Streaming Forgotten Films. Nina!

Film Back in 2007 I spent a month reviewing a series of films which fell out of view within minutes of being released hadn't been seen since, which included the Laura San Giacomo starring minor classic, Nina Takes A Lover, which I wrote about here.

Well goodness. Only ever available on VHS in this country and well deleted on R1 dvd, this morning, Amazon Prime UK added it to their subscription, which is an unexpected pleasing surprise, and as you can see from the above image it's a nice, clean widescreen HD transfer (and thanks to Maft for the tip).

In 2012, I went through the list again to check on availability and this seems like the perfect nudge for me to try again.  Not much has changed.

I'm With Lucy (2002)
Still some availability on dvd, though it looks to have been deleted.  Are some copies from between £.01 to £3.50 depending on where you're looking.  Available on Lovefilm on dvd.

The Most Dangerous Game (1932)
On dvd.  On Amazon, for rental and streaming.

Magic Town (1947)
Meanwhile on dvd to buy and rent.

The Hour of the Pig (1993)
Only available on dvd via an expensive R1 copy under the rubbish title The Advocate.  Otherwise its still only available in the UK on a Curzon Video.  Sometimes turns up on BBC Four in a terrible cropped print.

The Red Violin (1998)
Available amazingly cheaply now on dvd at Amazon.  Reached BD in the US.  Dvd to rent at Lovefilm.

A Thousand Acres (1997)
Budget dvd at Amazon which is rentable at Lovefilm.

Barfly (1987)
Available in multiple versions and formats to buy.

Late Night Shopping (2001)
Available on dvd in various flavours.  Also at Lovefilm.

Loser (2000)
Second hand dvds plentiful.  Streamable at Lovefilm and Netflix but curiously not rentable by post.

All World Cinema (1895 - present)
Link included here for completion sake.  But I'd still recommend all the films listed.

The Core (2003)
Of all the films on this list to be available on region-free BD it had to be this.  Dvd too and in a double bill with Deep Impact which is practically a tragedy remake.  Lovefilm link.  Also added to Netflix today.

11:14 (2003)
Amazon, Lovefilm.

Hostile Hostages (1994)
DVD under its UK title, The Ref.  Lovefilm on shiny disc.

Quinceanera (Echo Park LA) (2006)
Amazon, Lovefilm (streaming and by post)

The Tribe (1996)
Still only available on R1 dvd, and even more expensive now than in 2007 or 2012.

Stealing Beauty (1996)
Amazon, Lovefilm.

Visions of Light (1992)
Some dvd copies still floating around for sale and available at Lovefilm.

View From The Top (2003)
The worst film on the list is still one of the most available.  Amazon, and on Lovefilm by post and streaming (so you can skip directly to the scene I'm writing about).  It's on Netflix now too.

Next (1989)



Life Story (1987)
One of the best films on the list is the least available.  The BBC Education VHS copy doesn't look likely now though there is a low grade copy on YouTube.

Nina Takes A Lover (1994)
Status hasn't changed in five years.  R1 only.

Love and Other Catastrophes (1996)
Status hasn't changed in five years.  VHS only, despite that cast.  I mean look at that cast.  Was available briefly to stream on Lovefilm.  Gone now.

Chacun cherche son chat (1996)
Available on R2 import for £20.

Memento: The Beginning of the End
Is an Easter egg on the special dvd edition of the film.

The Red Siren (2002)
Amazon.

One Night Stand (1984)
Not available.  Not even the VHS version I bought ex-rental in the mid-90s.  There are two clips on YouTube now though.  Here and here.

The Family Stone (2005)
Of course it is.  It's The Family Stone.  Happy Christmas.  Amazon.

Happy Endings (2005)
No, not the sitcom.  It's a Don Roos film.  Was available on R2 for about three seconds so there are copies floating around.  Lovefilm also have it and Amazon Prime has a purchasable SD version. Along with the sitcom.

The Night They Raided Minsky's (1968)
Amazon, Lovefilm.

The Whistleblower (2010)
Cheap dvd.  Or Netflix.  Or by post.

Review 2012: The Projects: Forgotten Films.

Film  Can any film truly be regarded as “forgotten” even in these slender five years since this blog dedicated an entire month to the form? Surely with thousands of films available to stream through Lovefilm and Netflix and the global accessibility of shiny discs through Amazon and the like, what seems like everything available, nothing can fall through the cracks, the long tail won’t allow for it.

Well, there are two issues here. Many, many films may be available now, but it’s still up to the consumer to discover them if their relative media companies aren’t advertising their existence. We still need word of mouth recommendations, behavioural engines and expert lists to point us in the direction of some classic piece of cinema which hasn’t yet joined the typical canons, academic or otherwise.

Before recommending one of the forgotten films I’ve enjoyed this year, I thought I’d look back over the films that were sprung on you that month and see how many have either fallen from accessibility or become newly available in the five years since that feature first appeared. Find them all listed below with links back to the original reviews for to aid new readers. Hello.

I'm With Lucy (2002)
Still some availability on dvd, though it looks to have been deleted.  Are some copies from between £2.98 to £9.99 depending on where you're looking.  Available on Lovefilm on dvd.

The Most Dangerous Game (1932)
On dvd.  On Lovefilm, for rental and streaming.

Magic Town (1947)
Actually making a rare appearance on television as part of BBC Two's new wildly archival schedule on Thursday 10th Jan 2013 (so perhaps iPlayer for the week afterwards depending upon rights issues).  Meanwhile on dvd to buy and rent.

The Hour of the Pig (1993)
Only available on dvd via an expensive R1 copy under the rubbish title The Advocate.  Otherwise its still only available in the UK on a Curzon Video.  Sometimes turns up on BBC Four in a terrible cropped print.

The Red Violin (1998)
Available amazingly cheaply now on dvd at Amazon.  Reached BD in the US.  Dvd to rent at Lovefilm.

A Thousand Acres (1997)
Budget dvd at Amazon which is rentable at Lovefilm.

Barfly (1987)
Apparently still unreleased in the UK.  There is an R2 dvd import available.

Late Night Shopping (2001)
Available on dvd in various flavours.  Also at Lovefilm.

Loser (2000)
Second hand dvds plentiful.  Streamable at Lovefilm but curiously not viewable by post.

All World Cinema (1895 - present)
Link included here for completion sake.  But I'd still recommend all the films listed.

The Core (2003)
Of all the films on this list to be available on region-free BD it had to be this.  Dvd too and in a double bill with Deep Impact which is practically a tragedy remake.  Lovefilm link.

11:14 (2003)
Amazon, Lovefilm.

Hostile Hostages (1994)
DVD under its UK title, The Ref.  Lovefilm on shiny disc.

