DVD Round-up, 25 October 2010: Brooklyn's Finest, Black Death, Make Way for Tomorrow, Will Success Change Rock Hunter?, Tintin and the Golden Fleece and Tintin and the Blue Oranges

Released in UK cinemas this summer but soon forgotten, Brooklyn's Finest (Momentum) is the latest film from Training Day director Antione Fuqua, though sadly there's none of that film's panache in evidence here.

Richard Gere is Eddie Dugan, a Brooklyn cop nearing his retiral date who has to mentor a rookie, while a narcotics officer, Sal (Ethan Hawke), is willing to kill to better himself.

Finally there's Tango (Don Cheadle), working undercover and uncertain where his loyalties lie: his fellow police officers or the people he's infiltrated.

As we encounter these three men, a drawn out process with few laughs and little in the way of tension, their various threads intertwine, though by the time anything substantial happens the audiences' attention is sorely tested.

The intention may be to be gritty, dark and portentuous, but the actual effect is that the film drags as each character goes through the motions. With so much talent on offer that's a real shame, but it proves that even the best actors can't make a drab script shine.

Director Christopher Smith takes us back to 13th Century England for Black Death (Sony Pictures), a gory trek through the religious goings-on of the church as it attempts to find the cause of the plague through witchcraft and the work of the Devil.

Sean Bean stars as a holy knight, Ulric, sent on a mission with a monk, Osmund (Eddie Redmayne), and a band of mercenaries as the they search for a potential necromancer in marshland near the church.

As the group reach a village which has somehow avoided the disease, they encounter locals who are too good to be true, their leader, Langiva (Carice van Houten), potentially hiding some malice behind her smouldering good looks.

Bean is also on good form here, appearances by David Warner and Johnny Harris giving impressive support.

This may be a genre film, with demons and magic spoken of, but it's not fantasy...probably. The exact reasons for what's going on in the village are left for the viewer to put their own perspective on, one of the reasons Black Death is such a refreshing watch.

Extras on the Blu-ray include a director's commentary, deleted scenes and featurettes on the making of the film.

Also out this week are two new Blu-rays from Masters of Cinema, classics from the vaults which out many modern pictures to shame.

Make Way for Tomorrow is director Leo McCarey's 1937 drama which Orson Welles described as "the saddest movie ever made." It stars Victor Moore and Beulah Bondi as Barkley and Lucy Cooper, an ageing couple who head to the big city to live with their children when their home is repossessed.

When there, the couple find their kids living their own lives, with little time for their parents. Needing a job, Barkley leaves his wife, to search for work, but returning to take a stroll through their past as they revisit old haunts and plan their future.

At one time one of the world's best-known directors, McCarey leads the unwary viewer into the world of the Coopers with skill, bringing out the humour and the tragedy in the situation. This is both a haunting tale of old age and an attack on the modern world and the economy, the America of the time still entrenched in the Great Depression.

This new Blu-ray is an impressive transfer of a film which hasn't seen a release in the UK before, while the extras, including a video introduction from Peter Bogdanovich and a lengthy booklet, help put it into context.

The other classic out today is 1957's Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?, starring Jayne Mansfield and Tony Randall in a fun romp through the advertising world from one-time Looney Tunes director, Frank Tashlin.

Randall is Rock Hunter, a Madison Avenue ad man who needs to come up with a new campaign for a lipstick fast, or he'll lose his job. Rock lucks out when his neice meets Rita Marlowe (Mansfield), a Hollywood starlet who has come to New York after a failed romance.

Deciding that they can help each other by pretending to be a couple, Hunter and Marlowe join forces and fool the press, though Hunter's girlfriend isn't convinced of the plan.

Hugely enjoyable, with a tremendous performance from Randall and a smoking hot turn from Mansfield, director Tarshin's film is pure fun from start to finish, the Blu-ray transfer ensuring the primary colour-infused picture looks as good as new.

Joe Dante, the director of Gremlins, offers a sweet tribute to Tarshin, while archive news footage an alternate soundtrack help to make this release a welcome one.

Finally, another pair of golden oldies have been unearthed by the BFI in the shape of Tintin and the Mystery of the Golden Fleece and Tintin and the Blue Oranges, both out on DVD.

Jean-Pierre Talbot stars as Tintin in these live action adventures, the first seeing the boy hero and his companion, Captain Haddock, head to Turkey when the Captain is named beneficiary in the will of an old comrade.

The friends take the good ship Golden Fleece on a voyage which will see them encounter new friends and enemies, the odd pirate, gangster and the odd detective (or two).

Great fun throughout, this may be squarely aimed at the kids in the audience but the adults should lap up the Bond-lite action as well, director Jean-Jacques Vierne ensuring it looks larger-than-life throughout. An informative booklet helps put the film in some context.

1964's sequel, Tintin and the Blue Oranges, see the pair embroiled in plans to end world hunger thanks to the creation of a desert-proof orange, which happens to be blue. 

