Home Comforts: The best in TV, VOD, DVD and Blu-ray (Monday November 16 - Sunday November 22)

16 of the week's most intriguing films to watch on a variety of formats...

1. Love & Mercy 
(VOD)

Bravura biopic of Beach Boy Brian Wilson, concentrating on two crucial periods of his life. Paul Dano plays the songwriter as a young man at the height of his musical powers (Pet Sounds, Good Vibrations) but teetering on the brink of mental illness, while John Cusack is the older Wilson, under the perfidious spell of Eugene Landy (Paul Giamatti), a quack psychologist who took his money and cut him off from his family. Love & Mercy boasts superb performances (Dano has to get an Oscar nod), smart storytelling (the two strands are beautifully weaved together) while the music is, of course, simply gorgeous.

2. Badlands 

(Friday, 23:35, BBC2)

Martin Sheen's psychotic greaser and his impressionable teen accomplice Sissy Spacek go on a killing spree in Terrence Malick's superb directorial debut. A stone cold classic.

3. Orion: The Man Who Would Be King 

(tonight, 22:00, BBC4)

Excellent documentary telling the odd but tragic story of Orion, a masked pop star (real name Jimmy Ellis) who came to prominence in the years following the death of Elvis Presley. The singer was younger and far taller than the King but that didn't stop fans believing he was the dead legend somehow reborn. 

4. Vanishing Point 

(Wednesday, 01:30, Film4)

The very definition of 'cult movie', Vanishing Point sees Barry Newman's Kowalski wager he can drive his white Dodge Challenger from Denver to San Francisco in just 15 hours. His amphetamine-addled journey takes in all manner of odd balls along the way in a 'carsploitation' classic.

5. A Fistful Of Dollars

(Tuesday, 15:00, Sky Select)

Sergio Leone's classic Dollars trilogy in its entirety. For A Few Dollars More follows at 16:45 with The Good, The Bad And The Ugly showing at 19:00. Clint Eastwood stars as The Man With No Name. Below is the original Italian trailer for A Fistful Of Dollars.

6. Love 

(VOD, from Friday)

The tiresomely controversial (but actually very talented) Gasper Noé (Irreversible, Enter The Void) returns with a shag-packed love story that definitely isn't porn (its stars Aomi Muyock and Karl Glusman are pictured at the top of page). Some cinemas are showing it in 3D which I mention more in warning than recommendation. The trailer below is mercifully restrained...

7. Love Is Strange 

(Netflix UK, from Saturday)

Long-term partners Alfred Molina and John Lithgow's life of contentment starts to fall apart after they get married. This bittersweet comedy/drama boasts fine performances all round and a strong script.

8. Güeros

(Curzon Home Cinema, from Friday)

Three young Mexican lads embark on a road trip to pay their last respects to a dying rock legend in this critically-lauded Spanish language film.

9. The Homesman 

(Amazon Prime Video, from Saturday)

Unusual, beautiful-looking, but ultimately deflating alt-western starring Hilary Swank and Tommy Lee Jones (who also directed). Meryl Streep gets a cameo.

10. I Believe In Miracles 

(DVD, Blu-ray and VOD)

Documentary chronicling the rise of manager Brian Clough's all-conquering Nottingham Forest football team in the 1980s.

11. The Long Kiss Goodnight

(Thursday, 23:00, ITV4)

A bump on the head cures Geena Davis' amnesia and transforms her mumsy school teacher into a kickass, gun-toting government assassin. Samuel L Jackson co-stars, director Reny Harlin doesn't stint on the action scenes.

12. Welcome To The Punch

(Sunday, 23:05, Channel 4)

Superior Brit cop thriller that sees James McAvoy's traumatised police officer handed a second chance to take down hardened criminal Mark Strong.

13. Under Milk Wood 

(DVD and Blu-ray)

Enjoyably saucy adaptation of Dylan Thomas' "play for voices" starring Rhys Ifans and Charlotte Church. Features both English and Welsh language versions.

14. Closely Observed Trains 

(DVD and Blu-ray)

This Oscar-winning film set in Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia during WW2 gets a swanky 4K restoration.

