MovieMail April 09 Film Catalogue by MovieMail

About MovieMail Moviemail Team Q. Who is your favourite film rebel? (Inspired by Arthur Seaton and Colin Smith – see pages 12-13)

Dan Hunter Editor Luke (Cool Hand Luke)

Graeme Hobbs Writer Colin Smith (Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner)

Becky Smith Buyer Ferris Bueller (Ferris Bueller’s Day Off)

It’s our twelfth anniversary but the idea stays the same – to share interesting films and to celebrate one of the world’s great communal art forms. Thousands of DVDs are released every month; we select the best and most worthwhile and let you know about them – in our monthly film catalogue, on our website, in email new sletters and in the podcast.

The Monthly Film Catalogue Here we present the best new DVD releases from a wide range of genres to bring great films, documentaries and TV programmes to your attention in an easily digested format. Those films and directors we particularly recommend are highlighted with longer reviews and features. Published from wood-free pulp grown in sustainable forests. Please recycle, and let us know if you’d rather not receive it.

Peter Curtis Customer Services Manager

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April 09 MovieMail Newsletter

MovieMail News

his month sees the release of two classic British titles – Saturday NIght and Sunday Morning and The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner – on Blu-ray. The BFI’s commitment to the high definition format is extremely exciting and will help to broaden the scope of Blu-ray releases away from recent blockbusters and into the area that many people have been waiting for – all-time classic films. Part of the delay is because it costs so much to restore them to an acceptable standard for the format, which typically shows up to six times more detail than DVD. For benchmark restorations – North by Northwest, Gone with the Wind – this can be

Film of the Month 5 Waltz with Bashir The Man from London Muriel

over $1m, with $200,000 on dirt cleaning alone!

I really need to mention our latest exclusives: Father Brown, Gumshoe, and The Prince and the Pauper. I look forward to seeing them all! Enjoy your films,

Saturday Night & Sunday Morning Father Brown The Winslow Boy

Documentaries Of Time and the City

Television Nature’s Great Events

Animation

A Matter of Loaf and Death James Dean (Rebel without a Cause)

(Arthur Seaton in Saturday Night & Sunday Morning). After nearly ten years of writing for MovieMail, Julian is pleased to be finally providing a review this month of Saturday Night and Sunday Morning – a film he has been raving about since he first saw it on Channel 4 in 1985. Julian’s day job is in online publishing, but he wrote a British film book, Fallen Stars, in 2004 and promises to have another one finished by the end of the decade.

Alex Davidson (Louise Poirier in The New Babylon) is a content developer

Classic Movies

Julian Upton

Rick Burin (Thomas à Becket in Becket) has a weekly Films on TV column at www.harrogateadvertiser. co.uk and has written about movies for The Guardian.

World Cinema

External Contributors

Michael Brooke (Krystyna Janda in Man of Marble) is Screenonline Curator, BFI National Archive, and a prolific contributor to Sight and Sound.

Contents

for the BFI Mediatheque. James Oliver (Max Fischer in Rushmore) is a freelance writer on film. David Parkinson (Tony Hancock in The Rebel) is a film critic and historian, who has published several books on cinema, most recently The Rough Guide to Musicals. Milo Wakelin (Princess Leia in Star Wars) is film editor of The Pink Paper.

Contemporary

Gumshoe Quantum of Solace

HD Releases

From the Cheap Seats

Order Form

Special Offers Middle Eastern Cinema

Screen Detectives 14 Optimum Films

Film Composers

Daniel Craig

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Page 3

Get more from Current Top 10 Chart MovieMail

1 The Wrong Box

Dir: Bryan Forbes. An all-star Victorian romp in which two brothers will stop at nothing to outlive each other and collect a huge family inheritance. Cue mistaken identities, bodies dumped in the Thames, and a spectacular hearse race.

Bonus Points Bonus Points are designed to reward you when you buy your films from MovieMail. You accumulate them when you spend money with us and can cash them in to get money off future orders. For every pound you spend on films, you'll receive 5 bonus points. You can convert 625 points into a £5 credit which can be taken off the cost of a future order with MovieMail. You can keep track of your points total via our website and on your invoices. To cash them in, simply let us know when you're making your order.

Service Charter MovieMail does not charge your credit or debit card until the goods are ready for despatch. Any item purchased from us may be returned for a full refund. If the item proves faulty on our equipment we will also refund your postage. We do retain the right not to fulfil any order for any reason whatsoever. None of the above affects your statutory rights. We will not release any of your details to any third party or mailing list. Ever.

Key to MovieMail Recommended

Recommended by MovieMail is a collection of the very best DVDs. Visit www.moviemail-online.co.uk/recommended for the full archive

B Bonus Points Within the Highlighted films’ Buying Details you’ll find the number of points awarded for your purchase.

DVD Extras Following the DVD icon, we list details of the supplementary materials found in the package. Page 4

UK | 1966 | SPHE | 101 min | Cert U | # 57377 | RRP £12.99

DVD: £11.99 Save £1

2 Waltz With Bashir

Dir: Ari Folman. Powerful animated documentary in which Folman – a former Israeli soldier – explores a period in his life that he has forgotten about. Folman embarks on a series of interviews with old friends and as he delves deeper into the mystery, his memories begin to surface. Israel / Germany / France | 2008 | ART-E | 90 min | subt | Cert 18 | # 57258 | RRP £15.99

DVD: £9.99 Save £5

3 The Devil and Daniel Webster

Dir: William Dieterle. Inarguably a classic, both as a piece of Americana, and as an exercise in magical film making, this morality tale reworks the legend of Faust with a farmer trading seven years of prosperity in exchange for his soul. USA | 1941 | EUREK | 106 min | B&W | Cert U | # 57216 | RRP £19.99

DVD: £12.99 Save £7

4 GPO Film Unit: Volume 2 - We Live in Two Worlds The GPO Film Unit was one of the most remarkable creative institutions that Britain has produced. This volume represents the GPO Film Unit at its height and includes Night Mail and the animations of Len Lye and Norman McLaren. UK | 1938 | BFI | 269 min | B&W | Cert E | # 57113 | RRP £24.99

DVD: £16.99 Save £8

of Solace 5 Quantum

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Nights of Cabiria

Father Brown

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8 Education

The Joy of Sex DVD: £12.99 Save £7

Loved you So Long 9 I’ve DVD: £12.99 Save £7

10 Striped Pajamas The Boy in the DVD: £13.99 Save £4

Reader Feedback Every month we receive queries asking us to find mystery films – we’re happy to help! Here are some recent examples: “...a film I saw many years ago, it’s about a girl falling in love with someone from the wrong side of the tracks, the guy marries someone else and he has an accident in which the girl’s father (a doctor) amputates his legs unnecessarily. HELP!” (Kings Row, 1942); “Businessman takes his (poss black) cleaning lady in to running his company. Title may have featured both christian names” (Romuald et Juliette). And lastly, still unsolved: “UK film, b/w, late 40s or 50s. A group of people cross the channel in a motor yacht, with the English version of ‘Boum’ as background music.” Email suggestions (and requests) to feedback@moviemail-online.co.uk

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April 09 MovieMail Newsletter

MovieMail’s Film of the Month

Buying Details Our DVD Price:

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Also Available Waltz with Bashir Israel | 2008 | ART-E | 90 min | subt | Cert 18 | # 57259 | RRP £19.99

Our Blu-ray Price: £12.99

See Also Persepolis

Vincent Paronnaud France / USA | 2007 | OPTIM | 95 min | subt | Cert 15 | # 54752 | RRP £17.99

Our DVD Price: £9.99

All Quiet on the Western Front Lewis Milestone

USA | 1930 | UPV | 128 min | B&W | Cert PG | # 21470 | RRP £15.99

Our DVD Price: £6.99

Apocalypse Now Redux

Francis Ford Coppola USA | 1979 | BUENA | 194 min | Cert 15 | # 10323 | RRP £19.99

Our DVD Price: £8.49

ilmmaker Ari Folman has taken a singular path in exploring his past – Waltz with Bashir follows this former Israeli soldier as he struggles to remember the events that occurred during the invasion of Lebanon in 1982. His journey begins when a friend relates a recurring nightmare in which twenty-six hellish dogs pursue him through a city. They realise there’s a connection to events that occurred during their time in the army, but Ari is bewildered – he can’t remember anything from this period in his life. Intrigued, he begins to seek out former comrades asking them what they can remember about the war, gradually homing in on a particular event that his subconscious is very keen for him to forget. Waltz with Bashir is a borderline documentary. Folman’s interviews and the stories and memories revealed through them have been recreated in uniquely styled animation – a mesmerising blend of comic book illustration, Flash art and photo realism. Put alongside some carefully selected music it results in a singular viewing experience that transports the viewer into the realm of their memories, a place that veers from the surreal to the visceral. Few films

Powerful, humane and essential – this is not to be missed have dealt with memory – tricksy, formative and intangible – as effectively as this one and it’s the animation that makes this possible. Somehow it’s more appropriate. The visuals are so engaging that if it wasn’t for the tough material later in the film this could easily have become a stoner’s choice for viewing pleasure. But this is not a flippant piece of filmmaking – quite the opposite. You’re left with an honest impression of war from a soldier’s perspective that is, crucially, unmarred by politics. Nominated at all the major award ceremonies this year but winning few, Waltz hasn’t received the recognition it deserves and it would be a real shame if audiences missed out. An Israeli war movie is a tough sell and, ironically for a film that succeeds in being non-political, it is politics that seem to be hampering its prospects. It does not seek to level accusations or present heroes or villains, it is simply humane. Dan Hunter

Enquiries enquiries@moviemail-online.co.uk

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World Cinema Films in a Foreign Language

New Releases Año Uña

Jonás Cuarón Its tale narrated over a series of still photographs, this film tells the tender and often funny story of the tentative relationship that develops between an American woman and the sex-obsessed teenage Mexican boy in whose home she lodges. Año Uña short film competition winners. Mexico | 2007 | UNANI | 78 min | subt | Cert 15 Item # 57257 | RRP £19.99 | Released 23rd March

Our DVD Price: £14.99

The Béla Tarr Collection

Three films from the brilliantly original Hungarian director whose worlds of brooding metaphysical desolation go hand in hand with the worn and addictive beauty of their treatment. Werckmeister Harmonies; Damnation; The Man from London 3 discs. (2007).

