The Killing of America

Released on DVD and Blu-ray by, The Killing of America is a film from the early 1980s that is being re-issued and is a prescient and telling documentary of it's own era and sends a shocking message about the problem America has with it's history of gun violence from presidential assassinations to race crimes with black on white crimes and vice versa.

The film uses a wealth of archive and newsreel footage to tell the history of the gun in America beginning with the shooting of John F. Kennedy on November 22nd 1963 in Dallas, Texas.  The film then goes to voyages past every major assassination both successful and unsuccessful from Martin Luther King Jr. and Bobby Kennedy to George Wallace and Ronald Reagan.

The film utilises an authoritative voiceover by Chuck Riley full of foreboding that does not attempt to provide answers nor sway the audience to follow a politicised agenda. The document simply wants to provide you with the (albeit shocking) evidence and you make up your own mind.

Huge credit should go to directors Sheldon Renan and Leonard Scharder, who had the vision in 1981 to foresee the dark road that their homeland was travelling down. We all remember Michael Moore's acclaimed Bowling for Columbine, and yet whilst that film made reference to gun violence and its influences, it nevertheless had an explicit political message at the heart of the film.

Yet in Killing of America you have killers kill random strangers because they feel bad for having killed a loved one, a killer say he wanted to be known and famous, Shiran Shiran killed Bobby Kennedy to free Palestine. The use of the Riley narration means you listen to his facts - such as gun purchases quadrupling following the JFK killing.

The combination of superbly edited sequences especially the memorable showdown involving John R. Hopkins who held a newsroom hostage combined with the startling facts make for a gripping and at times hard to watch experience, which nevertheless is a very important one that should be seen by all.

The Killing of America is on Blu-ray/DVD from Monday 31st October

Special features include:
Audio commentary with Sheldon Renan, Interview, 'The Madness is Real' with Sheldon Renan, 'Cutting the Killing', an interview with editor Lee Perry

Stop Making Sense

STOP MAKING SENSE (Jonathan Demme, US, 1985)

Celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, the seminal concert movie Stop Making Sense filmed at Patanges Theatre, Hollywood in December 1983, the film is released by Second Sight on DVD and Blu-ray on 16th November.

Conceived by front man David Byrne, the film begins with him entering the stage with a boom box and a guitar. He presses play, and begins a stripped back acoustic performance of Psycho Killer. Afterwards, one by one a member of the Talking Heads come to join him onstage as they play through their remarkable back catalogue.

Embracing the greatest of Hollywood musical conventions - let's put on a show in a barn - the concert starts with the hero alone performing and then one by one the troupe emerge to join him and embrace what he is doing. Byrne realises that the gig is one of of momentum and upwards to a crescendo, starting with slow songs and as the band gets bigger the sound gets bigger.

Rightly, this film is heralded as one of the great concert movies of all time. Oddly, there is another 1980s concert film in any list, that of Prince’s Sign O’ The Times from 1987, and in part you can see the influence of this film upon the purple wonder.

Gone are the silly backstage documentary and instead there is a determined focus on the performance and the performers.  If you have a front man, as intelligent as Byrne or as magnetic as Prince, who can hold the attention of an audience through any solo or dance number, backstage footage is redundant and unnecessary. In part, the dominance and ubiquity of Prince in the early 1980s has an influence on Talking Heads’ live performance.

The influx of funk and soul is epitomised by the cover of Al Green’s Take Me to the River, and the introduction of Tom Tom Club’s Genius of Love with the hip hop jam along with the shout out to James Brown makes sense and gives credence  to wearing your influences proudly due to the attempted band choreography and in unison harmonies.

There is an overriding sense of euphoria and joy in the concert from the performers across the board. It is helped by having in Byrne, a wonderful leading performance both artistically and vocally.

