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The Draughtsman’s Contract

Director: Peter Greenaway

Cast: Anthony Higgins, Janet Suzman, Anne-Louise Lambert, Hugh Fraser

(US DVD: 12 Feb 2008)

Official Site

 Amazon

20

To call Peter Greenaway “the thinking man’s filmmaker” is like referring to David Lynch as “a little weird”. This British maverick who makes movies like architects create buildings, is a trained painter, and he tackles each piece of celluloid like a limitless and infinite canvas. Any one scene can contain hidden meanings, intricate riddles, blatant misrepresentation, and layer upon layer of aesthetic grace. Such is the case with this remarkable first film centering on a Restoration artist, a daunting commission, and the possibility of his being a patsy to murder. Like Blow-up mixed with Botticelli, it’s a 17th Century murder mystery where the clues are buried in passive pencil sketches. It’s also a telling tour de force. Bill Gibron

Forbidden Zone

Director: Richard Elfman

Cast: Hervé Villechaize, Susan Tyrrell, Gisele Lindley, Jan Stuart Schwartz, Marie-Pascale Elfman, Virginia Rose

(Samuel Goldwyn Company; US DVD: 29 Jul 2008)

Official Site

 Amazon

19

Originally released in black and white, Mystic Nights of the Oingo Boingo member Richard Elfman (Danny’s brother) hoped to capture the spirit of his band’s unusual live show with this surreal fantasy film. The one thing he couldn’t achieve was color—until now. Thanks to a painstaking technological tweak by Legend Films, Elfman’s original vision for this nutty trip into racial slurs, sexual innuendos, Kipper Kid craziness, and outmoded musical styles becomes the motion picture equivalent of a rainbow acid trip. While slightly dated and occasionally dopey, this is avant-garde outsider cinema at its head scratching best. Bill Gibron

Spaced: The Complete Series

(BBC; US DVD: 22 Jul 2008)

Official Site

 Amazon

• Review [28.Jul.2008]
• Review [28.Jul.2008]

18

With Shaun of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, British badboys Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg (along with fellow partner in pandemonium, Nick Frost) have taken the spoof to a whole new, incredibly satiric level. While some would like to think their genius arrived, fully formed, with those two films, the guys actually gained most of their farcical footing taking on the standard UK TV jive. Along with writing help from co-star Jessica Hynes, this slacker romance has remained one of the highlights of their pre-superstardom. Droll, unassuming, and very, very funny, this is the reason England regularly trounces America in the broadcast humor department. Bill Gibron

American Drug War: The Last White Hope

Director: Kevin Booth

Cast: Tommy Chong, Freeway Ricky Ross, Sheriff Joe Arapio, Ron Paul, Mike Ruppert

(Sacred Cow; US DVD: 8 Apr 2008)

Official Site

 Amazon

17

Few DVDs speak truth to power with such compelling evidence and with such an unassuming angle. Kevin Booth investigates drugs in America after several legal and illegal drug-related tragedies negatively impact his life. In doing so he brings together a plethora of evidence that illustrates just how entangled in treacherous, ironic lies the U.S. government is from the Iran Contra Scandal to the arrest of Tommy Chong, from crack infiltration of Los Angeles to the anti-drug propaganda produced by big tobacco and alcohol companies, from Tulia, Texas to Sheriff Joe Arpaio. One of the few drug documentaries to overtly explore racism, American Drug War covers a head-spinning amount of information and leaves the viewer to draw her own conclusions. Sarah Hentges

I’m Not There

Director: Todd Haynes

Cast: Cate Blanchett, Richard Gere, Heath Ledger, Christian Bale, Michelle Williams, Julianne Moore, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Ben Whishaw, Marcus Carl Franklin, David Cross, Bruce Greenwood

(Weinstein Company)

Trailer

Official Site

 Amazon

16

Todd Haynes has balls. He took on the most difficult of subjects (the life and shapeshifting times of songwriter extraordinaire Bob Dylan) and found a way to be both factual and fanciful. Reimagining the artistic chameleon as one of six distinct personas, and hiring an equal number of actors to play them, Haynes helped put into perspective an important, influential artist whose vocation seemed stuck in a constant state of flux. Now, thanks to DVD, everything confusing is clear as crystal. On a commentary track that should be mandatory listening for any would-be bonus feature participant, the director goes into excruciating detail, explaining almost every facet of his fascinating film. Bill Gibron