Our DVD Price: £30.99

Damnation / Werckmeister Harmonies Béla Tarr

Damnation is Tarr’s treatment of love and betrayal in which a listless, brooding man becomes obsessed with a singer in a bar. From its enthralling opening 10 minute shot, Werckmeister Harmonies is a haunting, metaphysical exploration of chaos and harmony in a provincial town. Hungary | 2000 / 1988 | ART-E | 145 min / 120 mins | subt | 15 Item # 57766 | RRP £15.99 each | 6th April

Our DVD Price: £11.99 each

Entranced Earth Glauber Rocha

In a fictitious Latin American country, an anarchist poet reflects on his life and comprehends the true price an artist pays for commitment to a cause. A bold picture that asks difficult questions about the true nature of politics and Newly restored. life in Latin America. Brazil | 1967 | Bongo | 106 min | subt | 18 Item # 57697 | RRP £9.99 | Released 23rd February

Our DVD Price: £7.99

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Strawberry and Chocolate Recommended

The Wind Will Carry Us Recommended

Director: Tomás Gutiérrez Alea

Director: Abbas Kiarostami

Starring: Vladmir Cruz, Jorge Perugorria

Released: 23rd March

Released: 16th March

DVD Extras: TBC

The first Cuban film to be nominated for an Oscar, this is a warm, witty story of friendship filmed against the chaos and colour of Havana. After being dumped by his fiancée, idealistic student David drowns his sorrows – in dairy – at Coppelia, Havana’s famous ice-cream park. He is joined by Diego, an older, flamboyantly handsome gay artist, who arouses David’s suspicions by choosing strawberry ice-cream over chocolate. Diego’s comically unsuccessful seduction of David’s body leads into a longer and more substantial meeting of minds, and the film defies expectations by leaving both men unconverted. Given Cuba’s tardy attempts to reform official attitudes towards homosexuality, it is surprising to find a homegrown film which tackles the issue with such candour, especially one made in 1994 by the founder of its national film unit. Ultimately, it’s a celebration of difference, and the relationship between the incorruptible David and the unconventional Diego mirrors the Castro regime’s slow acceptance that dissent needn’t be unpatriotic. MW

Taking its title from the beautiful verse by the great female poet Forough Farrokhzad, The Wind Will Carry Us is an exquisite, moving work following a reporter from Tehran who visits a remote Kurdish village. He attempts to befriend the locals, with mixed results, and the reasons for his visit are slowly revealed. Why is he so preoccupied with the fate of a dying stranger? Why does he keep rushing out of the village to take mobile phone calls? What is the significance of an unseen gravedigger? Describing this film as a clash of cultures simplifies Kiarostami’s achievements. He delivers a poignant reflection on life and death, and ends with a tender image worthy of Ozu. The reporter’s relationship with the villagers is not sentimentalised, and the characters’ dialogue offers superb moments of naturalism, particularly in the affectionate bickering between a café owner and her husband. A worthy follow-up to the Palme d’Or-winning A Taste of Cherry, The Wind Will Carry Us won three awards at Venice, including the coveted Jury Prize. AD

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April 09 MovieMail Newsletter

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See Also The Béla Tarr Collection Hungary | 1987-2007 | ART-E | subt | Cert 15 | # 57764 | RRP £34.99

Our DVD Price: £30.99

Sátántangó Béla Tarr

Hungary | 1994 | ART-E | 419 min | subt | B&W | Cert 15 | # 30749 | RRP £29.99

Our DVD Price: £26.99

The Round-Up Miklós Janscó

Hungary | 1965 | 2RUN | 87 min | subt | B&W | Cert 15 | # 52606 | RRP £12.99

Our DVD Price: £11.99

nyone thinking that one of the most uncompromisingly heavyweight auteurs in contemporary cinema had succumbed to the lure of base commerce when he chose to adapt a mystery novel by Inspector Maigret creator Georges Simenon as the basis for his first feature in seven years will be relieved to hear that The Man From London is quintessential Béla Tarr, and a fitting follow-up to Damnation, Sátántangó and Werckmeister Harmonies. Shot in smoky, crepuscular black-andwhite by fellow director Fred Kelemen, it’s scored with a haunting accordion waltz by regular collaborator Mihály Vig, and has an internationally eclectic cast whose British contingent includes Tilda Swinton, as well as Edward Fox on dubbing duties in this – Tarr’s preferred – Anglo-French version. It rivets the attention from the opening panoramic track across a coastal French harbour where a seemingly straightforward case of customs evasion leads to a dispute over a briefcase, which in turn leads to murder. The briefcase inadvertently falls into the hands of the crime’s only witness, harbour signalman Maloin (Czech actor Miroslav Krobot), but when he finds that it’s full of banknotes, far from heralding the end of decades of impoverished drudgery

Quintessential Béla Tarr – no-one else is making films like this and a long-desired new life for his family, they become the source of all-consuming existential torment. Meanwhile, the murder investigation proceeds at a glacial pace, courtesy of 87-year-old Hungarian veteran István Lenárt as the British detective Morrison, seemingly more concerned with being seen to tie up loose ends than in achieving true justice in any accepted sense. In any case, Tarr tells us who the killer is from the start: he’s much more interested in his characters’ psychology and indeed physiognomy, taking as much time as he feels is necessary to scrutinise an extraordinary collection of faces and try to tease out the construction of the minds behind them. And if this is ultimately as futile a gesture as Maloin’s farcical ‘treat’ for his daughter Henriette (Erika Bók, formerly the cat-tormenting waif in Sátántangó), it serves to intensify the underlying mystery even as Tarr meticulously pares away all the conventional generic elements. No-one else is making films quite like this. Michael Brooke

Enquiries enquiries@moviemail-online.co.uk

Page 7

World Cinema Female Prisoner Scorpion Trilogy

Let’s Talk About the Rain

Salaam Bombay!

Agnes Jaoui

Mira Nair

Jaoui plays a tough and selfcentred political candidate who returns to her childhood home to help sort out the affairs of her recently deceased mother. While there she is approached to take part in a documentary about successful women. The film explores the intertwining relationships as they unfold throughout an unseasonably wet August.

Shunya Ito

Meiko Kaji. Triple bill of 1970s Japanese thrillers that inspired Tarantino’s Kill Bill and which are ‘a feast of feral sex, ultra-violence, impulsive lesbian orgies, and mock crucifixions’. Features Female Prisoner #701 – Scorpion, Scorpion: Jailhouse 41 (1972), and Scorpion: Beast Stable (1973).

Our DVD Price: £11.99

Rivals

Hansel and Gretel

Our DVD Price: £11.99

Jacques Maillot

Pil-Sung Yim

An 11-year-old Indian boy is abandoned by his family and takes to the streets of Bombay, where he enjoys the company of a disparate group of pimps, prostitutes, drug addicts and other street children. Documentarist Nair’s Oscar-nominated and internationally successful first feature is a vibrant, vivacious, compassionate mosaic which combines articulate social comment with absorbing drama.

Korean horror/fantasy version of the classic fairy tale. When a man crashes his car and stumbles into the woods, he is found by a child who takes him home to her family where he can recover. However, the man soon realises that he is trapped there and, after discovering a book of fairy tales, to his horror finds he is the main character in one of them.

Guillaume Canet, François Cluzet. Gritty crime drama set in 1970s Lyon where brothers grow up on different sides of the law. When Gabriel is released from ten years in jail, his police inspector brother does all he can to help him adjust to the outside world. But despite their good intentions the demons of the past soon catch up with them.

Item # 57793 | RRP £15.99 | Released 6th April

Our DVD Price: £14.99

ART471_Moviemail.1:ART339/NFT (June).1 25/2/09 11:33 Item # 57265 | RRP £19.99 | Released 30th March South Korea | 2007 | TC-M | 117 min | Cert 18

The Silence of Lorna Luc Dardenne

Arta Dobroshi, Jérémie Renier. An Albanian immigrant’s dreams of leaving her dreary job and setting up a snack bar with her boyfriend leads her into a marriage of convenience with a junkie and the schemes of a dangerous gangster in which she becomes entangled.

Page 1 Belgium / France | 2008 | NW | 105 min | subt | Cert 15 Item # 57828 | RRP £19.99 | Released 3rd April

Our DVD Price: £14.99

Our DVD Price: £11.99

Artificial Eye

Artiﬁcial Eye

Latest releases

FROM THE DIRECTOR OF COMME UN IMAGE (LOOK AT ME) & LE GOUT DES AUTRES

AGNÈS JAOUI

JEAN-PIERRE BACRI

JAMEL DEBBOUZE

A FILM BY AGNÈS JAOUI

Let’s Talk About The Rain (PARLEZ-MOI DE LA PLUIE)

“QUITE SIMPLY, WONDERFUL”

��

David Parkinson, EMPIRE

Agnès Jaoui Let’s Talk About the Rain

Abbas Kiarostami The Wind Will Carry Us

A hugely entertaining comedy from the writer director of ‘Look at Me’ and ‘The Taste of Others’ takes a witty and perceptive look at relationships. ‘A joy from start to finish’ Filmfour.com

Haunting and visually stunning, this absorbing meditation on the divisions between tradition and modernity is among Kiarostami’s best works. ‘Subtle, deceptively simple and richly rewarding work of genius’ Time Out

Claire Denis Chocolat Claire Denis’ breakthrough film is a sensual examination of racism and repressed passion set during the last days of France’s colonies in Africa. ‘Haunting and evocative’ Filmfour.com

On DVD 23 March www.artificial-eye.com

April 09 MovieMail Newsletter

Muriel Recommended Director: Alain Resnais Starring: Delphine Seyrig, Jean-Pierre Kérien, JeanBaptiste Thiérrée Released: 30th March DVD Extras: New anamorphic transfer; Newly created subtitles; Original trailer; 36-page booklet with essays and excerpts from the famous 1963 Cahiers du cinéma discusssion about the film. France / Italy | 1963 | EUREK | 111 mins | subt | Cert 12 | Item # 57643

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See Also Last Year In Marienbad Alain Resnais

France | 1961 | OPTIM | 94 min | subt | B&W | Cert U | # 21840 | RRP £19.99

Our DVD Price: £8.99

Hiroshima Mon Amour Alain Resnais

France | 1959 | NOUVE | 86 min | subt | B&W | Cert PG | # 21013 | RRP £19.99

Our DVD Price: £9.99

‘E

very person is a private world,’ Jean-Pierre Kérien declares during his reunion with old flame Delphine Seyrig. And rarely have persons in such close proximity been so detached or heard so little of what is being said than the protagonists in this disconcerting, mesmerising anti-drama, which completed the ‘time and memory’ trilogy that Alain Resnais started with Hiroshima Mon Amour (1958) and Last Year at Marienbad (1961). The spectre of conflict looms over the action. Kérien and Seyrig haven’t seen each other since before the Second World War that decimated Boulogne, and it’s implied that dark Vichy deeds may now be haunting them as much as the torture and murder of the unseen Muriel is wracking Seyrig’s stepson, Jean-Baptiste Thiérrée, newly returned from fighting in Algeria. But nothing here is as it seems, with the rapid-fire opening montage warning us not to expect anything by way of linearity or causality, as film is incapable of capturing real life. However, it does have a unique genius for conveying the fragmentary and unreliable nature of recollection and the chaotic and capricious essence of concurrence. Consequently, Resnais is able to present human interaction as a series of