Byrne channels the great silent comedy performers of Keaton and Chaplin when he does his dance asides such as with the lampshade during This Must Be The Place, like Chaplin’s potato dance in The Gold Rush, it is seemingly a throwaway moment that is both special and hypnotic. Tellingly, during the same song the back projection behind the band has imagery on to it, was this the first time a band put up imagery as they played live making it a multi-platform event, check out U2’s Rattle and Hum for further evidence and influence.

Director Demme proves a useful foil for Byrne eliciting differing moods for certain songs from the
athletic Life During Wartime to the fear and horror of What a Day That Was, where the lighting of Byrne’s face paints him as a pastor giving a deranged sermon, earmarking his own Academy award winning work on Silence of the Lambs eight years later.

The film is not only the vanguard of filmed concert movies, it is a touchstone of influence and ideas. It remains seminal and memorable.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 40th Anniversary

In celebration of the 40th anniversary of the film's original theatrical release, Second Sight is proud to release The Texas Chainsaw Massacre on Blu-ray in a stunning 4K restoration and 7.1 audio mix, making the film look and sound like never before.

The film is widely considered to be one of the finest horror films ever made and the infamy of the film's release, where it was banned in certain sections of America, has not diminished in recent years.

Directed by Tobe Hooper, who does so with great visual panache and integrity, it remains a wonder why Hooper did never become the bigger director this film promised, and instead became reliant upon working for people he influenced such as Steven Spielberg.

The film is the atypical horror movie sharing the generic conventions that was initiated by Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho in 1960 - the final girl, the remote location, fear of the unknown and unknowing stranger who thinks he is normal and audience intrigue, and dare we say empathy, for the villain.

Leatherface was quite probably the first iconic horror character, a forerunner for Michael Myers, Freddie Kruger, Pinhead and others. The iconography of this masked villain and the image of him twirling his trusted chainsaw in the setting Texas sun helped the film become a success; a success mirrored by a film released the previous year The Exorcist.

That film initiated the audiences apparent insatiable appetite for evil to appear on screen and the need to know more about evil intentions; the film like Psycho used supposed non-fiction material as basis for their screenplays. The legend of Ted Bundy is omnipresent over both pictures.

The film will be released as a two-disc limited edition Steelbook Blu-ray, with brand new artwork and stacked by brand new bonus features, a standard two-disc Blu-ray with reversible sleeve featuring new artwork and original US poster. All will be available from 17th November.

Features include new audio commentary with Tobe Hooper along with three other commentaries featuring among others Gunnar Hansen who played Leatherface. Numerous documentaries, deleted scenes, outtakes also feature.

The Texas Chainsaw Massacre still maintains the power to shock, disturb and horrify. The chance to see it in the best restorated version ever is one not to be missed, not just for horror film aficionados but for those interested in the history and power of the motion picture.

Two disc Limited Edition Steelbook Blu-ray £22.99
Two disc Standard Edition Blu-ray £19.99

www.secondsightfilms.co.uk

Follow me @NextToTheAisle 

Penthouse North

 

Out on DVD from 3rd February, Penthouse North is a slicker than usual B-movie film that tells the story of a blind woman who does not know the truth about her boyfriend and how they can afford such a great penthouse apartment in New York City.

The action takes place over one New Years Eve night and our heroine played with great finesse by he beautiful Michelle Monaghan (Mission Impossible 3 and Source Code) as Sara, a war photographer coming to terms with the loss of her vision.  On NYE in NYC she runs some errands, comes home and realises there is an intruder in her home, Chad (Barry Sloane).  Her ailment obviously makes her unaware until she comes across her dead boyfriend; this is a wonderful scene as she walks round the prone body and only comes aware of his fate when she slips in a pool of his blood.

Sara overcomes Chad and escapes her building and when seeking help she encounters the charming Hollander played by Michael Keaton (who appears in Robocop out this Friday). However, after a brief period of calm we realise Chad and Hollander are in cahoots.

Exposition allows the criminals to explain they are after cash and diamonds, meaning they trash the place and hope the disposable boyfriend had told Sara where the money is situated in the flat.  The film then descends into a cat and mouse game between the blind girl and the two criminals.  We get the criminals descend into madness as they try to one-up each other.

