dvd@list.co.uk
lllRlll t—H SHADE
(15) 89min (RKO VHS DVD rental l'()i£llll 00
Sr} l'/\~l )4:
'You take out the Don. you 'oecome the Don,‘ says schen‘er Charlie Miller. Nah. not the podgy Dundee United footy player hut Gabriel Byr'ne's character in this third rate tale of cards. conmen. and unintended comedy. \.i’."l‘.a'. the normally relral3le GB is doing here is a mystery — between decent gigs presuiitahly. The effect desired hy the makers is likely Ocean's ll hut it fails on JtlSl about every front. Men‘o to Hollywood: you want grit'ters. guns and girls? Then put lceherg Slin‘s coruscating stories of douhle dealing on the screen rather than trying so lamer to reshuffle the rat pack. (Rodger Evansi
HORROR AUDITION: COLLECTOR’S EDITION (18)115min 0000 'l‘artan DVD retaili
‘f‘.’h:ie Miike lilkéifh’ll itas directed over :50 films for cinema and TV. it y'xas Audit/on that first lx'ought his ‘.'.’Ol'l< .‘.'<<l(:_‘;_l)t‘(}£1(l International "ecogriition. l:scht,=‘.'./ing ‘.'.’estern notions of :":£':lt'£ill‘/(: cohesion. he crafts a chilling tale of guilt. love and sadism whose slo'x.’ burn star! gives added .n‘pact to a fr'en/ied final third. Mild mannered salary ii‘an Shigeixaru uses an audition for a non existent filii‘ to find a prospective wife. but
demure and submissive prospect Asarni soon proves to he anything but. The only tlisappointment is the extras. A short interview with the director. a promotional show reel of his other films and the theatrical trailer do not a 'collector's edition' make. (Dave Martin)
(.IVl- .JA77
CHARLIE HUNTER OUINTET: RIGHT HERE MOVE
(E) 89min
(Ropeadope Ryko DVD retail) .0.
When is a (tuintet not a guintet’? A remarkable talent. Charlie Hunter plays guitar and bass sintultarieously on an eight-stringed guitar of his own invention —- and by Christ. he plays both uncommonly well.
A staged studio performance. this DVD appendage to the alhum Rig/it / Ier‘e Move opens with an intimate display of Hunter's unigue capacity. as he accompanies himself centre stage.
The Joyous and masterful nature with which the guintet operate offsets the ahsence of an exuherant crowd and shov-rman's hanter. hut unforgivahle is the inclusion of a haft'ling and intrusive graphic employed to introduce each new piece. Extras are also somewhat thin on the ground.
(Mark Edmundson)
POIN'lt l SS HF RH l‘ASL‘ DANGEROUS GROUND
(18) 95min
(New l. me Home Cinema DVD retaili
O
l: xiled \./egetai'iaii Ice Cube returns to his South African trrhe in order to bury his father. He soon finds himself enlisting the help of
DANGERQHS GROUNU
crack head Ll/ Hurley in the search for his trouhled younger brother.
Confronting serious and poignant suhiect matter with the fumhling paws of incompetence; plot. prose and performance conspire throughout to fashion a dourly unconvincing portrait of a Johanneshurg underworld.
Co-producer Cuhe appears in every scene. but seldom acts — a dopey gla/e ghosting over his features from the outset. Fitting then. that his character should encounter such a hap;)y-go-lucky addict exotic dancer in the awful Li/ Hurley. Mercifully few extras. (Mark Edmundsonr
708 CUl l HORROR LOVE LETTERS OF A PORTUGESE NUN
(18) 119min
(Anchor Bay UK retaili OOO
This is exactly the kind of low rent salacious heresy that saw one— time Orson Welles collaborator Jess F-ranco attain the /enith of notoriety that is the Catholic church's 'Most Dangerous Filmmaker" in the [Us Whether you read it as a searing indictment of religious hysteria or a sexploitation take on Diderot's La Rel/goose. tli s story of a disturhingly young girl's dalliance in a Satanic nunnery is a prurient tale which WI” only appeal to cult cinema devotees.
Released with minimal extras and with over six minutes of COllt(_)ll|SOl‘y cuts relating to sexualised torture and indecent rrnages of a child. if your skin smells like dead people then this is probably the movre for you.
(Dave Martini
MUSIC
I’M ONLY LOOKING - BEST OF INXS
(E) 135 min
(Universal DVD Retaili COO
OK. here's what you do.
DOCUMENTARY THE COCKETTES (15) 100min
(Tartan DVD VHS Retarli CO.
"5.7 w’\ y,
You mix up a batch of cocktails. gather some female and gay male friends who were becoming sexually active in the 808. then stick on this two-disc DVD and spend the next few hours cackling your heads off and swooning at the exquisite young Michael (pardon me. but p/iwoar) Hutchence. If it wasn't for his gut wrenching sex appeal. we would have noticed at the time Just how average INXS were as purveyors of music. The videos are plentiful but
DVD
really naff. and the extras reveal very little. other than how much weight the survrving band members have gained. For Hutchence admirers and lonely Australians only. (Ashley Davies)
San Francisco in the late 60$ held, for many, an opportunity for social and sexual experimentation in a garish and dizzying mess of body paint and acid. How this psychedelic climate led one of the city’s free spirited communes to theatrical notoriety and influential immortality is the subject
of this most festive and nostalgic of documentaries.
Drawn together by Hibiscus, a charismatic acid-freak with a love of show tunes, the Cockettes were born out of an ideal of free theatre and gay liberation through art. Starting out as a ramshackle chorus line, appearing in the interval at a late night picture show, they would bloom into a shambolic theatre company — allowing sheer enthusiasm to completely bypass questions of talent in their accidental rise to the top. Forget The
Rocky Horror Picture Show - this was the real deal.
A staggering wealth of archive footage embellishes the personal accounts of now greying Cockettes as they recount their carefree trip: a gaudy rabble of gay men, straight women and occasional minors prancing and cavorting their way from street to stage, to near stardom in the last days of innocence before the emergence of AIDS. There is a camp charm at work through many of the anecdotal reports of this spontaneous dance and sexual anarchy, each brazen tale illustrated by footage of some outlandish, theatrical play to camera.
Not surprisingly, when you take into consideration the quantities of illegal and not yet classified drugs being consumed by the outfit, there is some disparity between individuals’ accounts. But whether the Cockettes’ first performance took place on Halloween or Hogmanay (though both seemed perfectly appropriate) is of little real consequence now. The fact that so much is remembered is one of the more baffling aspects of the
piece.
As is often the case in such documentaries, one can become morbidly fascinated by the varying stages of mental decline in which we now encounter said Cockettes. While some appear daubed and still in drag, still living the dream, unassuming others look like kindly (if fruity) uncles. Further personal accounts are included in the DVD extras as deleted scenes. There is little more in the way of high jinx to report, but there are touching stories of first meetings and some other darling little tidbits.
The lasting legacy of this outlandish ensemble is not touched upon (David Bowie, New York Dolls, Kenny Everett) presumably because this is a film less about a movement and its effects, and more about a group of people and the riotous fun they had. An affectionately bold and riotously sassy documentary, The Cockettes has been lovingly assembled and brashly delivered — and all in the best possible taste. (Mark Edmundson)
7.) Jul 5) Aug) 900.1
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