Overlooked DVD of the month - HEIDI FLEISS: HOLLYWOOD MADAM

I thought I'd pretty much seen every Nic Broomfield documentary - this despite the fact that I'm not a fan of his style of putting himself in front of the camera lens - until I saw this old TV movie on my  streaming service.  Being obsessed with all things seedy and sordid and Hollywood confidential I couldn't resist.  

The movie was shot in the mid-1990s at the height of the Heidi Fleiss scandal.  She was a young attractive woman who'd apparently been making millions running a string of high end prostitutes in Hollywood.  She herself would get involved, charging $40,000 a night for fantasy scenarios where she'd talk dirty.  And she has a certain professional pride. When quizzed by Broomfield about whether the service was really worth it, she says "it takes some skill to keep that up for a few hours."

The first half of the film is a kind of investigative journalism hunt for Heidi, complete with hidden cameras to prove that "off-screen" negotiations for an interview are actually happening. The money shot is the final half hour of an apparently very candid, sympathetic and charming interview. Heidi comes across as smart witty and remarkably self-aware. She thinks the business she's in is horrible and full of sleazy people but she has not qualms about the true needs of people and servicing them.

Overlooked DVD of the month - A ROYAL AFFAIR

Nikolaj Arcel's Danish costume drama may have been overlooked upon release by this blog, but it has quietly won praise at Berlin and now finds itself a contender for the Best Foreign Language Film at next year's Oscars.  This obliged me to check it out, and I have to say, I was struggling to understand what the fuss is about.

The movie plays as a conventional, earnest, rather plodding historical drama, based on a true story, set in the 18th century Danish court.  Pretty but naive English princess Caroline Mathilde (Alicia Vikander) is married to the Danish King Christian VII (Mikkel Boe Folsgaard), a socially awkward, mentally unstable but well-meaning young man.  She dutifully gives him an heir, but falls for the Court Doctor, Streunsee (Mads Mikkelsen), a radical Enlightenment thinker. This gives us the "forbidden love" material so beloved of publicists, and of course once an illegitimate child is born and the established aristos become jealous of Streunsee's power, it doesn't end well for the lovers. But by far the more interesting story is that of the King's unhealthy friendship with Streunsee, and Streunsee's rather ambiguous personality.  Far  from a wholly good hero, liberating our heroine, and Denmark, with enlightenment thinking, Streunsee is a deeply imperfect man.  He reinstalls laws of censorship as soon as the libeliste attack his relationship with the Queen, and shamelessly manipulates the King.

The weakness of this film is that Vikander and Mikkelsen have zero screen chemistry. Their romance is incredible (literally - I didn't believe it) - if anything a romance of the mind rather than the heart.  And this banal transgressive love story sucks up time that could have been given to court intrigue.  As for Mikkel Boe Folsgaard's performance, it's certainly the best of the three, but has none of the deep sadness or brilliance of, say, THE MADNESS OF KING GEORGE III. 

Indeed, this film suffers in general by comparison with other costume dramas set in the same period. In particular, the similarity of the young foreign princess married to a difficult man - the illicit love affair - the libelists - the palace intrigue, casts this film in an unfavourable light relative to Sofia Coppola's radical MARIE ANTOINETTE. That movie broke the mould, and since then, a conventional, if polished historical romantic drama, just seems rather anaemic. 

A ROYAL AFFAIR played Berlin 2012 where Mikkel Boe Folsgaard won the Silver Bear for Best Actor, and Nikolaj Arcel and Rasmus Heisterberg won the Silver Bear for Best Screenplay.  The movie also played Toronto and Telluride. It is Denmark's official submission for the Oscars.  It opened earlier this year in Denmark, Estonia, Sweden, Germany, Ireland, the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Turkey, the Netherlands, Iceland, Israel, Norway, Belgium, Poland and Spain.  It is currently on release in Spain and the USA, and opens this weekend in France and Hungary. It opens on December 10th in Slovenia and in Argentina on April 4th. 

