Classic James Bond movies head to Blu-Ray

Just bought the latest restored versions of the James Bond movies on DVD? Well, I'm afraid we have some bad news - the James Bond back catalogue is to be reissued in high definition on Blu-Ray disc.

Good news if you didn't buy the most recent reissues though - and if you have a Blu-Ray player. According to MGM/Twentieth Century Fox, the new versions have been 'recently restored and re-mastered for the highest quality picture and sound quality via the state-of-the-art Lowry process digital frame-by-frame restoration. And they'll be packed with special features too.

The date for your diary is October 31st (same day as the new Quantum of Solace hits the big screen), with the first titles reissued being Dr No, Die Another Day, Live And Let Die, For Your Eyes Only, From Russia With Love and Thunderball.

James Bond (unofficial) website

Coming to DVD: Into The Labyrinth - The Complete Series

Another lost TV gem returns via DVD, with Network releasing Into The Labyrinth - The Complete Series.

First broadcast by HTV in 1980 and set to be available as a three-disc (21 episode) set, it stars Ron Moody as time-travelling magician Rothgo, trapped in the rock of a cave. Discovered by Terry, Helen and Phil, the magician convinces them  to use the time-travelling power of his labyrinth to help him regain his focus of power, the Nidus, from the evil witch Belor (Pamela Salem).

It's out for the first time on DVD on 1st July 2008, priced around £24.99. We hope to have a review online in the coming weeks.

Find out more about the DVD at Amazon.co.uk

Fashion In Film Festival returns for a second year

Returning for a second year is the Fashion In Film Festival, mixing talks, exhibitions, newly-commissioned film works, but best of all, some rarely-seen cinema classics that show how fashion of the day was just as important as a good plot and scenery.

Some superb films on show this year too, with highlights (for me) including the visually stunning (see image above) 10th Victim (La Decima Vittima) from 1965 and Get Carter (1970) at the ICA, Mario Bava's Blood and Black Lace (1964) at the Horse Hospital, as well as a double bill of delinquency curated by fashion designer and former mod Roger K. Burton (The Violent Years from 1956 and The Boys from '62), Dario Argento's The Bird With Crystal Plumage (1970) at the BFI plus Plein Soleil (1960) and Fata Morgana (1965) Ciné lumiére.

Much more besides, including some rare silent flicks and classic US film noir. Check out the full programme at the website - the event runs from 10th - 31st May 2008.

Fashion In Film Festival website

For Your Eyes Only: Ian Fleming and James Bond at the Imperial War Museum

London's Imperial War Museum is the location for a major Ian Fleming and James Bond exhibition - For Your Eyes Only.

A look at the man and the character, it features a large amount of material on show for the first time, including  a selection of annotated Bond manuscripts and Fleming’s Colt Python .375 Magnum revolver, along with material from the films including the ‘blood–splattered’ shirt worn by Daniel Craig in Casino Royale, Rosa Klebb’s flick–knife shoes in From Russia With Love and Halle Berry’s bikini from Die Another Day.

There's also a number of events and family activities relating to Bond, plus free screening of some early Bond classics - Dr No, From Russia With Love and Goldfinger. The exhibition opens on 17th April 2008, running until 1st March 2009. See the website for full listings.

Find out more at the Imperial War Museum website

Via Retro To Go

Manhattan Baby (1982)

Manhattan Baby doesn't make a lick of sense, yet remains one of Italian gore maestro Lucio Fulci's more endearing films.  In Egypt, an old witch hands nine year old Suzy Hacker (Brigitta Boccole) a strange amulet.  Suzy's archaelogist father, George (Christopher Connelly) is blinded by blue lasers inside a dusky tomb - whereupon wife Emily (Martha Taylor) brings the family back to New York.  Here, Suzy and kid brother Tommy (Giovanni Frezza - who will forever be Little Bob from The House By the Cemetery (1981)) become unwitting pawns of an ancient Egyptian evil as the Hackers are terrorized by snakes, scorpions, and strange portals to another dimension. 

Explicit gore is restricted to a memorably squishy climax involving marauding (stuffed!) birds, yet the bulk of this weird, hallucinatory chamber piece presents the closest Fulci got to the minimalist wonder of Val Lewton.  Hazy, scope photography soaks up the Egyptian locales and transforms a child's playroom into mystical domain where strange, unsettling fantasies leap upon unsuspecting adults. 