Completes Resnais’ trilogy started with Hiroshima Mon Amour statements and suppressions, digressions and distractions, in which the mind so consistently goes off at tangents that concentration, let alone conversation, is a minor miracle. In order to keep his images and ideas in flux, Resnais adopts a range of nouvelle vague tactics, including jump cuts, breaches of the 180° line and haphazard framing during dialogue passages. He also disregards audiovisual logic by showing footage of French soldiers helping Algerian children while Thiérrée is describing Muriel’s ordeal and dissembling over what is actually being served for dinner, in order to alert us to the characters’ confusion (or even mendacity). No wonder this neglected work of controlled brilliance required three editors. But Resnais climaxes his mosaical challenge to our senses with a coup de cinéma that sees Sacha Vierny’s camera survey the room without interruption, forcing us to view the mise-en-scène and everything that may or may not have occurred within it from a fresh perspective. D Parkinson

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Page 9

World Cinema

Vital, Relevant Documentaries and more... DVD Sale from the Institute of Contemporary Arts A Comedy of Power

The Yacoubian Building

Claude Chabrol

Marwan Hamed

DVD Extras: TBC

Isabelle Huppert finds herself probing the limits of her own power and also its intoxicating grip as a judge trying a high-profile fraud case whose scandal goes high up.

A brave and lively critique of modern Egyptian society, crossing a spectrum of class and families in its labyrinth of stories exploring love and power, sex and politics.

France | 2006 | ICA | 110 min | Cert 12 | # 54837 | RRP £19.99

Egypt | 2006 | ICA | 161 min | subt | Cert 12 | # 52957 | RRP £19.99

In her remarkable debut feature from 1988, director Claire Denis used her own life as inspiration, exploring the relationships between a black servant, Protée, and a French family living in Colonial Africa (the whole film was shot on location in Cameroon). When a plane is forced to land nearby the family takes in the European passengers, and the radical clash of cultures begins to become apparent. The title, never explained in the film, is a play on 1950s French slang – ‘chocolat’ is used here to mean the status of being black and being cheated by the colonialists. The otherness of Africa is subtly represented by Denis, with the stern morals of Protée contrasting with the vulgar, bourgeois intruders. It gradually becomes apparent that the mother is attracted to the manservant, yet class and racism intervene. Denis’ confident handling of the material allows the shots to speak for themselves, with a minimum of dialogue. It is the first film of a fascinating career, and many of its themes would reappear in Denis’ masterpiece, Beau Travail. AD

DVD: £6.99 Save £13

Annie Leibovitz: Life Through a Lens

Her Name is Sabine

Recommended Director: Claire Denis Starring: Isaach De Bankolé, Giulia Boschi, François Cluzet Released: 23rd March

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Page 10

Dir: Barbara Leibovitz. The photographer of the rich and famous reveals herself to her young sister’s camera. USA | 2006 | ICA | 82 min | Cert 12 | # 55618 | RRP £15.99

Acclaimed actress Sandrine Bonnaire makes her directorial debut with a sensitive and very personal portrait of her autistic younger sister. France | ICA | 85 min | subt | Cert 12 | # 56070 | RRP £15.99

DVD: £6.99 Save £9

Blame it on Fidel!

I for India

Dir: Julie Gavras. The cosy bourgeois life of feisty Parisian girl Anna is turned upside down when her parents discover radical socialism.

Dir: Sandhya Suri. A fascinating chronicle of immigration in 1960s Britain, seen through the eyes of one Indian family and their Super-8.

France | 2006 | ICA | 99 min | subt | Cert 12 | # 53710 | RRP £19.99

UK | 2005 | ICA | 70 min | Cert 15 | # 52951 | RRP £15.99

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The Go Master

Jesus Camp

Dir: Tian Zhuangzhuang. An intense, stately character study about Wu Qingyuan, the Chinese master of the ancient game of Go.

Dir: Grady & Ewing. An unsettling look at religious fundamentalism in the western world with youngsters at a ‘Kids on Fire’ summer camp.

China | 2006 | ICA | 100 min | subt | Cert 15 | # 56069 | RRP £17.99

USA | 2006 | ICA | 81 min | Cert PG | # 53875 | RRP £19.99

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Gypsy Caravan: When The Road Bends

Our Daily Bread

Dir: Jasmine Dellal. ‘The Buena Vista Social Club for Gypsy music’. Makes you want to get up and dance! USA | 2007 | ICA | 111 min | subt | Cert PG | # 53431 | RRP £15.99

Dir: Nikolaus Geyrhalter. A thoughtprovoking documentary, presented entirely without narration, about industrial food production in Europe. Austria | 2005 | ICA | 92 min | Cert 12 | # 55617 | RRP £15.99

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Half Moon

Žižek!

Dir: Bahman Ghobadi. A revered old Kurdish musician and his group overcome numerous obstacles to play a concert in Iraqi Kurdistan.

Dir: Astra Taylor. Part documentary, part philosophy lesson with the ‘Elvis of cultural theory’, Presenting, the one and only: Professor Slavoj Žižek.

Iran | 2006 | ICA | 107 min | Cert PG | # 54851 | RRP £19.99

UK | 2007 | ICA | 69 min | Cert 12 | # 53593 | RRP £15.99

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Offer ends 25th April or while stocks last

Chocolat

An introduction to

Middle Eastern Cinema

DVDs from £5.99

Inspired by Waltz with Bashir, we’ve selected the best available cinema from Iran, Lebanon, Palestine, Turkey and Israel. There is more than you might think and their range – encompassing social realism, arthouse drama, antiwar films and even Tatiesque comedy – should be enough to tempt anyone.

Close-Up

Times and Winds

Waltz with Bashir

Abbas Kiarostami

Reha Erdem

Ari Folman

A multi-layered exploration of illusion and reality, depicting in documentary fashion an unemployed man’s attempt to impersonate director Mohsen Makhmalbaf and the resulting court proceedings.

An intimate and moving portrait of the pleasures and frustrations of life in a poor Turkish village, where villagers live according to the cycle of the seasons and the daily calls to prayer.

A powerful Oscar-nominated animated documentary in which Israeli filmmaker Ari Folman faces up to his past as a teenage soldier and uncovers his and colleague’s lost memories of the first Lebanon War.

Iran | 1990 | SODA | 94 min | subt | Cert U | # 33931 | RRP £19.99

Turkey | 2006 | ART-E | 110 min | subt | Cert 15 | # 56344 | RRP £19.99

Israel | 2008 | ART-E | 90 min | subt | Cert 18 | # 57258 | RRP £15.99

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The Band’s Visit

Divine Intervention

Dir: Eran Kolirin. Poignant comedy in which the Egyptian police force band is thrust upon the mercy of kindly strangers in a dead-end Israeli town.

Dir: Elia Suleiman. Deadpan series of vignettes in which Palestinian lovers meet by an army checkpoint. Has drawn comparisons with Tati.

Taste of Cherry / 10 on Ten

Israel | 2007 | COL-T | 87 min | subt | Cert 12 | # 54735 | RRP £15.99

Palestine | 2002 | ART-E | 90 min | Cert 15 | # 13636 | RRP £19.99

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Beaufort

The Edge of Heaven

Ten

Dir: Joseph Cedar. A powerful depiction of the futility of war in which Israeli troops are left to defend a fort before pulling out from Lebanon.

Dir: Fatih Akin. Family and politics collide as a young German professor seeks out the daughter of his father’s mistress in this rich ensemble piece.

Dir: Abbas Kiarostami. A film set entirely inside a woman taxi driver’s car in Tehran and offering a little-seen female perspective on Iranian life

Israel | 2007 | TRIN | 125 min | subt | Cert 15 | # 53986 | RRP £19.99

Germany | 2007 | ART-E | 121 min | subt | 15 | # 53871 | RRP £19.99

Iran | 2002 | OPTIM | 92 min | subt | Cert 12 | # 14097 | RRP £19.99

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Blackboards

Head-On

A Touch of Spice

Dir: Samira Makhmalbaf. In Iranian Kurdistan, a band of roaming teachers, blackboards strapped to their backs, go in search of pupils.

Dir: Fatih Akin. A passionate, uncompromising depiction of love between second generation Turkish families in Germany. Golden Bear winner 2004.

Dir: Tassos Boulmetis. A flavoursome epic in which a boy learns from his grandfather that both food and life need a little spice for flavour.

Iran | 2000 | ART-E | 82 min | subt | Cert PG | # 8227 | RRP £19.99

Germany | 2004 | SODA | 121 min | subt | 18 | # 22846 | RRP £19.99

Greece / Turkey | 2003 | LGATE | 104 min | subt | PG | # 33857 | £19.99

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Caramel

Nina’s Tragedies

Uzak

Dir: Nadine Labaki. A winsome romantic comedy about the day-today lives of five Lebanese women who meet in a Beirut beauty salon.

Dir: Savi Gavison. 14 year old Nadav tells us about his torn family, in this powerful and involving drama with a poignant comic streak.

Dir: Nuri Bilge Ceylan. A beautifullyphotographed film of melancholia in Istanbul. Widely regarded as a true contemporary masterpiece.

Lebanon | 2007 | MOMET | 91 min | subt | PG | # 55137 | RRP £17.99

Israel | 2003 | LGATE | 107 min | subt | Cert 15 | # 33756 | RRP £19.99

Turkey | 2003 | ART-E | 105 min | subt | Cert 15 | # 19533 | RRP £19.99

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Climates

Paradise Now

West Beyrouth

Dir: Nuri Bilge Ceylan. An exquisite account of the break-up of a relationship across three seasons, three locations and three climates.

Dir: Hany Abu-Assad. A multiple award-winner, this Palestinian film follows friends who are recruited by extremists to act as suicide bombers.

Dir: Ziad Doueiri. The story of a teenage boy in wartorn Beirut in 1975, where Tarek and his friend run amok through bombed-out streets.

