It seems that DVD companies have decided to educate us in cinema history as they’ve gone ‘auteur crazy’ with a number of box sets and new releases containing the greatest work of some of the most famous and influential directors of the past hundred years. So if your DVD collection is mostly populated by the films of Steve Guttenberg and Pauly Shore, then you&rsq…

Thanks to the perils of blown up computers and various other technological problems, Special Edition # 4 has been a long time coming. But never fear as Laurence Boyce had managed to move heaven and earth (and, more importantly, has managed to install a new version of Windows XP) to bring a bumper crop of all the DVD’s that are fit to watch when the bright sunshine starts to get a l…

Lots of new films this time around as Special Edition # 33 has more examples of Hollywood being unable to think of new ideas, a bunch of documentaries and the usual intriguing mix of world cinema and TV releases. Originally a BBC Drama, State Of Play (Universal Releasing) has transferred to the big screen under the direction of Oscar winner Kevin One Day In September Macdonald. The original was…

If you’re a fan of Blade Runner – and there are many – you may be happy that there’s a new book exploring the classic film. However, if terms such as ‘Intertextuality’, ‘Liminal Space’ and ‘Cyberethnography’ are liable to give you a sudden headache then maybe you’d better check out Laurence Boyce’s review of The Blade Runner…

Shame there weren't as many celebrity mags back in Joan's day, as she would've provided them with endless fodder: casting couch connoisseur, a sideline in prostitution, four marriages, Mommie Dearest... and a few films.   Shame there weren't as many celebrity mags back in Joan's day, as she would've provided them with endless fodder: casting couch…

 There's a real air of independence with Special Edition # 17 as there’s no Hollywood blockbusters in sight. Instead there are movies from across the world, which show the real diversity of things available to movie goers nowadays. Whether it’s French horror, some classic documentaries or a curious Sci-Fi film then Laurence Boyce is here to show you can find just abo…

How did we cope before the advent of DVD’s? Rewinding a video tape took ages, the quality was something less to be desired and there was a nary a special feature in sight. How our film loving predecessor’s must have suffered in that primitive world - well, unless they had loads of money and bought a Laserdisc. Thankfully, we’re now knee deep in DVDs and Special Edition # 28 is…

Any film adaptation of Nobel Prize-winning author J. M. Coetzee's 1993 Booker Prize-winning novel would have a daunting reputation to live up to, and the husband-and-wife team behind this 2008 effort, director Steve Jacobs and screenwriter/ producer Anna Maria Monticelli do Coetzee's big themes justice. As ever, eatch out for spoilers, although the book has been out for over a decade…

The 55th BFI London Film Festival opens tonight!  Oh. Fernando Meirelles. This is no City of God. This isn't even Love Actually. It just. Doesn't. Work. So... there's sex trafficking, infidelity, infidelity, people meeting on a plane, loooooads of interminable airport scenes, a brilliant bit of Anthony Hopkins in AA (but his character never rings true), pretty brunettes bringing sad guys redemp…

Wes Anderson's The Darjeeling Limited will close the London Film Festival tonight, with a sold-out screening in the West End.  The film follows three brothers - reunited for the first time in the year since their father's death - who take a train journey across northern India, in the hope of renewing their relationships, finding someone they lost and, in true gap-year style, findin…

When David Lynch calls a film "simultaneously horrific, erotic and funny," and master surrealist Luis Buñuel says that it is "exceptional," you know it's probably not an easy watch. Martin Scorcese, Francis Ford Coppola, along with Grateful Dead guitarist Jerry Garcia, helped to finance a new print of the film, that's how much they love it. First released in De…

Years in the making, The Master Course In High-End Blocking And Staging is the most comprehensive and ambitious Directing Course in the world. A groundbreaking learning tool, the course teaches high-end camera work through over 9 hours of 3D animated instruction on 6 Region-Free DVDs.    WHO'S IT FOR? For Directors, Cinematographers, Script Supervisors, 3D Animato…

