New DVD releases: March 2013

Comedown
(StudioCanal, cert 15, Blu-ray/DVD)

Talking of Kidulthood, hello Adam Deacon, in a hoodie horror about an inner city gang of mates in an empty tower block being picked off by a psycho. It’s entirely derivative but undeniably tense, tasty, bantering and atmospheric.

Dracula
(Lionsgate, cert 15, Blu-ray/DVD)

The 2007 BFI restoration of Hammer’s 1958 Dracula, plus a couple of extra scenes originally cut by the censor. The screenplay is a marvel of concision, Peter Cushing is a lithe Van Helsing and Christopher Lee an urbane Count D.

Lego Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Out
(Fox, cert U, DVD)

These Lego versions of Star Wars are surprisingly good. Funny, too – eg Darth Maul and Darth Vader doing the mind-control auto-choking thing on each other while childishly chanting “Why are you choking yourself, why are you choking yourself?” And they’re only 25 minutes long. George?

247°F
(Anchor Bay, cert 14, Blu-ray/DVD)

The apparently true story of some kids in Georgia getting stuck in a very hot sauna, run through the genre machine until it resembles “dim jocks and hot babes in the woods” product. Nothing wrong with that.

Utopia
(4DVD, cert 18, Blu-ray £24.99)

Channel 4’s violent, funny, mental thriller series based around a graphic novel and the people who read them has an Edge of Darkness conspiratorial heart and Homeland bombdrop plot twists.

The Protectors: Season One
(Arrow, cert 15, DVD £24.99)

This 2008 Danish TV series following a crack team of secret service agents doing their thing is typically Scandi in that it sets up long, long storylines that fully use the slow-burn of TV to its full.

The Ozu Collection: The Gangster Films
(BFI, cert PG, DVD £29.99)

The most poetic of Japanese directors cut his teeth on gangster movies. Here are three silent ones from the 1930s – Walk Cheerfully, That Night’s Wife and Dragnet Girl – all noirish, pacey, Hollywood-flavoured and for more than just Ozu completists.

The Master
(EV, cert 15, Blu-ray/DVD)

Joaquin Phoenix’s shell-shocked war veteran enters the ranks of what looks like Scientology in its early days in Paul Thomas Anderson’s thoughtful, textured drama which, like There Will Be Blood and Magnolia, deals in the currency of fakery.

The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 2
(Entertainment One, cert 12, Blu-ray/DVD)

“The Volturi, they’re coming for us.” The Volturi probably aren’t coming fast enough for non-fans, though as Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner and their pack of interchangeable vampires/werewolves gallop towards the franchise finale, director Bill Condon whips up a finish that’s satisfying, poignant and… finally… dramatic.

Small Town Murder Songs
(Soda, cert 15, DVD)

A short, tight film about a cop (Peter Stormare) on a murder case in a backwoods town full of Mennonites. And as he investigates the crime, we investigate his flavoursome, oppressively humid backstory. Excellent.

Alps
(Artificial Eye, cert 15, DVD)

An offbeat Greek drama following a doctor who seems to be living out her life as a surrogate in other people’s. A perplexing film from Giorgos Lanthimos which, unlike his Dogtooth, never quite lets on what it’s all about.

Sister
(Soda, cert 15, DVD)

Formless though atmospheric, a French drama about a young thief scamming the rich at a ski resort and his similarly bottom-feeding sister (Léa Seydoux, all Kate Moss cool and cheekbones).

Gayby
(Peccadillo, cert 15, DVD)

A woman with ticking-timebomb ovaries has a baby with her gay best friend. This is the film that the Rupert Everett/Madonna disaster The Next Best Thing probably wanted to be – there’s lots of “get her” humour but its real comedic target is limp-wrist metrosexuality.

Room 237
(Metrodome, cert 15, DVD)

A documentary about Stanley Kubrick’s horror The Shining and the many theories about what it’s “really about”. Internet fanboy madness is what Room 237 is really about, though watching Jack Nicholson going batshit crazy in the Overlook Hotel is always welcome.

