Archive for the ‘DVD’ Category

  • 15 May

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    Blu-Ray/DVD Review: Cria Cuervos

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    Director: Carlos Saura
    Screenplay: Carlos Saura
    Starring: Ana Torrent, Geraldine Chaplin, Mónica Randall, Florinda Chico
    Producer: Elías Querejeta
    Country: Spain
    Running Time: 110 min
    Year: 1976
    BBFC Certificate: 12

    (5/5)


    One thing I love about writing about films and getting sent screeners to review, is discovering great films I’ve never heard of. I still have to request the titles and don’t have time to ask for all that get offered, so I tend to do a little research beforehand to pick and choose. This entails looking up a few reviews from trusted sources, so for films I don’t know much about I do develop a certain level of expectation based on the critical response to them. However this can be a help and a hindrance. Living up to hype is always difficult and some classic films may be admirable or groundbreaking but not necessarily have the same impact they once had within a film landscape that perhaps they helped shape. Once in a while I get a film like Cria Cuervos sent over though. I must admit I hadn’t heard of the film, but on looking up a couple of reviews and noticing it had been added to the Criterion Collection I figured it would be worth a watch. And it certainly was.

    Cria Cuervos (translated ‘Raise Ravens’), directed by Carlos Saura, is set in Madrid in a mansion seemingly cut off from the rest of the city, despite being set in the heart of it. As the film opens we see eight-year-old Ana (Ana Torrent) creep downstairs in the middle of the night to hear her army general father die during a sexual liaison with his friend’s wife. Later we learn that Ana believes she killed him using ‘poison’ (actually baking soda) that she had promised her (also dead) mother to throw away long ago. As an orphan, Ana has to grow up with her two sisters under the care of their aunt Paulina (Mónica Randall). Ana doesn’t get on with her aunt, who is more strict and cold than her mother was, and she develops a desire to ‘kill’ her too. The only solace she gets is in her visions of her mother she conjures up in her imagination and memory.

    It’s a peculiar film which is hard to pin down. A number of critics describe it as an allegorical piece hitting out against the Franco regime, of which Saura was an outspoken opponent. To me however, having little knowledge of Spanish politics and history, the film worked in other ways. In particular, as a look at life and death through the eyes of a child the film is incredibly powerful.

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  • 13 May

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    DVD Review: Of Two Minds

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    Of Two Minds Still

    Director: Douglas Blush, Lisa J. Klein (What A Ball, Cult Culture: The Poseidon Adventure)
    Producers: Kristin Chambers, Lisa Klein
    MPAA Rating: NR
    Running time: 89 min.

    Illness is never easy to deal with but mental illness is particularly difficult. Here’s an illness that has no easy fix. It doesn’t manifest as a rash you can treat and there’s no little pill that will make a sufferer feel better but often it can manifest in very physical ways. Douglas Blush and Lisa J. Klein’s Of Two Minds sets off to explore the tricky rollercoaster world of bipolar disorder.

    Focusing on a handful of individuals, Klein and Bush delve into the manic highs and suicidal lows of the disorder one that, for many of the individuals interviewed, was not diagnosed until later in their adult lives. Cheri Keating explains how she was diagnosed at a free clinic in LA and her experience living her youth as a sufferer and not knowing what she was suffering from. Journalist Liz Spikol and architect and artist Michael Peterson share similar stories of rollercoaster emotional highs and lows that often brought them to the brink of death.

    Of Two Minds follows these individuals as they share their stories. They recount their lowest moments and also the highs, the manic energy that makes you feel invincible and alive and capable of doing anything and how those moments of high energy can also be the most dangerous. While in this state the mind loses reservations and people will do things that they generally wouldn’t, causing them to end up in compromising situations that they sometimes don’t remember or would rather not remember when they finally come down. It’s interesting and heartbreaking that the sufferers, all of whom hail from different walks of life, share such similar experiences.

