the dawn of time, and an unlikely group of strangers must band together to stop themselves from becoming fish food. Great special effects, girls in bikinis, hot sun, eye-popping stunts, Steve McQueen’s grandson, and ravenous flesh eating monsters - what more could you want in a popcorn movie? Elizabeth Shue is excellent as a resourceful local cop, Christopher Lloyd is in mad scientist mode, Kelly Brook looks fetching naked, and Peter Dreyfuss makes a cameo appearance, one of several references to Jaws. Piranha has now been released in this 3D Blu-ray edition. Disc has the stereoscopic 3D feature, with option to play in either 2D or 3D. Disc two has an anaglyph 3D version (glasses are included in the box). Extras include a documentary, deleted scenes, and a commentary with director Alexandre Aja and others. Piranha is a guilty pleasure that never takes itself too seriously.

FANTASIA    DISNEY BUC0151501

Fantasia, released in 1940, was one of Walt Disney’s most innovative and ambitious films. Between brief live-action introductions, eight animated segments are set to classical music played by Leopold Stokowski and the Philadelphia Orchestra. Paul Dukas’s ‘The Sorcerer’s Apprentice’ stars Mickey Mouse as an aspiring magician who brings endless brooms to life with unfortunate results. ‘The Rite of Spring’ tells the story of evolution, from single-celled animals to the death of the dinosaurs. Tchaikovsky’s ‘Nutcracker Suite’ is wonderfully graceful and JS Bach’s ‘Toccata and Fugue in D Minor’ inspires mesmerising abstract visions.Ponchielli’s ‘Dance of the Hours’ is a hilarious ballet performed by hippos, crocodiles, ostriches and elephants. Beethoven’s ‘Pastoral Symphony’ is given a beautiful mythological setting. The concluding ‘Night on Bald Mountain’ by Mussorgsky and Schubert’s ‘Ave Maria’ set the forces of darkness and light against each other as a devilish revel is interrupted by the coming of a new day. Fantasia makes its Blu-ray and DVD debut here in a spectacular, digitally restored high definition release that lets you experience this groundbreaking film in the way it was originally envisioned. Extras include a look inside the Disney Family Museum and an audio commentary with Brian Sibley.

A TOWN CALLED PANIC  OPTIMUM

This charming stop-action animated gem follows the surreal adventures of a lovable trio of plastic toys - Cowboy, Indian and Horse. Cowboy and Indian’s plan to surprise the talking Horse with a homemade birthday gift backfires when they destroy his house instead. Surreal adventures ensue as the hyperactive trio travel to the centre of the earth, trek across frozen tundra and discover a parallel underwater universe where pointy headed (and dishonest!) creatures live. Stolen walls, a drumming donkey, 50 million bricks, giant snowballs, carnivorous fish, Father Christmas and a woolly mammoth all play their part in the frantic action. It’s a bizarre world with its own weird logic. Each speedy character is voiced – and animated – as if their very air contains both amphetamines and laughing gas. With panic a permanent feature of life in this papier mache town, will Horse and his girlfriend ever be alone? Will he ever learn to play the piano properly? Can Steven the fantastically agitated farmer ever calm down? ‘I told you we should have bought him a hat.’ This delightful feature-length film is based on the popular puppetoon series distributed by Aardman Animations and made in Belgium by Vincent Patar and Stephane Aubier. It’s an inventive, endearing and very funny adventure that will please fans of Terry Gilliam and Wallace and Gromit. DVD extras include an interview with the directors and a trailer.

PEEPING TOM     OPTIMUM

Peeping Tom was hugely controversial when first released, almost destroying director Michael Powell’s career, but is now recognised as a masterpiece of psychological terror. By day, the strange, disturbed Mark Lewis (memorably played by Karlheinz Böhm, son of Austrian conductor Karl Böhm) works as a modest focus-puller in a film studio. But he also shoots glamour photographs for a seedy Soho newsagent, and by night he seeks victims for his most gruesome obsession - filming the face of mortal fear, moments before death. Anna Massey makes her film debut as the innocent girl who lives downstairs and Maxine Audley gives an outstanding performance as her blind, alcoholic mother. The boldness and sophisticated wit of Peeping Tom make the film a disturbing experience that can still divide audiences today. Much admired by filmmakers such as Martin Scorsese, Peeping Tom is a disturbing exploration of sexual repression as well as the voyeuristic nature of film-making itself. Written by cryptographer and playwright Leo Marks, the film also stars Moira Shearer, Shirley Anne Field, Brenda Bruce, real-life glamour queen Pamela Green, with Michael Powell’s son Columba as the young Mark and the director himself in a brief cameo as Mark’s father. The starkly beautiful colour photography is by Otto Heller, who would go on to shoot other great 1960s films such as Alfie and The Ipcress File. In celebration of the 50th Anniversary of Peeping Tom, a restored digital print of this exhilarating British Classic will be back in cinemas on 19th November and is being released by Optimum on blu-ray on 22nd November. Extras include an introduction by Martin Scorsese, an interview with Thelma Schoonmaker, a perceptive commentary by Ian Christie, The Eye of The Beholder (Scorsese, Schoonmaker and Christie, among others, talking about the film), The Strange Gaze of Mark Lewis (about psychology of protagonist) and a behind the scenes stills gallery. ‘I have always felt that Peeping Tom and 8½ say everything that can be said about film-making... From studying them you can discover everything about people who make films.’ - Martin Scorsese. See more classic releases from Optimum.

