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Partie De Campagne (A Day In The Country)

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Generally hailed as Renoir's 'unfinished masterpiece', this sad, lyrical short from 1946 is based on a Guy de Maupassant story. A young girl finds a quasi-romance after wandering off from her picnicking family near the Seine. It's all about Renoir's impressionistic eye for nature and the transience of innocence: a personal, poetic work which now, extended, looks better than ever.

Generally hailed as Renoir’s ‘unfinished masterpiece’, this sad, lyrical short from 1946 is based on a Guy de Maupassant story. A young girl finds a quasi-romance after wandering off from her picnicking family near the Seine. It’s all about Renoir’s impressionistic eye for nature and the transience of innocence: a personal, poetic work which now, extended, looks better than ever.

El Crimen Del Padre Amaro

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Buckling under the weight of expectation inherent in all 'New Latin Cinema' (this isn't City Of God), El Crimen still has another deft performance from movement poster-boy Gael Garc...

Buckling under the weight of expectation inherent in all ‘New Latin Cinema’ (this isn’t City Of God), El Crimen still has another deft performance from movement poster-boy Gael Garc

Dirty Pretty Things

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The versatile Stephen Frears merits much praise for presenting a side of London life which is usually swept under rugs. Illegal immigrants work demeaning jobs round the clock to stay afloat, and are routinely exploited?right down to their internal organs. The heroic Chiwetel Ejiofor and an arguably miscast Audrey Tautou lead this worthy, intriguing drama with a macabre twist.

The versatile Stephen Frears merits much praise for presenting a side of London life which is usually swept under rugs. Illegal immigrants work demeaning jobs round the clock to stay afloat, and are routinely exploited?right down to their internal organs. The heroic Chiwetel Ejiofor and an arguably miscast Audrey Tautou lead this worthy, intriguing drama with a macabre twist.

Japón

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This strange, haunting film follows a middle-aged man who arrives in a remote Mexican village where he plans to commit suicide. Heavily indebted to Tarkovsky, the film strains for arthouse credibility with pretentious religious symbolism and achingly slow pace. Still much of the imagery is arresting, and its glimpses of rural life are raw and underpinned by an earthy comedy.

This strange, haunting film follows a middle-aged man who arrives in a remote Mexican village where he plans to commit suicide. Heavily indebted to Tarkovsky, the film strains for arthouse credibility with pretentious religious symbolism and achingly slow pace. Still much of the imagery is arresting, and its glimpses of rural life are raw and underpinned by an earthy comedy.

The Fisher King

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Terry Gilliam's epic 1991 fable has both admirers and detractors: it now seems ambitious, unique and charming. The superb Jeff Bridges is a burned-out DJ who's at first irritated then revitalised by oddball visionary tramp Robin Williams and his hallucinatory Arthurian quests. The latter's hyper-babbling (like the director's flourishes) holds because Bridges is so magnificently solid and believable.

Terry Gilliam’s epic 1991 fable has both admirers and detractors: it now seems ambitious, unique and charming. The superb Jeff Bridges is a burned-out DJ who’s at first irritated then revitalised by oddball visionary tramp Robin Williams and his hallucinatory Arthurian quests. The latter’s hyper-babbling (like the director’s flourishes) holds because Bridges is so magnificently solid and believable.

Igby Goes Down

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Burr Steers' debut as writer-director is perhaps a little too self-consciously off-kilter, but the film's humour is satisfyingly sour and the performances of a large ensemble cast are impeccable. Pitched somewhere between the macabre and the merely eccentric, Igby stars a convincingly debauched Kieran Culkin as the film's eponymous rebellious teen. Igby is much troubled by his father's breakdown, a sullen juvenile at odds with a world he wants no part of and indeed wants only to drop out of. Claire Danes and Amanda Peet are excellent as the women he gets involved with, Ryan Phillippe is unbelievably smarmy as Igby's preppy brother and Susan Sarandon enjoys herself immensely as their monstrous mother. But it's Jeff Goldblum you'll remember for a reptilian turn as Igby's godfather in a sensationally creepy performance.