Sabrina Siani

If you're familiar with the innumerable sword & sorcery flicks Italian cinema churned out during the 1980s, chances are you've seen Sabrina Siani.  Either naked or in extremely skimpy outfits.  The beautiful, blonde starlet (real name: Sabrina Seggiani, but sometimes billed Sabrina Sellers) graced many a cut-price fantasy epic, typecast as an Amazonian princess or gutsy jungle girl.  Jess Franco wasn't a fan (calling her: "the stupidest person I've ever met"), but what does he know?  Siani may not have set the screen alight as a teen cannibal queen in Franco's dreadful Mondo Cannibale (1980), but at least she didn't direct it. 

Following a brief stint in sex comedies and Franco's calamitous gut-muncher, Siani soaked up the sun in Blue Lagoon rip-off Blue Island (1982) and played a feisty, female Tarzan in Umberto Lenzi's Incontro Nell'Ultimo Paradiso (1982), before making her mark as a sword-swinging maiden in Aristide Massaccesi's Ator the Fighting Eagle (1982).  Contrary to Franco's sentiments, Siani had a lot to offer: a winning athleticism, sex appeal, and a charismatic screen presence.  Whether slaying monsters, befriending bears (!), or smouldering seductively, she frequently upstaged bland beefcake, leading men like Peter McCoy (Pietro Torrisi) and Miles O'Keefe. 

DVD Review: Road Games (1981)

The Hitchcockian thriller Road Games won Australian filmmaker Richard Franklin (a lifelong Hitch devotee) his chance to direct, the surprisingly good, Psycho II (1983).  Hitchcock's influence is apparent right from the opening scene: a sinister motel, a naked girl and a psycho-killer who murders her and dismembers her body off screen.  His shadowy activities arouse the suspicion of American truck driver, Quid (Stacy Keach), whose phone calls to the police are ignored.  Quid soon finds himself being tailed by the killer in his grimy van.  He picks up gutsy runaway Hitch (Jamie Lee Curtis) and they play guessing games with the psycho's modus operandi, culminating in a taut scene where Quid confronts what he thinks is the killer in a toilet cubicle while Hitch investigates his van.  When Quid returns, Hitch and the van have disappeared, leaving him the police's prime suspect. 

Franklin provides some nicely tense moments and a handful of shocks, but one hesitates to call this an unsung classic.  The story (co-devised by Franklin and screenwriter Everett De Roche) meanders with characters talking an awful lot, but revealing very little, as the tension dissipates.  Keach makes for an affable, articulate hero ("Just because I drive a truck doesn't make me a truck driver") - though Quid remains something of an enigma.  Jamie Lee Curtis is strong throughout her few, brief scenes, but Hitch's back-story (the runaway daughter of an American diplomat) is too slight to be anything more than a plot wrinkle. 

DVD Review: The Black Cat (1981)

Probably the least heralded movie from Lucio Fulci's "gothic period", The Black Cat isn't a classic but will interest fans of Italian horror.  Edgar Allan Poe's much-adapted short story inspires only the climax, but the bulk of the film is impressively claustrophobic, played in twitchy close-ups between the frightful feline and its master, Professor Robert Miles (Patrick Magee).  Miles is a paranormal researcher, who uses his demonic familiar to gorily slaughter those he feels have wronged him.  Nosy American photographer, Jill Travers (Mimsy Farmer) stumbles onto these mysterious deaths in a quaint English village and teams up with Scotland Yard's Inspector Gorley (genre icon David Warbeck) to bring the culprit to justice.  But is Miles in control, or the cat? 

The film strives for ambiguity, but winds up just confusing.  After the cat lures Gorley into a horrific accident, Miles screams: "No!  I didn't want that!"  Then he looks disappointed when Gorley turns up alive.  Fulci allegedly cranked this one out with little passion involved.  It's a less inspired reworking of Poe than Dario Argento managed with Two Evil Eyes (1989), but there is plenty to savour.  Mimsy Farmer attacked by rubber bats; a foggy village with superstitious locals straight out of Hammer films; a mix of occult lore, super-science and metaphysical chatter; and a victim who cowers while the cat opens a locked door. 

