Parky at the Pictures (DVD 19/12/2013)

ASSO (Franco Castellano & Giuseppe Moccia,1981).

A lively, if far-fetched comedy, in which gambler Adriano Celentano is murdered on his wedding night and returns as a ghost to help widow Edwige Fenech find a suitable husband. However, in courting elderly banker Pippo Santonastaso, she inflames the jealousy of Renato Salvatori, who had hired Gianni Magni to kill Celentano. Played with pantomimic spirit by a fine cast (that includes a cameoing Sylva Koscina), this amuses without making too many demands.

ALEX CROSS (Rob Cohen, 2012).

Assuming the role that Morgan Freeman had played in Gary Fleder's Kiss the Girls (1997) and Lee Tamahori's Along Came a Spider (2001), Tyler Perry just about holds his own as crime novelist James Patterson's sleuthing forensic psychologist as he teams with Detroit cop Edward Burns and rookie Rachel Nichols to track down sadistic psycho Matthewe Fox, whose reign of terror seems to be leading to French financier Jean Reno. However, he has a few guilty secrets of his own and the stodgily charismatic Perry is much more effective sparring with his suspects than he is fussing over pregnant wife Carmen Ejogo and feuding with overbearing mother, Cicely Tyson.

BAISE-MOI (Virginie Despentes.& Coralie Trinh Thi, 2000).

This is primarily a film about fury. Yet its sheer amorality and reckless exploitation corrupts its message by misdirecting the focus, as rape victims Raffaela Anderson and Karen Bach go on a killing spree that accounts for the men they bed, a woman at a cash till and anyone else who gets in their way. Having caused a scandal as much because its leads were porn stars as because its graphic depiction of sex and violence led the BBFC to intervene, this `feminist warrior vision' (which was based on ex-prostitute Despentes's bestselling novel) continues to seethe. But the directors seem to intent on being `so in your face that we will end up on your mind' that they fail adequately to justify the slaughter and, thus, despite the courageous performances and the odd visual flourish, the nagging doubt remains that this disturbing picture's belligerence owes as much to commercial as intellectual concerns.

BEAUTIFUL CREATURES (Richard LaGravenese, 2013).

Stripping Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl's bestseller to its Southern Gothic essentials, this should appeal to those who enjoyed the Twilight movies with a sense of guilty pleasure irony. Alice Englert impresses as the 15 year-old arriving in the South Carolina backwater of Gatlin to await the birthday that will determine if she is to become a good or a bad witch. However, while guardian Jeremy Irons is keen to protect her from shape-shifting mother Emma Thompson and wicked sister Emmy Rossum, her best hope lies with Alden Ehrenreich, a classmate who recognises her from his dreams. Slickly staged in evocative locations and pleasingly played with a knowing integrity, this just about deserves its sequel.

BLOOD SIMPLE (Joel Coen, 1984).

Despite only having a meagre budget at their disposal, the Coens set the bar pretty high for themselves with this exemplary debut, which riffs on James M. Cain's The Postman Always Rings Twice to impart a darkly comic spin on the conventions and caricatures of film noir. Dan Hedaya is snarlingly desperate as the Texas bar owner who hires incompetent shamus M. Emmett Walsh to punish wife Frances McDormand for sleeping with employee John Getz. But, in a world in which the best laid plans are invariably ruined by squeaky floorboards and it's all too easy to frame oneself for murder, it's not long before the twists and turns begin to entangle characters who make those in Fargo (1996) look like criminal masterminds. A real treat that culminates in a corking double-cross.

BROKEN (Rufus Norris, 2012).

A chance occurrence alters the world-view of 11 year-old Eloise Lawrence in British theatre director Rufus Norris's reading of Daniel Clay's novel. However, her witnessing neighbour Rory Kinnear menacing learning-impaired Robert Emms is just one of the incidents occurring on the estate where Lawrence lives with father Tim Roth, brother Bill Milner and carer Zana Marjanovic, who helps her cope with her Type 1 diabetes when she isn't trying to make a go of her relationship with Cillian Murphy, who teaches at the school that Lawrence is set to attend alongside Kinnear's aggressive daughters Faye Daveney, Rosalie Kosky-Hensman and Martha Bryant. Overly melodramatic and struggling to convince with its state-of-the-nation insights, this is earnestly played and benefits from the unexpected elements in Rob Hardy's cinematography and Damon Albarn's score.

