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"The night has its price," mysterious blonde Jenny Wright tells Adrian Pasdar's hapless Oklahoma farm boy before giving him a love bite and dragging him off on the road with her Mansonesque 'family' of white-trash serial-killer vampires?headed by a fantastic, dead-eyed Lance Henriksen. Kathryn Bigelow's genre-bending mix of horror, western and Southern gothic drags blood sucking into the modern world. One of the best horror movies of the last 20 years.

“The night has its price,” mysterious blonde Jenny Wright tells Adrian Pasdar’s hapless Oklahoma farm boy before giving him a love bite and dragging him off on the road with her Mansonesque ‘family’ of white-trash serial-killer vampires?headed by a fantastic, dead-eyed Lance Henriksen. Kathryn Bigelow’s genre-bending mix of horror, western and Southern gothic drags blood sucking into the modern world. One of the best horror movies of the last 20 years.

The Killer Elite

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Handsome widescreen digital transfer for one of Sam Peckinpah's most underestimated films, 1975's angrily prescient satire on corporate America, whose ultra-cool surface belies the roiling fury at its bleak and bitter heart. James Caan and Robert Duvall are cynical operatives for a San Francisco-based intelligence agency, doing jobs too dirty even for the CIA. Early on, Caan is crippled by gunfire in a bloody double-cross and 'retired' from the company. At which point, The Killer Elite becomes a meditation on familiar Peckinpah themes of loyalty, betrayal and revenge. Following Caan's long rehabilitation, the film's second half features a series of brilliantly filmed and edited set-pieces, including a Chinatown shoot-out, a dockyard face-off and a grand climax aboard a mothballed battleship in the US Navy's graveyard fleet in North Bay, where Caan and grizzled sidekicks Burt Young and Bo Hopkins take on a small army of ninja assassins.

Handsome widescreen digital transfer for one of Sam Peckinpah’s most underestimated films, 1975’s angrily prescient satire on corporate America, whose ultra-cool surface belies the roiling fury at its bleak and bitter heart. James Caan and Robert Duvall are cynical operatives for a San Francisco-based intelligence agency, doing jobs too dirty even for the CIA. Early on, Caan is crippled by gunfire in a bloody double-cross and ‘retired’ from the company. At which point, The Killer Elite becomes a meditation on familiar Peckinpah themes of loyalty, betrayal and revenge.

Following Caan’s long rehabilitation, the film’s second half features a series of brilliantly filmed and edited set-pieces, including a Chinatown shoot-out, a dockyard face-off and a grand climax aboard a mothballed battleship in the US Navy’s graveyard fleet in North Bay, where Caan and grizzled sidekicks Burt Young and Bo Hopkins take on a small army of ninja assassins.

Bad Lieutenant

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Abel Ferrara's excoriating study of how a man wallowing in his own filth at rock bottom finds the way to salvation. In an utterly naked performance as the corrupt, drug-addled, self-loathing New York cop unwillingly turned around by the rape of a nun, a desperately committed Harvey Keitel goes all the way. Then keeps going.

Abel Ferrara’s excoriating study of how a man wallowing in his own filth at rock bottom finds the way to salvation. In an utterly naked performance as the corrupt, drug-addled, self-loathing New York cop unwillingly turned around by the rape of a nun, a desperately committed Harvey Keitel goes all the way. Then keeps going.

Undercover Brother

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Funnier than it has any right to be (and co-written by the Austin Powers chaps), this gives Eddie Griffin a chance to shine as a superhero who's "funky, sexy and proud to be black". A cross between Shaft and James Brown (who cameos), he'll save the world from The Man as long as it doesn't mess with his afro. Denise Richards distracts him as White She Devil. Get on up.

Funnier than it has any right to be (and co-written by the Austin Powers chaps), this gives Eddie Griffin a chance to shine as a superhero who’s “funky, sexy and proud to be black”. A cross between Shaft and James Brown (who cameos), he’ll save the world from The Man as long as it doesn’t mess with his afro. Denise Richards distracts him as White She Devil. Get on up.

Tape – Chelsea Walls

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Two Ethan Hawke films. In Richard Linklater's Tape, Hawke's a drop-out, returned to his home town to confront arty high-flier Robert Sean Leonard over old girlfriend Uma Thurman. Confined to Hawke's motel room, it's a pressure cooker. Hawke directs the digitally-shot Chelsea Walls, set in the timeless New York hangout. A good attempt at apeing the kind of meandering independent movie that appeared in the late '60s?but just as trying. Great cast of chums, though, notably Little Jimmy Scott (singing "Jealous Guy") and Kris Kristofferson (trying to be Hemingway).