Quinceanera (Echo Park LA) (2006)
Amazon, Lovefilm (streaming and by post)

The Tribe (1996)
Still only available on R1 dvd, and even more expensive now than in 2007.

Stealing Beauty (1996)
Amazon, Lovefilm.

Visions of Light (1992)
Some dvd copies still floating around for sale and available at Lovefilm.

View From The Top (2003)
The worst film on the list is still one of the most available.  Amazon, and on Lovefilm by post and streaming (so you can skip directly to the scene I'm writing about).

Next (1989)



Life Story (1987)
One of the best films on the list is the least available.  The BBC Education VHS copy doesn't look likely now though there is a low grade copy on YouTube.

Nina Takes A Lover (1994)
Status hasn't changed in five years.  R1 only.

Love and Other Catastrophes (1996)
Status hasn't changed in five years.  VHS only, despite that cast.  I mean look at that cast.

Chacun cherche son chat (1996)
Available on R2 import for £20.

Memento: The Beginning of the End
Is an Easter egg on the special dvd edition of the film.

The Red Siren (2002)
Amazon, Lovefilm.

One Night Stand (1984)
Not available.  Not even the VHS version I bought ex-rental in the mid-90s.

The Family Stone (2005)
Of course it is.  It's The Family Stone.  Happy Christmas.  Amazon.  Lovefilm.

Happy Endings (2005)
No, not the sitcom.  It's a Don Roos film.  Was available on R2 for about three seconds so there are copies floating around.  Lovefilm also have it.  Along with the sitcom.

The Night They Raided Minsky's (1968)
Amazon, Lovefilm.

In reality, despite everything, the availability of titles hasn't changed much.  If it wasn't available five years ago, it still isn't and indeed some titles have since been deleted, with YouTube and Lovefilm only coming to the rescue on a couple of occasions.  As such, there isn't a film version of Spotify, a celestial cinema in which seemingly everything ever is available however obscure.  A studio still has to choose to make it so.

What about a new recommendation?  In short, The Whistleblower (pictured), in which a typically compelling Rachel Weisz is Kathryn Bolkovac, the real life U.N. International Police Force monitor who uncovered sexual abuse amongst her fellow officers serving in Bosnia.  Like Green Zone, Blood Diamond and The Kingdom, it utilises fairly typical Hollywood thriller tropes to elucidate subject matter which might otherwise be illuminated via documentary.

Which isn't to say it isn't tough.  The parallel storyline following a Ukrainian woman who's sold into the sex trade which ultimately leads to Bolkovac's involvement is horrific and enough to make the viewer hate their fellow person, especially when it seems that she'll be saved and is inevitably let down by bureaucracy at its most blandly mechanical and inhuman.

Despite being a film of unique quality, The Whistleblower toured the film festivals of the world but only received a limited cinema release in the US and did not go theatrical in the UK where it went straight to dvd this year and for ages exclusively to Blockbuster which is where I bumped into it for the first time having overlooked its existence until then.  I eventually rented it from Lovefilm, but it is also available for a fiver on dvd and blu-ray.

Norman Wisdom’s constant pratfalls and general brilliance

Film The Night They Raided Minsky's is one of those forgotten films, at least in the UK, from the late sixties which has fallen through the cracks of film criticism, little spoken of, little written of. Sure, google the title and there are plenty of reviews, but when an otherwise comprehensive film guide like Time Out ignores it and it’s rarely mentioned in retrospectives of the period it feels like a lost gem, the kind of piece, which like it did for me last night, creeps up on you and makes you wonder if, despite the many thousands of films you’ve already seen, you’re still looking in the wrong direction.

Despite its 1920s setting, this fictionalised account of the invention of the striptease during a midnight burlesque show at the titular theatre marinates in the style of late 60s Hollywood (shot in '67 and released in '68). It headlines Brit Ekland and Jason Robards as an Armish innocent who’s hoodwinked into starring in the show with her Bible dancing to embarass the police raid of the title and the comedian who falls for her and wants to save her from the humiliation. The manager of the show, one Billy Minsky is played by Elliot Gould, cigar permanently in hand, and it’s directed by William Friedkin who’d go on to own the early 70s with The Exorcist and The French Connection.

What makes it particularly special, though, is that dropped in the middle is Norman Wisdom as Robards’ pathetic sidekick. This was some time past his work at Rank (which used to turn up on BBC2 on a Saturday aftertoon, ‘Mr Grimsdale’ and all that) when he was working on Broadway. He was cast in Minsky’s after being nominated for Tony for the musical Walking Happy and he secretly steals the film from under Robards’s bowler hat, his emotional break recalling the likes of Chaplin and Keaton in evoking the likeable clown. Whenever he’s on screen it’s him your looking at, as every part of his body is moving and you’re wondering what have happened to his career if this film had been a hit – it was theatre and British tv all the way after this.

A latter day backstage musical set during one fatal night, large chunks of the three shows are reproduced in their entirety and authentically much of it is pretty awful. Most of these films disengage from reality when a dance number scrolls around, aping Busby Berkley, with scientifically precise choreography, outlandish dance manoeuvres and dancers who look like they’ve been developed and manufactured on a production line. Here, the Minsky’s grinding dancers are rarely in time, swishing and blundering about the dance floor and are real women, their figures popping out of too small dresses. It’s a spectacle, but for the wrong reasons, as the audience stoop forward trying to get glance at their flesh.

Similarly, the comic material on stage isn’t that funny and seems that way by design, tired old vaudeville sketches which you’re certain are sure to be eulogised by historians later as the routines give way to the legends of the comics, in which their backstage antics have blotted out the paucity of the material they presented to their audience (who to be fair lapped it up anyway). There’s a desperation to their performances, equivalent of our end of the pier comics in seaside towns at the twilight of their careers, desperately trying to cling on to what they once had, by giving the punters what they remember.

The film is shot in the kind of handheld style familiar of the period, few moments of stillness, plenty of whip-pans, a spirit of experimentation. In one complicated scene, the conversation between Minksy and an investor is played with Gould’s face emerging, when he’s talking, in a hand mirror on the wall behind the other actor’s left shoulder, the flow of the conversation at the whim of the focus puller. Much of the film takes place in the theatre and we’re up on the stage during the show, enjoying the intimate and often desperate communication of the performers which is hidden from the audience. It's clearly influenced by the French New Wave just as Bonnie and Clyde was, though even more complex somehow as the camera takes in far more characters, embraces even greater detail.

The film’s relative obscurity might be explained by its torturous trip to the screen. After an atrocious first cut, Friedkin reportedly disowned the film (from what I can gather he flew to London to shoot The Birthday Party, a Pinter adaptation) and we have cutter Ralph Rosenblum to thank for making the film as good as it is (though it took him ten months). Rosenblum’s contribution is to mimic the freewheeling shooting style in the editing, intercutting, for example, footage from the period with new material whenever a character enters New York’s streets, and offering illustrative snap shots to punctuate the lengthier speeches, such as Denholm Elliot’s decency inspector when Gould is describing to his father (who owns the theatre) the pressures he’s working under.

