Week of 27 July 2009
Alone in the Dark 2 * (Stars Lance Henrikson, Rick Yune, Allison Lange; RRP £12.99; UK cert 15) At last, the sequel to Uwe Boll's 2005 computer game adaptation that absolutely no one was waiting for. While the first film had Christian Slater, Stephen Dorff and Tara Reid skulking around fighting crap CGI demons, this time around Henriksson, the only actor in the cast list you're likely to have heard of, stars as Abner Lundberg, an occult specialist who "comes out of retirement" in order to lead a team of remarkably uncharismatic ghost hunters in their pursuit of a crap CGI witch. Fans of the Alone in the Dark game series might possibly find something to enjoy in this cheap and tedious heap of hokum, but even that seems fairly unlikely - it really is unmitigated arse of the first order. Not even so bad it's good, it's boring and just rubbish. Avoid as if it might give you swine flu. Extras: Just a behind the scenes/making of featurette — Adam Boult
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Week of 20 July 2009
Yellowbeard ** (Stars Graham Chapman, Peter Cook, Marty Feldman, Madeline Kahn, Eric Idle, Spike Milligan, Peter Boyle, James Mason, Michael Hordern, Nigel Planer, Susannah York, Beryl Reid, John Cleese, Cheech & Chong; £15.99; UK cert 15) Take a look at that cast. Go on, look at it – that there is some of the greatest comic minds of the 20th century. Three Pythons, a Goon, Feldman, Kahn – and Cook, one of the greatest of them all. With a cast like that, you'd expect comedy gold, wouldn't you? Well, sadly, this film fails to live up to that comic potential. It's hard to tell what went wrong – it's a funny enough concept, getting a bunch of famous comedians together and playing pirates. Chapman is Yellowbeard, the most evil, vicious and feared pirate in history. He's been jailed for tax evasion (isn't that what they also got Al Capone on?), and after 20 years is about to be released. Before he was caught he buried a massive treasure on an island somewhere and has kept the secret all this time. So on his release, he heads straight for it – with the British Admiralty and some of his former crew on his tail, in the hope of beating him to it. But first Yellowbeard has to get the treasure map back from his wife – who has tattooed it on the head of the son he never knew he had. Yes, it sounds confusing, but it's not, really – and neither is it very funny. There are a few titters to be had along the way – and some marvellous scene stealing from the great Feldman, plus a humorous cameo from David Bowie – but with all these names, it should have been brilliant. Cheech and Chong, in particular, are awful as a couple of bizarre Spanish Inquisition priests; and John Cleese has declared it the worst film he's ever appeared in (it's not – The Pink Panther 2 wins that particular prize). It was marty Feldman's final film, sadly – he died on set. His memory would be best served by watching Young Frankenstein again, and giving this mess a miss. No extras — Stuart O'Connor
Marlene ***½ (Stars Marlene Dietrich, Annie Albers, Maximilian Schell; £15.99; UK cert E) Dietrich was A-list long before the term was coined. She was also notoriously private and rarely gave interviews. Back in 1984, though, the Blue Angel commissioned actor/director Maximilian Schell to make a documentary about her. Schell was frustrated and thwarted in turn in his attempts to complete the project as Dietrich refused to appear on camera or even to answer many of his questions. Despite these problems – how many stars decide not to participate in their own film? – Schell has managed to piece together a fascinating portrait of Dietrich. When she does speak, her voice off-camera, she talks openly about much of her life, touching on her childhood in Germany, her acting career and her love (and sex) life. She is in turn acidic, biting, entertaining and honest. Schell completes the film by weaving together clips of her films and stage performances as well as his own to-camera amusing whinges about her refusal to cooperate with him. Fans of Marlene will love this, as it provides a frank and touching portrait of the acting legend. No extras — Louise Bolotin
