Showing posts with label uk dvd. Show all posts
Showing posts with label uk dvd. Show all posts

25 January 2013

Studiocanal announce Rust And Bone UK February Home Release

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StudioCanal have informed us the award winning and 2 time BAFTA nominated film, Rust And Bone the follow up film to Jacques Audiard's arthouse classic A Prophet. Rust And Bone stars Marion Cotillard, Matthias Schoenaerts and will be yours to own this February.

Following a theatrical opening to tremendous national and international acclaim, and a Best Film Award at the London Film Festival in October, Jacques Audiard, acclaimed director of A Prophet and The Beat That My Heart Skipped, returns with this powerful drama about two people from very different worlds, seeking redemption in each other.
Ali (Matthias Schoenaerts - Bullhead) dreams of becoming a professional boxer. When he is suddenly put in charge of his five year old son, he moves in with his sister for support. While at his new job as a nightclub bouncer, he meets the beautiful and confident orca trainer, Stephanie (Academy Award® winner Marion Cotillard - The Dark Knight Rises, La Vie en Rose). He gives her his number, not expecting that she will ever call. However, after becoming the victim of a tragic and life changing accident, Stephanie surprisingly turns to Ali for support. These lost souls discover new meaning in life together when Ali enters the dangerous world of underground boxing.

Winner of several international awards, Rust And Bone is one of the best and most talked about films of 2012. you can read our cinema review here. With 2 BAFTA nominations, Rust And Bone is up for Best Leading Actress (Marion Cotillard) and Best Film not in the English Language.




DVD & Blu-ray Extras:

- Audio Commentary with Jacques Audiard, Thomas Bidegain and Arnaud Calistri

- Making of Rust and Bone

- The Special Effects of Rust and Bone

- Deleted Scenes

- Trailer



DVD & Blu-ray HMV Exclusive Extras:

- Audio Commentary with Jacques Audiard, Thomas Bidegain and Arnaud Calistri

- Making of Rust and Bone

- The Special Effects of Rust and Bone

- Deleted Scenes

- Trailer

- Exclusive UK Interviews with Marion Cotillard, Matthias Schoenaerts, Jacques Audiard and Thomas Bidegain

- Exclusive BAFTA Q&A with Marion Cotillard, Matthias Schoenaerts and Jacques Audiard

Pre-order Rust And Bone: DVD / Blu-ray


8 September 2012

'Kill Zombie' DVD Review

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★★★☆☆


Dutch zombie horror Kill Zombie (original title Zombibi)tackles the horror genre with a ballsy understanding of its fan base and a quick sense of humour. Unfortunately its up against stiff opposition; Shaun of the Dead (2004) and Juan of the Dead (2011) are two stellar zombie features that handle the apocalypse in a similar bro-mantic black comedy style, still the film does well at holding its own.

Cutting straight to the action, Kill Zombie proves it’s for genre fans, no real exploration of the apocalypse and not too much focus on the concept of Armageddon as a social issue, Kill Zombie rolls up its sleeves and dives headfirst into the gory glory with a good sense of where its going and who its playing to. The film follows two brothers who after spending a night in jail, awake to find their city ravaged by zombie invasion. Joining forces with a police officer and two crazy criminals the group set off on a reluctant rescue mission through the deadly gore-splashed streets of Amsterdam.

Kill Zombie has some fantastic set pieces showing off a creative flair that lacks in many run-of-the-mill zombie features: a mini-gun sequence that’s grotesquely satisfying and a play park defence to name a couple. The more striking action sequences seem connected by typical zombie stock, but it’s incredibly tricky for a zombie film to maintain originality when so much has gone before. Even Romero seems to have lost some innovation. A key strength of the film is its comic timing and the skill with which its cast carry off the genuinely funny scenes. Kill Zombie is a prime example of what a good cast can do for a smaller production.

