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Now that Oasis have been written into British rock history alongside The Beatles, The Sex Pistols and all those other elder statesmen they so publicly admired and absorbed, 1984's Definitely Maybe survives as a revered, although sometimes distant, memory. These days when Oasis play Glastonbury, ther...

Now that Oasis have been written into British rock history alongside The Beatles, The Sex Pistols and all those other elder statesmen they so publicly admired and absorbed, 1984’s Definitely Maybe survives as a revered, although sometimes distant, memory. These days when Oasis play Glastonbury, there are waves of excitement but no huge hullabaloo about their perfunctory parade of greatest hits, and their albums have ceased to generate the expectation, the queues around the block in Oxford Street, that was once the norm. Oasis are no longer trailblazers; some might say, unkindly, that they are simply trailing.

It was very different 10 years ago. Back then, they had nothing to lose and everything to gain, storming over the horizon with the urgent and irresistible mission statement of “Rock’n’Roll Star”, the curtain-raiser to an album that boils with ambition and bare-faced cheek.

Crucially, it represented the dawn of a new era. Grunge was reeling from the suicide of Kurt Cobain only a few months earlier, and the restless, swaggering lads from Burnage, Manchester were snapping hard at the heels of the UK’s baggy gurus, from whose circles they had arisen, with a louder, angrier and yet more beautiful take on music. Britpop had arrived, and although it may have gone on to mean different things to different people, Oasis would be the godheads, the people’s champions, their mix of aggression, melody and populist lyricism trampling any and all of the opposition.

Now, Definitely Maybe is comprehensively assessed, explained, explored and celebrated in a package that takes full advantage of the DVD format, revealing more about the album over several hours than anyone would even think to ask, There are options for listening to the songs straight through with an accompanying pictorial collage, and for seeing them all performed live in various venues. The five promo videos are also included. But it’s the documentary, bustling with newly recorded interviews with the original band members and many of the key characters around them at the time, which really gets the blood rushing.

Here are all the anecdotes, the gossip, the trivia and the stories behind the songs, the sessions and the sleeve. Here too is a laying-bare of the long labour pains that attended such a seemingly spontaneous musical outburst, an insight into the political preoccupations and personal clashes within Oasis even then as they strove to recreate the raw power and passion of their demos.

Eventually, they managed it. Stealing shamelessly from everybody from T. Rex (“Cigarettes And Alcohol”) to The New Seekers (“Shakermaker”), they were na

The Untouchables

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Talk about narrow fucking escapes. Halfway through one of the interviews with Brian De Palma that make up the raft of extras on this special edition of his lavish gangster epic, the director mentions that Paramount's first choice for the central part of Eliot Ness was Mel Gibson. It's an appalling thought. I mean, imagine Mel hamming it up here, his narcissistic gurning turning De Palma's operatic vision into mugging farce. Fortunately, Mel had other commitments, and the role of Ness, as De Palma had always intended, went to the then relatively unknown Kevin Costner. It was a typically astute piece of casting. Say what you like about Costner, but as he reminded us recently in Open Range, no one does unimpeachable probity with such absolute conviction and conspicuous lack of irony. Ness is that rare thing?a fundamentally good man, dedicated to honesty and justice, who takes on Al Capone's criminal empire and the corrupt police force that protects him. Anyone else but the four-square Costner would have been risible in the part. His unfussy performance also throws into dramatic relief the rugged charisma of Oscar-winning Sean Connery as the veteran cop who shows Ness how to beat the mob, and Robert De Niro's barnstorming turn as a pampered, psychotic Capone. According to his detractors?and they are both legion and tiresome?De Palma's taste for the sensational, intemperate gore and a generally doubtful attitude to women in his movies means he can't be taken seriously as a director. For those of us in thrall to a certain kind of cinema, he's a master, and The Untouchables?like Scarface and Carlito's Way?finds him at the top of his formidable game. Brilliant.

Talk about narrow fucking escapes. Halfway through one of the interviews with Brian De Palma that make up the raft of extras on this special edition of his lavish gangster epic, the director mentions that Paramount’s first choice for the central part of Eliot Ness was Mel Gibson. It’s an appalling thought. I mean, imagine Mel hamming it up here, his narcissistic gurning turning De Palma’s operatic vision into mugging farce. Fortunately, Mel had other commitments, and the role of Ness, as De Palma had always intended, went to the then relatively unknown Kevin Costner. It was a typically astute piece of casting. Say what you like about Costner, but as he reminded us recently in Open Range, no one does unimpeachable probity with such absolute conviction and conspicuous lack of irony.