15. The Legend of Barney Thomson 

(DVD and VOD)

Robert Carlyle directs and stars in this enjoyable black comedy as a dull and cantankerous Glasgow barber who accidentally murders his boss. Ray Winstone, Emma Thompson and Ashley Jensen lend their support. 

16. Minions 

(DVD, Blu-ray and VOD)

Amusing animation featuring the weird yellow creatures from the Despicable Me movies. Sandra Bullock stars as foxy super-villain Scarlet Overkill.

Please note: Films starting after midnight are always considered part of the previous day's schedule, e.g. Vanishing Point begins at 01:30 - technically Thursday morning - but is still part of Wednesday's listings. All times in 24-hour clock.

Reviews: Orion, The Nightmare, The Lobster, Knock Knock and more...

Reviews of some of the films I've recently seen (including Knock Knock, pictured above), in order from best to worst...

Orion: The Man Who Would Be King

(Director: Jeanie Finlay)

When Elvis Presley popped his clogs in August 1977, many people refused to believe the King had really gone. Stepping into the breach soon after came Orion, a mysterious Presley 'lookalike’ in a mask, who, whilst an eerie dead ringer for the King voice-wise, was substantially younger and much taller. It didn’t stop Elvis fans clamouring to see him and some even to believe he was the legend “reborn”. Orion performed concerts and released LPs (ironically enough through Sun Records) and, for a time at least, seemed to successfully exploit his manufactured association with the star’s history and music. As British director Jeanie Finlay’s fascinating and ultimately heartbreaking documentary reveals, though, there was a lot more to the story than that of a cynical chancer exploiting gullible people’s affection for a dead star. In fact, this is ultimately a very sympathetic portrait of a man – real name Jimmy Ellis – who wanted fame so desperately he allowed himself to be manipulated into an entirely bizarre situation that soon felt more like a prison than a music career. Fame chewing up and spitting out the unwary is a tale as old as the hills but one rarely told as effectively as it is here. 

Rating: WWWW

Orion: The Man Who Would Be King is available now on Curzon Home Cinema

The Nightmare

(Director: Rodney Ascher)

This is a fascinating and disturbing documentary exploring sleep paralysis, a medical ailment whose many sufferers are plagued by horrifying night-time visions and hallucinations. Director Ascher – who himself has the condition – talks to eight different sufferers and, using actors and special effects, recreates the sometimes disturbing, often downright terrifying, images and scenarios that await them when asleep. Some feel the condition’s effects so keenly they have – perhaps foolishly – eschewed medical explanations and treatment, believing sleep paralysis is supernatural in nature. Spending time with the people interviewed you quickly realise the deleterious impact the disorder has had on their lives, and how exhausting and dispiriting it must be to, literally, fear sleep. In the film’s most unsettling scenes, Ascher and one of his subjects illustrate how the condition could be an explanation for ‘alien abduction’ stories, making particular reference to the famous Whitley Strieber case. Rather cleverly, the director also shows how sleep paralysis sufferers have utilised the condition in their art; from John Henry Fuseli’s painting The Nightmare to Wes Craven’s horror film classic A Nightmare On Elm Street. 

Rating: WWW

The Nightmare is available now on Curzon Home Cinema

The Lobster

(Director: Yorgos Lanthimos)

Greek filmmaker Lanthimos is responsible for the beguilingly bizarre Dogtooth, one of my favourite films of the last 10 years and this – his first English-language picture – starts in the same impressive vein. Set in a surreal near-future world where single people must find a mate in 45 days or face being turned into an animal of their choice, our story focuses on Colin Farrell’s newly-divorced David. He’s booked into a posh country hotel and forced to mix with other singles, breaking off only to help hunt the pack of wild loners, who live in the woods, with a tranquiliser gun. The first hour is blisteringly good – a laugh-out-loud funny and excoriating satire on the enormous pressures society brings to bear on single people to find a mate and the sanctions imposed upon those who don’t (for Lanthimos, they are made, quite literally, less than human). The second half, in which the director has to engage with something approaching an actual plot, isn’t nearly as successful as Farrell escapes into the forest and hooks up with the loners, including Rachel Weisz (a short-sighted woman with whom he falls in love) and their no-nonsense leader Léa Seydoux. The satire is still there – especially when you realise these militant singletons have as many rules and regulations as the people from whose clutches Farrell has just slipped – but it doesn’t quite hit as hard or as effectively as it does earlier on. Ultimately, then, The Lobster is a frustrating experience, although Lanthimos deserves great credit for assembling such a terrific cast (which also includes Olivia Colman, John C Reilly, Ben Whishaw, Ariane Labed and Ashley Jensen) and creating a film quite unlike anything else I’ve seen all year.