iPad Round-Up 2 - THE INTERRUPTERS

Steve James' (HOOP DREAMS) documentary, THE INTERRUPTERS, is an absolutely fascinating, compelling and politically incisive film about tackling gang-related crime in contemporary Chicago. He shadows volunteers working for a project called CeaseFire - a programme that takes former gang-members and has them "interrupt" violent situations before they happen, trying to talk  kids down from dangerous situations.  Sounds simple enough. But within this simple format comes a nuanced, emotionally affecting exposition of life in deprived inner cities - a film that is as incisive and unblinking as David Simons' superb THE WIRE, but without that show's defeatist message. If there is a "star" in this documentary, then it has to be Ameena Matthews, a former gang-member in the same mode as THE WIRE's real-life Snoop. She has turned her life around, become a committed muslim, but still has that same scary authority that she must have had as a gang leader. She speaks so much sense, so straightforwardly, that you wish her influence were greater, that there were more people like her working the streets. Few Hollywood starts speak with such charisma and authority, and it's her presence that transforms this film from being earnest and didactical into being a genuinely fascinating watch.  

THE INTERRUPTERS played Sundance 2011 and went on limited release in the US and UK in summer 2011. 

Overlooked DVD of the month - AMERICAN HARMONY

AMERICAN HARMONY is a lovely little documentary that follows a handful of barbershop quartets as they compete in the annual international competition in Indianapolis. I came to the movie with all the prejudice of one who's sole experience of barbershop was the satirical depiction of pretentious East Coast yuppies in TRADING PLACES. I had images of hearty East Coast brahmins, self-consciously anachronistic. And to a certain extent, I wasn't wrong.  There are almost 50 quartets who qualify to get to the international final each year, and I didn't see a single non-white male among them. And the stadium full of fans watching them were, shall we say, similarly racially homogeneous. Still for all that, you can't deny that the music is catchy, the humour gentle and harmless, and the vocal technique impressive.  And even if you don't give a damn about barbershop singing there's something compelling about watching these otherwise unremarkable people devoting so much time, energy and emotion to their craft. 

Almost against myself, I found myself completely enthralled with the competition, and feeling tense as we got to the final round.  And that has to be the proof of a successful documentary.  At their best, documentaries take us into niche worlds that we would never have known about, and give us insight and empathy. That's exactly what AMERICAN HARMONY does. Is it perfect? No.  The video quality is lo-fi (the movie was shot  by director Aengus James), and there isn't enough on the history and context of barbershop singing for my taste. But these are quibbles. AMERICAN HARMONY is a good time, it's insightful, and something of a relief after the relentlessly over-produced caterwauling of Glee.  

AMERICAN HARMONY played Boulder, Sedona and Nashville 2009 and was released in the US in 2009. It is available on DVD.

Overlooked DVD of the month - THE SUNSET LIMITED - Fides et Ratio

THE SUNSET LIMITED is a philosophical drama based upon the stage-play by Cormac McCarthy (THE ROAD, NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN). As both stage-play and film, it is rather an odd fish - dispensing with the conventional requirements of plot and character development for a straightforward dialogue between two characters, "Black" and "White". Tommy Lee Jones (who also directs) plays "White", a dessicated college professor and atheist who wants desperately to commit suicide. Samuel L Jackson plays "Black", an intelligent but poorly educated former convict and Christian convert, who stopped "White" killing himself before the movie begins. The movie is, then, simply a debate between these two men, the atheist and the believer. Both are articulate, passionate and sympathetic and the stakes are the very highest. Thankfully, we are spared any pat answers. 

Why is the film worth watching? Why wouldn't you just read the stage-play? Given the suitably restrained direction, photography and score, the real answer is for the brilliant central performances by Tommy Lee Jones and Samuel L. Jackson. Jones has, I think, the easier task, as the clever man, convinced he is right, and essentially unchanged by his experience. Jackson, on the other hand, has to portray a man whose faith is challenged by a brilliant defence of nihilism - by a superficial failure - and yet emerge triumphant. 

THE SUNSET LIMITED was released in the US in February 2011 and in Spain in April. It is available to rent and own.

Overlooked DVD of the month - MARY AND MAX

MARY AND MAX is an amazing film, and all the more wonderful for being un-expectedly so. It's a darkly comic, emotionally raw clay-animated drama about the unlikely friendship between two very lonely people - a little girl called Mary, who lives in Australia, and an old man called Max, who lives in New York. Mary Daisy Dinkle is lonely because her mum is a mean drunk and her father is a withdrawn taxidermist. She hates how she looks, she's socially awkward and other kids tease her. Max is lonely because he finds the world strange and irrational and frustrating and retreats into a closed existence of comfort-eating and writing angry letters. They are each other's only and best friends. 

