New DVD releases: January 2014

Reviews of the latest DVD and Blu-ray releases, plus box sets and movie downloads
Steve Morrissey24 January 2014

Released on Mon Jan 27

Rush
(StudioCanal, cert 15, Blu-ray/DVD/VOD)

The rivalry between 1970s Formula 1 aces James Hunt and Niki Lauda provides the raw material for Ron Howard’s best film – thrilling, thoughtful, funny, humane and totally entertaining.

The Selfish Giant
(Artificial Eye, cert 15, Blu-ray/DVD)

From Clio Barnard, director of The Arbor, a punchy, fresh “grim up north” story about two non-achieving kids skittering around the edges of the scrap metal biz.

Sunshine on Leith
(EV, cert PG, Blu-ray/DVD)

Having made Wild Bill, a great East End western, director Dexter Fletcher follows up with a great jukebox musical full of infectious Proclaimers tunes. Worth walking 500 miles for.

The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones
(E One, cert 12, Blu-ray/DVD/DD)

Lily Collins is demon-buster Clary Fray in the adaptation of the first book in Cassandra Clare’s young adult doorstop. Smart and swift, it’s sexier than Twilight, feistier than Potter.

The Epic of Everest
(BFI, cert U, Blu-ray/DVD)

The film of 1924’s British Mount Everest Expedition, now restored, is unexpectedly majestic and not maudlin at all, even though it details the deaths of climbers Mallory and Irvine.

Hannah Arendt
(Soda, cert 12, DVD)

Majoring on her reporting on the trial of Nazi Adolf Eichmann, this stodgy but fascinating biopic about political theorist Arendt builds towards her observation on “the banality of evil”.

The Banshee Chapter
(101, cert 18, DVD/VOD)

Take ghosts, US government experiments into psychedelia, a young woman in a T-shirt and a countercultural fruitbat (model: Hunter S Thompson). Result: an atmospheric fun “boo” shocker.

BOX SETS

Ripper Street Series 1 & 2
(2entertain, cert 15, Blu-ray/DVD)

It’s now been cancelled (unless LoveFilm step in), so this boxset of the BBC’s excellently acted, written, directed period drama starring Matthew Macfadyen is quite possibly your lot.

Great British Railway Journeys Series 4
(Fremantle, cert E, DVD)

That leftie BBC, eh? With its bake-offs, ballroom dancing and this, Michael Portillo’s olde-style train journeys round Britain, curiously quaint, charmingly informative.

Five Films by Paolo Sorrentino
(Artificial Eye, cert 15, DVD)

Five from Italy’s best director since the Fellini/Pasolini/Visconti era waned, One Man Up, The Great Beauty, The Family Friend, Il Divo and The Consequences of Love.


Released on Mon Jan 20

In a World
(Sony, cert 15, DVD)

Even strident anti-feminists are likely to enjoy writer/director/star Lake Bell’s feisty funny debut, about the daughter of a rumbling trailer-voiceover king struggling in a male-dominated biz.

Computer Chess
(Eureka, cert 15, Blu-ray/DVD)

The birth of our not so brave new world – the idea behind “mumblecore inventor” Andrew Bujalski’s brilliant almost mock-doc about 1970s computer programmers vying to outnerd each other.

Hours
(Signature, cert 15, Blu-ray/DVD)

What an irony – Paul Walker dies, leaving behind a tense thriller proving he actually can act, about a new dad looking after baby while Hurricane Katrina destroys New Orleans.

Kelly + Victor
(Verve, cert 18, Blu-ray/DVD)

Boy meets girl for miaow-miaow and erotic asphyxiation in this punchy, sex-soaked drama starring Antonia Campbell-Hughes – the daughter from TV’s Lead Balloon seen in an astonishing new light.

Museum Hours
(Soda, cert 12, DVD)

A visiting Canadian is taken under the wing of an art-gallery guard in Vienna in this oblique, chatty documentary-like drama about taking the time to notice how wonderful life is.

White House Down
(Sony, cert 12, Blu-ray/DVD)

The “Gerard Butler saves the President” movie Olympus Has Fallen was bad but wait till you see this “Channing Tatum saves the President” movie. It’s hilariously must-see terrible.

The Colony
(E One, cert 18, DVD)

Laurence Fishburne dignifies this post-apocalyptic survival thriller set out in the snowy wastes, which abandons its aping of John Carpenter’s The Thing halfway through. Bad idea.