Ness is that rare thing?a fundamentally good man, dedicated to honesty and justice, who takes on Al Capone’s criminal empire and the corrupt police force that protects him. Anyone else but the four-square Costner would have been risible in the part. His unfussy performance also throws into dramatic relief the rugged charisma of Oscar-winning Sean Connery as the veteran cop who shows Ness how to beat the mob, and Robert De Niro’s barnstorming turn as a pampered, psychotic Capone. According to his detractors?and they are both legion and tiresome?De Palma’s taste for the sensational, intemperate gore and a generally doubtful attitude to women in his movies means he can’t be taken seriously as a director. For those of us in thrall to a certain kind of cinema, he’s a master, and The Untouchables?like Scarface and Carlito’s Way?finds him at the top of his formidable game. Brilliant.

Killing Zoe

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After falling out with Tarantino over the credits for Pulp Fiction, Roger Avary made this violent Paris-set heist movie in a bid to establish his creative autonomy. It was hammered by critics, who dubbed it "Reservoir Frogs" and dismissed Avary as derivative. Zoe's better than its reputation suggests, though, and has the added pleasure of Jean-Hugues Anglade going spectacularly bonkers as a smack-shooting gang leader.

After falling out with Tarantino over the credits for Pulp Fiction, Roger Avary made this violent Paris-set heist movie in a bid to establish his creative autonomy. It was hammered by critics, who dubbed it “Reservoir Frogs” and dismissed Avary as derivative. Zoe’s better than its reputation suggests, though, and has the added pleasure of Jean-Hugues Anglade going spectacularly bonkers as a smack-shooting gang leader.

TV Roundup

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Since 24, the world's somehow overlooked Steven Bochco's ice-breaking 23-part epic series (here on six discs), which traced the ricocheting ramifications of a Hollywood murder trial in obsessive detail, locking us into addictive characters with exquisite week-on-week suspense. Daniel Benzali is the snidey-but-good lawyer, Stanley Tucci the reptilian suspect millionaire. It still ensnares you. Good as it gets.

Since 24, the world’s somehow overlooked Steven Bochco’s ice-breaking 23-part epic series (here on six discs), which traced the ricocheting ramifications of a Hollywood murder trial in obsessive detail, locking us into addictive characters with exquisite week-on-week suspense. Daniel Benzali is the snidey-but-good lawyer, Stanley Tucci the reptilian suspect millionaire. It still ensnares you. Good as it gets.

The Big Bounce

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Elmore Leonard's first modern fiction novel was originally filmed in 1969 with Ryan O'Neal in the starring role. It flopped. This remake (directed by Miami Blues' George Armitage) fares no better; it drifts aimlessly, while Owen Wilson's small-time crook, drawn into a relationship with the thrill-seeking girl of a local property developer, never engages your feelings. Morgan Freeman, Charlie Sheen and Vinnie Jones co-star.

Elmore Leonard’s first modern fiction novel was originally filmed in 1969 with Ryan O’Neal in the starring role. It flopped. This remake (directed by Miami Blues’ George Armitage) fares no better; it drifts aimlessly, while Owen Wilson’s small-time crook, drawn into a relationship with the thrill-seeking girl of a local property developer, never engages your feelings. Morgan Freeman, Charlie Sheen and Vinnie Jones co-star.

Jean Renoir Box Set

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From the mid-'30s, the film-makers' film-maker at his peak. Le Crime De Monsieur Lange is a hymn to the rebellious working class. La B...

From the mid-’30s, the film-makers’ film-maker at his peak. Le Crime De Monsieur Lange is a hymn to the rebellious working class. La B

Northfork

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The epitome of love-it-or-hate-it cinema, Mark and Michael Polish's surreal account of a mid-'50s Montana town about to be submerged by dam waters has absolutely no hook for the viewer other than sheer admiration for the beauty of the landscape, a gutsy disregard for narrative pacing and the detached Lynchian performances. Proudly unique, nonetheless.

The epitome of love-it-or-hate-it cinema, Mark and Michael Polish’s surreal account of a mid-’50s Montana town about to be submerged by dam waters has absolutely no hook for the viewer other than sheer admiration for the beauty of the landscape, a gutsy disregard for narrative pacing and the detached Lynchian performances. Proudly unique, nonetheless.

Les Enfants Terribles

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Cocteau's dissection of the decadence of youth may be an acquired taste, but in 1949 it must have been quite a shocker. Callow siblings Nicole St...