BROKEN PROMISE (Jirí Chlumský, 2009).

Based on the memoirs of Martin Friedmann-Petrášek, this tale of a teenage Slovakian Jew surviving the vicissitudes of the Shoah has much in common with Agnieszka Holland's Europa Europa (1990) and Lajos Koltai's Fateless (2005). Happily preparing for his bar mitzvah in the western village of Banovce nad Bebravou, Samuel Spisák is unconcerned by the political transformation that so distresses father Ondrej Vetchý. Even as siblings start being sent to camps in Poland, Spisák fails to grasp the significance of volunteering for a labour at Sered, where only his footballing skills save him until he manages to escape into the mountains. Despite the growing power of fascist priest Jozef Tiso, Spisák is sheltered in his remote monastery by prior Andrej Mojzis before he is befriended by chess-playing Russian partisan Roman Luknár, who is assisting the partisans. The events are naturally harrowing, particularly in the closing scenes, but Jirí Chlumský's direction lacks the finesse to keep melodrama at bay.

CITY OF WOMEN (Federico Fellini, 1980).

Initially conceived as Federico Fellini's contribution to a collaboration with Ingmar Bergman to be entitled Love Duet, this melding of Dante and Dickens was originally to star Dustin Hoffman. But Fellini plumped for old standby Marcello Mastroianni, who falls asleep on a train enterting a tunnel and is led through the various archetypes populating his personal gynocentric hell by escort Ettore Manni. Revealing much about Fellini's insecurities and fear of feminism, this has not worn particularly well. But the crisis of masculinity described here is oingoing and Fellini is aware enough to temper the more autobiographical elements with satire and self-parody, as Mastroianni (very much in 8½ mode) encounters motherly types, coarse factory workers, rollerskating widows and flirtatious teens in an odyssey that constantly teeters uncomfortably between virtuosity and voyeurism.

CLASS OF NUKE `EM HIGH (Richard W. Haines & Lloyd Kaufman, 1986).

Things are not as they should be at Tromaville High, as waste from the neighbouring nuclear power plant has started seeping into the soil and the water supply. No wonder, therefore, that Arthur Lorenz turns into a frothing monster after quaffing a refreshing glass. Moreover, the reefers being sold by the bad lads nicknamed The Cretins are also having alarming side effects. Even clean-cut kids like cheerleader Janelle Brady and class hunk Gilbert Brenton are not immune, as he mutates into a slavvering fiend, while she gives birth to a slug-like critter that seeks refuse in the boiler room. No one made trash quite like Lloyd Kaufman and he was so pleased with this outing (which he described as being `like The Breakfast Club, only not as stupid, and really, really drunk') spawning the sequels Subhumanoid Meltdown (1991) and The Good, the Bad and the Subhumanoid (1995).

DALEKS - INVASTION EARTH 2150 AD (Gordon Flemyng, 1966).

Reissued to mark the 50th anniversary of the launch of Doctor Who on the BBC in November 1963, Dr Who & the Daleks (1965) and its sequel cast Peter Cushing as the time lord floating through time and space in the TARDIS (`Time And Relative Dimensions In Space'). On this occasion, he is accompanied by niece Jill Curzon, granddaughter Roberta Tovey and (accidentally) London bobby Bernard Cribbins, who land in a decimated capital and join forces with resistance fighters under the command of the wheelchair-bound Godfrey Quigley to confound the metal menaces whose ignorance of magnetism proves fatal in their bid to turn Earth into a giant Dalek spaceship. Working from a Terry Nation scenario, screenwriting producer Milton Subotsky keeps things moving briskly and Gordon Flemyng is well served by production designer George Provis and cinematographer John Wilcox. Cushing's Doctor is an acquired taste and the lukewarm reception stopped the feature franchise in its tracks. But it retains a certain charm.

