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DOUBLE INDEMNITY - BILLY WILDER UNIVERSAL 8232965
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SUNRISE - F W MURNAU EUREKA EKA40109
NOSFERATU - F W MURNAU EUREKA EKA40025 The word ‘nosferatu’ comes from an old Slavonic word nosufur-atu, derived from the Greek for ‘plague carrier’ (vampires were long regarded as the carriers of diseases). In Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau’s groundbreaking 1922 masterpiece, Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens (‘A Symphony of Horrors’) a city clerk named Hutter (Gustav Von Wangenheim) leaves his bride (Greta Schroeder) to conduct business in the distant Carpathian mountains with an eccentric client, Graf Orlok (the amazing Max Schreck). The closer Hutter gets to his destination during a long and hazardous journey, the more terrified are the people he meets. What he finds when he reaches Orlok’s castle is enough to make the flesh of the most devoted horror fan creep. On Nosferatu’s first release, critics were divided and the public bewildered by the director’s clever use of time and space distortion. It was the first film to be based on Bram Stoker’s Dracula character and the first from the production company Prana-Film. It was also the last one the company made before going bankrupt after Stoker’s estate sued for copyright infringement. An English judge ordered that all copies of the film be destroyed and the negative burned. Fortunately, the order was not enforceable in Germany, so a print survived and Nosferatu has subsequently gained a reputation as one of the greatest movie adaptations of the vampire legend. This Special Edition two DVD set features the full-length version as well as a sepia version, handsomely restored and digitally remastered. Extras include a commentary track, trailers and footage showing locations, original artworks and theatrical posters. This timeless classic of the silent film era is a supreme example of German Expressionism and a deeply unsettling film, with unforgettable images and a powerfully sinister atmosphere. TIDELAND – TERRY GILLIAM REVOLVER REVD1972
THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH – DE MILLE PARAMOUNT This dazzling 1952 film set in the circus world was produced, directed and narrated by Cecil B. DeMille. It stars energetic Betty Hutton (Holly) and debonair Cornel Wilde (‘The Great Sebastian’) as trapeze artists competing for the centre ring, with Charlton Heston in his first big break as the tough circus manager running the show. As Holly and Sebastian indulge in their dangerous one-upmanship in the ring, he pursues her on the ground. Subplots involve the secret past of Buttons the Clown (James Stewart, who never removes his makeup) and the efforts of racketeers to muscle in on the game concessions. The film also features such Hollywood stalwarts as Dorothy Lamour (in a sarong), wonderful Gloria Grahame as the elephant girl, Henry Wilcoxon as an FBI Agent, Lyle Bettger and Lawrence Tierney. Bob Hope and Bing Crosby have fleeting cameo roles as popcorn-eating spectators in the crowd. The Greatest Show on Earth is a typically full-on Cecil B. DeMille spectacular and makes a lively tribute to an American institution: the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus. Controversially, the film won Oscars for Best Story and Best Picture in 1952 (in opposition to Singin’ in the Rain, High Noon and The Quiet Man, among others) but this was more a tribute to a lifetime’s work by DeMille, who famously directed the first Hollywood film, The Squaw Man, forty years earlier. With its colourful characters, purple dialogue, lions and elephants, exciting circus acts, a train wreck and splendid photography, this brash extravaganza remains an irresistible treat. FAUST – MURNAU EUREKA: MASTERS OF CINEMA EKA40210 Murnau and screenwriter Hans Kyser’s Faust draws on older traditions of the legendary tale as well as on Goethe’s version, and this innovative film contains many memorable images and amazing special effects. The stars are Gösta Ekman (who as Faust miraculously changes from a bearded old man to a handsome youth), Emil Jannings as the sinister Mephisto and the little-known actress Camilla Horn in a terrific performance as Gretchen. With superb photography and art direction, this classic tale of a man who sells his soul to the devil is a triumph of the silent film era. Murnau, ever the perfectionist, shot many takes of each scene with only the best making the final German domestic cut of the film. Only the prints made for export outside Germany were seen until recently and this version was thought to be the only one in existence. Using the nitrate duplicate negatives printed in 1926 (and an array of international sources) Murnau’s authentic German version of Faust has now been meticulously reconstructed by Luciano Berriatúa for Filmoteca Española from which this newly restored transfer is sourced, now available for the first time in the UK in Eureka’s Masters of Cinema Series. The Special Edition double DVD features this brilliantly restored film with audio commentary by critics David Ehrenstein and Bill Krohn, a new harp score by Stan Ambrose as well as the Timothy Brock orchestral score, original German intertitles and optional English subtitles. Three hours of extras include the previously available export version; Tony Rayns on Faust; Faust: The different versions; a 28-page booklet with essays by Peter Spooner and R. Dixon Smith; and a selection of rare production stills. REDS – WARREN BEATTY PARAMOUNT PHE9056 This ambitious, award-winning film tells a moving and heroic love story set against a backdrop of New York intellectualism, Bolshevik revolution and the politics of war. One night in 1912 the writer Louise Bryant goes to a lecture given by a radical journalist, John Reed. Although a respectable married woman, she leaves her husband for the charismatic Reed and becomes an important feminist and radical in her own right, becoming involved with labour and political disputes. The couple travel to Russia in time for the October Revolution in 1917 and return to the USA hoping to lead a similar revolution. Writer-director Warren Beatty knew he faced a challenge when he took on the task of bringing to life the story of one of history’s greatest socialists, but by using his commercial success and box office pulling power he succeeded. This epic film stars Beatty himself as John Reed, together with Jack Nicholson (brilliant as the playwright Eugene O’Neill), Diane Keaton (marvellously sexy as Louise Bryant, a part Beatty originally intended for Julie Christie), Paul Sorvino, M. Emmet Walsh and Gene Hackman in a cameo role as Pete Van Wherry. Nominated for twelve Academy Awards, Reds won four Oscars for Art Direction, the terrific Cinematography of Vittorio Storaro, Best Supporting Actress for Maureen Stapleton and Best Director for Beatty, securing his place as a leading powerhouse in film-making. With a Steven Sondheim score and first-rate cast, Reds is as poignant now as ever. This two disc special edition set features new interviews with Warren Beatty, Jack Nicholson, Vittorio Storaro and the composer. The film itself includes interspersed interviews with well-known social activists, many of whom were contemporaries of Reed and Bryant. NATASHA WARNER VISION 5101199292
LONESOME DOVE – SIMON WINCER ACORN AV9200 Based on Larry McMurtry’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel set in the late 19th century, this acclaimed television mini-series stars Academy Award winners Robert Duvall and Tommy Lee Jones. In an epic tale of the Old West, two aging cowboys and former Texas Rangers leave the small town of Lonesome Dove and head out on an adventurous 2500-mile cattle drive to the lush ranch country of Montana. They steal a herd from a gang of Mexican cattle rustlers and battle horse thieves, Indian tribes and a renegade half-breed killer named Blue Duck (Frederic Forrest) along the way. The exceptional cast also includes Robert Urich as a cardsharp, Anjelica Huston as an old flame, Danny Glover, Ricky Schroder, Diane Lane, Chris Cooper, D.B. Sweeney, Steve Buscemi, and a cameo role for Larry McMurtry. The Australian director Simon Wincer cleverly balances sweeping drama and intimacy against the stunning landscape of the American Southwest while creating a host of memorable characters. Duvall and Jones are superb in the main roles. The production is extremely faithful to Larry McMurtry’s great novel and this is the kind of film that can be watched over and over again with undiminished pleasure. If you enjoy classic Westerns such as Red River, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon and Shane, you will find this grand and touching epic is a film to relish. As well as a stirring story, glorious scenery and great performances (especially by Duvall, Jones and two scene-stealing pigs) there is a fine Emmy-winning musical score by Basil Poledouris. Extras include interviews with writer Larry McMurtry and producer Suzanne De Passe. BERKELEY IN THE SIXTIES - MARK KIRCHELLE DIGITAL CLASSICS LIB6051 Berkeley, the oldest (founded in 1868) campus of the University of California system, came to the world’s attention during the 1960s with its reputation for student activism. The Free Speech Movement began at Berkeley in 1964 as an impromptu response to the university’s ban on campus political activity, and Student protests continued into the early 1970s. One of the most publicised events was the People’s Park protest in 1969, when students and city residents took over a plot of land belonging to the university and turned it into a community park. The university decided to reclaim control by bringing in law enforcement sending in bulldozers. Governor Ronald Reagan called in National Guard and more violence erupted, resulting in many people being hurt. One student died, a police officer was stabbed and a bystander blinded. This Oscar nominated 1990 documentary produced by Mark Kirchelle tells the remarkable story of this small group of students who challenged the establishment and changed the face of America. This outstanding film brings 1960s California back to life with its civil rights marches and anti Vietnam protests, showing how it evolved from the 1950s HUAC communist witch-hunt and led to the rise of feminism, hippiedom and the Black Panthers. Archive footage is brilliantly combined with specially filmed interviews and commentary by people such as Jack Weinberg, Frank Bardacke, Susan Griffin and Bobby Seale, who all participated in bringing about profound changes over half a century ago. Interest in political film making has lately been revived and ‘Berkeley In The Sixties’ was the forerunner of today’s radical documentary making, providing a snap shot of a time when a nation of youth found it’s voice and defied the establishment. As well as inspiring and sometimes shocking archival visual images, the film also features evocative music from the era, including The Grateful Dead, Jimi Hendrix, The Band, Joan Baez and Jefferson Airplane. This invaluable documentary is essential viewing for anyone wishing to understand the 60s counterculture and it consequences. Highly recommended. A LONG WEEKEND IN PEST & BUDA – KAROLY MAKK SECOND RUN 021 The veteran film director and screenwriter Károly Makk was born the son of a cinema projectionist in Hungary in 1925. In a career of more than 60 years he has worked on over 40 films, making his first feature as a director in 1954. The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 had a profound effect on him, and in 1970 he tackled the subject of political repression in his masterpiece, Love (Szerelem), winner of a special award at Cannes in 1971. This moving commentary on life under political tyranny made no direct reference to 1956, although this is the context in which the film is inevitably seen. A Long Weekend in Pest & Buda reunites the director with two of Hungary’s greatest actors, Mari Törõcsik and Iván Darva, who starred in Love over 30 years earlier. They were once a couple who meet again when he visits her after she falls terminally ill. This beautifully-photographed (cinematographer Elemér Ragályi) film reflects honestly in a Bergmanesque manner on age, memory and how we reinvent ourselves. Emotionally mature and often moving, the romantic drama is set in picturesque Budapest and shows how, despite our best efforts, we can never quite escape our past. A Long Weekend in Pest & Buda won the 2003 Moscow