DVD Review: Bossa Brazil (2008)

"Viva Bossa-sa-sa! Viva Bossa-sa-sa-sa!" When Caetano Veloso yells that, you know he's on to sumthin' cool. Even at it's most third-rate and cruddy, Bossa Nova is still a million times cooler than just about anything else. As a kid, one of my most cherished LPs was this crappy MFP release called 'The Beatles, Bacharach and Bach Go Bossa'. It was barrel scraping Bossa with sleeve notes that said "if your party is sagging in the middle, then play this album!" It was awful. It was exploitative. I loved it.

Of course, Bossa Nova isn't merely the soundtrack to lava lamps and avocado bathroom suites and women in high waisted loons. Bossa Nova is the exact big bang point in Brazilian music when they discovered what happened when you mix samba and jazz. In essence, take two really cool styles of music, throw them in a melting pot and whatever comes out is bound to be great... and it was. It was Brazil's identity, rising with their glories on the football pitch and soundtracked Cinema Novo and... hell... it shook everyone up without ever going beyond a hypnotic whisper. So does Bossa Brazil: Stories of Love - The Birth of Bossa Nova do Brazil justice?

Joy Division (2008) - the trailer

Following on from our review of the Joy Division documentary, here's the trailer for it.

Enjoy...

Review: Joy Division (2008)

One of my earliest childhood memories is being dragged into Manchester by my parents - and being ever-so-slightly scared by the decaying warehouses and factories, the disused Manchester Central railway station and the concrete monstrosities that made up the actual centre. It was grim beyond belief. But that decaying, depressing and hopeless environment produced one of Manchester's most iconic bands and the basis of this self-titled documentary - Joy Division.

Yes, with Control barely out of the cinema, here's another Joy Division story to replace it. But if you are a fan of the band, this is one you really need to see. Why? Well, it's all about the detail.

Metro-land (1973)

On paper, it's not hard to make a documentary - you just need to find the middle ground between education and entertainment. In practice, that find line has proven a little more difficult to find - especially when your subject matter is a little niche. If you want to know how to get it right, pick up a copy of Metro-land.

On the face of it, this could be the quite an ordeal - an old poet takes a trip through London's regional and rail expansion of the 1930s, telling us all that life's not as good as it used to be. But it's so much better than that - in fact this piece of 30s nostalgia has taken on an added dimension today as a piece of 70s nostalgia.

The poet in question is Sir John Betjeman, taking us on a rail trip along the Metropolitan railway, kicking off at the (already closed) Marlborough Road station, heading through Neasden, Wembley, Harrow, Chorley Wood and through to the end of the original line, Verney Junction.

DVD Review: The London Nobody Knows (1967) / Les Bicyclettes de Belsize (1969)

There are numerous reasons why some films and TV shows become cult items, but obscurity/lack of availability is probably the biggest one. And that's certainly applicable to The London Nobody Knows and Les Bicyclettes De Belsize - both almost impossible to find or see since the 1960s and both available for the first time on a single DVD disc. But that's where the similarity ends as these two 'mini movies' have absolutely nothing else in common.

The London Nobody Knows has become a favourite of cult cinema nights in recent years, directed by Norman Cohen and based on a book by Geoffrey Fletcher, it's a look at the 'underbelly' of London in the late 60s through the eyes and voice of veteran actor James Mason.

DVD Review: In the Realms of the Unreal (2004)

Jessica Yu's award-winning documentary, In the Realms of the Unreal offers a portrait of one man's astonishing inner life.  Henry Darger was an elderly recluse.  He spent his childhood in an Illinois asylum for 'feeble-minded' children and his adulthood working as a janitor in Chicago.  He lived a quiet life alone in his apartment, while regarded him as a harmless eccentric.  But when Darger died in 1973, his landlady discovered three hundred paintings in his room, some over ten feet long, and a 15,000-page illustrated novel called The Realms of the Unreal.  Darger's magnum opus told the epic story of the virtuous Vivian Girls, seven angelic sisters who lead a rebellion against the cruel, child-enslaving kingdom of Glendillinia.  Bursting with colour and imagination, the artwork was exhibited in major galleries and went on to inspire poetry, music and plays. 

Storybook narration from child star Dakota Fanning sets the tone for Yu's engaging fable.  She weaves portions of Darger's autiobiography read by Larry Pine, interviews with his surviving neighbours, still photographs (only three pictures of Darger exist) and animated excerpts from The Realms of the Unreal, and creates a moving picture book.  As a human being, Darger remains a mystery even to those who knew him.  Many of those interviewed here can't even agree how to pronounce his name, or on small details like where he sat in church.  Darger himself sometimes claimed his real name was Henry Dargarus and he was born in Brazil. 

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

Cult Clip: The London Nobody Knows (1967)

I've just had word that a real lost gem is coming to DVD - The London Nobody Knows.

Dating from 1967, this documentary is headed up by James Mason, who takes a look at the 'underside' of the city, including many places long since demolished. It's due for release on 3rd March as part of a package that also includes Les Bicyclettes De Belsize, a 1968 short about a young man who falls in love with a model, filmed around the Hampstead area of London.

