Brian De Palma’s best film gets a UK Blu-ray release from Arrow Films.

A cinematic fusion of Antonioni’s Blow-up (1966) and Coppola’s The Conversation (1974), it draws heavily on real events (notably the JFK assassination, Chappaquiddick and Watergate) and sees a sound technician (John Travolta) drawn into a sinister plot after accidentally recording what appears to be a gunshot.

Although not a financial success on its theatrical release, it stands up very well to repeated viewing, not only as a showcase of the director’s dazzling technique, but also as a gripping thriller.

Brilliantly shot by famed cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond, it has many of the stylistic tricks favoured by De Palma: overhead shots, split-screen and split focus are just some of the visual flourishes on display.

But this isn’t just an exercise in style, as it manages to capture the bleak post-Watergate mood that lingered long after Nixon resigned, whilst also playing around with our perception of what we see and hear on screen.

Steadicam inventor Garrett Brown had just come off Kubrick’s The Shining and this was his first time working with De Palma and the smooth movements the camera allowed suited the director’s style perfectly (he also used it to memorable effect in Carlito’s Way and Snake Eyes).

The performances are also excellent: John Travolta demonstrates his more subdued side after the late 70s superstardom madness of Saturday Night Fever and Grease; Nancy Allen paints a sympathetic portrait of innocence in what could have been a clichéd role and John Lithgow is suitably creepy as the serial killer.

Blow Out is also about the filmmaking process itself: the central character has to recreate an event using sounds and images. But can we trust what we see and hear? Even if we can, what about the forces that initially shaped them?

This disc comes in a regular and steelbook limited edition with the following special features:

• New, restored digital transfer, supervised and approved by director Brian De Palma
• Original Dolby 2.0 DTS-HD Master Audio
• Optional English SDH subtitles for the deaf and hard of hearing
• Black and White in Colour: An Interview with cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond
• Rag Doll Memories: Nancy Allen on Blow Out
• Return to Philadelphia: An interview with Producer George Litto
• A gallery of on-set photos by photographer Louis Goldman
• Original Theatrical Trailer
• Collector’s booklet featuring new writing on the film by Michael Atkinson, a conversation between Quentin Tarantino and Brian De Palma and more to be confirmed

> Buy Blow Out on Blu-ray from Amazon UK
> Find out more about Blow Out at the IMDb

DAY ONE (April 25th)

Sundance London 2013 – Day 1 from Sundance London 2012 on Vimeo.

The Look of Love (Dir. Michael Winterbottom): After 24 Hour Party People (2002) Michael Winterbottom reunites with Steve Coogan for this biopic of the late Paul Raymond. The self-styled ‘King of Soho’ made his fortune with gentleman’s clubs, erotic magazines and property but his great wealth was underscored by personal tragedy.

Coogan brings a huge amount of charisma to his role, but he is backed up by a fine supporting cast including Anna Friel, Tamsin Egerton, Chris Addison and especially Imogen Poots, who excels as his troubled daughter. Winterbottom deftly manages to balance humour and the film makes good use of real life locations in Soho.

DAY TWO (April 26th)

Sundance London 2013 – Day 2 from Sundance London 2012 on Vimeo.

Blood Brother (Dir. Steve Hoover): An enlightening and at times harrowing documentary about a filmmaker following his best friend (Rocky Braat) as he returns to a hostel in India for young children with HIV. Whilst it doesn’t break any new ground stylistically, the engaging central figure and rawness of the story makes for compelling viewing.

It is rare to see filmmakers adopt a such an extreme verite approach, but what initially starts off as a traditional narrative soon becomes something more unexpected. One scene in particular during the final third may raise questions about the moral line between documentarians and their subjects.

DAY THREE (April 27th)

Sundance London 2013 – Day 3 from Sundance London 2012 on Vimeo.

The Kings of Summer (Dir. Jordan Vogt-Roberts): One staple of US indie films, is the coming of age tale. This one follows three disaffected boys (Nick Robinson, Gabriel Basso and Moises Arias) in a rural Ohio town as they run away from home and try to settle in the woods.

Despite the over familiar setting – and a considerable debt to Rob Reiner’s Stand By Me (1986) – it manages to effectively capture the humour and frustration of those teenage years. This is mostly down to Vogt-Roberts nice eye for location and a solid ensemble cast, which includes a stand out turn from Nick Offerman from TV’s Parks and Recreation.

DAY FOUR (April 28th)

Sundance London 2013 – Day 4 from Sundance London 2012 on Vimeo.

Mud (Dir. Jeff Nichols): Interesting US directors outside the LA/New York axis have been rare in recent years. A notable exception has been Arkansas native Jeff Nichols. With his first two films, Shotgun Stories (2007) and Take Shelter (2011), he has firmly established himself as a distinct voice.

His latest comes soaked in the storytelling tradition of the Deep South, mainly Huckleberry Finn, as two young boys (Tye Sheridan and Jacob Lofland) come across a stranger named Mud (Matthew McConaughey) who is hiding on an island in the Mississippi river. Strong performances abound from McConaughey, Sheridan, Reese Witherspoon and Sam Shepherd, but it is the confident writing and directing that really mark this out as another chapter in the career of Nichols.

Upstream Color (Dir. Shane Carruth): Ever since his remarkable debut Primer (2004) scooped the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance, people have been wondering what had happened to its writer/director Shane Carruth. The answer appears to have been a period of long development hell, but his second feature is well worth the wait. If you were baffled by Primer then be prepared for this film.

Just describing it is hard as it eschews conventional notions of plot but the basic premise revolves around a woman (Amy Seimetz) who comes across a man (Shane Carruth) who may or may not have the answers to a recent trauma she’s undergone. Imagine if David Lynch and Terrence Malick remade Memento (2000) and you might get some idea of the haunting puzzle box Carruth has crafted. The performances, visuals and score all combine to dazzling effect, and it is hard to recall a more mysterious and original film.

> Sundance London
> Connect with them on Facebook (facebook.com/SundanceLondon) and Twitter (@sundancefestUK)
> More on the history of the Sundance Film Festival and The O2 at Wikipedia

• Billy Liar (StudioCanal) / Blu-ray / 06/05/2013
• The Impossible (Entertainment One) / Blu-ray and Normal / 06/05/2013
• Amateur (Artificial Eye Blu-ray / Normal / 13/05/2013
• One Hour Photo (20th Century Fox Home Ent.) / Blu-ray and Normal / 13/05/2013
• Rear Window (Universal Pictures) Blu-ray / Normal / 13/05/2013
• The Birds (Universal Pictures) Blu-ray / 50th Anniversary Edition / 13/05/2013
• Bullhead (Soda Pictures) Blu-ray / Normal / 20/05/2013
• The Sessions (20th Century Fox Home Ent.) Blu-ray with Digital Copy – Double Play / 20/05/2013
• Blow Out (Arrow Video) Blu-ray Special Edition / 27/05/2013
• My Left Foot (ITV DVD) Blu-ray / Normal / 27/05/2013
• The Unbelievable Truth (Artificial Eye) Blu-ray / Normal / 27/05/2013

> The Best DVD & Blu-rays of 2012
> Full DVD and Blu-ray Releases for May 2013

Can review aggregators give us a true picture of the year in film?