Absolute Beginners (1986)

Absolute Beginners - it was the film franchise that couldn't fail. A cult novel that reads like a film screenplay, a 'hip' director and a bag load of goodwill. But it did fail - and unlike most movies that get ripped apart by the critics, this one didn't even get belated cult status. But is it really so bad? Well...

I was one of the people willing this to work. As a schoolkid, I was obsessed with this book, I can still quote chunks of it now. And I really hated this movie version when it came out. Director Julien Temple wasn't a movie man, he was from a music background - and took the brave/foolish decision to turn Absolute Beginners into a musical. In fact, watching it now it seems more like a traditional West End show. There's was another problem too - it was the 1980s. Ok, that's not necessarily a bad thing, but this film has 80s stamped all over it - the hair, the music, the clothing - it was all supposed to be set in the late 50s, but Temple just couldn't pull off that vintage/period feel. A more skilled director probably could. And a more skilled director probably would have ditched most of the music, as well as the wooden leads (Patsy Kensit and Eddie O'Connell).

Network releases cult classic Armchair Thriller on DVD

Another TV cult classic is heading to DVD for the first time courtesy of Network - Armchair Thriller.

Originally broadcast between 1978 and 1980 by Thames Television (with a theme tune by Roxy Music’s Andy Mackay), it was a weekly prime-time drama, with the usual cliffhanger at the end of each episode. The first two episodes of the series are first to disc, those being Rachel In Danger, about a girl meeting her father for the first time - but in fact meeting an international terrorist posing as her father and A Dog's Ransom about an affluent Chelsea couple whose dog is kidnapped - threatening their entire lifestyle.

We're hoping to have some reviews online soon, in the meantime, you can order the shows now in time for their 21st January release, priced just under £10.

Find out more about the DVDs at Amazon.co.uk

Coming soon: Martin's Scorsese's movie on the Rolling Stones - Shine A Light

Movie history is littered with movies about or featuring the Rolling Stones, but that's not stopped uber-director Martin Scorsese from adding to the collection with Shine A Light.

It could be good, it could be bad. In essence, this is a live show on film, with Scorsese capturing the band in a small venue in New York - in essence, trying to film the 'electricity' of the band's live performance, mixing it up with background, interviews and history. Which sounds great, but for the fact that the band are well past their peak (though still a decent live act), not to mention that the gig seems to have various walk-on 'special guests' who probably contribute nothing to the event.

But I'll wait until the film's release in April before I pass judgement. In the meantime, check out this trailer for the movie for a taster.

Via Electric Roulette

DVD Review: Society (1989)

It is appropriate that Brian Yuzna’s barmy, marvellous debut feature took three years after completion to be released in the US, while enjoying critical and popular success in Europe and elsewhere. Into the decade that mythologised hidebound family values, plugged its ears to social injustice and made heroes out of beancounters, the plunging of this splendidly over-the-top nightmarish satire of America’s social elite must have felt like the herald of the Apocalypse. Albeit a deeply silly, psychedelic Apocalypse. With rivers of prosthetic latex instead of blood.

To all outward appearances, Bill Whitney (Baywatch’s Billy Warlock) is living the (American) dream. Son of Beverley Hills WASP socialites, he drives a Jeep, dates a cheerleader, is a star basketball player and frontrunner for Class President. But all is not as it seems. Bill has paranoid fantasies that he is adopted, that his surrogate parents and platinum-blonde sister secretly hate him.

DVD Review: Bride of Re-Animator (1990)

After a 5-year hiatus, those mischievous abominators-of-nature Drs. Herbert West and Dan Cain are back, this time under the direction of shock godfather Brian Yuzna. Sadly, though the grungy production values, hammy acting and gleefully silly prosthetic FX will appeal to genre fans, this is a disimprovement from Stuart Gordon’s Re-Animator (1985).

After a pointless prologue set in wartorn Peru, West (the always watchable Jeffrey Combs) and Cain (Bruce Abbott, sporting an unspeakable mullet and all the charisma of an office partition) are back in good old Miskatonic University Hospital, Massachusetts. Far from discouraged by the massacre precipitated in the first film by his ‘research’ into reanimating dead tissue, West has redoubled his efforts to prove that consciousness pervades all flesh by reanimating individual body parts.

