Review Category: DVD/Blu Ray

Charlie Chaplin made several films rightly considered classics, and if you’re a fan of silent cinema, you’ve probably got them on DVD already. But if there’s a gap in your collection, you may want to pick up one of the new releases from Artificial Eye, and the latest in that collection is Modern Times, considered one of his best.

For those unfamiliar with it, Modern Times may not be exactly how you imagine a Chaplin film. For starters, it’s not entirely silent. Made later in his career, and preceding his first proper ‘talkie’ The Great Dictator, this film blends silent and sound filmmaking, mostly focusing on Chaplin’s physical pratfalling but with some incursions of sound, most notably when he’s forced to improvise a song and dance number and spouts a masterwork of gibberish known as the “nonsense song”.

Secondly, the story’s no light-hearted romp. After losing his factory job, Chaplin’s ‘Little Tramp’ character goes through a series of jobs, desperately trying to hold onto work so that he can he can keep himself and his orphaned girlfriend off the streets. This may sound like a bit of a downer, and indeed Chaplin doesn’t pull his punches in his critique of the oppressive industrial society and the struggles of the unemployed.

But don’t think the film’s at all as downbeat as this theme – you come to Chaplin for the physical comedy, and Modern Times provides that in bucketloads. Every job the Tramp tries out is hampered by a mixture of incompetence and bad luck, providing a regular stream of moments that will make even the most skeptical of old cinema laugh out loud. From letting a massive ship float off to sea to getting his mechanic boss stuck between the cogs of an enormous machine, via roller skating around a department store, perilously close to a high drop, this guy can’t seem to get anything right. Look out, too, for the brilliant scene in which the factory owners test out a new ‘worker feeding machine’ on him, a ludicrous contraption that looks like Wallace and Gromit crossed with 1984.

Modern Times will surpass your expectations; blending unrelenting social critique with the buffoonery of one of the twentieth century’s greatest comedians, it’s genuinely worthy of the term ‘masterpiece’.

Also included on this disc is The Idle Class, a half-hour film from 1921 in which Chaplin’s Tramp wanders onto a golf resort and gets up to his usual trouble. Plus there’s BTS look-back Chaplin Today, an introduction, trailers, and deleted scene. These extras aren’t new – Chaplin Today first appeared on a 2003 release – so may not warrant a re-purchase from established Chaplin fans, but will more than suffice to indulge the curiosity of newcomers.

Special Features: The Idle Class / Chaplin Today / Introduction / Deleted scene / Trailers

MODERN TIMES / CERT: U / DIRECTOR & SCREENPLAY: CHARLIE CHAPLIN / STARRING: CHARLIE CHAPLIN, PAULETTE GODDARD / RELEASE DATE: AUGUST 24TH

 

The comedic stylings of Charlie Chaplin are rather lost on the modern age. The problem with being one of the classic clowns of the last century is that everyone has either copied him or copied someone copying him. As a result, he seems rather tame to modern tastes. This is not always true though – The Great Dictator is one of his greatest achievements and is still both amusing and relevant to the people of the 21st century.

Released in 1940, The Great Dictator is a thinly veiled parody of Hitler’s Germany, or to put it another way, a funny little man with an odd moustache having a go at one of history’s greatest monsters, who also happened to be a funny little man with an odd moustache. The movie opens with the nation of Tomainia on the losing side of World War I. We meet Chaplin’s first character, a simple Jewish/Tomainian barber who bares more than a passing resemblance to Chaplain’s world famous Little Tramp character. 20 years pass and a chap called Adenoid Hynkel has risen to power. He also happens to look like the barber. Hynkel is aided in his desire for world domination by Napaloni, played by Jack Oakie, who has more than a passing resemblance to Mussolini.

The movie packs a lot into two hours, helped by its skilful and cutting assessment of the world stage in 1940. This is an American movie and became many American’s first taste of the horrors that were happening in Europe at the time. Chaplin is ruthless in comedy and humanitarian in his direction.  The movie ends with a, now famous, heartfelt plea for peace and understanding, and it is worth watching for this alone.