International Film Festival Golden St George prize, and Mari Törõcsik’s superb performance earned her the 2003 Bulgaria Film Festival best actress award. There are strong performances too by Eszter Nagy-Kálózy as the discovered daughter and Eileen Aitkins as the neglected wife. Extras on this DVD release include filmed interviews with Károly Makk and co-writer/exec producer Marc Vlessing, as well as a booklet featuring Mari Törõcsik speaking about Károly Makk and an essay by author John Cunningham. NORMAN MCLAREN – THE MASTERS EDITION SODA PICTURES Norman McLaren (1914-1987) was a pioneering Scottish animator and film director, best known for his work for the National Film Board of Canada. Born in Stirling, Scotland, he studied set design at Glasgow School of Art and his early experiments in animation included scratching and painting on the the actual film stock. After working as a cameraman in Scotland and England, he went to Spain to film the Civil War then emigrated to the USA in 1939 before moving to Canada in 1941 to work for the NFB at the invitation of the hugely influential John Grierson, with whom he had earlier worked at the famous GPO film unit. He started an animation studio to train Canadian animators and make his own films. These included Neighbours (1952), which won both the Canadian Film Award and the Academy Award. Besides the brilliant combination of visuals and sound, the film has a strong social message against violence and war. Neighbours used a style of animation known as pixilation, where the camera films people and objects a few frames at a time, and McLaren continued experimenting with image and sound as he developed his techniques for combining and synchronising animation with music. Other groundbreaking films included Pas de Deux (1968), Line: Horizontal (1962) and Opening Speech (1960, featuring McLaren himself in live action). This definitive seven DVD ‘Masters Edition’ box set of immaculately restored films from Soda Pictures brings together for the first time all of McLaren’s surviving work, as well as many tests, works in progress, 15 original thematic documentaries and an 88-page booklet. The perfect tribute to a creative genius who influenced and inspired artists, animators and filmmakers from Picasso and Truffaut to Lucas and Linklater. ‘Movies move! How it moves is as important as what moves’ - Norman McLaren. THE BAKER STREET DOZEN ORBIT MEDIA ORB10121 Sherlock Holmes the world’s most frequently filmed fictional character (in second place is Dracula) Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s immortal detective has appeared in almost 200 films to date, the first being Sherlock Holmes Baffled, a one-reel film made in 1900 and running less than a minute. Perhaps the most memorable incarnation of Holmes and Watson was in Universal’s entertaining Rathbone/Bruce series of movies made during the early 1940s ‘based on characters created by Conan Doyle’. All twelve were newly written and not contained in the original published series. Basil Rathbone’s career as Holmes began with The Hound of the Baskervilles and The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, both made by 20th Century Fox and released in 1939. As well as his film performances, Rathbone also played Holmes 219 times on radio, as well as on television and the stage. The Universal series transported Holmes and Watson to a contemporary setting that sometimes pitted him against Nazi agents. South African born Rathbone nevertheless portrays Conan Doyle’s detective brilliantly, partly due to his remarkable resemblance to Sidney Paget’s Strand illustrations that accompanied the original stories. Nigel Bruce - the son of a baronet and a descendant of Robert the Bruce - played Watson as more of a bumbler than Doyle intended but made his character wonderfully genial. This box set of six double feature discs features all of the original Universal films, in which Holmes goes to Washington, Faces Death, meets The Spider Woman and finds Terror by Night. In Pursuit to Algiers, Holmes and Watson manage to find thicker fog on a ship than in London and Nigel Bruce gets to sing Loch Lomond (surprisingly well). Highly recommended. STYLE WARS – TONY SILVER WIENERWORLD WNRD2412 Filmed in New York in 1982, this seminal film, originally broadcast on PBS, documents the golden age of youthful creativity and exploding hip-hop subculture. Young graffiti artists were transforming the city with their unique art, ‘writing’ their ‘pieces’ to create a new visual language and using the city's dilapidated subway system as a canvas. Unfortunately, their art was deemed vandalism to Mayor Ed Koch, the NYPD and the Metropolitan Transit Authority, all of whom opposed a movement that physically transformed the urban landscape and invented a new visual language to express both the artists individuality and the voice of the community. Style Wars brilliantly captures the look and feel of New York’s ramshackle subway system as the graffiti writers’ public playground and battleground. Meanwhile, MC’s, DJ’s and B-Boys were rocking the city with new sounds and new moves, as street corner break-dance battles became performance art. The film’s soundtrack features classic performances by The Sugar Hill Gang, The Treacherous Three, The Fearless Four, Grand Master Flash and The Furious Five, Trouble Funk, Rammellzee/K-Rob and Dion. Directed by Tony Silver and produced by Tony Silver and photographer Henry Chalfont, Style Wars was awarded the Grand Prize for Documentaries at the Sundance Film Festival in 1984 and in 2003 it was acclaimed at New York’s Tribeca Festival and at the Edinburgh International Film Festival. The film has been remixed for the DVD in 5.1 surround sound, and has more than three hours of additional documentary and artistic material, earning it the title of Best DVD of the Year by The Onion. Beautifully shot and edited, with an outstanding soundtrack, this exhilarating film is a fascinating time capsule and makes essential viewing for all fans of early hip-hop culture. Bonus Features on this double DVD set include over 23 minutes of outtake footage, feature commentary and interview with the director and producer, 32 artist galleries including new interviews, trains and rare photos, tributes to Dondi and Shy 147, guest interviews with Fab 5 Freddy, Goldie, Guru, DJ Red Alert and photographer Martha Cooper, and a ‘Destroy All Lines’ 30 min. loop of over 200 cars and burners. ‘A breakthrough documentary’ - New York Times. YASUJIRO OZU: VOL. 4 TARTAN TVD3702 Volume 4 in Tartan’s excellent series of work by the great Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu features his last film, An Autumn Afternoon, made in 1962 (the year before he died). Known in Japan as Sanma no Aji, this meditative film stars Chishu Ryu (an Ozu regular who also featured in Tokyo Twilight) as the widower patriarch of the Hirayama family who lives with his daughter (played by Shima Iwashita). She is happy to care for him but he is determined to find her a husband and sets about arranging a suitable marriage. The strength of this touching and unforgettable film rests in Ozu’s ability to observe events without passing judgement, and An Autumn Afternoon contains the main themes prominent in most of his work – the generation gap, Westernisation and marriage. In this final masterpiece, Ozu finds quiet poetry in the urban landscape and interiors, exquisitely shot in colour, and explores love and the human predicament with his usual wisdom and subtlety. Look out too for a scene-stealing performance by Eijiro Tono as an old school teacher known as ‘The Gourd’. The other film included here is Late Autumn (Akibiyori), made two years earlier. This takes a lighter look on the director’s favourite theme of intergenerational conflict and differing expectations as a woman gives up thoughts of marriage in order to care for her widowed mother (Setsuko Hara). However, the mother wishes her daughter (Yoko Tsukasa) to marry even though this means a lonely old age for her. Soon however suitors are being sought for both generations, often with misunderstandings and comical confusions. Both films feature the delightful Mariko Okada and are highly recommended for anyone who admires the work of one of the world’s finest directors. Volume 3 in this series can be seen here TOMMY COOPER: THE VERY BEST OF & MISSING PIECES FREMANTLE MEDIA FHED1977 The great British comedian and magician Tommy Cooper was born in Caerphilly, Wales, in 1921. He entered show business on Christmas Eve, 1947, after seven years in the army and rapidly became a top of the bill variety act before television brought him to national recognition. After his debut on the BBC talent show New To You in March 1948, he started starring in his own shows, most notably for Thames Television from 1968 to 1980, and was hugely popular for four decades. Despite being an accomplished magician and member of the Magic Circle, he made an art form of getting magic tricks wrong, becoming one of the most recognisable and inventive British comedians since Charlie Chaplin. Sample Joke: Two Cannibals are eating a clown. One says to the other, ‘Does this taste funny to you?’ Famed for his red fez and much imitated catchphrases such as ‘Just like that!’ he continued to perform despite health problems and died in 1984 after collapsing from a heart attack in front of millions of television viewers, midway through his act on a popular variety show, Live from Her Majesty’s. Most of the audience thought it was part of his act and continued laughing until it became apparent that he was seriously ill. These two specially compiled collections of timeless clips selected from the Thames Television archives show the ‘comedian’s comedian’ at his best, featuring all his classic routines. DVD extras include a biography and a book of gags. This is essential viewing for all classic comedy fans. ‘No other comic would work with him, he was too good. If you didn’t like Tommy Cooper the comic, you didn’t like comedy’ - Eric Morecambe. HELLZAPOPPIN’ – H. C. POTTER SECOND SIGHT 2NDVD 3113 The ground-breaking and hugely influential comedy classic Hellzapoppin’ was a hit revue on stage from 1938 to 1941, becoming then the longest-running Broadway musical with 1,404 performances. A frenetic comedy hodgepodge full of sight gags and slapstick, the show was continually rewritten during its run to remain topical and a circus atmosphere prevailed, with midgets, clowns, trained pigeons and much audience participation. The book was by Olsen & Johnson (John ‘Ole’ Olsen and Harold ‘Chic’ Johnson), a comedy team more like Crosby and Hope than Laurel and Hardy. The movie version was made in 1941, directed by H.C. Potter and depicting Ole and Chic making a movie for the fictitious studio Miracle Pictures (‘If it’s a good picture, it's a Miracle!’), and featuring Olsen & Johnson (playing themselves), the loud and indefatigable Martha Raye, Misha Auer, Elisha Cook and the very funny Hugh Herber. The special effects were innovative for their time and the frantic dance routine performed by dancing of the Harlem Congeroo Dancers has never been bettered. The songs have corny lyrics typical of their period and are nothing special, and some of the humour has dated, but you there is no time to analyse as you are swept along to the next gag before you know it. Brief respites from the madness come in the form of variety acts and synchronised swimming, and the funniest sneezing ever seen in a movie. Hellzapoppin’ was way ahead of its time and its zaniness inspired generations of comedians to come, including Danny Kaye, Dean Martin & Jerry Lewis and Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-in show. ‘Outstrips the works of the Marx Brothers’ - Time Out. MAN PUSH CART – RAMIN BAHRANI DOGWOOF PICTURES ALT109 Ramin Bahrani’s memorable and refreshing film tells the story of Ahmad, a Pakistani immigrant living in New York. Every night while the city sleeps, he laboriously drags his heavy push cart along the streets to a corner in Midtown Manhattan where he sells coffee and donuts to a city he cannot call his own. A former rock star in his own country, he now ekes out a living from his cart to hurried New Yorkers by day and by night supplements his income selling pirate pornographic DVDs. He carefully saves his money in the hope that he will one day raise enough to purchase a place of his own and reunite with his estranged son. Times are tough in the city and hard-working Ahmad (played by Ahmad Razvi) soon strikes up a