Amazon.co.uk Review
All films take a certain suspension of disbelief. Fight Club takes perhaps more than others, but if you’re willing to let yourself get caught up in the anarchy, this film, based on the novel by Chuck Palahniuk, is a modern-day morality play warning of the decay of society. Edward Norton is the unnamed protagonist, a man going through life on cruise control, feeling nothing. To fill his hours, he begins attending support groups and 12-step meetings. True, he isn’t actually afflicted with the problems, but he finds solace in the groups. This is destroyed, however, when he meets Marla (Helena Bonham Carter), also faking her way through groups. Spiralling back into insomnia, Norton finds his life is changed once again, by a chance encounter with Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt), whose forthright style and no-nonsense way of taking what he wants appeal to our narrator. Tyler and the protagonist find a new way to feel release: they fight. They fight each other, and then as others are attracted to their ways, they fight the men who come to join their newly formed Fight Club. Marla begins a destructive affair with Tyler, and things fly out of control, as Fight Club grows into a nationwide fascist group that escapes the protagonist’s control. Fight Club, directed by David Fincher (Seven), is not for the faint of heart; the violence is no holds barred. But the film is captivating and beautifully shot, with some thought-provoking ideas. Pitt and Norton are an unbeatable duo, and the film has some surprisingly humorous moments. The film leaves you with a sense of profound discomfort and a desire to see it again, if for no other reason than to just to take it all in. –Jenny Brown

Fight Club

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A volatile, toxic potion of satire and nihilism, road movie and science fiction, violence and comedy, the unclassifiable sensibility of Alex Cox’s Repo Man is the model and inspiration for a potent strain of post-punk American comedy that includes not only Quentin Tarantino (Pulp Fiction), but also early Coen brothers (Raising Arizona, in particular), Men in Black, and even (in a weird way) The X-Files. Otto, a baby-face punk played by Emilio Estevez, becomes an apprentice to Bud (Harry Dean Stanton), a coke-snorting, veteran repo-man-of-honour prowling the streets of a Los Angeles wasteland populated by hoods, wackos, burnouts, conspiracy theorists, and aliens of every stripe. It may seem chaotic at first glance, but there’s a “latticework of coincidence” (as Tracey Walter puts it) underlying everything. Repo Man is a key American movie of the 1980s–just as Taxi Driver, Nashville, and Chinatown are key American movies of the ’70s. With a scorching soundtrack that features Iggy Pop, Fear, Black Flag, Circle Jerks, and Suicidal Tendencies. –Jim Emerson

Repo Man

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The years have endowed Saturday Night Fever with a powerful, elegiac quality since its explosive release in 1977. It was the must-see movie for a whole generation of adolescents, sparking controversy for rough language and clumsily realistic sex scenes which took teen cinema irrevocably into a new age. And of course, it revived the career of the Bee Gees to stratospheric heights, thanks to a justifiably legendary soundtrack which now embodies the disco age. But Saturday Night Fever was always more than a disco movie. Tony Manero is an Italian youth from Brooklyn straining at the leash to escape a life defined by his family, blue collar job and his gang. Disco provides the medium for him to break free.

It was the snake-hipped dance routines which made John Travolta an immediate sex symbol. But seen today, his performance as Tony is compelling: rough-hewn, certainly, but complex and true, anticipating the fine screen actor he would be recognised as 20 years later. Scenes of the Manhattan skyline and the Brooklyn Bridge, representing Tony’s route to a bigger world, now have an added poignancy, adding to Saturday Night Fever‘s evocative power. It’s a bittersweet classic.

On the DVD: Saturday Night Fever is presented in 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen with a Dolby Digital 5.1 surround soundtrack, both of which help to recapture the unique atmosphere of the late 1970s. The main extra is a director’s commentary from John Badham, with detailed descriptions of casting and the improvisation behind many of the scenes, plus the unsavoury reality behind Travolta’s iconic white disco suit. –Piers Ford

Saturday Night Fever

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You either love Russ Meyer’s garishly sexist movies about bodacious babes and horny men or you find them utterly disgusting. The response to his work is that clear-cut. Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, which features a screenplay by critic Roger Ebert, barely qualifies as a sequel to the film based on Jacqueline Susann’s trashy bestseller. Rather, it’s a broad, trashy remake on its own terms about what happens to a trio of female rock musicians when they leave the Midwest and head for Hollywood. Sex, drugs, murder–the only thing it doesn’t have is cannibalism, the gold standard when it comes to trashy entertainment. –Marshall FineEND