THE SECRET OF KELLS     OPTIMUM BLU-RAY OPTBD1890R0

The Secret of Kells is a magical animated classic set in the 9th Century that tells the story of Brendan, a 12 year old monk who lives quietly in the fortified Kells Abbey in a remote part of Ireland. His adventure begins with the arrival of Brother Aidan, a celebrated master illuminator and keeper of an extraordinary, but unfinished Book. Aidan initiates Brendan into the art of illumination, awakening a prodigious talent. Brendan must finish the magnificent book but first has to overcome his deepest fears on a secret quest that will take him for the first time beyond the Abbey’s walls into the enchanted forest where dangerous mythical creatures hide. It is here where he meets the fairy Aisling, a mysterious young white wolf/girl, who will help him along the way. But with the terrifying Viking hordes closing in, will Brendan’s artistic vision illuminate the darkness and show that enlightenment is the best fortification against barbarians? Nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Feature, this enchanting film was directed by Tomm Moore and features an imaginative kaleidoscope of psychedelic colour as our hero meets fearsome monsters, Vikings and a serpent god along the way. The film is beautifully designed and conjures up a dreamlike world that looks gorgeous in this high-definition blu-ray release. Extras include a trailer, deleted scenes and a funny, touching short film, Cuilin Dualach (‘Backwards Boy’). ‘A Sumptuous, visual feast.’ – Telegraph. The music, superbly produced by Slim Pezin, is the result of a magical collaboration between French composer Bruno Coulais and the innovative Irish band Kíla. The soundtrack album will be available on the Kíla Records label (KRCD013) from 2 December.

PRAY THE DEVIL BACK TO HELL     DOGWOOF

Liberia has recently received huge press coverage for the trial of warlord Charles Taylor and the testimony of supermodel Naomi Campbell for her alleged involvement in receiving Blood Diamonds. In the middle of the twentieth century the country had the prestige of being a republic ruled by Africans at a time when almost all of Africa was under colonial rule. But it lost its mystique when other African countries became independent and this combined with economic problems in the 1970s led to the end of the Republic and a military coup in 1980. A chaotic and brutal government paved the way for a civil war that lasted on and off from 1989 to 2003 and became a by-word for casual brutality. Pray The Devil Back To Hell is the gripping account of a group of brave and visionary women, including the formidable Leymah Gbowee, who demanded peace for a country torn apart by civil war. Produced by Abigail E. Disney and directed by Gini Reticker, Pray The Devil Back To Hell is the extraordinary story of a small band of women, Christian and Muslim, who took on the violent warlords and a corrupt regime to win a long-awaited peace for their shattered country. The women’s demonstrations perseverance culminated in the exile of Taylor and the election of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Africa’s first female head of state. Pray the Devil Back to Hell reconstructs the dramatic events through interviews, archival footage and striking images of contemporary Liberia. This is moving, passionate and empowering film is a testament to remarkable courage and the profound resilience of the human spirit. Special features include a statement by Gini Reticker and a stills gallery.

BREATHLESS: 50TH ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL EDITION     OPTIMUM OPTD1791

The controversial director Jean-Luc Godard was born to Franco-Swiss parents in Paris in 1930 and educated at the Sorbonne, where he became involved with the young group of filmmakers and film theorists who would become to the French Nouvelle Vague, or New Wave. Known for stylistic implementations that challenged the conventions of Hollywood cinema, Godard soon became recognised one of the most audacious and influential filmmakers in the world. His work is unambiguously political and reflects a profound knowledge of film history as well as existential and Marxist philosophy. His exhilarating and sexy 1959 debut feature, Breathless (A Bout De Souffle), was the film which epitomised the iconoclasm of the early Nouvelle Vague. A stylish tour de force, it stars the iconic Jean-Paul Belmondo and fragile American beauty Jean Seberg. The many extras with this celebratory release include and introduction by Jefferson Hack, creator & publisher of Dazed & Confused magazine, a rarely seen interview with Jean-Luc Godard by Mike Hodges from UK arts show Tempo (1965), a short film: Je T’Aime John Wayne directed by Toby MacDonald and a featurette on the life of Jean Seberg. ‘The filmmaker of the Sixties.’ - Independent on Sunday.

THE OPTIMUM STUDIO CANAL COLLECTION

Optimum has also released a Blu-ray version of BREATHLESS (OPTIMUM OPTBD1791) as part of its superb Studio Canal Collection, which also includes THE THIRD MAN (OPTIMUM OPTBD1781). This superlative film noir was directed in 1949 by Carol Reed, with a screenplay by Graham Greene. Set in post-war Vienna, when the city was divided between the Allied powers, the central character is pulp western author, Holly Martins, who is searching for an old friend, Harry Lime. The atmospheric use of black and white expressionist cinematography by Robert Krasker combines with harsh lighting and distorted camera angles to capture perfectly the exhausted look of cynical post-war Vienna. Add to this an irresistible musical theme by Anton Karas and brilliant performances and you have the best British film of all time, as voted for by the British Film Institute. Joseph Cotton is excellent as Holly Martins and Orson Welles is unforgettable as Harry Lime, one of cinema’s most fascinating villains. There are also memorable performances from Trevor Howard and the beautiful Alida Valli. Extras include an audio commentary by assistant director Guy Hamilton, Angela Allen (Second Unit Continuity) and Simon Callow, as well as an excellent documentary, ‘Shadowing the Third Man’. Other Studio Canal Collection releases include David Lynch’s masterful MULHOLLAND DRIVE (OPTBD1780), DELICATESSEN (OPTBD1779), Roman Polanski’s THE PIANIST (OPTBD1867), Dustin Hoffman in THE GRADUATE (OPTBD1783) and Jean-Pierre Melville’s Gallic film noir, LE CERCLE ROUGE (OPTBD1868). All the films look great in Blu-ray and come with lots of extras, including commentaries and accompanying booklets.