James May On The Moon ***** (Features James May and a few quite famous astronauts; £9.99; UK cert E) Well, Mr May isn't really on the moon – the Top Gear challenges haven't become that extreme yet. What he is doing is travelling to the US to meet a few of the men who have stood on that desolate rock in the sky, as well as looking at the technology that took them there. He also experiences some of the training they went through – "enjoying" a ride on the famous "vomit comet", the plane that simulates weightlessness in flight, as well as taking a spin in an Air Force centrifuge chamber, which simulates the crushing gravitational forces that astronauts experience on take-off. Finally, May suits up for a flight in the U2 spy plane, which takes him up to 70,000 feet – the very edge of space. There are a lot of documentaries around at the moment that celebrate the 40th anniversary of the first lunar landing. This one stands head and shoulders above the pack because it seems such a personal journey for May himself. It's truly fascinating, engrossing and emotional stuff. Extras: James May at The Edge of Space, which details the U2 flight, and its preparations, in greater detail. — Stuart O'Connor
Wild Geese II ** (Stars Scott Glenn, Barbara Carrera, Edward Fox, Robert Webber, Laurence Olivier, Stratford Johns, Patrick Stewart; £15.99; UK cert 18) Risible, and unnecessarily belated, follow-up to 1978’s The Wild Geese. Where the original boasted landlords’ favourites Richard Burton and Richard Harris, this 1985 sequel could only muster Edward Fox and Scott Glenn. Admittedly, Laurence Olivier does turn up playing the former deputy Fuhrer, Rudolph Hess, the subject of the film’s rather clumsy wild goose chase (to spring Hess out of Spandau prison), but it’s fair to say his appearance lends no gravitas to proceedings. Glenn, in particular, appears to have that look in his eye that he’d be much happier miles away from this particularly wooden slice of 80s’ melodrama. Extras: Film trailer. The 2 minute and 39 second trailer successfully crams in all you’d ever need to know, or see, about this extreme slice of ham. — Robert Hull
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Week of 13 July 2009
The Scarlet Tunic ** (Stars Jean-Marc Barr, Emma Fielding, Simon Callow, Jack Shepherd, John Sessions, Lisa Faulkner; £9.99; UK cert 12) Made on a shoestring budget back in 1998, this adaptation of a Thomas Hardy short story – itself based around real events – belies its low-fi credentials with engaging cinematography and strong lead performances from Barr and Fielding. Never one for jokes when melancholy and misery are available, it’s typical Hardy fare. Bleak, doomed romance, repression, duty, war – all that kind of stuff. Great if you like weepy costume drama, mildly diverting if you’d rather not watch Big Brother or comedy repeats on Dave. Extras: Cobbled together "making of" and some rather random, and brief, behind the scenes footage. — Robert Hull
The Naked City *** (Stars Barry Fitzgerald, Howard Duff, Dorothy Hart, Don Taylor, Frank Conroy, Ted De Corsia; £15.99; UK cert 15) A young woman in New York City is murdered by the two men who robbed her apartment. The Naked City follows the police investigation into the case. Originally released in 1948, this is an interesting piece of cinema history for its then unusual practice of shooting on the streets of the city, rather than on backlots or sound stages. From a technical perspective, the sound - including the opening voice over narration - is slightly muffled or distorted at times which is a shame because overall it's an engaging if straightforward police procedural. Some of the acting is hammy and the script is a bit patchy but Barry Fitzgerald is charismatic as Lieutenant Muldoon, the location shots of the city are truly impressive and the climactic chase across the city is pretty spectacular, especially by the standards of the day. No extras — Justin Bateman
Brute Force ** (Stars Burt Lancaster, Hume Cronyn, Charles Bickford, Yvonne De Carlo; £15.99; UK Cert 12) Director Jules Dassin brings film noir to the prison movie with Brute Force. At Westgate Penitentiary the warden has less power than the guards and prisoners. The big dog of the yard is tough, single-minded prisoner Joe Collins. Joe hates chief guard Captain Munsey, a dictatorial captain who glories in the power his job provides him. After one infraction too many, Joe and his cell-mates are put on drain pipe detail, prompting them to conjure up an escape plan that has every chance of failing. When news reaches Joe that Captain Munsey knows of the escape plan he doesn't call it off, rather he forces a confrontation between the inmates and prisoners that leads to a final confrontation between Joe and Munsey. Brute Force is a brooding prison-set film noir featuring excellent performances from the two opposing leads - Burt Lancaster as respected inmate Joe Collins and Hume Cronyn as a thoroughly sadistic prison guard. The film is an epic prison drama that has obviously become a blueprint for every prison movie that has followed... Extras: just the trailer — Phil Wheat