In April 2011 I wanted to get a critical snapshot of the first three months of that year by combining three major review hubs: Metacritic, Rotten Tomatoes and the IMDb.

Using roughly the same methods this time around, the goal was to get a similar picture for a whole year.

Data from the aforementioned websites was analysed again using all the US releases listed on the Wikipedia entry for 2012. (To do global releases would have been a logistical nightmare).

There were a few films we didn’t include, such as 3D re-releases like Titanic and Finding Nemo, along with some that didn’t appear on all three of the review hubs.

We added the Metacritic, Rotten Tomatoes (for the latter we used the average % score) and IMDb user rating, which was then divided by three to get a final score.

The five bands which corresponded to each score were: Excellent (100-80), Good (80-60), Average (60-40), Bad (40-20) and Awful (20-0).

Here is a chart showing the overall picture.

Here are all the films and their scores in ascending order.
> Wikipedia on 2012 in film
> US Box Office Figures for 2012

The debut film of the Coen Brothers gets a welcome re-release on DVD.

Whilst true fans might mourn the lack of a Blu-ray (though there is a Region 1), this Director’s Cut is a reminder of how striking their entrance into the film world was.

Bearing similar hallmarks to some of their later works, notably Fargo (1996) and No Country For Old Men (2007), this neo-noir crime drama is a dark tale of murder, cash and betrayal.

Over the next twenty years the Joel and Ethan Coen would ascend to the front rank of American filmmakers and one can see the seeds here: quirky characters, the music of Carter Burwell, confident editing and a distinct visual style would all blossom in later works.

Also established here was their fraternal working methods, as Time magazine noted in 2007:

Joel writes and directs (with Ethan’s help), Ethan writes and produces (with Joel’s help), and both edit under the joint pseudonym Roderick Jaynes.

It also demonstrated their tremendous eye for character actors, the standout here being M. Emmet Walsh, as a corrupt private investigator, who bears some resemblance to Javier Bardem’s hitman in No Country.

One wonders if the Coens were thinking of their debut film when adapting Cormac McCarthy’s novel: both are set in early 80s Texas, make use of voiceover and paint a dark picture of humanity whilst sprinkling it with humour.

The multi-Oscar winning No Country is still the more accomplished film, but Blood Simple still stands up as one of the key independent films of the 1980s.

Funded by making a trailer, which was then screened for potential investors, it soon made waves on the festival circuit, winning the main prize at Sundance in 1985.

The sense of unease blended with comedy, the startling camera moves and clever narrative twists were all rightly applauded at the time, and the performances from Dan Hedaya, Frances McDormand, John Getz and the aforementioned Walsh are exemplary.

Walsh especially is hard to forget: his eerie Cold War voiceovers about the Soviet Union, pale yellow suit , silver revolver and laugh make him among the most memorable figures the Coens have ever put on screen.

Part of the pleasure of Blood Simple is in seeing how things unravel for the lead characters, as the story takes frequently unexpected turns and ventures down some dark alleys.

Utilising Texas locations on a low-budget, the Lone Star state provides a haunting backdrop to the skullduggery on-screen.

In retrospect, one can see cinematographer Barry Sonnenfeld’s raw, yet stylish, visuals as a forerunner to their long collaboration (he would later direct in his own right) and Joel’s background as an editor served him well, as sequences just click into place.

In their playful style the Coen Bros did a Director’s Cut 3 minutes shorter, along with some minor changes to the original version, and that is the one that is being re-released on DVD.

Blood Simple (Director’s Cut) is released on Monday 15th April by Studiocanal

> Buy Blood Simple on DVD via Amazon UK
> Find out more about the Coen Brothers at Wikipedia

N.B. There were a lot of re-releases on Blu-ray this month, so if you want to browse them all click here for a spreadsheet.

• Accident (StudioCanal) Blu-ray / 08-Apr-13 / http://amzn.to/12AItlS
• Army of Shadows (StudioCanal) Blu-ray / 08-Apr-13 / http://amzn.to/XoBR5U
• House of Cards: The Trilogy (2 Entertain) DVD / Blu-ray / 08-Apr-13 / http://amzn.to/ZJJTTa
• Le Beau Serge (Eureka) Blu-ray / DVD / 08-Apr-13 / http://amzn.to/146v99X
• Les Cousins (Eureka) Blu-ray / Normal / 08-Apr-13 / http://amzn.to/12AK0Z2
• Scanners (Second Sight) Blu-ray / Limited Edition Steelbook / 08-Apr-13 / http://amzn.to/146w0Y2
• Schindler’s List (Universal) Blu-ray / + UltraViolet Digital Copy and Digital Copy / 08-Apr-13 / http://amzn.to/146wa1G
• Seven (Warner Home Video) Blu-ray / with UltraViolet Digital Copy – Double Play / 08-Apr-13 / http://amzn.to/10O5Stk
• The Servant / StudioCanal / Blu-ray / 50th Anniversary Edition / 08-Apr-13 / http://amzn.to/146wvl0
• Blood Simple (Studiocanal) / DVD / Director’s Cut / 15-Apr-13 / http://amzn.to/ZJLatt
• Bullitt (Warner Home Video) Blu-ray with UltraViolet Digital Copy – Double Play / 15-Apr-13 / http://amzn.to/XoDmAU
• Captured (BFI) Blu-ray with DVD – Double Play / 15-Apr-13 / http://amzn.to/146wT31
• Life of Pi (20th Century Fox Home Ent.) Blu-ray / 3D Edition Steelbook / 29-Apr-13 / http://amzn.to/10O6Wxt

> Best DVD & Blu-rays of 2012
> Full April 2013 release schedule

With the most interesting and unpredictable awards season in years drawing to a close, it seems like a good time to reflect and speculate on what might win on Sunday at the 85th Academy Awards.

How are Oscars won and why exactly do some films become frontrunners early on only to triumph (or not) on the big night?

The simple answer is that the 6,000 members of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences are balloted and then vote for what they think is ‘the best achievement’ in a particular category.

By this point, contenders will have emerged and then nominees are announced.

It all culminates in a globally televised ceremony in which the winners are announced and the famous gold statuettes are handed out and the arguments begin over who deserved what.

But how are they really won?

The months leading up to the ceremony are often more interesting than who wins and also provide a useful snapshot of a particular year – the book ‘Scenes from a Revolution’ by Mark Harris examining the 1967 Oscar race is fascinating and one of the best film books in recent years.

A lot of words get written about famous snubs, such as when Ordinary People beat Raging Bull for Best Picture in 1980, why the Academy took so long to honour Martin Scorsese and the lack of Best Director trophies awarded to cinematic giants like Welles, Kubrick and Hitchcock.

But there can be interesting years like 1974 (when The Godfather II was up against Chinatown and The Conversation) and 2007 (when No Country For Old Men was competing with There Will Be Blood and Michael Clayton) when an unfortunate surfeit of quality leads to classics losing out.

Amidst all the glamour and hoopla, it isn’t just the perceived quality of the films that determines winners.