FLESH OF THE ORCHID      BLUEBELL FILMS BLB031

Prolific British pulp novelist James Hadley Chase wrote Flesh Of The Orchid in 1948 as a sequel to his first scandalous novel, No Orchids for Miss Blandish. It’s a preposterous and wonderfully entertaining tale of simmering sexuality, violence and plot twists among a seedy cast of characters. In award-winning director Patrice Chéreau’s intense and atmospheric adaptation of this garish noir thriller, the strikingly beautiful Charlotte Rampling sizzles as Claire, an emotionally disturbed young woman who is the heir to a great fortune, but is kept prisoner by her greedy aunt who wants her money. Edwige Feuillere brilliantly plays the wicked aunt who has her niece consigned to an asylum in a bid to seize her inheritance. Managing to escape from those who are attempting to harm her, Claire meets Louis (Bruno Cremer) who like her is running away. He helps confound the schemes and also becomes her lover, but will Claire be able to make sense of her own identity? Nominated for two Césars, Flesh Of The Orchid, is a harrowing and gripping story that takes us into a world of grotesque characters, bizarre incidents, brutal murders and incessant driving rain. It’s a dark and erotic film with an outstanding cast that also includes the legendary Simone Signoret and Alida Valli, of Third Man fame.

BOXES      BLUEBELL FILMS BLB030

Style icon Jane Birkin makes her directorial debut in this haunting story, which she also wrote She plays the lead role of Anna, a woman who is troubled by ghosts from her past and has just moved into a beautiful seaside house in Brittany. Everywhere is still cluttered with boxes filled with mementos and memories of her family. As she goes through the boxes, her father, three daughters and headstrong mother appear in the form of ghosts and start tormenting her. Life has not been easy and to Anna these ghosts are quite real. All those who counted on her, dead or undead, seem to have moved in with her and assail her with reproaches, regrets and accusations especially her parents. Boxes a personal tale redolent of 1960s sensibilities that closely echoes the life of Birkin herself, who like Anna has lived many lives, has been married three times and has three daughters. This unusual and moving film focuses on emotions such as love, death, devotion, betrayal and regret. As well as Jane Birkin and the underrated Geraldine Chaplin (a delightful performance as Maman), the cast also includes Natacha Régnier as daughter Fanny, with John Hurt, Annie Girardot and Michel Piccoli as Anna’s father. ‘Brave and singular…with a drool-worthy cross-cultural cast’ - Variety.

DOUGAL AND THE BLUE CAT - SPECIAL EDITION   SECOND SIGHT 2NDVD3188

The Magic Roundabout (or Le Manège enchanté) was one of the most popular television series of the 1960s and 70s and ran to around five hundred five-minute episodes. Originally made in France by Serge Danot, the English-language version rapidly attained cult status. The script was brilliantly written and narrated by Eric Thompson, rapidly attained cult status as fans followed the surreal adventures of Dougal the dog with his fondness for sugar lumps, as well as spring-loaded Zebedee with his magic moustache, Brian the amaible snail, Ermintrude the lady-like cow, Dylan the perennially laid-back rabbit, the pretty young girl Florence (Margote) and Mr Rusty, operator of the roundabout. In 1972, Danot made a longer film, Pollux et le chat bleu, which was adapted by Thompson as Dougal and the Blue Cat. Rarely seen, this has also become a cult classic and is now released on DVD, in a newly restored format. There’s a disturbing new arrival in the Magic Garden, in the form of a blue cat called Buxton. Dougal suspects trouble is afoot when he notices Buxton talking to the Blue Voice. Soon, all sorts of strange happenings ensue, Zebedee’s moustache is hijacked, the friends find themselves chained in a dungeon, and Dougal is sent to the moon. Can Dougal save the garden and resume tranquility? Eric Thompson narrates all of the characters except one, as Fenella Fielding provided the memorably eerie tones of the Blue Voice. Special features include: English and original French versions, Thompson and The Magic Roundabout featuring interviews with Emma Thompson, Phyllida Law and Fenella Fielding, Mark Kermode on Dougal and The Blue Cat, Photo Gallery. Dark, funny and wonderfully psychedelic, this is one of the most imaginative films ever made. ‘One of my favourite films of all time.’ - Mark Kermode.

COLLAPSE      DOGWOOF

From the acclaimed director of American Movie and The Yes Men, Chris Smith, comes this compelling portrait of a radical thinker, Michael Ruppert, who explores his apocalyptic vision of the future, spanning the crisis in economics, energy, environment and more. Ruppert is a controversial author and former LA police officer who predicted the current financial crisis and vehemently believes in the inevitable destruction of industrialised civilisation. ‘Politics is the continuation of economics by other means.’ This alarming documentary polemic was filmed in a dark room that ominously resembles a bunker, where Ruppert sits alone in a chair and chain-smokes cigarettes as he waxes lyrical on his belief that the world as we know it is doomed and we must be prepared for revolution. In commanding rhetorical style, he recounts his career and spells out the disaster he sees ahead. He talks passionately about ‘peak oil’ and portrays a future that resembles apocalyptic science fiction. It’s an unnervingly persuasive world-view. Smith treats his subject as both an exhibit and patient, asking the occasional pertinent question but letting the audience decide if his subject is paranoid, deluded or a genuine prophet. Ruppert comes across as an obsessive, angry yet compassionate man; secure in his convictions but sometimes lost in his emotions. He may feel alone, but he now finally has an audience. You don’t have to accept everything that Ruppert says or buy gold, but he makes a persuasive environmentalist argument against globalisation and in favour of localism. Special features include a trailer, 2010 update and deleted scenes. ‘I don’t know when I’ve seen a thriller more frightening. I couldn’t tear my eyes from the screen...I think you owe it to yourself to see it.’ - Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times.

