I'll Never Forget What's 'is Name at the BFI - with Michael Winner

Forget that view you have of Michael Winner and think of him as a 1960s director of some note - producing gems like I'll Never Forget What's 'is Name, a tale of one man's attempt to escape from the world of advertising and its trappings.

The movie (which stars Oliver Reed, Carol White and Orson Welles) gets a rare screening at the BFI in September, with Michael Winner on hand to do a Q&A at the end of the flick. That's about all the detail we have right now, except that it;s a Flipside production taking place on Wednesday 17th September.

For fans of 60s cinema, it's one for the diary. More detail to follow when we have it.

Cult Clip: Privilege (1967)

One of those 60s movies that everyone mentions but few have actually seen is Privilege. But you'll soon have a chance to own in it.

Starring Paul Jones and Jean Shrimpton, this satirical film has Jones as a pop singer, coerced by 'the establishment' to use his popularity to manipulate his fans into supporting the Government's policies. Controversial on its release, there's been no sign of a DVD issue...until now. You see, New Yorker Video in the US is releasing the film on 29th July. No news of a release elsewhere, but if we hear anything, we'll let you know. In the meantime, enjoy the trailer below...

O Lucky Man! heads to DVD as two-disc 35th anniversary edition

Bizarre, surreal but incredibly watchable, Lindsay Anderson’s cult classic O Lucky Man! comes to DVD as a two-disc 35th anniversary edition on 19th May, courtesy of Warner Home Video.

Malcolm McDowell is wide-eyed innocent Mick Travis - armed with ambition and a work ethic, he hits the road in his search for wealth and status, soundtracked by Alan Price's BAFTA award-winning song score. On his way, he visits a secret sex club for businessmen, is captured and tortured by military intelligence agents, submits to medical experiments at a bizarre private clinic, hitches a ride with a travelling rock band, falls in love and eventually lands in prison after he's implicated in a deal to sell chemical weapons to the Third World.

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.

Lindsay Anderson's O Lucky Man! comes to DVD

Lindsay Anderson's surreal musical satire O Lucky Man! (1973) is getting the deluxe DVD treatment this week from Warner Home Video. This is the first time O Lucky Man! has been made available on NTSC Region-1 DVD and it promises to be one of the most interesting DVD releases of 2007, along with Anderson's If.... (1968) which was also released on DVD earlier this year.

This impressive new two disc DVD set features a newly restored Anamorphic Widescreen print of the film, as well as many terrific extras including Audio Commentary by the film's star Malcolm McDowell, composer Alan Price and screenwriter David Sherwin, a new Feature-Length career profile on Malcolm McDowell called O Lucky Malcolm!, a vintage featurette about the making of the film called O Lucky Man! Innovations In Entertainment and the original Theatrical Trailer.

The O Lucky Man! (Two-Disc Special Edition) retails for $19.98, but it is currently on sale at Amazon for $14.99.

For more information please see Amazon

- Kimberly Lindbergs

DVD Review: Rien Sur Robert (1999)

Who’d be a critic, eh? What a terrible life; getting paid to sit through work that you couldn’t possibly create in your wildest dreams, slag it off beyond all redemption, and then expect to get served canapés and sparkling white wine at the release party. It sucks, let me tell you. It’s only the hors d’oeuvres and the highbrow chit-chat that keep me going.

Patently, for most critics, that’s not the case. Presenting a balanced opinion is the name of the game, and most reviewers do a terribly good job. Think about it – how many times have you watched a film or bought a CD because a friend recommended it? They may not be celebrated, but reviews keep the wheels of entertainment turning just as much as a film studio or a record company.

Rien Sur Robert (Nothing On Robert) uses the field of criticism as a backdrop for a quirky comedy of manners and relationships, and what can happen when a critic feels he wields too much power. Pretentious journalist Didier Temple (Fabrice Luchini) has the nice-work-if-you-can-get-it task of reviewing films for a Paris newspaper, and is highly respected by the people that matter to him, i.e. the rich intelligentsia.

Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion (1970)

The final scene in Elio Petri’s Investigation of a Citizen Above Suspicion concludes with a quote from Kafka’s The Trial: “Whatever he may seem to us, he is yet a servant of the Law; that is, he belongs to the Law and as such is set beyond human judgment.” What Petri has left out from this excerpt is also that “to doubt his integrity is to doubt the Law itself”. The “he” in question here is the man of the Law – the police inspector – played brilliantly, hair slicked back et al, by Gian Maria Volontè. Without any scruples, we see the Inspector coldly cut his mistress’s throat with a razor between the sheets in a kinky role-playing romp, sans scruples, only to prove to himself if he is, as he believes, a citizen above suspicion and beyond the Law which he so firmly adheres to.