The discovery of the diamonds is handled with great aplomb in one of the few original moments of the film.  That is he unfortunate nature of the screenplay, try as the capable actors do to elevate their one-dimensional characters.

However, due to the vulnerability of Sara you sense no harm will come onto her from Hollander.  The films conclusion harkens back to the days of Alfred Hitchcock Presents.. as the heroine gets the rewards and the spoils.

Whilst this is a B movie, it is a gripping serviceable affair and seeing Keaton on the screen is always a pleasure.

Penthouse North is out on DVD from Image Entertainment now for £12.99 on DVD and £15.99 Blu-Ray

Les Enfants du Paradis

Originally released in 1945 at the tail end of the Second World War whilst Paris was still burning, Marcel Carne's film Les Enfants du Paradis is considered one of the greatest if not the most notable French film of all time, in the same vein and scale as Hollywood's Gone With The Wind from six years previously.

It is a rare slice of art house cinema from the French 1940s and tells the story of Parisian courtesan Garance (Arletty) and the four men who are in love with her - an aristocrat, a thief, an actor and a mime - based upon actual larger than life people from the 1820s and 1830s, where the film is based.

Carne originally released the film into two parts - beating Harry Potter and Twilight by 70 years - Boulevard du Crime and L'Homme Blanc.  As Paris was still under Nazi occupation, Carne attempted to get past censors by splitting the film in two, and then restore the film to its original length once the war was over.

It is important to understand and appreciate the lengths Carne went to in his production.  The sheer scale of the film in terms of extras, production, costume and art direction is immense and to consider that this film was done under enormous levels of oppression is all the more staggering when you see the final results.

The script written by Carne and in collaboration with Jacques Prevert, a surrealist poet is indicative of the input.  The film feels like one long poem visually and sonically due to the sumptuous score by Joseph Korma.  Carne's vision of Paris is a romantic notion of fonder times and persuasions.  The fact that the film was made shows the defiant French backbone which withstood the Nazi invasion.

Whilst the film is at times a bum-numbing 190 minutes, it does suffer from a pacing issue after all the main male characters are introduced; but the richness of the production wins out in the end, rewarding those who do stick it out.

Carne mixes all form of cinema and artistry; great soundtrack, wonderful acting with piercing dialogue and even mime performed by Baptiste (Jean-Louis Barrault), especially in one of the opening scenes when he performs a sequence to save Garance from a wrongful accusation of theft by a buffoon.  The scene is not rushed and allowed to gestate, to the benefit of all in view. We watch the mime, the audience in the square watch him, all are transfixed.

Carne would continue directing into the 1980s absorbing the bashing of La Nouvelle Vague, yet he would never hit the same heights of Les Enfants du Paradis - a wonderful and breathless love letter to Paris and France, when it most needed it.

Les Enfants du Paradis is released on two-disc DVD or Blu-ray by Second Sight Films on Monday 17th September.
My thanks to Aim Publicity for the check disc.

The Doom Generation

Released today on DVD is Gregg Araki's 1995 teenage road movie The Doom Generation starring Rose McGowan, James Duval and Jonathon Schaech.

Following in the footsteps of Natural Born Killers and Kalifornia, the film follows would be femme fatale Amy Blue (McGowan) with her doe-eyed boyfriend Jordan White (Duval), who get wound up with a psychopath Xavier Red (Schaech), who kills people and end up as accomplices on a road trip from hell across the Californian state highways.

Araki, is a huge film fan, but a director who in spite of his ability has never had the huge crossover hit, and watching this film you can see why.  Araki sometimes has too many ideas going on at one time, or he has too many influences running through his head and the wish to embrace and appraise said influences sometimes does a disservice to the film as a whole.

Not to say it is bad for end of the millenium directors to have influences, yet Araki does join Tarantino and Eli Roth as directors who cut and paste films based on their film viewing without having a distinctive authorial voice.  Whilst Tarantino has the uncanny ability to whip out five pages of memorable dialogue, this foregoes the lack of visual flair; and Roth falls back on the ability of shock and awe to enhance his failure to write good dialogue.