It’s far from perfect. The treatment of women is deeply suspect, mostly to be ogled at and though there’s some attempt to bolster the girls who work in the theatre by suggesting that they’re well aware of the exploitation and ‘boys will be boys’ the old Hollywood Barbara Stanwyck vehicle Lady of Burlesque probably presents a more realistic view of women’s role in these kinds of operations. The doe-eyed inert Ekland’s a weak link too; clearly the motive for her cute overload is to make her later embracing of the erotic form of dancing all the more shocking, but despite her luminance she's generally the less impressive addition to a scene. There's no denying that her swan like emergence in the finale is ... imaginative, yet uncomfortable because as the assembled males are clawing to see her naked curves even as oddly, some of their wives look on disapprovingly.

Yet, you’re basically willing to forgive all of that because it’s so damn entertaining. A fight scene in which Wisdom and Robards have gone to a speakeasy to find Eckland is reduced simply to the results of the punches as both actors are flung about the place. When Robards has finally managed to talk Eckland to his room, she says she’ll only sleep with him if God offers a sign just as his fold up bed falls backwards from the wall. The shots of the Amish stereotype which constitutes her father drifting through New York, a disapproving look fixed on his bearded face. Norman Wisdom’s constant prat falls and general brilliance, even in character on stage, his drunken act. He’s the ‘discovery’ and the film’s worth watching just for that.

Not Review 2008: Film

Film I’ve been working towards putting together a top ten list of films of the year and as I’ve glanced at everyone else’s words something has become abundantly clear – my ten would look boringly like everyone elses. So rather than simply regurgitating I thought I’d instead offer five things which were released earlier which I’ve only just got around to seeing which I’ve equally loved and in some cases more so.

Across The Universe (2006)
What’s particularly clever about Julie Tabor’s film isn’t that it simply throws in some Beatles songs when required, it’s that they’re in chronological release order and she still manages to wrap a half decent narrative around them; you’re not just getting an education in the music of the band but also the history of the period when they were recording, with the emotional complexity of the characters growing along with the musical invention. Perhaps it was just too complicated for audiences, who tend to like a good singalong in their musicals these days. (pictured)

Barefoot In The Park (1967)
Lately, romantic comedies have rarely just been about two people falling in love – there always seems to be some kind of high concept reason for them to meet which more often than not leads to the need for a coherent plot resolution getting in the way of the romance. Not here. New York married couple move into rubbish apartment which is falling apart around them and they rarely leave within the next hour and half. Fonda and Redford haven’t been cuter. This is basically the film a hundred American sitcoms have begged, borrowed and mugged from.

The Man From Earth (2007)
Similarly static in its staging, but no less effective, this sci-fi tale about a college professor who suddenly offers revelations about his past to his colleagues is a great demonstration that so long as you have a clever central idea and good script everything else should fall into place. Just the kind of film which if you catch in the right frame of mind could rock your philosophical world. It certainly did mine.

After Hours (1985)
One of the few films I've saved for a rainy day or when I’m under the mistaken impression that I’ve already seen anything good. Somehow manages to work the horror conceit of anything being hidden in the darkness into a comedy. Incidentally, Linda Fiorentino finally has a new film coming out in 2009, ‘Once More with Feeling’, which does seem terribly apt.

Goya's Ghosts (2006)
Because even masterpieces can be ignored. If this had been release ten years ago it would have been Oscar nominated. But period artist biopics are out of fashion in the English speaking world, Goya isn’t a household name like Mozart and painting -- unless there’s some time lapse action isn’t the most cinematic of pursuits. Yet, this is ripe for rediscovery with its chameleonic central performance from Stellan Skarsgård and Natalie Portman in twin roles as a mother and daughter and an exciting historical backdrop, oh and Javier Bardem wearing even funnier hair than he had in the film he made next, No Country For Old Men.

Forgotten Films

Epilogue

That's about it then. Twenty-eight days, twenty-eight or so films. Some reviews have undoubtedly been better written than others, some choices obviously stretching the definition of the word 'forgotten' to its very limit. I'm embarrassed to note how few choices were from outside my own lifetime but I think I managed to accomplish what I set out to do, which was to highlight that the filmic landscape is an exciting, experimental place and that there are many, many great works of art which have been missed and under-appreciated because they haven't been given enough time under the studio's marketing spotlight to really shine. Please let me know if you seen anything on my recommendation and if you agreed.

I did notice some themes. As I predicted, the list featured many romances, many narratives with quirky timeframes and weirdly a good few apocalyptic visions. I tried to cover as many different types of film as possible, although there were certain genres such as the western or the musical that were notable by their absence. The former because I've only really seen the classics and the latter because I haven't seen nearly enough. I nearly dropped in RENT which I do think is an underrated film in and of itself, but I don't think it's as forgotten as something like Life Story so what would be the point? You should probably too be pleased that I didn't try and justify a place for the Doctor Who television movie with Paul McGann or make every other entry a Shakespeare adaptation but I wanted to challenge myself a little bit which explains their absence.

I was challenged. I absolutely appreciate the art of the film reviewer even more now as they have to try and find new ways of saying why they do and don't like some film. You vary your delivery, drifting from analysis to autobiography to didacticism. There was a fear that I'd keep leaning on crutch words like 'juxtaposition', 'absolutely', 'actually', 'exquisite', 'employing' and 'intelligent' but it turns out my vocabulary is larger than I thought. Although actually 'actually' is a very big word for me turning up once, actually even twice in the same review. As did 'although'.

When I began, the idea was to highlight some great films so that my mate Annette would have something to add to her Netflix list and she says she's done that, which is good. It has been really disappointing though to discover that some of my favourite films aren't available on dvd or have been deleted since a millennial release. I've been sniffy about VHS but in some cases those ribbons of brown tape are the only way to see many of these classics, which is a tragedy, especially as they slowly oxidize from year to year. The problem, I suppose, is that because there isn't a perceived market for them, they're not apparently worth the cost of the transfer.

This process has also reminded me that film is an ephemeral art form and that studios are more interested in creating new product than venerating what they have. The reason there weren't many films outside my lifetime is because I simply haven't seen them because they're even less available than their contemporary counterparts. Prints get lost, studios close and back catalogues are bought by companies that don't much care for them and the tip of the iceberg, the apparent classics, are re-released ad-infinitum as work from directors and actors and writers created at the same time are lost and yes, forgotten.