RUNNING IN TRAFFIC     EUREKA ISIS1004

Running in Traffic is an obliquely told modern day drama that explores the emotional journey we undertake as we strive to rebuild our lives after emotionally traumatic experiences. In the early hours of a winter morning, factory worker Joe and Polish waitress Kayla are moments away from an emotionally traumatic experience that will change their lives forever - the loss of a loved one. As they attempt to rebuild their lives in a bleak landscape, an unsympathetic world watches over their quest of hope for a new beginning. The characters pursue their parallel lives and remain unaware of the extraordinary impact they are having on each other that will ultimately shape their destiny. At the end of their tether, Joe and Kayla struggle to change their fate, battling the chaos within them that will ultimately lead their two souls to a heart rending conclusion of tragedy, hope and of love. Stylishly made by debut director Dale Corlett, the film has a sensitive musical score by Gabriel Currington and was grittily shot on location in Scotland. It features intense performances by Bryan Larkin (who also co-wrote), Anna Kerth and a strong supporting cast that includes the great Kenneth Cranham. Despite its low budget, Running in Traffic brilliantly captures the raw, extreme, emotional truth of personal grief and the subtle nuance of eventual peace. DVD extras include a trailer, a short film - Scene, a brief interview with Kenneth Cranham and a ‘making of’ documentary. Highly recommended.

POSSESSION       SECOND SIGHT 2NDDVD3186 

Avant-garde Polish director Andrzej Zulawski’s films were banned in his homeland during the Communist era and he became self-exiled to France. His controversial and personal film, Possession, appeared on the notorious banned ‘Video Nasties’ list and has been unavailable in the UK on DVD until now. Anna and Mark live on a bleak estate in communist Berlin. With their marriage in tatters they torment each other in a tense relationship that has become a psychotic descent into screaming matches, violence and self-mutilation. Believing his wife’s lover is the sinister Heinrich, Mark is unaware that Anna has embarked on an affair with a diabolical, tentacled creature. The increasingly unhinged woman visits her monstrous lover in a deserted apartment and will stop at nothing to protect him. Isabelle Adjani gives a truly astonishing performance as the deranged Anna and Sam Neill is totally believable as her husband. This is a an unusual, gripping film and the violence, when it comes, is shockingly real. Possession can be seen as a horror story, but the film more interestingly exists as political metaphor, psychological study and much else besides. Eschewing mainstream commercialism, Zulawski’s contentious works have earned him many awards and accolades. Possession was nominated for a BAFTA and the Palme d’Or, with Adjani named Best Actress at the Cannes Film Festival and the French Césars. Given its dark subject matter and high gore quotient, Possession is not for the faint hearted, but this bizarre, surreal and hypnotic film is an unforgettable experience. Special features include The Other Side of The Wall - The Making of Possession, and an interview with Andrzej Zulawski. ‘An unsung masterpiece ... The film that prefigures everything that’s in antichrist’ - Mark Kermode.

NIGHT OF THE DEMON         MEDIUMRARE FHED2773

Psychologist John Holden arrives in London to take part in a paranormal psychology symposium intending to expose witchcraft and devil-worship as a fraud. When his colleague, Professor Harrington, is mysteriously and brutally murdered, Holden denies that it’s the work of the devil… until he becomes the next target! Attention centres on a sinister cult run by Julian Karswell, who Harrington’s niece, Joanna, believes may indeed have satanic powers derived from an ancient tome in an obscure language which he has been able to translate. He attempts to warn the sceptical Holden. Brilliantly directed by Jacques Tourneur and based on ‘Casting the Runes’, a story by M.R. James, the film’s cast includes the always reliable Dana Andrews as John Holden, with Athene Seyler, Peggy Cummins as Joanna, Niall MacGinnis as Karswell, and Maurice Denham as Harrington. This absolute cult classic is highly recommended for connoisseurs of the psychological horror genre. Night Of The Demon is here restored and released for the first time in the UK at its full original length, together with the full US version re-titled Curse Of The Demon. ‘The most purely frightening British horror film of the 1950s’ - Empire Magazine.

D’ARTAGNAN’S DAUGHTER       SECOND SIGHT 2NDVD3185

In Bertrand Tavernier’s thrilling historical adventure set during the reign of King Louis XIV, Philippe Noiret plays famed swordsman D’Artagnan alongside Sophie Marceau as the eponymous daughter, a determined Eloise. She eschews her talents with the sword to concentrate on her studies at a convent, but trouble comes knocking in the form of a slave seeking refuge from the clutches of the evil Duke Of Crassac (Claude Rich). The Duke’s soldiers retaliate by murdering the Mother Superior (Pascale Roberts) and his nefarious plot to destabilise the country becomes apparent. The feisty Eloise enlists of the help of her father, the legendary musketeer D’Artagnan, who reunite with Athos, Aramis and Porthos to overthrow the dastardly Duke in this exciting story of conspiracy, murder and revenge. The lovely Marceau bares he breasts (twice), looks great on a horse and does all her own sword-fights in this colourful and highly enjoyable film, released here on DVD for the first time in the UK. ‘Ravishing’ - The Observer. Second Sight is also releasing another swashbuckling adventure, LE BOSSU (2NDVD3184). This award-winning film, wittily written and directed by Philippe de Broca, was adapted from the historical novel of the same name by Paul Féval. The ruthless Count Gonzague (Fabrice Luchini – Molière, Full Moon In Paris) is in line to inherit a fortune from his dashing cousin the Duc de Nevers (Vincent Perez) and won’t let anyone stand in his way, hiring young swordsman Largardère (Daniel Auteuil) to kill the Duke. But the young Largardère switches his allegiance and leaves Paris with de Nevers who is set to marry the mother of his love child. Gonzague leads his henchmen into a bloody battle at the wedding where many lives are lost and Largardère is left holding the baby. Largardère assumes the disguise of a hunchback to avenge the murder of his friend. Le Bossu is an action-packed tale replete with swordfights, treachery, revenge and murder. ‘A pacey and polished picture that’s never anything less than sabre-rattling entertainment’ - Radio Times.

