After an almost imperceptible slight to his honour, gruff Napoleonic soldier Harvey Keitel challenges effete cavalryman Keith Carradine to a duel. The duel is fought, the outcome is inconclusive, and thus begins 16 long years of sporadic but all-consuming bouts between these two barely acquainted foes. An ambitious 1977 Cannes Award-winning debut from Ridley Scott, The Duellists is visually sumptuous, and is nicely underplayed by both Keitel and the endearingly camp Carradine. Yet it's a film defined by the brevity of its source material, a 'short' short story by Joseph Conrad.
Director Metin Hüseyin's breezy adaptation of Meera Syal's terrific fictionalised memoir about growing up Anglo-Asian in the West Midlands in the early '70s suffers a little from British film's TV smallness, feeling at times like an extended episode of Goodness Gracious Me. But the crisp script and immense charm of 14-year-old newcomer Chandeep Uppal as the sassy prepubescent heroine Meena bring Syal's rites-of-passage story to life.
First issued on video in 1985, this is a fully absorbing, occasionally revealing insight into the country legend's late '60s heyday. A fly-on-the-wall documentary charting a typically grinding US tour, Cash is never less than engrossing, be it gleefully jamming with a nonchalant Dylan (a searing version of Billy Edd Wheeler's "Blistered"), duetting with 'er indoors June Carter ("Jackson") or cutting rug with lead guitarist Carl Perkins ("Blue Suede Shoes").
Neil Labute adapts an AS Byatt novel and rather blots his edgy image. It follows Gwyneth Paltrow and Aaron Eckhart through Yorkshire and Paris as they uncover the personal secrets of a late-Victorian poet. Labute's emasculated in the company of academics, and the overall tone's uncertain and vague.
Steve Martin darkens his usual screwball comic persona for Novocaine, playing a suburban dentist implicated in drugs and murder charges in a noir-tinged comedy thriller which turns increasingly Hitchcockian as it unfolds. Helena Bonham Carter's femme fatale, Laura Dern's dental assistant and Kevin Bacon's hilarious cameo appearance lend extra clout to a patchy but commendably accomplished feature debut from writer-director David Atkins.
Two years ago, Bill Wyman published a superbly researched history of the blues. Now bearing the same name comes an unmissable visual companion to the book. The commentary is instructive, and Wyman's knowledge and passion for his subject is palpable. But the real thrill lies in the archive footage. There's Leadbelly and Bessie Smith, John Lee Hooker and Muddy Waters, Sonny Boy Williamson and Jimmy Reed and lots of evocative footage of the Delta.
Jonathan Miller's 1966 adaptation of Carroll's fantasy masterpiece has a sitar soundtrack from Ravi Shankar, a dreamlike Victorian atmosphere and a cast to die for (Peter Cook, John Gielgud, Peter Sellers). Totally far out.
We tend to damn Woody Allen's lighter comedies as 'just' comedies: if anyone else had come up with this 1993 nugget, we'd acclaim it as a pearl. Allen and Diane Keaton-telepathic together again—are paranoid that the woman next door's been bumped off; Alan Alda and Anjelica Houston stir the confusion. A wholesome whodunnit, but, chiefly, a hoot.
A pretty convoluted and derivative 2002 Bollywood outing, ranging over several years and telling the story of Suraj and Komal (Anil and Karisma Kapoor), who are estranged following the machinations of the latter's snobbish billionaire father. Heavy-handed melodrama and some risible musical sequences, reminiscent of a raunchy '80s nightmare, try the patience.
