The latest Sight & Sound is out, complete with the following pieces by me:

• How We Won The War (p. 35) – an overview of Soviet and Russian cinema’s treatment of the Great Patriotic War, aka World War II;
• White Elephant (p. 109) – review of Pablo Trapero’s well-intentioned, well-staged but slightly disappointing seventh feature (at least by the standards he’s previously set himself);
• Baise-Moi (p. 112) – review of Arrow’s knockout edition of Virginie Despentes and Coralie Trinh Thi’s problematic rape-revenge film, the first DVD version to be both uncut and framed correctly;
• City of Women (p. 115) – review of Masters of Cinema’s superb Blu-ray and DVD editions of what I now regard as Federico Fellini’s last great film: I was rather more impressed by it this time round than when I first caught it in Paris in the early 1990s, although English subtitles certainly would have helped;
• The Murderer Lives At 21 (p. 115) – review of Masters of Cinema’s Blu-ray and DVD editions of suspense master Henri-Georges Clouzot’s deceptively lighthearted directorial debut – given the film’s obscurity and the fact that it’s a whodunit at base, I decided to avoid narrative spoilers, which meant that I had to soft-pedal one of the film’s key themes.

The latest Sight & Sound is out, complete with the following pieces by me:

• The Joy of Six (p. 97) – review of a generally pretty successful compilation of half a dozen new British short films;
• McCullin (p. 101) – review of the excellent, thorough documentary about the great war photographer Don McCullin;
• Films by Victor Erice (p. 114) – specifically, his first two features Spirit of the Beehive and South, both released on gratifyingly cheap and even more gratifyingly English-friendly Spanish Blu-ray discs;
• Gate of Hell (p. 116) – review of Masters of Cinema’s immaculate presentation of Teinosuke Kinugasa’s Eastmancolor showcase, an eye-popping visual treat that’s nonetheless a notch below the best mid-Fifties Japanese period dramas;
• Films by Kim Ki-duk (p. 116) – specifically his debut Crocodile (1996) and his recent Arirang (2011), a surprisingly apposite double bill given the latter’s back-to-basics return to his improvised roots;
• This Is Cinerama (p. 120) – review of Flicker Alley’s surprisingly effective Blu-ray treatment of the ginormous-screen classic. Obviously, it can’t possibly replicate an authentic Cinerama experience at home, but the plethora of extras is a historian’s dream.

The latest Sight & Sound is out, complete with the following pieces by me:

• Out of sight, out of mind (p. 27) – a brief history of the production and suppression Ken Loach’s notoriously polemical documentary for the Save the Children Fund, given its public world premiere on September 1 after being shelved for forty years;
• Page One: Inside the New York Times (p. 72) – review of Andrew Rossi’s access-all-areas documentary about the venerable American broadsheet newspaper at a time of crisis for traditional media;
• Before the Revolution (p. 84) – review of the BFI’s dual-format edition of Bernardo Bertolucci’s dazzlingly precocious second feature;
• The Colour of Pomegranates (p. 84) – review of the Second Sight DVD, which finally does the film justice after several near-misses;
• Father (p. 85) – review of Second Run’s excellent DVD of István Szabó’s coruscating second feature, a milestone of 1960s Hungarian filmmaking;
• The Garden of the Finzi-Contini (p. 85) – review of the latest Arrow Academy release, a DVD-only edition of Vittorio de Sica’s final Oscar-winner. Presumably the poor quality of the transfer explains the lack of the usual Blu-ray: a shame, as the package is otherwise excellent;
• The Music Room (p. 86) – Satyajit Ray’s masterly fourth feature given the deluxe Criterion treatment;
• Schloss Vogelöd (p. 89) – review of Masters of Cinema’s DVD of F.W. Murnau’s oldest surviving feature, also (misleadingly) known as The Haunted Castle.

The latest Sight & Sound is out, complete with the following pieces by me:

• The Interrupters (p. 52) – this month’s Film of the Month, a sobering documentary study by the maker of Hoop Dreams of Chicago street violence and a promising initiative aimed at dealing with it;
• Carmen (p. 83) – review of the DVD (sadly, I wasn’t sent the Blu-ray) of Second Sight’s restored edition of Francesco Rosi’s 1984 opera-film;
• Cœur fidèle (p. 83) – review of Masters of Cinema’s first Jean Epstein release, a demonstration-quality silent film Blu-ray;
• Pigs & Battleships/Stolen Desire (p. 87) – review of another Masters of Cinema package, this time devoted to Shohei Imamura’s first and fifth features;
• They Went Into Space (p. 88) – review of Telewizja Kinopolska’s sci-fi collection (‘Pojechane w kosmos’), containing the DEFA co-productions The Silent Star and Signals: An Adventure in Space, the Stanisław Lem adaptation Pirx’s Test Flight and the hilarious Indiana Jones ripoff The Curse of Snake Valley. The latter may well be the silliest film I’ve reviewed for S&S to date.

The latest Sight & Sound is out, complete with the following pieces by me:

• Faccia a faccia (p. 85) – review of Eureka’s new DVD of Sergio Sollima’s underrated Italian western, released uncut for the first time in Britain;
• The Halfway House (p. 86) – review of Optimum’s excellent DVD restoration of Ealing Studios’ J.B. Priestley-like wartime ghost story;
• The Kremlin Letter (p. 86) – review of Eureka’s DVD of John Huston’s fantastically downbeat Cold War drama about disillusioned spies;
• Rififi (p. 89) – review of the Arrow Academy edition of the classic heist thriller, complete with one of the best black-and-white pictures yet seen on a Blu-ray;
• The Kingdom I & II (p. 91) – review of the superb new Second Sight edition of Lars von Trier and Morton Arnfred’s gleefully unhinged hospital soap opera.

