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The Philadelphia Inquirer
January 21, 2011 Friday
JERSEY-C Edition
'Army of Crime' and predecessor 'Army of Shadows' out on DVD
BYLINE: By Tirdad Derakhshani; Inquirer Staff Writer
It's famously known that French filmmakers don't conform to any
subject matter or genre - they'd rather flout the rules.
But beginning with René Clément's La Bataille du Rail (The Battle of
the Rails) in 1946, they have continually revisited one theme: life in
France under Nazi occupation.
This tradition has been enhanced by a recent wave of revisionist films
that look beyond the official story to the contribution forgotten
individuals and minority groups made to the war effort.
One of the most notable entries is Robert Guédiguian's intense,
poetic, real-life story from 2009, Army of Crime, available from Kino
Lorber Films (www.kino.com or www.lorberfilms.com; $29.95 DVD; $34.95
Blu-ray; not rated). It stars Simon Abkarian as Missak Manouchian, a
French Armenian poet who organized a band of 22 fellow immigrants,
mostly Jews and communists, for clandestine operations for the
Resistance.
The title of Guédiguian's film was inspired by Jean-Pierre Melville's
magisterial 1969 Resistance thriller, Army of Shadows, which is
finally available on DVD from the Criterion Collection
(www.criterion.com/; $39.95 DVD and Blu-ray; not rated).
The third in Melville's Occupation trilogy (after 1949's La Silence de
la Mer and 1961's Leon Morin, Priest), it draws on Melville's wartime
experiences with the Free French forces. Set in 1942, the episodic
tale follows a year in the life of ranking Resistance officer Philippe
Gerbier (Lino Ventura) and his deputy (Simone Signoret) as they lead
their cell in dangerous military missions. The drama reaches a fever
pitch when they discover they may have a mole on their team.
Other DVDs of note Famed fraternal filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen get
a Chinese makeover in the irreverent and exciting thriller A Woman, a
Gun and a Noodle Shop, due Feb. 1 from Sony
(www.sonypictures.com/homevideo/; $28.95 DVD; $38.96 Blu-ray; rated
R). Director Zhang Yimou (Raise the Red Lantern) reworks the Coens'
tale of infidelity, jealousy, theft, and murder, Blood Simple, by
setting it in feudal China. The result is startling.
Hammer Films ditched its tried and true - and, by 1970, very tired -
formula for the 1972 oddball cult classic Vampire Circus, released by
Synapse Films in a DVD/Blu-ray combo pack (www.synapse-films.com/;
$29.95; not rated). A revenge tale set in 19th-century Austria, it's
about a circus of vampires and werecats who plan to destroy a small
village whose inhabitants had slain one of their kind. The acrobatic
tricks, psychedelic visuals, and intense sexual tension make this a
far-out treat.
Franz Kafka is given the anime treatment in Franz Kafka's A Country
Doctor and other Fantastic Films by Koji Yamamura, from Zeitgeist
Films (www.zeitgeistfilms.com/; $29.95; not rated). The 124-minute
disc collects some of the Oscar-nominated Yamamura's most breathtaking
shorts, which mix traditional animation with painting, modeling clay,
and photography.
Tony Jaa, whose high-impact, rapid form of muay thai has revitalized
the martial-arts film, may have met his match in Iko Uwais. The
Indonesian martial-arts master and soccer star showcases his native
form of combat, silat, in the action spectacular Merantau, from
Magnolia (www.magpictures.com/; $26.98 DVD; $29.98 Blu-ray; rated R).
Like Jaa, Uwais does all of his own stunts - including a few that seem
to defy gravity.
No single film or TV show has captured novelist Elmore Leonard's
mordant, crime-and-irony-riddled view of life quite like Timothy
Olyphant's amazing, hilarious, and yet totally creepy crime drama,
Justified: The Complete First Season, out from Sony
(www.sonypictures.com/homevideo/; $39.95 DVD; $49.95 Blu-ray; not
rated).
Few fictional thrillers can evoke as many thrills as documentarian
Alex Gibney's deconstruction of disgraced former New York Gov. Eliot
Spitzer, Client 9: Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer, due Tuesday from
Magnolia (www.magpictures.com/; $26.98 DVD; $29.98 Blu-ray; not
rated).
You've seen British actress Gemma Arterton's sexy side in the Bond
flick Quantum of Solace and the fantasy adventure Prince of Persia.
Now discover her - equally sexy - dramatic and comedic talents in two
new British comedies. Stephen Frears' graphic-novel adaptation, Tamara
Drewe, due Feb. 8 from Sony (www.sonypictures.com/homevideo/; $28.95
DVD; $38.96 Blu-ray; rated R), features Arterton as a successful,
beautiful, plastic-surgery-enhanced novelist who returns to her
hometown, where she was taunted and teased as a child for her big
nose.
In Three and Out, from Entertainment One
(www.entertainmentonegroup.com/; $24.98; rated R), Arterton plays the
estranged daughter of Tommy Cassidy (Colm Meaney), who has decided to
commit suicide with the help of an oddball train conductor.
From: A. Papazian
January 21, 2011 Friday
JERSEY-C Edition
'Army of Crime' and predecessor 'Army of Shadows' out on DVD
BYLINE: By Tirdad Derakhshani; Inquirer Staff Writer
It's famously known that French filmmakers don't conform to any
subject matter or genre - they'd rather flout the rules.
But beginning with René Clément's La Bataille du Rail (The Battle of
the Rails) in 1946, they have continually revisited one theme: life in
France under Nazi occupation.
This tradition has been enhanced by a recent wave of revisionist films
that look beyond the official story to the contribution forgotten
individuals and minority groups made to the war effort.
One of the most notable entries is Robert Guédiguian's intense,
poetic, real-life story from 2009, Army of Crime, available from Kino
Lorber Films (www.kino.com or www.lorberfilms.com; $29.95 DVD; $34.95
Blu-ray; not rated). It stars Simon Abkarian as Missak Manouchian, a
French Armenian poet who organized a band of 22 fellow immigrants,
mostly Jews and communists, for clandestine operations for the
Resistance.
The title of Guédiguian's film was inspired by Jean-Pierre Melville's
magisterial 1969 Resistance thriller, Army of Shadows, which is
finally available on DVD from the Criterion Collection
(www.criterion.com/; $39.95 DVD and Blu-ray; not rated).
The third in Melville's Occupation trilogy (after 1949's La Silence de
la Mer and 1961's Leon Morin, Priest), it draws on Melville's wartime
experiences with the Free French forces. Set in 1942, the episodic
tale follows a year in the life of ranking Resistance officer Philippe
Gerbier (Lino Ventura) and his deputy (Simone Signoret) as they lead
their cell in dangerous military missions. The drama reaches a fever
pitch when they discover they may have a mole on their team.
Other DVDs of note Famed fraternal filmmakers Joel and Ethan Coen get
a Chinese makeover in the irreverent and exciting thriller A Woman, a
Gun and a Noodle Shop, due Feb. 1 from Sony
(www.sonypictures.com/homevideo/; $28.95 DVD; $38.96 Blu-ray; rated
R). Director Zhang Yimou (Raise the Red Lantern) reworks the Coens'
tale of infidelity, jealousy, theft, and murder, Blood Simple, by
setting it in feudal China. The result is startling.
Hammer Films ditched its tried and true - and, by 1970, very tired -
formula for the 1972 oddball cult classic Vampire Circus, released by
Synapse Films in a DVD/Blu-ray combo pack (www.synapse-films.com/;
$29.95; not rated). A revenge tale set in 19th-century Austria, it's
about a circus of vampires and werecats who plan to destroy a small
village whose inhabitants had slain one of their kind. The acrobatic
tricks, psychedelic visuals, and intense sexual tension make this a
far-out treat.
Franz Kafka is given the anime treatment in Franz Kafka's A Country
Doctor and other Fantastic Films by Koji Yamamura, from Zeitgeist
Films (www.zeitgeistfilms.com/; $29.95; not rated). The 124-minute
disc collects some of the Oscar-nominated Yamamura's most breathtaking
shorts, which mix traditional animation with painting, modeling clay,
and photography.
Tony Jaa, whose high-impact, rapid form of muay thai has revitalized
the martial-arts film, may have met his match in Iko Uwais. The
Indonesian martial-arts master and soccer star showcases his native
form of combat, silat, in the action spectacular Merantau, from
Magnolia (www.magpictures.com/; $26.98 DVD; $29.98 Blu-ray; rated R).
Like Jaa, Uwais does all of his own stunts - including a few that seem
to defy gravity.
No single film or TV show has captured novelist Elmore Leonard's
mordant, crime-and-irony-riddled view of life quite like Timothy
Olyphant's amazing, hilarious, and yet totally creepy crime drama,
Justified: The Complete First Season, out from Sony
(www.sonypictures.com/homevideo/; $39.95 DVD; $49.95 Blu-ray; not
rated).
Few fictional thrillers can evoke as many thrills as documentarian
Alex Gibney's deconstruction of disgraced former New York Gov. Eliot
Spitzer, Client 9: Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer, due Tuesday from
Magnolia (www.magpictures.com/; $26.98 DVD; $29.98 Blu-ray; not
rated).
You've seen British actress Gemma Arterton's sexy side in the Bond
flick Quantum of Solace and the fantasy adventure Prince of Persia.
Now discover her - equally sexy - dramatic and comedic talents in two
new British comedies. Stephen Frears' graphic-novel adaptation, Tamara
Drewe, due Feb. 8 from Sony (www.sonypictures.com/homevideo/; $28.95
DVD; $38.96 Blu-ray; rated R), features Arterton as a successful,
beautiful, plastic-surgery-enhanced novelist who returns to her
hometown, where she was taunted and teased as a child for her big
nose.
In Three and Out, from Entertainment One
(www.entertainmentonegroup.com/; $24.98; rated R), Arterton plays the
estranged daughter of Tommy Cassidy (Colm Meaney), who has decided to
commit suicide with the help of an oddball train conductor.
From: A. Papazian