Perhaps the biggest change since around the early 90s has been the aggressive behind-the-scenes campaigning, which is filled with the kind of stuff you’d expect to see on-screen: suspicion, intrigue, heroes and villains.

Of course the latter depends on who is campaigning for you and whether or not you win.

Generally speaking, the ‘awards season’ really heats up with the Telluride, Toronto and Venice film festivals at the end of August and beginning of September, although other major festivals can be important – Beasts broke out at Sundance 2012 and  Amour won the the Palme d’Or at Cannes in May.

Plenty of factors have distinguished winners since the late 1920s: box office, how an actor or director was (or is) perceived by the Hollywood community, PRs, awards consultants, and (lest we forget!) excellence in a particular category.

It doesn’t always work out, and there have been some infamous snubs, but generally when the nominations come around each year there is a lot to chew on in terms of quality, unless it is a really bad year.

How is the buzz then channelled into Oscar victory?

It often starts when a movie is green lit by a studio or financier as they assemble the package, although at this stage and during production, it would be foolish to assume anything.

Other features of a potential Oscar winner might include: a period setting, heavyweight acting talent, a name director trying to make a serious or issue film, often featuring a major character with some kind of disability.

As the films go through the cogs of the awards cycle, the various critics groups and guild awards give their verdicts, and this is where the punditry and guessing games kick in.

Traditionally, this was a more restrained affair, with the studios taking out ‘For Your Consideration’ ads in the two major trade journals: Variety and The Hollywood Reporter.

But as both publications have lost their influence in the rapidly advancing online world, the vacuum has subsequently been lost to websites such as Deadline, Awards Daily, Hollywood Elsewhere, IndieWIRE, The Wrap, Gold Derby, Movie City News and In Contention which offer more in-depth and often better coverage via social media, podcasts and long-form video interviews.

Some of these sites measure the Oscar odds through statistics, getting out in the real world and talking anonymously to voters, and just generally gauging what they think is the pulse of the Academy mind.

There are also a raft of people with years of experience at schmoozing voters such as Harvey Weinstein (arguably the king of Oscar campaigning, first at Miramax and now at The Weinstein Company) and Cynthia Swartz (the awards strategist behind The Hurt Locker and The Social Network).

What makes this year’s race interesting is the spread of nominees in the major categories and the way in which the introduction of online voting may have affected the process – even though BAFTA have been doing it since 2003 – and members still had the option to mail them instead.

Voting opened on December 17th and the fifteen branches that make up the Academy (actors, directors, costume designers etc.) are then asked to vote for members of their particular branch, from which the final nominees are then selected.

Argo is currently the favourite for Best Picture, but Lincoln and Life of Pi are very strong contenders, and there could be a three-way split amongst the vote, mainly due to Ben Affleck’s weird absence from Best Director, which has only happened a handful of times in Oscar history.

Affleck’s omission is not the only anomaly.

It is very rare for the director of a foreign language film to get nominated, let alone his leading actress, but Michael Haneke and Emmanuelle Riva have managed to achieve recognition for their outstanding work in Amour.

The presence of 85-year old Riva and 9-year old Quvenzhané Wallis (for Beasts of the Southern Wild) in the Best Actress race is mind-blowing and testament to both their work and the unusual nature of this year, which could be the result of the change in the balloting date or just chance.

Ah, yes. Chance.

That factor we like to forget because we can’t quantify the unknown and it can make us look ignorant of things we might have missed, underlying trends and the basic fact that each year is a different collection of films voted on by 6,000 human beings with their own unique tastes and quirks.

Given the new online voting system introduced this year and the insanely eclectic list of nominees, this year’s lineup is harder to call than ever.

With that in mind here’s my take on the three frontrunners and the rest of the pack:

• Lincoln: Daniel Day Lewis gives a remarkable performance as the iconic US president and the film marks a big return to form for Steven Spielberg, with a lucid script by Tony Kushner. For whatever reasons, The Academy has had mixed feelings about Spielberg down the years, but this is his best work since Minority Report (2002) and Munich (2005).
• Life of Pi: Yann Martel’s novel about an Indian teenager stranded in the Ocean with a tiger was considered unfilmable until visual effects reached a certain level. That day has now come and the resulting adaptation an extraordinary technical achievement for Ang Lee and his crew. Featuring no big stars, it has been a big hit at the global box office. A definite dark horse.
• Argo: An extremely well-constructed thriller about an unlikely true life tale, Ben Affleck’s third film as director was set against a tricky subject (the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis). Produced by George Clooney and Grant Heslov, Affleck also stars and despite some uneasy comedy in places, the pacing, tension and Affleck’s awards campaigning make it a well liked film.

And for the rest:

• Amour: Michael Haneke’s outstanding drama about an elderly Parisien couple is a surprising but welcome addition to the Best Picture category. It is rare for a foreign language film to get recognition in a major category but since winning the Palme d’Or in May, has ridden a wave of richly deserved acclaim. Look out for Emmanuelle Riva to cause an upset in Best Actress on her 86th birthday even though Jennifer Lawrence is favourite for Silver Linings Playbook.
• Beasts of the Southern Wild: Another remarkable achievement with young director Benh Zeitlin becoming the toast of Sundance with his debut film. It won’t win anything but its four nominations (including director, actress, screenplay and adapted screenplay) are a stunning achievement for both the film and Fox Searchlight, who acquired it back in January 2012.
• Django Unchained: Tarantino’s ‘slavery spaghetti western’ may get a screenplay nod and Christoph Waltz is definitely a possibility in Best Supporting Actor, but a combination of the violence (extreme even by the director’s standards) and unnecessary last 25 minutes is likely to have put voters off.
• Les Misérables: Working Title teamed up with Cameron Mackintosh to finally bring his blockbuster musical to cinemas with mixed results. Director Tom Hooper assembled an impressive cast (Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe, Anne Hathaway) but musicals are a divisive genre (generally speaking, I can’t stand them) and early on this lost momentum. However, Hathaway is red hot favourite for Best Supporting Actress.
• Silver Linings Playbook: A romantic comedy about bipolar disorder might seem an unlikely contender but David O’Russell’s film shouldn’t be counted out. Not only does it contain two contemporary stars (Cooper and Lawrence) and a former legend (De Niro), but it features in all the major categories and has had the formidable machinery of The Weinstein Company behind it.
• Zero Dark Thirty: Just three years after winning Best Picture, screenwriter Mark Boal and director Kathryn Bigelow teamed up for their second ‘war on terror’ movie. Arguably superior to The Hurt Locker, this focused on the hunt for Osama Bin Laden, but it’s awards season chances were damaged by the ‘torture controversy’ that blew up before its wide release. It could get a screenwriting award for Boal as a counter blast to all its critics.

There is a strange duality to the Oscars that mirrors Hollywood’s wider mix of commerce and art: red carpet glamour is mixed with backstage whispers; careers can be boosted (or even strangely derailed) by wins, people are snubbed for years and sometimes the planets align for no particular reason.

Some years a large portion of the global TV audience is wondering why they haven’t even heard of the nominees, let alone seen the films.

Whilst all the media attention will be on who does win, remember not to take any awards ceremony too seriously.

The Academy Awards can be a useful snapshot of a particular year, but the ultimate judge of any film’s importance is time.

