Film and Issue 639

DVD box sets roundup - Vera Lynn, Audrey Hepburn, Monty Python

11 Sep 2009

Let’s hear it for the girls. The East Ham-born ‘Forces Sweetheart’ Vera Lynn was not really known for her work in cinema, but such is the power of nostalgia capitalism that here comes The Vera Lynn Collection (Sony) ●● featuring three patriotic wartime…

Dorian Gray

11 Sep 2009

Oscar Wilde’s only published novel The Picture of Dorian Gray is tricky to adapt cinematically, requiring a deft balance between its sparkling wit and the Faustian darkness at its core. As the author himself wrote, ‘man sees his own sins in Dorian, what…

The Avengers - Series 1 & 2

11 Sep 2009

(PG) 1520min (Optimum DVD retail) What joy! Every surviving episode from all six series of the marvelous cult British television show The Avengers, originally broadcast between 1961 and 1969, are to be released on DVD over the course of the next…

Away we go

11 Sep 2009

After Revolutionary Road, director Sam Mendes takes a turn for the worse with this naff impersonation of an independent American comedy road movie written by publisher and memoirist Dave Eggers and his Mrs (Vendela Vida). Expectant parents Burt (John…

The Agent

11 Sep 2009

Four months after submitting the manuscript of his second novel Black, author Stephen Parker (Stephen Kennedy) decides to pay a visit to his literary agent Alexander Joyce (William Beck). It transpires that the latter is not a fan of the new work, which…

Amsterdamned

11 Sep 2009

(18) 105 min, Dick Maas’ 1988 Dutch thriller with elements of gory horror has the great merit of not taking itself too seriously as it bops along, and adds to that an admirable visual inventiveness about its striking locales. In it, a wetsuited…

Yellowbeard

11 Sep 2009

(12) 96min (Optimum DVD retail) On paper, Mel Damski’s 1983 comedy has everything going for it. With a cast that includes four of the Monty Python crew, as well as Marty Feldman, Spike Milligan, Peter Cook, Peter Boyle and a host of other comedy…

Dynamic: 01 - The Best of DavidLynch.com

11 Sep 2009

(15) 116 min (Scanbox DVD retail) Watching these sketches and skits that were first shown on David Lynch’s subscription-based website, we might think he is the Francis Bacon of film. In his features Lynch is the master of the tension between…

Miss March: Generation Penetration

11 Sep 2009

Crude American teen sex comedy (is there any other kind?) about a kid played by burgeoning talent Zach Cregger who awakens from a four-year coma to hear his once virginal high school sweetheart (Raquel Alessi) is now a centerfold in Playboy. So he and…

Whiteout

11 Sep 2009

Antarctica-based US deputy marshal (Kate Beckinsale) must investigate the frozen continent’s first murder before winter begins, but dealings with a UN operative (Gabriel Macht), also investigating the murder, making things complicated. Directed by…

Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs 3D

11 Sep 2009

Vivid and likeable animated version of Judi and Ron Barrett’s 1978 children’s book set in the town of Chewandswallow, where the weather comes three times a day, at breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Bill Hader, Anna Faris, James Caan and Bruce Campbell give…

Three Miles North of Molkom

11 Sep 2009

Serio-comic documentary about the Angsbacka No Mind festival in Sweden, an adult playground of shared consciousness. See feature, page 30. Selected release from Fri 18 Sep.

The Thing

11 Sep 2009

John Carpenter’s excellent 1982 monster flick revived on digital big screen projection. Selected release from Tue 15 Sep. (18) 108min

John Hughes - Some kind of wonderful

10 Sep 2009

John Hughes never meant much to me as a kid. Put it down to timing. I was ten when The Breakfast Club came out, the perfect age for Back to the Future, not for a bunch of high school stereotypes hanging out in detention. Sure, I liked Weird Science…

Sweden's No Mind Festival - Three Miles North of Molkom

10 Sep 2009

It’s 5pm on a Monday afternoon and I’m crying. I’m sat on the grass mat floor of a big tent and I’m weeping on the shoulder of Carine, a beautiful Swedish lady I have known for only a few days. She’s crying too and our waterborne grief and guilt is…

