January, 2009

Hello again Auteur House Customers,

Before January meanders to a close we offer up a brief listing of recent store acquisitions, artistic temptations and just plain distractions from the sun.

Firstly, a big thank you to all who attended our 2nd Anniversary Party.  We were pleasantly surprised by the turn out at Ward Lane and again express our appreciation of musicians and audience alike for making the night such a success.  Credit crunch permitting, we will do it again next year.

New Releases

A numeric theme is apparent amongst the late December/early January New Releases, at least in terms of their titles.

The most prestigious of these is the 2007 Cannes Film Festival Palme d’Or winner “4 Months, 3 Weeks, and 2 Days”, Cristian Mungiu’s harrowing abortion drama set in the Romania of 1987.  The story of two university students attempting to terminate a pregnancy is on one level timeless, on another a quite specific indictment of the corruption and hypocrisies at play in the late years of the Ceauşescu regime.

“CJ7″ is a film at the other end of the tonal spectrum.  A charming science fiction fantasy from Stephen Chow, the director and star of the cult “Kung Fu Hustle”, “CJ7″ is a gentler, less satirical variation on “Gremlins” and “ET”, the tale of an overworked father who inadvertently brings home an alien for his neglected son to play with.  It was hugely popular at last year’s International Film Festival.

“The Nines” is a Sundance favourite from 2007.  Starring the luckiest man in the world, Scarlett Johannson’s new husband Ryan Reynolds, it is a post-modern take on contemporary Hollywood with three overlapping stories reflecting the perspectives of an actor, a videogame designer and a screenwriter.

“Nine Lives” is an Altmanesque, feminist drama.  The interlocking stories of nine American women showcase an all star cast, including Holly Hunter, Sissy Spacek, Robin Wright, Glenn Close and Dakota Fanning.

“Ten Empty” is another cheery Australian film.  In the best traditions of “Romulus, My Father” and “Home Song Stories” it deals with mental illness, grief and depression, belying the myth of the seventh continent being the ‘lucky country’ and anticipating that nation’s current cricketing decline.  Ocker icon Jack Thompson is on hand to lend the piece his grizzled gravitas.

“Crows:0″ is a manga adaptation by the ever prolific Takashi Miike.  One for fans of “Battle Royale”, it is set in the rough and tumble world of the Japanese secondary school, where violence soon escalates beyond your average bit of You-Tube biffo.  The internationally recognised website Moviecynics.com calls it “awesome”, a statement which they punctuate with an exclamation mark. This is unprecedented.  Miike aficionados could not ask for more.

Miike aficionados get more, however, with “Sukiyaki Western Django”, a uniquely Japanese spin on the spaghetti western featuring Quentin Tarantino.  Shot entirely in English, yet with a predominantly Asian cast, it blends the worlds of Kurosawa and Leone in ways neither master probably ever dreamt of.

A home grown favourite from the 2008 International Film Festival, Vincent Ward’s “Rain of the Children” sees the oft-troubled auteur revisit the short which established his reputation, the 1980 documentary “In Spring One Plants Alone”.  Ward’s exploration of the life and times of Puhi, the elderly lead of the earlier film, combines interviews, dramatic recreations and the director’s own to-camera narration, offering a rare glimpse into early twentieth century New Zealand history.  The reunion of “Once Were Warriors” co-stars Rena Owen and Temuera Morrison is a more satisfying one than “Star Wars: Episode Two: Attack of the Clones”.

The animated Star Wars feature “The Clone Wars” is perhaps a guilty pleasure for ageing connoisseurs of George Lucas’ franchise.  The much  respected CGI wonder “WALL.E” - which many American critics rate as the best film of 2008 - is undoubtedly a more solid rental option for the younger Auteur House punter.

Equally mainstream are a pair of noteworthy block busters.  “Tropic Thunder” is that rarest of beasts, a Ben Stiller film that is actually funny, though the biggest laughs in this parody of American action movies go to Robert Downey, Jr., in black face, and Tom Cruise, playing a character who is nearly as short as the actor himself.  “The Dark Knight” is easily the most talked about film of last year, a comic book adaptation that lives up to its own hype.  Few things are surer in life than Heath Ledger winning a posthumous Oscar for playing the Joker.  Well, perhaps a standing ovation and gratuitous close ups of Ledger family members crying are an equal certainty.