Two Ethan Hawke films. In Richard Linklater’s Tape, Hawke’s a drop-out, returned to his home town to confront arty high-flier Robert Sean Leonard over old girlfriend Uma Thurman. Confined to Hawke’s motel room, it’s a pressure cooker.

Hawke directs the digitally-shot Chelsea Walls, set in the timeless New York hangout. A good attempt at apeing the kind of meandering independent movie that appeared in the late ’60s?but just as trying. Great cast of chums, though, notably Little Jimmy Scott (singing “Jealous Guy”) and Kris Kristofferson (trying to be Hemingway).

Solaris

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Shaving a hefty 75 minutes off Tarkovsky's original (and ponderous) 1972 sci-fi classic, director/writer/cinematographer/editor Steven Soderbergh delivers a tight, punchy fable about a crippled space station, a glowing planet, a terrified crew, a lonely psychiatrist (Clooney) and the memories of loss that bind them together. The moods here are both melancholic and thought provoking, while Soderbergh regular Cliff Martinez's lightly tintinnabulating score is utterly beguiling.

Shaving a hefty 75 minutes off Tarkovsky’s original (and ponderous) 1972 sci-fi classic, director/writer/cinematographer/editor Steven Soderbergh delivers a tight, punchy fable about a crippled space station, a glowing planet, a terrified crew, a lonely psychiatrist (Clooney) and the memories of loss that bind them together. The moods here are both melancholic and thought provoking, while Soderbergh regular Cliff Martinez’s lightly tintinnabulating score is utterly beguiling.

Bleeder

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Though opening with a rocking Trainspotting-style intro and plenty of Tarantino-type cult film buffery, Bleeder gradually morphs into a truly horrifying psychodrama. Kim Bodnia delivers a stunning performance as reluctant dad-to-be Leo whose frustration begins a cycle of sickening abuse and ingeniously cruel revenge on the grim and seedy streets of Denmark.

Though opening with a rocking Trainspotting-style intro and plenty of Tarantino-type cult film buffery, Bleeder gradually morphs into a truly horrifying psychodrama. Kim Bodnia delivers a stunning performance as reluctant dad-to-be Leo whose frustration begins a cycle of sickening abuse and ingeniously cruel revenge on the grim and seedy streets of Denmark.

City By The Sea

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Inexplicably coolly reviewed, this Michael Caton-Jones thriller boasts Robert De Niro's best performance in years. As a New York detective estranged from his son, he's distraught when his boy (James Franco) is prime suspect in a case he's breaking. Frances McDormand's excellent as Bob's girlfriend; Long island is a lost Atlantis. A fine film. DVD EXTRAS: Commentaries by writer and producer, Caton-Jones short Mark Of A Murderer.Rating Star

Inexplicably coolly reviewed, this Michael Caton-Jones thriller boasts Robert De Niro’s best performance in years. As a New York detective estranged from his son, he’s distraught when his boy (James Franco) is prime suspect in a case he’s breaking. Frances McDormand’s excellent as Bob’s girlfriend; Long island is a lost Atlantis. A fine film.

DVD EXTRAS: Commentaries by writer and producer, Caton-Jones short Mark Of A Murderer.Rating Star

Spider

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Depressing study in madness, memory and murder from David Cronenberg, with Ralph Fiennes, recently released from a mental institution, setting up home in a halfway hostel in London's East End close to where he grew up, and the scene of a massive childhood trauma. Despite some typically creepy Cronenberg moments and universally impressive performances, the plot's predictable, and the relentless bleakness wears after a while.

Depressing study in madness, memory and murder from David Cronenberg, with Ralph Fiennes, recently released from a mental institution, setting up home in a halfway hostel in London’s East End close to where he grew up, and the scene of a massive childhood trauma. Despite some typically creepy Cronenberg moments and universally impressive performances, the plot’s predictable, and the relentless bleakness wears after a while.

About Schmidt

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In Alexander Payne's wickedly mordant satire, newly-retired Warren Schmidt is forced to acknowledge the sheer empty horror of a wasted life that has left him with a ghastly marriage to someone he no longer recognises as the woman he fell in love with, a neurotic daughter who's about to marry an hilariously useless water bed salesman and a past he can't remember because in all the years now behind him he did little of merit and nothing of note. Dysfunctional families are currently all the rage, but About Schmidt has a dark individuality and coruscating comic edge that makes it uniquely compelling. As the titular Schmidt, Jack Nicholson is by turns baffled, angry, lost, fearful and, finally, heartbreaking. Among the excellent supporting cast: Hope Davis as Schmidt's daughter, Dermot Mulroney as her gormless boyfriend and the great Kathy Bates as his outrageously doting hippie mother.