Meanwhile Police Lieutenant Chapham (Claude Earl Jones), whose wife was killed in the original Miskatonic Massacre, doggedly continues his investigation into West’s macabre practices. Irritated by his attentions, West kills and subsequently reanimates him. The crazed doctor then reveals to Cain his plans to create a whole organism from disparate body parts. Initially Cain is horrified, but relents when West suggests including the preserved heart of Cain’s dead sweetheart Megan.

DVD review: Basket Case (1982)

It’s obviously a cheaper budget than Henenlotter's later pic, ‘Brain Damage’, with lots of natural shadowy lighting we’d call ‘dogma’ if it wasn’t for the frequent splash of red syrup. The acting, on the whole, is one step better than your average nativity play. And the monster from the basket has a seam along its bobbly blown-vinyl body. But none of this stops Basket Case from being a great little 80s horror. Yes, there’s a lack of budget. But that also means there’s a lack of the cynical concepts and set pieces we get in today’s scare-me-pooless-gore-engines.

There’s so many similarities between ‘Basket Case’ and ‘Brain Damage’, it would be easy to say: if you liked Henenlotter’s later work, you’ll probably like this one. But that seems unfair to the director, despite his admittance that this movie was something of a pet project, never intended for the success it eventually received (after about four years on the NY underground ‘midnight picture’ circuit). Maybe it wasn’t made to impress millions. But you can tell that this is a writer/director who cares about his story and is after something that is truly different. Why else have a character read Caliban’s speech from The Tempest as a bedtime story to young outsiders? Why else pave the way for a shocking end scene with an offbeat panty-snatching segment?

Joy Division documentary premieres at the Salford Film Festival

Ok, it's not exactly Cannes, but Salford does have a Film Festival, with a mix of classics, new movies and documentaries on offer this year.

The festival is already underway, but some real gems are still to come this week, including a comedy double bill of A Night At The Opera/The Lavender Hill Mob do, the rarely-seen and very strange 1966 mini-movie White Bus by Shelagh Delaney (previously featured here on Cinedelica) and real coup for the festival - Joy Division: The Documentary - a first-showing of this feature, introduced by Salford lad (and Joy Division member of course) Peter Hook.

Check out the site for the timetable, which runs until Wednesday 28th November.

Find out more at the Salford Film Festival website

Win Amazing Journey: The Story of The Who on DVD

Just out in time for Christmas is a two-disc DVD set of The Who's finest moments coupled with rare footage of the band and band members - Amazing Journey: The Story Of The Who and Six Quick Ones. And we have three DVD sets to give away.

Directed by Paul Crowder, Amazing Journey tells the story of the band through the music, footage, new interviews with the band, celebrity fans and musicians, plus recently-discovered concert footage, kicking off with I Can't Explain and ending with the band's most recent tour and recordings. There's also an additional Six Quick Ones disc, which focuses on each individual band member, the mod scene, the pop art movement and more rare footage - including film of the band as the High Numbers at the Railway Hotel - the earliest footage of the band known to be in existence.

If you want to be in with a chance of winning a set, just enter your details at our sister site Modculture, following the link below. The winners will be drawn just before Christmas.

Enter the Who competition at the Modculture website

DVD Review: Sapphire and Steel The Complete Series Special Edition

Remember Sapphire and Steel? I have very vague recollections of it as a primary school child. What I do recall is that the show was slightly scary and very odd. Watching Sapphire and Steel The Complete Series Special Edition many years on and that opinion hasn't really changed.

Sapphire and Steel is indeed incredibly odd, both as a show and as a concept. To sum it up, Sapphire (Joanna Lumley) and Steel (David McCallum) are two of a number of elements, trusted to look after the fabric of time. If there's an anomaly, the elements are despatched to sort it out. For the show, this tends to be Sapphire and Steel, but other elements, such as Lead and Silver, occasionally pop up to help out in particularly tricky situations.

