Review Category: DVD/Blu Ray

As for Eureka’s two-disc DVD, The Dark Side of the Sun looks exactly as it did when it first aired on TV more than thirty years ago. The picture is soft (there is an obvious and sometimes jarring discrepancy between the sunlit locations and the flatly-lit studio interiors) but the audio is clear (Stavros Xarhakos’ music is particularly good) and in our opinion the series still holds up so much better than other occult/supernaturally-themed shows of that period (i.e. The Omega Factor, which has dated horribly).

All in all, The Dark Side of the Sun is an engrossing, intelligent and atmospheric piece of storytelling you really shouldn’t miss. So watch it now, before some talentless hack decides that it’s due for a remake.

The Otto family – nervy, neurotic Martha, dopey hubby Paul and half-awake son Gene – live in a big house in… well, it’s hard to tell quite where it is. Half the cast affect terrible American accents (apart from Lee Bane as Paul whose accent is pure Newport, South Wales) and yet the filming locations are in West Wales holiday resorts Swansea and Saundersfoot (although the director occasionally ineptly inserts the chirruping of cicadas on the soundtrack to suggest we might be somewhere in America). They sack their ageing housekeeper Agatha, apparently purely on the grounds that she’s getting on a bit. She gives them a stupid-looking doll called Robert as a parting gift. But Robert is possessed by some sort of demon and he sets off on a deeply-unsubtle killing spree (he daubs ‘DIE’ in Martha’s mirror in lipstick in one sequence), merrily bumping off babysitters and nannies before launching his final attack on Martha and Paul.

There’s very little of worth here. Jones directs with all the flair of a pair of trousers from the 1970s, the clunky, lifeless dialogue tumbles like bricks from the mouths of actors who would shame a fifth-rate Church Hall Am-Dram group. Robert the doll looks as if he’s got cataracts and his murderous rampage is so poorly-choreographed and photographed it’s not only hard to work out quite what he’s doing it’s even harder to give a damn. Most of the film is shot indoors, which is just as well because when it wanders outside for one or two scenes the director, who at least seems able to point the camera in the right direction indoors, is all over the place in the open air; one sequence is punctuated by the constant heavy roar of overhead aircraft which at least mercifully distracts from the witless acting and woeful dialogue.

More by accident than judgement, we’re sure, Jones manages to frame a couple of scenes with something approaching competence and there’s just an outside chance one or two viewers (and we sincerely hope this movie doesn’t get more than one or two viewers) might be caught on the hop by the twist ending and feel they haven’t completely wasted their time and money. Because Robert really is a waste of time, a terrible movie in the very worst possible sense and it’s genuinely frustrating and annoying to see stuff like this getting into the High Street when much better efforts remains out there, unloved and unappreciated. Robert is horrible, ghastly; file under ‘must avoid’ and then run for the hills.

 

The Big Bang Theory remains the most popular sitcom on American television – and, as a consequence, the world – but Season 8 shows the first signs of ageing in a format which has remained reliably robust across its previous seven seasons. It’s not that Big Bang isn’t funny anymore – there are guaranteed guffaws and titters to be found in every episode – but the humour’s become a little formulaic and predictable and there’s much less character development and story momentum evident than in the past. Having long since eschewed its pure ‘geek’ credentials – the show was really much sharper when it focussed on Leonard, Sheldon, Howard and Rajesh as four brilliant but socially-inept outsiders – it seems to have mutated into a twenty-first century Friends. All four now have partners – Howard is married to the spectacularly-irritating Bernadette (that squeaky voice is like fingernails dragged down a chalk board), Leonard remains engaged to Penny, Sheldon blunders his way through his relationship with the impossibly-patient Amy, and even Rajesh, once catatonic in the presence of a female, has his own squeeze in the shape of Emily (who drifts in and out of the show). As a result the humour has become a little softer and lazier and the episodes themselves, although generally well-structured in the classic US sitcom style with several storylines running in tandem, are disposable and forgettable with the relationship status quos remaining unchanged whatever disagreements or traumas the group endure week by week.