Burr Steers’ debut as writer-director is perhaps a little too self-consciously off-kilter, but the film’s humour is satisfyingly sour and the performances of a large ensemble cast are impeccable. Pitched somewhere between the macabre and the merely eccentric, Igby stars a convincingly debauched Kieran Culkin as the film’s eponymous rebellious teen. Igby is much troubled by his father’s breakdown, a sullen juvenile at odds with a world he wants no part of and indeed wants only to drop out of.

Claire Danes and Amanda Peet are excellent as the women he gets involved with, Ryan Phillippe is unbelievably smarmy as Igby’s preppy brother and Susan Sarandon enjoys herself immensely as their monstrous mother. But it’s Jeff Goldblum you’ll remember for a reptilian turn as Igby’s godfather in a sensationally creepy performance.

2 Fast 2 Furious

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This sequel to 2001's The Fast And The Furious delivers the same brand of out-and-out nonsense as the first instalment without ever pausing to miss Vin Diesel or Rob Cohen, the breakthrough star/director combo who went on to deliver the less entertaining XXX. Shaft director John Singleton is on hand to whip up some hip hop flavour. Enjoyably brain-dead tripe.

This sequel to 2001’s The Fast And The Furious delivers the same brand of out-and-out nonsense as the first instalment without ever pausing to miss Vin Diesel or Rob Cohen, the breakthrough star/director combo who went on to deliver the less entertaining XXX. Shaft director John Singleton is on hand to whip up some hip hop flavour. Enjoyably brain-dead tripe.

Mountains Of The Moon

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Bob Rafelson's epic that nobody remembers. Beautifully shot and cast with Patrick Bergin as Burton and Iain Glen as Speke in their historical expedition to find the source of the Nile. The former compares wounds with Bernard Hill's Livingstone; the latter's a Victorian publicity hound. The journey is a bit National Geographic, but the hardships register.

Bob Rafelson’s epic that nobody remembers. Beautifully shot and cast with Patrick Bergin as Burton and Iain Glen as Speke in their historical expedition to find the source of the Nile. The former compares wounds with Bernard Hill’s Livingstone; the latter’s a Victorian publicity hound. The journey is a bit National Geographic, but the hardships register.

M

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An immaculate digital restoration job, including muffle-free audio, silky silver monochrome and original 'pillarbox' framing, adds an unnerving contemporary kick to Fritz Lang's 1931 masterpiece. Detailing the slavering hunt for bug-eyed child murderer Hans Beckert (Peter Lorre) through a dark and hostile, shadow-filled Berlin, this is the original, if not the best, serial killer flick.

An immaculate digital restoration job, including muffle-free audio, silky silver monochrome and original ‘pillarbox’ framing, adds an unnerving contemporary kick to Fritz Lang’s 1931 masterpiece. Detailing the slavering hunt for bug-eyed child murderer Hans Beckert (Peter Lorre) through a dark and hostile, shadow-filled Berlin, this is the original, if not the best, serial killer flick.

Ulzana’s Raid

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Directed by the hugely uncompromising Robert Aldrich, this ferocious post-Wild Bunch western stars Burt Lancaster as a world-weary army scout at odds with callow cavalry officer Bruce Davison on a mission to hunt down the errant Apache chief Ulzana, who with a small band of warriors has broken out of the reservation and are now looting, killing and raping their way across the bleak southwestern territories. Much tampered with by the studio on its original 1972 release and the subject of heated debate about its depiction of the Apaches, the film is in fact both complex and intelligent in its handling of the conflict it describes. Reacting to the saintly portraits of Indian life in films like Little Big Man, Aldrich and his scriptwriter Alan Sharpe are neither idealistic nor patronising, merely harshly realistic and painfully honest in their acknowledgement of the sheer savagery of frontier life, which has brutal parallels with the war America was then waging in Vietnam.

Directed by the hugely uncompromising Robert Aldrich, this ferocious post-Wild Bunch western stars Burt Lancaster as a world-weary army scout at odds with callow cavalry officer Bruce Davison on a mission to hunt down the errant Apache chief Ulzana, who with a small band of warriors has broken out of the reservation and are now looting, killing and raping their way across the bleak southwestern territories.