"I'd like to finish with a word of warning. You may have started something. The British are coming." If that statement, made by Colin Welland during his 1981 Oscar acceptance speech for Chariots Of Fire, is true then the British have been taking their bloody time. More than 25 years on, it's only now that British cinema seems to be at the beginnings of resurgence that could pu…

It may have taken more than ten years for this one to come to the big screen, but it is a must-see for anyone with a liking for quirky humour, or film noir. It may be low budget, but there’s not a Lottery penny in sight. If low budget means you can end up with these production values on screen, then the UK Film Council needs to move over. They may have lost the plot, but the team behind Roo…

Fundamentalist atheism is as old as religion, and possibly time. Back in a less liberal era, the 16th century, the playwright Christopher Marlowe got into trouble for trashing religion as a translator of the classical author Ovid ("God is a name, no substance, feared in vain"), as well as in his own stuff ("I count religion but a childish toy "). US comedian Bill M…

Grassroots and No are both political films based on real events that concentrate on the competition: to win a local election in the former film, and to win a regime-changing plebiscite in the latter. The fact that No succeeds as an engaging film to such a greater extent than Grassroots shows that political races on film need to be contested by sharply-out…

Come on the long days! Laurence Boyce has been stuck in front of a computer for the past few weeks, watching many, many films and currently needs a tanning machine to ensure his skin resembles the colour of porridge. Thankfully, the stuff that he’s been watching for Special Edition # 38 means that Laurence Boyce has at least got to enjoy some really good films and TV shows. But, for the love of h…

Do you want some DVDs? Then you've come to the right place squire as I have Special Edition # 46 all ready and waiting with some tremendously fun new films to see you through the days. This time around we've got violence, corruption and a half shark and half octopus. As you do.  Danny Trejo plays a man whose family have killed and whose beloved town has been corrupted out of all recognition. Kno…

A Holy Grail quest that recalls the Indiana Jones trilogy - but without the humour, or Harrison Ford... If you're reading this, you're probably the last person left in Britain who hasn't seen this much-anticipated adaptation of Dan Brown's Church-offending 2003 novel. Despite the furore over the book's subject matter, however, the film itself is often too ful…

Break out the party hats and balloons as Special Edition # 10 means that the column that fearlessly tracks down the best DVDs available hits double figures. This time around Laurence Boyce discovers that the tide of classic French Cinema being released on DVD remains unabated, that Doctor Who did look slightly cheesy in the 80s, that people aren't waiting until Halloween to release horror mov…

As the credits rolled, the audience sat in stunned silence as if they had lost the ability to speak or move. I felt as if I had been punched in my solar plexus, such was the impact of Marc Rothemund's chronicle of courage and quiet heroism, Sophie Scholl, The Final Days. For two hours we had followed a few days in the life of a young German student  who, in 1943,  distribu…

It seems to me that I always talk about the weather in the introduction to these columns. I’ve vowed that I was going to stop that. Unfortunately, Danny Boyle’s latest film has kind of scuppered that. So I have to mention that, considering the general rain, it’s good that Special Edition # 21 has a new film that can bring some brightness into all our lives. Laurence Boyce also…

Subtitled "The Oil Crash," this is, as co-director/producer Basil Gelpke puts it, "A film that promises to be a bit of a downer." He isn't  really joking: the documentary looks at the amount of oil likely to be left in the ground (not much) and what preparations have been made for a post-plentiful-oil society (not many). It's a wake-up call that comes without t…

Last night I rewatched Tarsem's, The Fall. I first saw it at Edinburgh Film Festival in 2008 amidst a dreamy stream of great films. Starting with a bong toking Ben Kingsley going through a breakup in The Wackness, to a man named Nick discovering the delights of Swedish spiritualism through the painfully funny Three Miles North of Molkom, onto Wayne Wang's 1000 years of Good Prayers, taking its ti…

Whilst you wait in breathless anticipation for Special Edition # 27, Laurence Boyce gives you a quick Special Edition: Easter Egg update with one of the biggest summer blockbusters now available for your delectation as Indiana Jones and The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull (Paramount Home Entertainment) is now available to buy as double disc edition. Well, we know that it’s the run up to Chri…