Not exactly today's idea of early evening viewing, but back in the late 70s, ITV obviously thought this mix of sci-fi, ghost story and thought-provoking drama was just what we needed after a hard day at work/school. Indeed, it was intended as genuine competition for the Beeb's Dr Who. It didn't really take off, developing the trademark cult following before being shelved by ITV after a few years and six 'assignments' (no stories were ever named). Shame really, because Sapphire and Steel is rather good.

TV Film Memorabilia magazine

Whilst out shopping today, I noticed (and indeed bought) TV Film Memorabilia magazine, which claims to be a publication for 'fans of TV, film & collectables from the 1960s to the present day'.

And while not everything in there appeals, it's certainly worth a browse, especially for fans of 60s TV. The current issue includes an extensive feature on The Avengers (and classic collectables and merchandise), vintage tie-ins from Adam Adamant, Monkees memorabilia, Batman vs The Green Hornet, a feature on 1967 and various buyer's guides for vintage items.

It does occasionally go a bit too sci-fi geek for my own tastes (and there's the worry that future issues might go a little too far that way), but this first issue is certainly worth a look in your local newsagents. It retails for £3.

Find out more at the TV Film Memorabilia magazine website

James Bond Ultimate Casino Edition DVD set

I'm petty sure that if you wanted all the James Bond movies on DVD, you would have bought one of the numerous sets or reissues by now. But just in case you didn't, here's the latest set to tempt you - the James Bond Ultimate Casino Edition.

So, what do you get? Well, there's 'deluxe acrylic packaging' that holds 20 Bond movies from Dr. No through to Die Another Day, all as two-disc special editions, plus a two-disc version of 2006’s Casino Royale. And that's not all - it also includes two sets of branded Casino Royale playing cards and a complete set of poker chips from Carta Mundi, as seen in the film.

It retails for £199.99. If the casino add-ons don't really appeal, you can also pick up the James Bond Ultimate Collectors Box-Set for £149.99. Both are available from 12th November and indeed available now, heavily discounted for pre-order, from Amazon.

Find out more about the DVDs at Amazon.co.uk

DVD Review: Phantom Of Death (1987)

Regular readers will know we have flagged up the launch of the Shameless DVD label, which intends to dig out and reissue lost shockers and exploitation gems, all packaged in lurid 80s-style 'video nasty' sleeves.

The first releases are already on the shelves - one of which is Phantom Of Death. Directed by Ruggero Deodato (best known for Cannibal Holocaust) and with the tagline 'let the symphony of slaughter begin', you would in all honesty expect something of a bloodbath. But that's not actually the case.

Coming soon: The Who - Amazing Journey on DVD

Out on November 5th 2007 is a two-disc DVD set of The Who's finest moments coupled with rare footage of the band and band members - Amazing Journey: The Story Of The Who and Six Quick Ones.

Directed by Paul Crowder, Amazing Journey is the lead feature, telling the story of the band through the music, footage, new interviews with the band, celebrity fans and musicians, plus recently-discovered concert footage, from I Can't Explain to the band's most recent tour and recordings.

The Six Quick Ones disc focuses on each individual band member, with a fifth part looking at the mod scene and the pop art movement and a final segment where legendary filmmakers The Pennebakers film the band in the studio recording material for the Then And Now album.

DVD Review: Grindhouse Trailer Classics

Want to check out some grindhouse titles, but not sure where to start? Grindhouse Trailer Classics should be your first port of call.

For those of you unsure of what grindhouse entails, let's just say it's another word for exploitation. Movies that come under the grindhouse banner today are likely to have been made in the 60s and 70s, mainly (but not exclusively) in the US and probably screened in downmarket cinemas in American cities.

These were low budget movies, made for cheap thrills and a fast buck, squeezing in sex, violence, gore or all three if possible. Not to mention the odd nazi, alien and Hell's Angel. Making the film was one thing, getting people in to see it was another. That required a catchy title, a hard-hitting poster and a trailer that could convince a prospective punter that this wasn't just another low-rent bloodbath.

Testcard TV - more free movies and TV shows online

We very much enjoyed Joox during its short existence, but it had one flaw - it hosted a large amount of  film and TV without the owners' permission. That isn't the problem with Testcard TV.

The service is an aggregator or indexer of content hosted on 3rd party platforms such as Google Video, YouTube or on mainstream broadcaster websites from around the world. Nothing is hosted by Testcard TV - so presumably that sidesteps a particularly deep legal hole.