Much tampered with by the studio on its original 1972 release and the subject of heated debate about its depiction of the Apaches, the film is in fact both complex and intelligent in its handling of the conflict it describes. Reacting to the saintly portraits of Indian life in films like Little Big Man, Aldrich and his scriptwriter Alan Sharpe are neither idealistic nor patronising, merely harshly realistic and painfully honest in their acknowledgement of the sheer savagery of frontier life, which has brutal parallels with the war America was then waging in Vietnam.

Warm Water Under A Red Bridge

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From Shohei Imamura?one of several 'legendary Japanese masters' none of us have ever heard of?comes a genuinely surreal fable of a man searching for hidden treasure who finds a complex erotic gush-out with a lonely young woman who's turned on by water. It's often beautiful to look at, though the orgasmic writhing sections are unintentionally hilarious.

From Shohei Imamura?one of several ‘legendary Japanese masters’ none of us have ever heard of?comes a genuinely surreal fable of a man searching for hidden treasure who finds a complex erotic gush-out with a lonely young woman who’s turned on by water. It’s often beautiful to look at, though the orgasmic writhing sections are unintentionally hilarious.

Intacto

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Potentially ridiculous premise about a cabal of gamblers who harness the power of, er, luck, is admirably sustained by gutsy turns from Leonardo Sbaraglia as a lucky plane crash survivor mentored by lucky earthquake survivor Eusebio Poncela in order to take revenge on casino owner and lucky holocaus...

Potentially ridiculous premise about a cabal of gamblers who harness the power of, er, luck, is admirably sustained by gutsy turns from Leonardo Sbaraglia as a lucky plane crash survivor mentored by lucky earthquake survivor Eusebio Poncela in order to take revenge on casino owner and lucky holocaust survivor Max Von Sydow. Fractured narrative, arty mise-en-sc

Flight Of The Intruder

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Gung-ho navy flyboys Willem Dafoe and Brad Johnson, disillusioned with America's half-hearted prosecution of the war in Vietnam, attempt to hurry the conflict to a conclusion by taking it upon themselves to bomb Hanoi. Hilarious macho nonsense from John Milius at his most demented, in other words.

Gung-ho navy flyboys Willem Dafoe and Brad Johnson, disillusioned with America’s half-hearted prosecution of the war in Vietnam, attempt to hurry the conflict to a conclusion by taking it upon themselves to bomb Hanoi. Hilarious macho nonsense from John Milius at his most demented, in other words.

A Short Film About Killing

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One of the most revered of Krzysztof Kieslowski's "10 commandments" series, the late director's determinedly bleak parable investigates a pointless murder and a lawyer's subsequent near-existential defence. Out the same year ('88) as A Short Film About Love, its intensity made the Polish maestro a global name.

One of the most revered of Krzysztof Kieslowski’s “10 commandments” series, the late director’s determinedly bleak parable investigates a pointless murder and a lawyer’s subsequent near-existential defence. Out the same year (’88) as A Short Film About Love, its intensity made the Polish maestro a global name.

Rambling Rose

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Screenplay by the author Calder Willingham, generic domestics handled by Duvall's Pop and Diane Ladd's Mom, sexual disruptions dispensed by major-outfitted, Oscar-nominated Laura Dern as the teenage housekeeper. Her Rose has an earned rep, but Mom leaps to her defence. Mom's had enough of the South, too. The Button, Lukas Haas, pants and ogles from the sidelines.

Screenplay by the author Calder Willingham, generic domestics handled by Duvall’s Pop and Diane Ladd’s Mom, sexual disruptions dispensed by major-outfitted, Oscar-nominated Laura Dern as the teenage housekeeper. Her Rose has an earned rep, but Mom leaps to her defence. Mom’s had enough of the South, too. The Button, Lukas Haas, pants and ogles from the sidelines.

