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A Bridge Too Far

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And at least an hour too long. Representing the tail-end of the epic war movie wave, Richard Attenborough's 1977 superproduction reconstructs the disastrous Allied attempt to seize half-a-dozen Dutch bridges behind enemy lines. Ponderous, but with a cast featuring everyone from Laurence Olivier, Dirk Bogarde, Sean Connery and Michael Caine to Gene Hackman, Robert Redford, James Caan and Elliott Gould, it's satisfyingly star-studded.

And at least an hour too long. Representing the tail-end of the epic war movie wave, Richard Attenborough’s 1977 superproduction reconstructs the disastrous Allied attempt to seize half-a-dozen Dutch bridges behind enemy lines. Ponderous, but with a cast featuring everyone from Laurence Olivier, Dirk Bogarde, Sean Connery and Michael Caine to Gene Hackman, Robert Redford, James Caan and Elliott Gould, it’s satisfyingly star-studded.

People I Know

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Pacino is electric in this shamefully overlooked, brilliantly scripted parable of an ageing New York PR man reaching the end of his tether. Footage of the Twin Towers meant its release was screwed up by cuts, but a charged, engrossing film remains, with druggie starlet T...

Pacino is electric in this shamefully overlooked, brilliantly scripted parable of an ageing New York PR man reaching the end of his tether. Footage of the Twin Towers meant its release was screwed up by cuts, but a charged, engrossing film remains, with druggie starlet T

Girl With A Pearl Earring

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This fictitious backstory to the creation of Vermeer's best-known painting looks so impressive, and so precisely mimics the colours the 17th-century Dutchman used, it's a while before you realise it's just a prissy costume drama starring Colin Firth and pouty Scarlett Johansson. A dainty tale of repressed lust, perfectly pitched at its middlebrow audience.

This fictitious backstory to the creation of Vermeer’s best-known painting looks so impressive, and so precisely mimics the colours the 17th-century Dutchman used, it’s a while before you realise it’s just a prissy costume drama starring Colin Firth and pouty Scarlett Johansson. A dainty tale of repressed lust, perfectly pitched at its middlebrow audience.

Funny As Hell

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Gone are the days when one would be risking abject ridicule by daring to publicly suggest that The King Of Comedy is De Niro's greatest movie. Not just up there in the same ballpark as Taxi Driver, Raging Bull and GoodFellas but darker, funnier and mightier than them all. Seemingly, the culture has finally caught up with Martin Scorsese's second least popular movie (after The Last Temptation Of Christ). The King Of Comedy always was ahead of its time, almost precognitive in anticipating our fast-burning, soul-corroding obsession with celebrity. After all, as Garry Shandling has unsmilingly declared, "the whole world is showbiz now." Released in 1983, in the wake of the Lennon assassination and the botched attempt on Reagan's life, The King Of Comedy was widely misunderstood as a wry satire on celebrity worship and De Niro's character, Rupert Pupkin, tagged as a kind of sitcom Travis Bickle. In the retrospective documentary that comes with this new DVD package, Scorsese makes the point that, if anything, Pupkin is a more potentially violent character than Bickle could ever be. As the aspiring stand-up who hatches a kidnap plot so that he can grab his 15 minutes and appear on The Jerry Langford Show, Pupkin risks infamy in his attempt to escape anonymity on the basis that it's "better to be king for a night than a schmuck for a lifetime." He is truly God's Loneliest Man. Twenty years before it was fully accepted that fame and merit could be mutually exclusive, Pupkin perfectly encapsulates the maniacal mindset of the no-talent loser who realises that lack of talent will get him everywhere with the right kind of hype. The King Of Comedy moves at a frenetic pace that's in keeping with Pupkin's manic oddness. But all the freneticism is on the surface. Beyond that, the light and colour seem to be claustrophobically underworldly (more so than ever on this DVD version). The characters, meanwhile, are in constant kinetic motion but also appear strangely, horribly still (Pupkin frozen in lonely self-delusion, Jerry Lewis'deadpan Langford stiff with the boredom of success, Sandra Bernhard's Masha a slow-ticking timebomb of sexual terrorism). The result is, of course, a comedy of profound embarrassment that at its best (Pupkin's excursion to Langford's vacation home, his visits to the Hell's waiting-rooms of TV studio receptions) is unbearably funny for the simple reason that it rings so uncomfortably true. But the result is more than a masterpiece of dark comedy. The result is also a masterpiece of modern everyday horror. At every brilliant turn, The King Of Comedy mines the horror of soulless banality that's the only sure consequence of a world where all is showbiz and we can all be king for a night, just so long as we are pathological enough.