Turkey | 2006 | ART-E | 100 min | subt | Cert 15 | # 33312 | RRP £19.99

Palestine | 2005 | WHV | 91 min | Cert 15 | # 30225 | RRP £17.99

Lebanon | 1998 | MET-D | 110 min | subt | Cert 15 | # 5832 | RRP £9.99

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Two films from the brilliantly innovative Iranian director Abbas Kiarostami. 10 on Ten is his cinema masterclass. Iran | 1997-2004 | ART-E | 188 min | subt | PG | # 22320 | RRP £24.99

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Classic Movies English Language Films, 1930 - 1969

The Prince and the Pauper

New Releases At War With the Army Hal Walker

A memorable first screen outing for the legendary Jerry Lewis/Dean Martin partnership in which a hapless Private blunders from one farcical situation to another, defying Uncle Sam’s efforts to turn him into a fighter. Worse, his former nightclub partner is now his military superior!

Blood on the Sun Frank Lloyd

James Cagney plays an American newspaper editor who discovers a plan for Japanese world domination. With the help of Sylvia Sidney’s beautiful Chinese-American spy, he tries to warn the world and stay out of the hands of the secret police.

Joseph Pevney

Tony Curtis appears in one of his first leading roles in this story of a deaf mute boxer who catches the eye of a moneysucking blonde bombshell, keen to push his career and his winnings. Then a rival appears in the shape of a upper-crust Remastered. reporter. USA | 1952 | EUREK | 79 min | Cert PG Item # 57729 | RRP £15.99 | Released 30th March

USA | 1964 | WDHV | 133 min | Cert U Item # 57631 | RRP £17.99 | Released 2nd March

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Page 12

Recommended Director: Tony Richardson

UK | 1964 | ODEON | 100 min | Cert 12 Item # 57441 | RRP £9.99 | Released 23rd March

UK | 1962 | BFI | 100 mins | B&W | Cert 12 | Item # 56316

Jean-Luc Godard

Flesh and Fury

The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner

Bernard Lee, Francesca Annis. When their ship comes into port, five sailors embark on overnight shore leave in ‘Swinging London’. A night of honey traps and runaways, existentialists and boxers ensues. The Searchers play in a pub.

Sympathy for the Devil

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Dick van Dyke. A classic Disney production with Julie Andrews as the Edwardian nanny who brings fun, magic, and a breath of fresh air into the lives of a banker’s children. Filled with memorable songs, its enthusiasm is infectious. Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!

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USA | 1945 | NWORK | 90 min | Cert PG Item # 57304 | RRP £5.99 | Released 30th March

Robert Stevenson

USA | 1937 | ORBIT | 110 min | Cert U Item # 57865 | RRP £9.99 | Released 13th April

R Hartford-Davis

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Mary Poppins

EXCLUSIVE!

Errol Flynn, Claude Rains. A rousing adaptation of the Mark Twain story of two young boys who switch social positions by exchanging clothes. One boy is heir to the English throne, the other a poor, mistreated urchin. A Depression fable which is as fresh today as ever.

Saturday Night Out

USA | 1950 | NWORK | 90 min | Cert U Item # 57301 | RRP £5.99 | Released 23rd March

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William Keighley

Godard meets the Rolling Stones in June 1968 and produces political/musical agit-prop. The footage of the Stones rehearsing, turning the title track from a rough outline into something more fully formed, is Theatrical fascinating. Cut and Original Director’s Cut; Voices (1968). UK | 1968 | MET-D | 100 min | Cert 15 Item # 57472 | RRP £5.99 | Released 23rd March

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The Trail of the Lonesome Pine Henry Hathaway

Sylvia Sidney, Henry Fonda. A feud has been boiling for decades between two sheltered mountain families. With plans to build a railroad through both families’ land, enterprising outsider Jack Hale inadvertently becomes entangled, especially when he captures the attention of the beautiful June Tolliver and quickly becomes involved in a love triangle with her and her cousin. USA | 1936 | EUREK | 95 min | Cert PG Item # 57704 | RRP £15.99 | Released 30th March

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Starring: Tom Courtenay, Michael Redgrave, John Thaw, James Bolam Released: 23rd March DVD Extras: New Hi-definition transfer; Commentary by film historian Robert Murphy, Tom Courtenay and Alan Sillitoe; Video essay by Walter Lassally; Momma Don’t Allow (Richardson, 1956); Illustrated booklet.

When a liberal borstal governor sees new inmate Smith as a means to fulfilling his dream of winning the upcoming cross-country challenge cup against a public school, he doesn’t allow for him having his own thoughts about being used in such races. ‘He’ll surprise us all’ he says. And so he does, but on his own terms, and with a sly, victorious gleam in his eye too. With its ‘excess of language’ and its protagonist’s class-grounded attitude set to the ironic accompaniment of a fractured ‘Jersualem’, the film – adapted by Alan Sillitoe from his own short story – put censors and critics’ backs up, and Colin Smith’s poker-faced defiance in the face of anyone – governor, psychologist, advertiser, politician – who thinks they can tell him what to do, is still bracing. The film also showcases Walter Lassally’s diversely beautiful, inventive cinematography. GH

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April 09 MovieMail Newsletter

Saturday Night and Sunday Morning Recommended Director: Karel Reisz Starring: Albert Finney, Shirley Ann Field, Rachel Roberts Released: 23rd March DVD Extras: Commentary by Robert Murphy, writer Alan Sillitoe and cinematographer Freddie Francis; New interview with Shirley Anne Field; Audio interview with Finney; We Are the Lambeth Boys (1959) by Karel Reisz; Illustrated booklet. UK | 1960 | BFI | 85 mins | B&W | Cert PG | Item # 57214

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Also Available Saturday Night and Sunday Morning UK | 1960 | BFI | 85 min | B&W | Cert PG | # 57188 | RRP £22.99

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See Also The Name of the Rose

Jean-Jacques Annaud USA | 1986 | WHV | 123 min | Cert 18 | # 19272 | RRP £19.99

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Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy John Irvin

UK | 1980 | BBC-DD | 315 min | Cert PG | # 13837 | RRP £15.99

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Father Brown Hammer of God and other Stories UK | 1974 | ACORN | 260 min | Cert PG | # 14918 | RRP £24.99

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ather Brown is a neglected gem: a whimsical but heartfelt comedy adventure that boasts one of Alec Guinness’s greatest characterisations. Like Peter Sellers and Johnny Depp after him, Guinness had a sublime gift for creating believable, attractive comic characters. His creations were no onedimensional laughing stocks; they lived and breathed, often inspiring as much empathy as mirth. Father Ignatius Brown may be a clumsy amateur sleuth who practises martial arts on the church lawn, but with his guileless eyes, tuneful voice and unshakable faith, he feels utterly real. The film is worthy of his efforts. After a hilarious opening vignette that I won’t spoil here, we start the story proper. The Bishop (Cecil Parker) plans to send Brown’s cherished artefact, the holy cross of St. Augustine, to a religious summit in Rome. The police believe an international thief, known as Flambeau, will try to intercept the treasure. It’s not giving too much away to say that the crook succeeds; or that Father Brown takes this as a personal affront, believing Flambeau in need of spiritual guidance. And so begins a fast-paced game of theological cat and mouse, with the priest playing not only for his cross, but for his adversary’s eternal soul.

Boasts one of Alec Guinness’s greatest characterisations As that might suggest, there’s genuine depth here, but it’s all done with a delightfully delicate touch. The film is frequently laugh-out-loud funny, deriving its humour from Guinness’s impeccable performance, as well as broad supporting turns by Bernard Lee, Sid James and Gérald Oury, and a script that’s rooted in character comedy but includes everything from satire to slapstick. A scene in which the Bishop heaps sarcasm upon Guinness’s plans to safeguard the cross is an all-time classic. The plotting is consistently surprising and incorporates a great guessing game in the middle third, where we – and Father Brown – are challenged to spot a disguised Flambeau among the many eccentrics bidding for a Cellini chess set. Throw in a suspected safe robbery, a getaway dairy van, a spot of heraldry, a slender romantic subplot and a pertinent pulpit finale, and it all adds up to 82 minutes of sheer joy. Rick Burin

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Page 15

Classic Movies

Classic Film Noirs Glass Key launch their new label with these three DVDs and the promise of a mouthwatering 51 more noirs to come! Quicksand Irving Pichel

Mickey Rooney, Jeanne Cagney, Peter Lorre. ‘A guy who yields to temptation just once ... and finds it’s once too often!’ After borrowing $20 from his employer’s cash register to someone who is no hurry to pay it back, a good-natured mechanic (Rooney) is plunged into a series of increasingly disastrous circumstances which rapidly spiral out of his control as his life heads into the quicksand of debt. USA | 1950 | REVE | 78 min | Cert PG Item # 57849 | RRP £9.99 | Released 16th March

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Richard Fleischer John Hoyt, Barbara Payton. ‘When a Killer Dreams of Millions... and a girl to spend them on!’ Top-notch film noir with a documentary feel, in which Lloyd Bridges plays convicted counterfeiter Tris Stewart, who is allowed to escape from custody by US Treasury Agents hoping that he will lead them to his counterfeiting ring and the near-perfect plates they use for printing bogus $20 bills. USA | 1949 | REVE | 78 min | Cert PG Item # 57848 | RRP £9.99 | Released 6th April

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Woman on the Run

Norman Foster Ann Sheridan, Ross Elliott. Excellent lowbudget film noir in which Frank Johnson flees police after becoming an eyewitness to the murder of a potential witness to a crime. He is pursued around scenic San Francisco by his wife, a reporter who offers to help her and pay her $3,000 for an exclusive interview, the police – who get on his trail, only to lose it again – and the real murderer.

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Page 16

Recommended Director: Douglas Sirk Starring: John Gavin, Keenan Wynn Released: 30th March

DVD Extras: 2 discs; Imitation of Life: A Portrait of Douglas Sirk (Schmid, 1984); Of Tears and Speed: According to Jean-Luc Godard (a visually annotated recitation of Godard’s essay on the film); Video interview with Wesley Strick; Original Trailer; 36-page booklet with the complete text of Godard’s essay, Sirk’s film notes and more. USA | 1958 | EUREK | 127 mins | Cert PG | Item # 56234

Trapped

USA | 1950 | REVE | 76 min | Cert PG Item # 57851 | RRP £9.99 | Released 16th March

A Time to Love and a Time to Die

It’s 1944; the Eastern Front is collapsing fast. German soldier Ernst Graeber is finally granted leave, a chance to see home and family again. But bombs have done a thorough job on everything he knew and he can find no trace of his parents. Amidst the horror, he falls in love, but his war is far from over... Adapted from a novel by EM Remarque (who also wrote All Quiet on the Western Front), this is perhaps the bravest and most beautiful of war films. There are many movies that remind us War Is Hell but few with the courage to humanise the losing side. Sirk was always a more restrained director than his reputation as master of melodrama suggests; here he eschews easy sentiment and emotional bombast and his film is all the more heartbreaking for it. He does more than show the horror of war; he evokes its anguish.