METROPOLIS - FRITZ LANG

Austrian-German-American filmmaker Friedrich ‘Fritz’ Lang was one of the best known émigrés from Germany’s school of Expressionism. Dubbed the ‘Master of Darkness’ by the British Film Institute, his most famous films are the groundbreaking Metropolis, made in 1927, and M, the film that launched German cinema into the sound era three years later, before Lang moved to the United States to escape from the Nazis. With its dizzying depiction of a futuristic cityscape and alluring female robot, Metropolis is among the most famous of all German films and the mother of sci-fi cinema, influencing Blade Runner, Star Wars and countless other films. The jaw-dropping production values, iconic imagery and modernist grandeur - it was described by Luis Buñuel as ‘a captivating symphony of movement’ - remain as powerful as ever. Drawing on - and defining - classic sci-fi themes, Metropolis depicts a dystopian future in which society is completely divided in two: while anonymous workers conduct their endless drudgery below ground their rulers enjoy a decadent life of leisure and luxury. When Freder (Gustav Frölich) ventures into the depths in search of the beautiful Maria (the stunning Brigitte Helm in her debut role), plans of rebellion are revealed and a Maria-replica robot is programmed by mad inventor Rotwang (Rudolf Klein-Rogge) and master of Metropolis Joh Fredersen (Alfred Abel) to incite the workers into a self-destructive riot. Metropolis is presented here in a newly reconstructed and restored version, as lavish and spectacular as ever thanks to the painstaking archival work of the Friedrich-Wilhelm-Murnau-Stiftung and the discovery of 25 minutes of footage previously thought lost. Lang’s enduring epic can finally be seen - for the first time in 83 years - as the director originally intended, and as seen by German cinema-goers in 1927. This outstanding 150-minute version of Metropolis, with a new symphony orchestra recording of the original 1927 Gottfried Huppertz score and newly translated English subtitles, is being released on 10 September in UK cinemas nationwide. See the website for more information. The film will be also released on DVD and Blu-ray later this year as part of Eureka’s definitive Masters of Cinema Series. With its haunting imagery, meticulously crafted designs and profoundly ambiguous themes, this hallucinatory exploration of the struggle between good and evil remains essential viewing. ‘A treat - it’s simply one of the greatest and most influential films ever made.’ - BBC2 Newsnight. The restored Metropolis is being screened in the Roundhouse Main Space (10-12 October 2010) with the original soundtrack performed live by the London Contemporary Orchestra.

MODESTY BLAISE     SECOND SIGHT 2NDVD3182

The successful 1960s comic strip Modesty Blaise, created by British writer Peter O’Donnell and artist Jim Holdaway, followed the adventures of the world’s deadliest female agent and her trusty companion, Willie Garvin. In 1966, it was loosely adapted into this comedy thriller directed by Joseph Losey, starring Monica Vitti in her first English speaking role and Terence Stamp, with Dirk Bogarde as the sinister Gabriel. With her outlandish James Bond-style weapons and ever-changing hair colour, international super spy Modesty and sidekick Willie become embroiled in a government conspiracy involving 50 million pounds worth diamonds, a Middle Eastern sheik and a complicated heist plot hatched by arch-criminal Gabriel. Despite its 60s glamour and high-powered stars, none of whom looked back with much pleasure at making the film, Modesty Blaise was unsuccessful when originally released. Now, though, it can be enjoyed as a wildly frivolous romp, with knowing wit, glossy cinematography (by Jack Hildyard), outlandish plotting and a score by composer Johnny Dankworth. Monica Vitti is effortlessly sexy, Terence Stamp throws knives with glee, and Dirk Bogarde is campness personified in a silver wig. Others involved include Michael Craig, Harry Andrews (with a lethal umbrella), Alexander Knox, Clive Revill as the man with the outrageous shorts, and Rossella Falk as the formidable Miss Fothergill, ‘the bird with the beady eyes’. Fans of Barbarella will find much to relish here and its interesting to see Joseph Losey venture so far from his usual oevre. ‘Gloriously camp caper that superbly captures the mod-mad pop art times.’ - Film4.com.

COMPULSION       SECOND SIGHT 2NDVD3183

Based by Richard Murphy on the notorious real life Leopold and Loeb case of 1924, Compulsion is a compelling, stylish thriller that sees two brilliant but bored Chicago law students callously murder a young boy in cold blood to prove their intellectual superiority. Having been raised by wealthy, snobbish families, Arthur A. Straus (played by Bradford Dillman) is a sadistic bully and Judd Steiner (an outstanding performance by Dean Stockwell) is a troubled introvert. The two friends concoct the ‘perfect crime’ to murder a young boy, but their arrogance and conceit leads to their arrest. The formidable Orson Welles plays criminal defence lawyer Jonathan Wilk, based on the famous Clarence Darrow, who takes on their almost impossible case and shamelessly dominates the courtroom. The film also stars Diane Varsi, Martin Milner and the excellent E.G. Marshall. This outstanding drama, stylishly directed by Richard Fleischer, was nominated for a BAFTA and won the Cannes Film Festival Best Actor Award for Stockwell, Dillman and Welles as well as a Palme D’Or nomination. This taut, intelligent film was ahead of its time when released in 1959, both in its psycholgical insights and arguments against capital punishment. ‘Welles is a tour de force’ - Radio Times.

BLITZ ON BRITAIN    OPTIMUM OPTD1823

On 7 September 1940 Nazi Germany began a sustained Luftwaffe bombardment of London that lasted for 76 consecutive nights 10 May 1941. The Blitz would hit many towns and cities across the country and killed over 43,000 civilians, half of them in London. More than a million houses destroyed or damaged in London alone and many other military and industrial centres suffered heavy air raids, including Birmingham, Coventry, Manchester, Exeter, Glasgow and Liverpool. Hull was the most heavily bombed city after London, with almost all of its buildings being destroyed or affected. Smaller bombing raids were made on Edinburgh, Newcastle, York, Exeter and Bath as Germany attempted to destroy British civilian and government morale. The Blitz did little to help potential German invasion though and by 1941, Hitler’s attention was focused on the east. Blitz on Britain, directed by Harry Booth, is a classic documentary recording what Winston Churchill called one of the decisive battles of the world: the battle that was fought in the streets and homes of Britain and turned every civilian into a front-line soldier. It traces the full ferocity of Hitler’s attempt to smash Britain and ends with the Great Fire of London. Using contemporary footage shot in combat by both British and German crews, it sets the Blitz in the context of Nazi invasion plans and celebrates the quiet heroism of the armed forces, civil authorities (firefighters are seen in action against spectacular odds) and civilians on the ground. The footage, including air-to-air shots of dogfights during the Battle of Britain, brings the story vividly to life and Alistair Cooke’s measured narration reminds us that some of the raids were in retaliation for British attacks on undefended German cities. Blitz on Britain is a moving and intelligent film about a raging conflict between military might and the dogged, spirited endurance of the people Hitler called ‘decadent’.