After undergoing a month of testing, the service is now available to all - which means you can access free online tv, movies, shows, cartoons, music videos and more, on either a PC or Mac - just as long as you have the divX player installed. You can even sign up to save your favourites or send to friends.

Looks like that day at work just got a little bit brighter.

Find out more at the Testcard TV website

Book review: London Film Location Guide

As a film nerd buff, I don't just like some films, I get obsessed with them. And on the evidence of the London Film Location Guide, author Simon R.H. James is very much from the same mould.

This is detail over and above the call of duty. 276 pages and something like 750 films about London featured, dating from the 1920s through to the present day - an exercise that's taken the author the best part of 10 years to complete. And if that sounds a little too much to deal with, you'll be pleased to know that there's a film index, postcode index and even a street index to help you through the mass of movies featured.

Withnail and I photography exhibition at the BFI

It's fair to say that Withnail and I is a modern-day cult classic, but not that modern - the film is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year and to celebrate, the BFI is hosting a Withnail and I photography exhibition.

The man behind the still images is renowned motion picture photographer, Murray Close. He will be showing classic images and 30 unseen black and white stills from the film. In addition, a limited edition full colour giclée print of Grant and McGann in their roles (pictured here) will be available to purchase.

You can check out the exhibition in the BFI Southbank foyer from 27th September - 15th October, where you'll also catch a screening of the movie on 8th October.

Find out more at the Murray Close website

BFI website

DVD Review: Les Maîtres du temps (1982)

The second of René Laloux’s widely-spaced sci-fi trilogy, Les Maîtres du temps is the weakest of the three, having neither the trippiness and allegorical smarts of The Fantastic Planet (1973) nor the visual inventiveness of Gandahar (1988). Nonetheless, as a children’s film (the other two have distinctly adult themes and imagery) it shows an admirable moral probity and has a serviceable if rather pedestrian story.

The cold open sees an imperilled spaceship crash-land on the remote and inhospitable planet Perdide. The occupants are a father and his young son. The father, Claude, sends an emergency distress call and gives his son Piel an interstellar communicator before dying of injuries sustained in the crash.

DVD Review: Gandahar (1988)

The third and final animated feature in René Laloux’s sparse but luminous career is often compared unfavourably to his groundbreaking The Fantastic Planet (1973). In fact Gandahar is a compelling, moody, visually stunning work which though flawed evokes a genuine sense of the alien and the dreamlike.

Warrior Sylvain has been tasked by the Council of Women to discover the cause of a recent spate of deaths and abductions in peaceful, agrarian Gandahar. He travels across the ‘circumscribing oceans’ and discovers a race of mute, murderous androids who have been petrifying Gandaharians and spiriting them through a mysterious door. And the mystery deepens: for each body brought through the door, another android marches out.

Before solving the puzzle – an unusually satisfying and cerebral solution for animated SF – Sylvain has time to meet beautiful blue-skinned Airelle and a race of deformed mutants, both of whom are of help in his quest. Indeed, the imaginary menagerie of alien creatures is one of the film’s highlights.

Cult Clip: Brain Damage trailer (1988)

Hopefully you have checked out our review of the DVD reissue of Brain Damage. If you're still not sure whether to buy or not, check out the original cinema trailer - which isn't too gory, you may or may not be pleased to know.

DVD review: Brain Damage (1988)

Ironic, that a film called Brain Damage should be smart and funny, and likely to give your brain a much better work out than LSD. Never mind the dry social subtext of Cronenberg. Frank Henenlotter makes his points just as well with a script that's as quotable as All About Eve. Gone is the rough dark and kit-gore of his earlier film Basket Case. Here, we get something a little more sophisticated. And just as much fun.

Things get underway damn fast.  It's not long before Brian, our hero, is host to a speaking parasite (part turd, part penis, part muppet) and some security guard is getting his skull drilled. From then, it's all you would expect from an 80s horror that's taking its cues from a culture of sex and drugs. A cheeky bit of bloody fellatio in a night club called Hell. A sequence that moves from seedy showers to toilet stalls with all the tension and tease of a Brian De Palma set piece. And of course, the cold turkey segment, which delivers some of the film's best lines in between twisting our melons with nightmare red stuff.