Adventureland

10 Sep 2009

(15) 106min Follically challenged Superbad director Greg Mottola writes and directs his first feature since 1996’s subtle and funny Manhattan road movie The Daytrippers with sweet and funny results. It is the summer of 1987 and English lit…

Fish Tank

10 Sep 2009

Andrea Arnold’s remarkable second feature, following her Glasgow-based debut Red Road, is about Mia, an angry and aggressive 15-year-old who wants to be a dancer. When she’s not practicing in her room in the flat she lives in with her single mum and her…

Indiana Jones All-nighter

10 Sep 2009

Insomniac fans of the iconic adventure hero played by Harrison Ford will be happy to learn that Raiders of the Lost Ark, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade will be showing back to back in this good old fashioned…

The River

10 Sep 2009

Described by Martin Scorsese as one of the most beautiful films ever made, Jean Renoir’s 1951 adaptation of Rumer Godden’s novel about a British family’s colonial experiences in Bengal in the last days of the Raj brings a short Jean Renoir retrospective…

Agantuk (The Stranger)

10 Sep 2009

Indian cinema legend Satyajit Ray’s final film (before his death in 1992) receives an all too rare screening. A comic dissection of familial trust, honesty and fragile belief systems, Agantuk is a major work from a Bengali great (based on one of Ray’s…

Sin Nombre

10 Sep 2009

Last chance to see Cary Fukunga’s debut feature, an accomplished and powerful Mexican social thriller which centres on the themes of belonging and escape. When a city gangbanger tries to escape his murderous gang and a Honduran girl tries to sneak…

Profile: John Krasinski from Away We Go

3 Sep 2009

Name John Krasinski Born 20 October 1979, Newton, Massachusetts Background After a series of bit parts in films and TV shows, Krasinski landed a key role in the American version of The Office alongside Steve Carrell, and has been a US…

Profile: Katie Jarvis of Fish Tank

3 Sep 2009

Name Katie Jarvis Born 22 June 1991, Dagenham, Essex Background You won’t recognise the star of Andrea Arnold’s Fish Tank, but you won’t soon forget her. Cast with no acting experience after being spotted arguing with her boyfriend at…

Profile: RJ Cutler

All you need to know about the director of The September Issue.

3 Sep 2009

Name RJ Cutler Born 1962, USA Background Cutler graduated from Harvard in 1983. He has a producing credit on The War Room (1993), a landmark documentary that follows Clinton’s 1992 US presidential campaign through his notorious spin doctors James…

The Firm

3 Sep 2009

(18) 90min Writer-director Nick Love has taken a big gamble in remaking Alan Clarke’s 1989 television drama The Firm, which is widely considered to be the toughest and most insightful screen depiction of football hooligans. Wisely Love hasn’t tried…

The September Issue

3 Sep 2009

(12A) 89min RJ Cutler, political documentary filmmaker and self confessed fashion-ignoramus, is an unlikely candidate to be granted access to the hallowed halls of Vogue magazine; yet in 2007, he received an invitation from the ‘high priestess’ of…

Anja Kirschner and David Panos: The Last Days of Jack Sheppard

The story of the 18th century thief told through contemporary eyes

3 Sep 2009

The Last Days of Jack Sheppard showcases a film, placed among its filmic sets alongside rare archive material. It tells the story of the notorious 18th century English thief and proletarian hero, Jack Sheppard, through contemporary eyes. The hour long…

Julie and Julia

3 Sep 2009

(12A) 123min Nora Ephron’s love affair with cookery initially surfaced in Mike Nichols’ 1986 comedy Heartburn, with Meryl Streep and Jack Nicholson starring in Ephron’s adaptation of her recipe book of the same name. Now Ephron and Streep have…

Morning Light

3 Sep 2009

(PG) 97min The Morning Light is a boat owned by Roy Disney, nephew of Mouse-house king Walt, and for Mark Monroe’s feature-length documentary, 15 youngsters chosen for their sailing prowess (and good looks) duke it out to be one of the 11 who sail…