Technology is shifting in our favour though. First steps are already being made towards a system where pay-per-view becomes the norm, and you'll be able to sit on your sofa and pull up all of the content a film company has in their archive in better than dvd quality streamed or downloaded to your television. Imagine the Internet Movie Database if it included an extra option to watch whatever film was listed, whole careers and genres available to us, forgotten films from throughout motion picture history suddenly revived at the touch of a button. A pipedream certainly in a world were distributors of dvds and television channels also need to make a crust, but something to work towards.

In the meantime, we'll keep hoarding the unloved, the direct to video Australian ensemble comedies, the bizarre sci-fi blockbusters, the obscure televisual science docu-dramas and the animated Shakespearean short. We'll persistently scouring the tv schedules for the unsung b-picture shot on the sets of an A or the small town comedy just a name above the title away from being considered a true classic. We'll continue checking ebay just in case someone decides to part with a nocturnal café comedy or suburban crime drama. We'll persevere with the film companies hoping that a holy grail will be granted a re-release so that we can show it to a friend and say:

'See, look, I told you it was good.'

Forgotten Films

Happy Endings (2005)

This is the film that indirectly inspired my dissertation. In an article for Film Comment magazine, journalist Alyssa Quart identified it as an example of a new genre called Hyperlink Cinema which inspired me to spend last summer trying to define exactly what it's conventions were. In the end, I decided it was a film that featured multiple characters from different backgrounds, with plots that happened in a range of locations that all criss-crossed into and out of one another without a main story to hold them together. In other words Happy Endings is a hyperlink film, and Deep Impact isn't. And don't get me started on 21 Grams.

The three interlocking stories in Happy Endings are as follows. Otis (Jason Ritter), a drummer, is trying to keep his homosexuality from his father (Tom Arnold) whilst dealing with Jude (Maggie Gyllenhaal), a gold-digging singer who has talked herself into their lives. Mamie (Lisa Kudrow) is a depressed forty-something who agrees to help a would-be documentarian Nicky with his film because he says he has information about a grown up son that she gave up for adoption when she was very young. Her step-brother Charley and his life-partner Gil discuss whether to confront a lesbian couple (Sarah Clarke and Laura Dern) about the paternity of their son since one of them is supposed to be the father.

Writer/director Don Roos is perhaps most famous for his debut The Opposite of Sex, in which an acerbic Christina Ricci trod over all in sundry to get what she wanted. He then went on to write the studio film Bounce, the airplane crash drama featuring then couple Ben Affleck and Gwyneth Paltrow which he was roped into direct and wasn't the happiest of experiences as the studio wouldn't give him final cut and wanted a much more up-beat tragedy and he felt he could give them.

Happy Endings was a way for him to return to the kind of filmmaking he wanted to do all along - lower budget, more creative control, more personal themes. What that means is that like Sex he's able to talk about the more autobiographical issues related to his own homosexuality but give them a spin which doesn't make them seem like the primary concern.

He does this though strong unstereotypical characterization and by employing a device in which backstory and information how each of the characters is dropped in through text from the bottom and side of the screen. When Jesse is waiting to meet Mamie for the first time to ask her to help him, we're given a potted history and are then told he has to pee, which we're then thinking about through the rest of the scene. This is gives us an insight into the characters far deeper than most films that is surprisingly, given the process, unprosaic and subtler than a voiceover might be.

As with the majority of the films on this list Happy Endings is an underrated pleasure that reaches under your skin. Having had to watch it probably as many times as the filmmakers in preparation for my dissertation was simply amazed to see how many subtle details are crammed in and how carefully Roos considered such things as set design and costumeto make sure that they were distinctive enough that we're immediately aware of whose story we're following and at what point. Each character's environment was designed matched their personality - so Mamie's is generally functional and so her house is rather empty and angular.

In most contemporary films, scenes are linked emotionally through music, but in Happy Endings, the approach as close to be an extension of the characters as it can be without becoming a musical. Often, montage sequences are accompanied by Otis's band, with Jude's vocals (Gyllenhaal's magical voice) drifting over the visuals her words illustrating the actions within - the best instance being the rendition of 'Just The Way You Are' during a climax that takes the idea of American Graffiti 'what happened next' captions to a whole new level with each of the character's future lives delicately revealed. As one critic suggested, there's enough material in the closing few minutes to fill a whole other movie, something I'd really look forward to seeing.

Happy Endings is available on dvd everywhere.

Forgotten Films

The Family Stone

Sometimes a film transcends expectations and leaves you emotional. The Family Stone could have been soapy television movie fodder, the kind of thing that Channel Five broadcast daily in the late afternoon, sometimes staring Kelly Martin but usually Jennie Garth. It's Christmas in the Stone household and prodigal son Everett (Dermot Mulroney) is bringing his partner, Meredith (Sarah Jessica Parker) home for their first festive season with the family (Diane Keaton, Rachel McAdams, Craig T. Nelson, Luke Wilson, Tyrone Giordano, Elizabeth Reaser).

Meredith is a controlling highflying businesswoman who never relaxes and who, despite their liberalism, they just don't like and their mutual dislike develops further when it becomes apparent that Everett is going to propose to her. Meanwhile, the real tragedy that bubbles under the surface of this close-knit family is slowly revealed.

It should be horrible - and indeed marks are lost for the inclusion on the soundtrack at a crucial moment of Tchaikovsky's Trepak (Cossack Dance) from the The Nutcracker (which has been used in so many movie trailers now that it simply doesn't sound right unless a voiceover man enunciates 'Coming this holiday season to a cinema near you… Rated PG-13') and a chintzy title sequence that looks like it was borrowed from an early eighties sitcom.

But writer director Thomas Bezucha seems to have been aware of the pitfalls and does essentially two things that elevate the work. Firstly, unlike Meet The Parents and good gosh Relative Strangers, the enmity between Meredith and the family isn't the whole story -- it's simply used throughout the reveal more about the characters and their attitudes. The possible real reason for their dislike isn't exposed until at least halfway through the film and depending upon the viewer it has the potential to make us like them less; we could think that they're as judgmental as she is.

Secondly, he shows and doesn't tell. It's a very sharp script, very funny at times. But he cuts the words if a look will do, he lets subtext carry a scene, holding back the big speeches for when they really matter so that they have more impact. He knows that the less someone speaks the more interesting they become. The biggest shock in the film is revealed economically through an oblique line of dialogue and a hug. It's very refreshing to find a film that actually lets the audience try and work out some of the story for themselves.

All of which wouldn't work if the ensemble cast weren't so genial and importantly actually give the impression that they could be a real family, despite the obvious problem of not looking alike. The production design helps - the place really looks lived in. But I think the key is Thad, the hearing impaired brother. Throughout, whenever he's in the room, one of the other characters is signing a translation for him and sometimes unconsciously as one person leaves another will pick up were they left off. This highlights a chemistry between them which isn't usual in these family dramas and also provides another line of silent communication for how these characters are feeling.

The best at this are Diane Keaton's matriarch and Rachel McAdams who hasn't been around much since Red Eye and is as luminous as ever in what is essentially a secondary role. It's unfair to single out any performer out because the whole cast is outstanding but a word or two for Sarah Jessica Parker who, after a career of being the likeable one, is utterly convincing as the stiff. It's impossible to reconcile that this is the same actress who bounced around Steve Martin in LA Story all of those years ago. Oh and Claire Danes is in here too in the tricky role as her sister who turns out to be her opposite and of course they like her.

The dvd is available everywhere and before anyone starts to question if it's a forgotten film, according to the Internet Movie Database it only had a limited release in Brazil and a dvd premiere in the Netherlands which is good enough for me. Like The Core this seems to be one of those big release films that no one has seen. Then again, look at the poster!

Forgotten Films

One Night Stand (1984)

This Australian film has the kind of indie spirit that was the hallmark of the Sundance generation despite being made in the early Eighties. Four main characters. Single location. And the off-beat situation is unusually grim. Two boys and two girls are double dating when they become trapped in the Sydney Opera House just as nuclear war is announced.

Think Fail Safe meets Mannequin with the production values of sex, lies and videotape. But for all the movie's bizarre cross genre roots it's a refreshing demonstration of the strength of the human spirit when faced with potentially spending your last night on Earth with total strangers. Another entry in the occasional pre-apocalyptic movie genre, this film deftly shows what would actually happen in case of such an emergency.

Nothing much. People would still go on dates. They'd probably hang out. Some sex might go on. Then everyone might die. What's so lovely about this film, is that they are real people. You can't really tell them apart. They don't have stereotypes. In fact only the navy officer really stands out. We like them because they are like us. If I was in that situation, I'd probably go a bit stir crazy.

Director John Duigan would go on to make the classic coming of age dramas The Year My Voice Broke and Flirting. But this earlier work is a gold standard example of obscured greatness. I haven't watched it in some time, and I'm almost afraid to go back in case it's simply not as golden as I remember. But I might if nothing else to see what the Sydney Opera House looks like at night when everyone's gone home . .

Careful when you're looking for a copy though, because there have been about ten films with this title, including a pretty good ensemble piece by Mike Figgis. I bought my ex-rental copy from a Blockbusters in Headingly, Leeds in 1993 and I haven't seen it mentioned anywhere else since. Good luck.

Forgotten Films

The Red Siren (2002)

Or I can't believe it's not Luc Besson. Last time I had anything which could be described as a holiday was a three day trip to Paris about five years ago. Not really knowing the city and as they say 'on a budget' I inevitably spent both nights at the cinema. One of the movies I enjoyed was the already mentioned I'm With Lucy and the other was euro soup action drama La Siren Rouge, based on an award winning novel by Maurice Georges Dantec and directed by Olivier Megaton.

A rebellious pre-teen, Alice, turns up at a police station in central Paris and tells them that her mother (Francis Barber) is a murderer. There's no evidence so her mother isn't charged, but Alice goes on the run. She falls under the protection of Hugo, an ex-soldier turned hit man and gang member (Jean-Marc Barr) who because of a tragic experience during an unnamed war agrees to help her look for father who might be in Portugal. Meanwhile an Italian policewoman (Asia Argento) is dispatched to look for Alice, just as her mother sends in some paramilitaries to do more than that.

Essentially it's a chase film across the continent, with the three parties dodging in and out of each other's way with Alice in the middle just wanting to reach her goal. The script isn't perfect tending to drift into faux-Tarantino territory, but it's saved by the performances, subtle in the case of Argento and Barr or scene chewing in the case of Barber, and the action sequences which are as good as anything in The Transporter films. Like Besson's actioners such as Nikita and Leon there's real heart to the relationships, with the guns and explosions developing from rather than being shoehorned into the plot.

The film is in English despite the locales (which makes for some appealing accent spotting). I originally imported it from France in a boxset that includes the slightly overaught soundtrack on an extra cd and all the extras in the native language without English subtitles (obviously). Thankfully, there has since been a dvd release everywhere else.

Forgotten Films meets Scene Unseen: Memento: The Beginning of the End

As soon as Christopher Nolan's Memento was released with its back to front yet still complete forward pointing plotting some audience members (well at least this audience member) wondered what the film would look like if all of the footage were to be edited into the correct chronological order. On the special edition version of the dvd that wish is answered in this special 'hidden' extra which, and this is why I'm listing it as a 'forgotten film', works perfectly well as a movie in and of itself. Well, alright, a crazy mixed up quasi-art house piece that breaks all the rules of classical narrative filmmaking and plays like dollop of video art straight from Tate Britain's white cube spaces, nut a movie nonetheless.

For those who don't know the story, the shorthand synopsis would be that a man who cannot form new memories is trying to discover and kill the man who was responsible for murdering his wife and giving him his condition. In order to mimic that condition, the film-maker presents the story in reverse, with the apparent end of the story at the beginning then works his way backwards, still somehow retaining all of the usual rules of storytelling and tropes of the neo-noir genre, with a revelatory scene at the end that explains everything that just happened.

In this version, after the end credits roll up the screen backwards, all of the black and white moments that litter the original cut providing a breather from the main story and signaling when Leonard lost his memory, are necessarily dropped in at the front, meaning that the sad tale of Sammy Jenkis, a man who apparently had a similar illness, is narrated altogether, broken only by the drawing of a tattoo. This gives the reveal that he shouldn't take any calls an even greater significance since it hasn't really been explained to us exactly who he's been talking to on that phone.

Such incidents which were of less importance in the theatrical version litter the film - the first colour moments occur when he's remembering his wife and the swapping of the hotel rooms and the fact that he never seems to sleep in the same bed twice becomes clearer. The overall effect is to underline the manipulation that Leonard actually experiences day-to-day, because of his condition from the hotel clerk, Teddy and particularly Natalie who quickly realizes the nature of his condition, that he isn't aware of what he's done and uses him for her own ends. Both she and Teddy are liars, and it's painful to notice that for all Lenny's insistence that he needs to look into people's eyes so that he can tell if people are being sincere, it simply doesn't work.

But despite his deceptions Teddy becomes rather a tragic figure in this direction as the film works towards his inevitable death, which is still signposted for various reasons in the opening moments. He is probably the best friend Lenny has, since, when he pops into a situation he generally doesn't give an indication that the amnesiac is missing anything important, that he hasn't done anything wrong, which is one of his primary fears. Indeed, e's usually nudging him to leave his quest either through hinting or suggestion. His only mistake is to have some fun at Lenny's expense and it's that which probably causes his death in the end (which in case you're wondering doesn't give anything away since it happens at the beginning of the 'real' version).

I've tried not to give away spoilers for either version but I wonder what someone would make of Memento if the only version they've seen is The Beginning of the End. Rather like someone's who's watching the Star Wars for the first time starting with the prequels -- only they could decide whether the release of exposition in a different order actually works. For the rest of us this is a good version of a great film that deepens our appreciation of director Christopher Nolan's achievement. It's available on different special editions of the dvd; in the uk that means the one with 3 discs that's perennially in the sale at HMV. Go to the second disc, push down until the thin blue line intersects 'biographies', push right so that the line drops to the bottom of the screen and press play ...

Forgotten Films

Chacun cherche son chat (1996)

One of the worst moments I had at university was during a discussion about this film whose English title is When The Cat's Away. The fact that we had the discussion might mitigate against it being placed on a 'forgotten film' list but I haven't met many people who've seen it and it's my list so we'll just assume that I'm right and move on. Anyway, we're having a discussion about the film, about the themes and how they contrast to Jean-Pierre Junet's Amelie.

Film studies tends to take a structuralist approach to everything - you're breaking the work down to its constituent markers and trying to decide what they mean outside necessarily of their place in the film. Whilst I understood all that, I also kept in mind that these are pieces of entertainment and it was always important to appreciate how they made the audience and therefore me feel.

The French film classes, which usually consisted of me nodding thoughtfully while my two classmates Geraldine and Suzanne chatted away -- unless they didn't know either in which case they'd ask me what I thought and I'd tend to say something inane. I should say this was the only subject in which I did this - the rest of the time I had to stop myself having an opinion about everything. Anyway, this day, it was my turn to do a presentation on the films viewed so I decided I would say something in keeping with my ideas - these were two films that I clearly loved and I wanted to say why in a non-structuralist sense.

So when asked, I said that I really identified with the main character. Chloe is something of a loner you see, always on the edges of communities, always slightly behind with the in-jokes, only now and then feeling at all like she belongs somewhere. When she goes away on holiday, she leaves her cat with a neighbour and it goes missing and during the rest of the film, whilst the community rally around looking for the moggy, she goes on a man hunting adventure which culminates in … you'll have to watch the film to find out.

In any case, at the time I was identifying with the first bit because I'd been traveling to Manchester, not really been able to join the student community there, but also wasn't spending much time with people at home either. As regular readers will know I was sort of stuck. And that's what I said in the seminar. The tutor looked at me and said, and I think he even put his hand up in a stopping gesture, "You really do have to divorce your own feelings from your analysis of the film".

I still think that could be interpreted as a bizarre statement, because any analysis is an opinion and opinions are based on your feelings about the work, but that really knocked me off my stride. Luckily, I'd covered Amelie far more traditionally first, and that had gone quite well. And I went back to largely saying nothing in the remaining seminars. But I do love the film and it is because it shows that actually no matter how much of an outsider you are, there is always a community out there.

But director Cedric Klapisch's film is also about the breaking down of the old concept of community, a theme that is expressed visually because during the making of the film the actual neighbourhood within which it was being shot was being demolished, and the wrecking balls are part of the scenery. The film has also been catagorised as being part of the French New New Wave which emphasizes a realistic depiction of youth and their compartmentalization within that society (the protests in Paris last year being one of the expressions of it I suppose).

The cast largely consists of non-professional actors from the district as well as amateur theatre performers and professionals. The stand out is obvious Garance Clavel as Chloe (pictured); Klapisch often simply rests the camera on her expressive face, displaying her reaction to events rather than events themselves. Much like Stealing Beauty, it's a film about blossoming sexuality, and her arc is demonstrated in the costume design as she shifts from trousers at the opening to a summer dress at the close, and having met a potential mate, running down the street to the strain of Portishead's Glory Box ('Give me a reason to be a woman') which I found out during study is slightly controversial because it implies that for a woman to find a man she has to throw off some of her independence and take on his idea of what femininity should be.

Choosing Chacun cherche son chat allows me to include on the list a Cedric Klapisch film that isn't L'Apartment Espagnole (stupid English title: Pot Luck) or my favourite film released in the UK last year Les Poupées russes (equally stupid English title: Pot Luck 2: The Russian Dolls), both of which would also be good candidates for the forgotten film description. As it stands the film is available on dvd in France in a boxset with the rest of Klapish's oeuvre which I would have bought by now where it not without sous-titres en englaise. When I was studying the film I found a VHS on eBay which is perfectly fine and since it's from Tartan has excellent sleeve notes.

Forgotten Films

Love and Other Catastrophes (1996)

[Time for a trip down memory lane. This Australian film prompted or at least sparked the thought of doing film studies and here is the review I wrote in the year two thousand just as I decided that actually, that is precisely what I should do. It's almost as though, like the Liv Tyler lover of the other day, another version of me is contributing to this month's review.]

At the end of the film a major character point is concluded through the following question. I’m telling you this because I’m about to become hopelessly recursive and it’s probably a good thing to point this out before we I go any further. The question is:

What are your three favourite films and why?

Not easy. A film fan will probably jabber and faint. Out of all of the films ever made ever? Are you joking? We like films for lots of different reasons. Within this film, the question seems to actually mean:

Which three films mean the most to you and couldn’t you live without and why?

The exercise is simplified. The film fan sighs deeply and puts down their copy of the Time Out Film Guide, safe in the knowledge they won’t have to include anything because they feel like the have to ... so out with Fellini, Bergman, Kurosawa and the gang. Just for fun, go away and write your answer to the question. You may be surprised.

Back? Good. Surprised? When you have to justify your favourite films and extra texture is added. It’s as though you’ve got to look into yourself and find out who you actually are. The chances are you’ve actually just learned something about yourself. Why am I stringing this out? Because when I asked myself this question, here are the three films I came up with and the reasons:

When Harry Met Sally because I think I’m a New Yorker living in the wrong place and it makes me smile every time I watch it

Star Wars because it always means I have something to talk about with total strangers

Love and Other Catastrophes because it felt like the first film I’ve seen about me

See ... told you this review was going to be recursive. Believe me, I was a shocked as you possibly might be. I thought Ferris Bueller’s Day Off was a shoo-in. Anyone who’s seen this film already will wonder what that means (especially anyone who knows me). But it’s not for the reasons your expecting. This is the synopsis from the official website:*

‘Mia and Alice have just moved into a warehouse apartment but are still minus a house mate. Danni, Mia's girlfriend is keen to move in, but Mia fears commitment. Mia, who can be a solipsistic bitch (but in the nicest possible way), is obsessed with her favourite lecturer and becomes embroiled in a bureaucratic nightmare as she pursues him to his new department. Alice, a frustrated perfectionist, is four years late with her thesis on "Doris Day as a Feminist Warrior." She is looking for the perfect man, but can't find anyone who fits her rigorous criteria. Feeling the need for a change she falls for the most unsuitable man possible - Ari, a Classics student, part-time gigolo and the Warren Beatty of the campus. Little does she know that she has her own secret admirer - Michael, a shy medical student who is living in the share house from hell and wants out. Her search for love transcends the boundaries of the University and their respective disciplines. Omnia Vincit Amor...Love Conquers All.’

I’ve edited that a bit – the synopsis at the website does somewhat give the plot away.

So you’ve read that and wondered still why it’s about me. Are rather you’ve assumed it’s because I saw this film and realised for the first time I’m g-a-y. Sorry to disappoint. I’m not g-a-y. I’m not even b-i. I’m definitely s-t-r-a-i-g-h-t. So what then?

As a Late Reviewer might say: ‘There are a number of levels.’

I first saw the film three years ago when I bought it, ex-rental from a ‘Blockbuster’ video shop in Birkenhead. It had no cover. I just remembered the title because I knew that one of the few quite good actresses to be shipped through ‘Neighbours’ was in it. It sat on my shelf for a month. Then one afternoon I was at a loose end and put it on. Eighty minutes later I’d wondered what hit me.

On a basic level, it has everything I’d ever want from a film. There was my love of low budget films, the slightly grainy look, the ingenious camera angles, story told mainly in dialogue. All of the actors doing their best for the script, seemingly not caring if they don’t look absolutely great during every second. The absolutely fabulous editing, scenes timed perfectly. As though Robert Rodriguez had decided to spend his $7000 making romantic comedy instead of El Mariachi. The music from a largely unknown set of musicians actually complements to action, a soundtrack album actually being a benefit not a marketing exercise.

But a lot of films fulfill these loves. The aforementioned El Mariachi for example. So what else?

The characters just are (I apologise to Louise if she’s reading for the strain on the verb ‘to be’ in that phrase).** They exist within the story as though the writer just wanted people it would be cool to hang about with. They aren’t there to fulfill the machinations of some theme or other. A lesser writer might have strained to make this another treatise on people coming to terms with their sexuality – and anyone who’s followed the Jack-arc on Dawson’s Creek will know how painfully that can be if not done right. Like many films in what is become an indie film sub-genre (Chasing Amy, Sticky Fingers of Time, Go Fish), the characters are quite comfortable with their sexuality thank you very much for checking. It’s not how you love, but who you love. The fact that Danni and Mia are both girls isn’t the issue. Which makes watching the film a whole lot easier and more refreshing to watch. Chumbawamba are disproved: Homophobia might be the worst disease, but you can love who love in times like these.

And?

It’s the script I’ve been writing in my head for years. The students away at college is a surprisingly untapped film genre (unless knives or frat parties are involved). Not quite teens, not quite adults, its difficult to completely get a handle on it. Perhaps it’s just that writers feel that not much excitement can be wrung out of find a housemate or waiting for a course transfer. Emma-Kate Croghan, the writer-director of this piece seems to have succeeded. Are heart misses a beat when we find that Mia might not get her course transfer or when Alice fails to find a house mate. I showed it to my Greek friend Fani, who is much the same predicament as the characters and she loved it. Even though the film is Australian, the experience is universal.

But the get to the nub of the matter, the film actually made me think about what I was doing with my life and my relationship to people. I realised that although it’s important to have your ol’ friends and family, that you shouldn’t stop looking to be friends with new people, who might in turn become close friends (hey Fani!). It made me pull my socks up and go look for something better. And so it goes and so it goes and so it goes . . .

A mark out of five is meaningless. You must simply see this film. Go rent it now.

[Good luck with that. As I think I explained earlier in the review I bought my copy ex-rental. It has been released on a vanilla dvd in Oz but elsewhere, not so much. Bizarrely, despite the presence of Radha Mitchell and Frances O'Connor who aren't exactly names but are at least recognizable the film hasn't seen a video or dvd store in the UK or the US since. Even director Colgan's even less well known follow-up Strange Planet has seen that. My copy is like Brigadoon -- it sort of appears and disappears -- I can never find it when I want to watch it but it then surfaces when I least expect it but probably need to see it. Oh and * Which has since disappeared ** And Louise it still reading. Hello!]

Forgotten Films

Nina Takes A Lover (1994)

Obviously one of those films were the synopsis is in the title. Laura San Giacomo (best known lately for the sitcom Just Shoot Me but before that, sex, lies and videotape and as Julia Robert's sarcastic best friend in Pretty Woman) is Nina, a shoe saleswoman in a passionless marriage who, whilst her husband disappears away for another three weeks on some business trip meets a photographer (Paul Rhys) in a park and begins a touching affair in which she feels fulfilled for the first time in years.

Both Nina and the photographer relate the story to a journalist collecting interviews about infidelity and the film is structured in flashback to those recollections. It's an approach which would later be repeated in the French romance Une Liaison Pornographique and like that film, the viewer is in the interviewer's position of having to make judgments about what exactly took place. Throughout, writer/director Alan Jacobs makes us aware that not everything is as it seems and this sensation is augmented by a parallel story in which Nina's friend also has an affair that is far more sordid and less romantic.

Giacomo's exquisite performance carries the majority of the film; she's adorable and if this film had been seen by a larger audience I'm sure it would have made her a star. The quirkiness factor here is of course the casting of Rhys as a romantic lead - for much of his career he's been typecast as emotional cripples but this demonstrates he once had the capacity for the romantic lead and the two of them lock together perfectly (so to speak). The only dull note is Fisher Stevens, whose comic turn as Nina's friend's lover is a bit too broad and now and then threatens to ruin the tone.

But on the whole, this is a clever film demonstrating that relationships are never easy, no one is perfect and how feelings can and do change over time. It's shot and edited very simply, the photography never allowed to crowd the performance, with a perfectly measured soundtrack mixing orchestral with jazz. The film has been released on dvd and vhs and been deleted on both, but there are copies floating around.

Forgotten Films

Life Story (1987)

There haven't been that many dramas about particular scientific discoveries because narrative films are about people and the story of people so you will generally ending up creating something biographical about the scientist behind the breakthrough, with that breakthrough. Generally the process of testing and then retesting and thinking through the problem at hand isn't that exciting to watch so you have to look to whether the scientist him or herself led an interesting life - but if that life was spent in labs you really haven't much to go on - unless they spent more time there than with their wife in which case then you probably have yourself a story.

Generally the problem is solved by simply making a straight documentary, which is usually what you would expect to find in the BBC's Horizon strand for which this was made. Instead writer William Nicholson and director Mick Jackson's docu-drama turns the search for the structure of DNA in 1953 into a race, cross-cutting between the two rival teams, Francis Crick (Jeff Goldblum) & James D. Watson (Tim Piggot-Smith) at Cambridge University and Maurice Wilkins (Alan Howard) and particularly Rosalind Franklin (Juliet Stevenson) at King's College London. In doing so, the film fulfills all the requirements of a film narrative, with antagonists and protagonists, binary opposites, whathaveyou, whilst at the same time cleverly demonstrating the importance of the discovery and what it means for mankind.