> Official site
> More on the 85th Academy Awards at Wikipedia

JANUARY

Project Nim (Icon Home Entertainment) [Read our full review] [Buy it on DVD]
In a Better World (Axiom) [Buy it on DVD or Blu-ray]
Boardwalk Empire – Season 1 (Warner Home Video/HBO) [Buy on DVD or Blu-ray]
Melancholia (Artificial Eye) [Read our full review] [Buy it on Blu-ray or DVD]
Roger Dodger (StudioCanal) [Buy it on Blu-ray or DVD]
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (StudioCanal)  [Read our full review] [Buy it on Blu-ray or DVD]
Drive (Icon Home Entertainment) [Read our full review] [Buy it on Blu-ray or DVD]
The Tin Drum (Arrow) [Buy the dual format Blu-ray and DVD edition]

FEBRUARY

Tyrannosaur (Studiocanal) [Buy on DVD or Blu-ray] [Read our original review]
Tabloid (Dogwoof) [Buy on DVD] [Read our original review]
All Quiet On the Western Front (Universal Pictures) [Buy it on Blu-ray]
To Kill a Mockingbird (Universal Pictures) [Buy it on Blu-ray]
Repo Man (Eureka/Masters of Cinema) [Buy the Blu-ray from Amazon UK]
The Conformist (Arrow Video) [Buy the Dual Format DVD/Blu-ray from Amazon UK]
We Need to Talk About Kevin (Artificial Eye) [Buy the Blu-ray or DVD from Amazon UK] [Read our full review]
The Mizoguchi Collection (Artificial Eye) [Buy it on Blu-ray or DVD box set]

MARCH

The Ides of March (Entertainment One) [Read our full review here] [Buy on Blu-ray or DVD from Amazon UK]
Contagion (Warner Home Video) [Buy on Blu-ray or DVD from Amazon UK]
Anonymous (Sony Pictures Home Entertainment) [Read our full review here] [Buy on Blu-ray or DVD from Amazon UK]
Jane Eyre (Universal Pictures) [Buy it on Blu-ray + DVD & Digital Copy] [Read our full review here]
Rabbit Proof Fence (Optimum Home Enterainment) [Buy the Blu-ray or DVD from Amazon UK]
Monty Python and the Holy Grail (Sony Pictures Home Entertainment) [Buy the Blu-ray or DVD from Amazon UK]
Naqoyqatsi (Miramax) [Buy on DVD or Blu-ray from Amazon UK]
Moneyball (Sony Pictures Home Ent.) [Available on Blu-ray or DVD from Amazon] [Read our full review here]
Take Shelter (Universal Pictures)

APRIL

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (Sony Pictures Home Ent.)
Dracula (Universal) [Buy the Blu-ray]
Hugo (EIV) [Read our full review] [Buy it on DVD or Blu-ray]
La Grande Illusion (StudioCanal) [Buy the DVD or Blu-ray]
Bad Lieutenant (Fabulous Films) [Buy on DVD or Blu-ray from Amazon UK]

MAY

The Story of Film (Network) [Buy at Amazon]
Falstaff: Chimes at Midnight (Mr. Bongo) [Buy at Amazon]
Into the Abyss (Revolver)
The Jazz Baroness (3DD)
Treme: Season 2 (Warner Bros.)
Shame (Momentum) [Buy at Amazon]
Martha Marcy May Marlene (Fox)
The Artist (EV) [Buy at Amazon]

JUNE

Blue Velvet (Universal) [Buy at Amazon]
Lost Highway (Universal) [Buy at Amazon]
Odd Man Out (Network) [Buy at Amazon]

JULY

Chariots of Fire (Fox)
The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (StudioCanal) [Buy at Amazon]
Total Recall (Optimum Home Entertainment)
A Fish Called Wanda (MGM Home Entertainment) [Buy at Amazon]

AUGUST

Le Harve (Artificial Eye) [Buy at Amazon]
The Descendants (Fox) [Buy at Amazon]
Marley (Universal) [Buy at Amazon]
Rumble Fish (Eureka)

SEPTEMBER

Jaws (Universal) [Buy at Amazon]
Les Enfants Du Paradis (Second Sight) [Buy at Amazon]
All Quiet On The Western Front (Universal) [Buy at Amazon]
James Bond: Bond 50 (Fox) [Buy at Amazon]
To Catch a Thief (Paramount) [Buy at Amazon]
That Obscure Object of Desire (StudioCanal) [Buy at Amazon]
The Trial (StudioCanal) [Buy at Amazon]
The Turin Horse (Artificial Eye)

OCTOBER

Lawrence of Arabia (Sony) [Buy at Amazon]
Walkabout (Universal) [Buy at Amazon]
Dracula (Universal) [Buy at Amazon]
Frankenstein (Universal) [Buy at Amazon]
The Wolf Man (Universal) [Buy at Amazon]
Ai Weiwei – Never Sorry (Artificial Eye)
Indiana Jones: The Complete Collection (Paramount) [Buy at Amazon]
Shut Up and Play the Hits (Pulse Films) [Buy at Amazon]
The Curse of Frankenstein (Lionsgate UK) [Buy at Amazon]
Woody Allen: A Documentary (Soda Pictures) [Buy at Amazon]
ET – The Extra Terrestrial (Universal) [Buy at Amazon]
Glengarry Glen Ross (ITV DVD)
Nostalgia for the Light (New Wave Films) [Buy at Amazon]
The Company of Wolves (ITV DVD) [Buy at Amazon]
The Shawshank Redemption (ITV DVD) [Buy at Amazon]
Homeland: Season 1 (Fox) [Buy at Amazon]

NOVEMBER

Citizen Kane (Universal) [Buy at Amazon]
Groundhog Day (Sony) [Buy at Amazon]
Alfred Hitchcock: The Masterpiece Collection (Universal) [Buy at Amazon]
Margin Call (Paramount) [Buy at Amazon]
The Man in the White Suit (Studiocanal) [Buy at Amazon]
Singin’ in the Rain (Warner Home Video) [Buy at Amazon]

DECEMBER

Following (Criterion) [Buy Region 1 Blu-ray]
Searching For Sugar Man (Studiocanal) [Buy on DVD or Blu-ray]

> The Best DVD & Blu-ray Releases of 2011
> 2012 in Film

For US and UK audiences, January mostly represents a barren month where studios dump their bad films as the awards season heats up.

It can also be a strange time at the multiplex, as distributors of Oscar and BAFTA front-runners (which this year include Lincoln, Life of Pi and Zero Dark Thirty) seek to get a publicity boost from the nominations.

Meanwhile, a film like Texas Chainsaw 3D is showing in the screen next door.

I always feel like I’m playing catchup given the end-of-year rush to get the contenders out to voters.

On the more commercial side, it is also a salutary reminder that life is too short to waste on bad films (unless there is an interesting angle) and how quickly the hoopla surrounding Best Picture fades into the ether.

At the end of every year I try to watch as many as possible in order to compile an end-of-the-year list, but for various reasons that didn’t happen in 2012 – a shame since this is probably the most interesting set of Oscar nominations in years.

