dvd@list.co.uk
DOCUMENTARY
CAPTURING THE
FRIEDMANS
SPECIAL DITION)
(15) 103min
(Tartan Films DVD Retail;
Andrew Jarecki's stunning account of a famin torn apart by child abuse allegations takes the documentary form to new heights. Fair minded. compassionate and. above all, shunning the type of hysteria which usually accompanies any media portrayal of this most sensitive of topics. The extra disc is worth buying on its own with more family footage. interviews and reactions by some of the central figures alter they've seem the finished film. A masterpiece thoroughly deserving of its accolades.
(Gordon Eldrett)
STAND UP COMEDY JAMIE FOXX: I MIGHT NEED SECURITY
(18) 91 min
(Revolver Entertainment DVD retail) 000.
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Although comparable to his predecessors Richard Pryor and Eddie Murphy. it is Jamie Foxx's all round song and dance comedy combo style that sees him strike more of an alliance with the likes of Bill Cosby and Sammy Davis Jr. Filmed here live. the flawless Foxx lays out his agenda fairly clearly — noticeably to shock the easily offended (sex
40 THE LIST 5—12 Aug 2004
With cripples gagsl reaffirm the Afro American experience (Africa gags). and amuse ‘player‘ haters everywhere (Whitney and Bobby on crack gagS). The highlight? Foxx's supreme mUSical impersonations of the greats combined with the best put down lines you‘ll ever need. Slick like Rick and twice as funny.
(Simon Dehany)
FILM NOIR
PICKUP ON SOUTH STREET (PG) 90min
(Optimum Home Entertainment DVD retail) 000.
The late great ‘bare knuckle' filmmaker Sam Fuller’s film noir joins the Cold War effOrt with this attack on communism. A young and rodent-like Richard Widmark is Skip McCoy. a pickpocket who unwittingly lifts a lady‘s purse. which contains film of government secrets en route to the commies. An ignorant mule for her man, the lady. Candy (Jean Peters). is told by her traitorous ‘red' boyfriend to hit the streets and find the thief. Meanwhile. the Feds. having had Candy under surveillance. are also hunting Widmark's wily hustler. Fuller's typically hard-boiled approach and the semi- documentary style of the film serve the propaganda well.
(Miles Fielder)
' GAY MUSICAL
ZERO PATIENCE (18) 100min
(Millivres Multimedia DVD retail) 0..
The ghost of a promiscuous French- Canadian airline steward (who resembles the man AIDS experts describe as ‘patient zero') and the ever-living Victorian explorer and sexologist
Sir Richard Francis Burton find love in the Toronto Natural History Museum.
Written and directed by celebrated Canadian gay actiVIst John Greyson in 1993. Zero Patience is boldly satirical and bluntly astute — and features the outrageous ‘Butthole Duet'. But time and budgetary restrictions have unfortunately conspired against this most eccentric and empowering muSical
AIDS romp.
ConSidered worthy of a DVD reissue — but not. it seems. any extra frills
— this is the film of a
director on his way to bigger and better things (noticeably last year’s excellent Proteus). (Mark Edmundson)
WORLD CINEMA
NOI ALBINOI
(15) 91 min
(Artificial Eye DVD retail) 0...
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Seventeen-year-old Noi
is an albino living in the freezing cold north of Iceland and is somewhere between an autistic lost cause and the find of the island. His taxi-driving dad is a raging alcoholic with so much self-hatred there's plenty left over for his hapless son. But then there's a lovely young girl in the local filling station who offers hope. Great use of location and Jarmuschian understatement by director Dagur Kari makes this a real find. if in a minor key.
(Tony McKibbin)
TV
COMEDY
BORAT’S TELEVISION PROGRAMME Channel 4, Fri 13 Aug. 9.30pm 00.
Brits have always attempted to extend the imperialist trend that should have died out along With Nelson for reappropriating other cultures as their own. Ali G was essentially Just one joke. and while it lasted it was pretty hilarious. but the marked difference between him and Sacha Baron Cohen‘s subsequent creations is they don't laugh at themselves; the joke is always on someone else.
Borat and Bruno — a j0urnalist from Kazakhstan and a gay Austrian fashionista - go to America to try and shock. confuse and
generally humiliate
unassuming members of the population. The targets are pretty lame in this first episode — a potential Republican Party candidate and a bunch of dim university
: frat boys — but the effect
is pretty much as predicted.
This is doomed to a lone series before fading into obscurity; it's the British way. after all. (Mark Robertson)
HISTORY DOCUMENTARY
WHICKER’S WAR Channel 4, Mon 16 Aug, 9pm 0000
A.
Best known for his insightful travelogue Whicker's World. the octogenarian now takes a m0ving personal purney through Italy and the final stages of World War II. As a yOung
officer. Alan Whicker was
recruited to serve in the
ain‘t ‘s fledgling filn‘i'ig
dixisiCr‘._ and landed in SICli‘, in ‘94.? ll‘. t"e programme, the seasoned presenter retraces nis steps Wart". IITIOF.‘.G(I\.IITg his detailed firsthand reminiscences \.‘.’|Ih some incredible footage. One still, for example. depicts an Italian village. even building festooned With the legend 'Duce' after the rnegalomaniac fasCist dictator. Whatever you max, think of Whickers idiosyncratic voice and mannerisms. it's difficult not to be fasCinated by his frank depiction of the horrors. human cost and occasional great coinradeship -— of war. ‘The saddest thing of all. is there's no one to tell it to,’ he complains at one pOint. You feel this powerful documentary Will have its fair share of admirers. (Allan Radcliffel
‘FAMILY' DRAMA
THE SOPRANOS Channel 4, Mon 16 Aug, 11pm 0000
When last we saw the feuding Sopranos. Carmela had thrown Tony's golf clubs out the Window and chucked its owner from the waterbird-free homestead. Ah, ‘those fucking ducks'; Tony has been bereft ever since they fled his pool for pastures new. But now that their marriage is running out guicker than a rat's eggtirner. both are preparing for a brave new world.
For Tony this Will mean much the same: goomahs by the shedload. more therapy With Melfi and a heap of ups and downs With the crew over at the Bada Bing! For Carmela. she'll try to keep her children's heads above water and maybe try out a new man.
Each new series requires some fresh
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SOCIAL I‘Oi‘i II.‘.I ‘4'553- THE DAY THEY DISAPPEARED 8801. Tue 17 Aug. 9pm 0000
from I oid I (If tlfl to Karen Sl|k\.'.'tt’ftf, hi ih profile disappeaian' en fascinate and fiiisti.ite in equal measure. But what of the iiiariifold blurry faces that stare out from milk (:artont. and hill posters up and down the country“ I «l'.fl year Pf)f),f)(I() people arr- r'eported riiissirig in the UK and. of those, thousands ~ (:ornrnonly young men siinply vanish.
This programme track, two of the individuals who have chosen to give up on their lives. Middle aged Phil walked out on a secure home life and successful business to severe depression and ended up on the streets of london .vhile Glaswegian Margaret attempts to locate liei partner. rnissing fora year.
The stones here are incredibly moving, the protagonists providing frank inSight into why certain people choose to remove tI'ieinseres from their own lives. as well as the devastating effects these puzzle» WithOutsolution have en those they leave behind, (Allan Radcliffe)
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