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  • 13 May

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    DVD Review: 7 Days In Havana

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    7 Days In Havana Still

    Directors: Benicio Del Toro, Pablo Trapero, Julio Médem, Elia Suleiman, Gaspar Noé, Juan Carlos Tabío, Laurent Cantet
    Screenplay: Leonardo Padura
    Producers: Laurent Baudens, Didar Domehri, Álvaro Longoria, Gaël Nouaille, Fabien Pisani
    Starring: Josh Hutcherson, Daniel Brühl, Emir Kusturica, Elia Suleiman, Vladimir Cruz, Mirta Ibarra, Jorge Perugorria
    MPAA Rating: PG-13
    Running time: 129 min.

    The anthology love letter to a city lives on this time in Havana.

    7 Days in Havana follows in the footsteps of the much loved Paris, J’Taime and its predecessors, bringing together seven filmmakers to tell seven individual stories all of which take place in Havana. What’s particularly interesting about these anthologies is the diverse group of filmmakers that are involved and 7 Days is no exception gathering together French luminaries Laurent Cantet and Gaspar Noé with Israeli actor/director Elia Suleiman, Cuban master Juan Carlos Tabío and Benicio Del Toro making his debut behind the camera.

    As is typical with shorts compilations, the results are varied. Del Toro’s Monday adventure has a young American actor (Josh Hutcherson) in town for a few days at the local acting school. Wanting a more authentic experience, he convinces his driver to take him around after hours to the driver’s favourite hangouts which results in an interesting finish to the actor’s day. Del Toro’s mix of tourist Havana and day-to-day life Havana is one that comes up often throughout 7 Days and always through the eyes of an outsider. Though Del Toro’s is quite good, the best of the bunch is Suleiman’s in which the director stars as a wonderer/observer of the city. Though it’s almost completely dialog free, Suleiman’s short is also one of the more interesting ones, featuring long steady shots and out of sequence editing which gorgeously captures the various moods of the city.

    Unsurprisingly, Noé’s wordless tale of forbidden romance is both the darkest and most adventurous of the entries. It also happens to be only one of two stories which focus on religious practice. Noé’s exorcism of demons is beautiful and haunting but it’s also dripping in sexuality. It’s dark and beautiful and lush and sweaty and exactly the kind of thing you’d expect from Noé.

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  • 12 May

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    DVD Review: Slice and Dice: The Slasher Film Forever

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    Director: Calum Waddell
    Starring: Mark Atkins, Emily Booth, John Carl Buechler, Corey Feldman, Tobe Hooper, Adam Green, Mick Garris
    Producers: Naomi Holwill, Calum Waddell
    Country: UK
    Running Time: 75 min
    Year: 2012
    BBFC Certificate: 18

    Documentary: (2.5/5)
    DVD Set: (4/5)



    There has been a minor surge of celebratory film-focussed documentaries over the last few years. I’m not sure of the correct ‘label’ for them, but I mean the type of documentary that plays as an enjoyable nostalgia-trip with a ‘fan-boy’ feel. We’ve had Not Quite Hollywood presenting the joys of Ozploitation movies, Machete Maidens Unleashed looking into the Filipino genre film industry and several celebrating the work of a single director/producer/artist, such as Ray Harryhausen: Special Effects Titan and Corman’s World. I’m a bit of a sucker for these types of films, so I track them down whenever I can – who doesn’t like a trip down memory lane or a chance to find some lost gems within a genre you love?

    So I of course leapt at the chance of reviewing Slice and Dice: The Slasher Film Forever. This is a documentary by Calum Waddell and editor/animator/producer Naomi Holwill (who have been steadily churning out featurettes for DVD/Blu-Rays for the last few years) which, as the title suggests, looks at the history and continuing love for the slasher film. We are taken through the birth of the sub-genre with films like Psycho, Peeping Tom and Bay of Blood, then into its refinement and boom in the late 70′s/early 80′s with the release of Halloween and Friday the 13th and finally looks at what’s on offer now and where the films are heading. On top of the history, the interviewees discuss the essence of what makes a slasher film and why they love them.