Araki has the ability to have his finger on the pulse of an ever-changing youth culture; when we first encounter Jordan and Amy it is whilst Jordan is in a moshpit and Amy is telling some guy to f off who asks her for some drugs. 

Yet you never get the impression that these drifters are apparently drifting, or they will eventually drift back to normality once Xavier is out of their lives.  Araki's penchant for a mixture of sexual exploration for the characters, combined with a healthy dose of gore does go hand in hand - in recent films post-Millenium, Araki has explored the notion of sexual politics in the youth culture from both hetero- and homosexual stances, as he did in Kaboom (2010).

This does not make the film Doom Generation, a bad one there are enough to keep you interested and it does have some great set pieces of violence in the vein of Stone's masterpiece, Natural Born Killers, yet it is very much a case of a director trying to do too much in a very short space of time.  Whereas those killers were very violent and knew that they were inherently evil, these ones are a little too reflexive and unaware of their actions.

The Doom Generation is out today from Second Sight Films courtesy of Aim Publicity

Blood in the Mobile

Frank Poulsen's probing documentary firstly asks the viewer a question, 'Did you know that the minerals used in the manufacture of mobile phones, come through blood and conflict in war-torn Congo?'

Poulsen is an engaging director and person to follow on his escapades of visiting the Congo, meeting people who know where to find the mineral mines where the work is carried out.  Poulsen envisages see the mines being worked on by proud young men who are unwise to what they are doing the work for, nor the billions of profit companies like Nokia make on the back of their hard work. 

The horror of the conflict is only brought sharply into focus when Poulsen discovers that most of the work is being done by young under-age children in a form of 21st century slavery in mines that are dangerous governed with little or no health and safety regulations.  There is usually a death every day in the mines, but unlike in Western civilisation there is no investigation or closure of the mine, the work continues.  And this same work funds the military action in these countries like Congo suffering civil conflict, warfare benefits from this work also.

The most frightening scene is when Poulsen goes into the mine himself and you see the cramped surroundings and witness how many people are working in such an unsafe and confined environment, men and children are clambering over one another with all in the name of profit.  One worker takes exception to Poulsen's camera and attempts to start a fight in the darkness.  Poulsen swiftly turns off his camera.

The Congo is really the second act or major part of the film, bookended by Poulsen attempting to gain answers from Nokia executives in terms of an actual on the record interview or statement.  Poulsen admits he is a Nokia user in his native Denmark, and considers not using a mobile when there is significantly blood on his hands and the companies'. 

Yet the deeper Poulsen goes in the more apparent he becomes to the fact that Nokia like other companies are not likely to change their ways.  It is only a business, and the demand far outweighs the resentment and criticism of what is going on in the African countries.  Phone companies are attempting to educate consumers about where materials do come from, and yet this attempted transparency will probably fall on deaf ears. 

Poulsen acts the eternal optimist rather well as our guide on his journey, and it is this viewpoint of consideration that holds the documentary in good stead throughout - borrowing the same docu-DNA as Michael Moore and Nick Broomfield; politically astute and intellectually accurate in his questioning of executives, he avoids showboating like Moore and instead lets his images and interviewees do the talking for him to make the point.

In the conclusion though, Poulsen should be proud of the document he has directed in raising awareness of an issue that has flown way under the radar.  But unless the phone companies receive a huge public outcry it is unlikely they will change their sourcing of materials in the near future.

Whilst not as entertaining as other documentaries in recent years due to the serious subject matter and political statement, this is nevertheless a well-grounded article that will open your eyes to problems in the wider world.

Blood in the Mobile is released from Dogwoof Pictures on Friday 21st October at selected cinemas and is receiving a week long run at the Empire Cinema, Leicester Square

Everywhere and Nowhere DVD review

The director of Kidulthood, Menhaj Huda, returns with a self-scripted movie for Everywhere and Nowhere; the story of Ash (James Floyd) who is a young Asian and is torn between his family values of tradition and his own dreams of becoming a DJ.