Rating: WWW

The Lobster is in cinemas now

Knock Knock

(Director: Eli Roth)

I’m not the world’s biggest Roth fan so calling Knock Knock the US director’s best film to date is probably damning it with faint praise. That said, this is a pacy and surprisingly compelling horror thriller that sees Keanu Reeves’ family man come a cropper when he has a threesome with two bedraggled young women (Lorenza Izzo and Ana de Armas) who trick their way into his home and seduce him. Suffice to say the clearly damaged girls are after rather more than a bit of middle-aged man flesh and it isn’t long before Keanu’s up to his neck in trouble. Knock Knock wears its influences on its sleeve – Happy Games, Hard Candy – but ultimately manages to transcend them. Nicely worked ending, too. Bring on The Green Inferno... 

Rating: WWW

Knock Knock is available now on VOD, DVD and Blu-ray

  

The Overnight 

(Director: Patrick Brice)

Disappointing sex comedy starring Adam Scott (Parks And Recreation) and Taylor Schilling (Orange Is The New Black) as a married couple recently moved to Los Angeles from Seattle. Quickly befriended by Jason Schwartzman (Listen Up Philip, Big Eyes) and Judith Godrèche (Stoker, Potiche), proceedings get a little wild when an invite to dinner leads to recreational drugs, nudity and the possible offer of more besides. The cast are great and the first half shows real promise. Unfortunately, the script is never quite funny enough and a kind of twist towards the end fails to convince. What’s more, despite being barely 80 minutes long (a little over 70 without the credits) it somehow manages to run out of juice long before the end.

Rating: WW

The Overnight is available now on VOD and DVD

Fidelio: Alice’s Journey

(Director: Lucie Borleteau)

Slow-moving and, it has to be said, slightly mucky, French film from first-time director Borleteau. The titular Alice (Ariane Labed) is an engineer on a freighter that just happens to be captained by Gael (Melvil Popaud), her first love. Lonely and horny with her graphic novelist boyfriend hundreds of miles away, she recommences their affair, whilst every now and again reading through the scurrilous, shag-packed diaries of the dead man she replaced on board. The impossibility and impracticality of monogamy is a theme worth exploring but Fidelio is too often more interested in getting Labed out of her clothes and into la bed than truly engaging with its subject matter.

Rating: WW

Fidelio: Alice’s Journey is available on VOD and DVD now

Ratings

WWWW = Wonderful
WWW = Worthwhile
WW = Watchable
W = Woeful

5 for Friday (September 25): Trailers, new releases and box office

It's an extremely frustrating week because many of the films most worth seeing are only getting a limited release. Worse still, the likes of Life and 99 Homes don't seem to be showing up on VOD and DVD/Blu-ray any time soon either. Still, there's always The Martian (pictured above) - Ridley Scott's much-hyped return to sci-fi - to look forward to...

1. 99 Homes

What is it? Andrew Garfield (Spider-Man) and Michael Shannon (General Zod in Man Of Steel) step away from their roles in superhero movies to take on an altogether more weighty subject: America's subprime mortgage crisis, which saw thousands of people lose their homes in the late 00s. When Floridian construction worker Dennis Nash (Garfield) has his family home repossessed, he ends up working for Rick Carver (Shannon), the greedy and ruthless real estate broker responsible for taking his house in the first place. Nash makes serious money but in so doing loses his soul and breaks the law.
Where can I see it in the UK? Just key cities, more's the pity. This is clearly a film that should be getting a far bigger release.
Critical consensus? An impressive 89 per cent on Rotten Tomatoes.
My take: Garfield, Laura Dern (who plays his mum), and Shannon are terrific actors one and all - better yet, the latter seems to be channeling Gordon Gekko in the trailer. In fact, the film has a kind of Wall Street/Glengarry Glen Ross evils-of-capitalism vibe about it which means we could in for a real treat.

