September, New titles, 'Snowtown', 'Insidious', 'Hesher'

Australia's worst serial killer, John Bunting, and the accomplices who fell under his spell are profiled in "Snowtown." An extremely bleak psychological horror-thriller with arty trimmings, the movie compels for a couple of reels before muddled plotting sets in and audiences are left with no one to connect with when the central character transforms from innocent bystander to participant in Bunting's crimes. Debut helmer Justin Kurzel guides a predominantly non-professional cast with distinction, but this descent into unremittingly depressing territory will require careful marketing and positive critical notices to attract viewers. (Variety)

INSIDIOUS

From the co-creators of ‘Saw’ (James Wan and Leigh Whannell, here director and writer) and the director of ‘Paranormal Activity’ (Oren Peli, producing) comes a project featuring nothing that was original, distinctive or scary about either earlier film. It starts like a haunted-house movie: spooked by something nasty in the loft of his parents’ new house, Dalton (Ty Simpkins) lapses into a coma. His mother, Renai (Rose Byrne), hires loopy medium Elise (Lin Shaye), who declares: ‘Your son is not in a coma. It’s not the house that’s haunted, it’s him.’ Renai’s sceptical husband (Patrick Wilson) is equally unimpressed when Elise calls in a pair of bickering, nerdy ghostbusters (Angus Sampson and Whannell), who arrive with tons of Heath Robinson gear. Suddenly, we swerve into a preposterous supernatural mystery – seemingly grabbed from the waste baskets of M Night Shyamalan and Sam Raimi – as Dalton is besieged by evil spirits and the medium spouts half-baked guff about astral planes. Not so much insidious as inexcusable. (Time Out Film)

HESHER

Loud music. Pornography. Burning shit to the ground. These are a few of Hesher’s favorite things. And they are what Hesher brings into the lives of TJ and his father, Paul when he takes up residence in their garage uninvited. Grief-stricken by the loss of TJ’s mother in a car accident, Paul can’t muster the strength to evict the strange squatter, and soon the long-haired, tattooed Hesher becomes a fixture in the household. Like a force of nature, Hesher’s anarchy shakes the family out of their grief and helps them embrace life once more. (Wrekin Hill Entertainment)

OTHER NEW STUFF THIS WEEK

HEARTBEATS (2010)

PROSTITUTE (1980)

MAMMUTH (2010)

LOST THING, THE (2011)

4.3.2.1 (2011)

CAIRO TIME (2011)

PATTON (1970)

STRANGE WORLD OF GURNEY SLADE, THE (2011)

JOANNA (1968)

PINTER'S PROGRESS & THE HOMECOMING (2010)

WARD, THE (2010)

TAKE ME HOME TONIGHT (2011)

CEREMONY (2010)

SOMETHING UNKNOWN (2009)

BURKE AND HARE (2010)

September, New Titles, 'Valhalla Rising', 'Super', 'Enter The Void'

A brutal, mesmerising film from Dane Nicolas Winding Refn (‘Pusher’, ‘Bronson’), dominated by Mads Mikkelsen as a mute fighter, whose journey from twelfth-century Scotland to a strange New World is an odyssey of self-realisation. Enslaved by a pagan Scottish clan chieftain, the nameless warrior is chained and forced to fight to the death in hand-to-hand bouts staged for amusement and betting. Escaping with the help of a young boy, who names him One-Eye, the warrior learns to use weapons and joins a band of Vikings, but these are Christian converts bound for Jerusalem to reclaim the city for their faith. Their ship, however, is enveloped by a mysterious mist, which finally lifts to reveal an unknown land. Lost, hungry and under attack from the natives, the Viking converts lose their faith and lose their minds, turning on one another – but the enigmatic One-Eye discovers his destiny and embraces his essential self.

There are shades here of Terrence Malick’s elemental feel for landscape, the doomed colonial enterprise of Werner Herzog’s ‘Aguirre, Wrath of God’ and Vincent Ward’s visionary ‘The Navigator: A Medieval Odyssey’, yet Refn makes this hypnotic, dreamlike film entirely his own.