CASANOVA ‘70     MR BONGO FILMS MRBDVD029

This vivacious Italian farce sees Major Andrea Rossi-Colombotti narrowly escaping prison and even death due to his strange libido, which only allows him to seduce women in the most dangerous and life threatening situations. Posing as a doctor he seizes the opportunity to try and seduce a Sicilian girl who comes from an honourable family, but unfortunately he is caught in the act and chased away by the girl’s family, only just managing to escape. In another escapade he is caught in the middle of a lovers’ feud and again marginally escapes a murder sentence in a courtroom climax worthy of the Marx Brothers. Elegant and effortlessly charming Marcello Mastroianni is perfectly cast as the infamous and spontaneous ladies man, with Virna Lisi, Michèle Mercier and Marisa Mell among the gorgeous women he encounters. There are also droll performances by Marco Ferreri as a jealous husband and Enrico Maria Salerno as the pencil-sharpening psychiatrist who tries to convince Andrea to give up women. Director Mario Monicelli was a master of frothy and colourful nonsense such as this, made in 1965 and Oscar-nominated for its original story and screenplay. ‘Sensuous fun’ - New York Times. Mr Bongo Films has also released the long-awaited DVD of LOLA (MRBDVD032), Jacques Demy’s debut feature and tribute to Max Ophüls. This poignant, groundbreaking film was described by director Demy as a ‘musical without music’ and stars the stunning Anouk Aimée in the title role. Set in the port city of Nantes, Lola is a young lady who is secretly awaiting the return of her true love Michel (Jacques Harden) who left on the eve of her pregnancy and promised to return when he became rich. The intricately structured story follows Lola as she struggles to make ends meet as a cabaret singer and her chance encounters with two men vying for her love. Aimée’s magnificent performance earned her a BAFTA nomination for best foreign actress, alongside Marc Michel and Alan Scott as her other love interests. Beautifully shot in black and white with an ingeniously effective musical soundtrack, Demy’s predecessor to his better known Les Parapluies de Cherbourg is a unique and captivating film. ‘Exquisite! Most movies pale compared to Lola, one of the best films of all time’ - New York Times.

LOVING MEMORY     BFI BFIB1077

English film director Tony Scott is sometimes dismissed as Ridley Scott’s more commercial younger brother but by the 1980s he had established himself as one of mainstream Hollywood’s most successful action filmmakers. He has been responsible for hits such as Top Gun, Days of Thunder, The Last Boy Scout, Crimson Tide, Enemy of the State and, more recently, The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3. His debut in 1970 was Loving Memory, this extraordinary short (57 minutes) film that tells the macabre story of an isolated brother and sister, Jessica and Ambrose, who live with their memories and a grisly secret. Critically acclaimed on its release, Loving Memory was partly produced by an uncredited Albert Finney and is beautifully photographed in black-and-white by Chris Menges, who brilliantly captures the misty atmosphere of the Yorkshire moors. There are remarkable performances from Rosamund Greenwood as a haunted innocent and Roy Evans as her misunderstanding brother, with David Pugh as an unfortunate cyclist. This dual format BFI release has both Blu-ray and DVD versions of the film and many extras, including One of the Missing, Tony Scott’s tense psychological short about the desperate, lonely fate of a confederate soldier in the American Civil War. Boy and Bicycle, Ridley Scott’s first film, follows the adventures of a truant schoolboy played by his brother Tony, who gives a stream of consciousness commentary as he cycles around Hartlepool. The BFI’s production fund played a significant role in the launch of Tony and Ridley Scott’s careers, partly funding both Boy and Bicycle and One of the Missing. This two-disc release comes with an illustrated booklet, a newly commissioned essay by Kim Newman and production notes. ‘A hypnotically well-made film’ - The Observer.

THE PRIME OF MISS JEAN BRODIE     ACORN AV9779

‘Little girls! I am in the business of putting old heads on young shoulders, and all my pupils are the crème de la crème.’ Muriel Spark’s best-known novel, first published in 1961, was later turned into a stage play by Jay Presson Allen and in 1969 became this hugely successful film. Directed by Ronald Neame, it starred Maggie Smith as an unconventional young schoolteacher at an Edinburgh girls’ school in the period between the two world wars. The liberated Miss Brodie instructs ‘her gels’ in the ways of life, ignoring more mundane subjects to teach them about love, politics and art. When her affairs with two male teachers become known she finds herself fighting to keep her job, though she believes that she can always count on the support of her favourite pupils. Maggie Smith won an Academy Award for her performance in the title role and Pamela Franklin is brilliant as the slyly clever student Sandy. Gordon Jackson plays Gordon Lowther and Rona Anderson, who was married to Jackson in real life, plays chemistry teacher Miss Lockhart. Robert Stephens, then Smith’s real life husband, played Miss Brodie’s married artist lover, who also has an affair with Sandy. The cast also includes singer Isla Cameron as a stern librarian and Celia Johnson as the austere headmistress. Special features include the US teaser trailer and US theatrical trailer, a Muriel Spark biography and bibliography, and filmographies of the stars. ‘Smith’s performance is a triumph’ - Variety.