The latest Sight & Sound is out, complete with the following pieces by me:

• Brothers in arms (p. 12) – my contribution to the ongoing ‘Lost & Found’ series, whose contributors are given a page to extol the virtues of a film that’s been neglected for far too long – I picked Paolo & Vittorio Taviani’s 1974 film Allonsanfàn, and the piece is also available online.
• After the Apocalypse (p. 56) – review of Antony Butt’s sobering documentary about the social, cultural and biological aftermath of four decades of nuclear testing in Kazakhstan.
• Yu-Gi-Oh! 3D – Bonds Beyond Time (p. 82) – loud, shouty and (for non-devotees) borderline incomprehensible Japanese sci-fi animation.
• Apocalypse Now (p. 85) – review of Optimum’s amazing three-disc Blu-ray that combines both cuts of the main feature with the documentary Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse and much more besides;
• Films by Ozu Yasujiro (p. 88) – namely, the new BFI dual-format editions of Late Autumn (1960) and An Autumn Afternoon (1962) plus the supporting features A Mother Should Be Loved (1934) and A Hen in the Wind (1948);
• Taxi Driver (p. 90) – Sony’s outstanding new Blu-ray crams in pretty much everything you could conceivably want, including an onscreen trivia track for people like my mother-in-law who always needs to know what else someone has been in;
• Avant-Garde to New Wave: Czechoslovak Cinema, Surrealism and the Sixties (p. 93) – review of Jonathan L. Owen’s excellent book about the relationship between the Czech and Slovak avant-garde and the New Wave filmmakers of the 1960s, revealed more often by common artistic preoccupations than close personal relationships.

The latest Sight & Sound is out, complete with the following pieces by me:

• Forgotten Pleasures of the Multiplex (p. 16 and online) – a celebration of neglected and/or forgotten mainstream gems from 1981-2011 by multiple authors. My contributions were Joseph B. Vasquez’s Hangin’ with the Homeboys (1991), a film several orders of magnitude more intelligent and indeed charming than its title suggests, and Craig Hamann’s Boogie Boy (1998).
• Attack the Block (p. 57 and online) – review of Joe Cornish’s uproarious feature debut, an aliens-vs-hoodies monster movie set in a highly recognisable sarf London;
• Bedevilled (p. 84) – review of Optimum’s DVD of Jang Chul-soo’s debut, distinctive enough to rise above initial impressions that this was yet another by-the-numbers Korean revenge flick;
• Early Kurosawa (p. 86) – review of the BFI’s DVD collection of Akira Kurosawa’s first six features. “A mixed bag, and that’s putting it mildly”, I said – but the two terrible films are more than balanced by four good ones.
• The Lighthouse (p. 88) – hugely impressive 2006 debut by Armenian director Maria Saakyan, given a belated British premiere release courtesy of a typically loving presentation from Second Run;
• Apocalypse Now (p. 85) – review of Optimum’s amazing three-disc Blu-ray that combines both cuts of the main feature with the documentary Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker’s Apocalypse and much more besides;
• Mamma Roma (p. 89) – review of Mr Bongo’s barebones but well-presented DVD of Pier Paolo Pasolini’s second feature, in which the relatively untried director manages to assert his own strong artistic personality even in the face of Anna Magnani’s torrential lead performance;
• Minnie & Moskowitz (p. 89) – review of Mr Bongo’s excellent presentation of John Cassavetes’ 1971 screwball (ish) comedy (even more ish);
• Il posto (p. 90) – review of Mr Bongo’s barebones but decent DVD of Ermanno Olmi’s lovely 1961 film about the fleeting pleasures and grinding tedium of both getting and keeping a job.

My Sight & Sound piece on the fascinating Celluloid Curtain touring programme (eleven 1960s/70s spy films, each from a different country, mostly behind the old Iron Curtain) has just been published as a web exclusive.

The latest Sight & Sound is out, complete with the following pieces by me:

• Limitless (p. 60) – review of Neil Burger’s slick but highly entertaining thriller about brain-enhancing drugs;
• Tracker (p. 76) – review of the watchable but ultimately ho-hum New Zealand-set adventure film pitting fellow outsiders Ray Winstone and Temuera Morrison (one Boer, the other Maori) against each other;
• ‘The art of Michelangelo’ (p. 84) – review of Masters of Cinema’s dual-format releases of the early Antonioni films La signora senza camelie and Le Amiche;
• Blood Simple (p. 85) – review of Momentum’s DVD of Zhang Yimou’s eccentric but often compelling Chinese period remake of the Coen Brothers’ first feature;
• Dark Star (p. 85) – review of Fabulous Films’ pretty fabulous DVD of John Carpenter’s much-loved low-budget sci-fi debut;
• Larks on a String (p. 86) – review of Second Run’s director-approved edition of Jiří Menzel’s long-banned satire mocking the overweening absurdity of political dogma;
• Slingshot (p. 89) – review of Peccadillo Pictures’ DVD of Brillante Mendoza’s virtuoso study of the lives of the inhabitants of a Manila slum.