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  • 30 Apr

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    DVD Review: The Purge

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    Director: Antti Jokinen
    Screenplay: Antti Jokinen, Marko Leino
    Based on a Novel by: Sofi Oksanen
    Starring: Laura Birn, Liisi Tandefelt, Amanda Pilke, Krista Kosonen, Peter Franzén
    Producers: Jukka Helle, Markus Selin
    Country: Finland, Estonia
    Running Time: 120 min
    Year: 2012
    BBFC Certificate: 18

    (4/5)


    Accepting an offer to review a screener of Finnish drama The Purge (a.k.a. Purge or Puhdistus) was a no brainer for me. My wife is a proud Finn and insists on watching any film/concert/event that makes its way over to the UK. Usually it’s her that tracks these down so I get extra brownie points for finding and obtaining them myself. Add the fact that she’s read the book this is based on and given that I can’t always talk her into watching my usual choices of film, I replied as soon as the email from distributors Metrodome hit my inbox and requested a copy to cast my critical eye over.

    The Purge opens with a bruised and battered Zara (Amanda Pilke) seeking refuge in a remote farmhouse in Estonia. Living alone in the house is the elderly Aliide (Liisi Tandefelt) who reluctantly offers her shelter. The two get talking and we learn that Zara has escaped from enslavement and abuse at the hands of a group of sex-traffickers (shown through flashbacks). A possible connection between the two women as well as familiar aspects to her story flashes Aliide back to her youth (where she’s played by Laura Birn). Whilst the Communists cracked down on Fascists in Estonia during World War II, Aliide fell in love with her sister Ingel’s (Krista Kosonen) fiancé Hans (Peter Franzén). In a bid to win him for herself and to survive the ongoing atrocities, she makes some painful yet selfish decisions which put her sister and niece’s lives in jeopardy and haunt her several decades down the line. However, when Aliide discovers Zara’s full background, she finds a way to seek redemption for her past crimes.

    As is to be expected from the source material (and most Finnish dramas for that matter), The Purge is an extremely bleak film. With both women enduring some horrific sexual abuse and mental anguish, it’s a tough film to get through. The grim tone is relentless and there are no moments of light to alleviate the oppression shared by the characters and audience. This of course fits the film’s content, but I actually felt it maybe went a little too far. The film is so consistently brutal through its two-hour running time that it actually loses its power to shock and move as it gets into the latter third. By the end I was quite numb to it all and what was theoretically quite a powerful and affecting finale didn’t really get to me as it should.

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  • 29 Apr

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    DVD Review: Silver Linings Playbook

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    Silver Linings Playbook Still

    Director: David O. Russell (Three Kings, I Heart Huckabees, The Fighter)
    Screenplay: David O. Russell, Matthew Quick (book)
    Producers: Bruce Cohen, Donna Gigliotti, Jonathan Gordon,
    Starring: Joel Kinnaman, Matias Varela, Dragomir Mrsic, Lisa Henni
    MPAA Rating: R
    Running time: 122 min.

    I don’t think I’ll ever forget the moment I saw Three Kings. It didn’t sound like much, another war movie this one with a comedic angle, but David O. Russell delivered an interesting and uncompromising look at the “business” of war with all its ugliness and occasional hilarity. I haven’t cared much for Russell’s movie’s since then but I’ve kept watching, hoping for another little gem. I never imagined a romantic comedy would be the movie to deliver it.

    Silver Linings Playbook emerged as a bit of a surprise. Sure, it had calibre (director, well loved book, fantastic cast) but it feels like the swell was slow building. World of mouth screenings followed by praise for nearly everyone involved and then an Oscar win. I saw it pre-awards and it was busy but the busy screening was nothing compared to the sold out Monday night outing after Jennifer Lawrence’s award win. Apparently the Oscars do count for something – in some instances at least.