Though it looks good and has plenty of fun, Kill Zombie still lacks the heart of Juan or Shuan, heart that helped push those movies up past your bog-standard zombie massacre. And even though there’s a welcome and sometime innovative aspect to the design of the film, some things just don’t gel. The use of Tekken style fighting sequences is a marmite decision that threatens the integrity of the film, seeming just a little too unrealised and amateur.

Kill Zombie is for genre fans specifically, its lack of plot around the main characters stops it hitting the emotional impact of other mainstream cult black comedies but it does a good job of entertaining and showing off some really cool zombie action sequences. Its also one of few horror comedies that actually gets its comedy fairly spot-on.

SCOTT CLARK


Rating:15
UK DVD Release Date: 17th September 2012
Directed by: Martijn Smits, Erwin van den Eshof
Cast:Yahya Gaier, Mimoun Ouled Radi, Sergio Hasselbaink, Noel Deelen 

21 August 2012

The Fields DVD Review

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★★★☆☆


The Fields is one of very few horrors to successfully put a child in the lead character position and pull it off. Part of this comes down to B.Harrison Smith’s script, but for the most part it’s down to Joshua Ormond’s muted performance as Steven, a kid who, rather than being mouthy, irritating, cocky, inhumanly lucky etc, is more acceptable as a guide due to his shy innocence and fallibility. Through his eyes we explore a Pennsylvania farm in 1973: a rustic and sometimes cruel looking place where hippies wash up on the roads on their travels from California, and little out of the ordinary seems to go on.

The story follows Steven as he goes to live with his grandparents after he witnesses his troubled father(Faust Checho) pull a gun on his alcoholic mother (Tara Reid). On the way to his grandparent’s Steven hears about Charles Manson’s possible parole and begins to worry the madman could come after him next. When he arrives his grandparents (Cloris Leachman and Bev Appleton) warn him above all to stay out of the corn fields, but over time, his curiosity gets the better of him and he delves into a world full of monsters and shadows.

You never really know what is happening for real when there’s so much going on to set off Steven’s young and imaginative mind: his mother explains what parole is after he hears about Manson’s crimes, his grandparent’s sinister jokes seem to stick with him, his father pulls a gun on his mother in front of him, and Pennsylvania circa 1973 looks like a breeding ground for nightmares. Thankfully, the tensions successfully grow and grow until they break the wall between Steven and his family, becoming louder, more public, and way more unsettling by the finale.

The Fields also gets brownie points for impressive cinematography that helps to make Steven’s world all the more involving. When everything seems to be going well the skies are blue and the corn is lush and beautiful, giving the boy the escape he needs. Small moments of happiness are then overshadowed by ominoussigns and the world goes all grey sinister skies and scraggly decrepit fields. It’s a basic device but an effective one.

The climax of the film abandons subtlety and all-out assaults the audience in a taught and nerve-wracking sequence which has all the cast on top performance, especially Leachman, Appleton, and Ormand. The Fields plays out like a less bizarre version of Terry Gilliam’s Tideland, using the innocent eyes of the child to present a drama which is more unsettling due to narrative angle than genuinely horrific. It’s a brilliant idea realised by a pretty solid cast and some really sinister imagery, but lack of action and some short comings in emotional punch may leave some viewers yawning.

Scott Clark

Rating:15
UK Dvd/BD Release Date: 27th August 2012
Directed By:Tom Mattera, David Mazzoni
Cast: Cloris Leachman, Tara Reid, Joshua Ormond, Tom McCarthy

5 July 2012

Trishna - Riz Ahmed Interview

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This Monday 9th July will see the release of Michael Winterbottom’s Trishna on DVD and Blu Ray which is a modern adaptation of Thomas Hardy’s classic Tess of the d’Ubervilles moving from bleak 19th Century Industrial England to modern day Rajahstan, India. To promote the film’s release on July 9th on DVD & Blu-Ray our good friends at Artificial Eye have sent a very interesting in depth interview with the British Actor. Yesterday was Frieda Pinto and you can read her interview here, fancy winning the film on DVD? We have 5 copies of the film to give away enter here!