Spain is the location for this new story, perhaps not as much fun as the original, with too much slapstick replacing this time around, but it's still something that eager fans will welcome on shiny disc.

The long and the short of film viewing

For someone who struggles to sit through 20 minutes of adverts at the cinema, the release this week of a film which lasts five hours and 55 minutes could cause me some problems, though it still has a long way to go to beat the record for longest film ever made.

Out today is French drama Carlos, the story of real-life terrorist, Carlos the Jackal, who rose to prominence in the 1970s with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, before making a name for himself as a leftist guerilla in the Middle East.

The film began life as a three part TV series, only to be cut down into a six hour version for film festivals. There is a three hour cut available, but the Filmhouse are inviting brave souls to sit down for the full-length film on Sunday evening.

As I mentioned above, Carlos may be lengthy, but consider for a moment the poor unfortunates who have tried to sit through director Gérard Courant's experimental film, Cinématon, which runs to a staggering 154-hours and which took 34 years to make.

Made up of over 2000 silent vignettes, each one clocking in at 3 minutes and 25 seconds, the scenes feature various friends of the director acting out sections of their lives, Terry Gilliam, Julie Delpy and Ken Loach just three of the participants.

Slightly more appealing is British director Douglas Gordon's 1982 film, 24 Hour Psycho, which features Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 picture, Psycho, slowed down to just 2 frames per second, rather than the standard 24. This means it lasts exactly 24 hours, and Gordon was known to show the film to interested parties in his bedroom. Whether they were allowed a shower after is unknown.

At the other end of the spectrum there's the world's shortest film, which you can find at www.the1secondfilm.com. Their one second film is animated and each frame is a giant painting, each one created at a collaborative party.

Over at the site, wannabe filmmakers and producers can get involved and find out more, with Kiefer Sutherland and Pierce Brosnan already part of the scheme which will end up supporting the charity, The Global Fund for Women.

DVD Round-up, 12 October 2010: The Human Centipede, The Evil Dead, 30 Days of Night: Dark Days

In the run-up to Halloween it seems the DVD companies are doing their best to try and scare the life out of the public, with classics, remakes and sequels now out to buy.

Let's start with the newbie first, The Human Centipede (Eureka), “the horror event of the year” (it says here) which pits three unsuspecting tourists to a living nightmare in rural Germany as they encounter a mad scientist intent on creating yer actual human centipede.

How does he do that without sewing the three people together so that their mouths are attached to the others, erm, rear end, I hear you ask?

Well, I won't go into detail in case you're eating, but it's safe to say this isn't a disc to pop in the DVD player after Antiques Roadshow, a gruesome gross-fest which sets out to make the audience feel ill rather than impress them with an allegorical plot or decent acting.

Also available in Blu-ray, it's fair to say the movie looks good, technically, though the enclosed setting of Dr Heiter's house and basement aren't that exciting. There is a vein of black humour in here that means you may guffaw once or twice, but there's little rewatch value. Extras include a making-of, interviews and deleted scenes.

One film that does deserve rewatching is the video nasty-turned horror classic, The Evil Dead (Sony Pictures), which receives yet another home video release but this time makes its debut on Blu-ray.

For those who haven't caught the 1981 low-budget gem, it stars Bruce Campbell as Ash, a college student who decides to head into the woods with friends for the weekend. When they arrive in a log cabin they uncover The Book of the Dead, an ancient text which unleashes evil spirits on the visitors.

Made on a paltry budget by a group of film fans/students, including director Sam Raimi and producer Rob Tapert, two names which would one day mean a lot more to cinemagoers (think the Spider Man movies and Drag Me To Hell), Evil Dead took a generation of viewers by surprise, not to mention the censors who tried to ban it in the early 1980s.

This new Blu-ray not only allows us to see the film as it was first shown, with the disc struck from the original negative, but its extras, including a brand new commentary from Campbell, Raimi and Tapert, offers even the most hardened of Dead heads something of note. Whether that's insight on how to make a film from nothing or views from other filmmakers, this is a compact package which will happily sit alongside all those other versions of the film you own.

And if it's your first time in the woods, come on in, we've been expecting you.

The final horror release this week is 30 Days of Night: Dark Days (Sony Pictures), a TV-movie sequel to 2007's vampire flick, 30 Days of Night.



This latest adventure for Alaskan survivor, Stella (Kiele Sanchez replacing the original's Melissa George), sees her venturing out of the decimated town of Barrow and into the bright lights of Los Angeles, where a new sect of bloodsuckers are hiding from humanity.

Lead by the sultry Lillith (Mia Kirshner), the vampires are determined to send Stella packing when they discover she's out to expose them following the death of her husband and friends. Stella joins with a group of renegades who are also keen to see the vampires vanquished, and the team are soon fighting for survival in the LA underworld.

On the plus side, it's fair to say that director Ben Ketai has produced a solid, expensive looking movie with aspirations seemingly beyond its TV origins. The film looks suitably steely in its blue hues, and the hi-def image on the Blu-ray ensures it has a sheen that others straight-to-DVD sequels would die for.

