New titles, June, 'The Artist', 'Contraband', 'Woman in the Fifth'

1920s California for a loving – and silent – recreation of Hollywood on the verge of sound. ‘The Artist’ is shot in exactly the same speechless, monochrome style as the movies in which our tragic hero, actor George Valentin (Dujardin), employs a canny arched eyebrow or breaks out into a rip-roaring tap-dancing routine to woo his adoring audience.

It’s 1927, Valentin is a star, but, oh no, is that the sound of… sound, on the horizon? Valentin is an insufferable ham. He laps up the adoration at a premiere, ignoring his co-stars and hogging the stage with a trusty performing dog (a constant, cute presence in the film). His domestic life is shaky, and his wife isn’t impressed when he’s snapped outside the premiere with an unknown woman and they both appear on the cover of Variety. The woman is young, beautiful Peppy Miller (Bérénice Bejo), who turns up as an extra on George’s next picture, ‘The German Affair’.
 

Other New Titles

BEING JOHN MALKOVICH (1999) CRITERION

BUCK (2011)

CONTRABAND (2012)

LATE BLOOMERS (2011)

WOMAN IN THE FIFTH, THE (2011)

BORGIAS, THE (2012) SEASON ONE

WALKING DEAD, THE (2012) SEASON 2

MY NIGHT WITH MARILYN (2011)

NIGHTBIRDS (1970)
LAUREL & HARDY: SWISS MISS, ETC. (1938)
CHRONICLE (2012)
FASTEST (2011)
SUNSET LIMITED, THE (2011)
MARTHA MARCY MAY MARLENE (2011)
MARTHA MARCY MAY MARLENE (2011) BLU-RAY
CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM (2011) SEASON 8

UTAMARO AND HIS FIVE WOMEN (1946)
DESIRE (1936)
WOMAN OF THE LAKE (1966)
MACHETE MAIDENS UNLEASHED! (2010)
SAFE HOUSE (2012)
SHAME (2011)
WEEKEND (2011)
WOMAN, THE (2011)
YOU DON'T KNOW JACK (2010)

Top 10 films featuring Queens

As one wealthy unelected dictator celebrates avoiding being deposed for more than half a century, we look back at some of the other queens in cinema history.

The African Queen

In Africa during WW1, a gin-swilling riverboat owner/captain is persuaded by a strait-laced missionary to use his boat to attack an enemy warship. Humphrey Bogart and Katherine Hepburn star in John Huston's Technicolour comedy about an odd couple aboard a boat in times of war. Rent $4.40

The Bandit Queen

Phoolan Devi, the Goddess of Flowers, India's Bandit Queen, surrendered with her gang on her own terms, negotiating with a police force that was unable to capture her. Shekhar Kapur's film captures the cheering crowds of ten thousand, who considered her an avenging angel, the scourge of the high castes and the rich, and protector of the low caste and poor. Rent $4.40

Confessions of a Teenage Drama Queen

A teenage girl is convinced that her home city revolves around her until her family packs up and moves to the suburbs, where she finds herself competing for attention. Rent $4.40

Kings And Queen

Nora is in her thirties and has loved four men - her son Elias, Elias's deceased father, her own father, and Ismael, a musician given to odd behavior with whom she lived seven years. Faced with her father's death, Nora seeks out Ismael to ask that he reconnect with Elias. Rent $4.40

Queen Of Spades

An elderly countess strikes a bargain with the devil and exchanges her soul for the ability to always win at cards... Thorold Dickinson's horror comedy with Edith Evans just pre-dates our glorious Queen's reign, but she might have watched it on her honeymoon. Rent $4.40

Nine Queens

Marcos observes Juan successfully pulling off a bill-changing scam on a cashier, and then getting caught as he attempts to pull the same trick on the next shift. Marcos steps in, claiming to be a policeman, and drags Juan out of the store. Once they are back on the street, Marcos reveals himself to be a fellow swindler with a game of much higher stakes in mind, and he invites Juan to be his partner in crime. Rent $4.40

Priscilla Queen Of The Desert

Australia's triumphant riposte to the accusation that it is a land without high culture. Homophobia is solved by ambitious actors dressing in provocative frocks and touring the set of 'Wake In Fright', meeting the extras and being attacked with table-tennis balls. Painful, unfunny but impossible to delete from the national psyche. Rent $4.40

Queen Margot

Young Queen Margot finds herself trapped in an arranged marriage amidst a religious war between Catholics and Protestants. She hopes to escape with a new lover, but finds herself imprisoned by her powerful and ruthless family. Rent $4.40

Virgin Queen

Sir Walter Raleigh overcomes court intrigue to win favor with Queen Bette Davis in order to get financing for a proposed voyage to the New World in Henry Koster's magnificent treatment made in Year Three of our supreme commander's glorious reign.

Queen Christina

Young Christina ascends to the Swedish throne at age 5. While she is queen, Sweden becomes a dominant European power at the end of the Thirty Years War. Like England's Elizabeth I, Christina (Greta Garbo) is pressured into a politically correct marriage (her cousin) but she falls in love with an emissary from Spain (John Gilbert). Rent $4.40

New Titles, June, 'Hugo', 'The Skin I Live In'

STORY OF FILM, THE: AN ODYSSEY (2011)

Mark Cousins' enormously comprehensive history of cinema was a great book and now he's turned it into a highly enjoyable series, with interviews and linking segments shot by himself on DV that visit the locations of some of cinema's greatest moments and turns a still, melancholy eye on them as they are today. His global approach gives fair space to Iranian, Indian and Japanese cinema, as much as to American and British approaches of storytelling, though his low-key, worldweary Irish accented narration may irk with some. All ten one-hour episodes are included on 5 disks.

Other new stuff this week

HUGO (2011)

SKIN I LIVE IN, THE (2011)

DEVILS, THE (1971)

ALBERT NOBBS (2011)

DARKEST HOUR, THE (2011)

FLYING SWORDS OF DRAGON GATE, THE (2011)

Q (2011)

UNDERWORLD: AWAKENING (2012)

KILLING, THE: SERIES 2 (2009)

STORY OF THE LAST CHRYSANTHEMUMS, THE (1939)

ALAMBRISTA! (1977) CRITERION

ANATOMY OF A MURDER (1959) CRITERION

ORGANIZER, THE (1963) CRITERION

EDWARD SAID: TWO FILMS (2004/2005)

STROMBOLI (1950)

UNE SI JOLIE PETITE PLAGE (1949)

TOOMELAH (2011)

WELL-DIGGER'S DAUGHTER, THE (2011)

X (2011)

GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO, THE (2011)

GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO, THE (2011) BLU-RAY

BIG LOVE SEASON 5 (2011) DISCS 1-2

BIG LOVE SEASON 5 (2011) DISCS 3-4

TRUE BLOOD SEASON 4 (2011) DISCS 1-3

TRUE BLOOD SEASON 4 (2011) DISCS 4-6