5 things to watch this weekend – 31 May to 2 June

Where’s it on? Arrow Academy Blu-ray

When Charles Laughton’s villainous true-crime publisher bumps off his mistress in a pique of jealousy, it falls to Ray Milland’s underling to save his skin. Charged with discovering the identity of the man she was seen with the previous night, Milland needs to find Laughton his patsy if he wants to keep his job. There’s just one snag – the man he’s tasked with finding is himself. If the plot sounds familiar, you’ve probably seen No Way Out (1987), Roger Donaldson’s slick remake with Kevin Costner and Gene Hackman, that moved its machinations to the heart of government. With its dazzling design and pair of slimy, morally bankrupt turns from Laughton and his right hand man, George Macready, John Farrow’s The Big Clock is the superior article, and comes close to being an essential noir.

Where’s it on? Criterion Blu-ray

Judy Davis was barely out of drama school when she landed the role of Sybylla Melvyn in the debut feature of fellow Australian, Gillian Armstrong. By all accounts, Davis hated her character and wasn’t afraid to let her director know – a brave move for what was just her second screen performance, but one which ignites My Brilliant Career with a palpably insolent tension. The story itself, adapted from the semi-autobiographical 1901 novel by Miles Franklin, superficially indicates a tale of arranged courtships and class divisions at the fringes of a burgeoning Australian society. It’s lent a potently elevated, feminist charge by Davis’s brittle performance as the artistically-inclined Sybylla, refusing to accept the patriarchal diagnoses of “delusions of grandeur” thrown her way. A period picture with an explicitly modern impetus, this new Criterion restoration proves revelatory.

Where’s it on? Indicator Blu-ray

Following the recent premiere of An Accidental Studio (2019), a documentary that tells the behind-the-scenes story of erstwhile Beatle George Harrison’s production company, HandMade Films, here’s a chance to catch one of the studio’s lesser known gems. Unfairly overshadowed by the company’s earlier successes, The Long Good Friday (1980) and Mona Lisa (1986), Bellman & True receives its worldwide Blu-ray premiere this week from Powerhouse Film’s Indicator imprint. It’s long overdue, not least for finally making available a stellar central turn from Bernard Hill as an alcoholic computer hacker caught up in a plot to rob an impenetrable bank. The heist itself, as staged by director Richard Loncraine, is an absolute doozy, and forms the central set-piece in a picture deserving of far more than footnote status in the annals of British independent cinema.

Where’s it on? Indicator Blu-ray

As BFI Southbank prepares to celebrate the life and career of one of Britain’s greatest filmmakers this Sunday with its tribute to the late Nicolas Roeg, team Indicator brings one of his lesser known joints to Blu-ray for the first time. Written by Dennis Potter, Track 29 is an unapologetically bonkers satire of the American family, over which Roeg casts his typical outsider’s eye. Trapped in a loveless marriage with her model railway enthusiast husband (Christopher Lloyd), Linda (Theresa Russell) conjures the son that was taken from her following an assault as a teenager. Said son takes the form of Gary Oldman, the spitting image of her rapist, and detonator of a megaton of Oedipal dynamite in the suburban living room. Oldman, an actor never known to underplay, goes for broke and then some, and reactions to the film are likely to rest on your mileage with his out-there take on the man-child who “deserves his American childhood”. Either way, it remains a mad and fascinating spin on the likes of Teorema (1968) from a trio of unique (and bellowing) artistic voices.

Where’s it on?  Arrow Academy Blu-ray

A monster of a movie, this one, finally getting its worldwide Blu-ray debut courtesy of Arrow Academy. While David Cronenberg had taken the emergent home entertainment industry as his thematic launchpad back in 1983 with Videodrome, French maestro Olivier Assayas finds kinship in the online realms some two decades later with this ferocious provocation. Superficially, at least, Demonlover is a corporate espionage thriller, revolving around the stolen secrets of a pair of adult entertainment distributors skirting the limits of legality. Beyond its narrative concerns, though, lies one of the great films about the consumption and commodification of screen violence. To call it a satire would suggest a knowing twinkle (à la Verhoeven perhaps), but Assayas’s examination possesses an intense froideur, as detached and dispassionate as its ruthless protagonists. A stylistic tour de force, its barrage of cross-media confrontations is underscored with a driving Sonic Youth soundtrack. Not for the faint at heart, but troubling, prescient and essential.