Cocteau’s dissection of the decadence of youth may be an acquired taste, but in 1949 it must have been quite a shocker. Callow siblings Nicole St

Django

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RELEASED A YEAR after Sergio Leone created the genre with A Fistful Of Dollars (1965), Django, directed by Leone's onetime assistant Sergio Corbucci, was the movie that saw the spaghetti western explode; a fact borne out by the countless unauthorised sequels it spawned across Europe and beyond (as far as Jamaica, where Perry Henzell's 1973 Rude Boy classic The Harder They Come paid heavy homage). Blue-eyed Franco Nero plays the eponymous mystery gunslinger, wandering in from the filthy wilderness, dragging a coffin behind him, toward a Hellish-looking bordertown. There, private war is being fought between leering Mexican bandidos and Klannish, red-hooded gringos?a conflict Django solves, more or less, by butchering everyone. This cynical slaughterhouse replays elements of Leone's movie?notably the drifter hero caught between rival factions, lifted wholesale from Kurosawa's Yojimbo (1961)?but amplifies them to abstraction. Excess is key: the stylisation is berserk-baroque (Django's coffin contains a huge machine gun, which he fires from the hip); the close-ups zoom closer; the dumb slapstick humour touches on pantomime; the perfectly preposterous music comes crashing in to underline every point. Even the dubbing is more breathtakingly bad than ever before. But it was the stupendous ultraviolence that saw Django banned in several countries (and denied a UK certificate until 1993). In one scene, for instance, a preacher has his ear hacked off, then is made to eat it?a moment that makes Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs tribute seem demure. While Leone leaned increasingly toward opera, Corbucci hankered after the pulpiest, most disreputable comic-book imaginable ?and got there.

RELEASED A YEAR after Sergio Leone created the genre with A Fistful Of Dollars (1965), Django, directed by Leone’s onetime assistant Sergio Corbucci, was the movie that saw the spaghetti western explode; a fact borne out by the countless unauthorised sequels it spawned across Europe and beyond (as far as Jamaica, where Perry Henzell’s 1973 Rude Boy classic The Harder They Come paid heavy homage). Blue-eyed Franco Nero plays the eponymous mystery gunslinger, wandering in from the filthy wilderness, dragging a coffin behind him, toward a Hellish-looking bordertown. There, private war is being fought between leering Mexican bandidos and Klannish, red-hooded gringos?a conflict Django solves, more or less, by butchering everyone. This cynical slaughterhouse replays elements of Leone’s movie?notably the drifter hero caught between rival factions, lifted wholesale from Kurosawa’s Yojimbo (1961)?but amplifies them to abstraction. Excess is key: the stylisation is berserk-baroque (Django’s coffin contains a huge machine gun, which he fires from the hip); the close-ups zoom closer; the dumb slapstick humour touches on pantomime; the perfectly preposterous music comes crashing in to underline every point. Even the dubbing is more breathtakingly bad than ever before.

But it was the stupendous ultraviolence that saw Django banned in several countries (and denied a UK certificate until 1993). In one scene, for instance, a preacher has his ear hacked off, then is made to eat it?a moment that makes Tarantino’s Reservoir Dogs tribute seem demure. While Leone leaned increasingly toward opera, Corbucci hankered after the pulpiest, most disreputable comic-book imaginable ?and got there.

21 Grams

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Alejandro Gonz...

Alejandro Gonz

Thrill Kill Cult

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Miami has a way of bringing out the worst in people, and the very best in crime writers. Think Carl Hiaasen. Think Elmore Leonard. Most definitely think Charles Willeford, inspiration for this cool, cult thriller from 1990. "Did you see the movie Gandhi?" asks an irritatingly persistent Hare Krishna, just before Freddie Frenger Jr breaks his middle finger and sends him into shock. Junior doesn't know it, but he's just killed a man?and he hasn't even got out of Miami airport yet. Guess he never did catch Gandhi. Like Cutter's Way, Deep Cover or Jim McBride's Breathless, George Armitage's movie somehow flew under the cultural radar. You discover these flicks almost on the off-chance, and then can't believe the rest of the world never wanted to know. What makes Miami Blues special? For a start, heroic homicide detective Hoke Moseley (Fred Ward) wears dentures, which is some mark of distinction in this macho genre. His gnashers are promptly stolen, along with his gun, his badge, and his dignity, by the aforementioned Junior (Alec Baldwin), a just-released sociopath who proposes to the first hooker he meets, striking lucky with Jennifer Jason Leigh's nice but dim Susie. She wants the house with the white picket fence, and the movie doesn't laugh at her for it. Waving Hoke's badge around, Junior patrols the streets, ripping off wrongdoers. Then starts to get into the role. He even collars a couple of Miami's most wanted. Alec Baldwin's live-wire performance is a collector's item. His scenes with Leigh have a screwy mix of sincerity and cynicism which keeps the movie percolating. Understated but genuinely sharp, Miami Blues is one cult you may want to consider joining.

