Look out as the heavy hitters from Cannes 2006 are starting to make their way onto DVD as Special Edition # 14 contains reviews two of the very best from last year’s festival. Laurence Boyce also sees that DVD producers are suddenly suffering from outbreaks of common sense, as numerous great –and forgotten – TV shows are unleashed on the buying public. There’s even a lit…

Andy Serkis (Lord of the Rings, King Kong), Sacha Baron Cohen (Ali G. Borat et al), Milo Twomey (Band of Brothers), Rebecca Craig (Casualty, Emma, Silent Witness) star in this recently discovered remarkable British comedy. The Jolly Boys Last Stand is a unique and unforgettable show of their raw talent available to rent and buy from 13th February 2006 (RRP £14.99) When "El Presidente&…

Paul Taylor takes a tragic story and makes an up-lifting, life-affirming, non-preachy film. We Are Together (Thina Simunye) has as its backdrop one of the most urgent (and shameful) issues of our time: the spread of HIV, Africa's 1.2 million AIDS orphans and the lack of access to life-saving anti-retroviral (ARV) drugs. That less than 17% of HIV sufferers have access to the drugs in a…

If you’re a fan of Blade Runner – and there are many – you may be happy that there’s a new book exploring the classic film. However, if terms such as ‘Intertextuality’, ‘Liminal Space’ and ‘Cyberethnography’ are liable to give you a sudden headache then maybe you’d better check out Laurence Boyce’s review of The Blade Runner…

Artist/director Steve McQueen's second feature (following 2008's Hunger), follows the unravelling New York existence of sex addict Brandon (Michael Fassbender). Living alone, he (seemingly) happily picks up girls in bars, orders prostitutes like takeout and masturbates in the work loos after watching porn on his computer. It's a tad compulsive, but his outward charm and ability to just about ho…

Profoundly humane and stunningly aesthetical, Waltz with Bashir is not about dancing…not even around the bullets of one’s enemies as does an Israeli soldier in the eponymous scene. Through the personal lens of his experience as a soldier during the Sabra and Chatila massacres of the 1982 Lebanese war, Israeli director Ari Folman tells the universal story of young men and the harrow…

We’ve just passed Halloween which means that it’s horror movie a-go-go as we have more remakes of classic scary movies (which, alongside the fact that Scream 4 has been announced, seems to indicate that the horror genre has run out of ideas entirely) and one film that is so disgusting that I think that I may not be able to eat for quite a while. Still, nothing’s as scary as George Osbourne. Speci…

It seems as though there are two films in Oliver Stone's W., fighting to separate themselves from each other. There is the story of George W. Bush (Josh Brolin), the president who took his country to war in 2003. Then there is Dubya, the son in awe of his father, George H. W. Bush (James Cromwell); who feels rivalry with his little brother Jeb (Jason Ritter); and who sees politics as the family…

This book’s subtitle is The Power of Color in Visual Storytellling, but it’s also something of a tribute to the power of a good title. I would defy anyone to spot this in a bookshop and not have their curiosity aroused. Publisher: Focal Press ISBN: 0-240-80688-3 Published date: Current Country of origin: US Subject area: Colour in Film Design price: £24.99 Personally, I’ve know all about the i…

As the  50th London Film Festival begins today, here's a third update from Suchandrika Chakrabarti, with previews of Infamous, a Truman Capote biopic, Who Loves the Sun, a Canadian indie feature and Shut Up & Sing, a Dixie Chicks documentary.     Infamous (dir. Douglas McGrath, USA, 2006)     Brit Toby Jones gives the…

As always, the summer becomes a time when the focus is on the spectacle of cinema-going with movies such as Inception and Toy Story 3 packing them in. So, Special Edition # 41 will show you that it’s excellent time to chill out and enjoy some low key delights as they hit the shelves. Laurence Boyce finds some excellent films that have proved wildly popular on the festival circuit and a choice sel…

Cocaine Cowboys is a documentary looking at the rise of drug gangs in 1980s Florida. It was released in UK cinemas on 23rd November, so should be on near you. For those unfamilar with the events of the period, the documentary tracks the transformation of Miami from sleepy retirement village to a place made rich through drugs and violent killings. Read on for the trailer, which is fa…