However, I’ve now seen most of the awards season heavy hitters and nearly completed my annual list of the best DVD and Blu-ray discs, both of which will be posted soon.

> Oscar Nominations
> The Best DVD and Blu-rays of 2011

YouTube has come a long way since its birth in April 2005, but what does its meteoric rise mean for the worlds of film and television?

When a young man posted a video of himself in a San Diego zoo in early 2005, no-one could have predicted it was the beginning of a revolution in on-line content.

Whilst what would become YouTube had antecedents (such as iFilm) it was a combination of timing and Silicon Valley connections that really sent it into the stratosphere, culminating in its acquisition by Google in October 2006.

Its explosive growth over that year and the sheer amount of copyrighted content being uploaded led to speculation that it would be sued out of existence.

That didn’t happen, largely because Google had the money to legally defend itself, but also because the first media corporation to take legal action (Viacom) had their claims of copyright infringement struck down in 2010.

Although they can still appeal, it looks like YouTube’s official takedown policy and their large legal budget will cover them on this front.

Perhaps more interesting is the partnerships that the site has engaged in with more traditional media organisations like the BBC and CBS (the latter who are owned by Viacom).

YouTube has become like a default TV station for the entire web.

As of January 2012, Reuters reported that it was:

…streaming 4 billion online videos every day, a 25 percent increase in the past eight months,

…According to the company, roughly 60 hours of video is now uploaded to YouTube every minute, compared with the 48 hours of video uploaded per minute in May.

A lot of this is copyrighted material, but a newer generation are growing up with the site as a regular outlet for films, television and music, but also as a launchpad for memes, funny animals, activism and all kind of weird and wonderful stuff.

Their review of the most popular videos of 2012, featured a neat interactive timeline.

The collection shows the sprawling nature of content on the site, which is now so vast that it boggles the mind to think where it will be in another seven years.

More importantly, what are the future implications for longer form content?

Will our collective attention span gradually reduce as we get used to more short-form content on mobile devices?

And what effect will this have on professionally produced shows and films?

Live sports and music won’t be immune either as the site has already made headways into streaming live cricket and concerts.

Is it conceivable that in the next few years (as broadband speeds really increase) YouTube could buy the English Premier League football rights? I certainly think so.

For the film business it represents crisis and opportunity. At a recent Hollywood Reporter round table discussion, several studio executives held forth on the state of the business.

But it was long-time veteran Jeffrey Katzenberg of DreamWorks Animation who perhaps had the most interesting things to say.

The full discussion is below but click here to go directly to his answer about the future (i.e. next ten years) of the industry:

Katzenberg’s analogy with sports is astute and the discussion of the release window also hints at the underlying tensions that are still ongoing between studios and exhibitors.

Whilst the conversation about home entertainment and video on demand is often dominated by Netflix and local sites such as Lovefilm (UK) and Hulu (US), YouTube is perhaps the most fascinating VOD platform for the future.

The sheer scale of content, infrastructure and legal bills paid by Google, are likely to make it an interesting barometer for the state of the film and TV business over the next decade.

> History of YouTube
> Time Magazine article from 2006

N.B. This is part of a series of posts looking back on the past year that I couldn’t write up at the time.

The news that the Sundance Film Festival was coming to London back in April was intriguing as the log cabins and snow of Utah in January seemed a world away from the cavernous spaces of the 02.

Since its relaunch in 2007 as a music venue with a multiplex cinema, it has shed its image as the white elephant formerly know as the ‘Millenium Dome’.

For the Sundance Institute it was a chance to experiment by taking a shorter festival abroad, (just four days) with a bigger emphasis on music and its relationship to film.

I couldn’t attend every film or event, but settled on two films and two sessions, which caught my eye.

DAY ONE (Thursday 26th April)

Liberal Arts (Dir. Josh Radnor): Radnor is most famous for being on the TV show ‘How I Met Your Mother’ and his debut as director ‘happythankyoumoreplease’ in 2010.

It went down well at the festival, winning the audience award, but its poor box office and mixed reviews meant that it faded away, not even getting a UK theatrical release.

To a degree, his second film has followed the same pattern – although it did secure distribution here it didn’t exactly set the box office alight.

It explores what happens when a careers adviser in his mid-30s (Radnor) accepts an invitation from an old professor (Richard Jenkins) to go back to his old Ohio college.

There he forms a connection with a student (Elisabeth Olsen) and generally takes stock of his life in much the same way that Zach Braff did in Garden State (2004).

But despite bearing some archetypal tropes of the typical US indie movie, Liberal Arts does contain some pleasures.
Radnor, Olsen and Jenkins are likeable in their roles and there is an interesting attempt to portray an early mid-life crisis that seems to be prevalent in Radnor’s generation.

But like Radnor’s character in the story, this is a US indie film that looks back with nostalgia to another era: quirky supporting characters  acoustic guitars on the soundtrack – and is ultimately overwhelmed by that.

DAY TWO (Friday 27th April)

SHUT UP AND PLAY THE HITS (Dir. Dylan Southern and Will Lovelace)

Maybe it was just serendipity, but when the documentary of LCD Soundsystem’s premiered at Sundance in January, it seemed a natural fit for the inaugural London festival.

Not only did it tie in snugly with the overall ‘film and music’ theme – it is one of the best concert films in quite some time.

When the New York band announced in February 2011 that they were splitting up – effectively at the height of their career – a farewell concert at Madison Square Garden was planned for April 2, 2011.

A four hour show with appearances by Arcade Fire, Reggie Watts and others, this was essentially The Last Waltz (1978) for the Pitchfork generation.

In a decade of turmoil for the music industry, it seemed a curiously appropriate gesture.

Like Scorcese’s classic concert film about The Band’s farewell show, it intercuts concert footage with interviews, although much of this is dominated by frontman James Murphy.

The main advantage of seeing a concert film (or any film for that matter) in a cinema is the superior sound system (no pun intended) and the dynamic shifts were not only aural but visual.

Directors Dylan Southern and Will Lovelace, who previously made the Blur film No Distance Left To Run (2010), pace the action so that it becomes as much an intimate portrait of Murphy as a standard concert movie.

We see him the day after the concert inspecting the band’s instruments, fielding unanswered voicemails and (in a very meta moment) being interviewed by a journalist about the end of the band.

Ultimately the theatrical potential for any concert film is limited in the modern era and most people will watch this on Blu-ray and DVD (it has since been released along with the full 4-hour concert).

But there was something joyful and exhilarating about experiencing the swansong of this band on the big screen.

It might not be in the same league as The Last Waltz or Talking Heads’ Stop Making Sense (1983).

N.B. A longer review of the Blu-ray will be forthcoming.

DAY 3 (Saturday 28th April)

The idea of a ‘Documentary Flash Lab’ wasn’t one I was familiar with, but ultimately very impressed by.

A two-hour event hosted by Cara Mertes, director of the Sundance Institute Documentary Program and Fund, it was possibly the best event of its kind I’ve ever been to.

Sometimes Q&A-style events at film festivals can be poorly hosted and plodding affairs with rambling non-questions from the audience.

Here was a textbook example of how it should be done: Mertes went through the history of Sundance and the importance of documentary to the festival and she was joined by directors Lauren Greenfield (The Queen of Versailles), Eugene Jarecki (The House I Live In) and Jeff Orlowski (Chasing Ice).