Other New Stuff This Week

SUPER (2011)

VALHALLA RISING (2009)

POTICHE (2010)

DIARY OF A WIMPY KID 2: RODRICK RULES (2011)

ENTER THE VOID (2009)

HOLY WATER (2009)

MIDDLE MEN (2009)

MAD BASTARDS (2011)

MISFITS, THE (2011) SEASON 1 + 2

MAMMUTH (2010)

SOURCE CODE Blu-ray

Criterion CUL-DE-SAC

Criterion SECRET SUNSHINE

August, New Titles, 'Meek's Cutoff', 'Source Code', 'Battle Los Angeles'

Kelly Reichardt's glorious slow-burn western, which had its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival, is finally on DVD.

Two equally cool, contemplative and plot-neutral films – ‘Meek’s Cutoff’ and Sofia Coppola’s ‘Somewhere’ – competed for the Golden Lion. One was universally lauded and touted as the surefire winner. The other was dismissed as shallow, self-regarding and meaningless. And the wrong film won.

The sheer gulf of quality and intention between these two superficially similar films couldn’t be wider. The ‘cinema of nothing’ that both Reichardt and Coppola practice may be currently in vogue, but their approaches to it differ wildly: where Coppola uses the camera to reflect her own celebrity-centric interests, Reichardt’s gaze is firmly fixed on the outside world, and particularly on those poor souls who have lost their place within it.

‘Meek’s Cutoff’ is a western, but it’s like no horse opera you’ve ever seen. Michelle Williams plays Emily, one of a small band of settlers wagon-training west, keeping their eyes peeled for Indian raiders. But with supplies dwindling and tough-talking guide Meek (Bruce Greenwood) looking increasingly out of his depth, the group reluctantly turn to a captured Cayuse warrior (Rod Rondeaux) for guidance.

OTHER NEW STUFF THIS WEEK

PAUL (2011) BLU-RAY
PAUL (2011)
SUCKER PUNCH (2011) BLU-RAY
SUCKER PUNCH (2011)
SOURCE CODE (2011) BLU-RAY
SOURCE CODE (2011)
SOURCE CODE (2011) BLU-RAY
SOURCE CODE (2011)
UP PERISCOPE! (1959)
YOUR HIGHNESS (2011)
BATTLE: LOS ANGELES (2011) BLU-RAY
MEEK'S CUTOFF (2011)
LOU (2011)
PLEASURE GIRLS, THE (1965)
PLEASURE GIRLS, THE
BATTLE: LOS ANGELES (2011)
REEF, THE (2010)
HEDGEHOG, THE (2009)
SCARFACE (1983) BLU-RAY
A CAT IN PARIS (2010)
EXTRAORDINARY ADVENTURES OF ADELE BLAC-SEC (2010)
HOUSEMAID, THE (2010)
TOMBSTONE (1993)
AMADEUS (1984) BLU-RAY
BOURNE IDENTITY, THE (2002) BLU-RAY
BOURNE SUPREMACY, THE (2004)
BOURNE ULTIMATUM. THE (2007)
ALIEN (1979) BLU-RAY
ALIENS (1986) BLU-RAY
ALIEN 3 (1992) BLU-RAY
ALIEN RESURRECTION (1997) BLU-RAY
MAKING THE ALIEN ANTHOLOGY (2010)
MUSIC ROOM, THE (1958) CRITERION

New Stuff, August, 'Submarine', 'Paul', 'Fast Furious 5'

This is a spirited and warm film debut from TV comic Richard Ayoade, best known as an actor on ‘The IT Crowd’ and a little less as a one-time writer and director of ‘Garth Marenghi’s Darkplace’ for Channel 4 – as well as a maker of music videos for the likes of the Arctic Monkeys. Ayoade’s background is in telly, but his film is proudly cinematic – so much so that its big-screen influences are almost its defining characteristics.