    The premise is pretty standard stuff. Boy meets girl. Boy and girl fall for each other. Boy and girl pretend they don’t like each other but end up working together towards something bigger than both of them before finally coming together in a happily ever after. In this case a medicated happily ever after since both Pat and Tiffany are suffering from their own personal demons. But as sweet as this romance is and regardless of what anyone tells you this is indeed very sweet, it’s the kind of quirky sweetness that works. Mostly it works because of the performances – both Lawrence and Bradley Cooper (who’s been having a fantastic couple of years) are fantastic – but also because it’s the story of two damaged people who find love in an unlikely place and both of whom take some pretty big risks to eventually end up together.

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  • 10 Apr

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    Blu-Ray Review: Le Beau Serge & Les Cousins

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    Before I review these two French New Wave cornerstones, I must stress that Eureka aren’t packaging the two films together, they are individual releases. I’m just reviewing them in one go because of their obvious links and identical release dates. Plus I feel they complement each other very nicely.

    I’ve had a turbulent relationship with French cinema and the New Wave in general. I can remember watching a handful of Truffaut films when I was a teenager because they were deemed ‘important’ and I kind of liked them, but didn’t quite understand their significance enough to love them. I was a massive Jeunet and Caro fan in the 90′s, but I was put off by the more ‘worthy’ intellectual/mature art house fare coming out of France so shunned a lot of what the country had to offer, including the New Wave which I still hadn’t quite got my head around. I became a bit of a film racist I guess.

    Over the years I became more open minded though and more recently I’ve started to venture back to our friends across the channel and check out the notable films I skipped over in the past. The turbulence didn’t end though. I’ve watched a few of Godard’s films recently and admired and enjoyed aspects of them, but have still been put off by the academic nature of much of it and the lack of heart and soul to latch onto. I downright hated his Rolling Stones film, Sympathy For the Devil. I think the French idea of ‘cool’ doesn’t click with me, so some of the charm of the more stylish experiments of the New Wave are lost on me.

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  • 03 Apr

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    DVD Review: Easy Money

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    Easy Money Still

    Also be sure to check out Kurt’s review from TIFF!

    Director: Daniel Espinosa (Safe House)
    Screenplay: Daniel Espinosa, Jens Lapidus (book)
    Producer: Fredrik Wikström
    Starring: Joel Kinnaman, Matias Varela, Dragomir Mrsic, Lisa Henni
    MPAA Rating: R
    Running time: 124 min.

    It’s ridiculous to me that it’s taken three years for it to finally arrive but here we are, in 2013, long after we first posted the trailers for Daniel Espinosa’s Easy Money and we finally have a DVD release. Crying won’t help matters any, neither does the thought that the third movie in the franchise is nearly ready for release while most of the world is only now being introduced to the goodness that is Espinosa’s adaptation of Jens Lapidus’ novels but as they say, better late than never.

    Though it’s not new, few things are anymore, I love the concept behind Easy Money, a crime thriller that is more focused on the people involved with the crimes than in the crimes themselves, exactly what separates crime dramas from great crime dramas.

    Joel Kinnaman, in a star making role that brought him to the attention of international producers, stars as JW, a young, handsome smart guy looking to elevate himself far beyond his economic means. He comes from a middle class family but you’d never tell by looking at him. He’s sharply dressed, he has expensive tastes and friends with money to burn and it’s his inability to keep up financially that sets him on the wrong path. He finances his parties and sharp looking closet by writing papers for others and driving a cab for some shady characters. He’s been pitching a money making scheme to his boss, who seems completely uninterested and who instead offers JW an opportunity to make some quick cash by simply following a guy. Of course, when you’re mixed up with a mob, just following a guy could get you into serious trouble.

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  • 22 Mar

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    Blu-Ray Review: Tess

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    Director: Roman Polanski
    Screenplay: Gérard Brach, Roman Polanski, John Brownjohn
    Based on a Novel by: Thomas Hardy
    Starring: Nastassja Kinski, Peter Firth, Leigh Lawson
    Producer: Claude Berri
    Country: UK/France
    Running Time: 172 min
    Year: 1979
    BBFC Certificate: 12

    (2/5)