This terrific adaptation of Terence Rattigan’s play may be 60 years old, but its theme of justice and the right to a fair trial is as relevant as ever. When a 12-year-old boy is thrown out of Naval College for supposedly stealing a postal order, his family decides to appeal, with their case becoming a national cause célèbre. While the father wants to prove the boy innocent, and his daughter (a youthful Margaret Leighton) is fighting for the principle, their brilliant barrister (Robert Donat) seems interested only in his fee. Donat creates fireworks in the obviously showy role of the boy’s lawyer, matched by Cedric Hardwicke as the bull-headed patriarch laying everything on the line. Leighton, too, makes a memorable impact, playing a spiky suffragette who doubles as her family’s moral backbone. Despite the film’s theatrical origins, director Anthony Asquith’s mobile camera and intelligent montages make this a thoroughly cinematic experience. It’s the acting you’ll remember, though, along with the message: ‘Let right be done’. RB

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Classic & International

Popular favourites from Optimum From just £5.99! The Charge of the Light Brigade

The Magic Box

The moving, passionate and tragic true story of Camille Claudel, muse and lover to the great French sculptor Rodin. Gerard Depardieu plays the sculptor, Isabelle Adjani his muse and lover.

Tony Richardson

A cinematic tribute, made for the 1951 Festival of Britain, to William Friese-Greene, inventor of the first commercially viable motion picture camera. Numerous stars appear in cameos.

France | 1988 | OPTIM | 175 min | subt | PG | # 50582 | RRP £17.99

UK | 1968 | OPTIM | 111 min | Cert PG | # 55834 | RRP £15.99

Bruno Nuytten

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A lavish, comic, remorseless exposure of the idiocy behind the famous military rout featuring innovative animated sequences and brilliantly choreographed battle scenes.

John Boulting

UK | 1951 | OPTIM | 118 min | Cert U | # 33090 | RRP £12.99

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Alphaville

Fallen Idol

Peeping Tom (SE)

Dir: Jean-Luc Godard. Eddie Constantine. Pop sci-fi film noir in which special agent Lemmy Caution battles supercomputer Alpha 60.

Dir: Carol Reed. A young boy believes the man he idolises is guilty of murder. His elaborate lies to protect him implicate him ever deeper.

Michael Powell’s controversial and disturbing masterpiece about a focus puller who is led into obsessive voyeurism and murder.

France | 1965 | OPTIM | 94 min | B&W | PG | # 52519 | RRP £17.99

UK | 1948 | OPTIM | 91 min | B&W | Cert PG | # 25117 | RRP £15.99

UK | 1960 | OPTIM | 97 min | Cert 15 | # 32642 | RRP £17.99

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The Beggar’s Opera

La Grande Illusion

Rashomon

Dir: Peter Brook. Laurence Olivier. Brook’s primary-coloured, exuberant adaptation brings John Gay’s famous opera to big-screen life.

Dir: Jean Renoir. One of the great anti-war films, whose subject is the universal humanity of man. Goebbels’ ‘Cinematographic Enemy No. 1’.

Dir: Akira Kurosawa. Toshiro Mifune. A woodcutter witnesses ambush, rape and murder in a forest – but what really happened?

UK | 1952 | OPTIM | 90 min | Cert U | # 53820 | RRP £15.99

France | 1937 | OPTIM | 109 min | subt | B&W | PG | # 30812 | £19.99

Japan | 1950 | OPTIM | 87 min | subt | B&W | 12 | # 52551 | £19.99

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Breathless

Harold Lloyd: The Definitive Collection

A Taste of Honey

An iconic example of the nouvelle vague, mixing subversive Gallic insouciance with American B-movies. Charlotte et son Jules (1958). France | 1959 | OPTIM | 86 min | subt | B&W | PG | # 8047 | £19.99

A collection that features all of Lloyd’s classic silent features, 13 of his shorts and 5 of his talkies! 9 discs. USA | 1919-36 | OPTIM | 1746 min | Cert U | # 33076 | RRP £50.99

Dir: Tony Richardson. Classic 1960s British realist drama based on the play by Shelagh Delaney. Rita Tushingham is the Salford teenager. UK | 1961 | OPTIM | 96 min | B&W | Cert 15 | # 55842 | RRP £15.99

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Brothers in Law

Ice Cold in Alex

A satirical, funny jibe at the British legal system in which newly a qualified barrister comes up against a succession of cantankerous judges.

Dir: J Lee Thompson. A battle-fatigued officer, a nurse and a Boer coax an ambulance through the desert to Alexandria. A cool beer awaits.

Touchez Pas au Grisbi

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Dir: Jacques Becker. Quintessential tough-guy Gabin pairs up with the resplendent Moreau in this heist film.

UK | 1957 | OPTIM | 94 min | B&W | Cert U | # 33392 | RRP £12.99

UK | 1958 | OPTIM | 130 min | B&W | Cert PG | # 32038 | RRP £12.99

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Carmen

Ministry of Fear

The Wooden Horse

Dir: Carlos Saura. An exhilarating adaptation of Bizet’s work, mixing magical choreography and rousing Flamenco with an operatic flourish.

Dir: Fritz Lang. Ray Milland stars as a paranoid, persecuted man who, on release from an asylum into wartime England, stumbles into a spy ring.

Dir: Jack Lee. Gripping war drama in which a bunch of British PoWs attempt to escape from a Nazi camp by tunnelling under a vaulting horse.

Spain | 1984 | OPTIM | 103 min | subt | Cert PG | # 55859 | RRP £12.99

UK | 1944 | OPTIM | 83 min | B&W | Cert PG | # 50615 | RRP £12.99

UK | 1950 | OPTIM | 98 min | B&W | Cert U | # 32054 | RRP £12.99

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France | 1953 | OPTIM | 92 min | subt | B&W | 15 | # 50597 | £17.99

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Camille Claudel

Documentaries “The Creative Interpretation of Actuality”

New Releases All You Need Is Love: Volumes 1-4 Tony Palmer

One of Tony Palmer’s first successes was his 1968 film All My Loving (also available). Some seven years later, encouraged by John Lennon, Palmer had the idea to document the history of popular music. The result was a groundbreaking and award-winning 17 part series of films made for TV under the title All You Need Is Love. Available as a complete box set, the following episodes are now available separately: Volume 1: God’s Children, Vol 2: I Can Hypnotise ‘Dis Nation (Ragtime), Vol 3: Jungle Music (Jazz) and Vol 4: Who’s That Comin’? (Blues). These early episodes chart the origins of popular music, tracing it back to Africa. Volumes 5 and 6 follow in April.

Derek

Isaac Julien

A loving appreciation of Derek Jarman from filmmaker Isaac Julien and actress Tilda Swinton. The documentary introduces both Jarman the man – WWII baby, 1960s reveller, and artist from the 1970s until his death from AIDS in 1994 – and Jarman the painter, theatre and film designer, author, activist, and filmmaker. UK | 2008 | BFI | 76 min | Cert 15 Item # 57408 | RRP £19.99 | Released 23rd March

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100 Years of British Transport

UK | 1977 | TONYP | 173 min | Cert E Item # 57602 | RRP £7.99 | Released 23rd February

Features three titles from the 100 Years of British Transport series: British Ships, Buses and Trains. Each programme, compiled mainly from archive material, explores the evolution of these forms of public transport in Britain over the last 3 discs. century.

Our DVD Price: £6.99 per volume Complete Box Set: £42.99

UK | DEMAND | 180 min | Cert E Item # 57154 | RRP £19.99 | Released 30th March

Lucy Walker An uplifting documentary that follows six blind Tibetan teenagers as they set out on a three-week expedition to climb the 23,000-foot peak Lhakpa Ri on the north side of Mount Everest, led by two blind adults: experienced mountain-climber Erik Weihenmayer and Sabriye Tenberken, founder of Tibet’s first and only school for the blind. An inspirational film, described as ‘breathtaking twice over’ in the Financial Times. UK | 2006 | REVE | 104 min | Cert E Item # 57525 | RRP £15.99 | Released 16th March

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Rob Epstein

A cineaste’s dream voyage through a century of cinema, taking a witty and incisive look at the ways that homosexuality has been represented through the years on the silver screen. Features a vivid montage of clips from over 100 classic movies as well as revealing interviews with many filmmakers. USA | 1995 | DRAKE | 101 min | Cert 15 Item # 57815 | RRP £14.99 | Released 4th May

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Page 18

Peter Beard: Scrapbooks from Africa and Beyond Guillaume Bonn

The most comprehensive movie ever produced about the life and work of the jetsetting photographer and diarist. Narrated by Charlotte Rampling, the film features rare footage of Mick Jagger, Andy Warhol, Jacquie Onassis, JFK, Francis Bacon and many others. USA | 1998 | REV | 54 min | Cert E Item # 56503 | RRP £19.99 | Released 23rd March

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Raymond De Felitta Documentary chronicling the life of the singer Jackie Paris, regarded as one of jazz’s unsung heroes. After an impressive debut, Paris went through a series of private tragedies and ended in obscurity. The film questions how a talent such as his can be overlooked. Performances; Booklet.

La Bohème

Director Robert Dornhelm brings this big-budget version of Puccini’s opera, in which four young artists celebrate at their favourite haunt on Christmas Eve, to the screen, with the opera world’s dream team of soprano Anna Netrebko and tenor Rolando Villazon in the lead roles. Interviews; Making-of.

Austria / Germany | 2008 | AxiomSelect | 100 min | Cert E Item # 57775 | RRP £24.99 | Released 2nd March

Our DVD Price: £22.49 A unique recording from Sadler’s Wells of this worldwide box office hit which unites two of today’s pre-eminent dance talents, Akram Khan and Sylvie Guillem, as they explore the dynamics and language of two great classical dance forms, kathak and ballet. UK | 2008 | Axiom | 70 min | Cert E Item # 57691 | RRP £19.99 | Released 27th April

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Sutra

An exclusive recording from Sadler’s Wells of this worldwide box office hit in which celebrated choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui presents a new dance work inspired by the skill and spirituality of Buddhist Shaolin monks. He collaborated closely with Antony Gormley in the stage design. UK | 2008 | Axiom | 70 min | Cert E Item # 57690 | RRP £19.99 | Released 16th February

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‘Tis Autumn: The Search for Jackie Paris

The Celluloid Closet

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Sacred Monsters

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Blindsight

Stage

Interviews; Bonus

Zero Degrees

Filmed live at Sadler’s Wells in October 07. Four renowned artists combine to create a unique cultural fusion. Moroccan-Flemish dancer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui joins forces with leading dancer and choreographer Akram Khan. Award winning composer Nitin Sawhney adds his own score, and sculptor Antony Gormley contributes two life-size casts of the dancers to complete the collaboration.