Adapted from Joe Dunthorne’s 2008 novel, ‘Submarine’ is a retro coming-of-age tale about a teenage boy shell-shocked by everyday life in 1980s Wales. This is the story of Oliver Tate, a schoolboy whose life is a movie in his head, which explains why his parents, played brilliantly by Noah Taylor and Sally Hawkins, are such impenetrable but telling caricatures, weighed down by the hang-ups and deficiencies Oliver affords them.

IRONCLAD (2010)
MADEMOISELLE CHAMBON
BARNEY'S VERSION
COEUR FIDELE (1923) BLU-RAY
COEUR FIDELE (1923)
ROBINSON IN RUINS (2010) BLU-RAY
ROBINSON IN RUINS (2010)
A DAY IN THE LIFE (1953-1964) BLU-RAY
A DAY IN THE LIFE (1953-1964)
REQUIEM FOR A VILLAGE (1975) BLU-RAY
HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN (2011)
THEY MET IN THE DARK (1943)
SMALL TIME (1996)
BEDWAYS (2010)
LOVE LIKE POISON (2010)
SUSPICIONS OF MR WHICHER, THE (2011)
WARD NO. 6 (2009)
CAUSE CELEBRE (1987)
BETTY'S BATH (1928)
NAKED KISS (1964) CRITERION
BLACK MOON (1975) CRITERION
ZAZIE DANS LE METRO (1960) CRITERION
RED SHOES, THE (1948) CRITERION
CHAINS (1949) CRITERION
TORMENTO (1950) CRITERION
NOBODY'S CHILDREN (1952) CRITERION
WHITE ANGEL, THE (1955) CRITERION
DIABOLIQUE (1955) CRITERION
PEOPLE ON SUNDAY (1930) CRITERION
PATHS OF GLORY (1957) CRITERION
FAST AND FURIOUS 5 (2011) BLU-RAY
FAST AND FURIOUS 5 (2011)
ARTHUR (2011)
BRIGHTON ROCK (2010)
IT'S KIND OF A FUNNY STORY (2010)
EASTBOUND AND DOWN (2010) SEASON 2
TROUBADORS (2011)
SONS OF ANARCHY (2008) SEASON 1
GRAN TORINO (2008) BLU-RAY
KREMLIN LETTER, THE (1970)
GREAT WHITE SILENCE, THE (1924) BLU-RAY
GREAT WHITE SILENCE, THE (1924)
CARMEN (1984)
LATE AUTUMN & A MOTHER SHOULD BE LOVED (1960) BLU
LATE AUTUMN & A MOTHER SHOULD BE LOVED (1960)
REQUIEM FOR A VILLAGE (1975) BLU-RAY
STRAVINSKY (1982)
LE BOSSU (1959)

New Titles, July, 'Norwegian Wood', 'My Dog Tulip', 'The Trip'

Vietnamese director Tran Anh Hung has a distinct curiosity about the significance of music, both in everyday life and in cinema. A recurring scene from his gorgeous 2000 film ‘At the Height of Summer’ saw a young couple waking each morning to the strains of the Velvet Underground’s ‘Pale Blue Eyes’ and engaging in a ritualised early-morning ballet of stretches and ablutions. At a pivotal moment in his wistful and agonisingly poignant new work – a thoughtfully abridged adaptation of Haruki Murakami’s lilting 1987 chronicle of late-teen neurosis in 1960s Tokyo – a young woman, Naoko, who’s still traumatised by the suicide of a schoolyard sweetheart, breaks down when a friend casually strums through a rendition of The Beatles’ torch song ‘Norwegian Wood’. The idea that something as ephemeral as a pop song could release a storm cloud of sorrows encapsulates the objectives of this film. It asks: how can we ever really be sure of love without understanding the hidden impulses of others? And what’s the point of love if death’s cruel hand can swipe at any moment?

My Dog Tulip

This gently episodic film by Paul and Sandra Fierlinger manages to say more about man’s relationship with dogs in a single, lush frame than ‘Marley and Me’ would if it were to run on a loop until the end of time.