tentative friendship with fellow countryman Mohammed (Charles Daniel Sandoval) and Spanish newsstand worker, Noemi (Leticia Dolera). As Ahmad, Mohammed, and Noemi gradually begin to socialise together, a tragedy in Ahmad’s past prompts the struggling newcomer to question the true nature of his current relationships. Iranian-American director Bahrani was named ‘US Star of Tomorrow’ by Screen International and Man Push Cart is his feature film debut, earning many awards including Best Film at the London Film Festival. Beautifully observed, Man Push Cart is a subtle and technically accomplished film, wholly original in subject, location and characters. Haunting and insightful, this poignant film gives a revealing picture of a rarely depicted community in the Big Apple - the sort of people others pass by every day without really seeing them. Michael Simmonds’s cinematography is superb and a there is a wonderfully convincing performance by Ahmad Razvi as the push cart vendor, perhaps because he is not a professional actor but is able to draw on personal experience. Highly recommended. ‘A hymn to New York’s invisibles’ - Daily Telegraph. DRIVING LESSONS - JEREMY BROCK TARTAN TVD 3700 This is a coming of age story about Ben, an unhappy, shy teenage boy whose world changes dramatically when he goes to work for a grandly eccentric retired actress, ‘Dame’ Evie Walton, who teaches him about girls, driving and life on the road to the Edinburgh festival. This odd couple – a sort of British ‘Harold and Maude’ – are played by flame-haired Rupert Grint and national treasure Julie Walters. Writer-director Jeremy Brock based the story on his own experience, as a teenager, with Dame Peggy Ashcroft. Julie Walters giving is hilariously over the top as the imperious, foul-mouthed Evie and Rupert Grint, a sixteen year old actor previously known as Harry Potter’s best friend Ron, makes his curiously acquiescent character ultimately sympathetic. There are fine performances too by Nicholas Farrell as Ben’s tortured vicar father and Laura Linney is brilliant (with a perfect English accent) as the possessive, unhinged mother. Michelle Duncan plays a cheerfully obliging Scottish lass and Jim Norton is taciturnly effective as the mysterious delinquent, Mr Fincham. The plot is sometimes implausible and sentimental, and the denouement frankly ludicrous, but this is essentially a wise, warm-hearted and likeable film. The imaginative soundtrack features Sufjan Stevens, John Renbourn, Scottish folk band Salsa Celtica, Richard Thompson, Nick Drake and Chopin’s First Nocturne in B flat Minor. DVD extras include a commentary by Jeremy Brock, interviews with Julie Walters and Rupert Grint, deleted scenes and the original theatrical trailer. THE KING OF QUEENS: SEASON 1 PARAMOUNT This clever situation comedy series debuted in 1998 and is currently in its ninth and final season, making it the longest-running American live-action sitcom on the air. Blue-collar couple Doug Heffernan and Carrie Heffernan (Kevin James and Leah Remini) share their home in Rego Park, Queens, New York with Carrie’s idiosyncratic dad, Arthur Spooner (brilliantly played by veteran Jerry Stiller, who was Frank Costanza in Seinfeld). Burly Doug, who makes a living as a parcel deliveryman often has to scheme to find time alone with Carrie, who works as a legal secretary at a large law firm. This is complicated by Arthur, who can be quite a handful - so much so that they hire a dog-walker, Holly (Nicole Sullivan), to look after him. When he’s not working, clashing with Arthur, or spending time with the sexy Carrie, Doug hangs out with his advice-giving buddies Deacon Palmer (Victor Williams), Spence Olchin (Patton Oswalt), and his cousin Danny Heffernan (Gary Valentine). This deceptively simple yet smartly scripted comedy bounces along because Doug, though completely a guy’s guy, constantly struggles to keep the world around him in a delicate emotional balance. Meanwhile, his wife Carrie, though utterly feminine, uses the kind of no-nonsense rational approach that’s usually a man’s province. Add to this mix Carrie’s fussy, self-absorbed father and you’ve got the building blocks for an excellent and durable show. The King of Queens: Season 1 will delight audiences with storylines firmly rooted in the everyday world, with much of the humour centring around Doug and Carrie’s petty neuroses, ill-advised scheming and much juggling of obligations to friends and family. In one classic moment, Doug and Carrie have a furious argument in absolute silence at a cello concert - a scene typical of this hit comedy that fuses deft physicality and well-developed characters with delightful silliness. JUNEBUG - PHIL MORRISON EUREKA EKA40219 British-born Chicago art dealer Madeleine (coolly and elegantly played by Embeth Davidtz) travels to rural North Carolina with her handsome new husband George (Alessandro Nivola) to close a deal with a reclusive artist David Wark (Frank Hoyt Taylor) and to be introduced to George’s close-knit working-class family. Unfamiliar with their southern lifestyle, Madeleine enters the house with an open mind but George’s possessive mother Peg (Celia Weston), his kindly, taciturn father Eugene (Scott Wilson) and embittered younger brother Johnny (Ben McKenzie) react to the new bride with bemusement and hostility. Johnny’s lonely wife Ashley (Oscar-nominated Amy Adams), whose marriage has produced an unhappy pregnancy, welcomes the glamorous visitor as a sister and steers her through this insular community with her non-stop conversation. Ashley’s openness and generosity help to heal the rifts between brother and sibling, parent and child. Director Phil Morrison’s wise and intimate study of Southern morals and manners is a deft evocation of an unsophisticated yet deeply spiritual backwater. Body language is as important as dialogue in expressing emotions and the acting is wonderfully subtle throughout, particularly by Ben McKenzie and the brilliant Amy Adams. Nothing much happens on the surface in Junebug but every moment rings true and the film seduces the viewer with its languorous tone before delivering an unexpectedly emotional climax. Morrison and screenwriter Angus MacLachlan have created a complex, sympathetic portrait of small-town life that avoids cliches and remains in the memory. As well as an excellent transfer of the film, the double DVD also includes an audio commentary by Amy Adams and Embeth Davidtz, Q&A with Amy Adams, deleted scenes, behind the scenes documentaries and casting sessions. HELL (L’ENFER) - DANIS TANOVIC MOMENTUM MP574D In Paris in the 1980s, a man, fresh from his release from prison, is rejected by his wife. After a violent confrontation he throws himself from his apartment window, witnessed by his three young daughters. In present day Paris, the sisters, now grown up, live their own separate, lonely lives and the family bonds are broken. Sophie (the stunning Emmanuelle Beart), the eldest, is married with young children and suspects her husband of having an affair. Repressed middle sister Celine (a brilliantly subtle performance by Karin Viard) lives a solitary life, caring for her difficult mother (Carole Bouquet) who is the mute resident in a care home outside Paris. The youngest sister, Anne (Marie Gillain) is a student involved in a doomed relationship with one of her tutors at the Sorbonne. It takes a handsome stranger (Guillaume Canet) to make change things, gradually drawing them together again and back into their shared, tragic past. Hell is based on the second part of a planned trilogy (Heaven, Hell and Purgatory) originally conceived by the late Polish writer/director Krzysztof Kieslowski with his collaborator Krzysztof Piesiewicz. The first, Heaven, was shot by Tom Tykwer. Bosnian director Danis Tanovic’s No Man’s Land won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film in 2002 and with this harrowing yet enormously rewarding film he pays due homage to the much acclaimed Kieslowski. Laurent Dailland’s lush cinematography perfectly captures the moody interiors and the acting is superb throughout, especially by Beart and Viard, with touching cameos from Jean Rochefort as a fellow inmate of the mother and Georges Siatidis as a sympathetic train porter. Special features include a ‘making of’ documentary and a trailer. Not to be confused with L’Enfer (1994), directed by Claude Chabrol and also starring Emmanuelle Beart). ‘A masterclass of French fine acting’ - Empire. FELLINI BOX SET INFINITY ARTHOUSE INF216 Federico Fellini (1920-1993) was one of the most influential and revered Italian film-makers of the 20th century. His films, most famously La Dolce Vita and Amarcord, combine memory, dreams, fantasy, humour and desire in a uniquely exuberant style. This splendid six-disc box set from Infinity Arthouse features three of his later works together with a host of extras - self portraits of Marcello Mastrioianni and Fellini and a brilliant series of films documenting the director’s life. Orchestra Rehearsal (Prova d’orchestra), made in 1978, is a sharp musical satire created for television on the single set of a Medieval Roman chapel that is now an oratorio. We meet most of the members of an orchestra as it rehearses a piece composed by the Fellini’s long-time associate Nino Rota before the musicians eventually revolt, only to rediscover the consolations of music. And The Ship Sails On (E la nave va), starring Freddie Jones and Barbara Jefford, is rare and haunting Fellini fable set on board a luxury liner that leaves Italy in July 1914 with the ashes of the famous opera singer Tetua (Janet Suzman). The egocentric passengers include aristocrats, diplomats and a band of opera singers, who indulge their follies and fancies both vocally and romantically, but their gilded world is about to receive a chill blast of reality. The story somehow also includes a sick rhinoceros, a hypnotised chicken and duelling tenors. Ginger and Fred (1986) is Fellini’s award-winning take on the world of small time show business. Two former dancers from the 1940s, Ginger (Giulietta Masina) and Fred (Marcello Mastroianni), who imitated the dance routines of Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, reunite after retiring for over twenty years to appear on a TV variety show. The film is both a touchingly nostalgic journey into the past and a viciously satirical attack on television, portraying it as a mindless freakshow. ‘The sense of the miraculous is Fellini’s greatest gift to cinema’ - Financial Times. BALLETS RUSSES REVOLVER ENTERTAINMENT The Ballets Russes, established in 1909 by the Russian impresario Serge Diaghilev, was resident first in the Théâtre Mogador, Paris, and then in Monte Carlo. It created a sensation and went on to become the most influential ballet company of the 20th century. Directed with consummate invention and infused with anecdotal interviews from many of the company’s glamorous stars, this fascinating documentary treats modern audiences to a rare glimpse of the remarkable merger of Russian, American, European, and Latin American dancers, choreographers, composers and designers that transformed the face of ballet for generations. Unearthing a treasure trove of archival footage, Emmy Award winning filmmakers Dayna Goldfine and Dan Geller show the company’s Diaghilev-era beginnings in turn-of-the-century Paris when artists such as Dame Alicia Markova, Frederic Franklin, Nijinsky, Balanchine, Picasso, Miro, Matisse and Stravinsky united in an unparalleled collaboration. Rare magical performances, home movies, letters and diaries are intercut with intimate interviews with former stars, bringing to life the extraordinary journey of the company and the individuals who danced in it. The film culminates with the first and only Ballets Russes Reunion Celebration, held in 2000 in New Orleans, bringing together almost a hundred surviving dancers, most of whom had not seen each other in more than fifty years. Their undimmed enthusiasm, touching reminiscences and general perkiness make a convincing case for the power of dance. Extras include an extensive photo gallery, additional archive footage and interviews with Frederic Franklin, Alicia Markova, George Zoritch, Maria Tallchief and Alan Howard. This splendid and joyful documentary, released on DVD on August 21, celebrates a glorious period of cultural history and makes essential viewing for anyone interested in the art of dance. ‘Riveting’ - The Guardian. THE RIVER - JEAN RENOIR THE BRITISH FILM INSTITUTE BFIVD619 Jean Renoir