USA | 2006 | VER | 99 min | Cert 15 Item # 57844 | RRP £19.99 | Released 6th April

UK | 2007 | Axiom | 66 min | Cert E Item # 57446 | RRP £19.99 | Released 5th December

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April 09 MovieMail Newsletter

Of Time and the City Recommended Director: Terence Davies Released: 23rd March DVD Extras: The making of Of Time and the City: Terence Davies and the film’s producers and archive producer discuss the making of the film and the inspirations behind it; Listen to Britain (Humphrey Jennings & Stuart McAllister, 1942) the classic wartime documentary which helped inspire Of Time and the City, presented with a personal introduction by Terence Davies; Q&A with Terence Davies; Trailer; Booklet. UK | 2008 | BFI | 72 mins | Cert 12 | Item # 57409

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See Also The Terence Davies Trilogy UK | 1976-83 | BFI | 94 min | B&W | Cert 15 | # 54644 | RRP £19.99

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This in Our Time - The History of Liverpool UK | 2008 | SIMP | 80 min | B&W | Cert E | # 56347 | RRP £14.99

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t was commissioned as part of Liverpool’s City of Culture celebrations last year, made on a tiny budget, and most of its images were shot by anonymous cameramen many decades earlier. Yet Terence Davies’ latest film (scandalously, his first in nearly a decade, and certainly not for want of trying) is as profoundly personal and poetic as any of his others, with his instantly recognisable signature stamped on every frame. Not just in the narration by his own wonderfully rich, fruity and utterly inimitable voice, but also the musical interludes, ranging from The Hollies and Peggy Lee to John Tavener and ‘Hooray for Hollywood’. No Beatles, though, except briefly and overdubbed by others: Davies is nothing if not candid about his prejudices. He also offers some choice put-downs of ‘the Betty and Phil show’ (the Windsors, that is), and especially the Catholic Church, for which he feels he has had nothing in return for ‘years wasted in useless prayer’. Inexpressibly haunting images of the Liverpool of his childhood and adolescence are fused with his verbal memories, especially his ecstatic discovery of the cinema (‘I gorged on the movies and swallowed them whole’) and the challenges of growing up gay in a decidedly unsympathetic

An evocative love song to Terence Davies’s native city, Liverpool environment, when homosexual activity was still criminalised and a trip to the wrestling ring offered the safest clandestine thrills. But for all the autobiography, Davies also has much to say about the city itself, the way the working classes (from which he hails) were, for all their renowned resourcefulness and character, ghettoised literally and metaphorically. However, they preserved a strong cultural identity that is being eroded by today’s greater social fluidity – one of many paradoxes of which Davies is fully aware, and which makes his film such a tantalisingly ambiguous, endlessly multifaceted experience. As he puts it in a credo that could sum up his whole career: ‘We love the place we hate; then hate the place we love. We leave the place we love; then spend a lifetime trying to regain it. Between loving and hating, the real journey starts. Do you remember? Will you ever forget?’. Michael Brooke

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Page 19

Iconic Film Com The score is the cinematic spice that communicates vital flavour and emotion to the viewer. Here we

John Barry

Ennio Mor

Out of Africa Sydney Pollack A rich, bored Danish woman (Meryl Streep) finds love with a free-spirited hunter in turbulent East Africa. Based on Karen Blixen’s novel, this outstandingly photographed film won seven Academy Awards. Kenya | 1985 | UPV | 154 min | Cert PG | # 19818 | RRP £15.99

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Born Free/Living Free Dir: Jack Couffer. A pairing of timeless, true life family classics, based on the lives of George and Joy Adamson and Elsa, the lioness.

Despite composing music for over 90 films, and having won five Oscars and four Grammys, John Barry is best known for a piece of music he never officially wrote. Monty Norman originally came up with The James Bond Theme, but Barry’s jazzy arrangement infused it with the inimitable style that set the tone for the franchise. Barry went on to score 11 of the 14 subsequent Bond films, including the title songs Goldfinger, Diamonds are Forever, and Louis Armstrong’s last recording, We Have All the Time in The World (for On Her Majesty’s Secret Service). The 1960s was Barry’s decade, and he went on to compose scores for The L-Shaped Room, Zulu, The Ipcress File, Born Free, and unforgettably, Midnight Cowboy. Not just a master of brassy bombast, his later work included Oscar-winning scores for Out of Africa, Dances with Wolves, and Chaplin, each of which contributed significantly to the films’ artistic impact.

UK | 1966, 1972 | COL-T | 204 min | Cert U | # 16542 | RRP £12.99

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On Her Majesty's Secret Service Snow, kilts, girls, secret bases and ski chases. Bond (George Lazenby) attempts to foil Blofeld in Switzerland. UK | 1969 | MGMHE | 127 min | Cert PG | # 56250 | RRP £14.99

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Midnight Cowboy Dir: John Schlesinger. To Barry’s score and Nilsson’s songs, an amiable country boy heads to NYC to make his living as a male prostitute. USA | 1969 | MGMHE | 113 min | Cert 18 | # 3125 | RRP £12.99

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The Ipcress File Dir: Sidney J. Furie. A stylishly laconic thriller set in seedy 1960s London, with Michael Caine starring as the cocky Harry Palmer. 2 discs. UK | 1965 | NWORK | 103 min | Cert PG | # 26411 | RRP £15.99

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The Persuaders: Complete All the episodes of the cult seventies TV serial, with Tony Curtis and Roger Moore as the millionaire playboys. UK | 1971-72 | NWORK | 1200 min | Cert PG | # 28857 | RRP £59.99

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Warren Beatty once said, “there’s nobody better than Ennio to create a haunting theme”. This is nowhere better shown than in his work for Sergio Leone. A Fistful of Dollars saw him experimenting with unconventional instrumentation, and he established the aural tone of the spaghetti Western that would recur in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly and Once Upon a Time in the West. However, as the pastiche Jazz Age scores he produced for Once Upon a Time in America and The Untouchables demonstrated, there was more to Morricone than acoustic audacity. He has consequently composed for romances, comedies, giallo thrillers and period pictures. He shifted between Verdian eloquence and fascistic grandiloquence in Bertolucci’s 1900, brought an evocative darkness to Days of Heaven, captured the nostalgic spirit of the nation in Cinema Paradiso and borrowed from Joplin and Gershwin for the The Legend of 1900. At 80, he’s not finished yet.

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mposers

DVDs from £5.99

celebrate 3 great composers whose work has left an especially lasting impression

Bernard Herrmann

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

North by Northwest

Sergio Leone

Alfred Hitchcock

The last and best of the Dollars Trilogy in which three desperadoes (Eastwood, Van Cleef and Wallach) with their eyes on a 200,000 dollar horde form an uneasy alliance.

Cary Grant. With terrific locations and a gripping script, this is 50s Hitchcock at his most confident and manipulative. Herrmann’s score is perfectly accompanied by striking credits by Saul Bass.

Italy | 1966 | MGMHE | 155 min | Cert 18 | # 17320 | RRP £19.99

USA | 1959 | WHV | 130 min | Cert PG | # 6835 | RRP £19.99

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Once Upon a Time in America

Taxi Driver Dir: Martin Scorsese. Robert De Niro. Brilliantly captures the after-hours neon underworld of the New York streets with a lush, sleazy poetry.

Dir: Sergio Leone. Powerful gangster epic chronicling the destiny of Robert De Niro’s ‘Noodles’ Aaronson. USA | 1984 | WHV | 220 min | Cert 18 | # 14172 | RRP £19.99

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Once Upon a Time in the West Dir: Sergio Leone. Vengeance with a wailing harmonica. Fonda excels in this film of brooding grandeur. Italy / USA | 1969 | PARAH | 158 min | 15 | # 14875 | RRP £19.99

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Cinema Paradiso Dir: Giuseppe Tornatore. The poignant, much-loved tale of a young Sicilian boy’s love affair with the cinema. A lavish score from Morricone. Italy | 1989 | ARROW | 167 min | subt | | Cert PG | # 7207 | RRP £15.99

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Days of Heaven Dir: Terrence Malick. Featuring perhaps the most beautiful cinematography of the 70s and a score to match, this is for many Malick’s finest hour. USA | 1979 | PARAH | 89 min | Cert PG | # 7938 | RRP £9.99

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The Mission Dir: Roland Joffe. Oscar-winning drama in which two men (De Niro & Jeremy Irons) try to save an tribe in mid-18th Century South America. UK | 1986 | WHV | 120 min | Cert PG | # 13888 | RRP £19.99

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“If I have to take what a director says, I’d rather not do the film. I find it’s impossible to work that way,” Bernard Herrmann declared. Perhaps because of his singular vision, he did his best work with auteurs, including Welles, Truffaut and Hitchcock. He made his film debut with Citizen Kane, his screaming, strings-only score for Psycho set the mould for countless horror movies to follow, and his use of the theremin in The Day the Earth Stood Still made the instrument a sci-fi staple. In Herrmann’s hands, music became an integral part of each film, a character in its own right – see Vertigo and Taxi Driver. And his eerie, maddeningly catchy ‘Georgie’s Theme’, whistled by the protagonist of Twisted Nerve, has since reappeared in Kill Bill and on mobile ringtones everywhere. Using unconventional instruments and experimental arrangements, Herrmann pushed the boundaries of what film music could achieve and elevated the medium to an art form.

USA | 1976 | SONY | 109 min | Cert 18 | # 51094 | RRP £15.99

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Cape Fear Dir: J Lee Thompson. Psychological thriller in which Robert Mitchum plays an irredeemably unpleasant criminal. Chilling score from Herrmann. USA | 1961 | UN | 101 min | B&W | Cert 15 | # 25714 | RRP £9.99

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Vertigo Hitchcock’s most complex, profound, and critically admired masterpiece: a wonderfully mysterious, dream-like study of obsession and identity. USA | 1958 | UN | 124 min | Cert PG | # 34021 | RRP £9.99

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Twisted Nerve Dir: Roy Boulting. Dark drama in which Hywel Bennett plays a man with a psychopathic, murderous alter-ego. UK | 1968 | OPTIM | 112 min | Cert 18 | # 33544 | RRP £12.99

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The Day the Earth Stood Still Dir: Robert Wise. Classic in which an alien tries to bring peace to mankind. Herrmann employs a theremin. USA | 1951 | FOX | 88 min | B&W | Cert 12 | # 27526 | RRP £17.99

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rricone

Television Programmes Originally Broadcast

Columbo: Series 9

New Releases A Mind to Kill: Series 1

A gritty, dark detective series, in which Philip Madoc is the memorably charismatic Detective Chief Inspector Noel Bain, a man with a passion for defending the innocent, and an infallible instinct which even the sharpest criminal minds cannot 3 discs. match.

