www.list.co.uklfilm
{ff/r Jl/ifti' l WP / OPERATION VALKYRIE
(E) 76min
l/«llCIlOf B51, DVD “:iiiil ...
7.4.-«r‘f',
.'K-.’A‘£
Just when you thought it was safe to dispel the image of an eye patrhed Tom Cruise from your mind; here coriies the documentary story of the doomed plot to kill Hitler in ISM-1. Set to an rna;iproprrately throbbing soundtrack whirh could best be described as '90s trance-porn' and Virtually ruined by its gravelly American voiceoyer (a Ken Branagh or Ralph Frennes nrrght have worked better). this mixed bag of a documentary crams together some irritating (XSI. bland reconstructioris. excellent archive footage and intriguing talking head stuff from historians Ian Kershaw and Roger lvloorhouse. A wealth of extras includes Eva Braun's saucy yet Silent holiday frlms (you get to see Hitler do that camp Irttle dance tWrcel. footage of the show trials that followed the failed assassination and an analysis of the other inside attempts to rid Germany and the world of the Nazr demon. (Brian Donaldsonl
DRAMA
FIRST LOVE: THE LITTER ON THE BREEZE (15) 92min
(ArtifiCial Eye DVD retail‘i O.
Produced by Wong Kar- war. and shot by hrs cameraman Chris Doyle. this doesn't even pretend to pay much more than mere homage to the Hong Kong maestro. It's a self conscious and self- reflexrve take on filmmaker Erik Kot's attempt to make a movie. which after some
FIRST LOVE:
LITTER ON THE mu
v :--r‘r-f‘~* o
false starts ends up settling on two stories Ilie first between a garbage man and a pretty young sleeps/alker. the second. about a married local shop owner whose ex comes back on the scene. E‘~./eryli(i(l\,' knows that Wong Kare .‘xai's frlms are often hapha/ard. rmprovrsatory affairs. but there is an organising intelligence that gives shape to the apparently disparate. even trrvral. Here the offbeat details like characters being 1.13cm away from each other seem twee rather than telling as the film arrives at the exhaustrngly Irrelevant. Minimal extras.
(Tony McKrbbrnl
IIIRILLER DRIFTWOOD (15) 86min lAnchor Bay DVD rental/retail) COO
Wrestling man mountain Diamond Dallas Page might not seem like the kind of brute youd want to mess wrth. but in films like Driftwood. the big guy always falls that bit harder. And in this movie Goliath is taken on by little Davrd Forrester (Ricky Ullmanl wrth the action taking place inside a readjustment centre for naughty ruvenrle boys. Having given his folks one problem too many in the wake of hrs brother's death. they decrde that a spell inside Driftwood might do their boy some good. but little do they know that a regime of terror awaits
. f‘hqf‘? ll“
T"€: (1'12‘9‘.
Da. ’1
A far“, pre'iictat; e r’i't p .'.'tn we”, pen (iii-ti'l("8(“.7i"‘:fs ‘omtagu a't or‘g the DJD ext'as which 8 mass chilling Titan it trirrik;, it is but just atout keeps the interest huhhlmg until its ‘.'i:ngeful, frat-pumping finale. iBriai‘. [Donaldsini
CRIME, Ali/l N I «JRL BOASEI FEMALE PRISONER SCORPION TRILOGY
(18) 266mm (Eureka DVD retarli O...
No one makes films lrke the Japanese filmmaker Shunya Ito. and hrs early 1970s exploitation film trilogy about the travarls of a sexy young female prisoner tvIaISu lMerko Kajll are very likely to be hrs abrdrng legacy. in the West at least. It was to these films that Quentin Iarantrno looked for the overt iconography, freeform fernrnrsm and use of music that rnforms hrs K/// B/// films.
Perverse. vrolent. hallucmatory and Just plarn odd. this collection is a necessary purchase for anyone interested in cult Cinema. especrally those frlms that came out of the land of the rising Sun in the 1970s la seminal era for Cult Japanese thrillers and pornography). This cherishable set comes with a colour insert featurrng a new essay on these films by Scottish reSrdent and cult film distribution guru Matt Palmer.
(Paul Dalel
DRAMA INCENDIARY (15) 96min iOptrmum DVD retaill O.
The tale of a guilt-ridden mother losrng her young son and husband to a surcrde bomb attack should make fOr
PLAYLIST
In tune with the arrival of Nicolas Cage's latest 'I-can-see-the-future' drama Knowing at our cinemas, this month's PlayLisf offers to take you back to the future. or at least the retro-tinged visions of the future created to exploit the common anxieties ordinary people felt during the last great time of cultural
crises, the 1970s
Narrated and fronted by no-less-a-man than the late. great Orson Welles. Future Shock (tinyurl.corn/3a2wsn) is a documentary made in 1972 from a popular work of speculation by author Alvin Toffler, who conjectures about the potentially negative effects of cultural change. Welles further speculates how such accelerating times might affect our personal health, although the way he's chewing on a cigar the size of a guinea pig suggests that he's not too seriously concerned. Future Shock‘s hit-and-miss illustrations of what our 21 st century life might be like includes same-sex marriages. the trend- setting fashion of having a bright blue-pigmented face and various concerns about eugenics which still make sense today.
Future Shook‘s charm comes from its naivety; today's hindsight makes high comedy of its attempts to second guess our future.
Welles was a skilled documentary filmmaker himself, who appeared in such doom-laden productions to raise funds for his own superior work. such as F For Fake (tinyurl.com/chrcg2). But in terms of crazy prophecies. Welles raised the bar even further in 1981 with The Man Who Saw Tomorrow (tinyurl.com/d4vmuz), in which the great showman attempts to re-interpret Nostradamus to make a few bucks. In this film, Welles confidently announces that Ted Kennedy will become president by 1984. and generally fails to nail down within the Sphere of contemporary politics the famously vague quatrains of the ancient prophet. Yet oddly. The Man Who Saw Tomorrow's director Robert Guenette does considerably better than his corpulent star in this respect; where Welles waffles on about 'deluges and great winds'. Guenette and The Men Who Saw Tomorrow's special effects guys pretty much hand Nostradamus his ass on a plate by accurately envisioning a turn of the century attack on New York's skyscrapers masterminded by a turbaned leader (tinyurl.com/cf3b3a). Compared to the bleak imaginings created by Welles and his fellow filmmakers, the future we're living in circa 2009 is so bright; we really ought to be wearing shades.
(Eddie Harrison)
unbearably emotiona: vrewrng. Instead. it's more likely you'll be watching through yOur hands on acCOunt of the ham~fisted approach and cack-handed delivery of most COncerned. Maybe that's Simply what happens when you put such senSitive material into the hands of the director who brought us Bridget Jones' Diary.
DVD extras are limited to interviews wrth cast.
2.2
crew and Cling Creme. the author of the angular fifJ'.’(:I, MUST 01 Nit-8‘: are done tz’istefuil,’ enough iii a studio settirg Exxari li/lr,Gregor conducts riig chat Olll‘glflf: Hill: F1 massue car iii the background. going the impressicr. that he couidri't .‘rait to get this over and done .vitli so he could .vhrzz off on his next crazy road trip ‘Briarr Donaldson.
‘i Ap' 222’: THE LIST 57