Mr Selfridge: Series 1
(Universal, cert 12, Blu-ray £29.99)

ITV’s rival to the BBC’s similar The Paradise stars Jeremy Piven as Harry Gordon Selfridge, the man who set out to build the finest department store in the world, and at the “wrong” end of Oxford Street.

The Best of Inspector George Gently
(Acorn, cert 15, DVD £19.99)

The latest manifestation of Martin Shaw as lawman – he’s been at it in an almost unbroken run since The Professionals in 1977 – four feature-length episodes of the refreshingly unnostalgic cop series set in 1960s Northumberland.

Pan Am: The Complete Series
(Sony, cert PG, DVD £29.99)

An international success but panned and finally canned at home, the US series starring Christina Ricci as a sleek trolley dolly was widely seen as Mad Men of the skies (minus the smoking).

Argo
(Warner, cert 15, Blu-ray/DVD)

Ben Affleck’s tense, polished entertainment about a CIA man co-opting Tinseltown to help rescue hostages in Iran. Among the many delights of the Best Film Oscar-winner are Alan Arkin, as the gimlet-eyed, cigar-chomping, “Argo f*** yourself” producer.

Thale
(Metrodome, cert 15, DVD)

This fantasy thriller about a Norwegian police clean-up team finding a mythical creature in a cellar is this year’s Troll Hunter — unexpected, refreshing, atmospheric, tightly plotted, beautifully shot and worth watching even if you usually hate “that sort of thing”.

The Sapphires
(Entertainment One, cert PG, DVD)

It’s got heart, soul and great music. In fact this feelgood musical has got the lot, including a standout performance by Chris O’Dowd, the loser/boozer manager of a Sixties aborigine girl group.

Battle of Warsaw
(Metrodome, cert 15, DVD)

Poland’s first 3D film is a patriotic war movie in the grand Sixties style — gutsy, earthy, full of vivid detail — which halts its love story sideplot every 10 minutes for more battle business.

Hope Springs
(Momentum, cert 12, Blu-ray/DVD)

If you’ve ever wanted to see Meryl Streep rubbing Tommy Lee Jones’s groin (over his trousers, people), then this entirely uncool but undoubtedly well done comedy about oldies putting the spark back into their marriage (thanks to a dialled-down Steve Carell) is your date-night movie.

La Poison
(Eureka, cert PG, Blu-ray/DVD)

A hi-def restoration of a 1951 comedy by Sacha Guitry – master of the Gallic shrug – about a man who wants to kill his wife because she’s got a bit tubby. Hints of Ealing, touches of Lubitsch, altogether rather fine.

Gambit
(Momentum, cert 12, Blu-ray/DVD)

Having remade The Ladykillers, the Coen brothers (they write but don’t direct) do similar injury to a fondly remembered caper movie, reheating the worst aspects of 1960s humour (the racism, the gurning, the tippy-toes mime, the whoops-there-go-my-trousers) while Cameron Diaz, Colin Firth, Alan Rickman and Tom Courtenay take the money and run.

Game of Thrones Seasons 1 & 2
(HBO, cert 18, DVD £54.99)

HBO’s “be there or be square” series does for TV what The Lord of the Rings did for cinema and has made actor Peter Dinklage a household name.

Death in Paradise Series 2
(2 entertain, cert 12, DVD £19.99)

For some Midsomer guilty-pleasure viewing, it’s hard to beat this gentle cop series starring Ben Miller, Sara Martins and the Caribbean island of Saint Marie (actually Guadeloupe).

A Collection of Wonders
(2 entertain, cert E, Blu-ray £39.99)

Brian Cox’s big series – Wonders of… the Solar System, the Universe, Life – delivered with exactly the sort of enthusiasm and big budget that justify the “successor to Attenborough” tag.

READ REVIEWS OF DVDS RELEASED IN FEBRUARY 2013