Pink Floyd—The Dark Side Of The Moon

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The latest in the excellent Classic Albums series turns to the Floyd's masterpiece?and given such dubious contenders as Meat Loaf and Judas Priest have already featured, the surprise is that it's taken this long. The hour-plus documentary follows the familiar mix of archive footage (ranging back to the early days with Syd Barrett) and current interviews, in which David Gilmour in particular comes across as hugely entertaining. And what makes it a classic album? The talking heads conclude it's a combination of the universality of the theme, Gilmour's guitar-playing and the strength of Waters' songwriting before he hit The Wall.

The latest in the excellent Classic Albums series turns to the Floyd’s masterpiece?and given such dubious contenders as Meat Loaf and Judas Priest have already featured, the surprise is that it’s taken this long. The hour-plus documentary follows the familiar mix of archive footage (ranging back to the early days with Syd Barrett) and current interviews, in which David Gilmour in particular comes across as hugely entertaining. And what makes it a classic album? The talking heads conclude it’s a combination of the universality of the theme, Gilmour’s guitar-playing and the strength of Waters’ songwriting before he hit The Wall.

Doves—Where We’re Calling From

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They may not be the most charismatic bunch ever to tread a rock'n'roll stage, but Doves sure know how to put on a fine show. Recorded live in the extraordinary location of the Eden Project in Cornwall during the summer of 2002, the Manchester trio storm through a rousing set of uplifting tunes, in which "Pounding" and "There Goes The Fear", from their latest album, The Last Broadcast, are inevitably the highlights. EXTRAS: Arguably even better than the main feature. A huge array of extras includes a documentary specially filmed for the DVD, a second mini-doc on their ill-fated earlier incarnation as Sub Sub, all the promo videos, hidden tracks, and unseen footage of the Hacienda in all its drug-crazed glory. Rating Star (NW)

They may not be the most charismatic bunch ever to tread a rock’n’roll stage, but Doves sure know how to put on a fine show. Recorded live in the extraordinary location of the Eden Project in Cornwall during the summer of 2002, the Manchester trio storm through a rousing set of uplifting tunes, in which “Pounding” and “There Goes The Fear”, from their latest album, The Last Broadcast, are inevitably the highlights.

EXTRAS: Arguably even better than the main feature. A huge array of extras includes a documentary specially filmed for the DVD, a second mini-doc on their ill-fated earlier incarnation as Sub Sub, all the promo videos, hidden tracks, and unseen footage of the Hacienda in all its drug-crazed glory. Rating Star

(NW)

Can DVD

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Compilation of documentary, videos and live footage marking the 35th anniversary of the Krautrockers. Though their backgrounds were in jazz and classical, they blasted rock into the future via its first principles through repetitive, improvised sessions. This DVD has live material from Cologne and a '76 slot on TOTP playing their one hit, "I Want More". The live footage is irretrievably '70s in its visual mixture of the garish and dismal but the music's way out and beyond. Interviews confirm the cerebral underpinning of this most deceptively primal of bands.

Compilation of documentary, videos and live footage marking the 35th anniversary of the Krautrockers. Though their backgrounds were in jazz and classical, they blasted rock into the future via its first principles through repetitive, improvised sessions. This DVD has live material from Cologne and a ’76 slot on TOTP playing their one hit, “I Want More”. The live footage is irretrievably ’70s in its visual mixture of the garish and dismal but the music’s way out and beyond. Interviews confirm the cerebral underpinning of this most deceptively primal of bands.