The Blu-ray/DVD extras aren’t that remarkable. We get a nice (if uncontroversial) documentary that correctly asserts that Chaplin was ahead of his time in both awareness of global politics and in production of funny movies.  We get some rare colour footage taken whilst the movie was being shot, and the usual trailers and adverts for related products. It’s nothing terribly interesting all told, but then we can hardly expect an audio commentary from the long dead actors.

The Great Dictator is a classic for a reason, and if you haven’t seen it you should. Its complexity will no doubt surprise you, and its message will move you.

Special Features: Documentary / Rare colour footage / Trailers

THE GREAT DICTATOR / CERT: U / DIRECTOR & SCREENPLAY: CHARLIE CHAPLIN / STARRING: CHARLIE CHAPLIN, PAULETTE GODDARD, JACK OAKIE / RELEASE DATE: AUGUST 24TH

 

The latest, and presumably “final”, film b legendary filmmaker John Boorman, Queen & Country is the long-awaited semi-sequel to Hope & Glory. Set in 1952, the central character of Bill Rohan (Callum Turner), who previously took childish pleasure in his school being bombed, is now doing national service for the Korean War alongside his rebellious comrade, Percy Hapgood (Caleb Landry Jones). Along the way, their friendship becomes challenged, psychological wars break out between fellow soldiers, and Bill undergoes a rite of passage, not just with the army, but also in the prospects of romance when he obsessively falls for suicidal toff “Ophelia” (Tamsin Egerton).

This is a story that is obviously very personal to John Boorman, being heavily inspired by many events that have happened in his own life, and it is pretty much everything you would expect from him. The film is visually arresting, the story is very heartfelt and rich with nostalgia, features a melange of conflicting accents and some peculiarly theatrical staging involved. This is a very old-fashioned film in some ways, yet this is one of those films that hark back to the old days of moviemaking, as symbolised by the film’s moving final shot.

Boorman is someone who has had an extraordinary career with many great highs (Deliverance and Point Blank) and many unforgettable lows (Exorcist II: The Heretic and Zardoz), but in the case of this, it’s oddly gentle in some ways. There is a dark subversive undercurrent about being involved in the national service and what it must’ve been like, and when you watch the film you do feel the personal vision that’s in it. Most of the actors involved do give solid performances: the louche Richard E. Grant is brilliantly deadpan, David Thewlis chewing the scenery as ever, Callum Turner being a likeable lead, and Vanessa Kirby is brilliantly witty as Bill’s rebellious sister.

However, despite the care and attention that’s been put into this film, one can’t help but feel disjointed and uncertain about it. Some situations occur abruptly out of nowhere and some of the performances can be quite alienating, particularly American actor Caleb Landry Jones, whose portrayal of an unstable Brit with a fire-branded temper is more associated with that of a blood-vessel-busting whiner. Also, Tamsin Egerton gives a cold performance that makes us less sympathetic towards her mentally suicidal loner, yet it’s not entirely Egerton’s fault, but to due with what she’s been given to work with, which is a shame considering how great an actress she is in 4.3.2.1., Chalet Girl and TV’s Camelot.

There’s a strange theatricality to John Boorman’s work, as it always has been, which is a disjunction sometimes between the visuals and the sound, and it’s primarily Boorman’s own distinctive flair of theatricality. It’s a distinctive vision by a director who has earned the right to make the film he wants to make, even though that film is quite alienating at times and emotionally disconnecting. It is a shame it’s not as masterful as it should’ve been, yet Boorman is someone that has somehow able to turn flaws into significant strengths, and that is something he’ll always be famous for.

QUEEN & COUNTRY / CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR & SCREENPLAY: JOHN BOORMAN / STARRING: CALLUM TURNER, CALEB LANDRY JONES, PAT SHORTT, TAMSIN EGERTON, RICHARD E. GRANT / RELEASE DATE: AUGUST 24TH

 

Watching Monster Madness: The Gothic Revival of Horror from Midnight Marquee Press is very much like meeting up with an old school friend. You’ll talk about old times, reminisce about the fun you had, and tell stories of misspent youth. Then you’ll part ways.