All gave informative insights into their respective films but about twenty minutes in, as Mertes introduced Orlowski, a familiar figure entered the room.

It turned out to be a surprise appearence by the founder of Sundance himself, Robert Redford.

He apologised for being delayed in London traffic, but went on give a quick speech about his love of documentary and how he first got hooked on factual content whilst watching a televised military hearing in the 1950s.

It was just a taste of Redford’s commitment, but it has been a mainstay of the festival since the beginning, and his sincerity and contribution was obvious.

Over the years the festival he began has arguably become the global mecca for both filmmakers looking to sell their documentaries and distributors looking to buy them.

In retrospect 2012 has turned out to be a particularly strong year but it has also reflected both the frustrations and possibilities for documentarians.

Although each spoke eloquently about their films and the issues they explored, the question of how you actually get audiences to see them is another matter.

Eugene Jarecki expressed his desire to explore new was of getting his film out there, almost like a travelling musician going from city to city and forgoing more traditional distribution models.

On the one hand, it has always been difficult for documentaries to get attention in the theatrical marketplace, but reduced production costs (enabled by cheaper digital cameras, editing systems and prints) have dramatically levelled the playing field.

Representing the UK perspective was Jess Search, CEO of Channel Four BritDoc Foundation, and her enthusiasm matched that of her US counterparts as she went through the newer funding and distribution possibilities afforded by the web (e.g. Kickstarter, YouTube etc).

Two hours flew by and although there are deep anxieties about the technological revolution currently engulfing cinema, it was a session that left me excited about the shift to digital and the stories that will enable.

The downside is there will be plenty of bad films and documentaries made in the coming years, but overall I’m optimistic about the cream rising to the top.

DAY FOUR (Sunday 29th April)

Sunday afternoon was my personal highlight as Harry Gregson-Williams gave a two-hour talk on film music entitled ‘Film Music from the Composer’s Point of View’.

A composer probably best known for his collaborations with the late director Tony Scott (Unstoppable, Man on Fire), Ben Affleck (Gone Baby Gone, The Town) and various animated films such as Shrek.

Accompanied by the setup he uses on films and a group of musicians, the auditorium resembled a makeshift mixing stage.

After being introduced by Peter Golub, director of the Sundance Film Music Program, Gregson-Williams not only provided valuable insights into scoring for films but also dropped in some amusing anecdotes.

One of these was Ben Affleck’s disarming honesty in admitting that he actually wanted Thomas Newman to score Gone Baby Gone (2007) – there is a distinct Newman-esque vibe to the opening titles.

Not only that, but two years later for The Town (2010), he again admitted Affleck wanted Newman (!) before eventually hiring him.

It is hard to compress the session into neat sound bites but his music setup was connected to the screen and he was clear as he could be about the different stages in scoring a film, with practical examples on the screen behind him.

Throughout he displayed a refreshing self-deprecating wit and if the composing work ever dries up he could start a side-career as a public speaker.

He also spoke of the importance of Hans Zimmer to his career and discussed how scores are done on software programmes like Cubase, Logic and Pro Tools, but also how that ties in with live musicians.

When he first started out, his Zimmer told him to lock himself in a room for several days and learn Cubase – the audio software programme he still uses to this day.

One thing that struck me after the session was how long the digital revolution has been with filmmaking process.

In the 1980s computers became more prominent in scores and chart music generally; the 1990s saw the arrival of the Avid and non-linear editing; and in the last decade we have seen cameras and projection switch to digital.

Ultimately the step-by-step way he broke down the elements of a film score was fascinating.

Using a sequence from Unstoppable (2010), he began by showing time-coded footage and gradually added in the elements that made up the final mix.

At the time he was scoring a film at Abbey Road Studios and another nice touch was that he passed around the vintage microphones and instruments from that iconic studio.

They still actually use them and it was a salient reminder that although the digital revolution has enveloped the music and film world, there is still a place for analogue pleasures.

> Sundance London
> Connect with them on Facebook (facebook.com/SundanceLondon) and Twitter (@sundancefestUK)
> More on the history of the Sundance Film Festival and The O2 at Wikipedia

DVD & BLU-RAY PICKS

The Colditz Story (Studiocanal): This 1955 World War 2 drama directed by Guy Hamilton (who later went on to direct several Bond movies) is based on the book ‘The Colditz Story’ by Pat Reid. Starring John Mills as Reid, Ian Carmichael and Lionel Jeffries, it is one of the most notable depictions of the Nazi prison. Extras include a 53 minute documentary about the castle and a feature on the restoration. [Buy the DVD or Blu-ray from Amazon]

Following (Criterion): This Region 1 import of Christopher Nolan‘s debut feature is worth seeking out, especially if you admire his later films like Memento (2000) and The Prestige (2006). An extraordinary production achievement (it was shot in London for just £6,000 on weekends), it attracted enough attention at festivals for the next step in his career. [Buy from Amazon]

[N.B. The Blu-ray is region encoded for America, so if you don't have a multi-region Blu-ray player get the DVD instead]

> Find out more about Colditz at Wikipedia
> More on Following at Film Notes at Criterion

DVD & BLU-RAY PICKS

The Dark Knight Rises (Warner Home Video): The opening of most anticipated blockbusters of the summer was overshadowed by a tragic shooting incident and a slightly less-than-stellar critical reception. Nonetheless, whilst it may not quite have scaled the heights of The Dark Knight, director Christopher Nolan managed to bring his customary intelligence and technical skills to the comic book genre. Like the previous two Blu-ray releases this disc comes with a lot of extras, with the option of watching them ‘in film’. Full technical details can be found at DVD Beaver and I’ll write some longer thoughts about the film soon. [Buy on DVD or Blu-ray at Amazon UK]

Luck: The Complete First Season (Warner Home Video): Another project that was overshadowed by unfortunate events was this HBO crime series set amidst the world of US horse racing. Created by David Milch, and executive produced by Michael Mann (who directed the pilot), it was ultimately cancelled after three horses died during production. Solid reviews and the pedigree of the participants (Dustin Hoffman, Dennis Farina, Nick Nolte and Michael Gambon) might make this a cult favourite in years to come. [Buy on DVD or Blu-ray at Amazon UK]

Umberto D. (Argent Films): One of the greatest Italian films to emerge in the post-war period is this classic 1952 neo-realist drama. Directed by Vittorio De Sica (who also made Bicycle Thieves), it explores the struggles of an old man in Rome and his trusty dog Flike (called ‘Flag’ in some subtitled versions of the film). Masterfully written, directed and edited, in light of recent European austerity this deceptively simple tale takes on a new resonance sixty years on. It also features perhaps the greatest performance by a dog in cinema history. [Buy on DVD at Amazon UK]

> DVD and Blu-ray Picks from April to November 2012
> The Best DVD and Blu-rays of 2011

This year’s Sight and Sound end-of-year poll has been topped by Paul Thomas Anderson’s The Master.

As usual, the UK film magazine polled around 100 critics and but have refrained from publishing it online for now.