Anthem For Doomed Youth

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Between the release of his career-defining performances for director John Sturges in The Magnificent Seven (1960) and The Great Escape (1963), Steve McQueen experimented with his screen persona in three wildly varying military projects. He played a scheming Navy lieutenant-cum-casino thief in comic misfire The Hollywood Machine (1961); a cocky WWII fighter pilot in the underrated, British-made The War Lover (1962) and the ferocious, wild-eyed infantryman Reese in Don Siegel's superlative anti-war classic Hell Is For Heroes (also 1962). One of the first Hollywood-produced combat flicks (alongside Robert Aldrich's earlier Attack) to truly deliver on its promised anti-war message, Hell Is For Heroes was originally crafted as a showcase for the emerging McQueen but ended up becoming far more in the accomplished hands of Siegel. Writer/director Robert Pirosh (who'd won an Oscar for scripting William Wellman's 1949 Battle of the Bulge drama Battleground, and went on to create US TV's classic '60s WWII drama Combat!), based his original script on the true story of seven massively-outnumbered Gls in 1944, ordered to hold their position on the Siegfried Line until reinforcements arrived. After polishing up a final draft (entitled Separation Hill) in consultation with his star, Pirosh shot a week's worth of footage before the ever-capricious McQueen demanded a rewrite that increased his screen time and reduced the importance of Pirosh's ensemble cast, which boasted the cream of Hollywood's young acting talent. Pirosh refused, only to have Paramount kick him off his own flick and replace him with Siegel. Which is the best thing that could have happened to the now-retitled Hell Is For Heroes. Despite Pirosh's pedigree as a writer of war dramas, his slender output as director languishes in justifiable obscurity, with only his remarkable 1951 Japanese-American soldiers-at-war opus Go For Broke! worth seeing, while Siegel was about to kick-start 10 years of unparalleled creativity. Hell Is For Heroes bristles with the snappily-edited emotional urgency honed on B-movie classics like Invasion Of The Body Snatchers and Baby Face Nelson that soon became his trademark. Filmed over several weeks, with the woods of Redding, California standing in for wartime France, Siegel's movie takes place over 48 desperate hours as the men of 2nd Squad find themselves reassigned to the Siegfried Line. Joined by the insubordinate, battle-scarred Private Reese, no amount of well-drilled discipline or jovial bonhomie can disguise the lone squad's sense of doom. They're dead and they know it. Despite Siegel and rewrite man Richard Carr's brief to big up McQueen, Hell Is For Heroes works precisely because Siegel, ever the wily professional, was able to placate his needy star and stay true to Pirosh's ensemble vision. Sure enough, McQueen's mesmerising, as he always was with the right director. Sporting a scrubby beard and a snarling fuck-you attitude, he's a killer defined by war, living for combat and left incapable of forming human relationships. McQueen may be the undoubted star, but Siegel serves all his cast well. The film is stuffed with deadly-earnest performances, most of which serve to accentuate the random, ever-present carnage. From James Coburn's wry, fatalistic mechanic Henshaw to Mike Kellin's displaced family man Kolinski and Harry Guardino's raging Sgt Larkin, Siegel takes the usual Hollywood GI stereotypes and relentlessly subverts them. Comic relief is briefly supplied by hustling Private Corby (played so well by ailing Vegas crooner Bobby Darin that you wish he'd devoted his short life to movies rather than lounge-core classics) and green-as-they-come decoy Private Driscoll (first-time actor Bob Newhart, cleverly riffing on his classic man-on-the-phone comedy routines). But even their light-hearted schtick ends in sober desperation as Siegel delivers a bleak monochrome vision of the European theatre at its most unforgiving. This slice of cinematic combat wouldn't be matched for intensity until Saving Private Ryan almost 40 years later. Even then, Spielberg couldn't resist a climactic blaze of flag-waving optimism. No such conclusion for Siegel, ever the dark-hearted nihilist. Hell Is For Heroes ends with 2nd Squad decimated, their sacrifice instantly forgotten as the battle rages heedlessly on and Siegel's camera zooms in on the unimpressive lone pillbox they've sacrificed everything to destroy. War is hell. DVD EXTRAS: None.

Between the release of his career-defining performances for director John Sturges in The Magnificent Seven (1960) and The Great Escape (1963), Steve McQueen experimented with his screen persona in three wildly varying military projects. He played a scheming Navy lieutenant-cum-casino thief in comic misfire The Hollywood Machine (1961); a cocky WWII fighter pilot in the underrated, British-made The War Lover (1962) and the ferocious, wild-eyed infantryman Reese in Don Siegel’s superlative anti-war classic Hell Is For Heroes (also 1962).

One of the first Hollywood-produced combat flicks (alongside Robert Aldrich’s earlier Attack) to truly deliver on its promised anti-war message, Hell Is For Heroes was originally crafted as a showcase for the emerging McQueen but ended up becoming far more in the accomplished hands of Siegel.

