Film DVD Reviews www.list.co.uk/film
ANIMATION/HORROR MAD MONSTER PARTY (U) 94min (Optimum) ●●●●●
You can see how this 1967 stop-motion animated feature (allegedly being remade) has had an enduring influence on Tim Burton, from his most recent foray into old-school- style animation The Corpse Bride, all the way back to his early short Vincent. Based on a script co-written by Mad magazine legend Harvey Kurtzman, it’s a parody/homage to the gloriously creaky and nevertheless creepy Universal horror movies of the 1930s and 40s.
In it Baron Von Frankenstein (a puppet
Boris Karloff voiced by the icon himself) holds a house . . . well, castle party to announce his retirement as head of the Worldwide Organisation of Monsters to, variously, his Monster, Dracula, the Wolfman, the Mummy, the Creature from the Black Lagoon, Mr Hyde, the Invisible Man and others. But
when the Baron names his dorky human nephew Felix as his successor the creatures hatch a plot to dispose of the brat and rule the world. Many daft jokes, movie references and musical numbers follow. No extras. (Miles Fielder) DRAMA/DOCUMENTARY GREEK PETE (18) 75min (Peccadillo) ●●●●●
Pete (Peter Pittaros) is a young man on the make, a hustler with a nine inch appendage and a telephone patter that gets the customers banging on his Covent Garden flat door. Andrew Haigh’s film is half documentary, half fictitious exploration of a rent boy’s life. Shot
FILM WEBSITES
If you work in an office and, like us, you love great movies you probably spend your lunch hour on any number of film-specific websites. So, after a totally random survey of the cinema obsessives at The List here’s our guide to what’s good and what’s not at the moment. Please feel free to register in your favourites at www.list.co.uk www.dugpa.com Make out like the 20th century never ended with this mega detailed David Lynch and Twin Peaks resource site.
www.firstshowing.net Written by idiots but with lot of very up-to-date news about upcoming films, new trailers and stuff. www.artofthetitle.com Blog about movie title sequences (and sometimes television) with good quality video clips.
www.metacritic.com/film Lively ratings site offering public and professional opinions. A good alternative to www.rottentomatoes.com
www.fangoria.com Still the best horror magazine around (going since 1979). OK news and very good reviews but the site doesn’t seem to work about 50% of the time, which is annoying. www.bloody-disgusting.com Very good for horror film news (pictured) but reviews are rubbish.
www.sensesofcinema.com Cinema ancient and modern reinterpreted through the lens of highbrow critical theory. A chin-stroker’s delight. ■ Thank you to all at The List (you know who you are) for your suggestions. Now get back to work. (Paul Dale)
50 THE LIST 21 Jan–4 Feb 2010
mainly in close-up, the film exposes less the life of a male prostitute than the problem of misplaced ambition and dispersed affections. Haigh’s film works because it manages the tricky combination of witholding judgement while offering sympathy
for the contradictions in Pete’s life that make hustling hardly an unequivocal lifestyle choice. Especially when you include the problem of gift-giving and receiving as Pete talks of people who see themselves as ‘gift- givers and receivers’, of transmitting, or becoming infected by HIV. Minimal extras. (Tony McKibbin) COMEDY LA GRANDE VADROUILLE (PG) 118min (Optimum) ●●●●●
The principle attraction of this madcap 1966 Gallic comedy (aka Don’t Look Now – We’re Being Shot At) is the presence of British comic marvel Terry Thomas, here delivering his lines in a mix of English and badly dubbed French. Thomas puts his gap- tooth-topping bristly moustache to fine use as one of three RAF airmen shot down over German-occupied Paris during World War II. From there, the chums endeavour to exit the city and cross the country to the neutral zone with the well- intended but less-than- able assistance of an affable painter and an irascible conductor (played by French clowns Bourvil and Louis de Funès) plus a Nazi-hating nun and a puppeteer’s daughter. The RAF chaps’ flight amounts to little more than a series of knockabout comic episodes, many of
character psychology wonky but efficient for the workings of the ironic plot conclusion. A number of critics have drawn comparison with Infernal Affairs and Johnnie To’s work; they’re not entirely undeserved. Extras disc includes behind the scenes and making of documentaries, interviews and extended/alternate scenes. (Tony McKibbin) SATIRE PRIVILEGE (15) 99min (BFI) ●●●●●
Long overdue high definition DVD release of Peter Watkins’ remarkable satire on the cult of celebrity. Best known for his controversial mockumentaries The War Game and Culloden and his little seen but much admired adventures in politically motivated cult cinema (Punishment Park, La Commune) Watkins 1967 comic analysis of vacuous stardom was largely derided by critics at the time and deemed unmarketable by its backers (Universal). In
the age of X-Factor however this tale of one bland pop singer’s government-sponsored climb to stardom (in order to divert the youth from more radical pursuits) seems more than a little predictive. Like all Watkins’ films Privilege is a bold and unique experience, and though undeniably dated it deserves to find a new audience. Fantastic extras include early Watkins shorts The Diary of an Unknown Soldier and The Forgotten Faces and an extensive illustrated booklet with essays by Watkins, film historian Robert Murphy, and Watkins specialist John Cook. (Paul Dale)
which have dated badly. That said, enough of them work to hold the attention and the recreation of the wartime era is quite lavish. It was also, allegedly and inexplicably, the most popular film shown in France until the release of Titanic. No extras. (Miles Fielder) THRILLER THE BEAST STALKER (15) 110min (CineAsia) ●●●●●
Dante Lam’s Hong Kong action thriller is one of those impressive genre works where the plot hurtles along but the emotional parts are on go-slow, with heavy- handed bits of sentiment sitting uneasily alongside commendably executed violent action sequences. Still effective for all that, Lam’s film is pretty well done, overall, with a pushy, ambituous cop (Nicholas Tse) determined to make amends after accidentally killing the daughter of the public prosecutor (Jingchu Zhang) equally keen to
nail the very man Tse was trying to capture when he shot holes into the boot of the gangster´s car the daughter was bundled into. We get all this in the first ten minutes, and the film doesn´t let up much thereafter except for the soggy moments. The action scenes are impeccably handled and the