Robust, insightful doc by Startup.com director Jehane Noujaim examining the role of Arabic news channel Al Jazeera during the recent Gulf War. Despite being damned by Donald Rumsfeld as the mouthpiece of Al-Qaeda, Al Jazeera emerges as the only honest voice, struggling to be heard above the clamour of misinformation, manipulation and deceit (most of it, ironically, from the US networks). A real David and Goliath story, expertly told.
If Mary's never quite convinced the world she merited that "the voice of R&B's future" hype, she's godhead to believers: 5,000 funked-up fans fill the LA Amphitheatre here. Her first concert DVD, it finds her belting through I'm-so-damaged-but-the-merchandising-revenue-sure-helps material like "No More Drama" and "Your Child", and duetting, weirdly, with big-screen images of Lil' Kim and BIG.
CHRIS ROBERTS
Not quite Fellini at his most brilliantly enigmatic, but the movie that made his name. Christ is helicoptered out of Rome while the city decays into a listless Sodom for the international jet set; Marcello Mastroianni plays the louche hack carrying too much ennui to write a novel, documenting the party people's jaded adventures for local scandal sheets, worried his soul is dying. The decadence looks tame today, but it still has Anita Ekberg in the fountain.
For years, Ringo has surrounded himself live with established musicians (here including Paul Carrack and Sheila E), each performing songs of their own. The audience, then, are expected to settle for usually no more than eight from Starr himself. Offsetting this disappointment are the warm scenes off stage and in interviews.
CAROL CLERK
A hit in Spain, this only goes to show what Almodóvar is up against. Friends sleep with each other but not with their partners, whom they speculate may be gay. Intermittently they break into dire Euro-pop songs. You keep waiting for taboos to be challenged, stereotypes to be skewed?and you keep waiting. Paz Vega fans would be better off with almost anything else she's done.
Subtitled "Four Destinations, Four DVDs", this Reg-fest takes in live shows from Madison Square Garden (2000), the Great Amphitheatre at Ephesus, Turkey (2001) and London's Royal Opera House (2002), respectively accompanied by full band, candlelight and orchestra. But it's Disc 4 (promos and clips spanning '68 to present) that wins out, not least for 1972's great "Mona Lisas And Mad Hatters". At seven hours, though, this one's strictly for insomniac diehards.
ROB HUGHES
DVD EXTRAS: None.
Footage of the stern old art-rockers in their pomp is hideously rare. Wire On The Box counteracts this, a full-length show recorded for German TV before a few dozen polite hippies. The tension is delicious, the music (mainly from 154) fantastic. Best of all, there's the mystique-smashing vision of the young band: gawky, self-conscious, striving cutely for the froideur that only age would bring them.
Charlize Theron earns her Oscar as confused Florida serial killer Aileen Wuornos, not just for looking less attractive but because, after 20 minutes, you forget she's even a woman. So macho is her white-trash lesbian aggressor that you believe Christina Ricci is 'her' arm candy. Both excel as fuck-ups, and Patty Jenkins' script and direction are grim and gristly. Superb.
The duo's 1994 take on Unplugged, which involved recording new material in Morocco and rearranging old Zep songs with Middle Eastern flavours and musicians, was a brave but preposterous conceit. Filmed in a Welsh valley, in a slate quarry and cross-legged with locals in Marrakesh, they're only really credible and incredible in their natural environment—a stage.