My own personal recommendations for January are twofold.  “In the Valley of Elah” is a late arrival at the House.  A subtle, complex look at the impact of the Iraq war on the American home front, particularly when compared to writer/director Paul Haggis’s last film, the vastly overrated “Crash”, it features stunning performances from Tommy Lee Jones and Charlize Theron.

“Before the Devil Knows You’re Dead” sees veteran Sidney Lumet reassert his credentials as one of the great New York filmmakers.  At age 83 he delivers a sly combination of heist movie and family melodrama, drawing award calibre turns from Philip Seymour Hoffman, Ethan Hawke and Marisa Tomei.  The opening shot is one not easily forgotten; it is unlikely Hoffman used a body double for it.
New to DVD

January has Auteur House having a gay old time of things.  “The Robert Epstein Collection” is a boxset of work by the homosexual documentarian, featuring films ranging from 1984’s “The Times of Harvey Milk” (which in part inspired the new Sean Penn vehicle “Milk”) to 2000’s “Paragraph 175″ (an account of Nazi persecution of gays and lesbians).

The “Fassbinder on Melodrama” is the first of a proposed number of themed releases from the prolific enfant terrible of the 1970s New German Cinema.  The boxset includes the period piece “Effi Briest”, the television film “Fear on Fear” and the domestic thriller “Martha”.

Also of pink dollar interest is “Liza with a ‘Z’”, the 1972 Liza Minnelli concert film shot by her “Cabaret” director Bob Fosse.  The DVD extras include plenty of interactions between the celebrated diva and her gushingly camp followers.

Harder edged music is supplied by “The Clash”, recorded at the peak of their powers in “Live in Paris 1980″.

Bob Dylan fans will revel in the deluxe edition of DA Pennebaker’s classic 1967 documentary “Don’t Look Back”.  Aside from the original, cinema verite record of Dylan’s 1965 English tour Pennebaker has produced an additional feature, “Bob Dylan 65 Revisited”, from the negatives.

Fassbinder’s contemporary Werner Herzog has some of his best work on display in a six disk boxset.  Of particular interest is his 1970 film “Even Dwarfs Started Small”, a bizarre allegory cast entirely with little people in which lunatics take over an asylum.  This truly is a one of a kind film, definitely not for the faint of heart or animal lovers.

Francois Truffaut’s “Mississippi Mermaid” dates from around the same period but could not be more different.  One of the Frenchman’s most glossy looking exercises in high romantic style it pairs two renowned stars of the Novelle Vague: Catherine Deneuve and Jean-Paul Belmondo.  The plot might strain credibility but somehow it doesn’t matter when the peformers are of such calibre.

More contemporary European art house is Michael Haneke’s  “Code Unknown”.  Like some kind of Austrian answer to Robert Altman Haneke blends a multi-character storyline, creating a vivid, often disturbing portrayal of the twenty first century continent.

Two films by the idiosyncratic British director Nicholas Roeg have also just become available.  “Eureka” is an acquired taste, a not entirely successful parable about greed featuring Gene Hackman at his most painfully cantankerous and Theresa Russell, Roeg’s then wife, at her most beautifully nude.  “The Witches” is altogether more satisfying, a sharp, witty adaptation of a Roald Dahl story that pulls no punches when it comes to scaring the kids.  Roeg’s distinctive style is evident throughout both.

Finally, in closing, Auteur House would like to acknowledge the kind donation of DVDs by some generous customers, in particular Mr Martin Webclaw.  Martin has gifted the store a handsome boxset, “Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons”, a collection of Gerry Anderson’s ‘Supermarionation’ television series.  Even more significant is the purchase of “If…”, the classic account of British boarding school rebellion that was very much of its time in 1968 and still packs a wallop forty years later.