The next time you meet you’ll have the same conversations all over again. It may well still be fun, but fun with a little sadness brought on by familiarity and knowledge you actually have little to really talk about.

This, the third in Midnight Marquee Press’ trilogy of nostalgic releases, rehashes many clips and interviews that you will have seen a hundred times before, and while they’ll make you smile just like that meeting with an old chum, after the film is over you’ll find yourself having wanted more. Nothing in this release is new or revealing, and as such is sadly quite dull. Greater satisfaction can be gained from surfing YouTube (other sites are probably available) as more interesting snippets are readily available, and with Hammer having its own channel, offers considerably more besides.

The interesting thing is that while the DVD sets out to be a trip down the monster memory lane, it quickly turns into a tribute to Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing and the home of British horror, Hammer Studios. All this does sound interesting, and is certainly poignant given the recent passing of Sir Lee, but this elongated montage serves less as a historical study of the genre and more as a quickly edited television documentary that tantalises while providing scant insight into the influential studio and its cast of loyal, legendary actors.

This edition of Monster Madness will appeal more to the transient horror, or Hammer, fan. For anyone with greater knowledge of the time period and of the monsters and characters that existed both in front of and behind the camera, this DVD will prove a little tiresome. If you happened across this while channel surfing late one Friday night upon returning from the local public house then you probably won’t turn it off. It certainly isn’t one you would seek out, and as such it’s difficult to imagine who it’s really aimed at or who will actually buy it.

MONSTER MADNESS: THE GOTHIC REVIVAL OF HORROR / CERT: TBC / DIRECTOR: JEFF HERBERGER / WRITER: A. SUSAN SVEHLA / STARRING: AARON CHRISTENSEN, KITLEY JON, DWIGHT KEMPER / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW
 

Makoto (Miyuki Kuwano) is a seemingly innocent high school girl who enters into a relationship with an older student, Kiyoshi (Yusuke Kawazu), after he rescues her from some unwanted male attention. Ignoring advice from all around them, and flitting in and out of love, the pair settle on a brief and ultimately unsuccessful career of extortion-based crime before their whirlwind romance fractures and fails.

Set in a Japan still recovering financially and spiritually from the war, Ôshima’s film intentionally ignores the major events of the time to play out its own melodrama through the brief liaison between Makoto and Kiyoshi. All around them is a country rebuilding itself (rarely is there an outdoor scene where the sounds of workmen are not present), and the student riots that accompanied the signing of the 1960 U.S./Japan Security Treaty are gaining momentum. Ôshima, for the most part, ignores these close political influences, giving his leads an obsession with an influx of Western ideals that results in a greed that is ignorant of the consequences. These are characters where any sense of innocence has been taken from them, and the world they are trying to find a place in is brutal and confusing.

The relationship between Makoto and Kiyoshi is equally bleak, and equally thematic of the time. From the outset when he forces himself on her, with the clear impression he has stolen her virginity, it is difficult to understand Makoto’s obsession with the bullying, self-centred Kiyoshi. Over the short period of the relationship, the power does swing back and forth, with the headstrong Makoto gaining confidence from their crimes, but in the end, as their fate spirals towards a back street abortion and misery, it is clear a lack of happiness will seal their fate.

Aside from the unlikeable central pairing, it is the style with which Ôshima directs Cruel Story of Youth that may also prove divisive. At times it is wonderfully yet subtly expressive, focussing on the minutiae of a scene as sweaty tensions inevitably begin to rise. You feel as if you are there, in the moment as the camera switches from one character close up to another with each emotion plain to see. On other occasions it feels like Ôshima has lost control altogether and you struggle to see exactly what is going on. This does reflect the unpredictability of the narrative but also serves to draw you out of the drama somewhat.