HACHI: A DOG’S TALE   ENTERTAINMENT IN VIDEO EBR 5167 (BLU-RAY) & EDV 9682 (DVD)

Hollywood legend Richard Gere stars with Sarah Roemer, Jason Alexander (of Seinfeld fame) and three-time Oscar nominee Joan Allen in this adaptation of a true story about a loyal dog named Hachiko in 1920s Tokyo. The film opens as a university professor (Gere) finds an abandoned puppy at his local train station. Not wanting to hand it over to the local dog pound, he takes it back home with him despite a ‘no dogs’ ban that has been decreed by his disapproving wife. At first he tries to hide Hachi but, not surprisingly, his efforts are in vain and his wife soon finds out. She agrees that Hachi can stay until they find a permanent home for the puppy or trace its rightful owner. However, nobody comes forward to claim the dog and gradually the professor and Hachi become inseparable. Every morning the dog accompanies his master to the station then faithfully returns to greet him every evening in the same place and at exactly the same time, becoming a regular fixture of the neighbourhood as well as a symbol of love, friendship and unyielding loyalty to everyone who meets him. Sensitively directed by Lasse Hallström, this is a warm and inspiring story with a great performance by Richard Gere, who also co-produced. DVD and Blu-ray bonus features include a ‘making of’ documentary and trailer.

MORRIS: A LIFE WITH BELLS ON   SAFE CRACKER PICTURES SP002

Morris dancing is usually thought of as particularly English, with records dating back to 1448, though there is some dispute as to the origin of the word ‘morris’. The term probably derives from moorish dance, morisques in France, Moriskentanz in Germany, moreška in Croatia, and moresco, moresca or morisca in Italy and Spain. The original moresca was a sword dance, and the sticks in Morris dance are thought to be substitutes for swords. Although today mostly an English activity, there are also around 150 morris sides (or teams) in the United States as well as groups in the Netherlands, Sweden and France. Morris: A Life With Bells On shows that there’s more to morris than waving hankies and crashing sticks as it follows the fortunes of an avant garde folk dancer, Derecq Twist (Charles Thomas Oldham) and his team in their struggle to modernise folk dance. In doing so, they antagonise The Morris Circle (the political and sinister governing body of Morris dance in England). They are followed, documentary style, by a film crew who chronicle their highs and lows as tragedy strikes the team and Derecq is plunged into the glamour of California, where he finds artistic freedom with a group of flamboyant Morris dancers sponsored by a billionaire philanthropist. He also discovers love with Sonja (Naomie Harris), though life is not as simple as the movies in this celebration of rural England, eccentricity and the triumph of individuality. This cult film - ‘The Full Monty with bells on’ - also stars Derek Jacobi, Harriet Walter, Ian Hart and Sophie Thompson. Look out for the morris answer to Riverdance and a brief, scene-stealing performance by John Boswall as the stubborn Mr. Staveley.

RESISTANCE[S] III     LOWAVE

This is the third volume of this collection of experimental film and video art from the Middle East and North Africa (see previous collection here). Curated by Silke Schmickl and Christine Sehnaoui and featuring nine artists from a variety of cultural and disciplinary backgrounds, these intimate, poetic and documentary works are witness to the region’s complexity, vitality and diversity of creative energies. Distanced from the usual stereotypes, the artists aim to explore existential, political and aesthetic issues of our times while opening up to new narrative perspectives that break with our media’s monotonous and repetitive imagery. They present us with new perspectives on time and space, movement and memory, history and personal experience, without neglecting the place of women in society. The directors here are Basma Alsharif (We began by measuring distance), Danielle Arbid (This smell of sex), Fabian Astore and Mireille Astore (3494 Houses + 1 Fence), Ismaïl Bahri (Résonances), Halida Boughriet (Les illuminés), Nazim Djemaï (La parade de Taos), Cairo-born Khaled Hafez (Revolution), Waheeda Malullah (Play) and Larissa Sansour (Run Lara Run). These are exhilaratingly fresh and often very beautiful films by artists who have important things to say. The independent Lowave label was founded in 2002 by Marc Horchler and Silke Schmickl to promote experimental film and contemporary video art, making them accessible beyond the film festival and gallery circuit. Alongside historic figures such as Marguerite Duras, Maurice Lemaítre, Takahiko Iimura, and Helga Fanderl, Lowave has promoted some of the most interesting and innovative young artists from around the world. See RESISTANCE[S] and the Lowave website for more information.

SOLOMON KANE          ENTERTAINMENT IN VIDEO EDV 9675

This epic fantasy, action-adventure is a dark and brooding tale based on a collection of poems and stories by iconic American writer Robert E Howard, whose other stellar pulp fiction creation is Conan The Barbarian, widely regarded as having invented the sword and sorcery genre. Captain Solomon Kane is a brutally efficient 16th Century killing machine and anti-hero. Armed with his signature pistols, cutlass and rapier, he and his men unleash their bloodlust as they fight for England across the Continents in war after war. Pacily directed and written by Michael J. Bassett, the film features excellent special effects and stars James Purefoy in fine swashbuckling form as Solomon Kane. The outstanding cast also includes Mackenzie Crook, the great Max von Sydow, Pete Postlethwaite, Jason Flemyng and Rachel Hurd-Wood. This is an exciting, intelligently scripted tale of good-versus-evil and one man’s search for redemption. Bonus features include commentaries by Michael J Bassett and James Purefoy, a ‘making of’ documentary, interviews with the producers, deleted scenes and artworks by Greg Staples, voted best artist of 2005 by Fantasy Magazine.