Gone are the days when one would be risking abject ridicule by daring to publicly suggest that The King Of Comedy is De Niro’s greatest movie. Not just up there in the same ballpark as Taxi Driver, Raging Bull and GoodFellas but darker, funnier and mightier than them all. Seemingly, the culture has finally caught up with Martin Scorsese’s second least popular movie (after The Last Temptation Of Christ). The King Of Comedy always was ahead of its time, almost precognitive in anticipating our fast-burning, soul-corroding obsession with celebrity. After all, as Garry Shandling has unsmilingly declared, “the whole world is showbiz now.”

Released in 1983, in the wake of the Lennon assassination and the botched attempt on Reagan’s life, The King Of Comedy was widely misunderstood as a wry satire on celebrity worship and De Niro’s character, Rupert Pupkin, tagged as a kind of sitcom Travis Bickle. In the retrospective documentary that comes with this new DVD package, Scorsese makes the point that, if anything, Pupkin is a more potentially violent character than Bickle could ever be. As the aspiring stand-up who hatches a kidnap plot so that he can grab his 15 minutes and appear on The Jerry Langford Show, Pupkin risks infamy in his attempt to escape anonymity on the basis that it’s “better to be king for a night than a schmuck for a lifetime.” He is truly God’s Loneliest Man. Twenty years before it was fully accepted that fame and merit could be mutually exclusive, Pupkin perfectly encapsulates the maniacal mindset of the no-talent loser who realises that lack of talent will get him everywhere with the right kind of hype.

The King Of Comedy moves at a frenetic pace that’s in keeping with Pupkin’s manic oddness. But all the freneticism is on the surface. Beyond that, the light and colour seem to be claustrophobically underworldly (more so than ever on this DVD version). The characters, meanwhile, are in constant kinetic motion but also appear strangely, horribly still (Pupkin frozen in lonely self-delusion, Jerry Lewis’deadpan Langford stiff with the boredom of success, Sandra Bernhard’s Masha a slow-ticking timebomb of sexual terrorism).

The result is, of course, a comedy of profound embarrassment that at its best (Pupkin’s excursion to Langford’s vacation home, his visits to the Hell’s waiting-rooms of TV studio receptions) is unbearably funny for the simple reason that it rings so uncomfortably true. But the result is more than a masterpiece of dark comedy. The result is also a masterpiece of modern everyday horror. At every brilliant turn, The King Of Comedy mines the horror of soulless banality that’s the only sure consequence of a world where all is showbiz and we can all be king for a night, just so long as we are pathological enough.

Blow-Up

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To explode a myth: in 1966 Antonioni's first English film was pitched not on the Italian director's vision or its meditations on the interface between reality and fantasy, but on its 'unflinching' portrayal of Swinging London?ie, much nudity. The original trailer, included here, makes that perfectly clear: it was popular because of breasts, not because it asked what 'meaning' meant. And photographer David Hemmings' romps with models and Vanessa Redgrave remain icons of "yeeeah, baby" wish fulfilment for lensmen everywhere. Antonioni makes off-kilter use of London locations and The Yardbirds' rocking, and there are many then-radical scenes and op-art colours. But as the navel-gazing story takes hold, with Hemmings trying to ascertain whether he's unwittingly snapped a murder in a park, there's a curious listlessness. Watching it now's like seeing Austin Powers morph into The Scent Of Green Papaya halfway through. Under-developed, but unique.

To explode a myth: in 1966 Antonioni’s first English film was pitched not on the Italian director’s vision or its meditations on the interface between reality and fantasy, but on its ‘unflinching’ portrayal of Swinging London?ie, much nudity. The original trailer, included here, makes that perfectly clear: it was popular because of breasts, not because it asked what ‘meaning’ meant.

