Noticias

While the future of home entertainment may be rapidly moving towards a digital streaming-led future, we can't be the only movie nerds who still love owning a physical copy of something. Sure, BluRay and DVD might be scratchable, easily lost and adorned by terrible box art, but there's something about the feeling of finding an undiscovered gem in the depths of a store, or getting a rarity in the post, that doesn't quite compare to clicking and watching something on Netflix.

As such, starting with this column, every month we're going to pick out five BluRays or DVDs new to the market that no self-respecting cinephile's shelves could do without. Some are shiny new versions of stone-cold classics, some are obscurities, some might even be brand new releases (although less often: those are covered pretty well elsewhere). Read on for more.

"Chinatown" (1974)

Why You Should Care: Simply put, it's one...

Science fiction writers of every generation had their own visions of the future, but what if their predictions became a reality? Rob dons his silver suit and delves into the archives to find out...

To me, living in 2010 seems like the future (well a bit anyway), and some of the things people dreamt of in years gone by have indeed come to pass. We have iPods which contain all our music, videos and data like the PADDs in Star Trek, have unlocked parts of the human genome, cloned livestock and created primitive artificial life. And while we don't have jet-packs, teleporters or the ability to travel to Mars, current technology hasn't don't too badly on the whole.

We love our technology, all sleek, thin and mobile, full of wafer-thin elements that can pass data at massive rates, wrapped up in shiny and lovingly-designed bits of kit. The ‘aesthetic of the...

From cinema's inception, it split into two different camps: Those inspired by the Lumière brothers' "Employees Leaving The Lumière Factory," which was the original prototype for films that reflect or document real life, and those inspired by Georges Méliès' "A Trip To The Moon," which operates in the realm of pure escapism and artifice. There may be no greater example of the latter than Alexander Korda's awe-inspiring 1940 production of The Thief Of Bagdad, a Middle Eastern fantasia that springs from the screen like an illustrated storybook come to life. Sparing no expense, Korda hired top-flight artisans (including co-director Michael Powell, composer Miklós Rózsa, and cutting-edge effects man Lawrence Butler), constructed massive sets in London and Hollywood, and shot in a beautiful three-strip Technicolor. Treating cinema as a giant toy box, Korda resembles a child with an overactive imagination, giddily piling on every exotic and magical conceit the story can.

San Sebastian Film Festival

SAN SEBASTIAN, Spain -- From Argentina comes this enchanting experimental film with very limited market potential but immense power of attraction for lovers of independent filmmaking. Lovers of Guy Maddin's or Jonas Mekas' experiments will probably be thrilled by Esteban Sapir's The Aerial, an innovative piece depicting everyday life in a city whose inhabitants have lost the ability to speak. Shot in black-and-white with nondigital special effects giving it the look of a silent film, The Aerial is a poetic and metaphoric artwork about human communication and contemporary society.

The film follows the struggle between two characters, a resisting woman who has kept her voice, and Mr. TV, an evil man who controls the entire society thanks to his hypnotic TV channel and the products he forces people to consume.

Full of cinematographic references such as to Fritz Lang's Metropolis and to George Melies' Man in the Moon, The Aerial is less an easy criticism of consumer society and television brainwashing then it is a poetic attempt to recreate a world through the sole power of images. It is reminiscent of Hugo Santiago's 1969 classic Invasion and the spirit of Sapir fellow Argentine, Jorge Luis Borges.