Q: How did you get involved in the project? We know you’ve worked with Michael before, take us through the process and tell us why you wanted to be a part of it?
A: Michael randomly got in touch and invited me for lunch and a catch up and told me he had adapted ‘Tess of the D’Urbervilles’ and that he wanted to set it in modern India, crossing classes and cultures. In his usual informal relaxed way, he offered me the role and I said yes of course!

Q: Who is Jay? What sort of background does he come from? What motivates him? Is his privilege and lack of ‘hunger’ his curse?
A: He’s the youngest son of a rich Indian businessman. He’s in his mid-20s and he hasn’t managed to step out of his father’s shadow and really make his own way or make a success of his life on his own terms. He suffers from the lost rich kid syndrome. He’s on this trip to India from Britain with his friends as a last kind of blow out before he stays on in India to run some of his father’s newly acquired hotels in Rajasthan. He’s frustrated because he has to slot into that role rather than have his own projects and that both haunts and drives him as a character and ultimately the project he finds and latches onto is Trishna herself. He seeks her out and tries to develop her, to satisfy his own needs and make something his own.

In some ways you could say his privilege is a curse in the sense that he’s got a lot to live up to. But in other ways, he does try to break away in his own direction when he goes to Bombay. He’s only able to do that and have that financial independence because of his wealth. It’s more that he fails in that and it’s more about the family and where he’s coming from being bigger than him. I feel a major theme in the film is about where you’re coming from. It explores that magnetic and gravitational pull and the momentum you can try and drum up of your own accord. Trishna’s background is something she can never really get away from. Similarly for Jay, his position of minor heir to the business means that he gets sucked back into it and responsibility comes knocking at his door. That’s the start of his decline and when he realizes he’s failed to strike out in his own direction, Trishna becomes this kind of toy and symbol of his failure every time he sees her.

Q: Does he really fall in love with Trishna?
A: Yes, but I guess we’ve been talking from the point of view of the macro themes and where he’s coming from means there’s a tragic outcome to the relationship. But, on a personal level, there is something there and he’s completely bewitched by Trishna. She represents the ideal of an innocent woman for him – the virgin maid and it is a kind of love. When they’re in Bombay they are in love, but the limitations in the relationship come from the gap between them being so vast.

There’s only so much they can talk about – their world views only overlap to a certain extent. At the point where they’re talking about the abortion that’s something that really frustrates Jay, because Trishna didn’t make her own mind up about that and she kept it from him. I guess honour trumps honestly and openness for Trishna. There is love between them but as with every relationship, what makes up that love is lots of different things. Maybe for Jay at the beginning, he almost over-idealizes her, he sees her as a way of re-connecting with his ethnic background and to reconnect with something pure and innocent and something that’s his own. The limitations of all those things in the relationship start emerging and he feels he’s failed in his own life.

Q: Did you read Tess of the D’Urbervilles before embarking on this film?
A: After Michael told me about the film, that was when I read the book but I hadn’t read it previous to that. At first I thought it was kind of daunting to try and combine two great characters from literature but what became clear was that it wasn’t going to be a literal adaptation of Hardy’s novel. Angel’s love for Tess is pure whilst Alec’s is a more selfish love. In the novel they’re never really on the scene at the same time so that meant we could take on the spirit or psychology of one character and then at different stages in the story, introduce the other. To begin with, Jay idealizes Trishna in the same way that Angel idealizes Tess. He sees her as a pure woman and views the experience as a return to a natural way and all that is good and pure. When Jay is at the hotel with his friends, he spots this girl from the village and this real obsessive but full-blooded love emerges and at this point we see Angel’s spirit of his affection for her, but what we start to get is a gradual decline into Alec. Having a novel to base the characters and ideas on gives you a rich armoury for you to draw on. If we’d have been too faithful to the novel, we’d have all gone mad!