Beyond the Valley of the Dolls

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The Heathers are a clique of bitchy classmates in this dark comedy from 1989. The film itself was a good showcase for Winona Ryder, the Queen of Teen in the late 1980s, playing a high-school girl forced into the social world of “the Heathers”, and Christian Slater, doing his early Jack Nicholson thing. While Ryder’s character muddles over the consequences of giving up one set of friends for another, her association with the new boy in school (Slater) turns out to have deadly consequences. Director Michael Lehmann turned this unusual film into something more than another teen-death flick. There is real wit and sharp satire afoot, and the fusion of horror and comedy is provocative in itself. Heathers remains a kind of benchmark in contemporary cinema for bringing surreal intelligence into Hollywood films. –Tom Keogh, Amazon.com

Heathers

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With the advent of satellite broadcasting resurrecting the art of the TV movie, films like the invigorating The Boondock Saints are becoming more frequent. Made for Sky, the movie eschews big-screen production values but is still good value for money. Although the story of two Irish-American brothers who set out on a believed divine mission to wipe out the worst of the criminal element of Boston at times seems like an imitation of the superb Dogma, both films were actually made in the same year. The film is not without its faults, notably the poor performances of Sean Patrick Flanery and Norman Reedus as the two brothers–both of whom adopt ludicrous Irish accents. Far better is Willem Dafoe, who steals the show as FBI agent Smecker, and the manic David Della Rocco. Still, The Boondock Saints is highly watchable and keeps the viewer interested throughout with a strong story, frequent black humour and arresting visuals. And there aren’t many places where you will come across Billy Connolly as a Mafia contract killer. –Phil Udell

The Boondock Saints

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The “lost” sleeper hit of 1980 has since become one of the most revered cult movies of all time, largely due to its bawdy, irreverent story about the art and artifice of filmmaking and an outrageously clever performance by Peter O’Toole. As megalomaniacal film director Eli Cross, O’Toole plays a larger-than-life figure whose ability to manipulate reality is like a power-trip narcotic. The focus of his latest mind game is a fugitive (Steve Railsback) recruited to replace a stuntman killed during a recent on-set accident. In return for protective sanctuary, the fugitive takes a crash course in stunt work but soon discovers that he’s the paranoid player in a game he can’t control, with the dictatorial director making up the rules. Or is he? The Stunt Man is a game of its own, played through the fantasy of filmmaking, and half the fun of watching the movie comes from sharing the stuntman’s paranoid confusion. Barbara Hershey has a smart, sexy supporting role as a lead actress who won’t submit to her director’s seemingly devious behaviour; but it’s clearly O’Toole who steals the show. Director Richard Rush adds to the movie’s maverick appeal–in a career plagued by struggles against the mainstream studio system, Rush hasn’t made a better movie before or since. The Stunt Man clearly represents the potential of his neglected talent. –Jeff Shannon

The Stunt Man

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Sometimes a movie achieves such legendary status that it can’t quite live up to its reputation. Plan 9 from Outer Space is not one of these movies. It is just as magnificently terrible as you’ve heard. Plan 9 is the story of space aliens who try to conquer the Earth through resurrection of the dead. Psychic Criswell narrates (“Future events such as these will affect you in the future!”) as police rush through the cemetery, occasionally clipping the cardboard tombstones in their zeal to find the source of the mysterious goings-on. More than just a bad film, Plan 9 is something of a one-stop clearinghouse for poor cinematic techniques: the time shifts whimsically from midnight to afternoon sun, Tor Johnson flails desperately in an attempt to rise from his coffin, and flying saucers zoom past on clearly visible strings. Fading star Bela Lugosi tragically died during filming but such a small hurdle could not stop writer-producer-director Ed Wood. Lugosi is ingeniously replaced with a man who holds a cape across his face and might as well have “NOT BELA LUGOSI” stamped on his forehead. Plan 9 is so sweetly well intentioned in both its message and its execution that it’s impossible not to love it. And if you don’t, well, as Eros says, “You people of Earth are idiots!” –Ali Davis