More details on the package when we have it. In the meantime, enjoy a clip of The London Nobody Knows below:

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.

DVD Review: Buy It Now (2005)

Sex, as seaside postcards insist, is a funny thing. Where else would female-dominated sketch-shows get their material? As each generation passes, we seem to be getting more and more promiscuous, until one day you’ll wake up and Dermot Murnaghan will be giving Kate Silverton her breakfast oats while handing over to the weather. At least, that’s what the tabloids say.

Kids are rampant these days, especially in Britain, where by all accounts they seem to run around the back of the bike sheds in the nude instead of learning how much it rains in Kenya every year. Obviously, that’s a load of tosh, but it doesn’t stop social commentators, usually of a conservative hue, wondering when our morals stopped being morals and ended up being a bye-line in a history textbook.
   
It’s an age where anybody can be a celebrity, and they usually achieve it by showing of various parts of their anatomy, or letting it get close to somebody else’s anatomy. For better or for worse, the human race is obsessed by the notion of sex; getting it, watching it, moaning about it, or wishing they could find a way to get it. Remarkable, really, for something that Johnny Rotten once called ‘two minutes and fifty two seconds of squelching’.

Cult Clip: Wattstax (1973)

I previously mentioned the great musical documentary Wattstax in my review of the new book The Notorious Ph.D.'s Guide to the Super Fly '70s. Wattstax is one the best concert films made in the seventies and if you enjoy good funk and soul music it's a must see movie.

Wattstax was an all-day concert put together in 1972 by the Stax record label. It was held at the Los Angeles Coliseum to commemorate the seventh anniversary of the Watts riots and hosted by Reverend Jesse Jackson. Over 100,000 people attended what would later be known as the "Black Woodstock," and they got to enjoy some amazing live performances by artists like The Staple Singers, Isaac Hayes and Rufus Thomas.

This terrific clip from Wattstax features The Bar-Kays performing Son of Shaft for an audience of thousands. It's one of my favorite moments from the film. If you'd like to see more of Wattstax it's currently available on a special NTSC Region-1 30th Anniversary Special Edition DVD at Amazon.

- Kimberly Lindbergs

DVD Review: Maysles Brothers Documentaries

Now in his eighties, American filmmaker Albert Maysles is most famous for three non-fiction movies that he co-directed with his late brother David.

They notoriously followed the Rolling Stones before, during and after the December 1969 gig at Altamont, California, recording the events building to the murder of a fan by acid-freaked Hells Angels, supposedly acting as security.  With only a few days of the sixties remaining, the shocking events literally and symbolically ended the flower power era, and whilst currently unavailable on DVD in the UK, 'Gimme Shelter' makes riveting viewing if you get a chance to see it.

Perhaps less widely known though, but equally fascinating if you like a non-fiction classic, are Salesman (1969) and Grey Gardens (1976), both now available separately through the Masters of Cinema imprint.

DVD Review: Painleve's Science Is Fiction

French director Jean Painleve filmed over 200 science and nature short films between 1927-1960 and created quite a stir in the scientific fraternity with his non-traditional approach to documentary production.

Portraying some of nature's most peculiar creatures (seahorse, octopus, vampire bat...) in an entertaining light, and editing the final product in a playful, poetic manner, he won many friends in the surrealist and avant-garde movements of the time. 

Sergei Eisenstein, Luis Bunuel, Jean Vigo and Salvador Dali all admired his work and by living to his premise that 'science is fiction' he was always going to ruffle a few establishment feathers.  His knack for capturing life's curiosities with intricate detail allowed him to straddle the line between art and science, and with his career beginning before filmmaking had even entered the talkies era, his visions must have appeared truly fantastic.

To this day, with respect to Cousteau and Attenborough, many claim that Painleve's work has never been surpassed.

The Future Is Unwritten: Joe Strummer (2007)

At cinemas from from 18th May is a biopic of the Joe Strummer, courtesy of longtime friend Julien Temple - The Future Is Unwritten: Joe Strummer.

Temple's movie - billed as a celebration of the man - contains never seen before footage of Joe Strummer including studio sessions, archive and early childhood footage, interviews with Strummer fans, including Martin Scorsese, Bono, members of Red Hot Chilli Peppers, plus friends and family and of course, former members of The Clash.

Scott Walker: 30th Century Man (2007)

Scott Walker's career is very much the career of extremes - from 60s chart pop to serious solo star through to uncompromising artist - you might not like all his work, but it's always interesting. Which should make Scott Walker: 30th Century Man very interesting viewing.

The film features contributions from the likes of Brian Eno, Damon Albarn, David Bowie, Johnny Marr and Alison Goldfrapp, plus a rare and candid interview with Walker, as well as exclusive footage of him recording in the studio. In fact, just about everything you could ask for as a fan.

It's getting a limited release around the independent/arthouse circuit from this week. If you're in London, you can catch it on Thursday 26th April at the Curzon Cinema, followed by a Q&A with director Stephen Kijak. Tickets are £10 or £7 (concessions).

Curzon Cinemas website

Film website