was born in 1894 the Montmartre district of Paris, France, as the second son of the painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir. As a film director and actor, Jean Renoir made over forty films from the silent era to the end of the 1960s. The River was filmed in India in 1951 and helped launch the careers of Satyajit Ray, who was an assisted on the film, and Subrata Mitra, Ray’s cinematographer. It was produced by Kenneth McEldowney, a florist and real estate agent from Los Angeles, to prove to his wife, an MGM publicist, that he could make a better film than Hollywood. The River, which opened in 1951 in New York to public and critical acclaim, was based on a novel by the writer of Black Narcissus, Rumer Godden. It is an autobiographical coming-of-age tale of an adolescent girl living with her English family on the banks of West Bengal during the waning years of British colonial life. Exquisitely shot in luminous Technicolor by Renoir’s nephew Claude, The River is a visual tour de force and a glorious, meditative tribute to the sights and sounds of Indian culture. Its central character (and the film’s narrator) is fourteen-year-old Harriet (Patricia Walters), the eldest of five children. Harriet and her beautiful, slightly older friend Valerie (Adrienne Corri) experience the intensity of first love when Captain John (Thomas E. Breen) comes to stay with their neighbours, a mixed-race family with a daughter, Melanie (Radha), of similar age. Captain John, who has lost a leg in active service, captivates the three teenagers, each of whom develops romantic feelings towards this heroic and enigmatic young man. Perhaps Renoir’s most symbolic and spiritual film, The River is a vital and stunningly beautiful work. Following its theatrical re-release at the NFT in 2006, bfi Video has now released on this DVD a new, high-definition digital transfer of The River in its original aspect ratio. It was mastered from the film restoration by the Academy Film Archive, carried out in association with the British Film Institute and Janus Films. Extras include a specially commissioned filmed introduction by Indian filmmaker Kumar Shahani and seven rarely-seen short films set in India, including a surprisingly fascinating documentary about the huge jute industry and two films in Technicolor by great British cinematographer Jack Cardiff. An accompanying illustrated booklet includes a film essay and Rumer Godden interview by David Thompson and a biography of the director as well as notes on all the short films. This is an immaculate release of a beguiling, profound and beautiful film by one of cinema’s most gifted and humane directors. PASSENGER - ANDRZEJ MUNK SECOND RUN DVD 018 The film director and screenwriter Andrzej Munk was one of the leading artists with Andrzej Wajda at the Polish Film School in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Munk was born in Kraków in 1921 and moved to Warsaw during the German occupation of Poland, forced to hide because of his partly Jewish ancestry. In 1944 he took part in the Warsaw Uprising and after the war he graduated from the Łódź Film and Theatre School before making films such as Man on the Tracks, Heroism and Bad Luck. Andrzej Munk died in a car accident near Łowicz in 1961 while on his way home from Auschwitz concentration camp where he was finishing his last film, Passenger (Pasażerka). This haunting and dream-like film tells the story of a German woman (played by the excellent Aleksandra Slaska) on a cruise ship coming back to Europe who recognises the face of another woman. She tells her husband how she tried to protect the girl from her vicious captors but we later learn in flashback what really happened. Passenger was completed by his friends after the director’s death, leaving parts of the story unexplained. What remains is shocking yet essential viewing as one of the most audacious fictions ever made about the Holocaust, and this is the first digitally restored DVD release of Munk’s film. Extras include a documentary about the director with contributions from Roman Polanski and Andrzej Wajda, and a booklet detailing the making of the film. ‘I can think of no other movie to compare with Munk’s, in the precise and harrowing balance of romantic beauty and profound terror’ - NY Times. YASUJIRO OZU: VOL. 3 TARTAN TVD3565 The great Japanese director Yasujiro Ozu is famous as much for the technical style and innovation of his films as for their humane narrative content. He did not conform to most Hollywood conventions, such as the 180-degree rule where an imaginary line is drawn between two characters in a dialogue-scene, which the camera does not cross. Also, rather than use typical over-the-shoulder shots in his dialogue scenes, the camera gazes on the actors directly, which has the effect of placing the viewer in the middle of the scene. Instead of using typical transitions between scenes, Ozu shows shots of static objects or uses direct cuts, rather than fades or dissolves. His camera, rarely, if ever moved. He also invented the ‘tatami shot’, in which the camera is placed on the ground, where it would be if one were kneeling on a tatami mat, so it comes as no surprise to discover that his favourite film was Orson Welles’ Citizen Kane. Ozu made his first film in 1927 and went on to direct 55 more before his death in 1963. As a director, he was eccentric and a notorious perfectionist. Regarded as one of the ‘most Japanese’ film-makers, his work was rarely shown overseas before the 1960s. Today, he is recognised as one the world’s finest directors, renowned for his deceptively quiet, formalist style, and his intensely moving Tokyo Story was voted the greatest film ever made by Halliwell’s 1000 Greatest Films. This collection features three of his classic movies from the late 1950s: the darkly beautiful masterpiece Tokyo Twilight (Ozu’s last film made in black and white), Equinox Flower (his first film in colour) and Good Morning (an updating of his earlier silent film I Was Born, But...). Superbly mastered prints, original theatrical trailers and extensive film notes reveal a true genius of world cinema. Essential viewing. ALL CREATURES GREAT AND SMALL UNIVERSAL 8244001 All Creatures Great and Small was the title given to a U.S. book first published in 1972 comprising James Herriot’s first two publications, If Only They Could Talk and It Shouldn’t Happen to a Vet. The name was borrowed from the second line of the hymn All Things Bright and beautiful, and derived from a suggestion by Herriot’s daughter, who thought the book should be titled Ill Creatures Great and Small. The books were part autobiography and part fiction, based on Herriot’s life as a young veterinary surgeon working in and around Thirsk, Yorkshire just before and during the Second World War. They became hugely successful, inspiring two feature films and this popular television series as well as a lucrative James Herriot tourism industry around Thirsk. For television, Christopher Timothy played James Herriot, the novice vet who joins the practice of Siegfried Farnon (Robert Hardy) and his easygoing brother Tristan (Peter Davison). Set in the fictional Yorkshire Dales town of Darrowby, initially in the 1930s, the programme reflected a much gentler time when life moved at a slower pace. The shows ended in 1980 after three series, with Herriot and Tristan Farnon heading off to World War Two, but public pressure brought about a return for the series in 1988. First rate performances and production values helped ensure that All Creatures Great and Small stand out as a shining example of British television at its best, and this excellent four DVD set from Universal features all 14 episodes from the third series, which finds the vets concerned about the coming war and how life will change in the Dales. The usual characters are featured such as Mrs Pumphrey with Tricky, her hypochondriac poodle, and Dr Bennett who never misses a chance to get the ‘vit’nery’ drunk. This is the most emotional of the three original seasons, with both Siegfried and James eventually called into service and Tristan passing his tests to run the practice on his own merit. Well-crafted scripts, great characters and period details combine with memorable performances (especially by Robert Hardy) to produce one of the most enjoyable television series of all time. KONG: RETURN TO THE JUNGLE BKN HOME ENTERTAINMENT Ever since the original King Kong fell to his tragic death off the Empire State Building there has been a fascination with this greatest of all the apes. BKN Entertainment’s engaging, CGI-animated feature sees the return of Kong as a huge gorilla recreated by combining the DNA of the original with a human. He is now able to mind-link with his ‘brother’ Jason, making him even more powerful than his predecessor. He lives on remote Kong Island together with various dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals, safely protected until a sinister hunter and a scientist with a grudge against Kong capture him and other island creatures – including a giant Tyrannosaurus Rex – to take to a futuristic zoo in New York. Once there, the animals escape and cause havoc in the city. Amid the plot’s many twists and turns it’s down to Jason and Kong to save the remarkable animals and restore them to their island home. Kong, Return to the Jungle is primarily suited to an audience aged 4-8 but the imaginative storytelling and rollicking action make this is a movie anyone can enjoy. THE BIG BOTTOM COLLECTION UNIVERSAL 8246909 The early 1990s British television sitcom Bottom was written by and starred Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmondson as Richard Richard (Richie) and Edward Elizabeth Hitler (Eddie), who share a flat in Hammersmith, West London. The idea for the show came about when, in 1991, Mayall and Edmondson co-starred in a West End production of Samuel Beckett’s Waiting for Godot and decided to create a cruder cousin to this classic play about the pointlessness of life. Bottom went on to ran for three series, and is famous for its extravagantly violent slapstick style. The programme also led to five live theatre shows, in which the performers often (apparently) ad lib and are able to be far cruder than in the television incarnation. This DVD brings together all five live shows plus Best of Bottom Live, a celebration of what were some of the most anarchic, squalid, violent and hilarious comedy tours ever seen, with all the best bits as well as interviews with Rik and Ade’s unlucky neighbours and a ‘making of’ documentary revealing how they managed to sink to such depths of depravity. As an added bonus, the collection also includes the duo’s riotous feature film, Guest House Paradiso, made following the ‘Hooligan’s Island’ tour. Mayall and Edmondson wrote the film’s script and it was directed by Edmondson in 1999. The characters, based on Richie and Eddie, run a filthy hotel next to a nuclear power plant, with guests that include the ubiquitous Bill Nighy and outrageous ‘Mrs Foxfur’ (Fenella Fielding). This anarchic blend of slapstick, farce and abuse is quintessentially British, so it’s no surprise that the public has taken these two head-banging morons to its bosom. BOB DYLAN - THE UNAUTHORISED DOCUMENTARIES WIENERWORLD DR-4525 Born on 24 May 1941, in Duluth, Minnesota, Robert Alan Zimmerman grew up in nearby Hibbing. ‘The Greatest Songwriter Ever’ has released more than 40 albums since his 1962 debut, Bob Dylan. His second release, 1963’s The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, featured many classic songs and began a series of albums that completely changed the world’s perceptions of popular music. Around five hundred songs later (Like a Rolling Stone was voted the best song of all time by Rolling Stone Magazine and the NME) Dylan continues to surprise, challenge, mystify and fascinate in equal measure as he pursues his ‘Never Ending Tour’. Despite countless words written about him over the years, the coolest man on the planet remains, partly by his own choice, an enigma. This box set from Wienerworld features three films documenting the major tours of Dylan’s life, brought together for the first time on DVD. The set includes the CD soundtrack to Rolling Thunder and The Gospel Years and nine excellent photograph postcards. In Bob Dylan 1975-1981 Rolling Thunder and The Gospel Years, director Joel Gilbert reveals these monumental periods of Bob Dylan’s life and music through insider portraits, exclusive photos, concert footage and