  Producer: Generic Pool Productions Wildlife films have long been family favourites on TV, but the smooth and easy presentation of the earth's fauna on the box belies the infinite patience and dedicated professionalism of the men and women who set out to capture it on film. This special interest video DVD gives us the inside story. And for those who feel they would enjoy the…

It’s a chock full column this time around as some of the biggest blockbusters of last year find their way onto DVD. So join Special Edition # 16 as Laurence Boyce reviews the re-invention of one of Britain’s cinematic icons, the re-release of one of the most famous films of the 90s and – just so we don’t start getting too serious – some classic cartoons that a genera…

Special Edition # 35 is  your special Xmas bumpercolumn with plenty (and we really mean plenty) of DVDs for you to be getting your teeth into. Laurence Boyce will point you in the right direction if you’re looking for presents or simply some ways to escape the endless rounds of Xmas television. So let’s get cracking with just what exactly Santa may put in your stocking over Christmas, especially…

Fundamentalist atheism is as old as religion, and possibly time. Back in a less liberal era, the 16th century, the playwright Christopher Marlowe got into trouble for trashing religion as a translator of the classical author Ovid ("God is a name, no substance, feared in vain"), as well as in his own stuff ("I count religion but a childish toy "). US comedian Bill M…

How did we cope before the advent of DVD’s? Rewinding a video tape took ages, the quality was something less to be desired and there was a nary a special feature in sight. How our film loving predecessor’s must have suffered in that primitive world - well, unless they had loads of money and bought a Laserdisc. Thankfully, we’re now knee deep in DVDs and Special Edition # 28 is…

  An Education, which which has its UK premiere tonight at the London Film Festival, is based on a short memoir written by newspaper journalist Lynn Barber, which was published in Granta. The story was adapted for the screen by Nicky Hornby, and stars Carey Mulligan in an acclaimed turn as 16-year-old Jenny (based on the young Lynn), and Peter Sarsgaard as David, the older man who shows her wh…

  You would be hard pressed to find anyone who thinks Ken Loach's films are simply OK, or all right, or not so bad. Loach divides opinion. ``The Wind That Shakes the Barley,'' which won the top prize -- the Palme D'Or -- at the Cannes Film Festival last month isn't going to change that fact. The film is, at least in part, a damning indictment of the British in Ireland…

The 55th BFI London Film Festival opens tonight!  Oh. Fernando Meirelles. This is no City of God. This isn't even Love Actually. It just. Doesn't. Work. So... there's sex trafficking, infidelity, infidelity, people meeting on a plane, loooooads of interminable airport scenes, a brilliant bit of Anthony Hopkins in AA (but his character never rings true), pretty brunettes bringing sad guys redemp…

    Future Shorts, the film label behind Rock'n' Roll Cinema and Secret Cinema , as well as global distributor of short films, has released its first DVD, a bit of a greatest hits called Adventures in Short Film - Volume 1. They chose well for their inaugural compilation.   As with a short story, short films can do great things with a hint of strangen…

Any book that attempts to reinforce the idea that film is, first and foremost, a visual medium has to be a good thing. 'Cinematic Storytelling' certainly does just that. Directors, writers, editors and cinematographers will all glean much of use from this book. Publisher: Michael Wiese Productions ISBN: ISBN 1-932907-05-X Published date: Current Country of origin: US Subject area: Visual Film Na…

Francois Truffaut memorably said that there was “… a certain incompatibility between the words ‘cinema’ and ‘Britain’.” Stephen Frears had an equally memorable retort, stunning in its simplicity and epic in its sentiments: “Bollocks to Truffaut.” Yet aside from certainly glorious moments – the Free Cinema movement, the Swinging Sixties…

Early work by Hideo Miyazaki is cheap fun but lacks the depth admirers of the animation master will recognise in his later works. Director: Hideo Miyazaki Country of origin: Japan Length: 110 mins Format (DV, 35mm, etc): animation Genre: action fairy tale Film website: www.manga.co.uk From any other director this would be a film to write home about - at least if you're an animation fan. But this…

Do you want some DVDs? Then you've come to the right place squire as I have Special Edition # 46 all ready and waiting with some tremendously fun new films to see you through the days. This time around we've got violence, corruption and a half shark and half octopus. As you do.  Danny Trejo plays a man whose family have killed and whose beloved town has been corrupted out of all recognition. Kno…