Beyond its look, the actors go through the motions well enough, Sanchez a likeable leading lady who doesn't have much to do except look upset/angry/determined (delete as applicable) and tread water until things come to their predictable conclusion.

The director and writer make it clear in the chatty commentary that they're much enamoured by the world created by Steve Niles for his graphic novel, but it's hard to see quite what it is they like so much. The story isn't particularly innovative and the idea of vampires being a bit nasty and wanting to rule humanity nothing new.

It's likely we'll see another of these sequels at some point, but quite why is anyone's guess.

DVD Round-up 4 October: The Brothers Bloom, Tears for Sale, Cover Girl Killer, Life in Danger, Pit of Darkness

Everyone loves a well made tale of roguish con-artists plying their trade on unsuspecting, usually rich, marks, their Robin Hood-like antics appealing when so much cinema is worthy or po-faced (unless it's the latest portrayal of Robin Hood, in which case po-faced is about as much fun as it gets).

Pity then the viewers of The Brothers Bloom (Optimum Home Entertainment), Rian Johnson's follow-up to 2005's Brick, which provides little of the fun expected from such a film.

The basic plot is promising enough: two successful con-artist brothers, Bloom (Adrien Brody) and Stephen (Mark Ruffalo), come to a crossroads in their careers when the former decides to give up the game. Just as the pair are about to part, they become embroiled in a new smuggling scheme, while Bloom meets and falls for Penelope (Rachel Wiesz) and the plan begins to get even more complicated.

The film may look sumptuous, with some impressive camerawork and an expensive looking gloss as we're taken from America to Greece and onto Prague and St Petersburg, but the problem here lies with the dull, lifeless and self-important script.

There's simply nothing in there for the cast to get their teeth into, leading to scenes happening because they get the characters to the next point in the story rather than there being a substantial narrative pulling them together.

While Brody and Wiesz diligently go through the motions, their romance is flimsy, and from the time they get together it's a slog to the finish. A missed opportunity all round.

A featurette, director interview and deleted scenes commentary completes the set.

Coming across like the lovechild of Terry Gilliam and Tarsem Singh, the Luc Besson-produced Tears for Sale (Icon Home Entertainment) is a feast for the eyes from Serbian director Uros Stojanovic.

Set in 1920s Serbia, the film introduces us to the village of Pokrp, where two beautiful sisters, Ognjenka (Katarina Radivojevic) and Little Boginja’s (Sonja Kolacaric), decide that they should feel the caress of a man for the first time.

Unfortunately the village is short of virile men, all of them having been killed in war or in the nearby minefield. When the pair accidentally kill the village elder, they find themselves on a search for a strong man who can satisfy the needs of the local women, though that turns out to be far more difficult than they'd expected.

Stunning visuals are the trademark of Tears for Sale, the digitally enhanced landscape a gorgeous concoction which helps to give the world depth rather than taking the focus away from the main plot.

Supercharged throughout, Kolacaric and Radivojevic seemingly having great fun as the bolshy sisters whose attempts to keep their spoils for themselves as the other women demand a share of them. Everyone seems to have their tongue in their cheeks here, but it doesn't stop there being moments of real emotion.

A satisfyingly fun film that is certainly one of the more unique DVDs to hit the market in recent months.

Also out this week are three new releases from Renown Pictures, purveyors of B-movies and archive features which time has cruelly forgotten.

First up we have a double bill of films from director Terry Bishop, both dating from 1959 and plucked from the “quota quickie” stockpile: Life in Danger and Cover Girl Killer. Clocking in at just an hour in length, these films were designed as support features for bigger A movies, though they both still have their merits.

Prime amongst Cover Girl Killer's is the presence of future Harold Steptoe, Harry H Corbett, just four years away from the role that would define him. Here, he's an unnamed psychopath with a penchant for killing, you guessed it, cover girls. He's now being chased by the coppers, led by the stoic Inspector Brunner (Victor Brooks).

Life in Danger stars the underrated Derren Nesbitt as a convict who has escaped from an asylum and who hides out in a local village. Hunted by the villagers, the man befriends a local girl, Hazel (Julie Hopkins) and tries to plan his escape.

With their short running times demanding that extraneous material be kept to a minimum, Bishop ensures they fairly zip along. While Corbett is always watchable, shining whenever he's given more than a few words to utter, the chance to see a young Nesbitt (and fellow  alumni from TV's The Prisoner, Peter Swanwick, as the asylum head) is welcome.

The third film, available on its own, is 1961's Pit of Darkness, starring the voice of 1000 adverts, William Franklyn, as a man who wakes up on a bomb site with no memory of the previous three weeks, but who has the nagging feeling something very bad has happened.

Franklyn may not be the typical square-jawed hero, but his confused pauses which result from flashbacks are well played, while support from Nanette Newman and a young Tony Booth makes it fun for celeb-spotters. The plot itself may get a little convoluted towards the end, but that's a minor point.

Visit www.renownpicturesltd.com for more on these films.