In Alexander Payne’s wickedly mordant satire, newly-retired Warren Schmidt is forced to acknowledge the sheer empty horror of a wasted life that has left him with a ghastly marriage to someone he no longer recognises as the woman he fell in love with, a neurotic daughter who’s about to marry an hilariously useless water bed salesman and a past he can’t remember because in all the years now behind him he did little of merit and nothing of note.

Dysfunctional families are currently all the rage, but About Schmidt has a dark individuality and coruscating comic edge that makes it uniquely compelling. As the titular Schmidt, Jack Nicholson is by turns baffled, angry, lost, fearful and, finally, heartbreaking. Among the excellent supporting cast: Hope Davis as Schmidt’s daughter, Dermot Mulroney as her gormless boyfriend and the great Kathy Bates as his outrageously doting hippie mother.

Short Cuts

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Madman or genius? Both sides of Lee "Scratch" Perry are on display in the recent interview and live performances captured on In Concert?The Ultimate Alien SECRET FILMS . For a brief time, Gene were hailed as the best of "the new Smiths" and looked set to lead the Britpop class of '95. Rising For Sun...

Madman or genius? Both sides of Lee “Scratch” Perry are on display in the recent interview and live performances captured on In Concert?The Ultimate Alien SECRET FILMSRating Star . For a brief time, Gene were hailed as the best of “the new Smiths” and looked set to lead the Britpop class of ’95. Rising For Sunset SNAPPERRating Star is the DVD of a live album of the same name, and is a bittersweet reminder of what might have been. Yet it fails to explain why they turned out to be such underachievers. Are Ocean Colour Scene the world’s most boring band? The videos and live tracks on Filmed From The Front Row UNIVERSALRating Star offer supporting evidence. But it’s the 40-minute interview with Gary Crowley that provides the proof. Two-tone fans will rejoice over The Selecter?Live From London SECRET FILMSRating Star , although it’s not the band in their early-’80s heyday but a more recent performance. Never mind, for Pauline Black still sounds sexier than Gwen Stefani. Recorded on the same night at the same venue, there’s more classic ska from Desmond Dekker on Israelites?Live In London SECRET FILMSRating Star . Compiled by sometime Uncut contributor Paul Morley, Stuck In The Middle?15 Classic ’70s Videos UNCUT DVDRating Star is an enjoyable if incoherent mish-mash of the decade that ranges from 10cc and Sparks to The Boomtown Rats. Take the likes of Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce and Stephen Stills and stick them in a disused west London factory for two days in 1969 to jam with Roland Kirk, Buddy Guy and the Modern Jazz Quartet and what do you get? A bloody mess if Supershow?The Last Great Jam Of The 60s EAGLE VISIONRating Star is anything to go by. Historic, perhaps. But no wonder the tapes have sat on the shelf till now. BB King?Blues Summit Concert UNIVERSALRating Star finds the great man in fine form back in 1992, duetting with Ruth Brown, Robert Cray, Albert Collins, Lowell Fulsom, Buddy Guy and Irma Thomas. Sin

Welcome To The Jungle

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In these post-cold War days, it's easy to forget just how contentious The Deer Hunter once seemed. The film caused a huge outcry at the Berlin Festival, where the Soviet delegates complained, "The heroic people of Vietnam are insulted, something which is particularly impermissible now at a time when...

In these post-cold War days, it’s easy to forget just how contentious The Deer Hunter once seemed. The film caused a huge outcry at the Berlin Festival, where the Soviet delegates complained, “The heroic people of Vietnam are insulted, something which is particularly impermissible now at a time when the Socialist Republic of Vietnam is being subjected to barbaric aggression from China and is fighting a just battle for its freedom and its independence.” When the festival refused to withdraw the film from its programme, most of the Eastern bloc countries walked out. Back in Britain, the film was pilloried by John Pilger in the New Statesman. He accused Cimino of “sifting the ashes of one of history’s most documented atrocities in order to repackage it and resell it as a Hollywood smash that will make them fortunes”.

Politics, though, were never uppermost in Cimino’s mind. He wanted to show the effect the war had on his protagonists?three small-town, Pennsylvanian steel workers who had the misfortune to be thrust into it. From their perspective, it was a hellish experience. Even so, Michael (De Niro), Steven (Savage) and Nick (Walken) don’t question why they’ve been sent to Vietnam. Late in the film, when the old friends sing “God Bless America”, there’s no sense of sarcasm or anger.

