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Chance Encounter

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Peter Sellers and director Hal Ashby both hit autumnal peaks in this immortal comedy from 1979. Based on Jerzy Kosinski's scathing novel about a mentally challenged gardener who's mistaken for a profound soothsayer by America's political elite, Being There does a balancing act between magical fable and caustic satire. Sellers plays the gardener, Chance, a childlike innocent abroad whose accidental encounter with a dying tycoon (Melvyn Douglas) and his sexually frustrated wife (Shirley MacLaine) propels him towards the highest office in the land. Despite a few lapses into clumsy farce, Ashby holds his nerve and delivers an incredibly rare example of mainstream US cinema steeped in intelligence, subtlety and ambiguity. Sellers partly based his Oscar-nominated characterisation of Chance on comic idol Stan Laurel. This timeless fairy tale about faith, hope and delusion is ever more terrifyingly relevant considering the jug-eared goon currently squatting in the Oval Office.

Peter Sellers and director Hal Ashby both hit autumnal peaks in this immortal comedy from 1979. Based on Jerzy Kosinski’s scathing novel about a mentally challenged gardener who’s mistaken for a profound soothsayer by America’s political elite, Being There does a balancing act between magical fable and caustic satire. Sellers plays the gardener, Chance, a childlike innocent abroad whose accidental encounter with a dying tycoon (Melvyn Douglas) and his sexually frustrated wife (Shirley MacLaine) propels him towards the highest office in the land. Despite a few lapses into clumsy farce, Ashby holds his nerve and delivers an incredibly rare example of mainstream US cinema steeped in intelligence, subtlety and ambiguity. Sellers partly based his Oscar-nominated characterisation of Chance on comic idol Stan Laurel. This timeless fairy tale about faith, hope and delusion is ever more terrifyingly relevant considering the jug-eared goon currently squatting in the Oval Office.

Villa Des Roses

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Belgian director Frank Van Passel's handsome Euro-pudding adaptation of a novel by Flemish writer Willem Elsschot evokes bohemian, early 20th-century Paris with sepia-toned style?think Moulin Rouge meets Delicatessen. Sadly, a fine ensemble cast (including Julie Delpy, Shirley Henderson, Timothy West) are wasted on a routine, soapy plot about class, manners, infidelity and looming war. DVD EXTRAS: Trailers and scene selection.Rating Star

Belgian director Frank Van Passel’s handsome Euro-pudding adaptation of a novel by Flemish writer Willem Elsschot evokes bohemian, early 20th-century Paris with sepia-toned style?think Moulin Rouge meets Delicatessen. Sadly, a fine ensemble cast (including Julie Delpy, Shirley Henderson, Timothy West) are wasted on a routine, soapy plot about class, manners, infidelity and looming war.

DVD EXTRAS: Trailers and scene selection.Rating Star

Lovely And Amazing

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Touted as 'Sex & The City: The Movie', as Nicole Holofcener often directs the series, this nervy comedy's actually closer in neurotic spirit to her earlier, excellent Walking And Talking. Catherine Keener stars, but Brenda Blethyn's mugging threatens to upset the work of Jake Gyllenhaal and Emily Mortimer. Women on the verge.

Touted as ‘Sex & The City: The Movie’, as Nicole Holofcener often directs the series, this nervy comedy’s actually closer in neurotic spirit to her earlier, excellent Walking And Talking. Catherine Keener stars, but Brenda Blethyn’s mugging threatens to upset the work of Jake Gyllenhaal and Emily Mortimer. Women on the verge.