The movie takes us from the early heady days of their friendship - the first not to involve an imaginary friend for both of them - through Mary's adolescence and marriage. The friendship blossoms, then flounders on betrayal, and is finally redeemed. The journey is genuinely moving - I cried like a baby at the end of the film - and I was happy to have spent time with these intriguing people despite the harsh material I was forced to endure - drug abuse, sexual infidelity, self-loathing, suicide and chronic disease. 

If all this makes MARY AND MAX sound about as much fun as shock-therapy, then please believe me that despite the unbearable sadness as its heart, it's also a very funny, and ultimately uplifting film. The detail of the art design is wonderfully witty, with lots of clever details to repay a repeat viewing, and the verbal humour is at once pathetic and laugh-out-loud funny. I have always had nothing but praise for Philip Seymour Hoffman, but he really surpasses himself as Max, imbuing every sentence with common-sense, hurt, longing, fear and unintentional wit. Toni Colette is wonderfully misguided and sympathetic as Mary, and even Eric Bana gives a sweet cameo. So, if you love the kind of gentle, warm, heart-breaking humour found in the following quotations, please check MAX AND MARY out. As for me, I just can't wait to see what Australian writer-director Adam Eliot does next.

Max Jerry Horovitz: When I was young, I invented an invisible friend called Mr Ravioli. My psychiatrist says I don't need him anymore, so he just sits in the corner and reads. 

Max Jerry Horovitz: Butts are bad because they wash out to sea, and fish smoke them and become nicotine-dependent. 

MARY AND MAX played Sundance and Berlin 2009 and opened in Australia, the Czech Republic, New Zealand and Russia that year. It opened last year in Denmark, Belgium, Greece, Norway, Brazil, Sweden, Germany, Austria, Hungary and the UK. It is currently on release in Singapore and opens in Japan on April 23rd. It is available to rent and own.

Overlooked DVD of the month - GREENBERG

Writer-director Noah Baumbach makes excruciatingly well-observed films about financially privileged, neurotic, unsympathetic middle-aged Americans. When his films work, they are masterpieces of razor-sharp dialogue and uncomfortable silences and fleeting moments of sympathy for the fundamentally unsympathetic. His latest film, GREENBERG, features a classic Baumbach character, brilliantly played by Ben Stiller. Roger Greenberg is the definition of the bi-coastal American mid-life crisis. He's a forty-something, neurotic failed pop star turned carpenter who spends his life feeling sorry for himself, using recreational drugs, hitting on younger women and basically being self-indulgent and whiny. He is a walking embarrassment - the Uncle who won't grow up - the brother who won't get himself together - the friend who won't admit to his failures. 

Greenberg comes to LA to house-sit his brother's house and, taking the family's cue, casually abuses the services of their au pair/social secretary/general all round skivvy Florence (Greta Gerwig). The interaction between the passive-aggressive Greenberg and the vulnerable, low-self-esteem Florence is fascinating. She is sympathetic but hopeless. Greenberg is simultaneously repelled by her openness, and inflated by the fact that he has finally found someone in such dire circumstances that even a loser like him can help her. (I've been rewatching the classic 1981 BRIDESHEAD REVISITED recently, and as far apart as these things are, I thought I recognised something of the relationship of Sebastian Flyte and Kurt in Greenberg's attraction to finally being of use.)

I liked GREENBERG. Or maybe it's a film that you don't so much like, or enjoy, but see as a reflection of people you know, and admire for its honesty in depicting a certain slice of life. Greenberg is a profoundly unsympathetic character, but I did care about his journey and find some satisfaction, if not redemption, in the final scenes of the movie. GREENBERG isn't as bitterly funny as THE SQUID AND THE WHALE, nor does it have as interesting a cast of characters. GREENBERG feels more like a character study - a closely drawn, almost claustrophobic, portrait of a man in a crisis. It felt real, and painful and sometimes infuriating. But I was happy to have spent time with its characters and bought into the relationships and narrative arc.

Baumbach is, like Nicole Holofcener, the great chronicler of our decadent, pampered lives. Of rich people who feel guilty for being rich, but want all that being rich gives them. Of emotionally unstable people self-sabotaging. Of people in their thirties and forties who refuse to grow up and take responsibility. Of emotional narcissism and the difficulty of connection. I am grateful that there is room for his kind of cinema, even if it is, by definition, a painful watch.