But there are some attempts to thread loose arcs across the season even if nothing much has changed by the time we reach the finale. Leonard and Sheldon write an academic paper together (with much inevitable acrimony), Penny gets a proper job and, in a handful of well-judged episodes, Howard’s shrewish unseen mother passes away (in recognition of the death of actress Carol Ann Susi) and the show deftly, if briefly, addresses Howard’s grief and how he comes to term with his loss. But elsewhere it’s pretty much business as usual. There’s much fun to be had in spotting the copious genre references, and all your favourites are here from Doctor Who, Star Trek, The Flash and Star Wars (‘The Skywalker Incursion’ sees Leonard and Sheldon attempt to infiltrate George Lucas’ HQ even as Howard fights to save his full-sized TARDIS) and there are guest appearances from the likes of Nathan Fillion, Billy Bob Thornton, LeVar Burton and Wil Wheaton.

Ultimately a comedy show needs only really be judged by how funny it is – and Big Bang is still undeniably funny. But with at least another two seasons guaranteed (and the cast on loose retainers for a third) the show needs to shake things up a little bit and move things along – and the season finale ‘cliffhanger’ suggest that change may well be in the air for both Leonard and Sheldon – if it’s to avoid sliding into mediocrity as it drifts into its televisual middle age. It’d be a shame to see a show which started with a big bang end with a whimper.

Special Features: Comic Con 2014 panel / Three featurettes / Carol Ann Susi tribute / Gag reel

THE BIG BANG THEORY – SEASON 8 / CERT: 12 /DIRECTOR: MARK CENDOWSKI, ANTHONY RICH / SCREENPLAY: VARIOUS / STARRING: JOHNNY GALECKI, JIM PARSONS, KALEY CUOCO-SWEETING, SIMON HELBERG, KUNAL NAYYAR, SARA GILBERT, MELISSA RAUCH, MAYIM BAILIK / RELEASE: SEPTEMBER 14TH

 

Catherine Durrell (a slightly wooden Tusse Silberg) discovers she’s been left a small business and family home in the will of a mysterious entrepreneur, and travels to Norway to try and uncover the reason for the puzzling bequest. Warmly welcomed by the man’s two daughters, there is at first little clue as to why Jordahl might have bequeathed her the two houses – separated by a stretch of water – in which his beloved younger wife had lived before dying in an accident some years earlier. Durrell temporarily moves into one of the houses ahead of selling the business, and the arrival of journalist Anders Bjornson (an equally quite stilted Beames) confirms that there’s more to this family than meets the eye.

The word maelstrom, derived from the Dutch, was originally used by Edgar Allan Poe to describe a powerful whirlpool off the Norwegian coast; no doubt the word was too persuasive not to use as the series’ title, but although the Jordahls’ family affairs are rather convoluted and water is a constant presence throughout the six episodes, the story untangles so slowly that the name is something of a misdirection – the resolution takes place on land during the Midsummer’s Night bonfires rather than mirroring the title sequence in any significant way.

In spite of likeable but somewhat stiff leads (their relationship never convinces), the rest of the mostly UK-based cast hold the attention, even during some especially lengthy longueurs. Trevor Baxter as the family doctor is a particularly welcome and benign presence, while Ann Todd plays the elderly and secluded aunt Astrid with great relish. The two sisters are an interesting mismatch, Czech-born Edita Brychta the indecipherable one, with Susan Gilmore (very much the Face of the 1980s) the ostensibly more forthcoming.

Maelstrom (featuring some distinctive music by Johnny Pearson, and including a cameo by Paul Darrow in its opening scene) wasn’t a great success on broadcast, hence the eight years between its Norwegian and British DVD issue, and much of the blame lies in the way the mystery fails to really catch the attention; come the end it’s hard not to scratch your head and wonder why Astrid didn’t just speak up sooner, and modern TV producers would struggle to keep their audience from guessing how the resolution will unfold. But it’s absorbing enough never to be boring, and the locations (there is a substantial amount of outdoor filming) are certainly pleasant enough to look at.

Special Features: Gallery

 
 

Luke Goss, playing through gritted teeth throughout, is Jack Wosick, a captain who is made the scapegoat after a disastrous operation kills his entire squad (including the sergeant whose dog-tags Wosick carries for the duration). Called upon by the unconventional Major Redding (Mickey Rourke, whose facial peculiarities are given an in-story explanation) to whip the somewhat untested “War Pigs” unit into shape before leading them on a potentially suicidal assignment, what follows is divided roughly half-and-half into drill film and mission movie.