Writer/director Robert Pirosh (who’d won an Oscar for scripting William Wellman’s 1949 Battle of the Bulge drama Battleground, and went on to create US TV’s classic ’60s WWII drama Combat!), based his original script on the true story of seven massively-outnumbered Gls in 1944, ordered to hold their position on the Siegfried Line until reinforcements arrived.

After polishing up a final draft (entitled Separation Hill) in consultation with his star, Pirosh shot a week’s worth of footage before the ever-capricious McQueen demanded a rewrite that increased his screen time and reduced the importance of Pirosh’s ensemble cast, which boasted the cream of Hollywood’s young acting talent. Pirosh refused, only to have Paramount kick him off his own flick and replace him with Siegel.

Which is the best thing that could have happened to the now-retitled Hell Is For Heroes. Despite Pirosh’s pedigree as a writer of war dramas, his slender output as director languishes in justifiable obscurity, with only his remarkable 1951 Japanese-American soldiers-at-war opus Go For Broke! worth seeing, while Siegel was about to kick-start 10 years of unparalleled creativity. Hell Is For Heroes bristles with the snappily-edited emotional urgency honed on B-movie classics like Invasion Of The Body Snatchers and Baby Face Nelson that soon became his trademark.

Filmed over several weeks, with the woods of Redding, California standing in for wartime France, Siegel’s movie takes place over 48 desperate hours as the men of 2nd Squad find themselves reassigned to the Siegfried Line. Joined by the insubordinate, battle-scarred Private Reese, no amount of well-drilled discipline or jovial bonhomie can disguise the lone squad’s sense of doom. They’re dead and they know it.

Despite Siegel and rewrite man Richard Carr’s brief to big up McQueen, Hell Is For Heroes works precisely because Siegel, ever the wily professional, was able to placate his needy star and stay true to Pirosh’s ensemble vision.

Sure enough, McQueen’s mesmerising, as he always was with the right director. Sporting a scrubby beard and a snarling fuck-you attitude, he’s a killer defined by war, living for combat and left incapable of forming human relationships.

McQueen may be the undoubted star, but Siegel serves all his cast well. The film is stuffed with deadly-earnest performances, most of which serve to accentuate the random, ever-present carnage. From James Coburn’s wry, fatalistic mechanic Henshaw to Mike Kellin’s displaced family man Kolinski and Harry Guardino’s raging Sgt Larkin, Siegel takes the usual Hollywood GI stereotypes and relentlessly subverts them.

Comic relief is briefly supplied by hustling Private Corby (played so well by ailing Vegas crooner Bobby Darin that you wish he’d devoted his short life to movies rather than lounge-core classics) and green-as-they-come decoy Private Driscoll (first-time actor Bob Newhart, cleverly riffing on his classic man-on-the-phone comedy routines). But even their light-hearted schtick ends in sober desperation as Siegel delivers a bleak monochrome vision of the European theatre at its most unforgiving. This slice of cinematic combat wouldn’t be matched for intensity until Saving Private Ryan almost 40 years later. Even then, Spielberg couldn’t resist a climactic blaze of flag-waving optimism.

No such conclusion for Siegel, ever the dark-hearted nihilist. Hell Is For Heroes ends with 2nd Squad decimated, their sacrifice instantly forgotten as the battle rages heedlessly on and Siegel’s camera zooms in on the unimpressive lone pillbox they’ve sacrificed everything to destroy. War is hell.

DVD EXTRAS: None.

Shane

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The definitive Hollywood western, George Stevens' Shane has inimitable narrative momentum, rolling effortlessly from the introduction of Alan Ladd's buckskin dandy to the initial saloon tensions ("You talking to me?") and the epic punch-up, through the homesteader murder and the final confrontation with Jack Palance's beguiling assassin. Magnificent.

The definitive Hollywood western, George Stevens’ Shane has inimitable narrative momentum, rolling effortlessly from the introduction of Alan Ladd’s buckskin dandy to the initial saloon tensions (“You talking to me?”) and the epic punch-up, through the homesteader murder and the final confrontation with Jack Palance’s beguiling assassin. Magnificent.

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