GREENBERG played Berlin 2010 and opened earlier this year. It is available on DVD and on iTunes.

Overlooked DVD of the month - DOGTOOTH

George Orwell believed that the first step toward tyranny was to brutalise language. If the prisoner-citizen cannot articulate his needs he will be more docile. DOGTOOTH opens with such a brutalisation. Three teenagers are kept prisoner by their parents in a gated house. They are taught false meanings for words; to fear vicious monsters in the outside world; and to sublimate their desires. There is no reason given for their imprisonment. Just as in 1984, power is exercised simply because it can be. The logical consequences of absolute parental control are both tragic and absurd. The teenagers are so naive they cannot recognise sexual abuse. When presented with an opportunity of escape, they cannot take initiative. But there is dark comedy too. The father asks if they would like to hear grandfather sing. He puts on a record by Frank Sinatra. The children are in doubt that this is the voice of their grandfather and nod in agreement as the father “translates” their grandfather’s words, exhorting the children to be obedient, from English into Greek.

Giorgos Lanthimos’ film is beautifully shot, logically argued, and deeply, deeply sinister. That is not to say that it is enjoyable, or that I would recommend it for everyone. I went through three phases watching the film. At first, I was intrigued by the concept but turned off by its refusal to explain and bored by watching teenagers effectively do nothing all day. And then, as the logic built upon itself and the situations became more perverse and tragic, I became hypnotised by the film. And finally, I gave in to the absurdity and found it all bleakly funny.

DOGTOOTH played Cannes 2009 where it won the Un Certain Regard award. It also played Toronto, Sitges and London 2009. It opened in Greece and France last year and in Belgium, the Netherlands, the UK, Russia, Norway, Portugal and the US earlier this year. It is now available on DVD and on iTunes.

Overlooked DVD of the month - THE COVE

Now, I'm no hippie vegetarian peace-nik and in general, I am sceptical about the ability of agit-docs to change the world, given that they largely preach to the choir. On top of that, I am sceptical about how many documentaries make good use of the 35mm format and truly deserve a theatrical release as opposed to TV airtime. THE COVE is an exception. Watching it was as close as I've ever come to caring about animal welfare. And that's because the documentary is well-argued; is argued with passion; makes itself interesting by disguising itself as a special ops mission; and finishes with the kind of visceral footage that you just can't ignore.

The basic premise is this: dolphins are no ordinary mammals - unlike cattle or chickens, they are possessed of keen intelligence and self-awareness - traits that make farming them for their flesh, or to perform inane tricks in dolphinariums, particularly cruel. Of course, everyone loves Flipper, and in most countries eating dolphin is taboo. However, in Japan dolphins are indeed farmed, as they are too small to come under the protection of the International Whaling Commission. Not that the IWC would do much: it's shown to be a toothless body in which Japan pays off small countries to vote in their bloc. What's even worse is that the dolphins are not farmed in anything like a humane manner. Rather, in the notorious and eponymous cove in Taiji, they are basically tortured with the loud noise of patrol boats and herded into a netted bay, whereafter fisherman harpoon them to death. How do we know this? Because the documentarians mount a daring special ops mission involving camouflaged cameras hidden as rocks, thermal imaging, and general derring do.

The resulting movie contains beautiful images of the ocean that fully justify the use of a big screen, but also some really powerful images of a cove red with the blood of dolphins and audio tracks of dolphins in evident distress. We also get some heroes: not just veteran campaigner Richard O'Barry, whose claim that a dolphin can commit suicide might stretch credulity, but the documentarians themselves, who decided to get the footage out.

This film is something that many films are lazily called - a "must-see movie".

THE COVE was released in the US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, France, Finland, Germany, the UK, Belgium and the Netherlands last year. It opened earlier this year in Estonia and Sweden earlier this year and in Denmark and Portugal last week. THE COVE is also available on DVD.

THE COVE has been nominated for an Academy Award and has already won a DGA, NBR, WGA and Sundance award.

