Danny Aiello dominates this ensemble drama as the weary owner of an Italian restaurant in New York's Tribeca, caught between mobsters and his son's desire to transform the place into a chiceatery. Director (and restaurateur) Bob Giraldi keeps things hustling between tables, but cranks up the pace in the kitchens. A grittier companion to Stanley Tucci's gastro-porn classic Big Night. Tasty.
Boisterous action ensues when colourfully tattooed extreme sports fanatic Xander Cage is press-ganged into the service of the US government. Rob Cohen directs with brutal bravado, there are some amazing stunts, and the whole thing is noisily entertaining. Vin Diesel's Xander, though, is no match for Kurt Russell's Snake Plissken, and a touch of John Carpenter's genuine anarchy would have been welcome.
Golden boy Sam Mendes' less-than-feelgood follow-up to American Beauty suffered a critical backlash, but its daringly gloomy photography (by the late Conrad Hall) is often breathtaking. An unsmiling Tom Hanks' hitman-with-a-heart is underwritten, but a wrinkly Paul Newman still oozes charisma and Jude Law's credibly sinister. A surprisingly bleak, long dark night of the soul.
You might think there's not enough surviving live footage of The Yardbirds to fill a full-length DVD. And you'd be right, of course. But clips from half-a-dozen black-and-white TV shows are interspersed with retrospective interviews to create a compelling band history in which the comments of Jeff Beck are particularly candid. But the revelation is singer/harmonica player Keith Relf, who exudes charisma despite being surrounded by such future stars as Eric Clapton and Jimmy Page.
Indie tyro Doug Liman (Go!) takes a gripping premise (amnesiac superspy is hunted by CIA while seeking clues to his own identity), an efficient leading man in Matt Damon, and a raft of stellar supporting players including Brian Cox, Chris Cooper, Clive Owen and Franka Potente, and delivers a confident if ultimately soulless knockabout thriller.
The culmination of a sell-out 2002 tour sees a middle-aged Williams return to his maniacal roots, musing on Michael Jackson, the Puritans and Viagra, among other topics. However, his breakneck delivery, camp mannerisms and array of accents (including a dismal Winston Churchill) only emphasise, rather than conceal, the weakness of his material. And the "Joe I'm Pregnant" routine is shamelessly lifted from Sam Kinison.
It's not hard to see why the second version of Hollywood's infamous morality tale of the tortured love between a rising starlet (Judy Garland in her best role outside of Oz) and her older, alcoholic has-been suitor (the impeccable James Mason) is generally regarded as the best. George Cukor's Technicolor palette and Ira Gershwin's music are the ideal accoutrements for what is basically camp melodrama at its most sumptuous.
Along with Insomnia and the inexplicably-unreleased Death To Smoochy, this eerie thriller serves to rehabilitate Robin Williams. His cloying wacky zaniness jettisoned, he's a broody bugger as the middle-aged loser who becomes obsessed with a cute family whose holiday snaps he's developed for years. Like a chubbier Travis Bickle, he feels his fantasy figures owe him emotional payback. He freaks, rivetingly.
A terrific primer on Scott-Heron's lyrical, funky jazz bluesology, Robert Mugge's semi-concert documentary was first broadcast on Channel Four in 1983. Two decades on, the charismatic proto-rapper still comes over as a warm and eloquent performer, wry social commentator and effortless stand-up comedian.