Tartan Grindhouse unveils new budget horror titles

Tartan's horror arm, Tartan Grindhouse, has a new range of titles set for an autumn launch and at a budget price - Basket Case, Society, Bride Of Re-Animator and Killer Barbys vs Dracula.

Basket Case needs no introduction, with one man and his basket seeking revenge on the doctor responsible for their plight. 25 years old and still with the ability to shock. This reissue tags on a trailer and image gallery, all for a £7.99 price tag from October.

November sees the reissue of Brian Yuzna's bizarre 80s debut Society, along with Yuzna's Bride of Re-Animator and a first-time UK release of Jess Franco's Killer Barbys vs Dracula - a mix of punk, vampires and the spaghetti western apparently, which sounds like a seriously tempting prospect. The latter titles all retail for £9.99. Hopefully we'll have reviews before the DVDs hit the shelves.

Find out more at the Tartan Video website

Shameless Screen Entertainment label launches

A new video label launches on 1st October - Shameless Screen Entertainment - offering to dig out those lost shocker and exploitation 'gems' of the past,  all with lurid 80s video-style sleeves and most released for the first time in the UK.

In fact, apart from The Black Cat none of the titles coming out in 2007 have been released on UK DVD and all are presented in their longest ever versions. Initial titles include New York Ripper, Phantom of Death, Torso, Killer Nun, Venus In Furs and the previously-mentioned Black Cat.

We'll have previews of each title (and possibly reviews) as and when they're released. All titles will retail for £12.99 or less.

Find out more at the Shameless Screen Entertainment MySpace site

The Ken Loach DVD Collection boxsets

Ken Loach isn't everyone's cup of tea, but if you fancy getting to know the man's work a bit better, you need to pick up The Ken Loach DVD Collection boxsets, which are available from September.

Ken Loach is arguably Britain’s most respected director, with a career dating back to the mid-60s with the controversial Cathy Come Home and a body of work over the following 40 years to match - without concession to commercialism and always with a social conscience.

DVD Review: My American Uncle (1980)

Martin Amis once wrote a short story that went by the name of ‘Career Move.’ In it, the world of literature was turned on its head. Screenwriters were not courted by Hollywood, and instead left to starve in garrets, desperately trying to find someone to publish their efforts. Conversely, poets were wined and dined, feted by all, and hugely rich. What I think Amis was trying to say, when he wasn’t trying to be too clever for our own good, is that the superiority of one entertainment form over another is purely human construction. Basically, it’s out of our hands - we've been conditioned to prefer one medium instead of the other. Which brings me neatly on to Henri Laborit.

Laborit was a French psychologist who specialised in the field of evolution. Put plainly, all human activity is down to the memory banks of the brain, which has remembered over generations which actions earn us rewards, which ones lead to conflict, and which ones make us so scared of a reaction that we curl up in a corner and suck our thumbs. All very interesting, unless you’re reading this in America, in which case it’s all very heretical.

Win the Jean-Luc Godard Collection Volume Two DVD boxset

The first Jean-Luc Godard DVD Collection got high praise on its release back in May - and Jean-Luc Godard Collection Volume Two looks every bit as good. So you'll definitely want to win one of the two boxsets we have to give away.

Five movies from the French New Wave pioneer are featured, including two new to DVD in the UK - the Parisian love triangle Une Femme Est Une Femme from 1961 and 1963's Le Petit Soldat, which focuses on love across the political divide. Also included in the box are Pierrot Le Fou (1965), the tale of a couple (played by Jean-Paul Belmondo and Anna Karina) on the run to the south of France, La Chinoise from 1967 (Godard's most political movie, a satire based on Maoist theory) and finally, one from the 80s - Detective - Godard's take on modern morality and popular culture.

All titles are packed with extras, making up a set that's pretty much a must for any fan of French cinema. The set is available to buy now for around £39.99, but if you enter the competition at our sister site Modculture, you could grab one for free. Simply enter your details using the link below and you'll be in the draw. Good luck!

Enter the Jean-Luc Godard Collection Volume Two competition

DVD Review: The Great Bookie Robbery (1986)