Additional tags: louie psihoyos, mark monroe, j ralph, brook aitken, geoffrey richman

Overlooked DVD of the month - PONTYPOOL

Okay. So the first thing you have to do is banish thoughts of a Welsh town. This Pobtypool is a town in Canada. And this film, PONTYPOOL, is a superbly claustrophobic, chilling little lo-budget horror flick from Canadian director Bruce McDonald. Based on the book by Tony Burgess, the movie takes place almost entirely within a small-town radio station, where a grizzled old DJ, Grant Mazzy, is stuck with his producer and studio manager on Valentine's Day, broadcasting his sardonic wit to local listeners. In a reverse of the Orson Welles War of the Worlds scenario, the radio station starts getting calls from listeners seeing savagery on the roads, and before they know it, they're hemmed in by infected zombies, who succumb to the infection by stumbling upon their words.

I love the fact that this is a film subverts the very concept of Talk Radio as quite literally an agent for broadcasting virulence. I love Stephen McHattie's charismatic central performance. (It reminded me of how when we saw Richard Jenkins in THE VISITOR, it was like we were really SEEING him for the first time, even though we'd seen him as a character actor in loads of films before that.) And I love the simplicity of the central conceit.

Definitely worth checking out on DVD.

PONTYPOOL played Toronto 2008 and was released in 2009 in Canada, Turkey, the UK and Austria. It is available on DVD.

Overlooked DVD of the month - WHAT JUST HAPPENED?

Over a decade after making the political satire WAG THE DOG, veteran Hollywood director Barry Levinson made a Hollywood satire, WHAT JUST HAPPENED? It features Robert de Niro in the thinly fictionalised role of producer Art Linson, upon whose memoirs the film is based. De Niro's character is trying to get a British auteur (Michael Wincott) to recut his movie so that the studio (Catherine Keener) will give it a Cannes premier. Meanwhile, he's trying to get Bruce Willis to shave off his beard and look the part of a leading man in his forthcoming picture. And then there's the wife he wants to reconcile with (Robin Wright Penn) despite the fact that she's sleeping with the screenwriter (Stanley Tucci); the daughter (Kristen Stewart) who's going off the rails; and the Hollywood groupies who'll do anything, any time, for an interview.

I really liked this film for exactly the reason that all the other reviewers seem to have skewered it. They complain that it isn't caustic enough - that the stakes aren't high enough. All that's at stake, they say, is the continuing functioning of the well-oiled Hollywood money-making machine. By contrast, in Altman's THE PLAYER, or indeed in Levinson's previous political satire, it was a matter of life and death. But surely the point is EXACTLY that the studios, the starlets, the directors and producers are prostituting themselves for worthless commercial dross. In SULLIVAN'S TRAVELS the movies were worth something and that partially excused the shameless behaviour. But this movie is all the more tragic because it shows just how meaningless the whole sharade is.

More superficially, this flick is great because of all the scabrous one-liners. It's eminently quotable in the way that GLENGARRY GLEN ROSS is eminently quotable. It also features a great performance from Michael Wincott as the auteur - a guy who last got a role as memorable when he played Guy of Gisbourne in the Kevin Costner's ROBIN HOOD. You also get to see Catherine Keener in one her most subtle performances as the quietly threatening studio boss who can turn on a dime if she gets a faint whiff of box-office success.

WHAT JUST HAPPENED played Sundance 2008 and Cannes, out of competition. It opened in the UK and US in winter 2008. It is available on DVD and on iTunes.

Overlooked DVD of the month - BIGGA THEN BEN

BIGGA THAN BEN is sporadically very funny, continuously inventive low-budget British comedy about two Russian teens who come to London to make it big. With no qualifications or legitimate work visas, they rely on their fellow Russian ex-pats teaching them how to scam credit card companies and other petty swindles. Based on a book by a genuine Russian ex-pat, the movie delights in poking fun in the British system, and has an admirably honest approach to depicting the shittiness of London weather and the harsh side of London life. The first hour is indeed very funny, very fast-paced and features a nice satirical voice-over from one of the pair (played by Narnia's Prince Caspian). The final half hour of this short film takes a darker turn, as the other kid takes to drugs. Writer-director Suzie Hazelwood doesn't quite manage to pull off the transition to the darker material in the same way as, for example, TRAINSPOTTING did. In fact, by the end of the movie, I had thought it might've worked better as a 55 minute TV special, taking the very best of the material from the feature film. Still, for the faltering ending, BIGGA THEN BEN provides more than enough laughs to repay a viewing, and it's good to see Ben Barnes in a funnier, less epic role.

BIGGA THAN BEN opened in Russia, the UK and the US in autumn 2008. It is available on DVD.