Certain sequences are macho and simple-minded. Whether seen on the hilltops hunting deer or jumping off a helicopter, De Niro’s character sometimes behaves like a blue-collar answer to Nietzsche’s Superman. The moment midway through a game of Russian roulette when he turns the gun on his sadistic captors and frees his two friends wouldn’t look out of place in a Rambo movie. “A hunter… a friend… a leader… a soldier… a hero… a man,” was how the studio publicity described Michael. But De Niro is far too thoughtful an actor to lapse into clich

11′-09″-01

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Following what's now uniformly referred to as "the events of 9/11", producer Alain Brigand invited 11 respected directors to each make a reactive film lasting eleven minutes, nine seconds and one frame. Among the diverse responses, the most intriguing come from Ken Loach, Claude Lelouch, Alejandro G...

Following what’s now uniformly referred to as “the events of 9/11”, producer Alain Brigand invited 11 respected directors to each make a reactive film lasting eleven minutes, nine seconds and one frame. Among the diverse responses, the most intriguing come from Ken Loach, Claude Lelouch, Alejandro Gonz

Human Nature

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Inexplicably and unforgivably buried theatrically by Pathe, this is Charlie Kaufman's follow-up screenplay to Being John Malkovich. Tim Robbins is the uptight scientist who falls for Patricia Arquette's alarmingly hirsute loner; Rhys Ifans is the man brought up as an ape in the wilderness. Their worlds collide with, pretty much as you'd expect, strange and hilarious results?but in between the weirdness, Kaufman raises salient points about conformity and the self. DVD EXTRAS: Commentary by director Michel Gondry, Making Of..., trailers.Rating Star

Inexplicably and unforgivably buried theatrically by Pathe, this is Charlie Kaufman’s follow-up screenplay to Being John Malkovich. Tim Robbins is the uptight scientist who falls for Patricia Arquette’s alarmingly hirsute loner; Rhys Ifans is the man brought up as an ape in the wilderness. Their worlds collide with, pretty much as you’d expect, strange and hilarious results?but in between the weirdness, Kaufman raises salient points about conformity and the self.

DVD EXTRAS: Commentary by director Michel Gondry, Making Of…, trailers.Rating Star

The Cotton Club

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Ambitious and underrated, this finds the Godfather team of Francis Ford Coppola and Mario Puzo mired in Harlem's seedy underworld of steamy dives, bootlegging mobsters and sultry divas circa 1920. Richard Gere and Gregory Hines kick out the jazzy jams while Walter Hill fave James Remar provides a disturbing portrait of Dutch Schultz. This is Coppola at his wild and uneven post-Apocalypse Now peak.

Ambitious and underrated, this finds the Godfather team of Francis Ford Coppola and Mario Puzo mired in Harlem’s seedy underworld of steamy dives, bootlegging mobsters and sultry divas circa 1920. Richard Gere and Gregory Hines kick out the jazzy jams while Walter Hill fave James Remar provides a disturbing portrait of Dutch Schultz. This is Coppola at his wild and uneven post-Apocalypse Now peak.

Femme Fatale

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Brian De Palma's taken several critical and box office beatings in his erratically compelling career, but Femme Fatale's straight-to-video UK release must mark an all-time low for him. Not that the film deserves much better?it's glossy tosh, a supposedly erotic crime thriller about deceit and redemption in which De Palma lavishly indulges his stylistic obsessions to very little purpose. Painfully poor work from a great director.

Brian De Palma’s taken several critical and box office beatings in his erratically compelling career, but Femme Fatale’s straight-to-video UK release must mark an all-time low for him. Not that the film deserves much better?it’s glossy tosh, a supposedly erotic crime thriller about deceit and redemption in which De Palma lavishly indulges his stylistic obsessions to very little purpose. Painfully poor work from a great director.

