DVD Articles: May 2008

Moments of surprise, moments of awe, moments of the unbelievable. Please, leave the vaults open and keep the goodness coming, BBC.

Part portrait-of-the-artist and part concert documentary, Swept Away is an intimate look at the life and work of Austin songwriter and musician Jon Dee Graham.

This oddball film's closest progenitors are Fassbinder’s Brecht-influenced and just plain weird Whity, and Cox’s Americanized Spaghetti western, Straight to Hell.

The film takes great care to ignite those moments of emotional fires, burning within the dilapidated walls of the apartment.

This seems as if a “Kerouac School for Disembodied Poetics” alum gathered old professors in a room and asked them about things they’ve been asked a million times before.

This hastily crafted Sikh/Muslim love story is barely salvaged by lush cinematography and a few fine performances.

There should be room in our collective imagination for a hero who makes mistakes, lots of them, and still saves the day -- these are films that should be owned.

The women struggle to stay above water when apart. But this show really drowns when they are together.

For its unflinching approach, its eye for human strength and compassion, its clear message about the catastrophic stupidity of the enterprise itself, this remains among the very best films ever made about men at war.

Moon makes use of cityscapes, landscapes, and still images to paint a unique picture of a band at work.

A group of Mao-influenced French students struggle with ideology, the divide between theory and praxis, and the other myriad conflicts of starry-eyed revolutionaries.

Its humor is, to put it kindly, unsophisticated, and forms the backdrop to a love story that feels like being stuck on an awkward first date.

Striking and beautiful; clearly indebted to the Czech school, but applied to Japanese traditions such as Bunraku puppet theatre, Noh masks, and ghost stories

All things considered The Time Warrior and Timelash could be labeled “The Height and Fall of Classic Doctor Who”.

Thomas Wolfe wrote that you can't go home again, but he didn't warn us about returning to the TV shows of our youth.

A smart film that is ultimately undone by the director’s preening and self-conscious style.

The fifth most watched historical Korean drama of all time is captured in these impressive box sets.

The little folksinger cements her reputation as the best live act since the Grateful Dead with a special two-night grand opening of Babeville.

Alien Agent becomes so pointless that one longs for the highbrow art of Steven Segal or Jean-Claude Van Damme.

Boy-o-boy, did Blue Note dates schwing -- a solid, music-laced documentary about the legendary jazz record label.

The ideological battle lines are quickly drawn, distracting us from what a gentle tale Bella has to tell, even if one disagrees with its final judgments.

This is the ne plus ultra of intellectual torture tests, dripping with intertextuality and esoteric post-structural philosophy.

These Mannequin movies come loaded with extra cheese. You'll want a cheap bottle of wine, with that, too.

Scruffy and unpolished in the open casting call, Dakota Blue Richards shines in her role as the gutsy heroine.

A decade removed from the shelter of their collective heartthrob status, the Salinger family emerges more unlikable, but a lot more interesting.

Tom Snyder was goofy, gregarious, and utterly without guile; in other words, he was perfect.

There are so many positive aspects to this film that the empty feeling left when the it ends is utterly shocking.

A dramatic Devonshire setting, a feminist younger sister, and a wet shirt wood-chopping scene: a few details are frankly invented, but for the most part this new adaptation is true to Austen's novel.

This sometimes loses itself in a labyrinth of classic hipster kitsch: fake moustaches, Polaroid pictures, out-of-date analog technology, and quasi-condescending interpretations of small-town America

Delon is a handsome French SOB -- and this set of five Delon films is a bargain for those who trawl the shallower end of French cinema's swimming pool.

Some of the later pinks and other exploiters push concepts of sexual revolution and empowerment, sometimes in very odd and controversial ways, but this film doesn't go so far.

From its first eerily harmonized soul anthems through the feverish funk of Superfly, this two-disc documentary establishes Mayfield’s visionary leadership.

In this too-brief biographical film, French documentarian Anaïs Prosaïc aims to unravel the mystery surrounding this complicated artist

Mirikitani's present parallels with his past; the profiling and targeting of Arab-Americans and Japanese-Americans, the World Trade Center and the bombing of his hometown of Hiroshima .

As a meditation on the tragedy of a broken community and on the viciousness of Croatia’s recent fascistic past, this is thoughtful and incisive, if unremittingly bleak.

Jaglom's career-long desire to wring every drop of truth from a moment converges with a unified, satisfying viewing experience that ranks with the better work of Woody Allen or John Sayles.

The blending of the natural with the fantastical is truly remarkable and elevates this film from simple child’s play to high art.

This intriguing documentary seeks to restore Wagstaff – an enigmatic, enthralling figure by any reckoning – to his rightful place at the centre of New York's art world in the '70s and '80s.

This is a well-intentioned little film with its heart in the right place, and everything else out of whack.

This film carries a bedrock rebelliousness and shocking ugliness that firmly resonates today.

Much of the drama here is handled in the immediate, vital style of historical films from Eastern Europe, which are without exception the most fluid and immediate in cinema