Overlooked DVD of hte month - MANUFACTURED LANDSCAPES

MANUFACTURED LANDSCAPES is a documentary by directer Jennifer Baichwal and DP Peter Mettler that attempts to translate Canadian still-photographer, Edward Burtynsky's photos to cinema. Burtynsky's specialises in landscape photography. But, radically, instead of photographing pretty pastoral scenes, he focuses on landscapes that are the results of human consumption - rivers polluted with industrial waste; garbage dumps; gigantic factory floors in new Chinese industrial towns; American hills ravaged by open-cast mining. The shocking thing is that his pictures are stunningly beautiful - perfect balance, great colours - until you look closer and realise that you're looking at a heap of old electronics components or a polluted river. The work is powerful in terms of this disturbing play between beauty and destruction, and in terms of its scale.

By translating the stills into cinema, Jennifer Baichwal allows the viewer to look into the pictures and to, occasionally, hear Burtysnky's interpretation of his work. Just the sheer time it takes for a camera to traverse a gigantic Chinese factory floor is powerful. And the close-up of a woman's hands rapidly assembling a power-breaker, dexterous, monotonous, takes us to a place beyond stills photography. The resulting film is beautiful, disturbing, thought-provoking and transformative without being overtly didactic. To that extent, it reminded me a lot of OUR DAILY BREAD, which put the industrial food business under the microscope.

MANUFACTURED LANDSCAPES played Toronto 2006 and Sundance 2007. It opened in Belgium, the US, the Netherlands and France in 2007 and in Spain, the UK and Japan last year. It is on release on DVD.

Overlooked DVD of the month - CASS

CASS is the impressive debut feature from British writer-director Jon S Baird, based on the autobiography of Cass Pennant, an infamous football hooligan. The movie is constructed in a fairly straightforward manner and is well-acted throughout.

We first meet Cass as a young black kid adopted by white parents in a rough part of London. Linda Bassett and Peter Wright are impressive and believable as the parents - the mother a strong, morally upright woman without being priggish - the father, a quiet, passive type whose only bond with his son is watching soccer matches - not the most forgiving environment for a black kid. Cass is an angry boy. He speaks like a white kid, but knows he's different and acts out because of it. It's unsurprising that when he's accepted by the football hooligans, and gets a sense of belonging and respect, he thrives. Violence becomes a way of life, and it's clear that Cass is clever and charismatic. When he's interviewed by a patronising middle-class TV reporter he turns the table on her with his articulate defense of hooliganism. If the working classes want to vent their frustration by beating each other up in a controlled environment, what's it to anyone else? And aren't the middle-classes more to blame for their leering voyeurism? Cass' life changes when he's put in prison and starts exploring his black heritage. He comes out and turns straight - well, semi-straight - running security for clubs, but finds it hard to put the old life behind him.

Nonso Anozie is charismatic and convincing as Cass, and the movie realistically depicts 1980s and 1990s London - the sets, costumes, language and scenery are spot on. I found the portrait of British race-relations compelling - and it resonated with my memories of that period. This is an impressive feature debut and I look forward to watching Jon S Baird's next film.

CASS opened in the UK in August 2008 and is available on DVD.

Overlooked DVD of the month - CITY HALL

From the writers of SCENT OF WOMAN, RAGING BULL, TAXI DRIVER, GOODFELLAS and CASINO comes a political thriller starring Al Pacino, John Cusack, Danny Aiello and and David Paymer. The resulting movie is slick, compelling and labyrthinthine in the links it establishes between the mafia, the political machine and law enforcement. John Cusack plays the naive out-of-towner turned New York Deputy Mayor. Through his eyes we start to investigate the corruption in City Hall when a cop and a mafiosi kill each other in a shoot-out and an innocent kid is killed in the crossfire. The key question is why the mafiosi was on probation in the first place. The investigation takes us into bent real estate deals and exploitative political grand-standing. We see genuinely bad men and we see good men who can't help but be implicated in a corrupt establishment. The most sympathetic is Martin Landau as the judge who signed off on the probation. The most compelling is Danny Aiello's political fixer and Rogers & Hammerstein fan. In contrast to his later films, Al Pacino's histrionics are well contained and carefully aimed. As mayor, he constructs a beautifully melodramatic funeral oration - perfect advertising and yet also just what was needed. John Cusack is also perfectly cast as the charismatic Deputy Mayor who finds himself out of his depth. The movie isn't perfect. It's rare to find a film that would've benefited from a longer cut, but this is a great example. I also found the insertion of Bridget Fonda's character a bit clumsy and redundant. Still, for all that, CITY HALL is a slick, engaging political thriller that stretches the brain but still contains pleasurably witty one-liners and dramatic set-pieces. Highly recommended.