location visits as well as interviews with, among others, boxer Rubin ‘Hurricane’ Carter and folk legend Ramblin’ Jack Elliott. Bob Dylan World Tours 1966-1974 features the work of Barry Feinstein, who was the exclusive tour photographer on Bob Dylan and The Band’s legendary 1966 and 1974 world tours. Joel Gilbert chronicles these tours with 150 selections of Feinstein’s finest portraits, visits to Big Pink and Woodstock, and interviews with D.A. Pennebaker, rock journalist Al Aronowitz and the obsessive ‘Dylanologist’ AJ Weberman. Bob Dylan 1966 World Tour, The Home Movies features drummer Mickey Jones, who toured the world in 1966 with Dylan and The Band and captured on film what became known as ‘the tour that changed rock and roll forever’. Joel Gilbert updates this release with exclusive interviews with Charlie Daniels, Johnny Rivers, Trini Lopez and soundman Richard Alderson. Dylan followers are notoriously ‘completist’ so these fascinating DVDs are sure to be essential viewing for many of his fans. BARELY LEGAL - DAVID MICKEY EVANS PARAMOUNT PRD 9083 Sexy and irreverent, National Lampoon’s Barely Legal is a playful comedy that follows the misadventures of three sex-obsessed teenagers with a brilliant plan to improve their status as the most inventive and legendary virgins ever to walk planet earth. They decide to make a porno movie for virgins made by virgins, with the help of fake I.D.s and a teacher’s unknown contribution, the three rascals set out to film what they have only dreamed about. Naturally there are obstacles along the way, such as when the most popular guy at school finds out and wants to be a part of the film, when a new girlfriend threatens to tear the teenagers apart, and when the porn king of the town tries to shut them down. The film pushes the limits of what ‘heroes’ can do before the audience stops rooting for them, and there isn’t much in the way of a plot, so Barely Legal is mostly dependent on the performances. Erik Von Detton and Amy Smart are likeable in the main roles and good support is provided by Vince Vieluf, Sarah Jane Potts, Tony Denman, Riley Smith, Daniel Farber and Tom Arnold. If you enjoyed American Pie and National Lampoon’s other films, you’ll probably find this amusingly fluffy entertainment to your liking. KZ – REX BLOOMSTEIN SHOOTING PEOPLE FILMS KZ is the German for concentration camp. In this groundbreaking film, veteran British documentary maker Rex Bloomstein examines the distubing phenomenon of ‘Holocaust tourism’ as his camera lingers over the parade of guides and visitors to the former Nazi concentration camp in the Austrian town of Mauthausen on the banks of the River Danube. The picturesque town and its beautiful surroundings contrasts with the horrors of the camp, a place that attracts busloads of tourists, including schoolchildren, from around the world. The documentary uses no archive footage, commentary, music, reconstructions with actors, or testimony from survivors, but instead tells the story of how we interpret historical events today, what our relationship is with them and how individuals respond when they encounter places with an extraordinary past. Tour guides come to work at the camp every day while nearby the locals go about their daily lives. This is a place where many thousands of people from over 30 nations were tortured and murdered. How does it feel to be a tourist at a former concentration camp? How does it feel to work here as a guide, day in, day out? How does it feel to live here as a local with the dark secrets of the past? And what of those who've chosen this town to be their new home? There are no shocking visuals but the words eloquently express the dreadful horrors of the camp. This haunting film provides no easy answers but asks questions that remain profoundly disturbing. ‘Perhaps the first postmodern Holocaust movie’ - The Jewish Chronicle. LETTER FROM AN UNKNOWN WOMAN – OPHULS SECOND SIGHT 2NDVD 3104 Max Ophüls was born Maximillian Oppenheimer in Germany in 1902 but used the pseudonym Ophüls (the umlaut was usually dropped when he later worked abroad). He began as an actor but soon moved into production, becoming creative director of the Burgtheater in Vienna. He started in films as a dialogue director under Anatole Litvak and directed his first film in 1931 (the comedy short, Dann schon lieber Lebertran). When the Nazis came into power in 1933, Ophüls, being a Jew, fled to France, where he became a French citizen. After the fall of France, he travelled via Switzerland and Italy to the USA, where he made several distinguished films before returning to Europe in 1950. Most of his films feature characteristically smooth camera movements, with complex crane and tracking shots that have influenced many other directors, including Stanley Kubrick and Martin Scorsese. Letter from an Unknown Woman, made in 1948, was based on a novel by Stefan Zweig and adapted by Howard Koch. It tells the story of a man who, while reading a letter written by a woman he does not remember, gets glimpses into her life story as she remembers it. Starring Joan Fontaine, Louis Jourdan, Mady Christians and Marcel Journet, this bittersweet tale of obsessive love is perhaps the greatest of the twenty films Max Ophüls directed. Convincingly and sympathetically told, it has soulful performances by Fontaine and Jourdan, wonderfully romantic music by Daniele Amfitheatrof and exquisite black and white photography by Franz Planer. DVD extras include an insightful video essay by the film historian Tag Gallagher. The other films in this excellent Max Ophuls Collection series of DVDs from Second Sight are THE RECKLESS MOMENT, a sophisticated film noir starring James Mason and Joan Bennett at their best (2NDVD 3105), LE PLAISIR, which Jean-Luc Godard called the ‘the greatest film made in France since the liberation’ (2NDVD 3107) and a dazzling masterpiece based on three Guy de Maupassant stories, MADAME DE... (2NDVD 3106). Together they make a splendid tribute to one of cinema’s great visual stylists. THE SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN & THE BIONIC WOMAN UNIVERSAL The Six Million Dollar Man was an American television series about a cyborg working for a U.S. secret service called OSI (Office of Scientific Intelligence). Based on the novel Cyborg by Martin Caidin, the show first aired between 1973 and 1978, with Steve Austin ruggedly played by Lee Majors. The background story is the crash of former astronaut Austin in an M2-F2, shown in the opening credits. Severely injured, he is ‘rebuilt’ in an operation that costs six million dollars. His right arm, both legs and left eye are replaced by experimental bionic (cybernetic) implants that enhance his strength, speed and vision far above the human norm. He uses these enhanced abilities to work as a secret agent and as a guinea pig for bionics, investigating foreign spies, mad scientists, bombers and even space aliens. The second season of Six Million Dollar Man has now been released for the first time on DVD in this six DVD set (Universal Cat No: 8243285), including all 21 episodes and with a total running time of 17hrs 42mins. Steve meets a glamorous blonde (played by his then real-life wife and Charlie’s Angel Farrah Fawcett) and also becomes engaged to former girlfriend, Jaime Sommers (the delightful Lindsay Wagner), who has a near fatal accident when skydiving. She too is cybernetically modified and starred in several successful television series of her own as The Bionic Woman, the second of which is also now released on DVD. These six discs (Universal Cat No: 8243291) contain complete second season of 22 episodes with a running time of 17hrs 32mins. After fully recovering from her near fatal bout of bionic rejection, Jaime is assigned to spy missions of her own. Outfitted with bionic legs, a bionic arm and a bionic ear, she leads a double life as a schoolteacher and an undercover OSI operative. The second season finds her involved in many weird and wonderful missions in which she is forced to become a female wrestler, don a nun’s habit and become the private tutor to a young prince. With their charmingly dated special effects, cold war paranoia and entertaining 1970s clothes, both series provide many hours of slick entertainment and enjoyable nostalgia. FAUSTO 5.0 - ISIDRO ORTIZ NUCLEUS FILMS NUC0004 This unusual and disturbing fantasy horror film, in which the Faust myth is retold in a futuristic Barcelona, forms the third part of a trilogy of productions based on Faust from the Spanish theatre group La Fura Dels Baus. The others are a stage play (Faust Versio 3.0) and an opera (The Damnation Of Faust). Fausto 5.0 tells the story of Dr Fausto (played by Argentine actor Miguel Ángel Solá), who is resident surgeon in an experimental ward specialising in terminal cases. Being constantly surrounded by the dead and the dying has resulted in the doctor becoming alienated and weary of life. One day he meets the charismatic Santos Vella (brilliantly portrayed by Eduard Fernández) who claims that the doctor saved his life eight years previously and says that he will do anything to repay him, including granting his every wish. Santos insistently leads Dr Fausto in an exploration of the city, showing him the light and dark realms of human desire. Both lead actors are excellent and the beautiful Najwa Nimri gives a subtle and convicing performance as the doctor’s assistant. The film is an unusual collaboration between the three directors - Álex Ollé and Carlos Padrisa (both members of the La Fura dels Baus) and Isidro Ortiz. It exudes an oppressive sense of death and decay and is reminiscent of the work of Davids Cronenberg and Lynch. A strange, erotic and darkly atmospheric film, the award-winning Fausto 5.0 generates a nightmarish vision of the future, with excellent cinematography by Pedro del Ray and an effective soundtrack. The enhanced widescreen presentation is accompanied by options for Dolby Digital 5.1 or stereo sound, and DVD extras include English subtitles, a ‘Making of Fausto 5.0’ feature, the theatrical trailer and trailers for other Nucleus Films releases. BALANCHINE KULTUR D2448 George Balanchine was one of the last century’s most important and influential choreographers, his work forming a link between classical and modern ballet. He was born Georgi Melitonovich Balanchivadze in St Petersburg, Russia, in 1904. While still in his teens he choreographed his first work, a pas de deux called La Nuit (1920, music by Anton Rubinstein). After the Russian revolution, he performed with his group in Europe and defected to become ballet master in Serge Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes company. After Diaghilev’s death, Balanchine moved to the United States, where in 1934 he founded the School of American Ballet, later to become the New York City Ballet. By the time of his death in 1983, he had created over 400 works and was ranked among the greatest choreographers in the history of ballet. Originally produced for the PBS series, Dance in America, this DVD celebrates George Balanchine’s remarkable artistry and pays tribute to the themes of his ballets. By means of rare archival audio and video footage, interviews, film and photographs, the documentary traces Balanchine’s life from his youth at the Maryinsky Theater, through his work for Hollywood and Broadway, to his work with the New York City Ballet. It also examines Balanchine’s thoughts on dance making and features selections from some of his many ballets, including Chaconne, Agon, Symphony in C, Apollo, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Western Symphony. ‘A thrilling experience’ – New York Daily News. HOTEL DU NORD – MARCEL CARNE SODA PICTURES SODA017 French film director Marcel Carné (1906-1996) was born in Paris and began his career in silent film as a trainee with director Jacques Feyder. By the age 25, he had directed his first film and begun a successful collaboration with the surrealist poet and screenwriter Jacques Prévert that lasted for more than a dozen years during which they created films that defined French cinema of the day. Under the German occupation of France during the Second World War, Carné subverted the regime’s attempts to control art by filming his masterpiece, Les Enfants du Paradis. Hotel du Nord was the second in Marcel Carne’s trio of ‘fatalistic romantic melodramas’, the other two being Quai des Brumes and Le Jour se Leve. The story for Hotel du Nord is based on a novel of the same name by Eugene Dabit, whose parents operated the hotel around which the film is built and where much of the shooting took place. Renee (an extremely effective performance by Annabella) and Pierre (Jean-Pierre Aumont) take a room at the shabby Parisian Hotel du Nord with the intention of seeing through a suicide pact. However, Pierre shoots Annabella, but cannot turn the gun on himself. Seedy pimp Monsieur Edmond (Louis Jouvet) and his mistress Raymonde (Arletty) help Aumont to escape the authorities, but he can’t escape from himself. Beautifully photographed and acted, with a fine screenplay by Jean Aurenche. the bittersweet Hotel du Nord is a true classic, revealing a Paris wonderfully alive and filled with both comedy and tragedy. DVD extras include a stills gallery, theatrical trailer, and an introduction by the film historian Paul Ryan. Highly recommended for, among many other things, Raymonde’s famous riposte ‘Atmosphere, atmosphere, do I look like an atmosphere?’ TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE – TOBE HOOPER UNIVERSAL 8246207 In this controversial cult horror movie, partly based on the true story of Ed Gein, five college students are heading through the back roads of Texas in a camper van en route to their grandfather’s grave. Among them are Sally Hardesty (the excellent Marilyn Burns) and her wheelchair-bound brother Franklin (Paul A Partain). They pick up an alarming hitchhiker (Edwin Neal) who slashes both himself and Franklin with a knife. They manage to eject him from the van but soon afterwards are forced to stop at a sinister clapboard house, not realising that this is the home of the ghoulish Leatherface (Gunnar Hansen) and his demented family of cannibalistic psychopaths. One by one, the students are murdered for food until only Sally remains alive, held as a captive guest until she somehow escapes into the night pursued by Leatherface and his fiendish chainsaw. Her terror and screams are perhaps unequalled in cinema, even by the illustrious Fay Wray. First released in 1974, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre fully justifies its reputation as one of the scariest of American horror films. Brilliantly atmospheric and occasionally darkly funny, this classic horror film was the godfather of the ‘Slasher’ movie genre, influencing countless subsequent movies such as Halloween and Friday 13th. Its appeal lies in a gritty cinema veritè style rather than graphic depictions of blood. Despite its grisly subject matter, the film features a minimum of explicit gore (unlike its sequels and imitations) but generates mounting terror through suspense. Directed by Tobe Hooper on a meagre eighty-two thousand dollar budget, the production team saw only a small fraction of the profits even though the film was a huge success in America (it was banned in the UK until 1999). Gunnar Hansen and Marilyn Burns are particularly impressive and the final ten minutes are some of the most exciting ever filmed. Unmissable. BEFORE THE NICKELODION THE BRITISH FILM INSTITUTE BFIVD577 Edwin Stanton Porter (1870-1941) was an influential early American film pioneer. In the late 1890s he worked as a projectionist and mechanic, eventually becoming director and cameraman for Thomas Edison and the Edison Manufacturing Company. Influenced by England’s ‘Brighton School’ and the films of Georges Méliès, Porter went on to make important shorts such as the hugely popular and imaginative Life of an American Fireman (1903) and The Great Train Robbery (1903), one of the cinema’s first Westerns. The latter was also groundbreaking for its use of cross-cutting in editing to show simultaneous action in different places. In these films and many others, Porter helped to develop the modern concept of continuity editing and he is credited with discovering that the basic unit of structure in film was the shot rather than the scene, paving the way for D.W. Griffith’s advances in editing and screen storytelling. In an attempt to resist the new industrial system born out of the popularity of nickleodeons, Porter left Edison in 1909 to form his own production company and became an investor in Adolph Zukor’s company Famous Players, where he directed features starring Pauline Frederick and Mary Pickford. This award-winning documentary explores the work of the illustrious pioneer from telephone operator to projectionist and finally prestigious film director, based on research by the leading scholar of early American film, Charles Musser, who also co-wrote and directed it. Porter was a product of a system that was emerging out of the years of invention and would feed the thousands of nickelodeons, or cheap cinemas, which mushroomed across American from 1907. As narrator Blanche Sweet acknowledges, to study Porter’s fortunes is to witness the emergence of the American cinema industry. He made over 200 films between 1901 and 1908, and this documentary has excerpts from Life of an American Fireman, Jack and the Beanstalk (1902) and The Great Train Robbery. The accompanying illustrated booklet has an introduction as biographies of Porter, Charles Musser and Blanche Sweet, a talented actress who started work at Biograph with D.W. Griffith in 1909. INTIMATE LIGHTING - IVAN PASSER SECOND RUN DVD 009 The Czech director Ivan Passer was an important figure in his country’s short lived New Wave cinema, working as scriptwriter on many Milos Forman films. He made his directorial debut with a look at football fanaticism in A Boring Afternoon before going on to make his first feature, Intimate Lighting (Intimní osvetlení) in 1965. Shot during a sultry summer on real locations in Tabor, the film was premiered in 1966 at Cannes, where it took the Youth Prize, and subsequently won a special award from the American Society of Film Critics. After the Soviet invasion in 1968, Passer fled Czechoslovakia and eventually moved to the USA, to direct offbeat films such as Cutter’s Way. The wry and sympathetic Intimate Lighting remains his most personal and most successful work, showing the visit of professional cellist Petr (played by Zdenek Bezusek) and his beautiful girlfriend Stepa (Vera Kresadlova, wife of Milos Forman) to his melancholic old friend Bambas (Karel Blasek), head of the music school in a small country town, where Petr has been engaged to solo with the rustic orchestra. In anecdotal fashion, the film reflects on the sophisticated urbanity of the visitors and the homely simplicity of the villagers. Instead of creating drama or portraying unusual situations, Passer focuses on the humour of the ordinary as Intimate Lighting shows true affection and understanding for all its characters, even in the midst of petty bickering and resentments. Played mostly by non-professional actors the film is beautifully shot (by Miroslav Ondricek and Jan Strecha) and acted and music seems to permeate every frame. Nothing much happens, but we see the universal in the banal and this wise, gentle film becomes more moving and unforgettable with repeated viewing. The DVD includes an excellent print and a revealing interview with Ivan Passer. The sleeve notes are by Phillip Bergson and more information can be found on the Second Run website. ‘One of the ten films that have most affected me’ - Krzyzstof Kieslowski. LES VALSEUSES - BERNARD BLIER SECOND SIGHT 2NDVD 3102 French writer-director Bertrand Blier based his controversial debut film, Les Valseuses (Going Places), on his own novel. It was a huge hit in France on its release in 1974, bringing the charismatic Gérard Depardieu to the world’s attention and establishing Blier as a major new talent. Stuffed with a typically French robust and rustic sense of humour, the film details the plight of two aimless drifters (Depardieu and Patrick Dewaere) who spend their days wandering the French countryside in search of women and an outlet for their petty criminal tendencies. Their hedonistic spree of debauchery frequently results in them fighting or running their way out of trouble. After temporarily leaving a girl who is unable to have an orgasm, they approach an older woman just out of prison, on the assumption that she must be dying for it (which she is, literally). With a couple of deaths sending them on the run, their rambling delinquency takes on rather more romantic fugitive connotations. The delinquent pair are joined by a supporting array of characters, played by the wonderful Jeanne Moreau, irresistible Miou-Miou and a very young Isabelle Huppert in one of her earliest roles. One of the key French films of the seventies, Les Valseuses (literally The Testicles, in English) uses grim humour to portray unbridled sex, violence and criminality as the two anti-heroes romp unashamedly through the French countryside. ‘A revolutionary film’ - Pauline Kael. DICKENS BEFORE SOUND THE BRITISH FILM INSTITUTE BFIVD526 Many Charles Dickens works were adapted for the stage during his own lifetime and there have been well over 200 films based on his novels, beginning with the silent short film Death of Nancy Sykes in 1897. The most memorable are probably the musical Oliver! and two classic David Lean films: Oliver Twist (1948) and Great Expectations (1946). Almost a hundred film versions of Dickens’ stories were made before the coming of sound, mainly in Britain and the USA, but also in countries such as France, Italy, Russia, Germany and Denmark. Only about a third of them have survived and most have rarely been seen. This splendidly produced double DVD features eleven rare films showing how early cinema storytelling developed, as practitioners of this new art form struggled to transform a tale from page to screen. Here you can find the first existing Dickens movie adaptation, Scrooge; or Marley’s Ghost (W R Booth, UK, 1901) photographed only thirty-one years after the author’s death. Other highlights include an entirely original attempt to animate a series of beautiful original lantern slides depicting the story of Gabriel Grub; the first Dickensian sound film, with Bransby Williams as the character Grandfather Smallweed from Bleak House (Hugh Croise, UK, date unknown); and a 74-minute version of Oliver Twist (Frank Lloyd, USA, 1922) featuring two great performers of the silent screen, Jackie Coogan and Lon Chaney. The films have been given new scores by the composer and pianist Neil Brand, and Ken Campbell speaks the words of Dickens over Gabriel Grub and a highly enjoyable excerpt from The Pickwick Papers (Larry Trimble, USA/UK, 1913). There is a commentary by screenwriter Michael Eaton on The Cricket on the Hearth (D W Griffith, USA, 1909). Other extras include an excellent illustrated 40-page booklet with an introduction, notes on each film and original production stills, and a downloadable essay by Dickens scholar Graham Petrie. CHICKEN TIKKA MASALA - KALIRAI PECCADILLO PICTURES PPD118 This colourful farce is set in Preston, where the Chopra family's only son Jimi (Chris Bisson) foolishly allows himself to be persuaded to get engaged to the beautiful Simran (Jinder Mahal), who has come from India and is the daughter of an old friend of the family. The problem is that Jimi is already in love and living with Jack. Jimi can’t bring himself to break his family’s heart or give up Jack but fate intervenes when a series of accidents and misunderstanding leads Simran to believe that Jimi is father to eight year old Hannah (a film-stealing performance by Katy Clayton). Jimi is thrown into more confusion when his family propose that instead he will marry Vanessa, his landlady and Hannah’s mother (played by Sally Bankes). Mayhem and misunderstanding reigns at the ceremony but, as with all good farces, everything works out in the end. The screenplay for Chicken Tikka Masala was produced by 18 year old Roopesh Parekh and directed by Harmage Singh Kalirai. Occasionally the low budget and inexperience shows but the film's warm-heartedness and pacey humour generally keep the unlikely story bubbling along. Highlights include stirling performances by veteran actor Saeed Jaffrey as Jimi's father, Zohra Sehgal as his outrageous grandmother and Harish Patel as, inimitably, Harish Patel. In the tradition of My Beautiful Launderette and Bhaji On The Beach, this inspired piece of independent film making has enough twists and turns to keep you entertained until the end. THE SHIRLEY TEMPLE COLLECTION TWENTIETH CENTURY FOX Shirley Jane Temple was born in 1928 in Santa Monica, California. During the 1930s she became the most famous child actress of all time, starring in more than forty films. She began her career at the age of