And photographer David Hemmings’ romps with models and Vanessa Redgrave remain icons of “yeeeah, baby” wish fulfilment for lensmen everywhere. Antonioni makes off-kilter use of London locations and The Yardbirds’ rocking, and there are many then-radical scenes and op-art colours. But as the navel-gazing story takes hold, with Hemmings trying to ascertain whether he’s unwittingly snapped a murder in a park, there’s a curious listlessness. Watching it now’s like seeing Austin Powers morph into The Scent Of Green Papaya halfway through. Under-developed, but unique.

The Mother

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Irrespective of the now infamous intra-generational doggie-doggie, this steely little tale concerning a granny (Anne Reid) and a horny builder (Daniel Craig) is a visceral attack from writer Hanif Kureishi on the hateful London middle classes. The merciless depiction of harsh money-grabbing sons and neurotic, self-obsessed daughters gives the flick its genuinely dark heart.

Irrespective of the now infamous intra-generational doggie-doggie, this steely little tale concerning a granny (Anne Reid) and a horny builder (Daniel Craig) is a visceral attack from writer Hanif Kureishi on the hateful London middle classes. The merciless depiction of harsh money-grabbing sons and neurotic, self-obsessed daughters gives the flick its genuinely dark heart.

There’s Something About Mary: Special Edition

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Arguably the Farrellys' best film, though already ageing badly. A bunch of set-pieces (Ben Stiller's zipper problems Cameron Diaz's innovative hair gel) linked by a ridiculous, overlong plot, it gets its big belly-laugh moments right and you tolerate the padding. Stiller's lack of vanity allows him to carry off sketches others would muff.

Arguably the Farrellys’ best film, though already ageing badly. A bunch of set-pieces (Ben Stiller’s zipper problems Cameron Diaz’s innovative hair gel) linked by a ridiculous, overlong plot, it gets its big belly-laugh moments right and you tolerate the padding. Stiller’s lack of vanity allows him to carry off sketches others would muff.

Swimming Pool

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Fran...

Fran

Mr Majestyk

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The greatest chase thriller about a melon farmer ever! Charles Bronson is the melon man, prevented from gathering his crop when he's handcuffed to mafia hitman Al Lettieri. Escaping, Bronson wants to turn the killer over to the cops so that he can harvest his melons, but soon the hoods are after him. Directed in pulpy style by Richard Fleischer from an Elmore Leonard script. Bronson's melons look lovely.

The greatest chase thriller about a melon farmer ever! Charles Bronson is the melon man, prevented from gathering his crop when he’s handcuffed to mafia hitman Al Lettieri. Escaping, Bronson wants to turn the killer over to the cops so that he can harvest his melons, but soon the hoods are after him. Directed in pulpy style by Richard Fleischer from an Elmore Leonard script. Bronson’s melons look lovely.

Monty Python’s The Meaning Of Life: Special Edition

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Yikes?if you haven't seen this in a while, prepare to be disappointed. By '83, the Pythons' pioneering madcap humour had descended into reliance on pointless shock tactics. It may be bold, but it's not funny. Their guide to life and death?intelligent, sure, but self-congratulatory?includes copious vomiting, bleeding, organ removal and bouncing Benny Hill Show breasts. Not their best.

Yikes?if you haven’t seen this in a while, prepare to be disappointed. By ’83, the Pythons’ pioneering madcap humour had descended into reliance on pointless shock tactics. It may be bold, but it’s not funny. Their guide to life and death?intelligent, sure, but self-congratulatory?includes copious vomiting, bleeding, organ removal and bouncing Benny Hill Show breasts. Not their best.

Bottle Rocket

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Dazzlingly confident '96 debut from The Royal Tenenbaums' Wes Anderson which follows the misadventures of an eccentric gang of wannabe Texan mobsters. It immediately established the Anderson template: deadpan delivery, solid colours, Owen and Luke Wilson, strong musical soundtrack, immaculately cluttered production design, leisurely pace, iconic costumes, and an eerie sense of timelessness.

Dazzlingly confident ’96 debut from The Royal Tenenbaums’ Wes Anderson which follows the misadventures of an eccentric gang of wannabe Texan mobsters. It immediately established the Anderson template: deadpan delivery, solid colours, Owen and Luke Wilson, strong musical soundtrack, immaculately cluttered production design, leisurely pace, iconic costumes, and an eerie sense of timelessness.