There are times in Cruel Story of Youth when you’ll feel you are watching for some other reason other than enjoyment, as there is the background sensation that the film is in some way doing you good. This is a disservice to an important piece of work that showcases the unhindered rebellious nature of both filmmakers and an exuberant youth in 1960s Japan, but is sadly unavoidable. Time has not been kind to Ôshima’s film, and for most who approach it, it may prove to be a haphazard and impenetrable experience. Perseverance is required.

Special Features: New video interview with critic Tony Rayns / Trailer / 36-page booklet

CRUEL STORY OF YOUTH / CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR & SCREENPLAY: NAGISA ÔSHIMA / STARRING: MIYUKI KUWANO, YUSUKE KAWAZU, YOSHIKO KUGA, FUMIO WATANABE / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW

 

Joe Anderson is John, a professional gambler whose speciality is dog racing. Always on the lookout for the next big tip, he falls in with bookie Stan (Anna Anissimova). Preying on his desperate search for a win, Stan leads John into a dangerous spiral of betting on ever-increasing stakes that threaten to destroy his life.

The games that Stan tempts John with range from the downright stupid to the ridiculously preposterous. From removing his own tooth to, and this may well be a spoiler, growing an ear on his stomach (yes, that’s right), the bets John make never feel in any way believable or ones that anyone with a modicum of sense would remotely entertain. The control exerted by the barking mad bookie is never at all convincing with Anissimova’s performance wavering between a camp pantomime dame and 1930s’ femme fatale, with neither demonstrating any depth or conviction, as if Anissimova herself can barely believe some of the words coming out of her mouth.

Without the frankly ridiculous Stan the film may have stood a chance. A little reality perhaps, a hint of genuine consequence to the life of a professional gambler may have grounded Flutter. It may also have provided some support to a strong central performance from Anderson, more familiar to audiences as Elijah Wood’s brother Terry in Horns or as Phineas in Hercules. You do get the sense that Anderson might actually have thought he was in a different film altogether as he delivers a convincing depiction of a man whose life is falling apart by his own hand, despite bouts of clunky dialogue. The remaining cast also chip in as best they can against a backdrop of the nonsensical, although Luke Evans is poorly underserved in his role but still fares considerably better than Ricky Tomlinson, who barely has a line to deliver – and let’s not even mention Billy Zane!

Sadly, Flutter is just too much of a mess to take seriously and will likely soon be found languishing at the bottom of your local supermarket’s bargain DVD bin. Even then, even for £1, it’s not worth a gamble.

 

When the Prince of Hell, Belial, loses the plot and tries to claim both Hell and Heaven as his own, Luzifer (Noah Hunter) commands Amon (Gerrit Reinecke) to stop him and stop an almighty kick-off between two realms which are embarked on a pact of peace. As Amon brings in the sex-mad (and comedic highlight) Samsaveel (Sebastian Ruckert initially, before the horned-up hellion takes on another form) to help with this mission, a war starts to brew as Belial runs amok and even takes out an angel. Those from above and those from below all start to make their way to Earth, as an almighty battle begins to simmer. The question is simply whether Amon and his sexed-up accomplice can put a halt to all of this before the world truly does go to Hell.

One of the huge plus points of Damned on Earth is that despite being ridiculously low-budget (as in it often comes across as almost a student film), the film always manages to have a light and breezy sense of freshness to it. Then again, on the flip side, by the time it gets to the second half then things really begin to drag and you find yourself hoping for the dramatic conclusion to pull its finger out and arrive like a bat out of Hell (Meatloaf TM).

Performance-wise, Gerrit Reinecke is great as the initial anchor of the film, and the character of Samsaveel steals the movie during any scene for which they appear. Initially played by Sebastian Rucket, Samsaveel still devours scenery when in other forms as the film progresses. Other than that, a lot of the other performances verge between awful and nearly average, although the effort of all should be commended and Ralf Kemper seems a director with promise.