    With all the controversy over Roman Polanski’s personal life and complicated legal issues that remain, his life and work are well discussed and debated. I’ve never got too much involved though when arguments rage on comments boards about boycotting his work and the like. I’m rarely interested in the private lives of actors or directors. Obviously what Roman Polanski did to 13 year old Samantha Geimer was reprehensible, but, without wanting to sound unconcerned by such actions, I tend to be of the mind that it’s up to the legal system to deal with that and if his films are produced and available then I’ll still watch them if they interest me. I’m not the world’s biggest Polanski fan though it must be said. Although I consider Chinatown to be amongst my favourite 10 or 15 films of all time I’ve not seen a huge amount of his work and a couple of those I have seen have been less than stellar. I really didn’t see the appeal of The Fearless Vampire Killers for instance and thought the more recent Ghost Writer/The Ghost was hugely overrated.

    The memory of Chinatown and Knife in the Water (as well as what I can remember of Rosemary’s Baby) still remain though and despite Tess not being one of Polanski’s more popular films, I thought I’d give it a go.

    The film is a fairly straight adaptation of Thomas Hardy’s classic novel Tess of the d’Urbervilles (from what I gather – I haven’t read the book). Tess (Nastassja Kinski) is a the daughter of John Durbeyfield (John Collin), a farmer who is told by a local parson that he is descended from the illustrious d’Urberville family. In a bid to cash in on this fact, John sends Tess out to the known d’Urberville’s who live near by. She meets her ‘cousin’, Alec d’Urberville (Leigh Lawson), who is besotted by her. Although she is initially reluctant, he manages to seduce Tess as she spends time with his family, forcefully ‘winning’ her over for a short while. Tess breaks free from him though and heads back for home but not before she is impregnated with his child. The baby dies after only a few weeks and, disgraced and distressed, Tess leaves home to work on a dairy farm further afield. Here she meets Angel (Peter Firth), a reverend’s son who falls madly in love with her. She quite quickly reciprocates, but the shadow of her past weighs heavy on her soul and she worries about whether Angel will accept her as she is.

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  • 17 Mar

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    DVD Review: Ozu Collection – The Gangster Films

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    Much like The Student Comedies collection which I reviewed last year, this continuation of the BFI’s Ozu Collection takes a look at some of the director’s early work which seems to go against the grain of what he became famous for. Often thought of as a highly ‘Japanese’ director that only made very sedate family melodramas, his early work is actually highly influenced by Hollywood films of the era and his style reflects this, with more dynamic camerawork and editing styles. Three films are included in the set, Walk Cheerfully (Hogaraka ni ayume), That Night’s Wife (Sono yo no tsuma) and Dragnet Girl (Hijosen no onna). Below I give my thoughts on all of them individually and the DVD set as a whole.

    Walk Cheerfully

    Director: Yasujiro Ozu
    Screenplay: Tadao Ikeda
    Based on a Story by: Hiroshi Shimizu
    Starring: Minoru Takada, Satoko Date, Hiroko Kawasaki, Hisao Yoshitani
    Country: Japan
    Running Time: 92 min
    Year: 1930

    (3.5/5)


    Walk Cheerfully follows Kenji ‘the Knife’ Koyama (Minoru Takada), the leader of a small-time gang of hoodlums. He falls in love with the sweet and innocent Yasue (Hiroko Kawasaki), but when she finds out about his life and crimes she leaves him, saying that she won’t let him back unless he has become an ‘honest person’. He tries his best to do so, but his past (and jealous ex-girlfriend in particular) makes it very difficult to do so. Luckily, his good friend and partner in crime Senko (Hisao Yoshitani) agrees to go straight too and the pair face the consequences together.

    Those familiar with Ozu’s better known films from the 50′s and early 60′s will be quite surprised with this and the other films in the set. Where his more famous works have quite minimal plot, these are fairly dense considering the shorter running times. There are very few of his low angle wides either or rule-breaking, almost straight to camera close-ups. Walk Cheerfully and the other films in this set feel much more like early gangster films from Hollywood with the costumes most clearly reflecting this as well as some low key shadowy lighting and moments of violence (which never appear in the likes of Tokyo Story or Late Spring).