Q: There are strong similarities between Hardy’s England and what’s happening in India right now. Can we explore that?
A: Yes, that’s a very interesting thing to draw on. India is changing at break- neck speed with modernization, industrialization and mass migration from the countryside into more urban centres and we explore how the old world and new world are rubbing up against each other. The idea of morality is very pertinent because it’s very important to point out that some western audiences may find themselves slightly confused as to why Trishna feels embarrassed about sleeping with Jay and why she feels she needs to run away and why she feels mortified at having had the abortion. This is all a big deal for her. The issue is about traditional morality and that’s what it’s like in large swathes of the world to this day, where sex before marriage and having children out of wedlock is still a huge deal and that shame can destroy a family in terms of their public standing. Maybe people need to realize that’s a reality when they’re watching the film.

Q: You filmed in India with a small crew, on real locations and there was a lot of improvisation. What were the challenges and what were the joys of that?
A: Working with Michael, there’s always a very small crew, it’s a very intimate and very informal experience. Michael never calls action or cut. It’s a very relaxed, gentle, natural process in term of the atmosphere created for the actors. For the production crew I guess it’s not so relaxed – it’s crazy that’s because there’s so much that’s being achieved and Michael has very high standards and he’s a real stickler for authenticity. The burden of that kind of pressure probably falls on the production but for the actors it’s a really unique experience. There’s no right or wrong – you just have to embrace the fact that you don’t know what the hell’s going happen because there isn’t really a script and you’ve got a very basic idea and you just jump into it and that’s the whole nature of improvising and the nature of working with Michael.

Q: What was it like taking on your first romantic lead?
A: I guess I’d never really thought about it being a romantic lead. It’s a romantic story but also a tragedy and a drama. From my point of view I try to make the characters I play as complicated for myself as possible so I don’t have to have a very clear grip on who they are day-to-day on set, so you get a fuller picture of them at the end of the film. That’s also part of how it is working with Michael – not having a rigid, fixed view of the characters. We had a lot of long conversations and you can build up this very intricate back story to the character – what books he might read, what music he’d like to listen to, how growing up was for him and you concoct this back story but in terms of how the character would be at the end of the journey you can’t really control that kind of thing. So, I guess that’s a very long way of saying I never really thought of it as a romantic lead!

Q: What was it like working with Freida?
A: A lot of fun – she’s a very cool girl. I think she’s an incredibly instinctive and natural actress. She’s very generous and there’s minimal fuss with her. Working with her is one of the easiest processes because she’s incredibly self-sufficient. She’s generous about giving you space and time to develop your character. For me it’s ideal to work with someone like that, particularly when you’re working with Michael and the process is one where things change and evolve and everything’s very flexible. Michael wants you to be natural and that creates a really nice atmosphere on set.

Q: Trishna is more complex than Jay gives her credit for. How does he view her?
A: Yeah, it’s not that he judges her but it’s almost like at certain points he feels that he has to give up. Because of the different cultures they’re coming from, he feels that her mind is unknowable. If he presses her on why she didn’t tell him about certain things or why certain things happened, she won’t speak her mind in an articulate way to allow him to understand her. There’s an extent to which Jay feels really frustrated with that – especially how passive she can be. I don’t think Jay thinks Trishna is simple-minded, he just feels she’s hard to get to grips with and it’s hard to know what’s really going on in her head. He gets more and more frustrated at how passive she is and how she won’t complain and won’t stand her ground. She won’t challenge him on why he left her in Bombay and she won’t say why she didn’t tell him about the abortion. On a personal level he’s frustrated with how passive she is so he tries to provoke her out of her passivity. He wants to know what she really thinks. On another level he’s just really frustrated at how things have turned out for him and he’s deeply wounded by that. He’s had this lifestyle of entitlement but he starts lashing out at her. Ultimately he does provoke her and it destroys both of them – he takes it too far and I don’t think that’s what he had in mind.