The opening twenty minutes are rather talky and dull, but the training segment that follows manages to pack in a fair bit without overstaying its welcome, and helps to offset the fact that there clearly isn’t enough money to allow the operation itself to be as expansive as the filmmakers would doubtless have liked. There is very little humour and the ironies of Full Metal Jacket are but a distant memory, and the script itself is a writing-by-numbers collection of as many war movie clichés as the writers could afford. But Dolph Lundgren is everything you’d expect as the grizzled French Legionnaire who is tasked with keeping the eponymous “War Pigs” together, while Goss can happily leave memories of his pop career behind him, and even though the parts are rather overly defined but indistinctly drawn, the young supporting cast are a likeable and more than capable bunch who give their characters just about enough personality to make you care about their fates. Meanwhile, the music has an incongruously dated feel that belies the crisp, modern visuals, although taken in conjunction the effect is not unpleasant.

There are no war-is-hell messages here, in spite of a couple of (rather ineffectual) references to Saving Private Ryan, nor is the story idiosyncratic or charismatic enough to compete with anything better-funded or more lucidly-written. But if your expectations are suitably lowered and you like your war films as straightforward as they come, there is plenty to enjoy and although the ending is startlingly abrupt, it is also a satisfying conclusion given what has preceded it.

Special Features: TBC

 
 

Originally produced in 1925, Charlie Chaplin “remastered” The Gold Rush in 1942 for re-release. One of the most successful silent films of all time, and a personal favourite of Chaplin himself, The Gold Rush in either form is the film that best showcases Chaplin’s amazing talents.

As The Lone Prospector, the film follows Chaplin through several intertwined adventures based around the Klondike Gold Rush in the frozen North of Alaska. Seeking his share of the gold, the hapless tramp stumbles from one awkward situation to the next before finding both his fortune and love.

As an example of Chaplin’s art, and as a starting point for anyone approaching the little master’s work for the first time, the 1925 version of The Gold Rush is very nearly the perfect film. In revisiting it for a 1942 release, Chaplin amazingly managed to improve it, adding the musical score which received an Academy Award nomination and also an entertaining and complimentary narration. Chaplin also shortened the film by several minutes, tightening up the editing and changing one or two scenes, most notably the ending, removing a kissing scene and replacing it with more platonic hand holding.

Several moments in the film have now passed into cinematic lore. A scene where Chaplin acts out a dance with two forks stuck in bread rolls is one of the actor’s most famous and has been referenced in several other films, including The Three Stooges Pardon My Scotch. The familiar “slapstick” chases and interactions are here, but rarely were they choreographed with such beautiful simplicity as in the scenes in the shack with Big Jim (Mack Swain) and Black Larsen (Tom Murray).

Interestingly, the production of The Gold Rush is almost as renowned as the film itself. Lita Grey first met Chaplin on the set of The Kid when she was only 12 years old. Three years later she was among a host of actresses testing for the part lead part in The Gold Rush, and was originally cast before falling pregnant by the then-35-year-old Chaplin and being replaced by Georgia Hale. During production, which lasted a year and a half, their rushed marriage (hastily arranged to avoid Chaplin being charged with having sexual relations with a minor) fell apart amidst reports of his affairs with other women.

Aside from any off screen notoriety though, The Gold Rush remains a seminal work, and consistently appears on any assembled list of the greatest movies of all time. Chaplin’s effortless style, evident in his balletic performance, is arguably equalled in his other films, most notably City Lights and The Great Dictator, but is never better than it is in The Gold Rush. This 1942 release is also significant for being the last of Chaplin’s great films. With a career in decline, and his popularity fading, it provides a fitting footnote to perhaps the most influential artist of the 20th century.

If you have even a passing interest in cinema then viewing The Gold Rush is not just essential, it’s compulsory.

THE GOLD RUSH / CERT: PG / DIRECTOR & SCREENPLAY: CHARLIE CHAPLIN / STARRING: CHARLIE CHAPLIN, MACK SWAIN, TOM MURRAY, HENRY BERGMAN, GEORGIA HALE / RELEASE DATE: SEPTEMBER 14TH

 

Academy City is a technological concoction of schools and colleges, covering a size almost as big as Tokyo. It’s a blend of futurism, theology and the arcane, interspersed with whirling turbines and populated with super powered individuals known as espers.

Student Tōma Kamijō has perpetual bad luck. His was a misspent youth tripping over, treading on things and stumbling into embarrassing situations. To put it another way, he’s the living embodiment of the adage wrong place at the wrong time.

Underneath his good nature, Tōma has a sardonic edge and a slacker attitude. He’s not very bright, even failing remedial school, or very gifted being a level 0 esper. Despite his shortcomings in the powers department, he’s got some hidden talent. Dubbed the Imagine Breaker, his right hand has the ability to negate any attack or ability.

