www.list.co.uk/film COMEDY HAMLET 2 (15) 92min (Momentum DVD rental/retail) ●●●●●
It is sometime in the 1960s and Gu Minda (Auteuil) escapes from prison and gets involved in a major and very risky heist with a bunch of seasoned old lags. The film is at its best working with Melvillian themes of duty and obligation without sentimentality, and the fine line distinctions between self-protection and underworld loyalty. Corneau also adds a modern penchant for gory moments, with fingers being shot off and bullets vividly passing through the cheek and head to show that movie violence has certainly come along nicely since Melville’s day. Minimal extras. (Tony McKibbin)
DRAMA GOD MAN DOG (15) 119min (Terracotta Media DVD retail) ●●●●●
Now that the multi- strand story is so prominent, we tend to forget that the fine Taiwanese filmmaker Edward Yang was influential in developing its form with his mid- 1980s film Terroriser. Compatriot Singing Chen’s film is in the tradition of such crosscutting enquiry as individuality of character gives way to exploration of social malaise. A middle-class couple struggles to come to terms with the death of their baby, while a truck driver looks to buy a prosthetic limb. An
Sneaking out on DVD, having failed to secure a cinematic release Steve Coogan and director Andrew The Craft Fleming’s arch and unfunny Hamlet 2 is a laboured addition to the ‘deluded loser’ genre. Coogan plays high- school drama teacher Dana Marschz, who writes a musical sequel to Shakespeare’s tragedy. Surrounded by a overqualified cast of assured comic actors, including Catherine Keener, Amy Baby Mama Poehler and Be Kind Rewind’s Melonie Diaz, Coogan seems uncomfortable with Hamlet 2’s emphasis on slapstick pratfalls, particularly a grating running joke about Marschz’s rollerblading clumsiness. Proving that it’s closer in ambition and scope to South Park than the Bard, the play within the film contains production numbers ‘Rock Me Sexy Jesus’ and ‘Raped in the Face’. Amidst the scatological crudeness, only Elizabeth Shue emerges with any credit with a game cameo. Minimal Extras. (Eddie Harrison) GANGSTER/THRILLER THE SECOND WIND (18) 149min (Optimum DVD retail) ●●●●●
A remake of Jean-Pierre Melville’s 1966 film Le Deuxième Soufflé, veteran journeyman Alain Corneau (Série Noire, Tous Les Matins Du Monde) remakes this black and white classic with a colour scheme out of Amélie, and a star cast that includes Daniel Auteuil, Monica Bellucci, Eric Cantona, Jacques Dutronc, Daniel Duval and Gilbert Melki.
Aboriginal couple wonders if God can save them from the demons of drink, as a teenage runaway tries to get by with the opposite of abstinence: he enters, and usually wins, eating competitions, selling on the prizes. Chen’s film is understated, and shot in a way that gives the actors plenty of room to manoeuvre within the frame but that still allows the director to show a strong directorial perspective. Minimal extras. (Tony McKibbin) WAR/ROMANCE ADMIRAL (15) 124 min (Metrodome DVD rental/retail) ●●●●●
Admiral and family man Kolchak (Konstantin Khabensky) falls deeply in love with the beautiful young Anna (Elizabeta Boyarskaya) while fighting for Russia during The First World War. She’s married, he’s married and the Russian Revolution is on their heels. What’s a sea faring man to do? This big-budget epic Russian romancer from the producers of Night Watch and Day Watch is predictably if ably handled. An image of drowned men is eerily effective, but check out the falling and shattering glass to indicate love at first sight offered in easy shorthand. Andrei Kravchuk’s very efficient film seems more dutifully laboured than the labour of love itself; especially so in the wake of Kravchuck’s recent, much more personal film The Italian. Minimal extras. (Tony McKibbin)
DRAMA A DAY IN THE DEATH OF JOE EGG (15) 1O4min (Sony DVD retail) ●●●●●
Very welcome reissue of Peter Medak’s 1972 film
DVD Reviews Film
BARGAIN DVDS Donnie Darko
This week the original 1978 Inglorious Bastards (Optimum) ●●●●● – the ‘men on a mission’ movie which Quentin Tarantino has cheerfully revised (and misspelled) for his forthcoming Brad Pitt release – is re-released. As well as some top notch combat scenes and rousing performances from Bo Svenson, Fred ‘The Hammer’ Williamson and Ian Bannen, the DVD’s desirability is further enhanced by an impressively cheap price of £2.99 (via Play.com), a price far easier to pay than for the three-disk US import, which costs nearly ten times as much. Such stripped-down, no frills ‘vanilla format’ DVD releases, marketed at
aggressively low prices, are one way for film distributors to ensure that the DVD buying habit shouldn’t be affected by the credit crunch, with HMV offering boxed sets of staples like Rocky (Fox) ●●●●●, Pirates of the Caribbean (Buena Vista) ●●●●●, Planet of the Apes (Fox) ●●●●● and Die Hard (Fox) ●●●●●, but also film-buff favourites such as Sergio Leone’s Dollars trilogy (MGM) ●●●●● or a nine film Powell and Pressburger anthology (Granada Ventures) ●●●●● including I Know Where I’m Going (all of the above under a tenner at HMV.com).
The days of forking out £20 for a new release are long gone, and even a trip to the supermarket for a bag of sprouts could easily lead to a good night in, with chain-stores like Asda offering decent fare like Watchmen (Paramount) ●●●●● or Let the Right One In (Momentum) ●●●●● for £10 to £13. Even Borders have plenty of low-priced cult items, with Linsday Anderson’s O Lucky Man! (Warner) ●●●●●, Alex Cox’s Repo Man (UCA) ●●●●● and Hal Ashby’s Harold and Maude (MGM) ●●●●● all costing about the same as you’d pay for a cinema ticket.
With growing studio awareness that cult successes like Donnie Darko
(In2Film) ●●●●● found their largest and most appreciative audience on DVD, despite the ongoing recession, DVD watchers have never had it so good. Staying in is the new going out, for now. (Eddie Harrison)
adaptation of Peter Nichols’ hit West End play is a reminder that bad taste and suburban schadenfreude did not begin with Family Guy. Alan Bates and Janet Suzman are Bri and Sheila, a teacher and his wife who have created a comic character for their mute, severely disabled daughter (the eponymous ‘Joe Egg’). The cracks in their marriage become apparent when uptight acquaintances (Peter Bowles and Sheila Gish) come to visit and
witness their unorthodox approach to parenting. What should have
been a fairly creaky point and shoot TV transfer of a heralded stage play is kept interesting by Hungarian filmmaker Medak’s desire to connect the burgeoning new realisms of theatre and film (most potently represented by John Osborne and Ken Loach). Still shocking and powerful this is a kind of English cousin to Mike Nichols/Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf ? (1966). Minimal extras. (Paul Dale)
27 Aug–10 Sep 2009 THE LIST 31