UK | 1995 | NWORK | 580 min | Cert 15 Item # 57296 | RRP £24.99 | Released 16th March

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Antonio Carluccio’s Southern Italian Feast All five episodes of the delightful BBC cookery series in which the godfather of Italian gastronomy travels through Southern Italy, sampling and cooking the region’s specialities, and partaking in shepherd’s feasts and moonlit fishing trips. 2 discs.

UK | 1998 | 2ENT | Cert U Item # 57522 | RRP £19.99 | Released 9th March

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This series features six of the shabby detective’s cases from between 1989 and 1990. Features Murder, A Self Portrait, Columbo Cries Wolf, Agenda for Murder, Rest In Peace, Mrs Columbo, Uneasy Lies the Crown, and Murder in Malibu. Agenda for Murder sees Patrick McGoohan playing a lawyer whose past 3 discs. comes back to haunt him. USA | 1989-90 | UPV | Cert PG Item # 57376 | RRP £29.99 | Released 30th March

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Dexter: Season 2

All twelve episodes from Season 2 of the US drama series about a Miami police forensics expert who moonlights as an avenging serial killer. In this season, Dexter (Michael C. Hall) begins to doubt his murderous capabilities and continues to be haunted by his tortured past. His difficulties multiply when evidence of his deadly after-hours activities 5 discs. begins to surface. USA | 2007 | PARAH | 720 min | Cert 18 Item # 57164 | RRP £34.99 | Released 30th March

Espionage: Complete Series

Unseen for over 40 years, Espionage is one of the most sought-after ITC series. This anthology series of 24 plays covered everything from the thencurrent Cold War to 19th century China, from Johnson’s London to intrigue in Kenya and Moscow. With a transatlantic production team, and three plays directed by Michael Powell, the series attracted actors such as Roger Livesey, Anthony Quayle, Donald 6 discs. Pleasence and many others. UK / USA | 1964 | NWORK | 1200 min | Cert 12 Item # 52915 | RRP £49.99 | Released 16th March

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Frasier: Complete Season 11

All 24 episodes from the eleventh season of the US sitcom about a psychiatrist beset by problems of his own making. In this final season, Frasier (Kelsey Grammer) starts his own practice, Martin gets a new love interest and Daphne gets pregnant. 4 discs. USA | 2004 | PARAH | 540 min | 12 Item # 57720 | RRP £34.99 | Released 23rd March

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The Hard Way

Screen legend Patrick McGoohan stars as John Connor - a mercenary dragged out of retirement to complete one last job. Lee Van Cleef plays his ruthless co-ordinator in this taut thriller, filmed in Dublin and whose soundtrack includes Brian Eno’s innovative readymade “soundtrack” Music for Films. New to DVD.

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Page 22

April 09 MovieMail Newsletter

Get Some In!: Series 3

Robert Lindsay, Tony Selby, Paul Eddington. Originally screened in 1977, this is the complete third series of the programme that set the rigours of 1950s National Service against a nostalgic backdrop of coffee bars and rock and roll. Here, ‘C’ Flight near the end of their basic training at RAF Skelton. UK | 1977 | NWORK | 150 min | Cert PG Item # 57569 | RRP £12.99 | Released 6th April

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Hadleigh: Series 4

Gerald Harper stars as debonair young landowner James Hadleigh. In this series, storm clouds are gathering. He faces the greatest challenges of his life, as his marriage to the beautiful Jennifer and possession of Melford Hall seem to be slipping from his grasp. Originally screened in 1976, the series also features guest appearances from Stephanie Beacham, Michael 4 discs. Elphick and Gordon Jackson.

In Sickness and in Health: S3

All six episodes from the third series of Johnny Speight’s sequel to the classic 1960s comedy Till Death Us Do Part, featuring old big-mouth himself, Alf Garnett (Warren Mitchell). With Else dead, Times have changed for Alf, and he has had to get used to looking after himself - unless he can get his landlady, Mrs. Hollingberry, to do it for him.

UK | 1987 | 2ENT | Cert TBC Item # 57655 | RRP £13.99 | Released 23rd March

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Lewis: Series 3

Kevin Whately stars as Oxford police’s Inspector Lewis in this spin off from the hugely popular series Inspector Morse. Set five years after Morse’s death, this third series finds Lewis and his trusty sidekick D.S. Hathway (Laurence Fox) once again investigating mysterious murders in the idyllic surroundings of the University campus.

UK | 1976 | NWORK | 650 min | Cert 12 Item # 57568 | RRP £29.99 | Released 6th April

UK | 2009 | G-VEN | Cert TBC Item # 57852 | RRP £24.99 | Released 13th April

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Hard Times John Irvin

Originally screened as a four-part series in 1977, this BAFTA-winning Granada adaptation of Dickens’ novel, dramatised by playwright Arthur Hopcraft (Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy), features an impressive cast: Timothy West is Bounderby, Edward Fox the politician Captain Harthouse, Patrick Allen is Gradgrind and Jacqueline Tong Louisa Gradgrind. UK | 1977 | NWORK | 200 min | Cert PG Item # 57526 | RRP £14.99 | Released 16th February

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Hotel Babylon: Series 3 All eight episodes from the third season of the BBC drama series set in a five-star hotel. Indulgent rock stars, foreign millionaires, inspectors, eccentrics, high-class hookers and competition winners fill the luxury suites, while staff attend to their excesses – with the utmost discretion of course.

UK | 2008 | 2ENT | Cert 15 Item # 57371 | RRP £29.99 | Released 13th April

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Marple: Complete Collection

Geraldine McEwan stars as Miss Marple in this collection of 12 murder mysteries based on Agatha Christie’s novels. Features The Body in the Library, Murder at the Vicarage, 4.50 from Paddington, A Murder is Announced, Sleeping Murder, The Moving Finger, By the Pricking of My Thumbs, The Sittaford Mystery, Towards Zero, Nemesis, At Bertram’s Hotel and Ordeal 12 discs. by Innocence.

UK | 2007 | G-VEN | 1080 min | Cert 12 Item # 57115 | RRP £59.99 | Released 16th March

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Classic Minder: Complete

Box set containing all 108 episodes of the BAFTA award-winning Thames TV comedy drama series starring George Cole and Dennis Waterman as dodgy London entrepreneur Arthur Daley and his ‘minder’, former boxer 33 Terry McCann. discs; Minder on the Orient Express (1985 feature length special).

Nature’s Great Events Recommended Presenter: David Attenborough Released: 16th March DVD Extras: 2 discs. UK | 2009 | 2ENT | Cert E | Item # 57482

The BBC can be relied upon to regularly deliver enjoyable nature documentaries, so why is this one particularly worthy of your attention? The first reason is David Attenborough, whose narration – as it has done so many times before – brings a unique warmth and generosity of spirit, while never veering over into sentimentality. The second is the photography, which is at times staggering. Those who were entranced by the visuals in Planet Earth will find many new moments to love here. The series comprises six episodes chronicling some of the planet’s most spectacular natural events, and shows how these phenomena can transform entire landscapes, drawing in millions of animals and determining their fate. The events featured are the Pacific salmon run, the greening of the Serengeti, the plankton bloom in the Pacific Northwest, the spring thaw in the Arctic, the flooding of the Okavango Delta and the South Atlantic sardine run. Nature’s Great Events does for nature what Grand Designs does for buildings and Nigella Lawson does for food. AB

UK | 1979 | PNE | 5096 min | Cert 15 Item # 57564 | RRP £129.99 | Released 16th March

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Page 23

Television Minder 2009

David Innes Edwards

All six episodes from the updated and ‘re-imagined’ series of the classic crime comedy from the 1980s, starring Shane Richie as Arthur Daley’s equally dodgy nephew, Archie, with Lex Shrapnel as his ‘minder’ Jamie Cartwright. Includes guest appearances from Rik Mayall, Meera Syall, Maureen Lipman and Josie 2 discs. Lawrence. UK | 2009 | PNE | 288 min | Cert TBC Item # 57668 | RRP £24.99 | Released 16th March

Recommended Director: Michael Dryhurst

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Starring: Patrick McGoohan, Lee Van Cleef

Mistresses: Series 2

Twelve months have elapsed and Katie, Trudi, Jessica and Siobhan’s friendship remains as strong as ever, despite all their personal trials. Struggling to learn from their past mistakes, the thirtysomething women face new dilemmas, though the root of their problems remains the same – men and sex! Will 2 discs. they ever find true happiness? UK | 2008 | 2ENT | Cert 15 Item # 57625 | RRP £19.99 | Released 30th March

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Public Eye: 1972-3 Series

Alfred Burke stars as down-at-heel Inquiry Agent Frank Marker in this critically acclaimed, longrunning drama series that saw him working at the less glamorous end of the spectrum, on divorces, missing persons and bankruptcies. The public found a great affinity with Marker and the series was a huge success over its ten-year life span. This set contains all 13 4 discs. episodes from the 1972/3 series. UK | 1972-73 | NWORK | 650 min | Cert 15 Item # 57566 | RRP £29.99 | Released 6th April

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Spitting Image: Series 5 The complete fifth series of the satirical puppet show that poked fun at everyone from Margaret Thatcher and her cabinet to the Pope and the Royal Family. This fifth series sees Jeffrey Archer on Mastermind and Neil Kinnock on a Mission Impossible.

UK | 1989 | NWORK | 150 min | Cert 12 Item # 57298 | RRP £14.99 | Released 23rd March

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Page 24

The Hard Way

Released: 2nd March

Anne of Green Gables (Box Set) Recommended Director: Kevin Sullivan

DVD Extras: Trailer; Stills Gallery.

