(Late) April, 2009

Auteur House Customers,

At time of writing - if not distribution - it is still the month of April.  I am back on track after a couple of late entries!

New Releases

April’s jewel in the crown is “Let the Right One In”, a horror film from Sweden that Bergman himself would be been proud to call his own.  Obvious, if favourable comparisons to “Twilight” and Stephen King have been made by overseas critics, but “Let the Right One In” is a unique and touching coming of age tale that only incidentally deals with vampires.  It made “Sight and Sound”’s top ten list for 2008 and you cannot get a much higher recommendation than that.

Less heralded yet interesting in its own right is the French science fiction effort “Chrysalis”.  Set in the near future, it puts a fresh spin on an old idea, with a plot involving a mad scientist attempting to resurrect his dead daughter. 

“The Signal” is from the same genre, if not on the same scale.  A low budget independent production, it is something of a satire on our media saturated age.  The influence of George A Romero can be felt in a story which sees the entire North American population overcome by an urge to kill one another, an impulse which has its origins in television and radio programmes.

Signals of a different kind take centre stage in “The Wave”, a German film based on a true 1960s incident in which high school students succumbed to fascist inclinations.  Updating the material to the present day and transplanting it from the mid west of the United States to the Fatherland doesn’t really work, as I note below in an overview of last year’s International Film Festival:

http://auteurhouse.com/blog/2008/09/02/an-overview-of-the-31st-hamilton-international-film-festival/

More worthwhile though not without flaws of its own is the New Zealand release “Show of Hands”, a melodrama featuring the return of Melanie Lynskey to our screens.  A full review can be read at:

http://auteurhouse.com/blog/2008/12/01/show-of-hands-2008/

Hokum from across the ditch doesn’t come any more brazen than Baz Luhrmann’s “Australia”, an old fashioned epic set in the outback at the beginning of World War II.  The cast unites 1970s icons David Gulpilil, Jack Thompson and Bryan Brown with today’s face of ocker acting, Hugh Jackman and Nichole Kidman.  It is to hoped that Ms Kidman’s plastic surgery was not too badly effected by the midday sun.

Equally mainstream and equally blessed by big star performers are “Taken” and “Body of Lies”.  The latter sees Leonardo DiCaprio and a rapidly ageing Russell Crowe under the direction of Ridley Scott, with a terrorism and technology plotline not too dissimilar from the likes of “Clear and Present Danger”.  “Taken” is far more straightforward and simple minded, a guilty pleasure revenge fantasy which Liam Neeson lends an undeserved touch of class.  Still, as I write elsewhere, the action scenes deliver:

http://auteurhouse.com/blog/2009/04/28/taken-2008/

A sleazier type of fun is to be had with “Donkey Punch”.  Those ignorant of the smutty practice referenced in its title do not have to wait long for a graphic demonstration: the British thriller leaves very little to the imagination in its tale of a Spanish sex and drugs holiday gone awry.

“13 Game of Death” is from Thailand.  A thriller with horror elements, the story involves a desperate salesman attempting to win $100 million by completing 13 increasingly dangerous challenges.

Altogether more worthy is “Garbage Warrior”.  It is a documentary about Michael Reynolds, an architect whose efforts to create environmentally self sufficient housing pits him against bureaucrats and big business. Complementing the likes of “An Inconvenient Truth”, this is very much a movie of and for our trouble times.

Two comedies are also amongst the month’s best new releases.  “My Name is Bruce” is one that Bruce Campbell and “Evil Dead” fans have been waiting for, a post-modern, self-reflexive take on the B-grade star’s career which sees him play and direct himself.  It is more fun that “Bubba Ho-tep”.

“Hamlet 2″ has Steve Coogan as a high school teacher who attempts to save his career by staging a sequel to English literature’s crowning glory.  Catherine Keener is featured amongst the strong supporting cast.

Even better is the latest from Nick Park and his Aardman animators, “Wallace and Gromit: A Matter of Loaf and Death”.  After the triumph of “Cure of the Were Rabbit” Park returns to a shorter format with no discernible deterioration in quality.  I review it below:

http://auteurhouse.com/blog/2009/04/28/wallace-gromit-a-matter-of-loaf-and-death-2008/

Finally, the oscar nominated play adaptation “Frost/Nixon”, an account of David Frost’s television interviews with former United States president Richard Nixon, is essential viewing.  Frank Langella enjoys himself immensely as the enigma known as ‘Tricky Dicky’.  We also stock the original, Watergate portion of the interviews, featuring a new introduction by Frost that provides background on much of the material in Ron Howard’s feature.