CITY HALL was released in 1996 and is available on DVD and on iTunes.

Overlooked film of the month - I SERVED THE KING OF ENGLAND - brilliantly eccentric

I SERVED THE KING OF ENGLAND is the misleading title for a brilliantly satirical, eccentric and often surreal comedy from Czech auteur, Jiri Menzel. It tells the fabulous/fabulist life of Jan Dite, an unassuming everyman waiter in Prague who tangles with Nazis, Communists, runs a hotel, serves time, serves luscious food and has comically choreographed sex. It's a leisurely paced two hour stroll through absurd tales of survival in brutal regimes - the film Kafka would've made if he had a food fetish, a fondness for silent movies, and a sense of humour.

I SERVED THE KING OF ENGLAND won the FIPRESCI prize at Berlin 2007. It was released in 2007 and 2008 and is available on DVD.

Overlooked DVD of the month - RESERVATION ROAD

I'm not sure why RESERVATION ROAD didn't get distribution in the UK but the good news is that it's available on DVD. It's a beautifully crafted, emotionally charged drama about the impact of a hit and run accident on the perpetrator and the victim's family. The perp - Mark Ruffallo - is a divorced father who doesn't stop because he's afraid that the legal ramifications will result in him losing his son. It's a cowardly but plausible action and the rest of the film is about the character working up the courage to confess. The victim's family - Jennifer Connelly and Joaquin Phoenix - are alienated from each other by the death. The father takes to stalking the road where the accident took place, photographing the plates of similar cars, trying to track down the killer. Eventually he realises that the perp is his lawyer. Some people have said that this seems convenient. But I think it's eminently plausible that when a devastating act hits a local community, the ties that bind are many and various.

RESERVATION ROAD is one of those films that takes its time and patiently investigates the emotional distress of its characters. The acting is raw and powerful - the ending suitably ambiguous. I love that for once we see both sides of a story and that the so called bad character - the hit and run driver - is shown to be just a typically flawed and frail man trying to be a good father. Mark Ruffalo deserves credit for his brilliant central performance. And as a straightforward investigation of grief this movie has far more honesty about it than something like THE THINGS WE LOST IN THE FIRE.

RESERVATION ROAD played Toronto 2007 and was released in 2007, though not in the UK. It is available on DVD.

HE WAS A QUIET MAN - a brilliant, slippery little movie

Writer director Frank A Cappello followed up CONSTANTINE with a bizarre, twisted little film called HE WAS A QUIET MAN. I'm not entirely sure why this didn't get more play but it's a brilliant, slippery little movie. Combining black humour, social satire and elements of noir, HE WAS A QUIET MAN is a truly original and ever so slightly fucked up flick.

The movie opens with a uglied up Christian Slater as the office nerd, Bob, seething with hate in his cubicle. He dreams of unleashing a shooting frenzy on the superficial slimeballs he works with, but - and here's the genius twist - he's beaten to it by a fellow violent geek. In the heat of the moment, Bob stops the mass-murderer killing office babe Vanessa, so becoming the hero of the hour. Suddenly, he's feted by his colleagues and strikes up an unlikely romance with the surprisingly spiky Vanessa. The question is, how far will Bob allow himself to buy into this new life, and how far can he repress his old hatred?

Christian Slater is both sinister and believable as the geek but it's Elisha Cuthbert who is a scene-stealer as the pretty Vanessa. She completely subverts the image of the sweet, dumb blonde. And the movie itself is a wry commentary on fairy-tale happy endings and other delusions.

Definitely one to seek out on DVD.

HE WAS A QUIET MAN opened in the US and UK last Christmas and opened in Italy earlier this year. It is available on DVD.

