ACTION
WILD GEESE II (18) 125min (Optimum DVD retail)
O a:
If you're a man of a certain age. chances are The Wild Geese made a lamentably unPC impact
SUMMER HORROR
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on your youth. So too.
it's likely that you found your way to the sequel. seven years later in 1985, but you don‘t remember much about it. Here’s why: Peter Hunt's follow-up relocates to Berlin. and the ludicrous
proposition that a media .
network wants (still living, but moribund) Nazi war criminal Rudolph Hess
kidnapped for an
interview. Stone-faced automaton Scott Glenn and ridiculous shouty poshboy Edward Fox
3 get the job. and have to - compete with IRA men,
Palestinian terrorists (what have they got to complain about?) and rogue Ml6 men for the dubious honours. Poorly acted and risibly plotted. with strictly budgeted action sequences.and unhelped by a pick-up- the-cheque five-minute 'mittel European' cameo from Laurence Olivier as Hess. this piece leaves one wondering why Spandau Prison wasn‘t kept open to house those responsible for this glib. shameless travesty of the original. No extras. thank heavens. (Steve Cramer)
The Borrowers
First stop on our journey into the sinister world of horror is Arrow's new ‘Masters of Giallo‘ DVD imprint, launching with three decidedly depraved titles from a trio of Italian auteurs. Lamberto Bava’s Macabre (Arrow)
is a dark psychosexual study of obsession with a necrophilia slant
and a totally bizzaro ‘love it or hate it’ ending. Certainly not for the prudish. The House by the Cemetery (Arrow) see most coherent films. very much a riff on The Amityvi/le Horror but with shocking moments of Fulci’s trademark extreme gore. While Dario Argento returns to serial killer territory in sharp slasher Sleepless (Arrow Video)
ooo extras.
is one of Lucio Fulci's
. All come packaged with new art, posters and genuinely interesting
Next a double bill of frantic sci-fi splatter punk from Japan. Meat Ball
Machine (4Digital Asia) ooo
is an utterly insane mix of cult classic
Tetsuo and the most stupidly violent episode of Power Rangers you've never seen. Tokyo Gore Police (4Digital Asia) oooo gore is so excessive it takes on a manic cartoon-ish energy as Ruka (Eihi Shiina) plays the tough, violent cop cleansing the streets of a future Tokyo. The Burrowers (Lionsgate) oooo would be a decent western, with a particularly bleak take on the treatment of Native Americans, even if you removed the burrowing monsters. Just in time for The Ashes, the world's first cricket-themed horror comedy I Know How Many Runs You Scored
Last Summer (Anchor Bay) on entertaining. Dark Floors (Metrodome) ooo
lives up to its title; the
is utterly ridiculous but stupidly stars Eurovision rock
monsters Lordi in a surprisingly watchable haunted hospital movie. What would you do if you saw a caged woman in the back of a truck while
barrelling along the motorway? Hush (Optimum) coo
turns this intriguing
concept into a tense service-station-based slasher. Brazilian shocker The
Embodiment of Evil (Anchor Bay) ooo
marks the return (after 40
years) of diabolical undertaker Coffin Joe. And finally the fevered Bad
, while over-exaggerated (a story of two people whose sexual organs are so mutated their sexual partners invariably end up dead), is a shockingly honest look at sexual desire. It marks director Frank Henenlotter's first film since 1992, continuing themes of addiction and damaged but dependent relationships from his own Brain Damage and Basket Case. (Henry Northmore)
Biology (Revolver) m
58 THE LIST 9-23 Jul 2009
COMEDY/DRAMA FUNUKE snow some Love
YOU Losens
(15) 113min (Third Window Films DVD retail) ooo
.» o no on”. fine
A long-winded title for a film that ultimately runs out of puff. Funuke is at its best in the early stages. As a conceited struggling young actress comes back to her hometown after her parents’ death. Sumika (Sato Eriko) is as trapped in denial as she happens to be beautiful. And no matter if her talented comic- strip artist sister. Kiyomi (Aimi Satsukawa) is years before illustrated Sumika's vain ambitions. Sumika isn't one for self-analysis even when her sister confronts her with her obvious limitations. At its best there is a Takeshi Kitano aspect to the editing and framing, and director Yoshida Daihachi is clearly a director with style — the parents' accident is especially well-handled — but the stepbrothers wife's accident-proneness is far less wittily presented and the film never quite gives texture to sibling rivalry. Minimal extras. (Tony McKibbin)
SOCIAL REALISM ULTRA
(18) 87min (Drakes Avenue DVD retail) oooo
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Ricky Tognazzi's grim, but occasionally comical piece of social realism from 1990 might be seen as a fascinating insight into
the kind of empty nihilism that has led to so many years of Berlusconi in Italy.
In it. the lives of a group of Roma casuals are directed towards the only form of faith working folk have left: the next game. in this case versus Juventus. Prince (Claudio Amendola) has just been released from jail. and returns in time for the game. not seeming to realise that his friend Red (Ricky Memphis) has started a relationship with his girlfriend in the interim. The train to Turin and its violent aftermath marks out a journey that tells us as much about crushed aspiration and marginalisation as it does about the tryst at the centre. This is a powerful piece of film- making which helped to create the football hooligan subgenre. with a strange beauty in its urban and scrubland locations. Minimal extras.
(Steve Cramer)
COMEDY
FINE, TOTALLY FINE
(15) 110min
(Third Window Films DVD retail) 0..
ly fine
Less character-driven than character trait- driven. Yosuke Fujita's film follows three youngish incompetents as they try to make the best of their lives. all played charmingly by well-known young Japanese actors. There is Yosiyosi Arakawa's Teruo. the son of a second—hand bookshop owner who is constantly looking for ways to scare people with horror tricks; his shy and sensitive best friend Hisanobu (Okada): and Akari (Yoshino Kimura). a woman so maladroit. she drops a camera when a couple ask her to take a picture of
www.list.co.uk/fi|m
them. and breaks a finger pressing an elevator button. Like many a slacker film it revolves mainly around the one location: the bookshop that belongs to Teruo‘s dad. a hangoutvenue reminiscent of the convenience store in Clerks (or for hardcore US indie film fans. the video shop in Good Dick) and that here shelters the characters' sensitive souls. This is a light yet hardly meaningless comedy of compassion. Minimal extras.
(Tony McKibbin)
WAR
MAX MANUS: MAN OF WAR (15) 117 min (Revolver DVD retail) 0...
MN rm
This fact-based drama follows. somewhat in the manner of Black Book. the wartime experiences of the title character. a Norwegian resistance hero.
As genre films go. Max Marius doesn't wander far from tracks laid down for half a century. yet there's a quiet kind of tension in the telling. largely down to strong direction from Joachim Ronning and Espen Sandberg. There's a sturdy lead performance. too. from Aksel Hennie. whose resistance fighter loses his stability as a war in Finland. followed by a series of increasingly elaborate sabotages against German ordinance at home take their toll. The psychological collapse of Manus is at least as significant as the increasingly bloody action scenes. so the film keeps its human dimension. There's also a nice combined history and 'making of' documentary in the package. Bergen the question: can you afjbrd to miss it (ouch, sorry)? (Steve Cramer)