This complex film is a cinematic gem thanks to its multifarious tropes – at times absurd black comedy, at times vitriolic political satire, at times psychological study into sexual fetishism and power. Of course, all of these themes intermingle so effortlessly that you can’t help but be taken aback by the richness of Petri’s byzantine vision. The left-leaning director here depicts the autocratic terror that overtook Italy in the late 60s, an overture to the tense, decade-long period known as the “years of lead” in Italian politics – a time of fascist repression and a struggle between the equally-as-extreme left and right of center parties.

DVD Review: The Rise And Rise Of Michael Rimmer (1970)

We hear a lot about the genius of Peter Cook, but rarely see any evidence with it - his finer moments being lost of locked in some TV and film company vault. Thankfully, one lost gem has finally got a DVD release - The Rise And Rise Of Michael Rimmer.

It's a 1970 movie, but its themes of spin and media manipulation are just as relevant today - possibly more so. Cook is the mysterious and sharply-dressed Michael Rimmer, ghosting unannounced and uninvited into Fairburn’s, a failing an advertising/polling agency. Assuming a role as troubleshooter, he takes control of the agency, before using sex to boost the fortunes of its clients and to get the agency onto the newspaper frontpages.

In fact, Rimmer uses polls and his growing personal influence to manipulate all areas of life, including politics – with his agency able to boost the fortunes of the Tory party and its leader, as well as undermining the incumbent Labour Prime Minister. With the Tories in the ascendency, Rimmer moves into politics himself, gets a safe Tory seat and the perfect wife (Britain’s second most-loved woman, according to the polls), before moving rapidly up the ranks to the top job - and beyond.

DVD Review: Dead or Alive: Final (2002)

There are few genres that director Takashi Miike hasn’t taken a crack at during his dizzyingly productive career, but his medium of choice has always been the wry, ultraviolent sci-fi potboiler. That he has created so many enjoyable and radical films in this self-conceived category makes it particularly disappointing that Dead or Alive: Final (third in a trilogy of strictly diminishing artistic returns) is an unsightly, rambling mess strewn with failed satire, dialogue-heavy downtime and possibly the silliest climax in the history of science fiction.

The plot, derivative in the extreme, centres on Ryô (Sho Aikawa), a good-natured drifter who is revealed to be an android, and Honda (Riki Takeuchi), a bitter cop who, wouldn’t you know it, is an android too. In post-apocalyptic polyglot Yokohama, the demented mayor has made it compulsory for all citizens to take a drug rendering them infertile and stemming their sexual urges. Ryô falls in with a group of militant rebels who refuse to take the drug, and the mayor sends Honda and his cronies to suppress the movement.

Le Maqnifique (1973)

One of my favorite spy spoofs is the French comedy Le Magnifique, which was made in 1973 by Philippe de Broca. Director Philippe de Broca made many adventure films and comedies during his career and Le Maqnifique is one of his most entertaining movies.

Le Maqnifique features the popular French actor Jean-Paul Belmondo as a reclusive novelist with a wild imagination, who spends his days writing novels about a suave and handsome spy named Bob St. Clare. Belmondo escapes from the real world by loosing himself in Bob St. Clare's fantastic adventures.

The film does a terrific job of blending the real world that Belmondo inhabits with the imaginary world he longs to escape to. Le Maqnifique pokes fun at macho spy films featuring infallible heroes like James Bond and does it in a smart and sometimes sentimental way. The jokes don't always work, but when they do they're very funny. The comedy becomes almost slapstick at times, but I think it works well with the movie's bizarre plot twists and turns. The film also features a good soundtrack by the award winning jazz pianist and composer Claude Bolling.

Coming to DVD: The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer (1970)

A pre-requisite for any cult flick worth its salt is to be almost impossible to find. That's been the case with The Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer for many years - but not anymore, as it's finally heading to DVD on 25th June 2007.

It's essential for any Peter Cook fan, as this is arguably one of his finest hours. Cook is Michael Rimmer, manipulating his way to the top, first through an opinion poll agency and then through politics. In fact, it's probably a good insight into the politics of today - only 37 years early.

Cook wrote the movie alongside John Cleese and Graham Chapman, both of whom appear in the movie, along with solid support from the likes of Denholm Elliott, Arthur Lowe, Dennis Price and playwright Harold Pinter. Extras on the DVD include a picture gallery and the original film poster.

We should have a review online well before the release date.

More about the DVD at Amazon.co.uk