Pete Seeger: The Power of Song

(The Weinstein Company; US DVD: 5 Aug 2008)

Official Site

 Amazon

15

In a category that is growing in greatness exponentially, the stunning documentary Pete Seeger: The Power of Song superbly immortalizes an already living legend. For many decades removed from the fascinating folk movement of the ‘50s and early ‘60s, this activist artist is perhaps a Dylan-descended footnote, a name they recognize but fail to fully understand the import of. But thanks to director Jim Brown, Seeger is allowed his proper place in history. One cannot walk away from this spellbinding narrative and not feel both proud to live in a country that offers such talents and freedoms and sad for the government policies and blinkered politicians who twisted those tenets into something sordid and evil. Bill Gibron

Hellboy II: The Golden Army (3 Disc Special Edition)

Director: Guillermo del Toro

Cast: Ron Perlman, Selma Blair, Doug Jones, Jeffrey Tambor, Seth MacFarlane, John Hurt

(US DVD: 11 Nov 2008)

 Amazon

• Review [5.Dec.2008]

14

Sometimes, the most outrageous vision is the most personal. As part of the amazing three disc DVD presentation we hear director Guillermo Del Toro, in his own self-deprecating way, explain how the larger than life flights of fancy peppered throughout the underappreciated Summer blockbuster represents an literal illustration of his own fertile imagination. It’s everything he wanted the original film to be and much, much more. Purposefully plotting out certain scenes to thematically represent his view of mankind and its uneasy coexistence with forces outside of reality, Del Toro delivers the kind of wide-eyed entertainment that will only grow in approval in the coming years. Bill Gibron

The Wire: The Complete Fifth Season

(HBO; US DVD: 12 Aug 2008; UK DVD: Available as import)

Official Site

 Amazon

• Review [15.Aug.2008]

13

The Wire is a narratively complex oasis in a sea of television that begins and ends week to week. Not even content to weave its massive webs of drug-fueled deception per season, it continues its story through all five seasons. For a cop show to use that large canvas today is kind of a miracle. The multifaceted tale of decay stretched across this expanse of storytelling is no less deserving of notice. The Wire is just another reason why HBO simply isn’t even television anymore, but takes the medium to a whole new level. Aaron Marsh

Persepolis

Director: Vincent Paronnaud, Marjane Satrapi

Cast: Chiara Mastroianni, Catherine Deneuve, Danielle Darrieux, Simon Abkarian, François Jerosme

(Sony Pictures Classics; US DVD: 24 Jun 2008)

Trailer

Official Site

 Amazon

• Review [8.Jul.2008]
• Review [3.Jan.2008]

12

Based upon the graphic novel by Marjane Satrapi, an award-winning film about a girl’s coming of age and her life before, during and after Islamic revolution in Iran. On DVD, this animated film brings home not only an entertaining, original story but also an important one: for its compelling history, its strong female protagonist, and the art of the film as a whole. The blue, black, and white of the DVD cover capture the tone of the film as well as its crisp visuals. The stark animation buffers the realities of war that Marjane and her family experience and the bitter tone reminds us of the ways in which lives—in this case the life of a young girl with big hopes and dreams—can be dramatically altered by war. Sarah Hentges

The Last Emperor

Director: Bernardo Bertolucci

Cast: John Lone, Joan Chen, Peter O’Toole, Ruocheng Ying, Victor Wong

(Columbia Pictures; US DVD: 26 Feb 2008)

 Amazon

• Review [16.Mar.2009]

11

One of the most extravagant cinematic experiences in history is now presented in the most extravagant of forms. The Criterion Collection has released the definitive four-disc edition of Bernardo Betrolucci’s masterpiece, The Last Emperor, which contains both the Theatrical Version and the extended Television Version (in its proper 2:1 format—no the sides aren’t cut off). Also included are two full discs of special features, including a fantastic BBC Documentary that follows Betrolucci during the making of, as well as audio commentary by Betrolucci, producer Jeremy Thomas, screenwriter Mark Peploe, and composer-actor Ryuichi Sakamoto. Emperor Pu Yi has never looked so good. John Bohannon