Starring: Megan Follows, Richard Farnsworth, Colleen Dewhurst, Wendy Hiller

Released: 23rd March

On paper, The Hard Way might sound a tad familiar. The ostensible hero (McGoohan) is a professional hitman (‘the best shot in Europe’) but he’s had enough of the assassination game and retirement beckons. He is persuaded to tackle One Last Job which, naturally, goes awry; trouble ensues. But this Irish thriller is much more interesting and worthwhile than its formulaic outline might suggest. The first sign of its ambitions can be detected in the credits, where Henri Decaë is listed as cameraman. He photographed many of Jean-Pierre Melville’s best films and the pared down style and disciplined pacing of The Hard Way evoke Melville’s precision-tooled policiers. Unlike most low budget crime thrillers, it doesn’t skimp on atmosphere; there’s a brooding inevitability that sets it apart from the herd. McGoohan is perfect for this, of course. Always a very controlled actor, his characterisation is created through glimpses and glances. It’s a performance that shows exactly why this great actor is so lamented and another reason to investigate this fascinating rediscovery. BK

DVD Extras: 5 discs; Souvenir Brochure; Director’s Audio Commentary; Documentaries: LM Montgomery's Island and Kevin Sullivan’s Classic; Missing Scenes; Lost Footage; Missing Green Gables episode Marilla Cuthbert’s Death. Canada | 1985-88 | SULL | 612 mins | Cert PG | Item # 56987

LM Montgomery’s classic novels about orphan Anne (‘spelt with an e’) and her adventures on the beautiful Prince Edward Island in Canada were brought to life in this fabulous award-winning 1980s TV series. The novels and TV series became a part of every girl’s childhood no matter what her age. Anne Shirley, a fiery redheaded 11 year-old, is adopted by Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert. All her dreams come true when she moves to Green Gables and away from the orphanage. The trilogy follows her from naughty school girl antics – smashing a slate over a boy’s head and dying her hair green to mention just a couple – through university, love and tears, to adulthood. With this collector’s set featuring all three Green Gables films along with a wealth of supporting material, it is the most comprehensive edition of all three movies ever released. It is wonderful family viewing. RS

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April 09 MovieMail Newsletter

Animation

The Films of

Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa Eric Darnell

USA | 2008 | DWORK | 90 min | Cert PG Item # 57784 | RRP £19.99/£24.99 | 6th April

Our DVD Price: £14.99 Blu-ray: £22.49

More Pat and Mat

Max Ophuls A Matter of Loaf and Death Recommended

La Ronde

Director: Nick Park

Lubomír Beneš

Released: 23rd March

A second selection of cartoons featuring Pat and Mat, the two calamitous Czech builders created in 1976 by Lubomír Beneš and Vladimír Jiránek. 2 discs.

DVD Extras: Making-of; Tell Tale Games; A Day In The Life of Nick Park.

Czech Republic | 2003 | DEMAND | 196 min | Cert E Item # 56985 | RRP £14.99 | Released 16th March

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The Tale of Despereaux Sam Fell

This children’s animated adventure tells the tale of Despereaux Tilling, a misfit mouse in love with music, stories, a princess named Pea, a rat called Roscuro, and a slowwitted serving girl who harbours an impossible wish. The unlikely trio embark on an adventurefilled journey. UK / USA | 2008 | UPV | 93 min | Cert U Item # 57787 | RRP £19.99 | Released 6th April

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Watchmen: Tales of the Black Freighter

Gerard Butler. The story within the story of Watchmen, Tales of the Black Freighter is an animated pirate story, following the lone survivor of an attacked vessel and his journey home. Based on the comic book within the Watchmen universe, the tale’s turbulent events mirror those in the Watchmen’s world, for which it serves as a foil. USA | 2009 | PARAH | 25 mins | Cert TBC Item #57751 | RRP £9.99 / £14.99 | 6th April

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UK | 2008 | 2ENT | 30 mins | Cert PG | Item # 57439

The TV hit of 2008, AMoLaD is a carefully sifted mixture of mix of comedy, thrills and suspense that has been baked to perfection. Wallace and Gromit have always fared better on shorter, small-screen outings, and since their split from Dreamworks, Aardman have been free to cater to peculiarly British, nay, Lancastrian, sensibilities. This time, bakers are being bumped off one by one, and police suspect a serial killer is on the loose. Unfortunately for Wallace and Gromit, their new ‘Top Bun’ bakery has put them directly in the path of peril. Fortunately, love is in the air for Wallace in the doughty, doughy form of Piella Bakewell, the former pin-up girl for the ‘Bake-O-Lite’ bread company, who – despite a long string of ex-husbands – seems to have the hots for him. The action and editing are sharp as a whippet, and with quickfire film references, masterfully orchestrated action, and some great new characters, this is not just a great slice of family entertainment – it’s one of the best short films of the year. MW

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In anticipation of the forthcoming release of Lola Montès, we present a sale of the very fine films of this master filmmaker at just £6.99 each!

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Recreates a magical lost world of pleasure and romance. Anton Walbrook is the enigmatic master of ceremonies who guides us through a series of amorous encounters in the Vienna of 1900. France | 1950 | 2ND | 89 min | subt | B&W | PG | # 55567 | RRP £19.99

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Caught James Mason. Ophuls’ penultimate Hollywood film is a classic film noir in which a girl’s dream marriage turns into a tormenting nightmare. USA | 1948 | 2ND | 85 min | subt | B&W | U | # 55568 | RRP £19.99

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Letter From an Unknown Woman Joan Fontaine is superb as the tragic heroine in this film of love and longing set in fin de siècle Vienna. USA | 1948 | SECND | 84 min | B&W | Cert U | # 29732 | RRP £19.99

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Madame de... Danielle Darrieux. Ophuls’ penultimate film – and arguably his masterpiece – is a supremely elegant meditation on obsessive romantic love. France | 1953 | SECND | 96 min | subt | B&W | U | # 29780 | £19.99

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Le Plaisir Jean Gabin, Simone Simon. A wonderful adaptation of three short stories by Maupassant, each relating a tale about a different kind of pleasure. France | 1951 | SECND | 93 min | subt | B&W | PG | # 29731 | £19.99

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The Reckless Moment Classic film noir in which James Mason plays a blackmailer who falls in love with his victim. USA | 1949 | SECND | 80 min | Cert 12 | # 29782 | RRP £19.99

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Page 25

Offer ends 25th April or while stocks last

Sequel to the CGI animated feature from Dreamworks Studios. The motley crue of zoo animals from New York’s Central Park Zoo find themselves stranded on the vast plains of Africa, where they come across long-lost relatives, romantic rivals and scheming hunters. Africa is an exciting place but could it be that Central Park is the animals’ true home?

Contemporary Film English Language Films, 1970 – present Choking Man

New Releases Angel

François Ozon Michael Fassbender. Fantasy drama based on Elizabeth Taylor’s novel, in which Romola Garai stars as a precocious young woman in Edwardian England who dreams of being a romantic novelist and who colours the world around her with melodramatic dreams. UK / France | 2007 | LGATE | 119 min | Cert 15 Item # 56974 | RRP £19.99 | Released 2nd February

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Steve Barron

Magical realism meets psychological drama in this exploration of the contemporary immigrant experience in America, where a shy Ecuadorian dishwasher forms a tentative bond with newly-hired Chinese waitress Amy. Cited by film director Steven Soderbergh as ‘everything an independent film should be’. USA | 2006 | SODA | 83 min | Cert TBC Item # 57213 | RRP £15.99 | Released 30th March

Our DVD Price: £11.99

Electric Dreams Steve Barron

An artificially intelligent computer – Edgar – and his human owner find themselves in romantic rivalry in this comedy drama filled with 80s music from Phil Oakey, Giorgio Moroder, Culture Club, Heaven 17 and Jeff Together in Lynne. Electric Dreams video.

Blindness

Fernando Meirelles

Julianne Moore. Controversial thriller in which an epidemic of ‘white sickness’ sweeps an unnamed city’s population and people find themselves forced to rely on the goodwill of Making-of; strangers. Deleted scenes.

UK | 1984 | SECND | 95 min | Cert PG Item # 57696 | RRP £15.99 | Released 6th April

Brazil / Canada | 2008 | FOX | 120 min | Cert 18 Item # 57523 | RRP £15.99 | Released 30th March

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Endless Love

Franco Zeffirelli

Celia

Brooke Shields, Martin Hewitt. A contemporary variation on Romeo and Juliet, in which a young girl’s parents try to prevent her seeing a high-school student. Their forced separation only makes David more obsessed. Features early roles for Tom Cruise and James Spader.

Ann Turner

adults.

An acclaimed tale of lost innocence in a long hot summer in 1950s Australia, where a young girl fantasizes about evil creatures to mask her insecurities. The film stylishly evokes a childhood world of rituals, games and gangs and the incomprehensible nature of Director interview; ‘The Hobyahs’.

Australia | 1988 | 2RUN | 98 min | Cert 15 Item # 57500 | RRP £12.99 | Released 30th March

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Tom Shankland Eva Birthistle. A relaxing Christmas break turns into a terrifying fight for survival as the children begin to turn on their parents and embark on a gruesome killing spree in this British horror film based on a story by Paul Andrew Williams. UK | 2008 | CTEND | 84 min | Cert 15 Item # 57348 | RRP £15.99 | Released 30th March

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Flawless

Michael Radford Crime drama set in 60s London, starring Demi Moore and Michael Caine as workers at a diamond company who conspire for a heist. Moore is an executive, frustrated at seeing men promoted above her, while Caine is the janitor. An insurance agent is hot on their trail.

The Children

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USA | 1981 | UCA | 113 min | Cert 15 Item # 25251 | RRP £9.99 | Released 6th April

UK | 2007 | MET-D | 104 min | Cert 12 Item # 57094 | RRP £19.99 | Released 30th March

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Changeling Recommended Director: Clint Eastwood Starring: Angelina Jolie, John Malkovich Released: 30th March DVD Extras: Making-of documentary; Documentaries: The Common Thread Angerlina Jolie becomes Christine Collins. USA | 2008 | UPV | 140 mins | Cert 15 | Item # 57531

Clint Eastwood’s reputation as king of the Alpha Males sometimes obscures his talents as an exceptional director of women. From Play Misty for Me to the underrated The Bridges of Madison County, Clint’s always had an eye for a feisty lady. Changeling gives him his finest heroine yet. She’s Christine Collins (Angelina Jolie, thoroughly deserving her Oscar nod), a single mother in 1920s Los Angeles whose life is shattered when her son Walter vanishes. And the torture doesn’t end when the police announce they’ve found the lad: the child they return certainly isn’t Walter Collins. But the LAPD don’t want to be bothered by troublesome females and can make things difficult for any who try... Based on a true story, J Michael Straczynski’s superb script spirals out from domestic tragedy into civic corruption and, ultimately, more grisly realms. Eastwood handles all this with aplomb, laying out the story with masterful clarity, never losing sight of Christine amidst the larger machinations. It’s one of the best American films of the year. JO

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