three, appearing in two series of shorts for Educational Pictures. She signed to Fox Film Corporation (later to become Twentieth Century Fox) in 1933 and became the studio’s most lucrative player, ranking as the top-grossing box office star in America for four years in a row. Even at the age of five, the hallmark of her acting work was her professionalism: she always had her lines memorised and dance steps prepared when shooting began. Even in her earliest films she could handle complex tap choreography and was teamed with the famed Bill ‘Bojangles’ Robinson, who coached and developed the choreography for many of her films. After leaving show business Shirley Temple Black became involved in Republican Party politics and held several diplomatic posts, serving as American ambassador to Ghana and Czechoslovakia. These new releases from Twentieth Century Fox feature six of her most famous films, all expertly re-mastered and colourised, giving a whole new perspective on Hollywood’s favourite curly-haired girl. Each DVD also contains the original black and white version, and comes with a different charm bracelet. The films included are Bright Eyes (featuring the famous ‘On The Good Ship Lollipop’), the hilarious Baby Take A Bow, The Little Colonel, Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm, Dimples, and The Littlest Rebel (in which our heroine meets President Lincoln). Shirley Temple was a remarkable phenomenon who lightened up the world at a time when such cheerfulness was much needed. These attractively presented DVDs - available as two box sets or individually - make a fitting tribute to a beguiling talent that still seems fresh after more than seventy years. JOHN OSBORNE AND THE GIFT OF FRIENDSHIP DIGITAL CLASSICS DC10020 John James Osborne was born in London in 1929, the son of a copywriter and a Cockney barmaid. After a private education, he tried his hand at journalism before joining Anthony Creighton’s provincial theatre touring company as a stage manager and actor. His first play, The Devil Inside Him, co-written with Stella Linden, was written in 1950. He changed the face of British theatre forever when his emotionally charged play, Look Back in Anger, was first staged in 1956. Set in a scruffy flat in the Midlands and featuring anti-hero Jimmy Porter as the archetypal angry young man railing at national apathy, the play captured the imagination of a disillusioned post-war British public. It was immediately recognised as a theatrical landmark and helped British theatre throw off the formal constraints of previous generations. A unique aspect of this celebratory two-hour film about the playwright is the recent discovery of extracts from some of the original stage performances of his most famous plays: Laurence Olivier hoofing it in The Entertainer, Albert Finney mesmerising in Luther, Nicol Williamson in Inadmissable Evidence, Robert Stephens in Epitaph For George Dillon, Jill Bennett in A Patriot For Me, with a young John Osborne as Reidl. The DVD also features behind-the-scenes footage from Osborne’s Oscar-winning film Tom Jones and contributions from, among others, Richard Burton, David Hare, Kenneth Tynan, Claire Bloom, Kenneth Tynan, Tony Richardson, Natasha Richardson, John Heilpern (Osborne’s authorised biographer) and the late Helen Osborne. Misunderstanding and controversy surrounded the playwright’s career until he died at the age of 65 and was buried at Clun in Shropshire alongside his last wife, Helen. Tony Palmer’s riveting and sympathetic film interweaves extraordinary footage from Osborne’s plays with contributions from his friends and colleagues to create a loving portrait of this great if sometimes difficult man. Other highly recommended Tony Palmer films from Digital Classics include SALZBURG FESTIVAL (DC10016), with performances from 1920 to the present day and interviews current stars such as Plácido Domingo and Simon Rattle, and TESTIMONY (DC10010), a controversial feature starring Ben Kingsley and based on the dramatic relationship between Shostakovich and Stalin. PRISON - INGMAR BERGMAN TARTAN TVD3578 Also known as Fängelse or The Devil’s Wanton, this fascinating early film by Ingmar Bergman was the first one he directed from his own original screenplay. In it a film director is persuaded by a professor of his that the world is controlled by the devil. He decides to make that the theme for his next movie and passes the idea on to a writer, who is coincidentally is going through his own hell on earth with his prostitute lover - a haunting performance by Doris Svedlund. Trying to make a new start, she is hounded and tormented by her sadistic ex-pimp while dream, nightmare and reality merge. Bergmanesque themes of suicide and faith are addressed and Gunnar Fischer’s hard-edged expressionist cinematography, sometimes reminiscent of film noir, captures Stockholm’s old city locations brilliantly, effectively complementing the harsh subject matter. Shot on a miniscule budget in 1949 Prison was Bergman’s first masterpiece and remains his most experimental film. With its daring structure and unflinching exploration of often uncomfortable ideas, this remarkable work is essential viewing for anyone interested in twentieth century film-making. Tartan’s Ingmar Bergman Collection series on DVD also now includes MUSIC IN DARKNESS (TVD3559), starring Birger Malmsten and the beautiful Mai Zetterling. The director here takes his inspiration from Dante’s Divine Comedy to tell the story of a handsome young pianist, blinded in a military accident, and his developing relationship with his pupil. Love wins through in the end and Bergman’s fourth feature, made in 1948, proved a popular success in Sweden at the time, helping to establish him as one of the world’s great film-makers. DVD extras include trailers, filmographies and notes by Philip Strick. THE CHILD - JEAN-PIERRE & LUC DARDENNE ARTIFICIAL EYE ART316DVD Belgian brothers Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne founded their company ‘Derives’ in 1975 to produce and direct more than 60 documentaries. They began making fictional films about ten years ago and have gained an international reputation for creating outstanding realistic dramas. Their latest work, The Child (‘L’Enfant’), was awarded the prestigious 2005 Palme d’Or, making it the second time the brothers have won the Cannes Film Festival’s highest honour. The film stars the charismatic Jeremie Renier as Bruno, a young petty thief who has fathered a baby with his girlfriend Sonia, played by newcomer Deborah Francois. Desperate for cash and terrified at the prospect of raising his son, Bruno sells the infant to some black-market connections who promise to find him an adoptive home. Sonia then goes into a state of shock while Bruno attempts to undo his reckless deed, becoming ever more ensnared in a world of greed and violence. Shot on location in the unpromising environs of a decaying east Belgian industrial town, The Child is a compassionate yet unsentimental masterpiece of suspense that grips throughout before ending in a scene of moving redemption. The acting is totally convincing, especially by Jeremie Renier and Deborah Francois, who is a revelation as the angelic Sonia. Extras include an interview with the Dardenne Brothers and trailers for their previous movies. This exciting, shocking and morally profound film is not to be missed. ‘Absolutely terrific’ - Time Out. LOULOU - MAURICE PIALAT ARTIFICIAL EYE ART019 DVD One of award-winning French director Maurice Pialat’s most sexually charged films, Loulou is a masterpiece of unrestrained eroticism. When a passionate middle-class married woman called Nelly (played by the beautiful Isabelle Huppert) meets charming leather-jacketed ruffian Loulou (Gerard Depardieu at his youthful and magnetic best) she is unable to resist his lustful style and returns home with him. Loulou turns out to be as passionate in bed - even causing it to collapse - as on the dance floor and the film explores their free-wheeling relationship. As the womanising petty criminal Loulou, Gerard Depardieu exudes an eroticism that proves irresistible, causing Nelly to leave her advertising agency boss (and lover) Andre for a socially-marginal existence with him. When Huppert and Depardieu are on the screen together, they radiate a dangerously anarchic sexuality and Guy Marchand is superb as the jealous Andre. The scene in which he brawls with Loulou in a courtyard before joining him for a civilised drink sets the quintessentially French tone for a film that captures the atmosphere of low-life Paris perfectly. DVD extras include interviews with Isabelle Huppert and Maurice Pialat, the theatrical trailer, and director and cast filmographies. DARK KNIGHT, 1 BLUE DOLPHIN BDVD2005 Sir Walter Scott’s historical novel Ivanhoe, written in 1819 and set in 12th century England, tells the story of Wilfred of Ivanhoe, son of a Saxon family. He falls out of favour with his father due to his unsuitable courting of a Saxon Princess named Rowena and his allegiance to the Norman king Richard I of England. There have been many subsequent adaptations of the Ivanhoe legend and Dark Knight is a radical re-imagining that adds fantastical, supernatural elements to an already captivating story. Ancient evil is about to be unleashed on the land and the only hope is the sharp sword, the pure heart and the mysterious force that protects the ‘Chosen One’, Ivanhoe. Set in the dark ages, a time of fear, magic and mystery, Dark Knight shows its hero battling tyranny, oppression and a legion of terrifying, magical and hellish creatures as he attempts to restore King Richard to the throne and bring peace to England. This spectacular sword and sorcery television adventure series of was made in New Zealand, using extensive CGI to create a magical world filled with elves and goblins, as well as monsters from the underworld. Ben Pullen stars as Sir Ivanhoe of Rotherwood, with the beautiful Charlotte Comer as Rebecca, Peter O’Farrell as the ex-sorcerer’s comical apprentice Odo, Cameron Rhodes as the despicable Prince John and Jeffrey Thomas as evil necromancer Mordour. With brisk storytelling, exotic locations, stunning costumes and fine action sequences, Dark Knight has become cult viewing and this three-DVD set brings all twelve episodes of the first series together for the first time. Brilliantly filmed, this is a highly enjoyable romp through the dark ages will delight fans of Hercules: The Legendary Journeys, and Xena: Warrior Princess. THE GOOD SHEPHERD MOMENTUM PICTURES MP447DPD Christian Slater stars as Daniel Clemens, a worldly and urbane priest who is forced to challenge his comfortable existence as an ecclesiastical spin-doctor when he comes to believe in the innocence of a young priest accused of murder. Daniel’s only ally is the investigative TV reporter Madeline Finney (played with convincing ascerbity by Molly Parker), who also happens to be a former girlfriend. His job is to deflect scandal but his belief in the accused’s innocence is confirmed when Andrews is found dead in prison, presumably having taken his own life. Despite the relief of his superiors that the case appears have been closed, Daniel cannot believe that such a devout man would commit suicide. Against the advice of his friend and mentor Henry McCaran (Stephen Rea), he takes over the dead priest’s parish and becomes involved in a world that is very different from his usual comfortable living. With the help of Madeline, he heads down a path which will lead to further deaths but which might just take him back to his own true course, although the truth will test his faith and vocation to the limit. Directed by Lewin Webb, this is a tightly written, beautifully shot and well-acted whodunit that keeps you guessing right to the last minute. THE LONG NIGHT - ANATOLE LITVAK ORBIT MEDIA The film writer, director and producer Anatole Litvak was born Mikhail Anatol Litwak into a Jewish family in Kiev in 1902. After working in avant-garde theatre in St. Petersburg he moved to Germany but left there in the 1930s with the rise if Nazism. He made several successful films in England (Sleeping Car) and France (Mayerling) before moving to Hollywood. He served with the US Army during during the Second World War and was head of the photography division responsible for documenting the D Day landing on Normandy. The Long Night, released in 1947, is an underrated remake of the Marcel Carnè classic Le jour se lève (1939). It opens with a bang as a shot fired in an upstairs bedroom of