This sees Peter Greenaway in his element, examining Rembrandt’s The Night Watch in loving detail Some of Peter Greenaway’s films leave me cold, but this sees the writer-director in his element, examining Rembrandt’s The Night Watch in loving detail, spinning a murder mystery around it and providing fantastic compositions of his own. It is also notable for the surprise casting of Martin Freeman …
District 9 DVD & Blu-ray, Sony With a price tag roughly one 10th that of Avatar’s, Neill Blomkamp’s debut is a film only a director with a love of the science-fiction genre. Like Star Wars or Terminator, it sucks up myriad influences and builds on them rather than simply rehashing. So you get flashes of Robocop, Alien Nation, The Fly, Quatermass, etc, but all given a smart updating and a South …
Studio’s plan to bring forward UK DVD release date for the Pixar film blocked by British cinema owners Kids in Britain won’t be getting Pixar’s Up in their Christmas stockings this year following a clash between Disney and UK cinema owners. Last month, Disney decided to bring forward the DVD release of Up from 15 February to December
Inglourious Basterds DVD & Blu-ray, Universal It’s taken a decade for this to arrive (no time wasted on spellcheck, though), and Quentin Tarantino’s epic second world war romp is the best thing he’s done in ages. It’s deceptively Tarantino-esque; just because it’s a period piece doesn’t mean he skimps on his trademark pop-culture references. It’s just that here he geeks out not on Les Big Macs …
The DVD/Blu-ray box set of the year has to be the Alien Collection (20th Century Fox), due in no small part to the fact that it’ll probably take you a year to get through all the incredible extras and alternate edits.
A Serious Man DVD & Blu-ray, Universal Refreshing to see the Coen brothers are still in love with making movies enough to ditch their big star casts and large budgets every now and then – you couldn’t imagine someone like Martin Scorsese pulling a similar move. This isn’t a film with what you’d call massive commercial potential, but then great films seldom are. It starts with a non-sequitur, a …
DVD sales fall 5.6%, the first decline since 2005 The collapse of Woolworths and Zavvi hit sales of DVDs last year, according to new figures, while cash-strapped consumers are increasingly deciding to rent the latest movies rather than buy them. The actual number of DVDs sold in the UK dropped 5.6% last year, the first decrease since 2005
Anne Billson on the most tasteless and inappropriate DVD cover ever
The Exiles DVD, BFI In 1961 British-born director Kent Mackenzie made The Exiles, one of the first films to show the lives of Native Americans.
E1 Entertainment, cert 15, retail It’s about dolphins, but beware, there’s nothing cuddly to see here, and anyone with an interest in animals will be angry and sad at the end of this documentary about Taiji, Japan, described as “kind of like the Twilight Zone” in that it has a hidden bay with a shocking secret. Central figure Ric O’Barry is a longtime dolphin trainer who worked on the TV series …