But my print copy arrived in the post this morning and I can confirm that the list is as follows:

1. The Master (Paul Thomas Anderson, USA)

2. Tabu (Miguel Gomes, Portugal/Germany/France)

3. Amour (Michael Haneke, France/Germany/Austria)

4. Holy Motors (Leos Carax, France/Germany)

5. Beasts of the Southern Wild (Benh Zeitlin, USA)

=  Berberian Sound Studio (Peter Strickland, UK/Germany)

7. Moonrise Kingdom (Wes Anderson, USA)

8. Beyond the Hills (Christian Mungiu, Romania/France/Belgium)

= Cosmopolis (David Cronenberg, Canada/France/Portugal/Italy)

= Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Turkey/Bosnia & Herzegovina)

= This is Not A Film (Jafar Pahani & Mojtaba Mirtahmaseb, Iran)

N.B. Because of the crossover of UK and US release dates some titles have been duplicated from last year’s list.

> Sight and Sound on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube
> 2012 reviews at Metacritic
> Wikipedia on 2012 in film

One of the major changes in home entertainment over the last year was the rise of video-on-demand, with services such as iTunes, Lovefilm and Netflix eating away at the disc market.

But discs are still alive and studios still control the major releases on Blu-ray and DVD, with some releases coming with the cloud-based format called UltraViolet, which allows users to legally rip a digital copy.

We’ll have to wait and see how Christmas sales pan out, but we are currently living through a profound change in how we watch films in the home.

At the time of writing, the current situation resembles a confusing technical soup with various companies having to figure out some very difficult problems in how they produce and distribute their content.

But that is the subject of a longer post.

Here are my DVD and Blu-ray picks .

MAY

The Story of Film (Network) [Buy at Amazon]
Falstaff: Chimes at Midnight (Mr. Bongo) [Buy at Amazon]
Into the Abyss (Revolver)
The Jazz Baroness (3DD)
Treme: Season 2 (Warner Bros.)
Shame (Momentum) [Buy at Amazon]
Martha Marcy May Marlene (Fox)
The Artist (EV) [Buy at Amazon]

JUNE

Blue Velvet (Universal) [Buy at Amazon]
Lost Highway (Universal) [Buy at Amazon]
Odd Man Out (Network) [Buy at Amazon]

JULY

Chariots of Fire (Fox)
The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (StudioCanal) [Buy at Amazon]
Total Recall (Optimum Home Entertainment)
Some Like It Hot (MGM Home Entertainment)
A Fish Called Wanda (MGM Home Entertainment) [Buy at Amazon]

AUGUST

Le Harve (Artificial Eye) [Buy at Amazon]
Orlando (Artificial Eye)
This Must Be The Place (Trinity)
The Descendants (Fox) [Buy at Amazon]
Marley (Universal) [Buy at Amazon]
Rumble Fish (Eureka)

SEPTEMBER

Jaws (Universal) [Buy at Amazon]
Les Enfants Du Paradis (Second Sight) [Buy at Amazon]
All Quiet On The Western Front (Universal) [Buy at Amazon]
James Bond: Bond 50 (Fox) [Buy at Amazon]
To Catch a Thief (Paramount) [Buy at Amazon]
That Obscure Object of Desire (StudioCanal) [Buy at Amazon]
The Trial (StudioCanal) [Buy at Amazon]
The Turin Horse (Artificial Eye)

OCTOBER

Lawrence of Arabia (Sony) [Buy at Amazon]
Walkabout (Universal) [Buy at Amazon]
Dracula (Universal) [Buy at Amazon]
Frankenstein (Universal) [Buy at Amazon]
The Wolf Man (Universal) [Buy at Amazon]
Ai Weiwei – Never Sorry (Artificial Eye)
Indiana Jones: The Complete Collection (Paramount) [Buy at Amazon]
Prometheus (Fox)
Shut Up and Play the Hits (Pulse Films) [Buy at Amazon]
The Curse of Frankenstein (Lionsgate UK) [Buy at Amazon]
Woody Allen: A Documentary (Soda Pictures) [Buy at Amazon]
ET – The Extra Terrestrial (Universal) [Buy at Amazon]
Glengarry Glen Ross (ITV DVD)
Nostalgia for the Light (New Wave Films) [Buy at Amazon]
The Company of Wolves (ITV DVD) [Buy at Amazon]
The Shawshank Redemption (ITV DVD) [Buy at Amazon]
Homeland: Season 1 (Fox) [Buy at Amazon]

NOVEMBER

Citizen Kane (Universal) [Buy at Amazon]
Groundhog Day (Sony) [Buy at Amazon]
Alfred Hitchcock: The Masterpiece Collection (Universal) [Buy at Amazon]
Margin Call (Paramount) [Buy at Amazon]
The Man in the White Suit (Studiocanal) [Buy at Amazon]
Singin’ in the Rain (Warner Home Video) [Buy at Amazon]

> The Best DVD & Blu-ray Releases of 2011
> 2012 in Film

Although there’s grumbling every year that films are getting worse, 2012 did seem to be a lean year for cinema releases and the wider industry is still struggling to readjust from the financial and technological shocks of the last four years.

However, some notable events included:

• The Sundance Film Festival coming to London for the first time.
• The continuing digital revolution in how films are shot and seen.
• The enormous financial success of the Avengers movie (for some reason called Avengers Assemble in the UK) and certain animated films.
• Prometheus not living up to the Comic-Con fuelled hype of the previous summer.
• The tragic shooting incident that overshadowed the release of The Dark Knight Rises.
• Vertigo supplanting Citizen Kane in Sight and Sound’s famous poll.
• The unexpected deaths of Nora Ephron, Tony Scott and Harris Savides.
• The Bond franchise returning with Skyfall dominating the Autumn box office and pleasing the critics.
• The upcoming awards season which saw films such as Argo, Silver Linings Playbook and Lincoln jostling for early competition.

Among the DVD and Blu-ray releases that came out were:

• The Story of Film
• Chimes at Midnight
• A David Lynch Blu-ray boxset
• The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (and other notable re-releases from StudioCanal)
• Jaws
• Lawrence of Arabia
• Shut Up and Play the Hits
• E.T. The Extra Terrestrial

I’ll try to do as many ‘rewind’ posts as possible to cover some of the above, as well as notable end of year releases such as Argo, Amour and The Master.

If there is anything you want to ask about, just leave a comment below or get in touch.

> 2012 in film at Wikipedia
> Worldwide box office figures at Box Office Mojo

So, regular blogging finally resumes after a 6 month break.

A more detailed post explaining my absence lies somewhere in the future, but for now it feels good to be back.

P.S. Can anyone name the film the image above is taken from?