Following a run in with hot-headed level 5 esper Misaka Mikoto, Tōma wakes in his student apartment to find a nun balanced on the bannister of his balcony. She tells him her name is Index and she’s fleeing the Necessarius organisation, which she herself is a member of. The reason is because of her eidetic memory or, more specifically, the 103,000 grimoire volumes she’s got stowed away in her mind.

The series is from studio J.C.Staff, behind this year’s Food Wars, and it shows as Sōma Yukihira is basically Tōma with red hair. In many ways that’s telling of the rest of the series, which plays with viewer expectation.

The most unexpected aspect is the strange plotting. It’s circumstantial and reminiscence of the randomness of real life. In TV terms, though, it plays out like a series of mini arcs made to fit the 24 episode formula. Problems can surface and be solved within two episodes of each other, and what appears to be the overarching plot is quickly resolved. There’s just too much going on and too quickly, and if the show has one major flaw, it’s this.

It’s not that all the ideas aren’t great – most of them are – it’s just the speed at which they arrive and disappear. There’s enough content for three series worth of story arcs, if only writer Masanao Akahoshi gave plotting and pace more attention. Kazuma Kamachi’s source material runs at 24 volumes of light novels, which gives a glimpse into the show’s structural issues.

Despite Index being in the title, she’s often only a secondary character with whole episodes passing without even an appearance. Sure she’s cute and funny, but dipping out of the narrative allows for more interesting characters to take centre stage, like the clones (who speak in third person) and the deranged Accelerator.

A Certain Magical Index adopts a dreamy pace, encompassing long conversational scenes which sometimes take almost entire episodes to play out. On one had it’s a romantic comedy in the vein of Familiar of Zero, and on the other it’s a dark, hard edged sci-fi more akin to Serial Experiments Lain. It might start off as one thing, but quickly morphs into something altogether different. At 24 episodes, it takes the scenic route to its conclusion, but it’s a complex, engaging and ungodly mess of a journey.

Special Features: Textless opening and closing / Episode commentaries / Trailer

A CERTAIN MAGICAL INDEX COMPLETE SEASON 1 / CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR: HIROSHI NISHIKIORI / SCREENPLAY: MASANAO AKAHOSHI / STARRING: ATSUSHI ABE, YUKA IGUCHI, AKENO WATANABE, ANRI KATSU, KANA ASUMI / RELEASE DATE: SEPTEMBER 14TH

 

John Boorman’s contribution to cinematic weirdness, Zardoz, is a movie that isn’t so much watched as experienced. The 1974 science fiction classic is a tribute to hubris, tight budgets and some of the more melancholy aspects of the genre. It’s a movie you should see, if only to join in on the conversation about it – one that has been going on for over forty years.

Set in the distant future, Zardoz opens with a man in a silly blue hat and a drawn-on beard explaining to us that all is not what it seems. The opening credits feature a giant, stone floating head that then proceeds to be worshipped as a god by a horde of scantily clad savages. The head tells its followers that violence is good and sex is bad. The camera then focuses on a gun-wielding Sean Connery, who is clad in what appears to be a bright read mankini. The movie gets much stranger after that…

Ostensibly, Zardoz is an examination of the consequences of lying to the masses, as well as a speculative dive into what happens to a society when the elite simply cannot die and refuse to share their wealth. In practice it’s mostly an excuse to see Connery and his co-star, Charlotte Rampling, run about in very skimpy clothing. The only honest answer to the question “What is Zardoz about?” is to say that it’s about 105 minutes long. Anything else is up for speculation.

The Blu-ray version has been lovingly restored and the print is crisp and clear. This version keeps Geoffrey Unsworth’s original cinematography, and yet adds clarity and definition; we still get the hazy, dreamlike quality that makes the movie work, but we can also see every nook and cranny of the floating giant head of Zardoz.

Arrow are the established masters of cult movie releases and they have packed the Blu-ray with a pile of new features. We get interviews with John Boorman and Sara Kestelman. There’s also conversations with the crew, and the whole thing works very well as decades have passed since the movie was made, so we get well polished anecdotes about one of cinema’s strangest experiences. The audio commentary is definitely worth your time as well, as the director is on top form as he talks about the movie.

If this isn’t in your movie collection, it should be. If nothing else, it’s one of the few features that start with Z, but really you should own it merely to broaden your horizons as far as it goes. If you’re already a fan, then this new Blu-ray is a real treat and worth your time.