Kes

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Ken Loach's 1969 masterpiece (based on Barry Hines' novel and produced/co-written by Tony Garnett, later behind This Life and The Cops) remains the template for grim oop north dramas. Its honesty, spontaneity and spiky humour shame more recent dilutions such as the appalling, infuriatingly overrated Billy Elliot. When a young Yorkshire lad, ignored by his loutish mom and brother and beaten down by grumpy, bullying teachers, finds a baby kestrel on the moors, he discovers a purpose in life, vowing to train it to fly. Only one teacher (Colin Welland) is sympathetic. David Bradley (never to repeat this success) is starkly affecting as the boy, his eyes hosting twin worlds of fear and delight, and Loach patents his technique of mining comedy from communal despair. One of the most significant British films of its era, Kes makes a virtue of its rough edges. You'll believe a small falcon can fly. DVD EXTRAS: Original theatrical trailer, interactive menu screens, chapter selections. Rating Star

Ken Loach’s 1969 masterpiece (based on Barry Hines’ novel and produced/co-written by Tony Garnett, later behind This Life and The Cops) remains the template for grim oop north dramas. Its honesty, spontaneity and spiky humour shame more recent dilutions such as the appalling, infuriatingly overrated Billy Elliot.

When a young Yorkshire lad, ignored by his loutish mom and brother and beaten down by grumpy, bullying teachers, finds a baby kestrel on the moors, he discovers a purpose in life, vowing to train it to fly. Only one teacher (Colin Welland) is sympathetic. David Bradley (never to repeat this success) is starkly affecting as the boy, his eyes hosting twin worlds of fear and delight, and Loach patents his technique of mining comedy from communal despair. One of the most significant British films of its era, Kes makes a virtue of its rough edges. You’ll believe a small falcon can fly.

DVD EXTRAS: Original theatrical trailer, interactive menu screens, chapter selections. Rating Star

I’m Going Home

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A morbidly slow but ultimately touching vignette from France, starring the legendary Michel Piccolia an ageing actor whose wife and kids are killed in a car crash. He mopes around Paris, but is persuaded by an American director (John Malkovich) to take a movie part. He muffs his lines, ensuring no feel-good ending. It earns its melancholia. DVD EXTRAS: Interviews, trailers, production notes, filmographies Rating Star

A morbidly slow but ultimately touching vignette from France, starring the legendary Michel Piccolia an ageing actor whose wife and kids are killed in a car crash. He mopes around Paris, but is persuaded by an American director (John Malkovich) to take a movie part. He muffs his lines, ensuring no feel-good ending. It earns its melancholia.

DVD EXTRAS: Interviews, trailers, production notes, filmographies Rating Star

Eight Legged Freaks

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In a small Arizona town a toxic waste dump creates a plague of hundreds of giant spiders. Cue mass destruction and enormous fun, since the SFX are first-rate, the cast (led by David Arquette) is solid and the script strikes the right balance between laughs and twitch-inducing 'arach-attacks'. The best giant bug movie for decades. DVD EXTRAS: Trailer, commentary, deleted scenes, plus Larger Than Life?director Ellory Elkayem's first award-winning short horror film. Rating Star (PH)

In a small Arizona town a toxic waste dump creates a plague of hundreds of giant spiders. Cue mass destruction and enormous fun, since the SFX are first-rate, the cast (led by David Arquette) is solid and the script strikes the right balance between laughs and twitch-inducing ‘arach-attacks’. The best giant bug movie for decades.

DVD EXTRAS: Trailer, commentary, deleted scenes, plus Larger Than Life?director Ellory Elkayem’s first award-winning short horror film. Rating Star

(PH)

Marty

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Delbert Mann's earnest 1955 slice-of-life drama about an ordinary Bronx butcher (Ernest Borgnine) mustering the courage to find a girlfriend earned four Oscars?Best Picture plus one each for Borgnine, Mann and screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky, who later penned the far superior Network. It's decently acted and well-meaning but very slight, dated and a little condescending.

Delbert Mann’s earnest 1955 slice-of-life drama about an ordinary Bronx butcher (Ernest Borgnine) mustering the courage to find a girlfriend earned four Oscars?Best Picture plus one each for Borgnine, Mann and screenwriter Paddy Chayefsky, who later penned the far superior Network. It’s decently acted and well-meaning but very slight, dated and a little condescending.