Good-Time Charlie

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By some distance the best film about writer's block, fraternal rivalry and orchids ever made, Spike Jonze and Charlie Kaufman's follow-up to the brilliant Being John Malkovich is another stunningly imaginative tour de force, the kind of film that even after serial viewings continues to baffle, bewilder, tease, provoke and entertain on a huge scale. Inspired by Kaufman's own faltering attempts at writing a screenplay based on a biography by New Yorker journalist Susan Orlean of rough-hewn naturalist John Laroche (much as Barton Fink was inspired by the Coen brothers' struggles with a succession of aborted scripts), Adaptation casts Nicolas Cage as both Charlie and his (invented) twin brother, the lumpish Donald, whose own screenplay for a trashy action flick is embraced by the despairing Charlie's agent as a potential hit. The extent to which Kaufman and director Jonze then blur the distinctions between fact and fiction, the real and the imagined, is cheerfully outrageous, often astonishing, as crucial elements of Donald's crass screenplay begin to seep inexorably into the film we are watching and defining its outrageous third act, in which all manner of mayhem is let loose. Cage is unbeatably good as the Kaufman brothers, his performance(s) recalling his pre-blockbuster days in films like Raising Arizona, Meryl Streep is a revelation as Orlean and the Oscar-winning Chris Cooper ferocious as Laroche. Absolute genius.

By some distance the best film about writer’s block, fraternal rivalry and orchids ever made, Spike Jonze and Charlie Kaufman’s follow-up to the brilliant Being John Malkovich is another stunningly imaginative tour de force, the kind of film that even after serial viewings continues to baffle, bewilder, tease, provoke and entertain on a huge scale.

Inspired by Kaufman’s own faltering attempts at writing a screenplay based on a biography by New Yorker journalist Susan Orlean of rough-hewn naturalist John Laroche (much as Barton Fink was inspired by the Coen brothers’ struggles with a succession of aborted scripts), Adaptation casts Nicolas Cage as both Charlie and his (invented) twin brother, the lumpish Donald, whose own screenplay for a trashy action flick is embraced by the despairing Charlie’s agent as a potential hit.

The extent to which Kaufman and director Jonze then blur the distinctions between fact and fiction, the real and the imagined, is cheerfully outrageous, often astonishing, as crucial elements of Donald’s crass screenplay begin to seep inexorably into the film we are watching and defining its outrageous third act, in which all manner of mayhem is let loose.

Cage is unbeatably good as the Kaufman brothers, his performance(s) recalling his pre-blockbuster days in films like Raising Arizona, Meryl Streep is a revelation as Orlean and the Oscar-winning Chris Cooper ferocious as Laroche. Absolute genius.

Bad Timing

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Stunningly dark, neurotic and indeed erotic drama from the matchless Nic Roeg who, in 1980, was flying. Set in Vienna, it traces the tangled affair between the passionate Theresa Russell and the deadpan (and very subtle) Art Garfunkel, with Harvey Keitel looking on suspiciously. Riddled with narrative and stylistic flash and mad degeneracy, somehow Roeg makes it stick. DVD EXTRAS: Trailer, scene selection.Rating Star

Stunningly dark, neurotic and indeed erotic drama from the matchless Nic Roeg who, in 1980, was flying. Set in Vienna, it traces the tangled affair between the passionate Theresa Russell and the deadpan (and very subtle) Art Garfunkel, with Harvey Keitel looking on suspiciously. Riddled with narrative and stylistic flash and mad degeneracy, somehow Roeg makes it stick.

DVD EXTRAS: Trailer, scene selection.Rating Star

Giant—Special Edition

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A dazzling epic with a dark and bracing tone, George Stevens' Giant details Rock Hudson's old-fashioned Texan cattle baron (and American national metaphor) as he races towards modernity, neck and neck with neighbouring self-made trailer trash oil-swiller Jett Rink (James Dean). Hudson's sometimes stiff, and the pacing is certainly stately, but it's worth it to catch Dean's final intricately self-conscious screen turn.

A dazzling epic with a dark and bracing tone, George Stevens’ Giant details Rock Hudson’s old-fashioned Texan cattle baron (and American national metaphor) as he races towards modernity, neck and neck with neighbouring self-made trailer trash oil-swiller Jett Rink (James Dean). Hudson’s sometimes stiff, and the pacing is certainly stately, but it’s worth it to catch Dean’s final intricately self-conscious screen turn.

Morvern Callar

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Director Lynne Ramsay draws a mesmerising performance from Samantha Morton as the titular heroine, who discovers her author boyfriend has committed suicide on Christmas Day and passes his unpublished manuscript off as her own before heading off to Spain on an extended jolly. Naturally, serious complications arise. Dreamy and druggy but often difficult, this is an important, original film.

Director Lynne Ramsay draws a mesmerising performance from Samantha Morton as the titular heroine, who discovers her author boyfriend has committed suicide on Christmas Day and passes his unpublished manuscript off as her own before heading off to Spain on an extended jolly. Naturally, serious complications arise. Dreamy and druggy but often difficult, this is an important, original film.

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