Special Features: Audio commentary with John Boorman / New interviews with cast and crew / Radio spots / Trailer / Collector’s booklet

ZARDOZ / CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR & SCREENPLAY: JOHN BOORMAN / STARRING: SEAN CONNERY, CHARLOTTE RAMPLING, SARA KESTELMAN, NIALL BUGGY / RELEASE DATE: SEPTEMBER 14TH
 

Bored, drunk and stoned during the festive period, three young women break into an empty mansion for a little booze and pot themed fun. Things inevitably turn south when the groundskeeper interrupts the girls’ little party, inadvertently turning the whole affair into a Christmas nightmare. Suddenly, there’s a body to be disposed of and things just keep on getting worse…

A dark thriller in the Shallow Grave vein, Body keeps a tight rein on its small cast and simple story, letting its strong performers and sharp writing do most of the hard work. It opens disarmingly funny, with a game of Scrabble and an embarrassing dad wearing sunglasses indoors. It doesn’t stay that way though; like the underrated Stuart Gordon feature Stuck, the film reaches some surprisingly dark places at times, particularly as the film and its characters first begin to make their modus operandi known.

To say much more would be to spoil the surprises of a well-crafted, intelligent little psychological thriller with more than a few tricks up its sleeve. Helen Rogers, Alexandra Turshen and Lauren Molina carry their roles well, being sympathetic and likeable for the most part… until it’s time for one of them to not be. Caught in the middle of all this, Larry Fessenden does well with not a lot, letting the women tackle most of the heavy lifting and brutal in-fighting.

The story goes dark and tends to stay there, but there’s always a sense that it could go further and be more unpredictable, if it really wanted to. That sense of restraint holds Body back from greatness, its moments of true darkness making its relative predictability elsewhere feel all the more disappointing. As oh-shit-there’s-a-dead-body movies go, it’s fine – it could just do with a bit more meat on its bones, is all.

BODY / CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR & SCREENPLAY: DAN BERK, ROBERT OLSEN / STARRING: HELEN ROGERS, ALEXANDRA TURSHEN, LAUREN MOLINA, LARRY FASSENDEN / RELEASE DATE: AUGUST 31ST

 

In City Lights, Charlie Chapin’s little tramp tries to win the heart of a blind flower seller. Along the way he’s taken in by a memory-challenged drunken billionaire and spends a little time in jail. It is a film containing some of his most famous adventures, and as such occupies a position in the upper reaches of any list concerning the greatest films of all time.

City Lights is also notable for the changing landscape in which it was produced. 1931 was an interesting time for both cinema and America as a nation. The Great Depression was dawning and while City Lights has a little fun surrounding the subject of money, as do most of Chaplin’s films, it is a humour that develops from a more innocent source. Of course, the little tramp is poor, as skint as ever, but at times he is lavished with fineries by his inebriated benefactor, only to be thrown back on the street the next morning. It was also a time when the “talkies” were beginning to get made in Hollywood, albeit rather poorly initially. Resisting their call (for now), Chaplin uses sound sparingly throughout his film, preferring to focus on the visual performance he has become famous for.

It is in that performance that some of the best scenes in City Lights emerge. The prize fighting sequence demonstrates extraordinary footwork from Chaplin, being both incredibly dexterous and beautifully balletic. A more simple scene is one in which he is a manure sweeper, following behind horses while keeping a wary eye on a passing elephant. Simple as always, but both are at the same time poignant and hilarious.

City Lights is also possibly Charlie Chaplin’s most sentimental film. There is usually a love interest, but here it is a more simple attraction. Virginia Cherrill’s Blind Girl is as innocent as the tramp, falling in love without the ability to see her paramour and yet still retaining that affection when she miraculously regains sight later.

It would be more difficult to find a Chaplin film that wasn’t deserving of high praise than one which is. These are films that hark back to a bygone era of Hollywood, when the antics of a tramp could sustain a film and retain an audience’s attention for a full feature’s running time. If judgement is necessary, The Gold Rush remains Chaplin’s seminal work, but as a collection of some of cinema’s most famous scenes City Lights is necessary viewing.

One Chaplin film will never be enough.

CITY LIGHTS / CERT: U / DIRECTOR & SCREENPLAY: CHARLIE CHAPLIN / STARRING: CHARLIE CHAPLIN, VIRGINIA CHERRILL, FLORENCE LEE, HARRY MYERS / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW