New Video Podcast Reviews at ShinyDiscs.com

DVD reviews are now appearing as part of my new weekly review show The Shiny Discs Show which you can find over at ShinyDiscs.com.

The first show, for the week ending 19th April 2008, features reviews of the following UK releases: "Hidalgo" on Blu-Ray, "30 Days of Night" on Blu-Ray and DVD, "Alvin and the Chipmunks" on Blu-Ray and DVD, "Damages Season 1" on Blu-Ray and DVD, "Doctor Who: Black Orchid" on DVD, "The Death and Life of Bobby Z" on Blu-Ray and DVD, "St Trinians" on Blu-Ray and DVD, "Welcome to the Jungle" on Blu-Ray and DVD and "Chromopobia" on DVD :)

The Jungle Book (1967)

I'm not big on cartoons, even of the Disney variety - possibly because my own artistic abilities are such that in my one and only Art exam (a 'mock' O level) I got a pitiful 8%. However, I do have a soft spot for The Jungle Book, which I saw just the once before the release of this DVD set - on its original theatrical release as a ten year old kid - and I really enjoyed this just-released '40th Anniversary Edition', which boasts the usual Disney warning 'Available for a limited time only' (usually meaning a better version will be along in a few years time!)

There isn't much missing from this two disc 'platinum' edition, other than the top and bottom of the picture as the idiots have apparently decided to present the film to fill up your widescreen TV rather than present it in its original aspect ratio. You can read background information on this change in aspect ratio, along with other fascinating stuff, on my friend Brian Sibley's blog, and Brian is featured on the excellent extra's featurettes that are packaged on the second disc of this two disc set.

There isn't a lot of story to Jungle Book, and what little there is doesn't have much to do with Rudyard Kipling's source novel on which it's supposed to be based, but that's not a weakness here.

Mowgli a young abandoned human orphan is brought up with a pack of wolves, under the watchful eye of Bagheera the panther, until Bagheera decides that the 'man cub' has to be returned to his own kind to escape the wrath of Shere Khan, the tiger with a silky-smooth voice but deadly claws. The film tells the story of Mowgli's journey and the various creatures he meets along the way: a squad of soldier elephants lead by crusty retired Colonel Hathi, Kaa the slippery, seductive, but fortunately incompetent hypnotic snake (sounding eerily like Winnie the Poo!), the amusing but psychopathic, self-proclaimed Kind of the Apes Louie, a barbershop quarter of Liverpudlian vultures who sound suspiciously like Paul, George and Ringo, and best of all, best buddy Baloo the Bear.

40 years on, the film has lost none of the charm I remember from that first viewing, and it's not hard to see why as a kid I developed a sudden appetite for a breakfast cereal I'd never been interested before (Sugar Puffs) because of its free colour Letrasets of the main figures. This animated film presses all the right buttons, thanks mainly to great, strong, instantly-memorable characters and stand-out songs that will now be familiar to all. It's quite an achievement when one realises that the emotion and empathy the film instills in its audience is just the result of some lines and inks drawn on paper.

Casting is perfect, as one has come to expect from Disney, with the characters even being drawn to reflect the appearance of their vocal counterparts, with Phil Harris as slacker Balloo the Bear, being the sort of buddy everyone would like to hang out with.

Comedic value is featured throughout with incredible performances from not just Harris but the entire vocal cast. George Sanders is well known to film fans for his 'British cad' performances, perhaps best exemplified by his role as the narrator and gossip columnist in All About Eve, but was he ever in finer form than he is here as the deadly Shere Khan? His performance here is beyond exquisite, it's perfection!

The transfer is as impeccable, barbaric cropping issues aside, as one has come to expect from Disney's 'Platinum' series, and the songs are beautifully presented in a strong surround sound mix. The DVD itself is presented in the usual Amray case, encased in a luxurious slip-case, which goes some way to justifying the high price tag. In the afore-mentioned blog post from Brian he mentions an included booklet - not in my British retail copy (or anybody elses, I suspect) there isn't! Just endless leaflets for offers such as a Parrot smoothie, or the chance to win a trip to DisneyLand Paris, or a home entertainment system if I buy laundry products.

Yet again we Brits seem to have been screwed when what we get for our inflated prices are compared with what the American market gets for less money. This proves to be yet another release where you're better off buying a Region 1 player and importing the DVD from the States.

Fortunately, the extra's disc help takes some of the pain away, with a series of thoughtful and well researched featurettes on the film and its animators, instead of the usual mindless kiddie-oriented 'games' fare we often get with these 'family-oriented' DVDs. The kids will probably be bored by all the interviews with old men reminiscing about what working for the Disney studio in the 60's was like, but I was fascinated throughout.

Extra's aside, if you've got kids then The Jungle Book should be considered an essential purchase. Forty years on the film stands the test of time, and is infinitely preferable to more technically accomplished 3D fare (I made the mistake of watching the recently issued The Robinsons on Blu-Ray before this standard DVD and there really is no comparison - The Jungle Book comes out way ahead, even to this jaded, adult viewer).

Even if you don't have kids you should treat yourself to this DVD set as I did (although given the missing booklet from the UK release, importing from the States looks like the best option). If you're not tapping your feet throughout and then pressing the 'Eject' button at the end with a big stupid kid's smile on your face at the end then you probably need to check that you've still got a pulse. Highly recommended!

The Golden Door (2006)

When you watch as many films as I do it's hard to find something that feels genuinely different or non-formulaic. I guess you could argue that The Golden Door follows a certain formula - a simple tale about a turn-of-the-century Sicilian family leaving everything behind to take their chances in 'the new world' of America - but I think few would argue that it's a different kind of film from the norm.

Ordinarily words like 'poetic' or 'tedious and bland' (that last quote from Empire, proving yet again how they've completely lost the plot with their reviews) would have me running a mile, but The Golden Door is a wonderful, elegiac film with imagery that I'm continually harking back to, a week or so after first viewing.

And I don't think it's ALL down to the fact that Vincenzo Amato is very pleasing on the eye!

With The Golden Door director Emanuele Crialese has created a cinematic masterpiece which, admittedly, may be too slow for more mainstream audiences, but is undoubtedly a work of great craftsmanship and beauty nonetheless.

Vincento Amato plays Salvator Mancuso, a long-widowed Sicilian peasant struggling to earn enough to support his two sons - one a seemingly adopted deaf mute - and ageing mother. Salvator wants the best for his family, and thinks that following his twin brother, who left for 'the new world' of America some years previously, is probably the best way to achieve that. It's a decision presumably arrived at by the numerous, repeated stories that in America 'money grows on trees' and 'rivers flow with milk'.

Still undecided, he climbs a mountain to ask God for some sign as to what he should do - go or stay? - and appears to get it when almost immediately his mute son brings him a misappropriated photo of some American founding fathers pictured alongside a ridiculously large vegetable.

The film for the most part plots the family's voyage to the new world, the golden doors of the title, with an emphasis on the repercussions of the family meeting an English Rose character Lucy Reed, played by Charlotte Gainsbourg, at their port of departure. Lucy seems to be in trouble and attaches herself to the family, eventually asking Salvator to marry her so that she can legally take up residency in the United States.

The cast are uniformly excellent, with Amato and Gainsbourg having particularly difficult roles to play in that most communication has to be non-verbal. Amato has to convince us that on the one hand he's a strong father figure - a good, proud, honest, hard-working man - whilst also being vulnerable and somewhat naive about what the emigration attempt means for his family who are the most important thing in his life. Salvatore is an eternal optimist and his portrayal throughout helps keep what is actually quite dark and depressing material, light and magical. His sudden love for the extremely 'alien' Lucy Reed (Charlotte Gainsbourg) is never in doubt, thanks to a wonderfully subtle performance that relies for the most part on subtle facial movements and mannerisms that rely, if anything, on 'under-acting' the role.

Gainsbourg has an equally difficult role as the enigmatic English Rose who clearly has a troubled history, as evidenced by the gossip about her from fellow travellers and her own stubborn and strong - but isolated - demeanour throughout. She impresses in every scene, subtly seducing all those who might help her, whilst being firm with those who cannot or will not, and it's hard to think of any living actress who could have given us such a clear vision of this role.

But the real stars of the film aren't the leads, excellent though they are. The real star is director and writer Emanuale Crialese who avoids falling into the trap of over-sentimentalising the story, or sticking to a single, strong narrative, instead choosing to tell his heart-breaking story anecdotally through little vignettes, or surreal dream sequences, with a fluidity that is mesmerising and beautiful to look at.

In some ways the film asks more questions than it answers. We never find out the whole back-story for the central character of Lucy Reed, or truly understand what her motives are. The film essentially ends with Salvatore being asked a question that we never really get the answer to, such that the viewer has to make his/her own mind up as to what actually happens to the family, although a surreal 'dream sequence' coda showing the family and other travellers swimming through rivers of milk give some clues as to what the film has been about, and what the possible outcome might be.

A tidy ending is really not the point of the film, which has been designed to highlight the experiences of those early Italian pioneers who followed their dreams over a hundred years ago, and in the process give us some understanding as to the trials and tribulations they faced. As such, it succeeds beautifully and helps put some perspective on the aspirational journeys of our ancestors when compared with the 'but it's my dream' nonsense of today's X-Factor celebrity-obsessed wanna-be's.

The DVD contains a good transfer of what looks like difficult material. There are no scratches or print damage, but with so much of the film being shot in dark surroundings there are above-average signs of significant grain/noise and murkiness that at times give the impression one is watching a VHS tape rather than a DVD. I'd love to see a version of this film on one of the high definition formats, cleaned up to remove much of that murkiness.

Extra's wise there's an excellent 'Making of', but unfortunately presented in non-anamorphic widescreen, together with an American trailer that is at least presented in the correct anamorphic format. This is perfectly adequate for a foreign language film like this, but I've docked the DVD a mark over the film because there appears to be a problem with the pressing. Both copies of the DVD (I'm on my second copy now) lock up two of my DVD players around the half-way mark with the XBox 360 HD-DVD drive frequently stuttering and locking up with an annoying 'Attempting to read media' error. Having to switch to a laptop to watch the middle 10 minutes of the film is extremely annoying to say the least, and given the number of discs my players are perfectly happy with, this has to be a fault with the disc pressing.

Disc pressing issues aside, this is a recommended purchase as opposed to a rental. The beauty of some of the scenes is such that I'd be surprised if this wasn't one of those films most would want to return to and rewatch at some point. Excellent stuff, despite what Empire says!

The Flying Scotsman (2006)

Sometimes I despair for the joke that we call 'the British Film Industry'. Although there are a few notable exceptions, for the most part we seem to be stuck in a rut of producing safe, predictable, old-fashioned 'family viewing' fare that is just a wearisome retread of far better films that were produced years before. How many versions of Chariots of Fire do we need for goodness sake?!

Unfortunately, The Flying Scotsman is yet another 'safe and oh-so-predictable' sports biopic. This time around it's focussed on Scottish world champion cyclist, Graeme Obree.

Obree's main claim to fame is holding two world records (albeit for a relatively short period of time) whilst struggling to cope with depression. His back-story is the key to why this film just doesn't compare well with other films of the same genre - there just isn't enough story here to give the film any real depth, a problem compounded by the fact that a lone cyclist running endless loops around an indoor track doesn't exactly make for gripping viewing as an adrenaline-pumping sport.

The film starts well, and atmospherically, with a 'flash forward' from the main events of the film: a hooded figure, who we will later learn is cyclist Graeme Obree (Jonny Lee Miller), enters a wood carrying his bike and a long, thick rope. The hooded figure ties the rope over a tree and around his neck before jumping off the branch he has climbed up to.

We then cut to a very young Obree being bullied at school, returning home to receive a Christmas present of a new bike. The bike, or more importantly the speed with which he can ride it to escape the school bullies, becomes the young boy's passion.

Fast forward a few years and the now-married Obree is running a run-down bicycle shop that's closing down because it's losing money. Douglas Baxter (Brian Cox) takes an old bike to Obree's shop for repair in preference to the shiny, modern competitor store opposite and begins a friendship that results in him helping his friend build his own bike to compete in World events - a design that will subsequently cause much bitterness and rankle with the Olympic committee who are more interested in standard designs that can enable the traditional manufacturers to make money than in any genuine innovation that leads to improved world records.

With the closure of his shop and a young child to support, Obree is forced to take up a menial job as a cycle courier to suplement his wife's meagre income as a nurse. On one delivery run he bumps into another courier 'Malky' (Billy Boyd) who encourages Obree to train for the world championships and agrees to become his personal manager. We then follow Obree's progress as he deals with the politics of the sport and his own personal demons and mental illness - illness which he refuses to accept professional help on, even after the suicide attempt we've witnessed at the start of the film, at least until there's a sense of closure at the very end of the film.

By all accounts Obree himself is a difficult character, and this is beautifully portrayed by Jonny Lee Miller who captures the charm of a man who captivated his best friend and manager, as well as his wife and young son, and local priest, whilst also showing his stubborn, arrogant self-destructive nature. The film is worth seeing for Miller's performance alone. Unfortunately the rest of the cast can't live up to the high water mark he sets.

This seems to have been recognised by the director and/or writers in that the supporting characters suffer with a lack of characterisation or even basic screen time as Miller is the main focus throughout. The problem is that when you have a film that is almost entirely about a rather uncommunicative, insular man then the end-result becomes equally insular and rather dull to watch.

Laura Fraser, as Obree's wife, does her best with a part that gives no insight into Obree's family life, and no indication as to why she stuck by her husband despite his increasingly erratic behaviour. When Miller destroys the struggling-to-make-ends-meet family's washing machine to build a faster mechanism for his bike we get a single shot of shouted anger when she returns home but from thereonin it's back to playing the 'dutiful, supportive wife in the background' for the remainder. There's no attempt to show her life in struggling with Obree's obsession and mental illness.

Billy Boyd fares slightly better, with more screen time that adds the comedic value so sorely needed, as Obree's friend and manager 'Malky'. But one feels throughout that one is watching Billy Boyd the 'lovable hobbit' rather than any real-life character, and there is zero chemistry between him and his supposed love interest Katie, Ann Obree's best friend that Malky supposedly has a huge crush on. The very thin B-storyline of Malky's pursuit of Katie is so unconvincing that half way through the film even the director/writer appear to have decided to abandon it: we suddenly jump from Katie telling Malky he has no chance of taking her out to the two suddenly moving in together.

Brian Cox as the priest friend who tries to help Obree pull his life together, acts the same character we've seen him play a million times before, in a role so generic and under-written there's no real belief in his back-story - a back story that is so clumsily delivered it would have been more subtle to have written it up on a big placard that the actor holds as he first enters the frame.

In an attempt to cover the lack of any real story, the film invents a cartoon-character villain, in the form of an Olympic Committee member determined to do Obree down. Whilst it may be true that the Olympic Committee had vested interests that conflicted with Obree's 'Do it yourself' approach, the main representative character is introduced with such ridiculous put-down lines and attitude that one wonders why the film-makers didn't go the whole hog and have him constantly stroking a twirly moustache, with loud duhn-du-duhn music sound effects every time he entered the frame.

The sport itself is another problem. It's hard to make one man on a bike in an almost completely empty indoor gymnasium, cycling around in loops exciting or adrenalin-pounding in the way that most sports biopics which have been written to the same formula as this can do. Admittedly the director makes some brave attempts with bike 'point of view' shots and rapid inter-cutting, but it's clearly an uphill struggle.