The film boasts a stong cast of well known faces who will be able to garner your attention; James Buckley (Jay from the Inbetweeners), Art Malik, Simon Webbe (from boyband Blue) and the exciting young talent of Adam Deacon from the hilarious Anuvahood.

The plotline of Ash living a double life of keeping the family happy by day, whilst partying at night doing all very un-Muslim things smacks of the storyline of East is East; British Asians torn between the old world and the westernised culture they have grown up in.

The scenes of Ash and friends in the nightclub are quite authentic giving a rawness and the joie de vivre of youth thriving doing what they like; it is a shame that the same passion is not apparent in the more family dominated scenes when a cut and thrust might have been better found in a swifter edit.

The soundtrack featuring underground artists like Sukh Knight and Engine-EarZ does bounce and feed the nightclub scenes some credibility, you just wish better care and attention was given to the domesticated scenes.

But whereas Damien O'Donnell's seminal 1999 picture was made with funny bones in mind, the need to overplay the melodrama does a disservice to the work of Floyd and Deacon who are good in their roles along with the ever-reliable Malik.

Everywhere and Nowhere is released from Icon Entertainment on Monday 3rd October on DVD for £12.99 and should sell well on the coattails of Adulthood and Four Lions.

The DVD features the cast talking about personal experiences, a music feature and interviews with Huda, Floyd and Deacon.

My Voyage to Italy - DVD review

Martin Scorsese narrates and presents a personal voyage through the history of Italian cinema, which had a huge influence on his life from an early age when watching it on his small television in New York when growing up, to the huge impact it has had on his esteemable career.

Featuring excerpts from many filmmakers he had enjoyed immensely; the neo-realism of De Sica and Rossellini, the surrealism of Fellini and the groundbreaking Antonioni.

The documentary is an epic in its own right, running to a mammoth 246 minutes (4 hours) of footage.  The only downside is the inserted images of Scorsese himself; he looks like a gangster standing atop a building in Little Italy, but the black and white camerawork, itself a nod to the monochrome beauty of the Italian cinema.  Yet there is a strange melancholy about the scenes of Scorsese, as if he is an omnipresent movie savant - in some quarters he is but unfortunately the scenes can be deemed a bit eerie.

What cannot be mistaken though, is the passion and enthusiasm of Scorsese's thirst to share his joy of these films with the masses.  You can put on retrospectives and write it in books, but sometimes putting yourself on camera makes for a more convincing argument, his empassioned narration further does justice to the debt Scorsese and many of his contemporaries (Coppola especially) owe these Italian masters.

The DVD 'Voyage to Italy' is out on September 26th, and has a recommended RRP of £14.99 from the good people at Mr. Bongo Films

The Round-Up DVD review

Directed by Roselyne Bosch, The Round Up is a faithful retelling of the events of July 1942 when more than 13,000 Parisian Jews (including 4,000 children) were rounded up and taken to the now notorious Velodrome d'Hiver sports stadium, by the Nazis in a then form of ethnic cleansing.

Based on meticulous research and the individual accounts of those who witnessed the events and survived them, the construction of the narrative is based around certain strands that come together to the Velodrome.  We follow Schmuel Weissman (Gad Elmaleh), a noble gentleman who is also a war veteran and is the intelligent one of the group who can speak for everyone with calmness against the Nazis. 

Jean Reno plays Jewish doctor David Schlenbaum, assisted by Protestant nurse Annette (Melanie Laurent), in caring for the 13,000 Jews crammed into the tiny stadium with little water and no food.  The first time we witness the full extent of the horror at the Velodrome we see it through the eyes of Annette - it is played with a choral singing over the wails of people and the noise of masses spilling onto each other.  Part mass crowd, part CGI the sight is horrifying and haunting for the soul.