DIARY OF A BAD LAD     SAFECRACKER PICTURES

Frustrated film maker Barry Lick (Jonathan Williams) recruits a team of young wannabees and sets out to make a sensationalist crime documentary on the cheap about a local businessman involved in property rackets, prostitution, pornography and drug trafficking. For security reasons Barry never uses his real name, and calls him Ray Topham. His quest leads him to two of Ray’s associates; a local cocaine supplier and ex-S&M porn actress called Joanne Miller (Donna Henry), and the charmingly psychopathic Tommy Morghen (Joe O’Byrne) who acts as Ray’s personal security consultant. They soon realise that Barry is out of his depth, and so they exploit him for their own purposes with both hilarious and tragic results. Diary of a Bad Lad explores themes of sex, drugs, violence, exploitation, and the desperate limits that people will go to in order to make a film. Directed by Michael Booth, who also appears as one of the crew, and written by Jonathan Williams, this faux documentary made on the tiny budget of just £5,000 uses realistic techniques to comment on media exploitation and the ethics of journalists. Smart, street-wise and convincingly acted, this is a unique and disturbing film that deserves a wide audience. watch the trailer.

BREAKING AWAY      SECOND SIGHT 2NDVD3178

This funny, warm-hearted film was made by British director Peter Yates, most famous for Bullitt. Starring Dennis Christopher, Dennis Quaid, Daniel Stern (in his first film role) and Jackie Earle Haley (the only real life teenager), Breaking Away tells the tale of four friends in small town America as they graduate from high school uncertain about what their futures hold. Dave’s passion is cycling and he dreams of becoming a world champion, like his Italian idols. He fantasises about escaping his life and goes as far as pretending to be Italian to realise his dream. Although disillusioned when he finally gets to race against his heroes, his cycling passion takes on new meaning when he and his friends face a team from the local college in the town’s annual bike race, the Little 500. Faced with a team of students who feel superior to him and his friends, Dave faces the greatest challenge of his life, which will push his endurance and spirit to the limit. The witty script by Steve Tesich (an alumnus of Indiana University) won the 1979 Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay and the film was nominated for four other Oscars, including Best Actress in a Supporting Role for Barbara Barrie as Dave’s mother. Paul Dooley should also have been nominated for his hilarious, poignant performance as Dave’s long-suffering father, particularly when trying to refuse a refund on a broken down used car. This is a delightful coming of age classic, and you would need a heart of stone not to be rooting for the cutters’ sons in that climactic bike race. Second Sight has also released WILD TARGET (2NDVD3179), directed by Pierre Salvadori. This is a wickedly funny crime-caper about a middle-aged professional hitman called Victor (the brilliantly deadpan Jean Rochefort) whose fortunes change as he takes on a hot-headed accomplice, a naïve youngster played by Guillaume Depardieu (son of Gerard). Their next assignment is Renee (the delightful Marie Trintignant), a glamorous art forger and petty thief who has conned a gangster, but Victor has softened and can’t go through with it. The unlikely trio team up and await the inevitable showdown with an unhappy client. Also known as Cible Émouvante, this top French comedy from the nineties is being released in a British remake starring Bill Nighy, Emily Blunt and Martin Freeman. ‘A knockout farce.’ - Time Out.

PROFOUND DESIRES OF THE GODS     EUREKA EKA70015

Japanese film director Shōhei Imamura began his film career working as an assistant to Yasujirō Ozu and Yuzo Kawashima, who became an important influence on his career. Imamura established his reputation as a leading director of the Japanese New Wave with his memorable Pigs and Battleships (1961), The Insect Woman (1963) and Unholy Desire or Intentions of Murder (1964). To escape studio interference, he established his own production company and made The Profound Desire of the Gods (Kamigami no Fukaki Yokubō) in 1968. This ambitious, near-epic film examines the clash between modern and traditional societies on a primitive southern Japanese island where a Tokyo engineer arrives to build a well to provide water for a sugar mill. The film, though arguably the director’s best, was a box-office failure at the time of its release. It has since become one of the most legendary - albeit least seen - Japanese films of recent decades. A tragic view of a passing epoch that teeters on the edge of grotesque farce, Imamura’s merciless gaze combines with spectacular colour photography to create a mythic saga convulsing with earthly impulses. This new Blu-ray release in Eureka’s Masters of Cinema series features a superbly restored high-definition 1080p transfer, with special features that include a video introduction by film scholar Tony Rayns, the original theatrical trailer (in 1080p) and new English subtitles, plus an extensive booklet with an essay by Rayns, rare stills, reprinted statements by Imamura, a lengthy 1994 career interview and a transcript of Imamura’s introduction and Q&A session at the 1994 Edinburgh International Film Festival’s screening of the film. This is a rare chance to see the work of a filmmaker who won the Palme d’Or twice and has been called the best Japanese director since Kurosawa. ‘The films of Shohei Imamura are among the greatest ever made.’ - Jonathan Demme.

SPIRAL     INDIVISION

American director Adam Green made his feature film debut in 2000 with the lighthearted comedy Coffee & Donuts (made for only $400) before really making his mark in 2006 with Hatchet, a horror film about a group of tourists on a boat ride in the haunted Louisiana bayous. Green’s third film is a chilling psycho-thriller, Spiral, which he co-directed with actor Joel David Moore. It’s the story of the reclusive, jazz-loving Mason (played by Moore) who works for a dreary insurance telemarketing company. Mason’s dysfunctional closeness with his womanising boss and only friend, Berkeley, is lessened when a new co-worker, Amber, enters his life. But as he begins to draw Amber’s portrait, troubling feelings from his past threaten to lead him down a nightmarish path of annihilation. Joel David Moore is brilliantly creepy as the oddball Mason and there are excellent performances by Amber Tamblyn (daughter of actor Russ Tamblyn, who appears as an extra) as the whimsical Amber and Zachary Levi as Berkeley. Awarded the Gold Vision Award for the ‘most innovative and unique film with an inspiring and groundbreaking vision’ at the Santa Barbara Film Festival in 2007, Spiral is an edgy, stylish film with dark psychological undertones that keeps grips right through to its shocking conclusion. ‘The film is the definition of “slow burn” but in the best possible, most Hitchcockian way’ - Dreadcentral.