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Week of 6 July 2009
The Sky At Night: Apollo 11, A Night to Remember **** (Featuring Sir Patrick Moore and some quite famous astronauts; £19.99; UK cert E) And a night – or a day, depending on where in the world you were in the world at the time – to remember it certainly was. I remember where I was – in primary school, in a first grade classroom, where we watched it all happen live on TV. I'm sure that Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins remember where they were, too. The Apollo 11 landing on the moon, which took place on July 21 1969, is one of the defining moments of the modern era. So much so that a lot of fuss is currently being made about its 40th anniversary – usually not a number worth celebrating, but I guess NASA is keen to get some attention for its moribund space programme. Anyway, this television special – first shown on the BBC in February 2006 – is now out on DVD. Presented by famous British astronomer Sir Patrick Moore (who I really only know from the wonderful sendups I saw as a kid watching The Goodies), this documentary combines original NASA footage and the BBC coverage from the time to recreate how many of us saw this monumental event. It's brillioantly put together, and definitely a DVD that any space buff, or indeed anyone interested even slightly in history, will want to add to their collections. Extras: An episode of The Sky at Night from 1960; biographies of the three Apollo 11 astronauts (Collins, Aldrin and Armstrong, for those of you who've forgotten them); a biography of Moore. — Stuart O'Connor
Meatball Machine *** (Issei Takhashi, Shoichiro Masumoto, Toru Tezuka, Ayano Yamamoto; £14.99; UK cert 18) "If they are indeed parasites, I must say that there are no other parasites designed as perfectly as them." More Japanese splatter fare from the director of Cromartie High, Yudai Yamaguchi. If you have seen that film, you will know what to expect from Meatball Machine, which is high on gore and low on sense. The general plot is that there are parasitic creatures that inhabit human hosts, imbuing them with special powers and built in weapons, and they then fight each other for the prize of eating the loser. Cue lots of flailing tentacles, human and machine hybrids, heads being split open and blood flowing a plenty. The film is packed with disturbing imagery – including rape by tentacle (seemingly a prerequisite of Japanese schlock) – and the gory action is consistently inventive with a rich vein (no pun intended) of humour throughout. This certainly won't be everyone's cup of tea, but fans of the likes of Tokyo Gore Police and Vampire Girl Vs Frankenstein Girl should enjoy. Extras: The DVD is not short of special features, including a Making Of...; the Japanese trailer; the original short on which this is based; another short called Meatball Machine: Reject of Death; the Making Of... the latter; a featurette called What's About Doi?; necroborg creature designs by Keita Amamiya; and 10 trailers of other 4Digital Asia films. — Toby Weidmann
Blind Loves *** (Featuring Peter Kolesar, Iveta Koprdova, Miro Daniel, Monika Brabcova, Jolana Danielova; £12.99; UK cert PG) A very moving, and at times very funny, Slovakian documentary telling the story of four different sets of blind couples, and how they cope wthout sight. The documentary is very much fly-on-the-wall in style – we are there merely to observe – and there is no voiceover or backstory whatsoever. Which, for me, leaves it a little lacking. We don't learn a lot about about the couples – their backgrounds, their earlier lives, how they lost their sight, and so on. There are too many unanswered questions for it to be fully satisfying, but Blind Loves is still worth a look, if you'll pardon the pun. No extras — Stuart O'Connor