Recent DVD and Book Buys

TRUE GRIT Excellent stuff from the Coen Brothers with Jeff Bridges in fine form as Rooster Cogburn, a worse for wear U.S. Marshall who is persuaded by 14-year-old Mattie Ross (Hailee Steinfeld) to track down her father's killer. This is a visual feast and I'm glad I managed to get to the cinema to see it on the big screen. Hailee Steinfeld has been highly praised for her performance, and rightly so. Not to be missed.

 SAVAGE STREETS The BBFC kindly waived the film's previous cuts and Arrow's release of this vigilante "classic" is beautifully presented. There's the double sided cover (the alternative is a little more sedate than the one pictured), a poster-sized version of the cover picture and a booklet written by Kier-la Janisse (the author of A Violent Professional: The Films of Luciano Rossi) about the film and others in the female vigilante genre. A ton of bonus material is on the DVD including interviews with Linda Blair and Linnea Quigley, and three audio commentaries. The U.S.-released special edition is out of print, but the bonus material featured on Arrow's release is largely the same. That U.S. release will set you back a pretty penny, but this release is region-free and should serve as a good substitute albeit on a single-disc. The film follows a female gang, The Satins, who are out for a good time. They take a car belonging to a gang of testosterone-charged lunkheads on a joyride. The lads don't take kindly to this and in an act of revenge, they brutally rape the most vulnerable Satin, the innocent and deaf Heather (Linnea Quigley), leaving her almost beaten to death. Now, Heather's sister, Brenda (Linda Blair), is out for vengeance  . . . A film very much of its 1980s time, Savage Streets is pretty silly stuff, but I do like a vigilante film and I like this one very much.

NAKED - AS NATURE INTENDED This version of Naked - as Nature Intended is the one passed for theatrical release by the censors in the 1960s. This is a little disappointing as the longer version would undoubtedly be passed without cuts now. Gav Crimson's excellent blog has an interesting entry about this. Obviously this is very tame stuff and the viewer is kept waiting for the nudist scenes to arrive on screen. The build up is a little tedious as we follow a group of girls on their travels as they head towards the nudist camp, but it's all good innocent fun! The DVD also contains the 1966 film, Secrets of a Windmill Girl, in which Pauline Collins stars as a starry-eyed dancer whose dreams of the big-time are foiled by bogus producers who lure her into a downward spiral of self-destruction. The DVD comes complete with liner notes culled from Simon Sheridan's book, Keeping the British End Up.

THE LAST WEREWOLF by Glen Duncan 

A literary horror novel with a dash of the thriller about it, Glen Duncan has produced a very decent yarn. Jake Marlowe is a werewolf and he is also the last of his kind. Nature seems to have halted the curse as surviving victims of werewolves are no longer living long enough it to take effect. An organisation of hunters has also seen to it that existing lycanthropes are being killed off with ruthless efficiency. A really good read. My full review of this novel can be found at Killer Reviews.

KEEPING THE BRITISH END UP by SIMON SHERIDAN

This is the third edition of Simon Sheridan's excellent salute to British sex films. This new edition is in a larger format which gives it more of a reference work look than its slimline first and second editions. That said, there's not much new in the way of editorial and it's a little disappointing to see the same foreword (by Sue Longhurst) and afterword (by Johnny Vegas) that appeared in the second volume. There are plenty of new pictures gracing its pages, though, with some nice colour stills and poster art from such classics as Virgin Witch, Commuter Husbands, and Come Play With Me. Also new is the artwork illustrating the front and back of the hardcovers and the nostalgic adds on the inside covers for various sex films and establishments.