BOX SETS

Sherlock Series 1-3
(2entertain, cert 12, Blu-ray/DVD/DTO)

Sherlock Holmes reinvented – the texting detective – yet faithful to the playful spirit of Conan Doyle, is a triumph for writers, directors, actors, the BBC, everyone concerned.

The Client List Season 1
(Sony, cert 15, DVD)

After Ghost Whisperer, Jennifer Love Hewitt’s breasts get another series, about a Texas masseuse providing the perkiest most wholesome happy finishes you ever did(n’t) see.

The Paul Newman Collection
(Fox, cert 15, DVD)

From a career with a lot of high notes, this is still a really great collection of Newman films – The Hustler, Hombre, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and The Verdict.

Released on Mon Jan 13

The Great Beauty
(Artificial Eye, cert 15, Blu-ray/DVD)

A world-weary journalist faces down a life of excess in Italian genius Paolo Sorrentino’s astonishing, beautiful bookend to Fellini’s La Dolce Vita – worth it for the party scene alone.

Piercing Brightness
(Soda, cert 12, Blu-ray/DVD)

Aliens arrive in Preston, Lancashire, in this exercise in trippy Northern sci-fi that’s studenty, mad and exhilarating. A remarkable debut by name-to-watch Shezad Dawood.

Promised Land
(Universal, cert 15, Blu-ray/DVD)

Local Hero, more or less, with Matt Damon and Frances McDormand as a pair of mega-oil operators trying to get a small town to sign away its fracking rights. A charmer.

Riddick
(E One, cert 15, Blu-ray/DVD)

Vin Diesel hits the reset button with this return to the franchise that made his name, a guns ’n’ grunts sci-fi actioner high on steroids, human growth hormone and testosterone.

You're Next
(Kaleidoscope, cert 18, Blu-ray/DVD)

Cult horror guy Adam Wingard’s film about a rich family being slaughtered in their house out in the woods toys with genre expectations. Which explains the plot-holes, right?

In Real Life
(Dogwoof, cert E, DVD)

Beeban Kidron’s alarming (alarmist?) documentary follows bukkake-familiar teenagers, gaming addicts, status-update junkies for a portrait of the internet as sinister, psychotic and out of control.

Winter of Discontent
(New Wave, cert 15, DVD)

A muted, mournful Egyptian drama about the Tahrir Square uprising seeing events through the eyes of an activist, a torturer and a TV presenter unsure which way to jump.

BOX SETS

The Tunnel
(Acorn, cert 15, Blu-ray/DVD)

The French-English remake of the Danish-Swedish The Bridge – the dead people are now in the Channel Tunnel – is pretty much exactly the same as the original. Pretty great, then.

Last Tango in Halifax Series 1&2
(2entertain, cert 12, DVD)

Series three is now in the works. Until then here’s the first 12 episodes of Sally Wainwright’s all-round hit starring Anne Reid and Derek Jacobi as pensioners in lurrve.

Death Wish 1-5
(Final Cut, cert 18, DVD)

The vigilante justice series of films made between 1972 and 1995 starring Charles Bronson and directed, at first, by Michael Winner. The first one is a good film. No, honestly.


Released on Mon Jan 6

Frances Ha

(Metrodome, cert 15, Blu-ray/DVD)

Greta Gerwig’s star-making performance as a ditz in New York powers Noah Baumbach’s tender character study — Annie Hall by way of TV’s Girls.

Upstream Colour

(Metrodome, cert 18, Blu-ray/DVD)

Shane Carruth’s follow-up to his brilliant Primer is a body-horror/love story. Full of trippy montage, it’s strange, beautiful and pretentious.

The Way Way Back

(Fox, cert 12, Blu-ray/DVD)

A teenage boy endures a holiday with useless mum Toni Collette and her douchebag guy (Steve Carell) in this sweet, beautifully acted coming-of-ager.

Insidious Chapter 2

(E One, cert 15 Blu-ray/DVD)

See Insidious 1 before embarking on this continuation, a well-cast exercise in Sixties/Seventies horror knock-off (okay, pastiche).

What Maisie Knew

(Curzon, cert 15, Blu-ray/DVD)

Another indictment of Seventies attitudes about two self-regarding parents (Steve Coogan, Julianne Moore) and their daughter.

Peacock

(Lionsgate, cert 12, DVD)

Imagine Norman Bates without the murder and you’ve got this drama starring Cillian Murphy as a crossdresser in Fifties smalltown America. Great period detail.

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