Cleverly shot are the scenes of the round-up itself, played for naturalism with effective acting and editing, you are left in no doubt at to how unfortunate and frightening it must have been to be evicted from your family home all on account of your ethnicity.

What the film does tell you, and is quite critical of is the French government who allowed the round-up to take place so that the French police could patrol the capital city themselves, in a way they gave up the French Jews and made a deal with the devil.  In that instance, it is surprising that this story has taken so long to reach the screen - perhaps in part due to the delicate satirical nature of the material or maybe in part due to the fact that children were hoarded onto the trains to their deaths along with adults.

When watching the Holocaust films of recent years (The Pianist, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas) you get a sense that maybe the Nazis could have had some humanity, but the detail of killing children also makes it hard to believe.  Another factor may also be the sheer fatalism of such a film, where the ending is pre-determined and no matter how benevolent a nurse is, she alone cannot stop the rampaging tyrannical force of Nazi Germany.

The problem also with Holocaust films is that after Schindler's List, a lot of films pale in significance, whilst this is a fabulous story in need of a larger audience (already more than 3million people in France have seen the film) and the box-office records in France suggest it may travel well; you get a sense that it would be better served in schools as an educational tool.

That is not to discredit the sterling acting from an experienced cast including the stellar child actors, along with the esteemable art direction from Olivier Raoux and costumes by Gilles Bodu-Lemoine; the film works well as both a political comment on a dark moment in French history, and a wonderful production in current French cinema.

The Round-Up (La Rafle) is released on Monday 18th July by Revolver Entertainment on DVD and Blu-Ray

The Kingdom - DVD review

Following his outlandish outbursts at this year's Cannes Film Festival, and the prevailing awards for Kirsten Dunst, it seems almost fitting that Lars Von Trier cannot escape our conscious.  His most original television work The Kingdom (Riget) is released on Monday 4th July by Second Sight Films for the first time in DVD format, in a four disc set in their original broadcast version.

Based in the labyrinthe hospital and primarily the neurosurgical ward of Copenhagen's Rigshospitalet; the televison drama follows the buzz word chief of staff; a Swedish surgeon who bemoans the fact that in Denmark doctors and patients must share the same lift.  As the show progresses, staff and patients encounter more and more weird phenomena both physically and supernaturally, whilst two dishwashers with Down's syndrome discuss the proceedings like a modern day Greek chorus.

A few years back, Von Trier, probably the most overtly criticised director of this age, was labelled anti-American for his depiction of small town America in Dogville; after viewing The Kingdom it can be seen that Von Trier is indebted to strands of both American film and television from the late 1980s and early 1990s.  Influences ranging from Hill Street Blues, Homocide, St.Elsewhere, ER, Twin Peaks and most of the David Lynch oeuvre are all apparent in this production.

The oft-kilter angled camerawork is deliberate in disrupting the viewers equilibrium and hence makes it easier to catch the viewer off balance with the shock tactics.  Images are displayed in sepia tones, giving you a feel of a bygone age or a feel of a documentary programme.

The show was initially done in a four part series in 1994, with a later sequel in 1997, with the hope of a third part to complete the trilogy but unfortunately deaths to several key cast members especially Ernst-Hugo Järegård (who played Stig Helmer) in 1998 and the subsequent deaths of Kirsten Rolffes (Mrs Drusse) and Morten Rotne Leffers (one of the dishwashers) put those ideas on ice.  In America, the show was released as a 4 1/2 hour long film which makes the whole experience both gripping and compelling.  This DVD should not be confused with Stephen King's Kingdom Hospital which was both lamentable and labourious when broadcast in 2004, featuring a giant anteater (as you do).

The first episode does take a while to get going, as the office politics involving the high profile Helmer versus the staff who are combating him at every turn, make you feel like you are watching just another hospital drama, but the introduction of the deluded Mrs. Drusse soon starts things up and the supernatural occurences.  Von Trier (along with co-director Morten Arnfred) do not go out of their way to scare, instead the sinister edge and feel are indicative to building up suspense and save set pieces for the final episodes with powerful sequences featuring gory surgical procedures, a neurosurgeon being impregnated by a ghost, black market dealings for organs and an ambulance that appears day and night.

