Mad Monster Party
By . Published 02 February 2010
Jules Bass’ 1967 stop-motion cult classic Mad Monster Party is a ghoulish treat, and an inspiration for Tim Burton’s own darkly comic animations. Boris Karloff voices the creaky Baron...
Film > DVDs
The Stranger (Agantuk)
By . Published 02 February 2010From 1991, Satyajit Ray directed this, his final film, from inside an oxygen tent. It doesn’t show. Based on one of his own short stories, it may not be Ray’s...
Crazy Horse, Paris with Dita Von Teese
By . Published 02 February 2010Featuring Dita Von Teese's routines and the cabaret set-pieces from the famous French night-club the Crazy Horse, this DVD presents burlesque as a mixture of celebrity, nudity and high production...
Kamikaze Girls
By . Published 01 February 2010Edited at a frenetic pace, trawling through Japanese sub-cultures and using lurid, intense cinematography, Kamikaze Girls is a female buddy movie re-invented as a neon romp through small town, teenage...
The Army of Crime
By . Published 25 January 2010The Army of Crime joins a roster of recent European films exploring the continent’s wartime past from a fresh perspective. French realist Guédiguian takes us back to the days...
Warhol
By . Published 08 January 2010Invaluable for students of sixties counter-culture, this intimate and controversial collection of documentaries by David Bailey has his titular pop artist profile (initially banned) as its centrepiece. The other films...
The Queen of Spades
By . Published 08 January 2010Based on a short story by Aleksandr Pushkin and championed by Martin Scorsese (who provides an enthusiastic introduction to this DVD), this obscure 1949 fantasy from a forgotten British filmmaker...
The Secret People
By . Published 01 January 2010Most of what you need to know about Dickinson’s spy story can be found in the title: despite the pulpy connotations, it’s actually an existential metaphor. This was Dickinson’s...
Afghan Star
By . Published 29 December 2009Havana Marking’s film documents the journey of four young hopefuls in the final stages of a reality singing show. But forget The X-Factor: this is about far more than holding...
District 9
By . Published 29 December 2009With a formal approach in keeping with the Youtube era of digital filmmaking, Neill Blompkamp’s debut is an exciting and provocative rush, its success testament to the increasing sophistication of...
The Beast Stalker
By . Published 28 December 2009Opening with a thrilling police chase which results in an impressive slow motion pile-up, director Dante (The Twins Effect) Lam’s latest is a stylish but ultimately unspectacular entry in the...
Chef's Special
By . Published 28 December 2009Maxi (Cámara) is a foul-mouthed, flamboyant and mostly unlikable chef in Madrid, whose professional and personal lives are thrown into disarray when he is forced to take in his...
1941
By . Published 16 December 2009This rare misfire from cinema’s greatest entertainer was one of several productions to mark the end of the New Hollywood era. 1941 is a mess of a movie, an unfocused,...
Kim Ji-woon Double Bill
By . Published 08 December 2009Two movies from one of South Korea’s most versatile filmmakers: A Bittersweet Life is an ultra-stylish, fatalistic gangster thriller with all the MTV inflected exuberance and considered sincere philosophising...
All Over Me
By . Published 27 November 2009Anyone who grew up during the 90s may recall seeing this during Channel 4’s Queer Street strand. Teenage Claude is a music loving skater who can’t quite understand her feelings...
G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra
By . Published 26 November 2009Upon its cinema release, many called this cynical toy commercial “the live action Team America”. This is unfair: that movie had more wit and ideas in a single frame than...
Inglourious Basterds
By . Published 25 November 2009Tarantino’s superb genre pastiche is the cinematic equivalent of Woody Guthrie’s guitar case: a defiant, aggressive and life-affirming two-fingered salute to fascism. After the overblown Kill Bill and indulgent Death Proof, QT...
Just A Question of Love
By . Published 23 November 2009Made for French TV, this run-of-the-mill coming out story centres on Laurent, an agriculture student whose female flatmate poses as his girlfriend to appease the family who disowned his...
Sunshine Cleaning
By . Published 26 October 2009Sunshine Cleaning is a a lovely wee film. Not, however, in the way that so many American indies (In Search of A Midnight Kiss, Away We Go, 500 Days of...
Boom!
By . Published 23 October 2009John Waters cites Boom! as his favourite film of all time: it’s not surprising. Liz Taylor shrieks and prances in some of the most outrageous outfits you’ll ever see, barking...
