Mad Men: Season 3 (2009)

USA

Television Series

Creator: Matthew Weiner

Cast: Jon Hamm, Elisabeth Moss, Vincent Kartheiser, Christina Hendricks, January Jones, Aaron Staton, Michael Gladis, Rich Sommer, John Slattery, Robert Morse, Jared Harris, Christopher Stanley, Chelcie Ross, Abigail Spencer, Bryan Batt, Kiernan Shipka, Alison Brie, Ryan Cartwright

Though still consummately constructed and performed, this third season of Matthew Weiner’s ‘60s-set examination of the boozy lives of a group of Manhattan admen – now under British rule, after a big money takeover – is ever more conventional and comfortable, though seldom any less entertaining. Iain.Stott

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Chikamatsu Monogatari (1954)

Recommended

Japan

Feature Film

Original Title: 近松物語

Director: Mizoguchi Kenji

Writers: Yoda Yoshikata, Kawaguchi Matsutarō, Chikamatsu Monzaemon

Cinematographer: Miyagawa Kazuo

Composers: Hayasaka Fumio, Mochizuki Tamezō

Cast: Hasegawa Kazuo, Kagawa Kyōko, Shindō Eitarō, Ozawa Saka, Minamida Yōko

Mizoguchi’s affecting melodrama, set in 17th century Kyoto – a time and place where (female) adultery was still punishable by crucifixion – follows a pair of doomed would-be lovers as they flee from her husband (and his boss) into the countryside in a desperate, ill-fated attempt stave-off the inevitable. Iain.Stott

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Kim Jong-Il's Comedy Club (2009)

Recommended

Denmark/UK

Feature Documentary

Writer/Director: Mads Brügger

Cinematographers: René Johannsen, Johan Stahl

Featuring: Jacob Nossell, Simon Jul, Mads Brügger

Reedited from a 2006 Danish television mini-series, Det røde kapel, this oft hilarious yet generally discomfiting documentary, which is either a polemic against totalitarianism or a satire on western paranoia (I’m still not sure which), follows a film-maker, Mads Brügger, and two Korean-Danish comedians, Nossell and Jul, as they venture into North Korea, attempting to put-on an alternative comedy show under the keen eye of their official guides. Iain.Stott

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True Blood: Season 2 (2009)

USA

Television Series

Creator: Alan Ball

Cast: Anna Paquin, Stephen Moyer, Sam Trammell, Ryan Kwanten, Rutina Wesley, Alexander Skarsgård, Deborah Ann Woll, Michelle Forbes, Mehcad Brooks, Michael McMillian, Anna Camp, Chris Bauer, Nelsan Ellis, William Sanderson, Jim Parrack, Carrie Preston, Todd Lowe, Mariana Klaveno, Valerie Cruz, Allan Hyde

Following the entertaining but uneven first season of Alan Ball’s inventive vampire series, this second season sees the action open-up, taking the focus away from the first instalment’s central (and sometimes tedious) vampire/human romance, introducing more interesting characters and plotlines, and giving more time to some of the show’s more underused and often more interesting supporting players. Iain.Stott

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The End of Summer (1961)

Essential Viewing

Japan

Feature Film

Original Title: 小早川家の秋

Director: Ozu Yasujirō

Writers: Noda Kōgo, Ozu Yasujirō

Cinematographer: Nakai Asakazu

Composer: Mayuzumi Toshirō

Cast: Nakamura Ganjiro, Hara Setsuko, Tsukasa Yōko, Aratama Michiyo, Kobayashi Keiju, Shimazu Masahiko, Morishige Hisaya, Naniwa Chieko, Dan Reiko, Sugimura Haruko

As alluringly warm as its late summer setting, Ozu’s exquisitely constructed and very affecting familial drama – the great director’s penultimate film – depicts the romantic concerns of a middle-class Kyoto family, with the sexual exploits of its patriarch and the marital status of two of its daughters being the main causes for concern. Iain.Stott

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Beau Travail (1999)

Highly Recommended

France

Feature Film

Original Title: Beau travail

Director: Claire Denis

Writers: Claire Denis, Jean-Pol Fargeau, Herman Melville

Cinematographer: Agnès Godard

Composers: Charles Henri de Pierrefeu, Eran Tzur

Cast: Denis Lavant, Michel Subor, Grégoire Colin

Loosely based upon Herman Melville’s Billy Budd (1924), and suffused with homoeroticism and post-colonial guilt, Denis’s poetic, sensual, and beautifully photographed mood piece alluringly depicts the downfall of a French legionnaire, stationed in Djibouti, who lets his own personal (repressed) feelings colour his military actions. Iain.Stott

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Grown-Ups (1980)

Highly Recommended

UK

Television Film

Series Title: BBC2 Playhouse (1974-1983)

Writer/Director: Mike Leigh

Cinematographer: Remi Adefarasin

Cast: Philip Davis, Lesley Manville, Brenda Blethyn, Sam Kelly, Lindsay Duncan, Janine Duvitski

Click for review.

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