The Sum Of All Fears

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As Tom Clancy's square-jawed CIA hero Jack Ryan, Ben Affleck's the only man on earth who can prevent terrorists from sparking nuclear showdown between the US and Russia. Not even solid support from Morgan Freeman and Alan Bates can inject life into this dead-on-arrival Cold War throwback. DVD EXTRAS: Commentaries from director, cinematographer and Clancy, documentaries and trailer. Rating Star

As Tom Clancy’s square-jawed CIA hero Jack Ryan, Ben Affleck’s the only man on earth who can prevent terrorists from sparking nuclear showdown between the US and Russia. Not even solid support from Morgan Freeman and Alan Bates can inject life into this dead-on-arrival Cold War throwback.

DVD EXTRAS: Commentaries from director, cinematographer and Clancy, documentaries and trailer. Rating Star

Monster’s Ball

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An immaculate, determinedly unsentimental Marc Forster film, with breathtakingly honest performances from Halle Berry and, especially, Billy Bob Thornton. Death Row prison guard Thornton's family are traditionally racist; Berry's husband (Sean "Puffy" Combs) is executed. In a pit of despair, an unlikely, colour-blind love blooms between the two. One of 2002's best. DVD EXTRAS: Extra footage, cast and film-makers commentaries, isolated soundtrack. Rating Star

An immaculate, determinedly unsentimental Marc Forster film, with breathtakingly honest performances from Halle Berry and, especially, Billy Bob Thornton. Death Row prison guard Thornton’s family are traditionally racist; Berry’s husband (Sean “Puffy” Combs) is executed. In a pit of despair, an unlikely, colour-blind love blooms between the two. One of 2002’s best.

DVD EXTRAS: Extra footage, cast and film-makers commentaries, isolated soundtrack. Rating Star

My Kingdom

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In his final starring role, Richard Harris glowers impressively as the Irish underworld patriarch in Don Boyd's inspired relocation of Shakespeare's King Lear to contemporary Liverpool, Sadly Boyd directs with a low-voltage energy which flattens out intense emotion and visceral violence into brightly lit, blandly shot TV cop drama.

In his final starring role, Richard Harris glowers impressively as the Irish underworld patriarch in Don Boyd’s inspired relocation of Shakespeare’s King Lear to contemporary Liverpool, Sadly Boyd directs with a low-voltage energy which flattens out intense emotion and visceral violence into brightly lit, blandly shot TV cop drama.

Angel At My Table

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Jane Campion's second film (1990) tells the life story of Janet Frame, a New Zealand author who overcame poverty, chronic shyness and (misdiagnosed) schizophrenia to achieve international acclaim. Kerry Fox stars, while Campion hones her own stylistic match of trippy fantasy and gauche intimacy. Earnest, with detours into the ethereal. DVD EXTRAS: Three interviews with Campion, filmographies, trailer, biography of Janet Frame. Rating Star

Jane Campion’s second film (1990) tells the life story of Janet Frame, a New Zealand author who overcame poverty, chronic shyness and (misdiagnosed) schizophrenia to achieve international acclaim. Kerry Fox stars, while Campion hones her own stylistic match of trippy fantasy and gauche intimacy. Earnest, with detours into the ethereal.

DVD EXTRAS: Three interviews with Campion, filmographies, trailer, biography of Janet Frame. Rating Star

The Count Of Monte Cristo

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The ultimate journeyman, Kevin Reynolds is back with his explosively soulless adaptation of Dumas' classic. Formerly solid character stars Guy Pearce and Jim Caviezel don Hobbit haircuts and bored expressions as the socially mismatched childhood friends torn apart by jealousy and betrayal. It's clunky and mechanical, and lacking in even the faintest directorial fingerprint, yet it bounces you safely to the finish. DVD EXTRAS: Making Of..., audio commentary, deleted scenes, sword-fight choreography documentary and sound design featurette. Rating Star

The ultimate journeyman, Kevin Reynolds is back with his explosively soulless adaptation of Dumas’ classic. Formerly solid character stars Guy Pearce and Jim Caviezel don Hobbit haircuts and bored expressions as the socially mismatched childhood friends torn apart by jealousy and betrayal. It’s clunky and mechanical, and lacking in even the faintest directorial fingerprint, yet it bounces you safely to the finish.