Miami has a way of bringing out the worst in people, and the very best in crime writers. Think Carl Hiaasen. Think Elmore Leonard. Most definitely think Charles Willeford, inspiration for this cool, cult thriller from 1990. “Did you see the movie Gandhi?” asks an irritatingly persistent Hare Krishna, just before Freddie Frenger Jr breaks his middle finger and sends him into shock. Junior doesn’t know it, but he’s just killed a man?and he hasn’t even got out of Miami airport yet. Guess he never did catch Gandhi. Like Cutter’s Way, Deep Cover or Jim McBride’s Breathless, George Armitage’s movie somehow flew under the cultural radar. You discover these flicks almost on the off-chance, and then can’t believe the rest of the world never wanted to know. What makes Miami Blues special? For a start, heroic homicide detective Hoke Moseley (Fred Ward) wears dentures, which is some mark of distinction in this macho genre. His gnashers are promptly stolen, along with his gun, his badge, and his dignity, by the aforementioned Junior (Alec Baldwin), a just-released sociopath who proposes to the first hooker he meets, striking lucky with Jennifer Jason Leigh’s nice but dim Susie. She wants the house with the white picket fence, and the movie doesn’t laugh at her for it. Waving Hoke’s badge around, Junior patrols the streets, ripping off wrongdoers. Then starts to get into the role. He even collars a couple of Miami’s most wanted. Alec Baldwin’s live-wire performance is a collector’s item. His scenes with Leigh have a screwy mix of sincerity and cynicism which keeps the movie percolating. Understated but genuinely sharp, Miami Blues is one cult you may want to consider joining.

Billion Dollar Brain

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Ken Russell's 1967 movie was the last in the original Harry Palmer trilogy, and it's lunatic great. Retired from MI5 and living on cornflakes as a flea-bitten private eye, Michael Caine's downbeat, kitchen-sink Bond has to deliver some eggs, and deal with a militaristic right-wing Texan oil baron who's planning to destroy Soviet Russia with his computer (the titular brain). Caine is quite brilliantly morose.

Ken Russell’s 1967 movie was the last in the original Harry Palmer trilogy, and it’s lunatic great. Retired from MI5 and living on cornflakes as a flea-bitten private eye, Michael Caine’s downbeat, kitchen-sink Bond has to deliver some eggs, and deal with a militaristic right-wing Texan oil baron who’s planning to destroy Soviet Russia with his computer (the titular brain). Caine is quite brilliantly morose.

Wild River

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Every film buff knows Elia Kazan's On The Waterfront and East Of Eden, but his two greatest films are terribly overlooked. In the case of America, America (1963), it's probably because he didn't cast a star. In the case of Wild River (1960), it's almost inexplicable. Montgomery Clift is a government official trying to persuade an old woman she must leave her home before it's flooded. Complex, tender, rich and true, this is a masterpiece, lost and found.

Every film buff knows Elia Kazan’s On The Waterfront and East Of Eden, but his two greatest films are terribly overlooked. In the case of America, America (1963), it’s probably because he didn’t cast a star. In the case of Wild River (1960), it’s almost inexplicable. Montgomery Clift is a government official trying to persuade an old woman she must leave her home before it’s flooded. Complex, tender, rich and true, this is a masterpiece, lost and found.

Buffalo Bill And The Indians

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Robert Altman's wry comedy tackles the origins of modern showbiz and media manipulation in Buffalo Bill's Wild West show. Paul Newman plays the legendary 'star' as a bundle of neuroses who more than meets his match when the show is joined by Sitting Bull (Frank Kaquitts)?a man of principles, unimpressed by the razzamatazz. An enjoyable indictment of Hollywood.

Robert Altman’s wry comedy tackles the origins of modern showbiz and media manipulation in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West show. Paul Newman plays the legendary ‘star’ as a bundle of neuroses who more than meets his match when the show is joined by Sitting Bull (Frank Kaquitts)?a man of principles, unimpressed by the razzamatazz. An enjoyable indictment of Hollywood.