Although the plot is largely based upon Watson's point of view (his book The Double Helix was a source) and the characterization of Franklin as a very reserved shy person has been disputed, the film manages to perfectly balance science and history, demonstrating the institutional attitudes that led to Franklin's contribution receding into the background in the face of Watson and Crick's flamboyance. Their working methods are carefully contrasted, with the two men's inspirational trips to the pub juxtaposed with her meticulous experimentation. The film's best scene is fittingly in the reveal of the helix, as Franklin sees the model that the men have created, a tower with Bunsen burner stands and clamps reaching to the ceiling, the camera spinning around it demonstrating the beautiful complexity of the genetic structure to her and us. It's a triumphant yet tragic moment as she realizes she's been beaten.

Because it's shot on the grainy 16mm, the film looks like the work of another age despite the wonderful cast. It's truly astonishing to see Jeff Goldblum in a BBC Film of this type in 1987, the same year he was Brundelfly, especially since he's largely rehearsing the persona that would be repeated in Jurassic Park, four years later. His presence suggests ambitions for the film beyond its television origin and I truly believe that if it had been released theatrically it would not only have found an audience but would be considered one of the greatest British films of all time with the dvd release it deserves. As it stands, the last time the film was seen in public was during a season of programmes on BBC Four in 2003 commemorating the discovery of DNA; there was a US VHS release in 1993 under the alternative title The Race for the Double Helix copies of which are going for $70 on Amazon's Marketplace. So this might be the most obscure film on the list, especially since I couldn't find a picture of from it. If you're at university you could see if there's a copy in one of the science libraries ...

Forgotten Films

Next (1989)

In this sublimely animated short film, William Shakespeare auditions for a bored cigar smoking theatre director Sir Peter Hall by presenting his entire canon, in mime, within five minutes using props and puppets. It’s a guessing game for the viewer, trying to work out which of the plays is being evoked within each set up and it takes a couple of watches to fully appreciate the ingenuity that has gone into making some of the more complex plays at all identifiable. My favourite, Measure for Measure, appears towards the end with Isabella shown keeping her virginity intact whilst Angelo is hoodwinked before the Duke expresses his amorous intent. What I love about the film is that director Barry Purves obviously has a great love not only for the bard but also for stage techniques with black drapes and reveals and mirrors employed throughout and the subtly of the character movements, which particular in the Hall figure are unnervingly human.

Forgotten Films

View From The Top (2003)

The original idea for February's film fest was going to be 'Great scenes in bad films' which sort of speaks for itself. The main reason I didn't go forward with what is probably fertile ground is that it would have meant rewatching lots of really bad films in order to review those great scenes which doesn't sound like an entertaining way of spending any month. But I thought, just for fun I would let one slip through.

View From The Top is a dreadful film. It's the meandering story of Donna, a small town girl who dreams of becoming an international flight attendant and the trials she has to go through to reach her goal. It's Showgirls with trolly dollies, with unfocused design and inconsistent costume work and the repeated deployment of too long unfunny scenes of Mike Myers forgetting how to do comedy as an instructor. Star Gwyneth Paltrow spends most of her time looking dazed and miscast, as though she's trying to work out how the script she probably signed on for ended up turning into crap by the time it reached the set. I mean look at the hair in that picture...

Yet, somehow at about minute seventy-five, once Donna has joined a major airline the film suddenly changes into something quite good. In fact those final ten minutes look like they were directed by someone else, as the tone calms down, Paltrow starts acting like a human being and the story seems to find a direction that its been lacking for the past hour and a quarter. At the epicentre of the transformation is the expected scene that demonstrates Donna's new jet set lifestyle.

Earlier in the film that could have meant a rather simple, cliched montage of the flight attendant grinning through a number of fabulous places. But instead director Bruno Barreto (if indeed it is he) opts to place us within a single hotel room that represents a range of destinations, the fixtures and fittings changing as the camera pans through 360 degrees to reflect the various locales. Meanwhile, Paltrow steps in and out of frame revealing dozens of costume changes as her new restless existence comes to the fore. If only the rest of the film had been this impressive and so carefully thought through.

It's just about possible to blame the rest of the films fumbles on its troubled history. As the Internet Movie Database describes, although it was completed in 2001 ready for a Christmas release, 9/11 caused it to be put back because the studio thought that a satire on flight attendants might not be such a great idea. The film sat around for a year, then after another series of edits, including the loss of Myers routine about dealing with terrorists it was finally spat out in the US in the Summer of 2003 when it was roundly ignored by everyone and then took even longer to find its way direct to dvd in the UK and it's still available.

But seriously, I wouldn't recommend it. Except for that one scene.

Forgotten Films

Visions of Light (1992)

I knew I would want to include at least one documentary on the list and it seems only proper that it be about the medium itself and that it should be the work that sparked my interest in filmmaking techniques and the nuts and bolts of the process and which would lead to me to eventually taking my MA Screen Studies course.

Visions of Light is about the art of cinematography, and features interview with a couple of dozen legendary photographers, from Gordon Willis to Vilmos Zsigmond to Conrad L. Hall, collectively narrating the history of their craft from the early days of silent film through to somewhere in the late Eighties when this film was produced.

It's a story of loss, about how the cinematographer was simply more expressive in the black and white days, how darkness, light and shadow could be used much more as a storytelling tool and to evoke character. But there were gains too, as the square frame opens to cinemascope allowing much more information to be present within the shot.

You hear about the work of James Wong Howe putting together his helicopter shot in Picnic and how Néstor Almendros coped with Terance Malik's decree that all of Days of Heaven should be filmed during the magic hour, the forty minute window between day and night. Often there's a definite sense of the cinematographer's abilities elevating some pretty average material.

The only real omission is in the area of international cinema which gets just a few comments and a clip of Jules Et Jim to shine. The American cinematographers weren't working in a vacuum and although the connection is acknowledged, more could certainly have been made. It's a shame too that it seems to end a few years before the production date of the documentary so that what were new innovations then, such as steadicam aren't really covered, other than in a closing montage.

But even if the technical details don't interest you, there are the clips from a whole vast range of films, always illustrating the matter at hand. It's amazing to see the continuity between projects in someone like Gordon Willis as he shifts from Godfather to Annie Hall, and how certain men and women are hired because they're comfortable working within a certain locale such as New York.

The film was originally broadcast in the UK at the start of a whole season of films on Channel Four called Visions of Light, which included many of the titles featured within the documentary. It has since been released on dvd by the BFI, with, miraculously, all of the clips intact and it's really worth the trip.