DVD, Blu-ray and TV ...

DVD, Blu-ray and TV

Ma Femme Est Une Actrice

A labour of love—or perhaps of jealousy—for writer/director Yvan Attal, who stars in this French farce as a journalist convinced his movie-star wife's having an affair with Terence Stamp. She's Charlotte Gainsbourg, Attal's real-life wife, so maybe it's all good therapy for him. For the rest of us, it's lively for half an hour, then the frisson fades.

The Good Girl

Underrated comedy-drama from Chuck & Buckteam. Jennifer Aniston's fine as a frustrated store-worker who cheats on pothead John C Reilly with Jake Gyllenhaal, in another Holden Caulfield-type role. The feel reminds you of James Mangold before he went shit.

Scarlet Diva

Commendably lurid directorial debut from Asia Argento—international soft-porn horror princess and Vin Diesel's way-cool goth-vamp co-star in xXx. Dario's daughter not only writes and directs but also stars as a thinlyveiled version of herself, shagging and fighting her way through a sinister, male-dominated, sex-driven film business. Demented, narcissistic, monstrously self-indulgent—all the qualities, in fact, of the very best cult cinema.

Passport To Pimlico

Sterling 1949 comedy from the Ealing stable, directed by Henry Cornelius (Genevieve) and featuring Stanley Holloway, Margaret Rutherford and Charles Hawtrey among others. A London community demonstrate typical British verve and spunk in establishing their right to devolve from Britain altogether, asserting their ancient right to be part of the duchy of Burgundy, thereby avoiding the miseries of post-war Britain like rationing and licensing laws. Lots of "We'll soon see about that!" and harrumphing civil servants. Marvellous.

The Weight Of Water

That a Kathryn Bigelow movie starring Sean Penn and Liz Hurley's gone straight to video tells you much: it's a muddled attempt to carry two parallel stories, one ancient (with Sarah Polley), one modern (where Penn recites bad poetry while Hurley rubs ice cubes over her nipples). Confused, pompous.

The Greatest Story Ever Told

George Stevens' Biblical epic is sometimes sluggish and often po-faced, but it's never less than fascinating. A political film-maker and a great chronicler of national identity (see Shane, Giant, A Place In The Sun), Stevens consistently swamps the New Testament in blatant Americana, letting Charlton Heston, John Wayne, and the massive crags and buttes of Utah boldly reinvent Jesus, and Israel, for the American century.

Led Zeppelin

Directed by Jimmy Page, it took a year of intensive research to assemble this five-and-a-half-hour digital re-tooling of the Zeppelin legend. Previously, the only officially-sanctioned live footage was the 1976 film The Song Remains The Same. Here, a trawl of the band's own unreleased archives combines with reclaimed bootleg material to tell the Zep story in chronological fashion, via 30 performances from four memorable concerts—the Albert Hall (1970), Madison Square Garden (1973), Earls Court (1975) and Knebworth (1979).

Gorky Park

Occasionally ponderous 1983 thriller set in pre-Glasnost Russia (in fact filmed in Helsinki). William Hurt stars as the cop who teams up with Joanna Pacula's Soviet dissident and Lee Marvin's American businessman to investigate the mystery of three bodies found in Gorky Park.

Romeo Is Bleeding

Gary Oldman, miscast but blowing hard in Peter Medak's 1993 thriller, is a sleazy cop who takes bribes to spend on his wife (Annabella Sciorra) and mistress (Juliette Lewis). As if that wasn't enough girlie action, he lusts after hot hitwoman Lena Olin, but his dick leads him into a world of violent trouble. Wilfully sexist and almost camp, but hey, you can't say it's dull.

The Essential Clash

The Clash imploded just as promo videos became the norm, which is a shame, as their "Rock The Casbah" short, shot on an oil derrick, is more timely than ever in the wake of the current Iraq conflict. But the really great thing about this collection is the numerous incandescent live performances culled from throughout their meteoric career.
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