Amelie
Retail (£15.99) and DVD (£19.99)
Momentum Cert 15
****
A whimsical romance filmed by Delicatessen's co-director Jean-Pierre Jeunet with the full range of swooping camerawork, dynamic editing and offbeat humour that made that film such a delight. A couple of sex scenes even bring back memories of its bedspring symphony, and Jeunet's great love of textures, buildings and found objects keep an inventive and complex plot bubbling along. Some reviews have made Jeunet without Caro sound a bit like McCartney without Lennon, but Amelie is far from twee despite its heroine's penchant for helping others find happiness (she can turn nasty too - check the great TV aerial revenge gag). But this film, in which photos and paintings talk, keeps you intrigued and off- balance. It's full of ideas, as frisky as a puppy and awfully hard to dislike. The DVD comes with a commentary from Jeunet, as does Delicatessen, on its DVD debut.
Swimming With Sharks
DVD (£15.99)
Second Sight Cert 15
*****
Writer-director George Huang worked for eight years as a Hollywood assistant. This bitter, twisted and very sharp 1994 film about a studio executive and his aide is payback of the best possible kind, and an ace reminder of how great Kevin Spacey was at being vile before he turned all wounded and hurt on us. Huang gives Spacey a lexicon of insults and dirty tricks, creating a memorable screen villain.
Not many people saw Swimming with Sharks - it was shot in 18 days for $700,000 - but you can be sure every Hollywood exec did, and the actor's roles in Seven and The Usual Suspects came in the next year. What gives the DVD that fifth * is a marvellously entertaining, honest, self-critical, funny and coherent director's commentary by Huang, who was 25 at the time and "directing to protect the script". Huang keeps telling you this is "a cautionary tale, not a 'how to'", but you'll learn a lot about what it's like to be shouted at by actors, to have no film for your first day's shooting ("Hey, let's rehearse"), what parts of the assistant's role come from real life, which well-known producer has a "masters in yelling and screaming", and lots more.
Tetsuo: The Iron Man
Retail (£15.99) and DVD (£19.99)
Tartan Cert 18
****
A brief, exhilarating, nightmare black-and-white trip in which a man becomes a heavy-metal freak, literally. Reeling critics reach for Lynch and Cronenberg comparisons, but this makes Eraserhead and Shivers look coherent and linear. You'd have to recall Peter Gabriel's Sledgehammer video to get a visual idea of its speeding images. With a wild, percussive soundtrack, it's unforgettable. As its characters often say: "Aaaaargh!" Tetsuo II is also released.
