www.list.co.uk/film
SCI-Fl/ADVENTURE FLASH GORDON (PG) 106min
(Optimum DVD retail) COO.
Given director Mike Hodges once admitted to an Edinburgh International Film Festival audience that his 1980 blockbuster version of Alex Raymond's comic strip was made up as he went along, it's all the more incredible that it's an immaculately conceived. gloriously executed, kitsch science fiction adventure. And re- watching it now. what's immediately striking — in addition to the thrilling set-pieces. camp rock soundtrack by Queen. and scenery-Chewing performances from a terrific cast that includes Max Von Sydow as Ming the Merciless. Topol as Dr Zarkov and Brian Blessed as Prince Vultan — is what a filthy film it is. So very ripe with sexual innuendo is this Flash Gordon, it negates the pornographic Flesh Gordon made six years earlier.
Under ‘interrogation' by her own imperious father. Ornella Muti‘s super hot Princess Aura screams half in pleasure. “No! Not the bore worms!‘ Yes! And Sam Jones' hunky Flash spearing Ming with his big red space rocket! Altogether now: ‘Flash! Ah-ah! Saviour of the universe!’ No extras. (Miles Fielder)
apartments'.
THRILLER
A COMEDY OF POWER
(PG) 110min
(ICA DVD retail) 0..
Veteran French filmmaker Claude Chabrol takes on the story of magistrate Eva Joly‘s ceaseless investigation into France's leading oil company Elf Aquitaine. The inquiry led to a national scandal in 1994 which The Guardian newspaper described as ‘the biggest fraud inquiry in Europe since the Second World War . . . Elf became a private bank for executives who spent $200 million on political favours. mistresses. jewellery. fine art, villas and
In her seventh collaboration with Chabrol, Isabelle Huppert takes on the role of Judge Jeanne Charmant Killman. assigned the job of investigating a high- profile case involving embezzlement at a giant state-supported company. Inevitably her investigation leads her to the upper echelons of government. Killman
is given new and greater
powers with each new discovery but her new- found influence and notoriety go to her head
and private life begins to
unravel as a result. Chabrol's low-key exercise in portraying the intricacies of corporate legalese in an interesting and thrilling
Flash Gordon
way is greatly helped by Huppert's consummate. tightly-wound performance as a woman in the intoxicating grip of newfound power. Though difficult to follow at times there is no denying Chabrol and screenwriter Odile Barski‘s commitment to laying bare the unbearable truths of France's wealthy classes. Minimal extras. (Paul Dale)
DRAMA
THE LONG DAY CLOSES
(PG) 81 min
(BFI DVD retail) 0000.
Following on from the recent releases of The Terence Davies Trilogy and Distant Voices. Still Life comes the arrival on DVD of what Davies loosely described as the third and final part of an autobiographical series of films. Detailing the travails and traumas of Liverpool schoolboy Bud (Leigh McCormack) in the 19508, The Long Day Closes is a slow- paced but rich and evocative portrait of a childhood and adolescence mired by the Catholic guilt and poverty. More so than any director before him, Davies successfully accesses the dream-like qualities of the films of Jeans Cocteau and Vigo to painfully extemporise on the creation of a self- loathing homosexual. Forget Four Weddings and a Funeral this heartbreaking film is one of the key British films of the 19908.
THE LONG DAY CLOSES
A
Extras include commentaries from Davies and DoP Mick Coulter. an on-set interview with production designer Christopher Hobbs. behind the scenes footage and a fully illustrated booklet. (Paul Dale)
www.list.co.uk/tv
DOCUMENTARY CAR BOMB
Channel 4, Sun 3 Aug, 7pm «00
Reviews TV
The scary question posed at the end of this two-part documentary is ‘will we ever see an end to the car bomb?’ The answer is a resounding ‘no’, not unless we ditch our motors for good and walk everywhere. Even then, we’d probably only see a proliferation in the suicide bomber. Having worked on the ground for the CIA in the Lebanon, India and Iraq Robert Baer is well versed in the terrors unleashed by explosives strapped to a vehicle and activated through a timer or remote detonation.
In this second part he meets the IRA activists who brought horror to the streets of Belfast and London in the early 705. A compelling and terrifying analysis of this most deadly of terrorist weapons, it’s only let down by seemingly endless footage of a street scene followed by a massive fiery bang and Baer’s casual insistence that Timothy McVeigh acted alone in bringing Oklahoma City to its knees in 1995. (Brian Donaldson)
COMEDY THE KEVIN BISHOP SHOW Channel 4, Fri 1 Aug, 10pm 00
Like the mighty Bobby Davro. Kevin Bishop can do a fair old impersonation or two (his Jonathan Ross and Gary Lineker are awesome) but can't get
any material around
them to save his life.
j There have been boasts
made about this quickfire show cramming in a vast amount of sketches into its 25 minutes an episode airtime, but having utilised the
technique of an unseen
viewer channel hopping, this simply comes across as second-rate
Broken News. And
i especially-funny way, we
that‘s saying something. Along the not-
get Richard Branson in the not-so Secret Millionaire, Justin Lee Collins trying to reunite Dad ’8 Army, Gordon Ramsay having an actual nightmare about his kitchen and Grange Hill USA giving the Zammo junkie storyline a Stateside twist. Ultimately, the real baddie in all this is Channel 4 who. after Dom Joly and Leigh Francis, have once again punted another average comedic talent as the second coming. (Brian Donaldson)
DOCUMENTARY HIGHLAND EMERGENCY
Five, Tue 5 Aug, 7.30pm .00
One of the last places you'd want to find yourself stranded in the British Isles is up in the Highlands. If you thought any different you'll change your mind after watching the first instalment of this documentary series through your increasingly icy fingers as climbers get trapped on a narrow path with a sheer drop on either side as the darkness descends; a show-off skier dude snaps his leg mid-somersault; even a
70-year-old can fall over and dislocate his shoulder. All of this can only ever happen in the Highlands. it seems. The show follows the tireless work of the area's RAF Search and Rescue Team, the Stornoway Coastguards and the Cairngorm Mountain Ski Patrol. Rather than just let these events unfold on soreen in the calm,
almost serene manner in
which they took place. the makers have cranked up the soundtrack and cut between tales dramatically as though watching a pensioner sitting in agony at home is akin to Jack Bauer diving 200ft down off a burning skyscraper to strangle a terrorist who is about to detonate a nuclear device. Then again, on the remote island of Scarp, maybe it is. (Brian Donaldson)
31 Jul—7 Aug 2008 THI LIST 33