It’s attentively adapted from a memoir by the late British wit JR Ackerley, which offers – in infinitesimal detail – the mucus-slathered trials of life with his fusty Alsatian bitch, Tulip, in 1950s Putney. Ackerley’s bone-dry prose is the epitome of self-flagellating, post-war Englishness, recalling at once the instructional irony of George Orwell’s essays and the arch, self-effacing out-loud-thoughts of Alan Bennett.

Other New Stuff

Limitless

Way Back, The

Made In Romania

The Trip

Archipelago

L'Amour Fou

Company Men

Macbeth (2010)

July, New Titles, 'Carlos The Jackal', 'The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest'

Continuing a pattern of switching between subdued ensemble dramas (‘Summer Hours’, ‘Late August, Early September’) and balls-out ‘global’ techno-thrillers (‘Demonlover’, ‘Boarding Gate’), French director Olivier Assayas returns with a hulking, seething, intermittently sublime, five-and-a-half hour film in which he manages to draw together elements from both of these distinct styles.

‘Carlos’ is the lightly fictionalised biopic of Ilich Ramírez Sánchez, known to the world – but not in this film! – as Carlos the Jackal, and it comes across as the mother of all New Yorker profiles writ loud and large on the screen. Central to the film is a passionate, technically complex (he’s fluent in half a dozen languages) performance from Venezuelan actor Edgar Ramirez who feels like the perfect, paunchy mouthpiece for Carlos’s fervent, if flawed, gunboat Marxism.

Covering the period between his joining the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) in 1970 and his capture in Sudan in 1994 (as he was being treated for a varicose vein on one of his testicles), the film works best when it presents information visually rather than with swathes of ideological discourse. The highlight is a masterly rendering of Carlos’s raid on an OPEC meeting in Vienna in 1975 for which Assayas orchestrates detail in such a way that it speaks about the politics, fears, tactics and ambitions of all involved. Elsewhere, small episodes – such as the gun-toting capture of Baader-Meinhof wildcat Gabriele Kröcher-Tiedemann – feel like they’ve been included purely for the sake of thoroughness.

Assayas doesn’t try to reflect too audaciously on Carlos ‘the man’, though he does paint him as someone whose single-minded focus on political goals was partly fuelled by raging sexual desire. (NB: The film is also screening in a more compact 158-minute version.)

Other New Stuff This Week

GIRL WHO KICKED THE HORNET'S NEST, THE (2009)

MECHANIC, THE (2011)

HALL PASS (2011)

OTHER GUYS, THE (2010)

BARNEY'S VERSION (2010)

KING'S SPEECH, THE (2010)

WAITING FOR SUPERMAN (2011)

WARRIOR'S WAY, THE (2010)

I SAW THE DEVIL (2010)

YOUNG AT HEART (1954)

MARRIAGE ITALIAN STYLE (1964)

INSIGNIFICANCE (1985) CRITERION

MAKIOKA SISTERS, THE (1983) CRITERION

SUDDEN FEAR (1952)

HIS KIND OF WOMAN (1951)

TOPPER RETURNS (1941)

Coming Soon

Steve Coogan's THE TRIP

NORWEGIAN WOOD

ARCHIPELAGO

Anton Chekhov's THE DUEL

Tony Gatlif's KORKORO

KISS ME DEADLY Criterion

ZAZIE DANS LE METRO Criterion

THE MUSIC ROOM Criterion

BLACK MOON Criterion

PEOPLE ON SUNDAY Criterion

DIABOLIQUE Criterion

NAKED KISS Criterion

RED SHOES Criterion

PATHS OF GLORY Criterion

LE BOSSU (1960)

BETT'S BATH & OTHER STORIES

TINTIN & THE MYSTERY OF THE GOLDEN FLAME

CHEKHOV COMEDY SHORTS

ON TOUR

LUNCH HOUR (BFI)

THE MUSIC LOVERS

SET THE PIANO STOOL ON FIRE

WARD NO. 6

DEEP END (BFI)

July, New Titles, 'Farewell', '127 Hours', 'Biutiful'

Farewell

The Farewell affair was an espionage plot that unfolded in the USSR, France and the USA between 1981 and 1983.

