DVD, Blu-ray and TV

Comic Stripped

Candid 1994 documentary about iconic, sexually dysfunctional artist

The Three Colours Trilogy

Krzysztof Kieslowski's trilogy is one of the standard bearers for 'arthouse' cinema. And though the movies occasionally hint at self-importance (in Zbigniew Preisner's intrusive scores and the colour-coded shooting style), Kieslowski's steely control of storytelling always keeps the narratives fiercely compelling

The Brothers McMullen

This made Edward Burns' name as an actor-writer-director when it won Sundance back in '95 on a matchstick budget. He plays one of three Irish-American siblings trying to understand each other and the women in their lives. Straight-talking, romantic yet unsentimental, it's the kind of comedy we wish Woody Allen still made. Or, for that matter, Burns himself.

Starsky And Hutch

After all the talk of paying tribute to original 1970s cops David Soul and Paul Michael Glaser, Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson throw out any genuine resemblance to those freewheeling dudes and simply take the piss for 90 minutes. There are some canny gags and clever pastiches of buddy-movie clichés, but they give up on it halfway through and just cruise camply.

Support Your Local Sheriff – Support Your Local Gunfighter

Amiable comedy westerns starring James Garner, from 1969 and 1971. In the first he brings order to a lawless gold-rush town; in the second he's a conman passing off his sidekick (Jack Elam) as a deadly gunslinger. Both are droll delights, with amazing supporting casts that include Bruce Dern and Walter Brennan

Five Minutes To Live

Johnny Cash is the criminal holding a banker's wife to ransom in this extraordinarily low-budget 1961 B-flick. Originally christened Door-To-Door Maniac, Cash is only too convincing as its eponymous gun-waving psycho, a-leerin' and a-sneerin' and even a-singin' the title tune. Look out, too, for an absurdly young Ron Happy Days Howard as the irksome brat who saves the day.

The Agronomist

A labour of love for Jonathan Demme who spent seven years following Haitian human rights activist and broadcaster Jean Dominique. An agronomist by background on an island run by bandits, Dominique's struggle to bring justice to his homeland ended in a hail of bullets outside Radio Haiti in 2000. For all Demme's efforts, you never feel the film quite cracks its subject, but it does throw a grim spotlight on Haiti's interminable agonies.

Venom

Enjoyably hammy sub-Hitchcock suspense thriller from 1982 in which Klaus Kinski's plan to kidnap the grandson of a wealthy American explorer is thrown into chaos, placing him and co-conspirators Oliver Reed and Susan George under siege by a black mamba. Kinski is suitably unpleasant, as is the wince-inducing moment when Ollie receives a fatal snake bite where no bloke wants to be bitten.

Comandante

It was inevitable that Oliver Stone's trip to Havana to shoot 30 hours of interview with Fidel Castro would unleash a storm of controversy. Hawkish US commentators couldn't miss a chance to condemn Stone, and HBO, having bought the film, then decided not to show it. There's no doubt the director, who shares centre stage with Fidel himself, looks a little too pleased with himself for landing this coup, and as he develops a chummy camaraderie with his host, issues like Castro's human rights record and his laughable claim that Cuba is in some way democratic go without scrutiny.

A Mani Splendid Thing

Two-disc set celebrating Manchesters baggy-trousered dance-rock primates
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