Capricorn One

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This 1977 thriller?"All The Astronaut's Men", if you will?never delivers on its intriguing premise, infuriatingly. NASA fakes a Mars landing in a TV studio, then sets out to kill the crew to keep the truth a secret. James Brolin, Sam Waterston and OJ Simpson are the astronauts, Elliott Gould the journalist who comes to their aid.

This 1977 thriller?”All The Astronaut’s Men”, if you will?never delivers on its intriguing premise, infuriatingly. NASA fakes a Mars landing in a TV studio, then sets out to kill the crew to keep the truth a secret. James Brolin, Sam Waterston and OJ Simpson are the astronauts, Elliott Gould the journalist who comes to their aid.

Dr Mabuse: The Gambler

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Fritz Lang's seminal 1922 thriller unleashed cinema's first modern criminal, Mabuse, a shadowy underworld figure with a thousand faces. Combining technological genius with an almost occult ability to terrify, Lang's Mabuse is a sinister, manipulative mastermind. The 1933 sequel, The Testament Of Dr Mabuse, is even better, with Mabuse as a demonic Hitler figure. Everything from Bond to Blue Velvet starts here.

Fritz Lang’s seminal 1922 thriller unleashed cinema’s first modern criminal, Mabuse, a shadowy underworld figure with a thousand faces. Combining technological genius with an almost occult ability to terrify, Lang’s Mabuse is a sinister, manipulative mastermind. The 1933 sequel, The Testament Of Dr Mabuse, is even better, with Mabuse as a demonic Hitler figure. Everything from Bond to Blue Velvet starts here.

Stuck On You

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Pretty funny farce from the Farrellys: not back to their best, but at least regrouping. Greg Kinnear and Matt Damon are conjoined twins who leave smalltown life to seek fame in Hollywood. Evil Cher's mad scheme backfires, and they make it. But what they really want is love...awww. Sweet and slick, with fine gags like, "He's drinking; I'm the designated walker."

Pretty funny farce from the Farrellys: not back to their best, but at least regrouping. Greg Kinnear and Matt Damon are conjoined twins who leave smalltown life to seek fame in Hollywood. Evil Cher’s mad scheme backfires, and they make it. But what they really want is love…awww. Sweet and slick, with fine gags like, “He’s drinking; I’m the designated walker.”

The Osterman Weekend

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Adapted from a Robert Ludlum potboiler, Sam Peckinpah's demented final movie from 1983 ostensibly centres on TV reporter Rutger Hauer, who, coerced by sinister CIA men Burt Lancaster and John Hurt into selling out old pals, allows them to rig his home with cameras to monitor their weekend reunion. It's soon clear Peckinpah has far more interest in Hurt, brilliant as the betrayed rogue agent whose maniacal plotting drives the film over the edge. A bizarre pile-up of double-triple-crossing, it's almost impossible to follow; but then, confusion and panic are what the film is about. Revolving around eternal Peckinpah themes?loyalty, betrayal, revenge?it's a dense, alienating tangle of surveillance, sex, drugs and violence, climaxing in a holocaust of machine-guns and crossbows staged around a burning swimming pool and a lecture on the evils of television. All in all, not so much a movie as a twitchily convulsive essay in rampant paranoia. But one hell of a way to go out.

Adapted from a Robert Ludlum potboiler, Sam Peckinpah’s demented final movie from 1983 ostensibly centres on TV reporter Rutger Hauer, who, coerced by sinister CIA men Burt Lancaster and John Hurt into selling out old pals, allows them to rig his home with cameras to monitor their weekend reunion. It’s soon clear Peckinpah has far more interest in Hurt, brilliant as the betrayed rogue agent whose maniacal plotting drives the film over the edge. A bizarre pile-up of double-triple-crossing, it’s almost impossible to follow; but then, confusion and panic are what the film is about. Revolving around eternal Peckinpah themes?loyalty, betrayal, revenge?it’s a dense, alienating tangle of surveillance, sex, drugs and violence, climaxing in a holocaust of machine-guns and crossbows staged around a burning swimming pool and a lecture on the evils of television. All in all, not so much a movie as a twitchily convulsive essay in rampant paranoia. But one hell of a way to go out.