2. The Martian
(from Wednesday)
What is it? Ridley Scott's highly-anticipated adaptation of the Andy Weir novel about an astronaut left behind on Mars after a manned mission to the red planet goes tits up. It boasts an all-star cast including Matt Damon, Jessica Chastain, Sean Bean, Kate Mara, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Kristen Wiig.
Where can I see it in the UK? Like a Martian invasion of Earth, it's everywhere. (There are lots of previews before the film's official release on Wednesday too).
Critical consensus? An out-of-this-world 93 per cent on Rotten Tomatoes.
My take: Ridley Scott has done some terrible old guff in recent years (Robin Hood, Exodus: Gods And Kings) but he's still the man who made Alien and Blade Runner. Come Wednesday morning, I shall be first in line for a ticket.

3. Life

What is it? Director Anton Corbijn tells the story behind LIFE magazine's famous James Dean photo shoot from 1955, including the iconic shot of the actor in Times Square. The film follows the friendship between photographer Dennis Stock (Robert Pattinson) and Dean (Dane DeHaan), then a rising Hollywood star just about to film East Of Eden, as they travel between Los Angeles, New York and Indiana. 

Where can I see it in the UK? Key cities only.
Critical consensus? A barely fresh 63 per cent on Rotten Tomatoes.
My take: Having been a world-renowned music photographer with a host of iconic album covers to his name, Corbijn knows a thing or two about Life's subject matter. On the strength of that and his last film - the underrated A Most Violent Year - I'm very much looking forward to this.




4. Orion: The Man Who Would Be King
What is it? Documentary chronicling the career of Orion, the mysterious masked singer who was a dead ringer for Elvis Presley. The Heartbreak Hotel superstar died just prior to Orion making his stage debut and it led many to wonder if he was really The King back from the dead. He wasn't; in reality, Orion was just an impersonator named Jimmy Ellis and part of a weird scheme to convince people of Presley's resurrection. Bonkers.
Where can I see it in the UK? It's getting a very limited release in key cities only. 
Critical consensus? Only three reviews up on Rotten Tomatoes, but two of them liked it a lot.
My take: Not really a case of truth being stranger than fiction (a fat chancer in a mask could never compete with a genuinely undead Elvis) but that shouldn't put you off Jeanie Finlay's fascinatingly odd film.   

5. Just Jim 

What is it? Craig Roberts - who you may remember as an actor in Submarine and the TV show Being Human - writes, directs and stars in this story about a nerdy Welsh teenager whose life is transformed by the arrival of Dean (Emile Hirsch), a cool and enigmatic American with more than a passing resemblance to the subject of this week's #3 movie (see above).  

Where can I see it in the UK? It's only getting a very limited release but is available now on the BFI Player.
Critical consensus? An encouraging 67 per cent on Rotten Tomatoes.
My take: I've enjoyed Roberts in everything I've seen him in and am keen to see how he works out as a writer and director. This has a sort of Play It Again, Sam vibe but I suspect it might be somewhat darker than Herbert Ross's 1972 film starring Woody Allen, and Jerry Lacy as Humphrey Bogart. 




Also on release this week...
Arcade Fire: The Reflektor Tapes 
Captive 
Jawani Phir Nahi Ani
Kis Kisko Pyaar Karoon
Kaun Kare Insaaf
Lessons In Love
Lost In Hong Kong
McFarland, USA
Mia Madre
Miss You Already 
Narcopolis
Older Than IrelandPalio 
Premature
Solace
Whitey Bulger

UK box office top 10
1. Everest 
2. Legend 
3. Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials 
4. The Visit 
5. Inside Out 
6. Straight Outta Compton 
7. Empire Strikes Back (Secret Cinema) 
8.  A Walk in the Woods 
9. Battle of Britain at 75
10. Bill 

US box office top 10
1. Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials
2. Black Mass
3. The Visit
4. The Perfect Guy
5. Everest
6. War Room
7. A Walk in the Woods
8. Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation
9. Straight Outta Compton
10. Grandma