And then there’s the comedy, which is a little too fleeting in decent quality when all is said and done. There are certain moments that will bring a smile to the face of most, but for a film that is labelled a horror-comedy by its creators, there seems little of either. Maybe the comedy is merely a case of “lost in translation”, and it is notable that there are certain errors in the subtitles of the film. As such, a little bit of slack has to be given on that front.

Overall, Kemper offers a lot of potential and promise going forward, but so many things ultimately fall flat here, resulting in a film with heart but just not quite the conviction to be anything more than so-so.

DAMNED ON EARTH / CERT: TBC / DIRECTOR: RALF KEMPER / SCREENPLAY: VARIOUS / STARRING: GERRIT REINECKE, SEBASTIAN RUCKERT, JULIA JUTTE, NOAH HUNTER, SVENJA GORGER / RELEASE DATE: TBC

The plot of this film, if it can indeed be called such, relies entirely on casting an envious look at 30 years’ worth of cinema and sampling the best parts without homage, awareness or even a hint of guilt. There are clear references to The Raid, to Braindead, to Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome. Nods to Gladiator and Romero’s zombie back catalogue are frequent, with the titular Fight Club only getting scant attention in a final third that bears no real connection to what has gone before. Instead of moulding a narrative that makes any kind of sense at all, Chien has instead chosen to populate his film with as much blood and boobs as possible. Scarcely a scene passes in the opening third without an act of violent, often uncomfortably voyeuristic sex or over-the-top gory violence that tries to intimidate its audience but simply, slightly tragically, just bores.

The two leads, Andy On and Jessica C, clearly cast solely for their looks, are at least better at the acting lark than the majority of the cast who fortunately never actually last too long. Andy’s story shadows that of Rama from The Raid, only with less convincing fighting, and as for Jessica, well, she just screams a lot. Presumably that is down to the tragedy of the script rather than being actually required by it; there is reference to sinister under-age sex in Chien’s film alongside scenes so distasteful in tone as to push the boundaries of what is truly acceptable.

Strangely, surprisingly and as frustrating as anything else to be discovered lurking in Zombie Fight Club, Chien clearly has talent. The visual effects are at times hugely impressive and there are moments, however misguided they might be in practice, which theoretically hint at a filmmaker with an eye for how to frame a scene. Some of the set pieces, in particular the ill-fated fight club, are striking in their visuals but so few and far between are these moments of clarity that they are easily forgotten amidst the bottom-of-the-barrel scrapings that make up the majority of the film.

Zombie Fight Club is a film with a violent, distasteful sensibility that tries to provoke its audience through shock and awe but ultimately is just an unpleasant journey through an alley of grubby titillation. If Chien could only find a way out of the gutter and focus on what he actually does well then it would be interesting to see what he comes up with. For now, as much as your interest might be piqued by his latest feature, avoid Zombie Fight Club at all costs.

ZOMBIE FIGHT CLUB / CERT: 18 / DIRECTOR & SCREENPLAY: JOE CHIEN / STARRING: ANDY ON, JESSICA CAMBENSY, MICHAEL WONG, TERENCE YIN, JACK KAO / RELEASE DATE: AUGUST 31ST

 

Essentially a two-handed portrait of the barren and fastidious Kate Bosworth, as seen through the eyes of her initially bed-bound amnesiac husband (Wes Bentley), Michael Polish’s beautifully-composed film bears more than a passing tonal and visual resemblance to Jonathan Glazer’s Birth, with a good deal of Stanley Kubrick thrown in for good measure. Indeed most of the secondary characters barely register, and the reluctantly investigating detective part might have been written for Scatman Crothers. But Unconscious (known in the US as Amnesiac) is, in spite of the warm hues, so cold it verges on sterility, and ultimately it’s a troublingly misogynistic piece of work.

We begin with Bentley waking up, in the aftermath of the accident we eventually piece together through flashbacks, alone in a mostly featureless house with only his wife for company. Her coldness and borderline obsessive compulsive behaviour is belied by her eagerness to conceive a child, and it is only once he has the use of his legs back – after a first half-hour distinguished by its lengthy silences and whispered dialogue – that he very quickly realises his injuries are the least of his troubles. Before long the bodies start piling up and the secret hidden in the basement is uncovered, and even when Bentley thinks he’s worked out what’s going on there’s a further level of irony to confound him before the conclusion.