a lodging house and a dying man stumbles out of the door to fall down two flights of stairs. A series of flashbacks (and flashbacks-within-flashbacks) tells the story of a disillusioned war veteran, Joe Adams, who falls in love with a girl who lies about her relationship with a smarmy and sadistic stage magician, creepily played by Vincent Price. Although not as good as Carnè’s poetic masterpiece on which it was based, there is much to enjoy in this noirish melodrama, including the gritty cinematography of Sol Polito, claustrophobic sets by Eugene Lourie and the music of Dimitri Tiomkin, who incorporates part of Beethoven’s Seventh Symphony to create an ominous sense of foreboding. Barbara Bel Geddes, making her debut, is inadequate as the mixed-up girl but Henry Fonda is excellent as the doomed ordinary Joe, Vincent Price is entertainingly hammy as the magician, Elisha Cook Jnr appears as a blind witness, and Ann Dvorak gives an unselfish and sexy performance as the magician’s worldly former assistant. SARABAND - INGMAR BERGMAN TARTAN TVD 3594 The Swedish stage and film director Ingmar Bergman is one of the great film auteurs of the second half of the twentieth century, whose work usually deals with existential questions about mortality, loneliness and faith. He developed a ‘repertory company‘ of Swedish actors, including Max von Sydow, Bibi Andersson, Harriet Andersson, Gunnar Björnstrand, Erland Josephson, and the late Ingrid Thulin. Norwegian actress Liv Ullmann was the last to join this group and ultimately became most closely associated with Bergman, both artistically and personally. In 1982, he made Fanny and Alexander, declaring that it would be his last film, but in 2003, at the age of 84, he directed Saraband. In true Bergman tradition, Saraband deals with human relationships, using a slow pace, pointed dialogue, and heavy use of symbolism to explore the psychological states of the characters. The film is a sequel to 1973’s Scenes From A Marriage, as Bergman follows up the relationship between Marianne (Liv Ullmann) and Johan (Erland Josephson) twenty years later. Now divorced, she comes to visit her ex-husband for the weekend only to be caught up in the emotional battle between him, his son from a later marriage, and his grand-daughter. Originally made for Swedish TV, Saraband shows that Bergman’s dramatic power is undiminished and his technical mastery is evident throughout. Outstanding performances by Ullmann with Josephson help create complex characters and Saraband is a gripping and compelling experience that we can assume will be the last motion picture directed by Ingmar Bergman - his parting gift to the medium that made him world-famous. Extras include a ‘making of’ featurette, stills gallery and Philip Strick notes. Also released on DVD this month is AFTER THE REHEARSAL (TARTAN TVD 3594). Starring Erland Josephson, Ingrid Thulin, Liv Ullmann and Lena Olin, this 1984 film brings the worlds of cinema and theatre together when a stage director takes on his new actress and former mistress in a duel of wits as they rehearse a new play. Extras include filmographies and trailers. LOVE IS THE DEVIL - JOHN MAYBURY ARTIFICIAL EYE ART164DVD Francis Bacon was an enigmatic and brilliant artist but a waspish and unlovable man, with a bleak, uncompromising view of life and little regard for the feelings of others. Director John Maybury’s dazzling and brave film examines unflinchingly the painter’s turbulent and tragic relationship with his lover and model George Dyer, a former boxer and small time thief who competes for Bacon’s affections so passionately that he is eventually destroyed. The film opens in 1971 at the Grand Palais in Paris, where Bacon is welcomed as ‘the greatest living painter’. Dyer recalls the fateful day in 1964 when he met the artist whilst attempting to burgle his house and is invited to stay the night. The film successfully captures the louche bohemian life of 1960’s Soho, an underworld of artist’s models, East End thugs and the infamous drinking den, the Colony Room - a ‘concentration of camp’ presided over by the hilariously foul-mouthed Muriel Belcher (Tilda Swinton). Maybury’s study of Bacon and his tumultuous relationship with Dyer is a powerful testament to one of the twentieth century’s most controversial artists. The director has worked with the artist Derek Jarman and collaborated with the Michael Clarke dance company, and has made some of the most innovative music videos of recent years. In Love Is the Devil he uses his remarkable talent for visual imagery to illuminate Francis Bacon’s brilliant yet often seedy world. Derek Jacobi gives an uncannily accurate performance as the tortured artist and Daniel Craig (soon to be the new James Bond) is superb as George Dyer, a petty criminal out of his depth and gradually falling apart. Extras on the DVD include filmographies of the stars and the theatrical trailer. ‘Tough, tender, wholly compelling’ - Time Out. UNION CITY - MARCUS REICHERT TARTAN TVD 3635 Set in 1953 in a gritty New Jersey industrial town, Union City tells the strange story of an accountant who becomes so obsessed with finding whoever is stealing his morning milk that he fails to notice his beautiful wife is having an affair with the superintendent of their dingy apartment building. Dennis Lipscomb is excellent as the repressed, paranoid accountant who panics then rapidly falls apart after committing an act of irrational violence. His feckless, frustrated wife is played by Debbie ‘Deborah’ Harry, making her film debut and cleverly underplaying her dislocated dialogue. This is in marked contrast to Irina Maleeva, who gives a seductive performance as the glamorous and batty Contessa who lives across the hall. Good support also comes from Charles Rydell as a cynical cab driver, Everett McGill as the predatory superintendent, and there are brief appearances by CCH Pounder and Pat Benatar. Based on a 1940s short story ‘The Corpse Next Door’ by Cornell Woolrich, Union City uses its low budget brilliantly to draw you in to an unnerving world of transience and foreboding that might have been created by David Lynch. Marcus Reichert was an artist before becoming a film director and he uses primary colours here to great effect, especially in the strikingly painted interiors. From its lurid opening credits to a satisfyingly tragic twist at the end, this quirky neo film noir is an enjoyabe existential romp. The suitably evocative music is by Debbie Harry’s Blondie bandmate, Chris Stein. TIME OF FAVOR - JOSEPH CEDAR BLUE DOLPHIN BDVD 2004 Writer/director Joseph Cedar’s Time of Favor is a gripping psychological thriller that is also a love story and an anti-hate polemic. Set largely within an Orthodox Jewish settlement on the West Bank, this claustrophobic film takes a cautionary look at the dangers of fundamentalism with the story of a man whose whole life comes into question when a plan to bomb the sacred mosque on the Temple Mount is discovered. The film stars Aki Avni, Tinkerbell, Edan Alterman and veteran Israeli actor-filmmaker Asi Dayan, and the film won six Israeli Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Screenplay, Best Actor, Best Actress, Best Editing and Best Cinematography. Made in Hebrew with English subtitles, Time of Favor was Israel’s official entry for the Oscar of Best Foreign Film 2001. Joseph Cedar’s thought-provoking debut feature is based on his own experiences as a paratrooper and student at a yeshiva (a traditional school dedicated to religious study) as well as on a real-life news story about an army officer who was falsely accused of being a member of a Jewish terrorist group. The first part of the film is a little slow and wordy but this romance/thriller gives a fascinating insight into religious fundamentalism and the Israeli experience in modern-day Palestine. Although made on a tight budget, the film features spectacular scenery (it was shot on location halfway between Jericho and Jerusalem.), an effective storyline and impressive acting, particularly from Aki Avni and the delightfully named Tinkerbell. MIX-UP OU MELI-MELO - FRANCOISE ROMAND LOWAVE EDV 1394 This unique and critically acclaimed documentary, Mix-Up ou Meli-Melo, follows the true story of two English women who as babies were accidentally switched in the hospital in 1936 and 20 years later discovered that they had been raised by the wrong sets of parents. French director Francoise Romand enlists all the surviving family members (including the delightfully eccentric Charles) in her haunting and bizarre investigation, which involves not only a recounting but a reenactment of all the significant events in the two daughters’ emotional histories. The seriousness and thoroughness with which she pursues her approach create a formal beauty and a witty precision in framing, pacing, editing, use of music and mise en scene that is inseparable from the film’s ethical and philosophical project. It’s a story that encompasses courage, humour, love and a six-year correspondence with George Bernard Shaw. The mix-up of the title refers not only to the putative subject but to many stylistic and formal collisions: fiction versus fact, French versus English, memory versus imagination. What might have been a plodding documentary in other hands is transformed into an intriguing and inventive film in which even the final credits are memorable. The film is in English with optional subtitled in French, German and English. Extras include interviews with Francoise Romand and the American film critic Jonathan Rosenbaum as well as biographies, filmographies and a slide show. Lowave is an independent DVD label with the objective of discovering and promoting contemporary film and video art. Its ambition is to create a new marketplace for the work of cutting-edge artists and filmmakers, under recognized by the traditional distribution channels, by making them accessible via the DVD format. ‘A deliciously oddball movie’ - New York Times. SLOW MOTION - LEAN-LUC GODARD ARTIFICIAL EYE 053 DVD Jean-Luc Godard was born in Paris to Franco-Swiss parents in 1930 and studied at the Lycée Rohmer and the Sorbonne, where he became involved with the young group of filmmakers and theorists that gave birth to the Nouvelle Vague, or ‘French New Wave’. Known for stylistic implementations that challenged, the conventions of Hollywood cinema, this ‘enfant terrible’ became one of the most audacious and radical filmmakers in the world. His work reflected a deep knowledge of film history as well as an understanding of existential and Marxist philosophy. His reputation was established in the 1960s with films su |
The charming Russian ballet dancer and actress Natalya Romanovna Makarova was born in 1940 in Leningrad, where she performed with the Kirov Ballet from 1956 to 1970. After defecting to the West while on tour in London in 1970, she performed with the American Ballet Theatre in the USA and with the Royal Ballet in England. Although keen to expand her range by dancing in works by modern choreographers she remains most identified with classical ballets such as Swan Lake and Giselle. With the ABT she worked extensively with Tudor, Balanchine, Robbins and Tetley. With The Royal Ballet her repertoire included Swan Lake, Giselle, The Sleeping Beauty, Les Sylphides, Manon, Song of the Earth, A Month in the Country, Elite Syncopations, Checkmate and Les Biches. Makarova has also appeared as a guest artist with many leading ballet companies throughout the world, including the Paris Opera Ballet, National Ballet of Canada, Stuttgart Ballet, Royal Danish Ballet, London Festival Ballet, and Roland Petit’s Ballets de Marseille. Her television appearances have included an acclaimed Ballerina Series for the BBC and this 1985 television special, Natasha, which shows off Makarova’s delightful personality as well as her astonishing range and artistry as a dancer. Some of her most acclaimed interpretations, including Natalya Petrovna in Ashton’s A Month in the Country and Juliet in MacMillan’s Romeo and Juliet are featured here alongside dances created especially for her. Highlights include and extract from her Tony Award-winning performance in the musical On your Toes, an erotically-charged Carmen pas de deux with Denys Ganio, the Prelude to Les Sylphides and an amazingly fluid interpretation of the Saint-Saëns Dying Swan solo by Fokine. The dance programme is stylishly linked by Makarova herself, making this a fascinating visual biography of one of the greatest female dancers of our time.