If you like your entertainment safe, predictable and British and can find nothing else worth watching on TV, then The Flying Scotsman is probably worth a rental. But supplied in a completely vanilla form, with not so much as a trailer for an extra, this is most definitely not a purchase, despite an arresting performance from Miller. The producers can't be bothered to provide so much as a commentary track or interview with the real life Obree or cast and crew, despite the abundance of talk shows around the time of the film's release that took place. If they can't be bothered to put out any kind of extra's for the DVD, why should you be bothered to shell out a premium price for such a lacklustre disc?

The Good German (2007)

With three of Hollywood's hottest acting properties, a reputable 'name' director in the form of Steven Soderbergh, and an affectionate parodying of the 'Golden age of movies' you're probably wondering, as I was, why The Good German has received such a bashing from the critics. You won't be wondering any more after you've seen the film.

Technically proficient it may be, but with an almost incomprehensible, and ridiculously complex plot, serious miscasting and weak performances from its main leads, together with a totally confusing directorial style, it's hard to come away thinking of the film as anything other than the worst kind of vanity project for those who decided to make it.

Presented in 4:3 format black and white, complete with sliding dissolves, obvious back projection work and a somewhat stilted style, you might think that Soderbergh was seriously attempting to recreate the techniques of the 1940's. While the approach has a certain charm, the gimmick soon palls, not least because the attention to 1940's detail hasn't extended to the dialogue which is full of four letter words. Not big. Not clever. And not at all necessary - so why was it done?

But the artificially styled homage is just the start of the problems. As a fan of 1940's film noir myself I'd argue that the scripts of the day were more sophisticated and well written than the average 'hand your brain in at the door' movie we get from Hollywood these days. Unfortunately Soderbergh seems to have interpreted this sophistication as an excuse to put everything except the kitchen sink into a plot that is all-but-impossible to follow, it takes so many twists and turns.

George Clooney plays 'good guy' Captain Jacob 'Jake' Geismer, an American military journalist sent to post-War Berlin to cover a conference, only to find himself drawn into a murder investigation involving his driver Patrick Tully and his former mistress Lena Brandt, who is now his driver's girlfriend.

As a plot involving good American soldiers gone bad, Russian contraband, and evil German nuclear scientists expands, the usual clichés of the genre play out, with Clooney's character seemingly caught in the middle of a series of murders nobody else seems much interested in.

Arguably the biggest problem with the film is the casting. Toby Maguire is horribly miscast as the cripple-kicking, spiv boyfriend of Blanchett's character. He's far too young and far too likeable and recognisable from his previous work to be taken seriously in the role. George Clooney has shown he's capable of turning in an excellent performance when required, witness Syria and Good Night, and Good Luck for recent examples, but here he coasts along playing himself as if on auto-pilot. And even the seriously impressive Cate Blanchett can't rescue the whole mess with what little she's given to work with here. 'Enigmatic' may sound great on paper, but on film it plays out as just plain dull.

Direction is adequate, and there's a certain amount of fun to be had in comparing the shooting style used throughout with that which was prevalent in the 40's. But it soon grows tired, and while one can admire scenes such as the last one, closely mirroring the airport scene from Casablanca, for their technique, after 90 minutes one finds oneself wondering just what was the point?!

The DVD is a perfect transfer of material deliberately designed to look like it was shot over 40 years ago. There's little to complain about but, being black and white and of 4:3 ratio, little to get excited about either. Sound is similarly 'of the era' which means this is not a disc which is going to set your home cinema system alight, as presumably recognised by its asking price, which is low for a film that only received its first theatrical outing earlier this year.

Given the 'passion' of those involved in this flawed project, it is inexcusable that the disc is bereft of any extra's at all. There's not so much as a trailer, let alone the usual 'Making of' featurette or director's commentary. Maybe all those involved were just too embarrassed to talk about the project? Whatever the reason, it means there's absolutely no good reason to buy the disc, and only those who are fans of one of the main leads should consider this even as a rental.

We're getting to that time of year where it's usual to draw up lists of awards for the year. If there were an award for 'Most disappointing film of the year' this one would surely win it. Avoid!