Plan 9 From Outer Space

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When Ridley Scott’s cut of Blade Runner was finally released in 1993, one had to wonder why the studio hadn’t done it right the first time–11 years earlier. This version is so much better, mostly because of what’s been eliminated (the ludicrous and redundant voice-over narration and the phoney happy ending) rather than what’s been added (a bit more character development and a brief unicorn dream that drops a big hint about Deckard’s origins). Star Harrison Ford originally recorded the narration under duress at the insistence of Warner Bros. executives who thought the story needed further “explanation”; he later confessed that he thought if he did it badly they wouldn’t use it. (Moral: never overestimate the taste of movie executives.) The movie’s spectacular futuristic vision of Los Angeles–a perpetually dark and rainy metropolis that’s the nightmare antithesis of “Sunny Southern California”–is still its most seductive feature, another worldly atmosphere in which you can immerse yourself. The movie’s shadowy visual style, along with its classic private-detective/murder-mystery plot line (with Ford on the trail of a murderous android, or “replicant”), makes Blade Runner one of the few science fiction pictures legitimately to claim a place in the film noir tradition. And, as in the best noir, the sleuth discovers a whole lot more (about himself and the people he encounters) than he anticipates. The cast also includes Sean Young, Edward James Olmos, Daryl Hannah Rutger Hauer and M. Emmet Walsh. –Jim Emerson, Amazon.com

In the Box Set: It is a fitting testament to Blade Runner‘s enduring appeal that it should receive the red-carpet box set treatment in this Collector’s Edition, which represents a sizeable outlay not least in terms of shelf space. The chunky black box (about the size of the yellow pages) houses a slide-out tray containing the DVD, eight original lobby cards an original one-sheet movie poster, the draft shooting script and a movie image card with the corresponding 35mm film frame attached. As with all such sets the whole is rapidly diminished by removing its parts, presenting the dilemma of whether to mount the poster and pictures, or leave them pristine but unseen in their original state.

The DVD included contains Ridley Scott’s director’s cut version of the film, but offers no new features or commentaries which would have added considerably to the set’s desirability. The original draft shooting script by Hampton Fancher and David Peoples does, however, provide some fascinating insights in its moments of departure from the version that was finally filmed. Perhaps the most compelling example is Deckard’s final, decisive contribution to the “is he or isn’t he” debate: “I knew it on the roof that night. We were bothers, Roy Batty and I! Combat models of the highest order. We had fought in wars not yet dreamed of in vast nightmares still unnamed. We were the new people … Roy and me and Rachael! We were made for this world. It was ours!” –Steve Napleton

Blade Runner

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Having proven itself as a favourite film of children around the world, Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory is every bit as entertaining now as it was when originally released in 1971. There’s a timeless appeal to Roald Dahl’s classic children’s novel, which was playfully preserved in this charming musical, from the colourful carnival-like splendour of its production design to the infectious melody of the “Oompah-Loompah” songs that punctuate the story. Who can forget those diminutive Oompah-loompah workers who recite rhyming parental warnings (“Oompah-loompah, doopity do…”) whenever some mischievous child has disobeyed Willy Wonka’s orders to remain orderly?

Oh, but we’re getting ahead of ourselves … it’s really the story of the impoverished Charlie Bucket, who, along with four other kids and their parental guests, wins a coveted golden ticket to enter the fantastic realm of Wonka’s mysterious confectionery. After the other kids have proven themselves to be irresponsible brats, it’s Charlie who impresses Wonka and wins a reward beyond his wildest dreams. But before that, the tour of Wonka’s factory provides a dazzling parade of delights, and with Gene Wilder giving a brilliant performance as the eccentric candyman, Wonka gains an edge of menace and madness that nicely counterbalances the movie’s sentimental sweetness. It’s that willingness to risk a darker tone–to show that even a wonderland like Wonka’s can be a weird and dangerous place if you’re a bad kid–that makes this an enduring family classic. –Jeff Shannon Amazon.co.uk Review
Starring Gene Wilder in the title role, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory may not be the most faithful Roald Dahl adaptation to hit the big screen, but there’s a strong argument that it’s the best. Even Tim Burton and Johnny Depp, with their 2005 release Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, couldn’t come close to this 1971 musical version.

Even nearly four decades later, it’s a surprisingly dark yet ultimately utterly joyful film, as Charlie Bucket finds his golden ticket and gets to join four gruesome children on a tour of the factory of the film’s title. What’s more, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory is packed with toe-tapping, memorable musical numbers, a terrific cast of young performers, and a memorable lead performance from Wilder. His Willy Wonka is a complex creation, veering unpredictably between likeable and quite sinister. And it’s a performance that sticks in the mind long, long after the credits have rolled.

The Blu-ray release sadly doesn’t present the copious extra material in high definition, but the main feature has benefited from a solid improvement. It’s a bright, colourful and imaginative film for long periods, and the transfer work is up to the job. There are moments where the material shows its age a little, but this is a good upgrade from the DVD edition, and the picture and audio both show genuine improvements. It’s also the finest way to own what’s undoubtedly the best version of the book to make it to the big screen to date. As fine an actor as Johnny Depp is, his Willy Wonka simply doesn’t hold a candle to Mr Wilder’s…. –Jon Foster

Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory

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