At times very scary and full of gore; at other times blackly comic in its humour - this DVD will be worth watching for aficionados and new fans, allowing the televisual work to be worthy of comparison to Von Trier's more illustrious and renowned cinematic work.

The special features include a portrait of Von Trier, a behind the scenes featurette, commericals directed by Von Trier and special commentaries.  With a running time of 537 minutes with English subtitles, available at £39.99RRP from Second Sight Films.

My thanks to Aim Publicity for the chance to review this title, follow them on twitter @AimPublicity

Ghosted - DVD review

Directed by Craig Viveiros, in his first feature production as writer and director, Ghosted is a hard hitting prison set drama featuring an array of British male acting talent.

Jack (John Lynch) is a model prisoner and wants to remain anonymous and keep his nose clean, however, on the anniversary of his son's death Jack is dealt a tragic blow when his wife ends their marriage.  Amongst the prison mayhem, is young Paul (Martin Compston) who is riding with the psychotic 'Baron' Clay (Craig Parkinson).  Feeling parental after losing his son, Jack decides to take Paul under his wing and save him from a life of damage that will happen if Paul stays with Baron.

A tough uncompromising portrayal of prison life featuring some fine performances from a strong ensemble.  Compston, who first came to attention in Ken Loach's Sweet Sixteen has always had a great presence and is slowly growing into a very mature adult performer.  Whilst Parkinson (last seen in Brighton Rock) has a real swaggering menace to him, talking softly with the ability to switch quickly with a look or word.

Whilst the performances are gripping and expected from the cast; the dialogue at times does seem a bit contrived in places - perhaps that is the fault of the generic conventions of prison films.  Good guys look soft in prison compared to the pure evilness of the bad guys, who are in prison for a reason. 

This is not to do Viveiros a total disservice; the photography is a winner picking up all the burden of prison life on the prisoner's faces and the fight scenes do lend themselves a real viscerality in their brutal rendering.

However, with all prison films the ending comes far too soon where we are left with no answers to some questions left hanging in the air.

Ghosted is out in cinemas now and released on DVD on Monday 27th June by Revolver Entertainment for £12.99RRP

Click here for the trailer.
Follow the film at Facebook here
Follow Aim Publicity on twitter @AimPublicity and Revolver Entertainment @Revolveruk

The Warrior and the Wolf -DVD review

Asian cinema has enjoyed a renaissance of sorts due to the global acclaim of such titles as Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and House of Flying Daggers.

However, for every Hero there are those titles that flatter to deceive, films that mean well but lack the execution to succeed when the endeavour is clear on screen.

Based on a short story by the prolific Japanese writer Yasushi Inoue, The Warrior and the Wolf tells the story of the Han Emperor who sent his army to the far Western border of China.  In order to subdue rebellious tribes, and a land full of wolves, the army would have to endure harsh winters in the Gobi desert. After much bloodshed, Commander Lu and his men give up and begin a retreat.

Trapped by a blizzard, Lu (Joe Odagiri) commandeers a shack and finds a beautiful Harran widow (Maggie Q) who become embroiled a passionate affair.

Whilst the film is shot beautifully in the widescreen along with stunning battle scenes, the film in other areas feels lacklustre.  The affair whilst full of passion, borders on rape as Lu becomes a wolf after much contact with them, as the widow clearly is not enjoying herself.  It leaves an odd feeling in the mouth, and whilst the battle scenes are the only element of redeemable execution, it pales in comparison with recent work of 13 Assassins.

Directed by Tian Zhuangzhuang who had directed The Blue Kite, the expectation must have been high for a film of this calibre, along with the cast assembled, more a chance missed on this occasion.

The Warrior and the Wolf is released Monday 30th May from Universal indi Vision, priced £15.99(DVD) and £19.99 (Blu-Ray)