Inherit The Wind

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Bafflingly shite title belies one of the great courtroom flicks of all time. A 1960 Stanley Kramer classic based on the true story of a Hillsboro professor arrested for teaching "God-bashing" Darwinism, it features effortless turns from Spencer Tracy and Fredric March as the duelling lawyers, some able support from a de-cheesed Gene Kelly, and a script bristling with one-liners.

Bafflingly shite title belies one of the great courtroom flicks of all time. A 1960 Stanley Kramer classic based on the true story of a Hillsboro professor arrested for teaching “God-bashing” Darwinism, it features effortless turns from Spencer Tracy and Fredric March as the duelling lawyers, some able support from a de-cheesed Gene Kelly, and a script bristling with one-liners.

Black Rainbow

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Mike Hodges' career has ranged from the classic (Get Carter) to the crap (Morons From Outer Space). This 1989 thriller about a psychic (Rosanna Arquette) who foretells violent deaths would be dark and vaguely gripping if it wasn't marred by clunky plot shifts and a hopeless performance from Tom Hulce. When he and Arquette smooch, it's like they're both kissing Hitler.

Mike Hodges’ career has ranged from the classic (Get Carter) to the crap (Morons From Outer Space). This 1989 thriller about a psychic (Rosanna Arquette) who foretells violent deaths would be dark and vaguely gripping if it wasn’t marred by clunky plot shifts and a hopeless performance from Tom Hulce. When he and Arquette smooch, it’s like they’re both kissing Hitler.

Bright Young Things

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Stephen Fry adapts Evelyn Waugh's Vile Bodies as a rom-com. Great cast of luvvies (notably Peter O'Toole), but the central romance between Emily Mortimer and Stephen Campbell Moore evokes no more sympathy than the endless parade of aristocratic jazz babies subsisting on champagne and "naughty salt". A lively mess.

Stephen Fry adapts Evelyn Waugh’s Vile Bodies as a rom-com. Great cast of luvvies (notably Peter O’Toole), but the central romance between Emily Mortimer and Stephen Campbell Moore evokes no more sympathy than the endless parade of aristocratic jazz babies subsisting on champagne and “naughty salt”. A lively mess.

Le Cercle Rouge

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Jean-Pierre Melville's penultimate film, from 1970, is the crime movie's Once Upon A Time In The West, a dark meditation on the iconography of hats, trenchcoats, guns, and the rituals of the heist. Alain Delon is the glacial master thief planning to take down a Parisian jewellery store, though he knows the cops are closing in. A steely, moody piece.

Jean-Pierre Melville’s penultimate film, from 1970, is the crime movie’s Once Upon A Time In The West, a dark meditation on the iconography of hats, trenchcoats, guns, and the rituals of the heist. Alain Delon is the glacial master thief planning to take down a Parisian jewellery store, though he knows the cops are closing in. A steely, moody piece.

Carry On Larry

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Culturally, we're obsessed with the past. Hollywood's Golden Age, we're constantly reminded, was the '40s and '50s. Rock's glory days were the '60s and '70s. Not so the US sitcom. The last 10 years or so have seen Roseanne, Cybill, Ellen, Friends, Frasier, Will & Grace, Sex And The City and, of ...

Culturally, we’re obsessed with the past. Hollywood’s Golden Age, we’re constantly reminded, was the ’40s and ’50s. Rock’s glory days were the ’60s and ’70s. Not so the US sitcom. The last 10 years or so have seen Roseanne, Cybill, Ellen, Friends, Frasier, Will & Grace, Sex And The City and, of course, greatest of all, Seinfeld and The Larry Sanders Show. If it’s 30-minute bursts of nihilistic hilarity and racily paced neurosis you’re after, these are, indeed, the best of times.

You know you’re living through a flourishing period of creativity when the brains behind one of these latterday classics?step forward Larry David, co-creator and co-executive producer of Seinfeld?can, with almost insolent ease, conjure up a second bid for comic immortality. Curb Your Enthusiasm has the dark, v

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