DR WHO AND THE DALEKS (Gordon Flemyng, 1965).

Adapted from an original Terry Nation teleplay, this may have brought colour to the world of time-travelling, but it also brought a whimsical air that the terrifying Daleks cannot quite overcome. Peter Cushing is more a bumbling eccentric than a resourceful time lord and the story feels hamstrung by the contrivances of its early scenes. Showing granddaughters Jennie Linden and Roberta Tovey around the TARDIS, Cushing is projected to the Planet Skaro by the former's smarmily doltish boyfriend Roy Castle. The landscape suggests a holocaust and Cushing has his work cut out convincing the pacifist Thals to fight back against their conquerors. But the gentle humour too often misfires and the ease with which the foe is vanquished suggests this will appeal more to fans and kids than grown-ups and the curious. A noteworthy element, however, is that the electronic sounds in Malcolm Lockyer's score were created by Barry Gray, who also compose the music for such Gerry Anderson gems as Supercar, Fireball XL5, Stingray, Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlett and the Mysterons and Joe 90.

DON GIOVANNI (Kasper Holten, 2010).

Although known as Juan on its releases, opera director Kasper Holten's screen debut reverts to its Mozartian title for the DVD. However, this owes more to Paul Greengrass and Steven Soderbergh that Wolfgang Amadeus, as Holten adopts a noirish tone in following the erotic excesses of Christopher Maltman, an artist-cum-pornographer whose seductions are faithfully filmed by his cussing sidekick Mikhail Petrenko. However, Maltman gets his comeuppance when he makes a play for police chief Eric Halfvarson's feisty daughter, Maria Bengtsson, lonely drifter Elizabeth Futral, and groom Ludvig Bengtson Lindström's new bride, Katija Dragojevic. Slickly shot by András Nagy and superbly played by a photogenic cast singing live in locations across Budapest, this is Steve McQueen's Shame (2011) with arias.

ED HARDY: TATTOO THE WORLD (Emiko Omori, 2010).

As the proud bearer of a number of her own Ed Hardy tattoos, Emiko Omori pays handsome tribute to the fabled inker in a documentary that follows him from humble roots in 1950s California through San Francisco Arts College to his meeting with Sailor Jerry Collins, who arranged for him to study Japanese body art and he revolutionised American styles by incorporating ideas borrowed from Goya and Picasso, as well as indigenous designs from Asia and Mexico. Omori fails to explore the extent to which Hardy has allowed his work to be commodified and might have spoken to a few more famous fans. But the onetime rebel, who turned down Yale to make tattoos respectable, comes across as an artist too devoted to his work to fritter his time on the high life he could easily afford.

EMIL AND THE DETECTIVES (Gerhard Lamprecht, 1931 & Milton Rosmer, 1935).

With an uncredited Emeric Pressburger and Billy Wilder among its writers, Gerhard Lamprecht's adaptation of Erich Kästner's classic children's adventure not only demonstrates the vibrancy of Weimar cinema, but also suggests why Germany remains such a hotbed of kid- and teenpics that speak directly to the target audience rather than patronise them while slyly seeking to amuse the watching grown-ups. Fritz Rasp is on a par with Peter Lorre in Fritz Lang's M (1931), as the shady Berlin stranger who slips young Rolf Wenkhaus a drugged sweet as he travels by train to give grandmother Olga Engl the 140 marks sent by mother Käthe Haack. Rousing himself and determined to retrieve the money and his mother's good opinion of him, Wenkhaus teams with cousin Inge Landgut and a gang of street kids led by Hans Joachim Schaufuss to catch the thief. This splendid BFI edition also includes Milton Rosmer's English-language remake, which relocates the action to London and slots John Williams and George Hayes into the roles of victim and villain. But, while it barrels along, there is nothing in the British take to match the hallucination sequence, which owes as much to French Impressionism as German Expressionism. An absolute treat and the best use for a gift voucher this Christmas.