New to DVD

Cult films do not come bigger than “Hercules Returns”, the Australian 1980s classic about a unique screening of an Italian sword and sandal epic which has lost its soundtrack.  Long unavailable on any format, Auteur House is pleased to at last offer it on DVD.

Equally hard to find is Graham Greene’s own adaptation of his novel “Our Man in Havana”, a cold war satire from 1959 that was shot during the Cuban revolution.  Fidel Castro was so impressed with the script that he let filming continue and it is easy to see why given Greene’s less than subtle critique of the British secret service.  An all star cast, at the top of their game, includes Alec Guinness, Burl Ives, Maureen O’Hara, Ralph Richardson, and a never better Noel Coward.

Decidedly more earthy are a couple of 1970s efforts from bad boy Ken Russell.  “Women in Love” is probably his most critically respected work, an adaptation of DH Lawrence that attracted much notoriety in its day for the nude wrestling match between Alan Bates and Oliver Reed.  “Valentino”, a bio pic of the silent screen star, is at the other end of the quality spectrum, a mess best appreciated by hardcore Russell fans.  In the lead role Rudolf Nureyev goes a way to prove that as an actor he was a very fine dancer.

Also British, but produced a few years later, is “McVicar”. The Who’s Roger Daltery stars as a high profile criminal looking to escape prison.

David Lean’s “Summertime” dates from 1955 and provides Katharine Hepburn with one of her best ever roles as a spinster holidaying in Venice and enjoying a romantic fling.  I review it below:

http://auteurhouse.com/blog/2009/04/29/summertime-1955/

New acquisitions from the golden age of Hollywood include four films from European auteurs forced to flee the Nazis.  Fritz Lang’s “Ministry of Fear”, from another Graham Greene novel, is an edgy, paranoid thriller that could be labelled ‘Hitchcockian’ if it weren’t for the fact that the German director predated and influenced the British born one.  Ray Milland has one of his best roles as a man on the run in war torn England, escaping from the frying pan of an asylum into the fire of espionage and a fascist fifth column.  Lang’s “Western Union”, from a Zane Grey story, shows the range of the director’s talents.  Beautifully shot in colour, with a less stiff than usual Randolph Scott, it demonstrates Lang’s quick mastery of the most American of genres.

Jean Renoir’s “The Southerner” was his personal favourite amongst his five Hollywood features.  A tale of rural suffering and endurance, it can be favourably compared to Ford’s “The Grapes of Wrath”.  Renoir’s warm humanism and delicate touch informs every frame.

Robert Siodmak’s “The Phantom Lady” is one of the key film noirs of the mid 1940s.  Working from a Cornell Woolrich novel, Siodmak employs his usual visual flair and the jazz score is justly celebrated.

Slightly more contemporary European offerings include a boxset of Louis Malle movies from the late 1950s and early 1960s - “Lift to the Scaffold”, “The Lovers”, and “Zazie” - and the second feature from his new wave contemporary, Claude Chabrol, “Les Cousins”.  Also from France is the mini series “The Count to Monte Cristo”, starring the ubiquitous Gerard Depardieu.

Probably all Spanish filmmakers have a touch of surrealism about their work.  This is certainly true for Fernando Arrabal whose “Viva la Muerte” (”Live Long Death”) and “The Guernica Tree” share more than a Spanish Civil war setting with the likes of “Pan’s Labyrinth” and “The Devil’s Backbone”.

“Character” won an oscar for best foreign language film of 1997.  Based on a popular Dutch novel, its story involves a father son power struggle in 1920s Holland.

Having its origin far closer to home is “The Quiet Earth”, the first New Zealand science fiction success story.  Bruno Lawrence and a skeleton cast age rather well and it is pleasing to see 1980s era Hamilton.

Perhaps our least politically correct rental items ever are a trio of Japanese ‘Hentai’ DVDs:  “Sex Ward”, “Naughty Night Nurses” and “Anyone You Can Do”.  As the titles suggest, these are pornographic works.  What makes them a little different is the fact that they are animated. Very badly.

To conclude on an altogether higher moral plain, the Iranian film “Blackboards” has to date moved many a customer.  The story of two nomadic teachers and their quest to bring education to isolated communities on the border between Iran and Iraq, “Blackboards” has inspired nothing but superlatives.  Clearly the Iranian cinema continues to impress the world to same degree as their politicians and nuclear programme outrages it.