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SARABAND
Director:
Ingmar Bergman
Cast: Liv Ullmann, Erland Josephson, Borje Ahlstedt,
Julia Dufvenius
Certificate: 15 (TBC)
Released: 7th October 2005
After
supposedly retiring with 1982’s Fanny and
Alexander, this dark relationship drama is Ingmar
Bergman’s official epilogue to his lengthy
cinematic career, and it’s as sombre as
you’d expect. Originally made for Swedish
television, it’s also a sequel to his 1973
movie Scenes from a Marriage, picking up the tale
of divorced couple Marianne (Ullmann) and Johan
(Josephson) when they finally meet again after
thirty two years apart. While they pick over the
past, Marianne becomes involved in the bitterness
between Johan and his son Henrik (Ahlstedt), who’s
ended up with a creepily over-dependant relationship
with his daughter Karin (Dufvenius) -– but
plot isn’t high on Bergman’s agenda.
Instead, he’s far more interested in the
emotional damage that the characters wreak on
another, slowly unfolding the small-scale story
and giving the film a quiet, elegiac power. The
pacing may be glacial, but this is an effective
postscript to a remarkable body of work.
Rating:
* * * *
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SILVER CITY
Director:
John Sayles
Cast: Chris Cooper, Danny Huston, Tim Roth, Richard
Dreyfuss, Daryl Hannah
Certificate: 15
Price: £19.99
Released: 14th November 2005
One
of the few deliberately political voices left
in American Cinema, writer-director John Sayles
flips a middle finger to ‘The Man’
in this mixture of ensemble drama and murder mystery.
When potential Colorado Governor candidate Chris
Cooper accidentally discovers a corpse, investigator
Danny Huston is brought in by Cooper’s team
to uncover its identity, but soon finds a complex
web of crime, corruption and illegal immigration.
The similarities between Cooper and a certain
grammatically challenged President are a little
too on-the-nose at times, but Sayles’ incisive
script manages to simultaneously entertain and
expose uncomfortable truths about America’s
past, present and future.
Extras: Director and Producer Commentary,
Making of, Danny Huston Interview, Trailer
There’s now a rather sad aspect to the pre-2004
election hopes for the film to ‘kick George
Bush’s ass’ that get declared during
the extensive Making of, and the Commentary may
be informative but features a few too many silent
patches. .
Rating:
* *
*
*
Extras:
* * *
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SILVERADO
Director:
Lawrence Kasdan
Cast: Kevin Kline, Scott Glen, Danny Glover, Kevin
Costner, Brian Dennehy
Certificate: PG
Price: £12.99
Released: 3rd October 2005
Lawrence
Kasdan’s entertaining 1985 attempt at reviving
the Western is as old-school as you could ever
want, with Kline, Glen and Costner as gunfighters
whose search for a better life leads them to the
corrupt town of Silverado. Quirky diversions like
John Cleese’s crooked Sherrif add to the
mix, but after darker and more revisionist tales
of the West like Unforgiven and TV’s Deadwood,
it all seems a little too old-fashioned and quaint.
Extras: Historian’s Commentary, Making
of, Kevin Costner interview, Featurette, Trailers
There’s a decent “Making Of”,
an average Costner interview, and a ‘featurette’
that’s just a glorified commercial for other
Western DVDs– but the biggest surprise comes
thanks to the Historian commentary. A trio of
bizarrely entertaining Western academics accompany
the film to rip-roaring effect, and whether they’re
laughing at the clichés and inaccuracies,
or explaining the history behind the Old West,
it’s one of the most genuinely satisfying
commentaries in a long time.
Rating:
* * * Extras:
* * *
*
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STAR TREK: NEMESIS
Director:
Stuart Baird
Cast: Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Frakes, Brent
Spiner, Tom Hardy
Certificate: 12
Price: £24.99
Released: 26th December 2005
The
classic rule of “even number good, odd number
bad” gets comprehensively destroyed in the
tenth Star Trek movie, as Picard battles an evil
clone of himself, and Gladiator co-writer John
Logan hi-jacks most of Wrath of Khan’s plot
for his underwhelming screenplay. Aside from a
couple of decent SFX shots, this is an excitement-free
zone, and ironclad proof that Trek’s day
is (at least for the moment) well and truly over.
Extras: Director and Producer Commentaries,
Text Commentary, Documentaries, Storyboards, Deleted
Scenes
A fact-packed selection of extras for the discerning
Trekkie, although Nemesis’ status as the
film that killed the franchise is virtually ignored.
Extras:
None.
Rating:
* * Extras:
* * *
*
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