NATIONAL RELEASES

Avengers Assemble (Disney): The eagerly anticipated blockbuster brings together the super hero team of Marvel Comics characters. Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, The Hulk and others are united on the screen or the first time. Directed Joss Whedon, it stars Chris Hemsworth, Scarlett Johansson, Robert Downey Jr, Chris Evans, Tom Hiddleston and Jeremy Renner [Nationwide / 15]

ALSO OUT

Damsels In Distress (Sony Pictures): A group of style-obsessed college girls take in a new student and teach her their misguided ways of helping people at their grungy university. Directed by Whit Stillman, it stars Greta Gerwig, Carrie MacLemore, Aubrey Plaza and Adam Brody. [Key cities / 12A]

Albert Nobbs (E1 Films): Drama set in late 19th century Ireland, about a woman posing as a man so she can work as a butler in an exclusive Dublin hotel, Albert meets a handsome painter and looks to escape the lie she has been living. Directed by Rodrigo Garcia, it stars Glenn Close, Janet McTeer, Mia Wasikowska, Aaron Johnson, and Brendan Gleeson. [Key cities / 15]

Being Elmo (Dogwoof): Documentary about Kevin Clash, the man behind Elmo of Sesame Street, as he chases and ultimately achieves his childhood dream of working with master puppeteer Jim Henson. Directed by Constance Marks, it features Kevin Clash, Frank Oz, Rosie O’Donnell and Whoopi Goldberg. [Key cities / U]

Buck (Revolver): The story of the American cowboy and real life ‘horse whisperer’ who travels the US for nine grueling months a year, helping horses with people problems. Directed by Cindy Meehl, it features Buck Brannaman and Robert Redford. [Key cities / PG]

The Monk (Metrodome): Drama about a 17th-century Spanish monk (Vincent Cassell) and his descent into evil. Directed by Dominik Moll. [Selected cities / 15]

Outside Bet (The Works): British period piece set in the 1980s directed by Sacha Bennett and starring Bob Hoskins, Jenny Agutter, Adam Deacon and Emily Atack. [Key cities / 12A]

Strippers Vs Werewolves (Kaleidoscope Entertainment): Another British film whose title is perhaps self-explanatory. Directed by Jonathan Sothcott, it stars Adele Silva, Robert Englund, Billy Murray, Martin Kemp, Ali Bastian and Steven Berkoff. [Key cities / 15]

> Get local cinema showtimes at Google Movies or FindAnyFilm
> Recent UK DVD & Blu-ray releases

DVD & BLU-RAY PICKS

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (Sony Pictures Home Ent.): David Fincher brings his full digital armoury to Stieg Larsson‘s bestseller and the result is a masterful adaptation hampered only by the limitations of the source material. [Buy the Blu-ray or DVD]

Dracula (Universal): The classic 1931 adaptation of Bram Stoker‘s novel directed by Tod Browning, starring Bela Lugosi as arguably the most iconic version of the famous vampire. Digitally restored as part of Universal’s 100th anniversary celebrations.  [Buy the Blu-ray]

Lifeboat (Eureka): Another vintage dual DVD & Blu-ray release from the Masters of Cinema collection, this 1941 drama from Alfred Hitchcock sees American and British civilians stuck in a lifeboat in the North Atlantic. Like Rope (1948), Dial M for Murder (1954), and Rear Window (1954) it sees the director explore a limited setting. Stars Tallulah Bankhead, William Bendix, Heather Angel and Hume Cronyn. [Buy the dual edition DVD/Blu-ray]

Il Boom (Studiocanal): 1963 comedy by Vittorio de Sica set amidst the backdrop of the post-war Italian economic miracle which transformed the country in the span of a decade, from the late 1950s to the onset of the 1970s. It stars Alberto Sordi and Gianna Maria Canale. [Buy the DVD]

ALSO OUT

Apollo 13 (Universal Pictures) [Blu-ray / Normal]
Back to the Future (Universal Pictures) [Blu-ray / Normal]
Bad Cop (Anchor Bay Entertainment UK) [Blu-ray / Normal]
Being Human: Series 4 (2 Entertain) [Blu-ray / Box Set]
Despair (Park Circus) [Blu-ray / Normal]
Despicable Me (Universal Pictures) [Blu-ray / Normal]
Fury (Revolver Entertainment) [Blu-ray / Normal]
Gladiator (Universal Pictures) [Blu-ray / Normal]
Hirokin – The Last Samurai (Signature) [Blu-ray / Normal]
Jurassic Park (Universal Pictures) [Blu-ray / Normal]
King Kong (Universal Pictures) [Blu-ray / Normal]
Mamma Mia! (Universal Pictures) [Blu-ray / Normal]
Nanny McPhee (Universal Pictures) [Blu-ray / Normal]
Paul (Universal Pictures) [Blu-ray / Normal]
Sansho Dayu/Gion Bayashi (Eureka) [Blu-ray with DVD]
Shaun of the Dead (Universal Pictures) [Blu-ray / Normal]
The Blues Brothers (Universal Pictures) [Blu-ray / Normal]
The Bourne Ultimatum (Universal Pictures) [Blu-ray / Normal]
The Lady (EV) [Blu-ray / Normal]
The Mummy (Universal Pictures) [Blu-ray / Normal]
The Son of No One (Lionsgate UK) [Blu-ray / Normal]
Ugetsu Monogatari/Oyu-sama (Eureka) [Blu-ray with DVD]

> Recent DVD & Blu-ray picks
> The Best DVD and Blu-ray releases of 2011

NATIONAL RELEASES

Gone (Entertainment): Thriller about a woman (Amanda Seyfried) who is convinced that the serial killer who kidnapped her two years ago is the same man responsible for kidnapping her sister. Directed by Amanda Fuller, it co-stars Jennifer Carpenter and Wes Bentley.

Salmon Fishing in the Yemen (Lionsgate UK): The story of a fisheries scientist (Ewan MacGregor) approached by a consultant (Emily Blunt) to a Yemeni sheikh (Amr Waked) with a scheme involving salmon. Directed by Lasse Hallstrom, it co-stars Kristin Scott Thomas, Catherine Steadman and Tom Mison. [Nationwide / 12A]

Lockout (Entertainment): Sci-fi actioner about a man (Guy Pearce) who is wrongly convicted of spying against the U.S. but is offered his freedom if he can rescue the president’s daughter (Maggie Grace) from an outer space prison taken over by violent inmates. Directed by Heitor Dhalia. [Nationwide / 15]

ALSO OUT

Marley (Universal): Kevin Macdonald’s documentary about the life and career of reggae legend Bob Marley. With contributions from his family members, former collaborators and Chris Blackwell. [Selected cinemas / 15]

Elles (Artificial Eye): A well-off Parisian journalist investigates the lives of two student prostitutes for a magazine article and is forced to confront her own sexual fears and desires. Directed by Malgoska Szumowska, it co-stars Anais Demoustier and Joanna Kulig. [Select cinemas / 18]

Fury (Revolver): Crime drama about a veteran grifter (Samuel L Jackson) trying to go straight, but who is sucked back in by the son of his former partner looking for vengeance for his dad’s death. Directed by David Weaver, it co-stars Luke Kirby, Ruth Negga and Tom Wilkinson [Select cinemas / 18]

Elfie Hopkins (Kaleidoscope): An aspiring teen detective stumbles into her first real case, when investigating the mysterious new family in her neighborhood. Directed by Ryan Andrews, it stars Jaime Winstone, Ray Winstone, Aneurin Barnard, Rupert Evans, Kimberley Nixon and Kate Magowan. [Selected cinemas / 15]

> Get local cinema showtimes at Google Movies or FindAnyFilm
> Recent UK DVD & Blu-ray releases