Women In Love

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The simmering sexuality. The blood lust. The savaging of bourgeois restraint. The horse flagellation. Ken Russell and DH Lawrence were made for each other. The nude wrestling scene is the one that everyone remembers, but the satire bites best in the form of Hermione, Eleanor Bron's caricature of avant-garde pretence. Made in 1969, this is probably the last time Russell showed restraint before he hurtled into kitsch overkill.

The simmering sexuality. The blood lust. The savaging of bourgeois restraint. The horse flagellation. Ken Russell and DH Lawrence were made for each other. The nude wrestling scene is the one that everyone remembers, but the satire bites best in the form of Hermione, Eleanor Bron’s caricature of avant-garde pretence. Made in 1969, this is probably the last time Russell showed restraint before he hurtled into kitsch overkill.

Les Dames Du Bois De Boulogne

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This dark treasure from 1945 was Robert Bresson's second feature. Scripted by Cocteau, it's erotic longing and revenge, as spurned spider woman Maria Casares seeks the downfall of her ex and his lover. In contrast with the grey, static textures of Bresson's celebrated work, there's near-noirish lustre, but the intriguing, deceptive narrative bareness, the sense of forces moving beneath the surface, are his alone.

This dark treasure from 1945 was Robert Bresson’s second feature. Scripted by Cocteau, it’s erotic longing and revenge, as spurned spider woman Maria Casares seeks the downfall of her ex and his lover. In contrast with the grey, static textures of Bresson’s celebrated work, there’s near-noirish lustre, but the intriguing, deceptive narrative bareness, the sense of forces moving beneath the surface, are his alone.

The Girl Can’t Help It

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It wasn't until Frank Tashlin's 1956 screwball comedy, starring Jayne Mansfield at her most buxom, that Hollywood finally exploited the nascent rock'n'roll boom. The result is a Technicolor feast of Gene Vincent, Little Richard and Eddie Cochran in their hip-swivelling prime, rivalled only by Julie London's (literally) haunting shiver through "Cry Me A River". Camp, corny, but classic.

It wasn’t until Frank Tashlin’s 1956 screwball comedy, starring Jayne Mansfield at her most buxom, that Hollywood finally exploited the nascent rock’n’roll boom. The result is a Technicolor feast of Gene Vincent, Little Richard and Eddie Cochran in their hip-swivelling prime, rivalled only by Julie London’s (literally) haunting shiver through “Cry Me A River”. Camp, corny, but classic.

Amarcord

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The title translates as "I remember" in dialect, but Fellini's visionary 1973 work (an Oscar winner) wasn't the rosy nostalgia about childhood he'd originally planned. His unique, untethered imagination bleeds into every frame of these '30s-set seaside snapshots, with?of course?sex and religion figuring prominently. Warring parents, twisted priests, Fascists, fantasy, farce and melancholy. As they say, very Fellini.

The title translates as “I remember” in dialect, but Fellini’s visionary 1973 work (an Oscar winner) wasn’t the rosy nostalgia about childhood he’d originally planned. His unique, untethered imagination bleeds into every frame of these ’30s-set seaside snapshots, with?of course?sex and religion figuring prominently. Warring parents, twisted priests, Fascists, fantasy, farce and melancholy. As they say, very Fellini.

1984

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With grim, grubby retro-future styling, Michael Radford's movie, originally released in the eponymous year, is the best adaptation of George Orwell's feel-bad totalitarian parable. As reluctant rebel Winston Smith, John Hurt is perfect?looks like he's spent his life in misery. The revelation is Richard Burton, weighed down with strange love, melancholy and menace in his final role as O'Brien, the investigator who takes Hurt under his wing to crush him.

With grim, grubby retro-future styling, Michael Radford’s movie, originally released in the eponymous year, is the best adaptation of George Orwell’s feel-bad totalitarian parable. As reluctant rebel Winston Smith, John Hurt is perfect?looks like he’s spent his life in misery. The revelation is Richard Burton, weighed down with strange love, melancholy and menace in his final role as O’Brien, the investigator who takes Hurt under his wing to crush him.

Orphée

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Jean Cocteau's 1949 reworking of the myth of Orpheus (Jean Marais) portrays him as a beat poet torn between his art, his wife (Marie D...

Jean Cocteau’s 1949 reworking of the myth of Orpheus (Jean Marais) portrays him as a beat poet torn between his art, his wife (Marie D

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