Sergei Gregoriev (Emir Kusterica), a KGB operative hungry for change, begins feeding secrets to Pierre Froment, a French engineer in Moscow, who in turn takes them to François Mitterrand (Philippe Magnan), who passes them to Ronald Reagan.

While in Moscow, the households of Gregoriev and Froment come under increasing strain from their secret professional – and personal – lives. ‘Farewell’ boasts a strong cast – Willem Dafoe pops up as a CIA chief and Niels Arestrup plays his French counterpart – and is strong on life in Soviet Moscow. That rare thing nowadays, a Cold War thriller, reminiscent of 'Gorky Park'.

127 Hours

There’s little more gruesome and extreme than the story of Aron Ralston, an American outdoors nut who in 2003 went canyoning alone in Utah without telling anyone where he was going. James Franco plays the frenetic 27 year old as an experience junkie and sociable loner. He bombs through the desert on a mountain bike leaving a trail of dust behind him. He meets girls in the wilderness, makes them laugh and leaps into underground lakes with them before saying goodbye. He bounds over gulleys. Then he misses his footing, slips into a canyon and a boulder follows him down, pinning his arm to the wall just as he lands on his feet. He’s trapped, and the film’s kineticism turns in on itself: like Ralston, its energy is stuck in a hole.

Biutiful

Bardem plays Uxbal, a grafter who shuttles between corrupt police, Chinese sweatshop owners and illegal African street hawkers. He brings comfort to the bereaved by passing on messages from the deceased, while at the same time coping with his estranged wife’s bipolar disorder and facing the shadow of serious illness himself.

Other New Stuff in July

IT'S ALWAYS SUNNY IN PHILADELPHIA SEASON 4 (2008)

BLOW OUT (1981) CRITERION

SOMETHING WILD (1986) CRITERION

PALE FLOWER (1964) CRITERION (REGION 1)

BEETLE QUEEN CONQUERS TOKYO (2011)

BIUTIFUL (2010)

METROPOLIS (1927) MADMAN RESTORATION

YOGI BEAR (2010)

WHITE MATERIAL (2009)

WE ARE WHAT WE ARE (2010)

CATFISH (2010)

TAMARA DREWE (2010)

HEART OF GLASS (1976)

TOM WAITS UNDER REVIEW 1971-1982 (2008)

RABBIT HOLE (2010)

127 HOURS (2010) BLU-RAY

127 HOURS (2010)

BLACK SWAN (2010)

GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY, THE (1966)

STORY OF THE KELLY GANG, THE (1906)

TRASH HUMPERS (2009)

HOLY ROLLERS (2009)

BLUE VALENTINE (2010)

DISTRICT 13 ULTIMATUM (2010)

REIGN OF ASSASSINS (2010)

HOWL (2010)

ROUTE IRISH (2010)

SUSPIRIA (1977)

GNOMEO AND JULIET (2011)

SEASON OF THE WITCH (2011)

UNKNOWN (2011)

UNKNOWN (2011)

UNKNOWN (2011) BLU-RAY

ADJUSTMENT BUREAU, THE (2011)

HEREAFTER (2010)

HEREAFTER (2010) BLU-RAY

FAREWELL (2009)

INTERLUDE (1957) MADMAN DIRECTOR'S SUITE

DAY OF THE OUTLAW (1959)

PRINCESS OF MONTPENSIER, THE (2010)

AGE OF REASON, THE (2010)

SANCTUM (2011)

SANCTUM (2011) BLU-RAY

PIANOMANIA (2009)

TREE, THE (2010)

I AM NUMBER FOUR (2011)

RANGO (2011)

FASTER (2010)

INSIDE JOB (2010)

AND EVERYTHING IS GOING TO BE FINE (2010)

LEAVING (2009)