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  • 11 Mar

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    DVD Review: Foreverland

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    Foreverland Still

    Director: Max McGuire (Crossing the Wake)
    Screenplay: Max McGuire, Shawn Riopelle
    Producer: Trish Dolman, Aaron L. Gilbert, Christine Haebler
    Starring: Max Thieriot, Laurence Leboeuf, Sarah Wayne Callies, Juliette Lewis, Thomas Dekker, Matt Frewer
    MPAA Rating: PG
    Running time: 93 min.

    Will Rankin is young, handsome and dying. He suffers from cystic fibrosis, a debilitating genetic disease that makes it difficult for him to breathe nevermind have any sort of active life. He spends his days taking the pills and doing the executrices necessary to keep his lungs working with the occasional stop in at the hospital to talk to interns. In his spare time Will visits the local mortuary to shop for the perfect casket. He’s been there so much he’s made friends with the salesman Mr. Steadman.

    Then Bobby dies.

    A friend from days spent at the hospital, Bobby leaves behind a final request for Will: drive his ashes to a little church in Mexico and there, with the help of a priest, spread them over the land. At first sceptical, Will eventually finds himself giving into the road trip and along with Bobby’s sister Fran, the two take on the long road from Vancouver to Mexico.

    Max McGuire’s Foreverland is the kind of story of hope and redemption that plays so well on Sunday afternoons. It’s a sweet story about a young man who has been living his life in preparation for death only to discover that there’s more to living that dying. There’s nothing particularly ground breaking or earth shattering about the story and McGuire’s direction isn’t exactly memorable but the movie succeeds solely on the performances of the two leads.

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  • 10 Mar

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    DVD Review: Ray Harryhausen: Special Effects Titan

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    Director: Gilles Penso
    Screenplay: Gilles Penso
    Starring: Ray Harryhausen, Peter Jackson, James Cameron, Tim Burton, Steven Spielberg, John Landis, Terry Gilliam
    Producer: Alexandre Poncet
    Country: France
    Running Time: 93 min
    Year: 2011
    BBFC Certificate: 15

    (4/5)


    As a young boy growing up in the 80′s, some of my very favourite films I would love to watch on TV in the UK (where they were widely circulated) were Ray Harryhausen’s Sinbad films as well as Clash of the Titans and the great Jason and the Argonauts. His wonderfully detailed and stunningly well-animated stop-motion creatures thrilled and excited me throughout my pre-teen years. Nobody else did it quite like him and although the films his work featured in weren’t all that amazing, they were simple and fun enough to keep you engaged between the incredible set-pieces where his skills took centre stage.

    Well the French director and producer team of Gilles Penso and Alexandre Poncet obviously grew up on Harryhausen’s work too and over several years have put together this affectionate tribute to one of cinema’s greatest special effects artists.

    Being a fan of Harryhausen I of course really enjoyed this film. Like Corman’s World this is a bit of a fan-boy affair, which heavily features an outpouring of love for the subject. Like Corman’s World, the roster of ‘fans’ is very impressive though so it kind of gets away with its arse-kissing nature. In fact Ray Harryhausen: Special Effects Titan puts even that star-studded interview line-up to shame. Here you get Steven Spielberg, Peter Jackson, James Cameron, Tim Burton and Guillermo del Toro to name but a few. You also have some of the heavyweights of the special effects world too such as Dennis Muren and Phil Tippett as well as the man himself, Ray Harryhausen. Watching the special features you really get a sense of the love these great artists have for him too, when you learn that when the documentary makers struggled to get licences for footage from 20th Century Fox, they spoke to James Cameron and he contacted Fox, telling them to allow the use of their footage or he would pay for it himself. Steven Spielberg did a similar thing for another studio. Peter Jackson’s love for Harryhausen is described in the documentary too when you learn of the great assistance he gave in restoring Harryhausen’s models and work for an exhibition and to preserve them for the future. A great inclusion is also a short stop-motion animation Jackson made as a teenager which is clearly inspired by The 7th Voyage of Sinbad.

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