Overlooked DVD of the month - JOY DIVISION

JOY DIVISION is an intelligent emotional, imaginatively-made documentary from DP/director, Grant Gee. The story of this revolutionary Mancunian post-punk band has been told twice before in the last five years. It was peripheral to the brilliant, insane story of Tony Wilson, told in Michael Winterbottom's 24 HOUR PARTY PEOPLE. And it was central, though mono-focused, in the recent Anton Corbijn flick, CONTROL. CONTROL was hard-wired into the story of Ian Curtis, his wife Deborah and his lover Annik Honore. It was sensitively told, visually brilliant, but, as a fictionalised account, narrowly focused and slippery. By contrast, this documentary is scrupulously balanced, straightforward in its chronology, and blessed in its access. Gee manages to interview all the former members of the band and the key players in the story from Tony Wilson to Annik Honore. Deborah Curtis isn't interviewed, but she is quoted. Gee also unearths old bootleg footage of concerts and layers this onto the interviews, old TV appearances, and imaginative recreations of the Manchester of the time. He even produces a nice little spoof of the old FAC numbers, with his list of Things That No Longer Exist - old pubs where gigs took place and such - all knocked down in Manchester's transformation from a post-industrial shit-hole into a modern, commercial city.

JOY DIVISION is worth watching because the story of the band matters and because it affects you emotionally.

It matters because JOY DIVISION were a revolutionary group that took, to paraphrase an interviewee, the monosyllabic, simplistic "Fuck you" of Punk and turned it into the sophisticated, articulate, damning "We are fucked" of Post-Punk. This group of young Northerners wrote songs that expressed the lack of opportunity of living in a country in deep decline - a country being emergency funded by the IMF and on the brink of the Thatcherite revolution. Not only were their songs expressing something real for the first time, they were being expressed in a style that was ultra-modern thanks to Martin Hannett's genius production. The songs changed the path of popular music - a claim that is made of many bands but is rarely true. This documentary gives you a feeling of what it was like to be present at the creation - the excitement, the expectation - and a sense of context. Context in terms of where music and popular culture were headed, but also in terms of the regeneration of the North-West of England.

What I wasn't expecting was just how emotional an experience this documentary would be. Grant Gee manages to get devestatingly honest interviews. These kids had no idea what Curtis' severe epilepsy meant. While Annik might have been concerned that Curtis was living the dark lyrics of Closer, they all thought it was "just an album". Curtis was physically and mentally torn apart by love and illness and yet these naive boys were surprised when he tried to commit suicide and then succeeded, and they freely admit to have been out of their depth and sorry for that.

JOY DIVISION played Toronto 2007 and was released in the UK, Japan, Finland and Brazil earlier this year. It is available on DVD.

Overlooked DVD of the month - BLAME IT ON FIDEL / LA FAUTE A FIDEL

BLAME IT ON FIDEL is a charming, beautifully executed story about a privileged young girl whose parents become Communists. Unlike MRS RATCLIFFE'S REVOLUTION, this film refrains from a cartoon-like depiction of the confrontation between bourgeois morality and dogmatic idealism. Rather, it is an authentic, detailed account of family disruption.

Nina Kervey-Bey is stunning in her depiction of the young girl at the centre of the film. When we meet her she lives in a luxurious house in the Paris of the late 60s. She attends a strict exclusive Catholic school, and delights in teaching her young cousins etiquette. With a child's unerring intuition, she realises that the unexpected arrival of her aunt and cousin from Spain bodes ill. Soon, her father is guilt-tripped into joining the revolution and both parents run off to Chile to support Allende. The parents are rather high-handed about their children. After all, didn't they stay with the nanny alone for two weeks?

Even when they finally return, the kids are merely shoe-horned into their parent's new radical existence. The nice apartment becomes a poky little flat, filled night and day with bearded radicals talking about "Group Solidarity" and unable to answer the little girl's brutally honest questions. We see their delusion and folly through her eyes - literally, because director Julie Gavras shoots the film from the little girl's height. This technique pays off most memorably in a seen where her parents take her on a demo and all she can see are the legs and waists of the crowd, the smoke and the sound of the police cracking down.

It's tempting to think that Julie Gavras had a special ability to bring this material to life because she has infused it with her own memories as a small child in the house of radical - her father, the revolutionary film-director Costa-Gavras. But whatever the reason, this film has what many lack - a feeling of authenticity and a light touch. Though deeply political and moral, it never preaches but allows us to wander through the period and its dilemmas as a small child trying to figure out what to do. It's truly a great film.

BLAME IT ON FIDEL played Rome 2006 and Edinburgh and Sundance 2007. It was released in France in 2006, in the UK, US and Brazil in 2007 and in Japan and Turkey 2008. It is now available on DVD.