DVD EXTRAS: Making Of…, audio commentary, deleted scenes, sword-fight choreography documentary and sound design featurette. Rating Star

The Doors Special Edition

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Oliver Stone's typically overwrought biopic of Jim Morrison has been much-mocked down the years, perhaps unfairly. It's full of Stone's signature bombast and is characteristically laden with all manner of wild and windy symbolism, but it has rather more going for it than popular reputation usually allows?not least, a surprisingly good performance from Val Kilmer as The Lizard King himself, fantastic duplication of vintage concert footage, especially the re-staging of the infamous Miami bust, and the patently deranged Crispin Glover as Andy Warhol to fucking boot! Worth another look, at the very least.

Oliver Stone’s typically overwrought biopic of Jim Morrison has been much-mocked down the years, perhaps unfairly. It’s full of Stone’s signature bombast and is characteristically laden with all manner of wild and windy symbolism, but it has rather more going for it than popular reputation usually allows?not least, a surprisingly good performance from Val Kilmer as The Lizard King himself, fantastic duplication of vintage concert footage, especially the re-staging of the infamous Miami bust, and the patently deranged Crispin Glover as Andy Warhol to fucking boot! Worth another look, at the very least.

The Glamour Chase

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Considering it was made precisely midway through the 20th century, there's an eerily fin-de-si...

Considering it was made precisely midway through the 20th century, there’s an eerily fin-de-si

The Pain In Spain

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Former 'dvd extras' stars Louis Fulton and Keith Pepe, makers of the superlative Twelve Monkeys bonus doc The Hamster Factor, took centre stage with surprise-hit feature documentary Lost In La Mancha. Detailing seven months of financially shaky pre-production, six self-defeating days of shooting and the eventual collapse of Gilliam's beloved Don Quixote adaptation, Fulton and Pepe capture the wildcard insanity of Gilliam's film-making process without ever sneering at his overreaching enthusiasm. Instead, whether he's giggling excitedly with lead star Johnny Depp or raging at his production designer over the non-soundproof soundstage, or facing stoically an onslaught of calamities that include flash floods, noise interference from NATO bombers, no signed contracts, no props, no horses, and no cash, Gilliam is always the wide-eyed fantasist whose dreams have thankfully remained as large as ever.

Former ‘dvd extras’ stars Louis Fulton and Keith Pepe, makers of the superlative Twelve Monkeys bonus doc The Hamster Factor, took centre stage with surprise-hit feature documentary Lost In La Mancha. Detailing seven months of financially shaky pre-production, six self-defeating days of shooting and the eventual collapse of Gilliam’s beloved Don Quixote adaptation, Fulton and Pepe capture the wildcard insanity of Gilliam’s film-making process without ever sneering at his overreaching enthusiasm. Instead, whether he’s giggling excitedly with lead star Johnny Depp or raging at his production designer over the non-soundproof soundstage, or facing stoically an onslaught of calamities that include flash floods, noise interference from NATO bombers, no signed contracts, no props, no horses, and no cash, Gilliam is always the wide-eyed fantasist whose dreams have thankfully remained as large as ever.

24 Hour Party People

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Madchester: The Movie, in which Michael Winterbottom proves his versatility knows no bounds. In lesser hands, the juiced-up story of Joy Division, New Order, Happy Mondays and self-styled pratgenius Tony Wilson could've been scrawny sit-com, but the pace (and the music) makes it zing. Steve Coogan's hilarious as the north-west's answer to Warhol, and it's the first film to feature a joke about the drug dealers of Rhyl. Terrific. DVD EXTRAS: Commentaries from Tony Wilson, Steve Coogan, Peter Hook, Rowetta, Miranda Sawyer and others, "White Rabbit" style guide, 24 deleted scenes, Pills'N'Thrills And Bellyaches documentary, Portrait Of A Film-Maker documentary, Peter Saville gallery, New Order music video "Here To Stay". Rating Star (CR)

Madchester: The Movie, in which Michael Winterbottom proves his versatility knows no bounds. In lesser hands, the juiced-up story of Joy Division, New Order, Happy Mondays and self-styled pratgenius Tony Wilson could’ve been scrawny sit-com, but the pace (and the music) makes it zing. Steve Coogan’s hilarious as the north-west’s answer to Warhol, and it’s the first film to feature a joke about the drug dealers of Rhyl. Terrific.

DVD EXTRAS: Commentaries from Tony Wilson, Steve Coogan, Peter Hook, Rowetta, Miranda Sawyer and others, “White Rabbit” style guide, 24 deleted scenes, Pills’N’Thrills And Bellyaches documentary, Portrait Of A Film-Maker documentary, Peter Saville gallery, New Order music video “Here To Stay”. Rating Star

(CR)

Boudu Saved From Drowning

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Jean Renoir's 1932 blueprint for Paul Mazursky's heavy-handed 1986 remake Down And Out In Beverly Hills stars Michel Simon as a Parisian tramp rescued from suicidal despair by kindly bookseller Charles Granval. Simon's ungrateful Boudu takes over Granval's house, wife and life, exposing his bourgeois complacency. Enduring, Chaplin-esque social satire. DVD EXTRAS: Introduction by Renoir, essay on the film, trailer for the Mazursky remake. Rating Star

Jean Renoir’s 1932 blueprint for Paul Mazursky’s heavy-handed 1986 remake Down And Out In Beverly Hills stars Michel Simon as a Parisian tramp rescued from suicidal despair by kindly bookseller Charles Granval. Simon’s ungrateful Boudu takes over Granval’s house, wife and life, exposing his bourgeois complacency. Enduring, Chaplin-esque social satire.

DVD EXTRAS: Introduction by Renoir, essay on the film, trailer for the Mazursky remake. Rating Star

Hijack Stories

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Patchy South African drama from 2000 in which an actor, landing a role as a Soweto gangster, asks an authentic underworld figure and old school friend to show him the ropes of crime and carjacking. Lines get blurred. Director Oliver Schmitz makes some still-valid points about race and class issues, but it's no Bullets Over Broadway.

Patchy South African drama from 2000 in which an actor, landing a role as a Soweto gangster, asks an authentic underworld figure and old school friend to show him the ropes of crime and carjacking. Lines get blurred. Director Oliver Schmitz makes some still-valid points about race and class issues, but it’s no Bullets Over Broadway.

The Hound Of The Baskervilles

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Awful slapstick version of Conan Doyle's tale from 1978, with Peter Cook and Dudley Moore (as Holmes and Watson) recycling old sketches badly as they head up a cast of vintage British comic talent (Kenneth Williams, Irene Handl, Max Wall). It's basically 'Carry On Sherlock', and it does the memory of all concerned no favours. DVD EXTRAS: Trailer, biographies, interview with director Paul Morrissey. Rating Star

Awful slapstick version of Conan Doyle’s tale from 1978, with Peter Cook and Dudley Moore (as Holmes and Watson) recycling old sketches badly as they head up a cast of vintage British comic talent (Kenneth Williams, Irene Handl, Max Wall). It’s basically ‘Carry On Sherlock’, and it does the memory of all concerned no favours.

DVD EXTRAS: Trailer, biographies, interview with director Paul Morrissey. Rating Star

The Temp

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Joyously kitsch or shamefully ham-fisted, Tom Holland's Disclosure esque erotic office thriller sees the surprisingly blank Timothy Hutton as a cookie company kingpin with a suspiciously enthusiastic secretary, Lara Flynn Boyle, who has her own secret and ultimately homicidal plans to take over the entire cookie-making empire. Enjoyably silly until it completely reneges on narrative logic or plot cohesion.

Joyously kitsch or shamefully ham-fisted, Tom Holland’s Disclosure esque erotic office thriller sees the surprisingly blank Timothy Hutton as a cookie company kingpin with a suspiciously enthusiastic secretary, Lara Flynn Boyle, who has her own secret and ultimately homicidal plans to take over the entire cookie-making empire. Enjoyably silly until it completely reneges on narrative logic or plot cohesion.

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