DVD, Blu-ray and TV

The Company

112 minutes of Robert Altman's floaty, wispy ambient eavesdropping in the company of Chicago's Joffrey Ballet, with producer/star Neve Campbell drifting into dance numbers, performing a few grands jetes, drifting out again, snogging non-dancing co-star James Franco, then it's back to the real troupe, dancing, rehearsing, then dancing again. A test for even the most ardent Altman fan.

Tangerine Dream

Recorded in Seattle in October 1992, this concert performance by Edgar Froese's Krautrock pioneers is less dull than it may sound, with the live footage intercut with the films and graphics used for the band's dramatic backdrop projections. There's a dynamite version of "Purple Haze", but at times the music veers too far into jazz-rock noodling. And, at 45 minutes, it's hardly value for money.

Donnie Darko: The Director’s Cut

One of the most original debuts of the past 20 years, Richard Kelly's mesmerising head trip from '2001 gets an extra 20 minutes and some soundtrack tweaks. The extra scenes slow the narrative momentum, but Jake Gyllenhaal's breakthrough role as disturbed teenager Donnie still captivates, while Kelly's astute meditations on life, death and mental illness in '80s small-town America demand your attention.

Wolfen

Thriller from '81 based on Whitley Strieber's novel, directed by Michael Woodstock Wadleigh, and by no means a conventional werewolf tale. Albert Finney is the cop investigating incredible gory deaths in New York... but are terrorists to blame, or animals, or Native American shape-shifters? Unusual camera techniques, a great performance from Finney, and a genuinely supernatural atmosphere that builds and builds.

The Apple

While the US administration portray. Iran as hostile to culture and dissent, Samira Makhmalbaf's films suggest otherwise. Her 1997 debut, made when she was 17, tells the story of the Naderi family (played by themselves), whose daughters were kept unwashed and imprisoned until they were 12. Simple, painterly, weirdly engaging, it subtly reveals that excessive faith and the repression of women are outmoded concepts even in that 'axis-of-evil' capital Tehran.

Queen

BECOMING QUEEN

Dance Away The Art Ache

Coppola's love-in-Las Vegas musical fantasy is ripe for reappraisal

What Have I Done To Deserve This?

Definitive mid-period Almodóvar (post-avant-garde tyro, preestablishment icon), this typically hysterical family melodrama pitches Carmen Maura's downtrodden amphetamine-addicted housewife, her two teenage dope-dealing hustler sons, her grizzled mother-in-law and her Nazi-obsessed husband together in an anonymous Madrid apartment block. Deadpan camp at its best.

Ferris Bueller’s Day Off

A 1986 John Hughes charmer which has acquired, over the years, near-legendary status for accidentally pre-empting the "slacker" (lack of) movement. Matthew Broderick and his Chicago buddies play truant, but through quick wits get the wheels and the girls—wish fulfilment for the pre-Nirvana generation. Crisp fun for those who found Pretty In Pink a little too dark and troubling.

Cleared For Take-Off

Cosmic compilation boosts maligned high-fliers back into orbit
Advertisement

Editor's Picks

Advertisement