Film DVD Reviews

SCI-FI/COMEDY NIGHT OF THE COMET (15) 91min (Optimum) ●●●●●

Cult classic alert! This 1985 sci-fi horror parody benefits from just the right combination of genre knowing and lightness of comic touch. Its INTERVIEW

apocalyptic storyline has the Earth pass through the path of the titular celestial object that turns the human population exposed to it into red dust or, failing that, flesh-eating zombies.

A pair of California valley girl cheerleaders and a truck driver survive to do battle with the legions of the dead, but find a greater threat in a team of psycho scientists led by Mary Woronov (Andy Warhol and later Paul Bartel’s muse) intent on turning their blood into an antidote to save themselves from a fate worse than death. That wacky scenario takes in,

variously, The Day of the Triffids, The Omega Man and Dawn of the Dead. It’s written and directed by Thom Eberhardt, who subsequently cast Michael Caine and Ben Kingsley in the hilarious Sherlock Holmes farce Without A Clue. No extras. (Miles Fielder) DRAMA THE OTHER MAN (15) 84 min (Metrodome) ●●●●●

Whatever Richard Eyre’s importance as a theatre director, working on plays by Hare, Griffith and Brenton, his recent cinema work (Iris, Notes on a Scandal) has

SWIMMING TO VICTORY Master endurance swimmer Martin Strel, the subject of documentary Big River Man, talks

‘The director John Maringouin first contacted me and my son Borut in 2002 after John’s wife Molly had seen a report on CNN about me swimming the Mississippi. When they found out that I was planning to swim the Amazon in 2007 to raise environmental awareness, they asked us if they could make a documentary about the adventure. We looked at John’s past work, including his documentary Running Stumbled, and realised that he was drawn to extreme characters. He came and filmed me in Slovenia before the swim and I trusted him.

‘To cover the whole of the Amazon, which stretches over 3200 miles, I swam for 70 days, spending 10-12 hours a day in the water. It’s incredibly dangerous swimming there. You can’t see below the surface of the muddy water, and you’re exposed to the sun all day. I caught dengue fever and parasites burrowed underneath my skin. My medical team was always busy. There’s also the risk of pirates, and some of the tribe’s people thought I was a demon and threatened to kill me unless I left. And it’s not just a question of physical strength it’s a test of your mind, because every stroke could be your last. I don’t think the Amazon is a place for Europeans to live, it’s for the indigenous peoples. We had no editing rights on the film. We had to wait 18 months until the world premiere at Sundance in January 2009, before we could see the completed film. If I had known how I would be portrayed in Big River Man, I’m not sure that I would have signed up with John. I think the film makes me out to be some sort of crazy man and an alcoholic, and I regard myself as an athlete, and as somebody who likes to drink wine. Obviously we don’t have a chance to do the trip again with a different film crew. The most important thing though is that the Amazon swim changed my life. For me it was like climbing Mount Everest. Part of me still feels I’m in the jungle or the water.’ (Interview by Tom Dawson) Big River Man is available on DVD from Mon 18 Jan (Revolver).

48 THE LIST 7–21 Jan 2010

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baroque styling of the film was out of touch with the realism of post- war British cinema and with the European neo- realist and New Wave movements in 1949, which partly explains why it never got the credit it so richly deserved. Extras: introduction by fan Martin Scorsese, film historian analysis, interviews with Dickinson. (Miles Fielder) ACTION/ADVENTURE TREASURE ISLAND (PG) 86min (HBF) ●●●●●

Robert Louis Stevenson’s 19th century tale of peg- legged pirates, treasure maps and derring-do has been surprisingly ill served by cinema. Countless Disney adaptations aside, this 1971 Russian version and Chilean filmmaker Raoul Ruiz’s insanely tangential 1985 version (now there’s a film ripe for rediscovery on DVD) remain the only versions of any real interest. Directed by actor turned director Yevgheny Fridman for Russia’s perennial Gorky Studios, this version is equal parts spaghetti western (most notably during the battle for ship the Admiral Benbow) and sentimental children’s fantasy. Despite running out of steam towards the end and giving way to the most saccharine of expectations, Fridman’s film, now thankfully returned to its original language version (with subtitles) after originally only being available in a horrible West Country dubbed English language version, still contains enough bravura set pieces to keep the most distractable child or adult watching. Minimal extras. (Paul Dale)

Liverpool everyman Andrew Schofield stars as the unmotivated dad who won’t commit to his long-suffering partner and tinkers on cars rather than searching for gainful employment. In short he’s the generally sound bloke in need of a character arc. With a just out of prison gangster ready to move in on his partner, can dad make good by the end of the third act? There are sub-plots aplenty here, and no shortage of narrative action. Yet the insights are hardly fresh and the characters are caricatures (despite being co-written by a group of Liverpool teenagers). Extras include cast and crew interviews. (Tony McKibbin)

DRAMA/HORROR THE QUEEN OF SPADES (PG) 90min (Optimum) ●●●●●

Following its recent rediscovery, re- mastering and reissue in cinemas, this criminally overlooked British masterpiece receives its DVD debut 60 years after it was made. Adapted from a story by Alexander Pushkin, it was directed by the largely unrecognised genius Thorold Dickinson, whose Hollywood calling card production of Gaslight was suppressed by the producer of the concurrent American version.

The Queen of Spades is a visually arresting film, heavy with eerie atmosphere and featuring an intense performance by Anton Walbrook as a soldier in Napoleonic era St Petersburg who, caught up in the grip of gambling fever, turns to the dark arts in order to discover the secret of the cards. The balmy

sometimes struggled for significance. This adaptation of Bernhard The Reader Schlink’s short story is a mess. The story promptly grounds us in the immediate grief of a husband (Liam Neeson) losing his wife (Laura Linney) to cancer. Eyre’s film offers tricksy editing at the beginning but a subsequent story switch makes the inciting incident a letter received through the post which becomes a note left in a shoe all the more implausible.

As the daughter casually mentions it to her father as they’re clearing out the late wife’s stuff, we’re left asking too many questions of basic human behaviour. Eyre is hardly offering subtle psychological probes; his changes are needless plot devices. It doesn’t get any better when Antonio Banderas turns up as the other man. Minimal extras. (Tony McKibbin)

DRAMA UNDER THE MUD (12A) 86 min (Hurricane Films) ●●●●●

Of Time and the City producer Sol Papadopoulos’ well- intentioned and warm- hearted modern Liverpool fable is a bit like a cross between Peter Mullan’s Orphans, and an episode of late lamented soap Brookside.