Bentley is superb as the apparent innocent adrift in a fog of lost memories, trying to piece together a life without any kind of handle upon what tore it apart, but Unconscious is undeniably Bosworth’s film, and she’s outstanding in the clinical, single-minded role that would, ten years ago, have been written for Nicole Kidman. Her iciness is offset by a deep-routed emotional drive that the actress manages to convey without compromise. The abrupt deviations into comedy whenever we cut away to Shashawnee Hall’s detective, however, threaten to unbalance the film’s carefully-constructed demeanour (Polish might admire Kubrick but he hasn’t the talent Kubrick had for balancing bathos with pathos), and the swift acts of violence in the second half often feel unwarranted and unnecessary.

And that’s where Unconscious fails; the first forty-five minutes set up a mystery that needs resolving with far more subtlety than the last half-hour supplies, and things which might have been better left ambiguous are spelled out, with the final fates of the characters leaving a sore taste in the mouth. What might have been an interesting character piece with lashings of black humour, Misery by way of To Die For, ends up a deeply disturbing portrait of modern womanhood that – as confirmed by the 1950s stylings in a modern setting – seemingly ignores half a century of progress towards equality.

Special Features: Trailer

UNCONSCIOUS (U.S. TITLE: AMNESIAC) / CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR: MICHAEL POLISH / SCREENPLAY: AMY KOLQUIST, MIKE LE / STARRING: KATE BOSWORTH, WES BENTLEY, OLIVIA ROSE KEEGAN, SHASHAWNEE HALL, RICHARD RIEHLE / RELEASE DATE: AUGUST 31ST

 

Monsters was a breakthrough hit for Gareth Edwards back in 2010 and assisted in him getting the Godzilla gig. Its low budget approach to literal monsters who have landed on Earth creating an infected zone in Mexico was refreshing if a little staid.

Now, the sequel has arrived, set ten years after the events of the first film. The infected zones have reached as far as the Middle East and so the battle is now between humans and the monsters as well as humans against humans. Using the ongoing issues in the area as a backdrop to the new events is quite a clever ploy, albeit one that never really takes off.

We follow four friends who are on their first tour of duty and have to deal with the dual threats of both terrorism and extra-terrestrials. They arrive under the belief that they’re going to be bug hunting until their superiors make it very clear that the biggest is still the one offered by those who resent them being there, not least because of the fact that some bombing runs have inadvertently resulted in the loss of lives of locals.

Herein lies the problem with the film. It doesn’t know whether to be an army film ala Jarhead, or a war analogy set in present time against an otherworldly enemy. It gets caught somewhere in the middle instead. Where you should really care about the friends and what happens to them, it seems you are just waiting for the next glimpse of the aliens, who appear to have evolved and multiplied somewhat.

Their superior deciding that this would be a good time to want out does not help their plight, and this does offer some tension in scenes as you wonder if they are all going to make it. But the stars of the show should be the titular creatures. In the original, there were reasons you couldn’t see them apart from fleetingly, but across a desert vista stretching for miles that ideal does not translate as well.

A final scene reveal of a creature that had a minor role earlier in the proceedings does provide a gasp out loud moment, but they are too few and far between. This would have been better off as a straight war story or perhaps a full-out monster assault with a Special Forces team instead of a group of grunts.

Instead, we are given a film that has a crisis of identity and suffers as result. They say that you should always leave viewers wanting more, but after two hours you’ll be glad when this reaches its climax.

MONSTERS: DARK CONTINENT / CERT: 15 / DIRECTOR: TOM GREEN / SCREENPLAY: TOM GREEN, JAY BASU / STARRING: JOHNNY HARRIS, SAM KEELEY, JOE DEMPSIE, KYLE SOLLER / RELEASE DATE: AUGUST 31ST